I realize according to the tournament rules Wave 5 and Rebel Aces is technically legal, but I wanted to ask are you guys allowing it in your events between now and it's shelf date?

We have 2-3 people who went to Gencon who will be playing in a tournament this weekend but there's mixed feelings on the subject.

Strictly RAW, they are. But there is a line in the Epic Rules, which I think they either meant for the Standard Tournament rules instead or forgot to add in, that states that any ships sold at GenCon are not legal for tournament play.

Strictly RAW, they are. But there is a line in the Epic Rules, which I think they either meant for the Standard Tournament rules instead or forgot to add in, that states that any ships sold at GenCon are not legal for tournament play.

no it says "Note: Any new product released at Gen Con 2014 will not be legal for the 2014 North American Championship or Escalation tournament."

Nothing about other events.

As well as it states

"In North America, products are legal upon their release."

Noticed "released at Gen Con 2014" and "products are legal upon their release", they could of easily called Gen Con a pre-release and they wouldn't fulfill the upon their release requirement.

Nothing about other events.

Good point.

But yeah now that I think about it. Rebel Aces and Wave 5 are not officially released yet. IIRC they clarified that at the time of the wave 4 pre-release event.

I'd see anything sold at Gen Con as a "pre-release" and thus not officially legal for tournaments.

Unless I'm badly mistaken there should be a FAQ and/or Update to the rules when Wave 5 does become tournament legal to cover any of those issues/questions that may arise with using those ships.

Well according to the FFG online store, Rebel Aces, YT-2400 and VT-49 are all listed as "Not yet released". They may have sold a few at GenCon, but us folks overseas still don't have access to them yet.

http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=SWX29

http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=SWX23

http://store.fantasyflightgames.com/productdetails.cfm?SKU=SWX24

In the end I think it could come down to TO ruling which I would hope make them not tournament legal until they are technically released

Hopefully "technically released" will be world wide release.

I don't think there's anything technical about "released". FFG is very clear on it. There's a status for the product showing not yet released. Whenever they do release something for-realz we get a nice big news article on it.

That's release. Any early access regardless of the source - Imdaar Alpha, GenCon, flew to China and raided a truck on the way out of the shipping dock - does not count as released.

Doesn't mean they can't choose to include it, it's their tournament and can do as they will, but there's really no gray area for this as far as the formal tourney rules go. And it's worth pointing out that this sort of unequal access is pretty much exactly what that rule is supposed to address... Leave the new shinies out of the competitive scene until they're available to everyone.