by GeckoTH
1) During the Encounter Phase, you might want to optionally engage an enemy for a couple of reasons. You might prefer to take it on before your threat reaches the engagement costs, getting it out of the staging area. During multi-player games, one player might be better suited to handle enemies than the other, so optionally engaging one can help you control which player gets which enemy. And let me quote the rulebook here:"Whether an enemy is engaged through an engagement
check, through a card effect, or through a player’s
choice, the end result is the same, with the enemy
and the player engaging one another. In all cases, the
player is considered to have engaged the enemy and the
enemy is considered to have engaged the player."
So, in your example, the Forest Spider would get the +1 bonus attack regardless of how you engaged him (just for that round).
2) During Combat, you can only declare an attack against each enemy once. If you're using Dunhere, you can attack 1 enemy in the staging area, ready him with Unexpected Courage, then attack a different enemy in the staging area. You cannot declare multiple attacks against the same enemy. (unless you've got a card like Quick Strike, whose effect instructs you to make an attack against any eligible enemy - this effect won't conflict with your normal Combat Phase declarations)
3) Yes, that's absolutely legal. Defending and attacking are two separate things, and one doesn't really affect the other. Dunhere can certainly defend an enemy's attack, ready with Unexpected Courage, then during the Attack step, choose to attack an enemy in the staging area.
EDIT: Just as I suspected... :ninja::ninja:!!!