Twin Laser Turret and Tactician

[Kaimuund 59]

Quick question.

 

If I put a Tactician on a ship with Twin Laser Turret, and then shoot a foe with both attacks at Range 2, does that put 2 Stress tokens on that foe?

 

For example:

 

K Wing with TLT

 

Soontir rolls into the K Wing's rear and lights it up. 

 

K Wing returns fire with the TLT at Soontir twice. 

 

 

 

The card reads: 

 

Perform this attack twice. 

 

 

Does that mean it only counts as a single attack? So if I fired at two different TIE Fighters in range, only one would receive a stress token, or would both?

 

If that is the case, it would be reasonable to say that attacking the same ship twice would put two stress tokens on it. 

 

 

I could see that as useful, except that I never play Rebels. Because I don't promote terrorism. 

[Khyros 4,236]

It counts as two attacks.  So the K wing or HWK could take tactician and TLT and either put 1 stress on two targets, or two stress on a single target.  Assuming the target(s) are in arc, at range 2.  Or a R3-A2 BTL-4 Y wing can give 3 stress tokens, either all to 1 person (at range 2-3) or to multiple people (with at most 1 at R1).

[DR4CO 6,234]

...Or a R3-A2 BTL-4 Y wing can give 3 stress tokens...

 

We've actually had it (99%) confirmed that this won't work, as you only declare the target once. Since that is the trigger point for R3-A2, he doesn't get to trigger on the second TLT attack.

Edited July 13, 2015 by DR4CO

[Starnite_IV 159]

It's got the same wording as Cluster Missiles. Was there a ruling on cluster missiles that prevented two tactician triggers?

[Vorpal Sword 14,685]

Good question! As soon as FFG figures out the answer, I'm sure they'll let us know.

[Anomander Rake 0]

Isn't it just one attack? As ist says "perform this attack twice" instead of "perform too attacks" or just "attack twice", I would expect it to be one attack with Tactician only triggering once.

Or is my was of thinking and unterständig Englisch that wrong? Still learning though....

[Stronghammer 195]

As DR4CO said, R3-A2 states "when you declare a target"

 

even though you perform the attack twice, you only declare once.

 

On the other hand, Tactician says "After you perform an attack against a ship inside your firing arc at Range 2, that ship receives 1 stress token"

 

as you perform the attack twice, I would say 2 stress. 

[Firespray-32 5,424]

Soontir rolls into the K Wing's rear and lights it up. 

 

K Wing returns fire with the TLT at Soontir twice.

 

Tactician only works in arc.

[Vorpal Sword 14,685]

Isn't it just one attack? As ist says "perform this attack twice" instead of "perform too attacks" or just "attack twice", I would expect it to be one attack with Tactician only triggering once.

Or is my was of thinking and unterständig Englisch that wrong? Still learning though....

Your English is fine! The problem is caused by the underlying rules.

Twin Laser Turret uses language that's very much like Cluster Missiles. And when you use Cluster Missiles, we know for sure that you attack twice, but you can't change targets. And that means one of two things:

(A) You make two attacks, but for the second one you skip the "Declare Target" step.

(B) You make two attacks, but there's only one legal target for the second attack.

Of course, Cluster Missiles also has the "Attack (Target Lock)" header, which means there's only one legal defender anyway. So even if we could know for sure how Cluster Missiles work, Twin Laser Turret might be different.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Vorpal Sword

[Khyros 4,236]

As DR4CO said, R3-A2 states "when you declare a target"

 

even though you perform the attack twice, you only declare once.

 

On the other hand, Tactician says "After you perform an attack against a ship inside your firing arc at Range 2, that ship receives 1 stress token"

 

as you perform the attack twice, I would say 2 stress. 

 

That's actually wrong.  From the rule book:

 

"Combat Phase - During this phase, each ship may perform one attack against one enemy ship that is inside its firing arc and within range"

 

And then the steps of an attack:

 

1) Declare Target

2) Roll Attack Dice

3) Modify Attack Dice

4) Roll Defense Dice

5) Modify Defense Dice

6) Compare Results

7) Deal Damage

 

And then TLT: 

 

Attack: Perform this attack twice (even against a ship outside your firing arc). Each time this attack hits, the defender suffers 1 damage. Then cancel all dice results.

 

And R3-A2:

 

When you declare the target of your attack, if the defender is inside your firing arc, you may receive 1 stress token to cause the defender to receive 1 stress token.

 

So, R3-A2 should happen at Step 1, Declare Target.  TLT allows you to go through step 1-7 twice.  Therefore, TLT should allow R3-A2 to trigger twice.  Also of note, you should be able to declare two unique targets with TLT.  And as you pointed out, Tactician happens after step 7, so since TLT goes through 1-7 twice, you could get two stresses from Tactician.

