So let's say I have a team with the following 400 point team.

Highfather: 130
Iron Patriot 200
Tony Stark 70

Then starting the game I declare Iron Patriot the part of the pact.

First turn I then merge into Iron Man and War Machine at 265.

Since the original character is gone does this affect the pact?

If I remember correctly (anyone can correct me if I am wrong) but any pre-existing effects carry over to the newly merged piece.

This is correct. It would be better to start as the duo and then Spilt. When you split you would get to choose which character would be impacted by The Pact. So it would be possible to have 50 point Tony Stark impacted by The Pact.

The Pact constantly checks for the highest point opposing figure regardless of who was originally chosen.

In this instance you could merge into the duo and then split into different point characters. In this instance I would choose IIM War Machine and M10 Iron Man. Both are 125 points, which transfers the Pact to Highfather and you have 2 solid attackers.

This is incorrect with regards to split/merge. The player who is splitting/merging decides where the pact goes. In the above example you could merge and then split and assign the pact to 70 point Tony Stark.

Although your interpretation is in line with how the power is worded (and would actually be a better ruling for a very poorly designed power), the Final Word entry for SLoSH says otherwise.

Yes, I know it doesn't make sense.

Actually, his "interpretation" is how it was actually ruled for a few weeks and was Chrisdosmil's interpretation as well. The Final Word changed that.

Yep. It would be silly to rule it other than how they did for those few weeks given the wording.

Then again, creating a power that does what this one does is silly, too.

Traits
THE PACT: At the beginning of the game, you may announce a Pact. If you do, the highest point character on your force and the highest point character on your opponent's force (300 points or less) can't target opposing characters with an attack until one of them has taken damage from an attack or they are the only 2 characters on the map. This ability can't be ignored.


Here's a workaround-
Having a secondary attacker on your force with Pulse Wave.
It could be tricky, but getting the target of The Pact to get hit by a multi-target Friendly Pulse Wave would cause "damage from an attack".
The tricky part being lining up such an attack so that at least one foe is also targeted.
If your opponent sees it coming, they might be able to block it or make it very tedious.
If they smugly assume HighDaddy says "no fighting no matter what" it may be educational.

Break the Pact by PWing yourself!

While that would work as the splash damage EE isn't targeted I don't understand the reasoning for it. Are you trying to break the PACT on your own team? If so you could do it easier by having a friendly character shoot an opponent with EE with the target of the PACT adjacent to them. The splash damage would end the PACT just the same. Either way it is a pretty niche tactic.

Sorry for the confusion. I was suggesting this tactic as a way for the non-HF team to break the pact by damaging its own pactee.

I used FI Odin at 175, AvX Thor at 100, and a 24pt Book of Skulls. Wasn't even that tricky. Just carried Odin when doing a RS/PW hitting one opponents fig and Odin for 1. Pact Broken.

What I am wondering is did your opponent know what was coming?

If you are using HF, and see some PW across the table, shrewd placement could make that pretty difficult.

But since we are talking cutting edge strategy it doesn't surprise me that johnidshulz has already pulled this trick off!

If you're playing against a book or power plant team it could be really mean, but after spliting, give M10 Iron Man the pact and go after the rest of his team until you're ready to attack their pacted person. As any damage to M10 wouldn't break the pact..

I was told of the watchlist is supposedly gona work around him...I wouldn't quote me on that though.