Deck Mill

[JcDemented 22]

what happend if you have no more cards in your damage deck?

[Willy Jarque 230]

You shuffle the discarded cards (damage cards assigned to destroyed ships included) and make another damage deck with them

[VanorDM 11,599]

He's right.  If you run out of those, so there's no more damage cards at all.  You use some sort of token to track damage, which means you effectively can no longer inflect crits, since there's no card to turn face up.

But the likelyhood of that happening is pretty slim.

[nigeltastic 3,808]

Turns out it's fairly hard to have 33 damage cards assigned without any ships being destroyed. Most lists don't have 33 hull to assign damage cards to.

[DeathstarII 1,163]

7 minutes ago, nigeltastic said:

Turns out it's fairly hard to have 33 damage cards assigned without any ships being destroyed. Most lists don't have 33 hull to assign damage cards to.

Five TIE bombers with some hull upgrades and you'll mill the deck at least once (unless you get a lot of crits, which is very likely)

[StevenO 2,996]

It should be covered in the rules somewhere.  There are two levels.

1. Take all of the discarded damage cards (basically everything that's not currently on a ship that is in play) and shuffle them to make a new DD.
2. If all damage cards are currently assigned you then use some other "token" to mark damage being dealt.  These tokens have no face-up effects.

While it is certainly possible to mill the DD the chances of having all the cards assigned to ships in play at the same time is extremely slim even in Epic and at other times where you may actually be able to hold all of the damage cards.  This is simply because logical play says that if you've stacked a bunch of damage on a ship and it will only take one more to finish it off you SHOULD finish it off if reasonably possible; those five TIE Bombers w/ 7 hull each can only "hold" a maximum of 30 cards before they start getting destroyed so the DD isn't even empty yet but even then does it seem smart to allow five ships to be flying around when a single point of damage would kill any one of them?

Up until Kylo showed up I'd have said you could easily play the game just using some other marker to record any damage that would come from unknown cards.  If a face-up card would be drawn then you'd take it then and if something were to randomly "turn up" a card you'd replace that marker with a card but otherwise you chances of getting some specific face-up card are pretty much exactly the same.  Kylo messes that up as he looks through a DD for specific cards and milling those cards out could prevent him from placing a card on ISYTDS when that condition is assigned; he's the only reason the DD contents matter outside of deck stacking cheats.

 

[muribundi 406]

31 minutes ago, DeathstarII said:

Five TIE bombers with some hull upgrades and you'll mill the deck at least once (unless you get a lot of crits, which is very likely)

No you will not, this is at max 6 dmg card per ship, so 30 dmg cards. If you put 7 on one, you have destroyed it and you can now shuffle back the card. And this would be a very very bad 95 points list.

So thanks for trying to find a list that show it is hard to do like he said.

[thespaceinvader 17,538]

Even with 6 bombers with hull upgrades that's only 36 cards that can be assigned at any one time without something dying. At that point there's a discard pile. It's vanishingly  unlikely to run out of cards entirely in 100 point matches.

E: it's also more than 100 points XD. I'm not sure it's actually possible to run out of cards in a single 100 point list.

Edited May 16, 2017 by thespaceinvader

[nigeltastic 3,808]

2 minutes ago, muribundi said:

No you will not, this is at max 6 dmg card per ship, so 30 dmg cards. If you put 7 on one, you have destroyed it and you can now shuffle back the card. And this would be a very very bad 95 points list.

So thanks for trying to find a list that show it is hard to do like he said.

For reference bombers have 6 hull so hull upgrades on each makes 7 hull per (35 slots for damage cards). I would certainly still say that going that route is trying rather hard to achieve 33+ hull though.

[thespaceinvader 17,538]

Just now, nigeltastic said:

For reference bombers have 6 hull so hull upgrades on each makes 7 hull per (35 slots for damage cards). I would certainly still say that going that route is trying rather hard to achieve 33+ hull though.

But each can only hold 6 cards before being discarded. 

[muribundi 406]

5 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

But each can only hold 6 cards before being discarded. 

@nigeltastic I mean that myself...

the guy was saying it is hard to not have a dmg deck anymore, and your example does not make you have no deck, it may force you to shuffle the destroy ship dmg, but it does not mill it.