 

 

 

 

With all of that being said, I will point out that the Blaster Turret and Dark Curse interaction goes against the rules as written, in that you activate the blaster turret with the focus to even make DC a viable target.  And since you're spending the focus prior to even declaring a target, DC's effect shouldn't come into play.  And yet, it does, and you can't shoot DC with a Blaster Turret.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Khyros

[Buhallin 4,563]

 

Of course, Cluster Missiles also has the "Attack (Target Lock)" header, which means there's only one legal defender anyway. So even if we could know for sure how Cluster Missiles work, Twin Laser Turret might be different.

 

Well, by the time you get to the second attack you no longer have the target lock, so there's actually no legal targets at all.

 

I'm pretty convinced by this point that FFG just doesn't care.  Leaving Cluster Missiles for so long was bad, but making a new card with the identical issues?  They know their rules are a mess, people are still willing to buy the game with the mess, so why not keep using the mess?

[Buhallin 4,563]

 

With all of that being said, I will point out that the Blaster Turret and Dark Curse interaction goes against the rules as written, in that you activate the blaster turret with the focus to even make DC a viable target.  And since you're spending the focus prior to even declaring a target, DC's effect shouldn't come into play.  And yet, it does, and you can't shoot DC with a Blaster Turret.

 

This is incorrect.  You declare the weapon you're using in Step 2, and spend the focus for the Blaster Turret at that point.  So DC is already the defender by that point.  Blaster Turret vs. DC is actually the only thing about secondary weapons that DOES follow the rules as written.

 

This issue is actually why secondary turrets are completely broken.  Most of them apply targeting restrictions or cost, but by the time you declare them you're past the Declare Target step.  For more secondaries with more restrictive target options (e.g. Range 2-3) it works, since you just can't declare the secondary against that target.  But secondaries that give you options you didn't have without the secondary - turrets, or a hypothetical future Range 4 secondary - just don't work.

 

It's been that way since the beginning, FFG has acknowledged it, but it doesn't even earn an FAQ entry.

[Khyros 4,236]

 

 

With all of that being said, I will point out that the Blaster Turret and Dark Curse interaction goes against the rules as written, in that you activate the blaster turret with the focus to even make DC a viable target.  And since you're spending the focus prior to even declaring a target, DC's effect shouldn't come into play.  And yet, it does, and you can't shoot DC with a Blaster Turret.

 

This is incorrect.  You declare the weapon you're using in Step 2, and spend the focus for the Blaster Turret at that point.  So DC is already the defender by that point.  Blaster Turret vs. DC is actually the only thing about secondary weapons that DOES follow the rules as written.

 

This issue is actually why secondary turrets are completely broken.  Most of them apply targeting restrictions or cost, but by the time you declare them you're past the Declare Target step.  For more secondaries with more restrictive target options (e.g. Range 2-3) it works, since you just can't declare the secondary against that target.  But secondaries that give you options you didn't have without the secondary - turrets, or a hypothetical future Range 4 secondary - just don't work.

 

It's been that way since the beginning, FFG has acknowledged it, but it doesn't even earn an FAQ entry.

 

 

And yet in that case, no target outside of your primary arc (at range 1-3) is a valid target =P.  

[Buhallin 4,563]

 

 

 

With all of that being said, I will point out that the Blaster Turret and Dark Curse interaction goes against the rules as written, in that you activate the blaster turret with the focus to even make DC a viable target.  And since you're spending the focus prior to even declaring a target, DC's effect shouldn't come into play.  And yet, it does, and you can't shoot DC with a Blaster Turret.

 

This is incorrect.  You declare the weapon you're using in Step 2, and spend the focus for the Blaster Turret at that point.  So DC is already the defender by that point.  Blaster Turret vs. DC is actually the only thing about secondary weapons that DOES follow the rules as written.

 

This issue is actually why secondary turrets are completely broken.  Most of them apply targeting restrictions or cost, but by the time you declare them you're past the Declare Target step.  For more secondaries with more restrictive target options (e.g. Range 2-3) it works, since you just can't declare the secondary against that target.  But secondaries that give you options you didn't have without the secondary - turrets, or a hypothetical future Range 4 secondary - just don't work.

 

It's been that way since the beginning, FFG has acknowledged it, but it doesn't even earn an FAQ entry.

 

 

And yet in that case, no target outside of your primary arc (at range 1-3) is a valid target =P.  

 

Yeah, that's exactly my point.

 

The Dark Curse vs. Blaster Turret ruling set up a paradox - If weapons declare before target, the DC ruling doesn't work.  If weapon declare after target, then the DC ruling works but secondary weapons, as a whole, break.

 

FFG chose to stick to the rules as they're written, which is that you declare the weapon you're using in Step 2, after target declaration.  So the Dark Curse ruling is actually correct from a RAW point of view.  We then handwave away the complete collapse of secondary turrets, because everyone knows how they're supposed to work.  The fact that they don't actually work in the rules is apparently irrelevant.