EI and wingman

[Buhallin 4,563]

I'm going to stop discussing Magic now - I don't know it well enough, and it's utterly irrelevant anyway.

 

You missed my point on combat and uninterruptable effects.  If no other effect can start until the currently triggered one finishes resolving, what happens when it allows an attack?  If Gunner triggers and gives you an attack, Gunner isn't complete until that attack is complete.  What happens to any other ability that might trigger during that attack?

[dvorm 1,058]

At the start of the combat phase, remove 1 stress token from another friendly ship at range 1.

 

The trigger point is the start of the combat phase, so technically Wingman goes off every single round and simply does nothing when there's no stress available to remove.

Wingman does trigger every round. Even if the player does not want it to. If Farlander is the only one in range with a stress token, he looses it.

 

If there is no stressed friendly ship in range the game crashes.

[ForceSensitive 2,628]

 

And will anybody tell me what the difference between triggering EI and PTL off of the same action and triggering them off of each other is? Does one work and the other not the way I suspect?

 

If you trigger them off the same action, then one will resolve fully and, critically, give you a stress token before you move on to the other. That stress will prevent you from taking any further actions (unless you're Tycho, of course). Nesting them is the only way to pull it off.

 

Speaking of, why does this work when Isard's wording and full effect is actually complete before PTL starts?

 

Isard ends with the Evade action being performed. That action is sufficient to trigger PtL/Interface.

 

Cool. So I was right on both accounts. Thanks bro.

 

 

At the start of the combat phase, remove 1 stress token from another friendly ship at range 1.

 

The trigger point is the start of the combat phase, so technically Wingman goes off every single round and simply does nothing when there's no stress available to remove.

Wingman does trigger every round. Even if the player does not want it to. If Farlander is the only one in range with a stress token, he looses it.

 

If there is no stressed friendly ship in range the game crashes.

Than I would expect that at some point to get FAQ/errata as it's not really in the spirit of the card. Hurts the other B-wing pilot too.

 

I'm going to stop discussing Magic now - I don't know it well enough, and it's utterly irrelevant anyway.

 

You missed my point on combat and uninterruptable effects.  If no other effect can start until the currently triggered one finishes resolving, what happens when it allows an attack?  If Gunner triggers and gives you an attack, Gunner isn't complete until that attack is complete.  What happens to any other ability that might trigger during that attack?

Well now there is something unique. But Gunner/Luke and Corran both do something that doesn't happen many other places in the game by allowing you to break out an entire new step or phase or repeat one. So it wouldn't be Gunner>interrupt with say Sensor jammer>End Gunner. It's actually Gunner>Interrupt with a step/phase>End that>End Gunner. Functional to be sure. More functional to perform the extra granted step or phase as the card instructs you to immediately, but after you log the instruction to not perform another attack this round. If I'm allowed to nest it with more abilities the way your saying though without fully resolving either Gunner or Luke before going to the step/phase sequence it allows me; I can use both in the same turn. In fact I should be allowed to chain them infinitely until I hit:

 

Attack sequence, miss

>Activate Gunner, perform attack sequence immediately as it instructs me too,(Haven't gotten to that last line yet), Miss

>>Activate Luke, perform attack sequence in the same manner, (Haven't gotten to that last line again yet), miss

>>>Activate Luke because dagnabbit red dice work for me here please. HIT!

+++ Finish Luke^2, Cant perform another attack thanks to last line of Luke the Second

++Finish Luke^1, Cant perform another attack thanks to Luke the First and true King

+Finish Gunner, Cant perform another attack thanks to Gunner the Distant Forgotten Hero of Dice of Old

End that ships combat activation.

 

...Wait. I think I broke my toy. This is why rules junkies like us learn Magic. Teaches you to look for breaking. So are we saying this works or not? I'm hoping to hell not. 

 

Edit: funny enough I think this would also mean Luke cant use his auto Focus effect on his attack. The hell?

