Do you actually declare one particular die as impossible to cancel?

Well effectively you could take one of the [crit]s that you roll for Ten and remove it from the pool of dice that can be canceled by evade dice. But you don't really remove it from play, because that [crit] could still be canceled with an evade token.

So effectively you take it out of one pool and place it in a 'can't be canceled by evade dice but can be canceled by evade tokens' pool...

I plan to buy a Ten Numb action figure and put him in a little "hunched over and grabbing a die" pose, and every time he fires I'm going to take it and put it down to protect that crit so that nobody can touch it. I may even get a little Sullustan chuckle sound board to taunt my foes with.

Or I would do all that, if I ever planned to play Ten again. Which I don't, because his ability really kinda sucks

Glad FFG responded quickly and we can put this one to bed.

Interesting discussion. With the ruling as mentioned above (i.e. remove one crit from dice pool (but not from play)), I don't see how this ability is ever going to give him an advantage over any other pilot.

If rookie pilot gets 2xHit and 2xCrit, the defender rolls 3E, all are open to be cancelled and by the order which you do it, 1Crit is left in the end. Same result, no ability needed.

If Ten rolls 4xCrit, the defender rolls 3xEvade, one is put aside and can't be cancelled but there are still 3E to cancel the remaining 3C. Result is 1Crit again.

If Ten rolls 2xCrit and the defender rolls 1E, the result is still 1Crit in this interpretation. Again, rookie pilot rolls 2xCrit, defender rolls 1E, 1Crit is the result anyway.

Then with the possibility of that one Crit not cancelled by dice being cancelled by an evade token, both could end up having all hits/crits evaded still.

And if the defender only has two dice or only rolls 1 or 2xEvade, the criticals in a 2xhit 2xCrit roll won't ever be cancelled by dice anyway so doesn't matter who rolled them.

What's the ability for? Or am I missing something in the interpretation?

I don't see why people are disappointed with this ability. His ability is fantastic! We're just going over a worst case scenario. Think of it this way: Ten rolls blanks and a crit. The defender rolls 3 evades. NONE of those dice can cancel his one crit. It can only be canceled with an evade token now. This is huge if there is a follow up shot after Ten. With only one successful attack die roll, Ten forced the defender to spend his evade token.

Ten's problem from a competitive standpoint is that his ability only works when the opponent would have completely evaded an attack. There are plenty of times where you have a crit, but the opponent didn't have enough evades to cancel it in the first place, so he does nothing. Especially in the current Rebel-heavy meta, with B-wings and Falcons rolling around at 1 Agility, there are a large number of matches where his ability does nothing. And at 9 points over a Blue Squadron, that's a very expensive pile of nothing.

Ten is the only pilot whom I even consider for an autoblaster.

Edit:

His ability works nicely with it.

ah ok, if the result is one crit and nothing else. cool. It's to save that one, so rolling more isn't giving you an extra advantage. Ok, I get it now.

Not sure about fanatastic (for the points he's worth) but definitely handy.

Ten's problem from a competitive standpoint is that his ability only works when the opponent would have completely evaded an attack. There are plenty of times where you have a crit, but the opponent didn't have enough evades to cancel it in the first place, so he does nothing. Especially in the current Rebel-heavy meta, with B-wings and Falcons rolling around at 1 Agility, there are a large number of matches where his ability does nothing. And at 9 points over a Blue Squadron, that's a very expensive pile of nothing.

Again, no. You are not grasping the weight of his ability at all. He's even more dangerous against a Rebel opponent. Few Rebel ships have the Evade action. Ten has a PS of 8. He's going to be one of (if not the) first to shoot. Ten's ability is almost a sure bet that he will strip the evade token from his target, leaving it to the luck of the dice for any and all follow up attacks that round. If what he is shooting at doesn't have an evade token, then he's landing a crit. Even better.

And at 9 points over a Blue Squadron, that's a very expensive pile of nothing.

