Firstly, I apologize if these questions have already been addressed somewhere. I've pored over the rulebook and looked at a good number of FAQ's and threads here and haven't yet found it. Maybe I just overlooked it. These pertain to the basic game, sans expansions.

Anyway, here's a scenario: I activate a neutral system and move in with a cruiser. I have stasis capsules so the cruiser is carrying 1 ground force unit. The system has two planets.

- Can I take one planet and then just hop over to the other, taking both in one turn with one ground force?

- Can I only take one planet this round and then hop over to the second planet in the next round? If so, will I need to activate the system again to jump to the second planet?

Another scenario: An enemy fleet is in an adjacent system to one of my fleets. My opponent has a PDS deployed on a planet in his system and has deep space cannons, allowing his PDS to fire into an adjacent system. He activates my system and moves in with his fleet to initiate a space battle. As normal, his PDS will fire before the space battle. However, I have the "skilled retreat" action card, which allows me to retreat before a space battle commences. Which happens first, my "skilled retreat" or his PDS fire?

Again, sorry if these are common knowledge or they just escaped my notice.

Welcome to the forum Gilgafresh.

- Can I take one planet and then just hop over to the other, taking both in one turn with one ground force?

- Can I only take one planet this round and then hop over to the second planet in the next round? If so, will I need to activate the system again to jump to the second planet?

Another scenario: An enemy fleet is in an adjacent system to one of my fleets. My opponent has a PDS deployed on a planet in his system and has deep space cannons, allowing his PDS to fire into an adjacent system. He activates my system and moves in with his fleet to initiate a space battle. As normal, his PDS will fire before the space battle. However, I have the "skilled retreat" action card, which allows me to retreat before a space battle commences. Which happens first, my "skilled retreat" or his PDS fire?

And in fact, the Skilled Retreat is played before a combat round, which means that you may use or be the target of pre-combat abilities before the Skilled Retreat is activated (though as the defender you decide the order of pre-combat abilities, so you might decide that Action Cards needs to be played first in the pre-combat phase).

Cremate:

Thank you so much for your prompt and thorough reply. It's appreciated.

I just thought of one more thing though. What if my opponent is Mentak and gets to fire with cruisers first? Will that also happen before the Skilled Retreat? What about if my opponent has... what... assault cannons I think? Those which allow dreads to fire prior to combat? Will those also happen before skilled retreat?

The defender always choose in which order any pre-combat effects happen.

Note that all "same" pre-combat effects happen together, though. IE, if the defender chooses to do Assault Cannons, both sides get to use theirs together.

Alright, I've come upon another situation for which I may have overlooked the solution. This is using the Shattered Empire expansion.

The situation: I have a fleet in system X. I have placed the high alert counter with this fleet. I have another fleet in system Y which obviously has no high alert counter. I activate system Z, which is controlled by an enemy. I move my fleets from X and Y into Z, opting to take the high alert counter along for the ride. Do the fleets from X and Y now both benefit from the high alert counter because they're in the same system, or does it only grant the bonus to the fleet originating in X because it was placed with them to begin with?

Again, sorry if this was addressed elsewhere. The question actually seemed to have a pretty obvious answer to me, but I've been wrong before and it became a point of contention in the last game so I promised my group I'd ask on here.

Yes, all the ships in a system benefit from the token. I don't remember where that is made clear, but I'm confident that is the case.

Once the ships are in the system, they are one "fleet". Movement happens before the battle, so by the battle step, there is no distinction of where the ships came from anymore - they are just in the system, and thus, as Forgottenlore says, they all get the benefit of the token.

The same would be true if the HAT is in a system with ships, and then those ships move to another system that has more ships, bringing the HAT with them. During the battle, ALL friendly ships in the system (the moving ships and the ones already there) would benefit.

And thanks again! At the risk of being a nuisance I'm going to throw out one more question but I promise this is the last one for a while.

Shock troops revert to normal ground forces if there isn't a ground force present with them. If I use the refresh ability of Hope's End to get two shock troops there without having any other ground forces, Will both of those shock troops immediately go to standard ground force status or can one go first, thus allowing the other to remain a shock troop? I assume this would be the same in similar situations, ie both of my ground forces roll tens and become shock troops simultaneously... and so on

I don't remember if this made it the FAQ itself, but it has been answered - in such a case, you only need to revert ONE of the Shock Troops to a GF. If I recall, the reasoning was that you revert them one-at-a-time, and since reverting the first would cause the others to be OK, you can stop there.

I don't remember if this made it the FAQ itself, but it has been answered - in such a case, you only need to revert ONE of the Shock Troops to a GF. If I recall, the reasoning was that you revert them one-at-a-time, and since reverting the first would cause the others to be OK, you can stop there.

Indeed.

Or, to put it another way, the only reason STs need to "downgrade" at all is so that there's always one plastic unit to denote whose STs these are. If they had made separate ST tokens in each player colour, this rule probably wouldn't have existed at all. But in the end, they chose to do it this way. Probably because it maximizes potential stack size while minimizing the number of bits that need to be printed..

I have a question about taking an action and passing. I haven't played the game yet but I'm having trouble with that part of the rules. Do you 'have' to take an action the first time it comes around or can you wait till it comes around the next time?

I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean.

When it's your turn, you MUST take some kind of action. However, you can always choose what action to take. There are several choices:

1) Take a Tactical action (activate a single system, move there if you want, etc)

2) Take a Transfer action (activate two systems, move stuff between them)

3) Take a Strategic action (use your Strategy card that you picked)

4) Use a special ability that says "As an Action" (such as the Sol ability)

5) Play an action card that says "As an Action" (such as Local Unrest)

6) Pass

You can do any of those actions that you want, as long as you have the means. You can only take #3 once, because once you take it, you flip the Strategy card over and it's inactive. But you can do your Strategic Action as your first action, 2nd action, or whenever, really. You just only get one action per turn.