 

Edit two: You wouldn't even need an instance of each. Just one equipped Gunner alone should do this.

Edited December 8, 2014 by ForceSensitive

[ForceSensitive 2,628]

Well Triple Smugglers with Gunners is now a thing. So is Quad Hawks with Gunner. Oh please tell me this doesn't work. 

[Parravon 5,217]

 

 

And will anybody tell me what the difference between triggering EI and PTL off of the same action and triggering them off of each other is? Does one work and the other not the way I suspect?

 

If you trigger them off the same action, then one will resolve fully and, critically, give you a stress token before you move on to the other. That stress will prevent you from taking any further actions (unless you're Tycho, of course). Nesting them is the only way to pull it off.

 

Speaking of, why does this work when Isard's wording and full effect is actually complete before PTL starts?

 

Isard ends with the Evade action being performed. That action is sufficient to trigger PtL/Interface.

 

Cool. So I was right on both accounts. Thanks bro.

 

 

At the start of the combat phase, remove 1 stress token from another friendly ship at range 1.

 

The trigger point is the start of the combat phase, so technically Wingman goes off every single round and simply does nothing when there's no stress available to remove.

Wingman does trigger every round. Even if the player does not want it to. If Farlander is the only one in range with a stress token, he looses it.

 

If there is no stressed friendly ship in range the game crashes.

Attack sequence, miss

>Activate Gunner, perform attack sequence immediately as it instructs me too,(Haven't gotten to that last line yet), Miss

>>Activate Luke, perform attack sequence in the same manner, (Haven't gotten to that last line again yet), miss

>>>Activate Luke because dagnabbit red dice work for me here please. HIT!

+++ Finish Luke^2, Cant perform another attack thanks to last line of Luke the Second

++Finish Luke^1, Cant perform another attack thanks to Luke the First and true King

+Finish Gunner, Cant perform another attack thanks to Gunner the Distant Forgotten Hero of Dice of Old

End that ships combat activation.

 

 

 

It all fell apart when you cloned •Luke. You can't have two unique named cards.

[ForceSensitive 2,628]

I didn't clone Luke, just his activation. What ship could I have put a gunner AND two Lukes on? Read it again.

 

Also one of the edits, points out because they nest, you only need one Gunner card.

Edited December 8, 2014 by ForceSensitive

[Buhallin 4,563]

As a minor point, Gunner/Corran aren't a new step or phase, the FAQ cleaned up what "attack" means, it's just a long process now.

 

Fair point with Gunner on the timing for triggering on itself.  A lot of the early cards are very inconsistent when it comes to the wording, as the X-wing rules were evolving even internally within FFG throughout that time period.  For some real fun, go take a look at turret upgrades, or try and figure out what "immediately" actually means.

 

Breaking the X-wing rules really isn't that hard, and isn't an impressive pursuit.  If you want to figure out what the rules ARE, we're happy to help.  If it's all just going to be bomb-throwing to prove how much awesomer Magic is, I think I'll bow out now.

[DraconPyrothayan 6,107]

Also, Gunner and Luke both say you can't get extra attacks this turn.

[Buhallin 4,563]

Also, Gunner and Luke both say you can't get extra attacks this turn.

FS's point is that the nested trigger rule allows you to trigger for the next attack before you actually get to that part of the text.  So just like PtL's action can trigger an "After performing an action" ability before it gets the stress, Gunner's attack can trigger an "After performing an attack" ability before you get to the "You can't do any more attacks" text.

 

He's not wrong, but it's also not the worst breakage we've got where we say "We know how this is supposed to work"

[AtillaTheFun 82]

The whole nesting thing doesn't apply to Luke/gunner. There is only one effect to be resolved. It's not like you just stop reading the card as soon as you fail the attack. Those cards only have one effect and that's why you can't "interrupt" it. Just because it's two sentences long doesn't mean they're two effects that trigger one after another.