Edited May 16, 2017 by muribundi

[thespaceinvader 17,538]

1 minute ago, muribundi said:

That... the guy was saying it is hard to not have a dmg deck anymore, and your example does not make you have no deck, it may force you to shuffle the destroy ship dmg, but it does not mill it.

I'm agreeing with you...

[nigeltastic 3,808]

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

But each can only hold 6 cards before being discarded. 

Oh I see what you are saying. You're right I was focused on hitting >= 33 hull points total which is by itself a task.

[muribundi 406]

I'm talking to Nigel... using your quote to say: "that"

[JcDemented 22]

3 hours ago, StevenO said:

It should be covered in the rules somewhere.  There are two levels.

1. Take all of the discarded damage cards (basically everything that's not currently on a ship that is in play) and shuffle them to make a new DD.
2. If all damage cards are currently assigned you then use some other "token" to mark damage being dealt.  These tokens have no face-up effects.

While it is certainly possible to mill the DD the chances of having all the cards assigned to ships in play at the same time is extremely slim even in Epic and at other times where you may actually be able to hold all of the damage cards.  This is simply because logical play says that if you've stacked a bunch of damage on a ship and it will only take one more to finish it off you SHOULD finish it off if reasonably possible; those five TIE Bombers w/ 7 hull each can only "hold" a maximum of 30 cards before they start getting destroyed so the DD isn't even empty yet but even then does it seem smart to allow five ships to be flying around when a single point of damage would kill any one of them?

Up until Kylo showed up I'd have said you could easily play the game just using some other marker to record any damage that would come from unknown cards.  If a face-up card would be drawn then you'd take it then and if something were to randomly "turn up" a card you'd replace that marker with a card but otherwise you chances of getting some specific face-up card are pretty much exactly the same.  Kylo messes that up as he looks through a DD for specific cards and milling those cards out could prevent him from placing a card on ISYTDS when that condition is assigned; he's the only reason the DD contents matter outside of deck stacking cheats.

 

thanks 

[Zefirus 435]

I feel people are forgetting epic is a thing when saying you can't run out of damage cards. 

[digitalbusker 2,248]

30 minutes ago, Zefirus said:

I feel people are forgetting epic is a thing when saying you can't run out of damage cards. 

I love Epic, but it's barely a thing.

And even in Epic it's pretty hard to run out of damage cards. (It's actually impossible on the huge ships, because they come with their own decks which are enough to kill them. But of course you're talking about bringing 300 points of TIE Bombers with Hull Upgrades.)

[StevenO 2,996]

1 hour ago, Zefirus said:

I feel people are forgetting epic is a thing when saying you can't run out of damage cards. 

Not entirely forgetting about Epic but even then it depends on how many points you have, what you bring, and how generous each side is letting someone stay living with a pile of damage on them already.  Huge ships bring their own decks and may eat a pile of points so that cuts down on one possible pile which just leaves those swarms of heavy hulled ships.

I've always maintained that if there is a REAL threat of running out of damage cards (your Epic TIE Bomber swarms perhaps) then perhaps the best option is just to make unknown damage cards as a token of some kind unless/until the damage card becomes known.  It may not mill the deck to hinder Kylo (who shouldn't live long anyway!) but keeps the random possibly of face-cards as a threat even if there happens to be 33 damage "cards" in play at any given time.

[Marinealver 8,068]

On 5/16/2017 at 10:50 AM, StevenO said:

It should be covered in the rules somewhere.  There are two levels.

1. Take all of the discarded damage cards (basically everything that's not currently on a ship that is in play) and shuffle them to make a new DD.
2. If all damage cards are currently assigned you then use some other "token" to mark damage being dealt.  These tokens have no face-up effects.

While it is certainly possible to mill the DD the chances of having all the cards assigned to ships in play at the same time is extremely slim even in Epic and at other times where you may actually be able to hold all of the damage cards.  This is simply because logical play says that if you've stacked a bunch of damage on a ship and it will only take one more to finish it off you SHOULD finish it off if reasonably possible; those five TIE Bombers w/ 7 hull each can only "hold" a maximum of 30 cards before they start getting destroyed so the DD isn't even empty yet but even then does it seem smart to allow five ships to be flying around when a single point of damage would kill any one of them?