The Pass action is special in that you don't do anything. However, you can't take the Pass action if you haven't used your Strategic Action yet, and once you take a Pass action, you get no further turns for the rest of the round.

Beyond those, each time its your turn you can take an action of your choice, then it goes to the next player. On your next turn, you can take an action again, etc.

I hope that helps

I have a question about taking an action and passing. I haven't played the game yet but I'm having trouble with that part of the rules. Do you 'have' to take an action the first time it comes around or can you wait till it comes around the next time?

If you pass, then you are basically done for the round, all you can do is secondary abilities of other player's strategic actions. If you are unwilling to pass (because there is still stuff you want to do that round) then yes, you have to take some action. The only exception to this is the Yssaril tribes who have a special ability (and it is quite powerful) that lets them skip an action during a round.

I have another question. You guys have been very helpful before so I'm sure someone will know this. I just read through the errata and faq but couldn't find the answer.

Scenario:

The Saar player has a fleet in system X and a space dock in system Y, which is adjacent to X. System Y is empty save his space dock. May he execute a transfer action between X and Y and use this to move his space dock?

Whoa I just realized I could've asked that way more simply. Can Saar space docks move with transfer actions?

I can't think of any reason why not, but I haven't read the relevant rules in a long time so I could be wrong.

Since the Clan of Saar Space Docks have a movement of 1 iIrc, I too see no reason why not.

I am new to the game and saw a question about the pass and actions for a turn. This one we are arguing about what it means to pass. As there are many actions to be taken in a turn-of course you cannot pass until you have done your strategy card-once a person has passed-say they pass after their strategy card, does this mean they will not be able to do anymore actions at all? Has a person basically passed on all the other actions as well and can no longer partake in the round until everyone else is ready to move on to the status phase?

I'd bet for above statement, but... since Saar dock is not considered a ship (thus for instance cannot retreat) then may not be transferred, as only ships may. A question to be delivered?

Once the ships are in the system, they are one "fleet". Movement happens before the battle, so by the battle step, there is no distinction of where the ships came from anymore - they are just in the system, and thus, as Forgottenlore says, they all get the benefit of the token.

The same would be true if the HAT is in a system with ships, and then those ships move to another system that has more ships, bringing the HAT with them. During the battle, ALL friendly ships in the system (the moving ships and the ones already there) would benefit.

I don't think this is correct. The High Alert token upgrades the ships in the same system. Any other ships out of the Alert's system do not benefit from upgrade and just move and battle by their own.

Once the ships are in the system, they are one "fleet". Movement happens before the battle, so by the battle step, there is no distinction of where the ships came from anymore - they are just in the system, and thus, as Forgottenlore says, they all get the benefit of the token.

The same would be true if the HAT is in a system with ships, and then those ships move to another system that has more ships, bringing the HAT with them. During the battle, ALL friendly ships in the system (the moving ships and the ones already there) would benefit.

I don't think this is correct. The High Alert token upgrades the ships in the same system. Any other ships out of the Alert's system do not benefit from upgrade and just move and battle by their own.

I'm not sure which part of the scenario being discussed your missing. Yes, the High Alert Token (HAT) only effects the ships in the system that actually has the token, but the token can be put in one system and then move along with the ships in that system to another system. Once that is done, the HAT no longer has any effect on the original system, but it does still effect all friendly ships in the system it is in, whether those ships came with it or were already there. That is the situation sigmazero was addressing.

Once the ships are in the system, they are one "fleet". Movement happens before the battle, so by the battle step, there is no distinction of where the ships came from anymore - they are just in the system, and thus, as Forgottenlore says, they all get the benefit of the token.

The same would be true if the HAT is in a system with ships, and then those ships move to another system that has more ships, bringing the HAT with them. During the battle, ALL friendly ships in the system (the moving ships and the ones already there) would benefit.

I don't think this is correct. The High Alert token upgrades the ships in the same system. Any other ships out of the Alert's system do not benefit from upgrade and just move and battle by their own.

I'm not sure which part of the scenario being discussed your missing. Yes, the High Alert Token (HAT) only effects the ships in the system that actually has the token, but the token can be put in one system and then move along with the ships in that system to another system. Once that is done, the HAT no longer has any effect on the original system, but it does still effect all friendly ships in the system it is in, whether those ships came with it or were already there. That is the situation sigmazero was addressing.

Ummmh yes sorry, I was misunderstandig something. Sorry for the confusion. Now I see that all ships where the Alert is benefit from the upgrade at any moment.

Since the Clan of Saar Space Docks have a movement of 1 iIrc, I too see no reason why not.

I'd bet for above statement, but... since Saar dock is not considered a ship (thus for instance cannot retreat) then may not be transferred, as only ships may. A question to be delivered?

Yeah... these both seem to make sense. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Well, rules aside, my experience is that it is difficult enough to make good use of the mobile docks and they should be allowed.

The docks not being allowed to retreat is, I believe, because they are big and slow and can't be swiftly moved in a combat situation, while a transfer action is explicitly occurring far from combat, so thematically there also shouldn't be anything to prevent it.

They obviously CAN be moved with a tactical action, is the relevant wording regarding moving the same in both the tactical and transfer actions (i.e. does the tactical action also say "ships")?

If something can move that is not already activated then why would it not be able to move via the tactical move action