In the case of PtL and EI they ARE written as two separate effects. The "Then, receive one stress token" is telling you that once you complete the first effect of immediately performing a free action, you move on to getting your stress. The "Then" clearly separates it so they are not done at the same time. If gunner said "Then, you may not perform any more attacks this round" you would be correct. But it doesn't. It just straight up says that you can't and the fact that it's in another sentence doesn't matter. It doesn't have "Then" to separate it temporally so it's all lumped together as one effect.

[Buhallin 4,563]

That's a fair reading, Atilla.  It's actually got some strong support from the way Luke is written - if you take the "pause everything after the attack" approach, then Luke's change ability wouldn't activate until after the attack.

[AtillaTheFun 82]

Thanks! I always interpret rules as lines of computer code. That seems to hold up in every issue as far as X-Wing is concerned.

[Buhallin 4,563]

Sadly, the text of X-wing's abilities are less precise than most code

 

I don't think the "Only do them in order if it has a 'then'" always holds, I'd have to look through it...  but it may very well be, and would be a good structure.

[ForceSensitive 2,628]

Particularly because of the imprecision interpreted as the difference of "Immediately" on Luke/Gunner, like Buhallin said earlier, but no such word on PTL/EI.  There's no set in stone rule for how to resolve something that has "immediately" vs not.

 

Anyway Buhallin, I know of some of the other bad breaking and was in no way trying to engage in a farce of oneupmanship or chest thumping as you imply. Or trying to extol the virtues of the M:TG system over all the others (ffs, the last set to print from that camp had a card that attempted to put a ability on the stack in a named step that didn't technically exist as the rules saw it. It has derp moments too LOL  ).

 

I'm aware of some of the other breaks. Like you mentioned Turrets not technically allowing you to trigger certain game effects thanks to having to measure line of attack off the corner and not out of your arc. That was fascinating stuff back then and was very cool to watch it evolve and mutate. With this whole nesting thing, I was merely caught in the whirl of this new breaking and excitedly looking forward to how it was going to be repaired. Until I got the cold shoulder and a curt and poorly justified dismissal of my points once or twice as it were. And now I want to get back to exploring this new interpretation and tinkering with the new gears and cogs. And of course fiddling with thoughts on how to fix it without disrupting the rest of the machine. And not to mention notifying FFG of the find so that they may work on the official end of it. While we encourage and remind people on the casual to competitive spectrum of the oddity to continue resolving the two upgrades the same way they always were and were still intended until the minor issue is resolved. Which I never said other wise too.

 

I get the sense that I've offended you in some way, and I get that sense from a few others here also, and justly I apologize to them as well, when offense, I assure you, was not the intent. There's a reason I do come to this sub-forum and that is because I trust your all able to provide answers to the questions I've been asking, and to learn from the questions of others. And I have been asking questions this whole time. Forgive me if one person is able to compare rules to code lines, and I myself reference back to a highly refined program of instruction lines, like code, from another source, and I find little difference between the two. After so many years following M:TG rules, it's like an old and highly skilled programmers ability to follow BASIC in their head or browse through a old MSDOS prompt sequence and understand it. It's just my natural reference. I can't well just drop it after it's so conditioned into me.

 

Back on topic. It could still functionally work for the Luke Crew if you allow the vagueness of "Immediately" to let you put the gunner trigger in after the line that lets you make the modification. You could also just change the period after the "immediately" to a comma so that the full line includes Luke's focus. A rephrase from "Fully complete one effect before moving to another" towards "Fully resolve one sentence of an effect before beginning of another effect" or some such. Personally I wouldn't be opposed to just taking the nesting clause of PTL/EI out all together though some consideration should be given to the fact it hurts some combinations to do so. Outside Tycho and Keyan however, and not likely many others in the future, few could make much use of the abilities rules quirk full potential anyway. Letting it stick around in a very small way actually encourages a arguably bad play.