Up until Kylo showed up I'd have said you could easily play the game just using some other marker to record any damage that would come from unknown cards.  If a face-up card would be drawn then you'd take it then and if something were to randomly "turn up" a card you'd replace that marker with a card but otherwise you chances of getting some specific face-up card are pretty much exactly the same.  Kylo messes that up as he looks through a DD for specific cards and milling those cards out could prevent him from placing a card on ISYTDS when that condition is assigned; he's the only reason the DD contents matter outside of deck stacking cheats.

 

X-wing Rulebook Page 9.

• If damage deck is empty when a damage card must be dealt, shuffle the discard pile to make a new damage deck.
• If both damage deck and discard pile are empty, players cannot draw damage cards from the deck. If a damage card must be dealt a suitable counter (such as a coin or bead) in place of damage cards until some damage cards become available to create a deck at the end of the round. Treat all counters as face down damage cards.

So face down damage is infinite, but critical effects are not. IMHO there should be an errata to treat critical damage as suffer 2 face down damage, but sometimes going the simpler route is the best way. So for now there is a way to run out of critical damage but not for face down damage.

3 hours ago, Zefirus said:

I feel people are forgetting epic is a thing when saying you can't run out of damage cards. 

Made a thread combining 2 decks into a 46 card deck (not 66) using only pairs of unique face up damage effects while keeping the ratios for ship/pilot and direct-hit/other mostly the same for ue with epic. But again that is a house rule not an official rule. You can find it HERE.

[thespaceinvader 17,538]

Even in epic it's tricky to run out entirely rather than mill enough to reshuffle and make a new deck because focus fire is still good tactics.

[DR4CO 5,719]

21 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Even in epic it's tricky to run out entirely rather than mill enough to reshuffle and make a new deck because focus fire is still good tactics.

I know a guy who took 6 Ghosts to an Epic event, and even he was never in danger of running out of cards.

[toffolone 72]

 

Cpt Oicunn with two bombers gamma squadron veteran; all three with determination  and a bomer scimitar squdron

26 hull points before something is destroyed, and thre ships discard criticals with pilot trait

 

Not perfect, but you may have to recycle cards

 

 

 

 

[VanorDM 11,599]

14 hours ago, Marinealver said:

IMHO there should be an errata to treat critical damage as suffer 2 face down damage, but sometimes going the simpler route is the best way.

That effectively turns every crit into Direct Hit! which is IMO a punishment without an actual crime, since many crits aren't actually that big of a deal and Direct Hits! are in general the best crit to draw...

Naturally excluding cases where you get a blinded pilot when you can kill a key ship or something.

[StevenO 2,996]

5 hours ago, toffolone said:

 

Cpt Oicunn with two bombers gamma squadron veteran; all three with determination  and a bomer scimitar squdron

26 hull points before something is destroyed, and thre ships discard criticals with pilot trait

 

Not perfect, but you may have to recycle cards

That still requires those Pilot cards to be coming in Face-up for Determination to ever notice them and discard them.

Now this does bring up something I'm not sure would ever come up in play but maybe you could have a situation where every damage card is coming in face-up but the only potential cards are pilot cards and thus Determination would get rid of them as they come in.  If that's all that ends up in the discard pile that may be all that could ever be drawn.  How likely is this to happen?  I think you chances of winning the PowerBall Jackpot with a single lottery ticket are probably better.

 

[Khyros 4,218]

Okay, so we've all agreed that you cannot have all 33 cards dealt out on the board... But what you CAN have happen (er, hypothetically at least) is have 5 bombers with hull upgrades sitting on 6 damage cards each, leaving you with 3 damage cards left in the deck, and then suffering a 4+ damage attack onto one of them.  I know theoretically it doesn't matter since the ship is dead, but according to the rules, you have to deal all of the damage cards out, in which case you would run out of cards, and then assign tokens to track the extra damage.  And then when the next one died, you'd have to shuffle the damage cards from the first Bomber that was destroyed, providing you with 9+ cards in your deck to deal out for the final damage.  And in the case of simultaneous fire, it can sometimes matter that you dealt out 4+ damage cards...

 

TL;DR, it's possible in 100pts to be "required" to use tokens to track damage.