ARCHIVES – Rulings and Forums Updates from November 2019

Now that everyone has filled up with turkey, stuffing, various side dishes, and copious amounts of unnecessary post-Thanksgiving meal desserts, it’s time to digest the recent official rulings on the forums. Our friend Kevin Valliere was the lead man when it came to reporting about such things, however, we all know by now he has sadly stepped aside from Imperial Discipline. With that being the case, we here at The Fifth Trooper Network will do our best to help fill the void when such rulings come about. There were fourteen overall rulings listed on the forums, which is quite a bit, so Zach Barry and I are back together again to take a look at what was discussed. All questions and answers text are taken directly from FFG’s Rules section on their official forums. 

The Rulings

Rules Reference Correction: In the Glossary entry for Calculate Odds, the second sentence should read:

As a card action, a unit with the Calculate Odds keyword can choose a friendly trooper unit at range 1 and in line of sight to gain 1 aim token, 1 dodge token, and 1 suppression token. 

I believe the original wording in the rules reference guide was “a friendly unit” rather than having the word trooper in there. It’s funny to think that one simple word can really mess with a rule but in this case it really does. Can’t have C-3PO moseying around the battlefield just chucking aims and dodges on units like AT-RT’s, Landspeeders, or Saber Tanks. 

Rules Reference Correction: In the Glossary entry for Emplacement Trooper and Withdraw, the following bullet point should be added:

An emplacement trooper can perform any number of available free actions when that unit withdraws. 

This ruling is quite an interesting one because it allows the emplacement troopers to reposition for free before withdrawing. The most important piece to remember is that emplacement troopers withdraw going forward rather than in reverse, seeing as they cannot reverse. The issue that emplacements were running into, or should I say running into them, were creature troopers (mostly tauntauns) locking them up by engaging them in front of their front arch. Due to how creature trooper and emplacement rules work, the emplacement troopers could not withdraw through the creature troopers. The tauntaun blockade has been lifted!

Rules Reference Correction: In the Glossary entry for Immune: Pierce, the sub-bullet point should read:

The Pierce keyword can be used on defense dice rolled by a unit without Immune: Pierce that is using the Guardian keyword, even if the defender of the attack has the Immune: Pierce keyword. 

The Imperial Royal Guard have been saving hits on the likes of Palpatine for a while now and I think this was generally understood as it was. However, it is great to get clarification for this with the release of General Grievous and Count Dooku. Between the possibility of throwing Esteemed Leader on Dooku to allow the metal meat shields to fall on some laser fire for him and Grievous’ two pip command card, which gives another friendly trooper unit with a face up order token “Guardian 2”, it’s a perfect time to make sure this is a known ruling.

Rules Reference Correction: In the Glossary entry for Standby, the following bullet point should be added:

A unit cannot spend more than one standby token per instance of being able to spend standby tokens, even if that unit is able to spend standby tokens from other units.

It’s quite funny how quickly the mind can change on a ruling. Back when the Invader League season was about to start up we had quite a bit of talk as judges to figure out this ruling and decided that you could spend multiple stand by tokens at once. In that moment I thought it was too strong and it shouldn’t be ruled as such. As you, the reader, may know I am a clones player and I was indeed using it as we ruled it. Boy oh boy, was it fun. When I first read this I was sort of like “Come on, man!” but after sitting down and thinking about it in an unbiased manner I think this is the correct ruling. At first glance this seems like a stiff nerf to the clones, but in the long run this will probably make more sense, as we speculate with future releases in mind.

Question: Can a unit use Fire Support while it is engaged with an enemy unit?

Answer: No. The unit using Fire Support must be able to contribute weapons that are eligible to be used for a ranged attack as if that unit were making a ranged attack. A unit is not able to perform ranged attacks while engaged, and therefore its ranged weapons–unless they have the Versatile keyword–are not eligible to be added to a ranged attack via Fire Support.

This has been a question popping up quite a bit recently. The reason for that, I believe, is because of the wording on Rex’s one pip command card that allows him to fire support other friendly units in melee. I can see where the confusion can be had with the wording of that card but that said this makes the most sense. We’re starting to learn that clones can break some rules, of course, but not ALL the rules!

Question: While the effects of the Limited Visibility condition card are active, can a unit use Fire Support even if the distance between it and the defender is beyond the ranges specified by Limited Visibility?

Answer: No. The unit using Fire Support must be able to contribute weapons that are eligible to be used for a ranged attack as if that unit were making a ranged attack. The defender is beyond the range at which a ranged attack can be performed, and therefore the unit’s ranged weapons are not eligible to be added to a ranged attack at that distance via Fire Support.

This happened to be another ruling that we had to make as judges in Invader League and ironically we received another soft ruling on it that was the opposite of this official ruling. I was pretty strong before, and pretty strong now, on the fact that both units should have to match the criteria when fire supporting. I’m glad this is something getting an official ruling on this one. This is one of those situations where you could feel “gamed” by an opponent had this been ruled the other direction. With new players being injected into our great community, with the release of the Clone Wars, I would have hated to see something like that occur.