[Parravon 5,217]

FS, it seems you find this "nesting" to be something new, when in fact it's been an integral part of the way PtL works ever since the card came out. To remove the nesting from PtL and EI would make them semi redundant and not worth the points. The rules are pretty easy to follow, and if you start breaking down each card sentence by sentence, you're just going to confuse the players. On many cards, use of the word "may" gives you an option, it's absence makes it mandatory. Nice and simple. The overruling factor is the whole card applies. It may contain a trigger for something else, but that's what makes this game interesting: stringing together combos. I'm sure Magic has combos that make something simple into something great. X-wing is no different in that regard. Take Soontir Fel for example. On his own, not bad, but give him PtL, and you've got two actions and a free focus token every turn if you want it. It's the combos that make it. 

 

Also, I'm not sure how you find Luke's "immediately" to be vague. It seems pretty clear to me. There's no need to rearrange the grammar on the card, because the whole card applies. You're the first person I've heard so far, that's come up with trying to trigger Gunner from a failed Luke attack. Seriously, I think you're overthinking the whole thing and making something out of nothing.

[Wayne Argabright 1,581]

ok dumb question but what does ysanne? have to do with triggering anything? I thought she just provided a free evade once your shields are gone? what am i missing???? never mind..lol was reading waaaay to much into it......

Edited December 9, 2014 by Swedge

[Parravon 5,217]

ok dumb question but what does ysanne? have to do with triggering anything? I thought she just provided a free evade once your shields are gone? what am i missing???? never mind..lol was reading waaaay to much into it......

It appears you're not the only one, either. 

It was the use of her free evade action, then Experimental Interface for another action, which gains a stress, then Wingman to remove the stress. Which was a fair question to start with, but once again, it digressed.

[ForceSensitive 2,628]

But up till now what could you really profit off of with a may ability triggering inside PTL? Fel never even bothers to ask the question since he just assigns a token, after PTL is fully resolved anyway. So whether Fel waited till after the resolution, or applies simultaneous and nested inside PTL never really mattered, either way it just happened. But if this nesting is the correct methodology, and I have a Falcon with a Gunner and nothing else, it's super relevant to know if gunner keeps going until I get an actual hit. For instance I mentioned earlier x3 ORS w/ Gunner would guarantee one damage out of each with this. Even against an Autothruster+Stealth device+PTL equiped Fel, as it can keep resolving nested inside itself until Fel rolls all focuses and has no tokens left, the ORS's would auto-kill it in two to three different combat activations. This is why the "immediately" clause is so important to clarify. Do I resolve it right there as the instruction says? Or do I wait until the whole cards effect resolves and then perform the attack immediately after? We know how it's intended of course. But if it goes infinite well dayum. It was the combos that made Magic too. And the way 'may' works is no stranger to Magic players. The clause was often the difference between life and death. Often hilariously because a profitable move like drawing a card that was not a may ability could kill you if your deck was depleted. Turning cards that were 'must' draw effects into offensive outlets.

 

With PTL/EI it's really important to distinguish following what the card says, and being able to use other cards abilities with in it. The card tells me to do an action fine, then get a stress fine. But whether I am allowed to do things inside it, before that stress, is critical to know. Like the example of PTL/EI triggering off of the same action or each other. If I'm in the worlds final match, which lets be real is far below likely, and my opponent wants to use a Super Jake, you can bet I'll make sure he or she actually orders them correctly as it would only be in due reverence to his or her skill. If they said "Ill trigger Push and Interface off of his Focus" and proceeded to try and resolve them in that order I would have to let them. It is legal to do after all. And when they got to resolving the second of those two I would have to point it out that the action is illegal since the stress is already applied, and hope their error goes to my advantage. Super Tycho would be much the same if they forgot themselves for a moment and tried to Push into Expert handling and then Interface into Evade.

