Rolling Back Illegal Activation

[Tvboy 3,529]

Had this come up in a tournament this past weekend that I was TOing, wondering how others would have ruled. 

Player A (who is a friend of mine that I just recently introduced to the skirmish mode 2 weeks ago) activates a Jet Trooper figure. He then immediately activates an Imperial Officer (he has actually picked up the game very quickly and should have known better but he can be a bit scatterbrained sometimes) and performs an attack with it. Both players roll dice and calculate damage. Then one of the players (I now realize I didn't check who caught it) realizes that he was supposed to activate the 2nd Jet Trooper, not the Officer, and I am brought in at this point and they ask what they should do.

After checking to make sure that Player B could not have passed to allow such a thing to happen (he could not) I rule that the Officer activation was illegal and that because nothing else has happened yet, we can undo the Officer's activation (and any damage that resulted) and continue the game from the end of the 1st Jet Trooper's activation. 

I guess Player B was slightly behind and having the Officer activate instead of the Jet Trooper was beneficial to him, and he did not like my ruling, stating that undoing an action after dice have been rolled is non-standard and asking if the other player would receive a "penalty". I pointed out that the dice were rolled as a result of an illegal action, and that the players had caught the mistake early enough that undoing it would not have a serious consequence on the game as no other actions had been taken yet as a result of the Officer activating illegally. And that under FFG's tournament rules it is the responsibility of both players to maintain a legal game state, and I cannot penalize one player if both players allowed the illegal play to take place. This did not seem like a "missed opportunity" to me, which it would have been if Player A had just activated one Jet Trooper and then passed and Player B activated a figure and then realized Player A forgot to activate the 2nd Jet Trooper.

Player B was an out-of-towner who lived a few hours away and Player A was a local and I was very aware of the danger I was in of appearing to favor one of my own and possibly alienating Player B from coming back to future tournaments, so I gave Player A a stern warning to be more careful to activate their figures in the correct order, but I was confident in my ruling at the time. Thoughts? 

Edited May 7, 2018 by Tvboy

[a1bert 4,115]

I feel your justification for the ruling was logical with no viable alternative.

Like you said, if it had been legal for the Imperial Officer to activate after the Jet Troopers, then forfeiting the other Jet's activation would've been legal and game could've continued without issue (except for losing one figure's activation).

 

 

 

[aermet69 518]

Seems like the perfect ruling. Reminds me of a ruling from the Netrunner EC last year. A friend of mine thought he had won with a combo of plays, so just put the cards on the table. Turns out he hadn't. In the end the TD ruled that everything that could legally have been played, was played (no matter how stupid a play) and then the game continued from there. Sounds like much the same as your situation.

[DerBaer 1,223]

I would have made exactly the same ruling.

[Isnigu 120]

Looks like the correct ruling to me.