Yeah Ten's ability is nice, but it's seldom useful because it doesn't apply all that often. The only way it really does anything is if you have enough [evade]s to cancel all the [crit]s you throw.

The only advantage over a Blue is his EPT, but then that makes him even more expensive.

Ibtisam and with Rebel Aces Keyan are much better options, because they're cheaper and their ability is almost always useful.

If what he is shooting at doesn't have an evade token, then he's landing a crit.

That assumes that he actually rolls a crit, and that there's no shields left on the target.

Again, no. You are not grasping the weight of his ability at all. He's even more dangerous against a Rebel opponent. Few Rebel ships have the Evade action. Ten has a PS of 8. He's going to be one of (if not the) first to shoot. Ten's ability is almost a sure bet that he will strip the evade token from his target, leaving it to the luck of the dice for any and all follow up attacks that round. If what he is shooting at doesn't have an evade token, then he's landing a crit. Even better.

Yes, he is going to be landing a crit. But the ability only matters if he's landing a crit that he wouldn't have otherwise . What happens if you roll one hit and one crit? Or you roll your sole crit, and your target rolls no evades? It does nothing.

Ten's ability goes in what I call the "consolation prize" category. It's something decent on what would otherwise be a sucky roll. The ONLY time it matters is when you have a crit and your target would otherwise completely evade the attack. There are generally two trends that I'm seeing in the meta right now, and I think are occurring generally: Swarms are still a thing, and high-HP/low-AGI builds. Swarms really don't care - take your one crit against their 7 ships, they're fine with it. Low agility builds really don't care, because the number of rolls where it will matter is tiny. Your textbook example there - nothing but a single crit - happens less than 1% of the time on 3 dice. That assumes no focus spending - I suppose you could look at your eyeballs and choose not to spend a focus, but... <shrug>

So I think I've got a good feel for the weight of his ability. At the very least, I'm not the one citing sub-1% scenarios to justify the awesomeness.

/facepalm <------ that is what some guy at FFG, who just got done with the new FAQ that would have been out tomorrow, is doing. Now he has to add the answer to this RIDICULOUS attempt to "Rule Lawyer" a way to get 2 Crits through with Ten!

Glad to see FFG responded quickly and concisely. I was on the fence about Ten's ability, leaning towards the "2 crits!" team for a while. This discussion really helped clear up why only one crit would get through.

Good discussion.

Just a query regarding the use of Tens ability. If Ten gets two hits and two crits and you can only roll three agility dice, do you suffer two crits as it you can't cancel one with defence dice and you already can't cancel the second crit as you don't have enough dice. Or do you only suffer the last crit as it is still an uncancelled crit.

Assuming you roll 3 evade, you will still suffer 2 critical hits.

This isn't correct.

Ten's ability says "When attacking, 1 of your [crit] results cannot be canceled by defense dice." So if Ten rolls [hit] [hit] [crit] [crit] and the defender rolls [evade] [evade] [evade], Ten's ability doesn't come into play: one of the [crit] results remains uncanceled, so there's no problem.

You know the old joke/puzzle: I have two coins in my hand worth $0.35. One of them is not a quarter. What are the two coins? The punchline is that one of them is not a quarter, but the other is . Ten's ability comes into play if defense dice would cancel all of the [crit] results Ten rolls; in that case, the defender will suffer one point of critical damage.

I have a riddle. Two guys destroyed your bike with a wrench and a baseball bat. One of them wasn't me.

Cookies go to whoever catches this reference. You will be my best friend

I have a riddle. Two guys destroyed your bike with a wrench and a baseball bat. One of them wasn't me.

Cookies go to whoever catches this reference. You will be my best friend

Oh! That´s what happened to my old bike!

I think one important point that was overlooked here is that Ten's ability is modifying the attack dice - that happens under step 3 of the combat phase - the step before defense dice are even rolled. You roll the attack dice, and if you rolled any critical hits you may pick one of them and modify it by declaring it to be un-cancel-able under his ability. THEN the defense dice are rolled, and modified, etc.