[Buhallin 4,563]

We know these things.  They're clarified by the FAQ pretty directly.

 

Atilla has provided a perfectly reasonable way to read Gunner, which I think is correct.  Abilities are atomic, unless there's a "then".  Luke allows an attack with two modifiers, one for the result change and one which prevents any other action.  They don't necessarily execute with full interrupt on a sentence-by-sentence basis.

 

Honestly, it feels like you've misinterpreted something because you tried to apply Magic's rules, then continued applying Magic's rules to hunt for a breakage in order to justify why Magic's rules are so much better.  You're going out of your way to invent problems.  Any number of people have done their best to explain X-wing's rules to you, but you don't actually seem to want to understand X-wing's rules.

 

If they said "Ill trigger Push and Interface off of his Focus" and proceeded to try and resolve them in that order I would have to let them. It is legal to do after all. And when they got to resolving the second of those two I would have to point it out that the action is illegal since the stress is already applied, and hope their error goes to my advantage.

Friendly warning - this kind of attitude is unlikely to win you any friends around here.  You seem to be well on your way to offending as many people as possible, "The rules force me to be a ****** to my opponent" is not going to improve your standing.

[AtillaTheFun 82]

The only card that doesn't have the "then" in it is Expert Handling which is fine, because you can just put that one last in your PtL + EI combo. I've checked every other card (I believe) and that reading of it works. Also, if Gunner really did have those two effects resolve separately and you could chain it forever until you do damage, what's the point of having "You cannot perform any other attacks this round" in the card text? None. Therefore it is pretty clear that the "then" serves to separate effects listed on a card, not separate sentences. I actually could see FFG intentionally wording EH the way that it is (instead of it just being sloppy) so that ships with no BR DO immediately receive a stress token without a chance for an interrupt. So far that doesn't really have any kind of negative consequence, so long as you order things correctly, but maybe it could later on down the road. Who knows.

[AtillaTheFun 82]

Anyway, point is you do resolve gunner and Luke "completely" because there is only one effect to resolve. The two results come from a single effect which is that card. Just because they are separate sentences do not mean they are separate effects that take place. It's all one big make one more attack and one more attack only worded in a way that is easy to understand.

[Parravon 5,217]

Refer the FAQ entries:

Push the Limit: Free actions, such as a free action granted from Squad Leader, can trigger Push the Limit. This can result in an action interrupting another effect, causing that effect to finish resolving later. For example, if a ship performs a free barrel roll action granted by Expert Handling, it could use that action as a trigger for Push the Limit. After Push the Limit resolves, Expert Handling finishes resolving.

So the nesting of PtL and EI is part of their design and integral to the way they work. 

 

Gunner: ... When Gunner is used to perform a primary weapon attack, any additional attacks (such as from Cluster Missiles) are forfeited.

So although it may contain a trigger for a Gunner & Luke combo, you still can't do it, as once you initiate the use of Gunner or Luke, any additional attacks are simply not allowed. Otherwise, like you said, you'd be bouncing it back and forth until you finally hit, which is clearly not it's intention.

Edited December 9, 2014 by Parravon

[Buhallin 4,563]

If we're going to add Expert Handling to the mix, it's worth considering that it already got at least one errata due to sloppy wording.  The Wave 1 stuff especially is rather loose.

[dbmeboy 807]

If we're going to add Expert Handling to the mix, it's worth considering that it already got at least one errata due to sloppy wording.  The Wave 1 stuff especially is rather loose.

Expert Handling actually got 2 errata, though I'm pretty sure they were only a few hours apart.  The very first FAQ (where it was originally errata'd) left out the "free" part of the changed text, which would really make the already shaky timing rules a mess.

[Buhallin 4,563]

Good point on EH.  I tend to think the first one just didn't count

 

Although on (yet another) tangent, I've never really understood the utility of "free" actions.  It would probably work just fine if an action were an action, and you just got one action during your Perform Action step.