Question: On R2-D2’s unit card, the Repair 2: Capacity 2 ability is an action, but in the Rules Reference the Repair ability is referred to as a free action. Which is correct?

Answer: R2-D2’s unit card is correct. While the Rules Reference does indeed refer to Repair as a free action, any card ability can be a full action or a free action depending on how it appears on a card.

The raging debate of card text versus rules reference guide text is always going to happen, especially when the games rules reference guide is a living document. When it comes to this ruling, the marking on the card is what you roll with here. Next to R2’s ability to repair you will see the the longer arrow that signifies it as requiring an action rather than the “double arrow” to signify it as a free action. Either way, the ability to effectively remove four wounds off of R2 during a game is quite good even if it requires two actions to do so. 

-Zach

Question: Can a unit with the Secret Mission keyword gain a victory token at the end of the game if it received that victory token because it was assigned one at the start of the game by the Bounty keyword rather than from performing the Secret Mission action?

Answer: Yes.

This is quite the impactful ruling. In a nutshell, what this means is that the victory token placed on R2 when bounty is declared counts as a VP for R2 at the end of the game, even though it was not obtained through the Secret Mission action. This is important, because if the opponent makes a mistake and bounties R2, he can simply hide out of sight for 6 turns and claim a VP at the end. If he does manage to trigger his secret mission keyword in addition to having a bounty on him, he can score 2 VP. This is all for only 35 points!

Question: When panicked and moving toward the closest edge of the battlefield, do droid troopers perform a single move action or two move actions?

Answer: Droid troopers, like all other trooper types, perform only one move action while panicked.

 This ruling clarifies some earlier confusion from an email related to the Spanish Grand Championships. Even though droid troopers are not affected by suppression, when a droid trooper unit panics, it follows the rules for Panic in the RRG (pg. 54) and only performs one move action towards the nearest edge, not two. Take that Drawde.

Question: Do two smoke tokens combine to provide heavy cover?

Answer: Yes. Smoke tokens also combine with light cover to provide heavy cover.

Due to some dubious language regarding smoke tokens, we were unsure whether or not smoke tokens stacked to raise cover with other forms of cover; this has been clarified now. With R2’s new 3-pip “Smokescreen” allowing him a free smoke token drop, the concept of double smoke tokens may become more common, as this would allow another trooper to use a smoke grenade to create some temporary heavy cover near R2.

Question: Do the bases of miniatures block line of sight?

Answer: No.

This is important especially with mines and charge tokens, specifically with tanks. While it has already been established in the RRG that mini bases do not block line of sight to other minis, it was unclear whether or not a tank could drive over a mine to prevent the mine’s attack from hitting other minis: now we know you cannot. This also provides more clarity for the reasoning behind being able to place mines and charge tokens underneath other minis, as we know now the base “doesn’t exist” for line of sight purposes.

Question: Two players using Count Dooku and Director Krennic each play those characters’ 2-pip command cards during the Command phase (“Double the Fall” and “Deploy the Garrison”). Both cards have an effect at the start of the Activation phase, so which player resolves the effect first?

Answer: The blue player resolves their effect first. 

This is a fun ruling because it is the first instance we have of two commanders with cunning who differentiate on their command card effects (sorry Krennic mirror matches). Let’s use the example listed in the question. Krennic’s “Deploy the Garrison” cards allows 2 trooper units with face up orders to gain standby tokens at the start of the activation phase, and Dooku’s “Double the Fall” allows you to return Dooku’s token to your bag to return two opponent’s tokens to the bag at the start of the activation phase. If Krennic is the blue player, the standby tokens get issued first, and even if the token is returned to the bag, the units can gain and keep their standby tokens, but if Dooku is the blue player, the tokens are returned before the standbys would have a chance to be distributed. Turns out, bidding is important!

Question: Can a creature trooper both displace enemy trooper minis and start a melee with that enemy unit?

Answer: Only if it also ends its movement in base contact with one of the unit’s minis without displacing that mini.

This is actually a rather common occurrence with tauntauns. For example, a common tauntaun tactic is to move towards an enemy trooper unit with the purpose of engaging it in melee, but angle the movement tool so that the tauntaun leader crosses through a non-leader mini, displacing the mini and giving the unit a suppression token before the tauntaun engages and melee’s the unit. We know have clarification that this tactic is legal as long as after any displacements, the tauntaun is still in base contact with that unit.

Question: Can I use Leia Organa’s Coordinated Bombardment command card after withdrawing from a melee engagement?

Answer: Yes, and General Veers can do the same thing with his Maximum Firepower command card.

 This is a neat trick that is fairly straightforward. Because Leia and Veers’ command cards read that at the end of their activations they may perform the attacks, this event can occur after withdrawing, since withdrawing simply uses the entire unit’s activation. However, this is a reversal of a previous ruling on this situation, so being aware of the change is important.

-Mike