The argument originally being made here was that you would wait until the tail end of the Compare Results step, and twisting even that a bit by jumping ahead to see that one crit is getting through, setting that one aside, then going back to the results and declaring the remaining crit unblockable. That is a mangling of the turn order.

His ability modifies one critical hit result. That has to happen before defense dice are even rolled, if you're following proper turn order.

I think one important point that was overlooked here is that Ten's ability is modifying the attack dice - that happens under step 3 of the combat phase - the step before defense dice are even rolled. You roll the attack dice, and if you rolled any critical hits you may pick one of them and modify it by declaring it to be un-cancel-able under his ability. THEN the defense dice are rolled, and modified, etc.

The argument originally being made here was that you would wait until the tail end of the Compare Results step, and twisting even that a bit by jumping ahead to see that one crit is getting through, setting that one aside, then going back to the results and declaring the remaining crit unblockable. That is a mangling of the turn order.

His ability modifies one critical hit result. That has to happen before defense dice are even rolled, if you're following proper turn order.

I really don't think Ten's ability is a die modification by any means.

Again, no. You are not grasping the weight of his ability at all. He's even more dangerous against a Rebel opponent. Few Rebel ships have the Evade action. Ten has a PS of 8. He's going to be one of (if not the) first to shoot. Ten's ability is almost a sure bet that he will strip the evade token from his target, leaving it to the luck of the dice for any and all follow up attacks that round. If what he is shooting at doesn't have an evade token, then he's landing a crit. Even better.

Yes, he is going to be landing a crit. But the ability only matters if he's landing a crit that he wouldn't have otherwise . What happens if you roll one hit and one crit? Or you roll your sole crit, and your target rolls no evades? It does nothing.

Ten's ability goes in what I call the "consolation prize" category. It's something decent on what would otherwise be a sucky roll. The ONLY time it matters is when you have a crit and your target would otherwise completely evade the attack. There are generally two trends that I'm seeing in the meta right now, and I think are occurring generally: Swarms are still a thing, and high-HP/low-AGI builds. Swarms really don't care - take your one crit against their 7 ships, they're fine with it. Low agility builds really don't care, because the number of rolls where it will matter is tiny. Your textbook example there - nothing but a single crit - happens less than 1% of the time on 3 dice. That assumes no focus spending - I suppose you could look at your eyeballs and choose not to spend a focus, but... <shrug>

So I think I've got a good feel for the weight of his ability. At the very least, I'm not the one citing sub-1% scenarios to justify the awesomeness.

Buhallin is completely correct; it's an ability that's only relevant when Ten would otherwise have missed. It's powerful against opponents he might often miss, but weak against the current metagame.

I think one important point that was overlooked here is that Ten's ability is modifying the attack dice - that happens under step 3 of the combat phase - the step before defense dice are even rolled. You roll the attack dice, and if you rolled any critical hits you may pick one of them and modify it by declaring it to be un-cancel-able under his ability. THEN the defense dice are rolled, and modified, etc.

The argument originally being made here was that you would wait until the tail end of the Compare Results step, and twisting even that a bit by jumping ahead to see that one crit is getting through, setting that one aside, then going back to the results and declaring the remaining crit unblockable. That is a mangling of the turn order.

His ability modifies one critical hit result. That has to happen before defense dice are even rolled, if you're following proper turn order.

I really don't think Ten's ability is a die modification by any means.

It renders one of his critical results unblockable by defense dice - how is that NOT modifying it?

Just a query regarding the use of Tens ability. If Ten gets two hits and two crits and you can only roll three agility dice, do you suffer two crits as it you can't cancel one with defence dice and you already can't cancel the second crit as you don't have enough dice. Or do you only suffer the last crit as it is still an uncancelled crit.

Assuming you roll 3 evade, you will still suffer 2 critical hits.

This isn't correct.

Ten's ability says "When attacking, 1 of your [crit] results cannot be canceled by defense dice." So if Ten rolls [hit] [hit] [crit] [crit] and the defender rolls [evade] [evade] [evade], Ten's ability doesn't come into play: one of the [crit] results remains uncanceled, so there's no problem.

You know the old joke/puzzle: I have two coins in my hand worth $0.35. One of them is not a quarter. What are the two coins? The punchline is that one of them is not a quarter, but the other is . Ten's ability comes into play if defense dice would cancel all of the [crit] results Ten rolls; in that case, the defender will suffer one point of critical damage.

I have a riddle. Two guys destroyed your bike with a wrench and a baseball bat. One of them wasn't me.

Cookies go to whoever catches this reference. You will be my best friend

I miss Scrubs.

I think one important point that was overlooked here is that Ten's ability is modifying the attack dice - that happens under step 3 of the combat phase - the step before defense dice are even rolled. You roll the attack dice, and if you rolled any critical hits you may pick one of them and modify it by declaring it to be un-cancel-able under his ability. THEN the defense dice are rolled, and modified, etc.

The argument originally being made here was that you would wait until the tail end of the Compare Results step, and twisting even that a bit by jumping ahead to see that one crit is getting through, setting that one aside, then going back to the results and declaring the remaining crit unblockable. That is a mangling of the turn order.

His ability modifies one critical hit result. That has to happen before defense dice are even rolled, if you're following proper turn order.

I really don't think Ten's ability is a die modification by any means.

It renders one of his critical results unblockable by defense dice - how is that NOT modifying it?

Ten's ability does not allow the die to be rerolled or otherwise modified to any other result (blank, focus or hit).

For example, the Modifying Dice Results subsection of page 12 calls out specific methods for modifying dice. All of these examples explicitly change a die from one result to a different result. Declaring a crit result "unblockable" does not change the fact the die shows a crit result.

It's clear that this does not fall into 'modifying' the dice as ElJeffe313 states. I read it as the crit cannot be 'cancelled' and that happens in the Compare Results step, and as the last line on page 12 states, this sort of ability happens at the start of the Compare Results step. Therefore the logic would be to set it aside as un-cancel-able by dice and force the defender to use an evade token on it. In the HHCC vs EEE scenario, I don't even see Ten's ability coming into play at all. The hits and 1 crit are removed and there's 1 crit left over regardless of Ten's ability.

If the rolls were HHC vs EEE then Ten's ability would trigger, with 1 crit getting through.

If it was HCC vs EEE, Ten's ability would trigger with 1 crit getting through.

Simple.

Let me put it this way: the first joker that comes at me with an Autoblaster telling me that I can't Evade the crits rolled on that attack because the regular hits "ate" my Evade results is going to get a stern look.

Let me elaborate on my Autoblaster comparison a bit.

Let's quantify two different scenarios:

Scenario A: Ten Nunb rolls HHCC against a 3 Agility ship that rolls EEE for evasion.

Scenario B: A generic ship with an Autoblaster rolls HHC against a 1 Agility ship that rolls E for evasion.

1) The people claiming that Scenario A results in 1 crit would say that Scenario B results in the crit being canceled.

2) The people claiming that Scenario A results in 2 crits would say that the crit in Scenario B cannot be canceled unless you roll enough Evades to completely cover all the normal "uncancelable" hits first.

Does #2 sound reasonable to anyone else? Didn't think so.

EDIT: Updated for clarity; I'm not suggesting a "Ten Nunb with an Autoblaster" scenario. I'm comparing the "uncancellable" qualtity of Ten Nunb to that of an Autoblaster.

Let's say someone rolls an Autoblaster attack and gets HHC against my 1 Agility Y-wing. I roll an Evade.

1) The people claiming that HHCC vs. EEE on Ten Nunb results in 1 crit would say that the Autoblaster Crit is canceled...

…hmm? I roll HHC and you roll E. The Autoblaster says you can't cancel my hits, and Ten says you also can't cancel the crit; your Y-wing suffers two points of damage and one critical damage.