Here's the card:

Here's the questions:

Then, you may add... Does this mean we can cancel all our attack dice and choose not add any boom results. An intentional miss could be precisely what we want on a ship with gunner and tactician or gunner and vader. Very curious.

A bit pointless to discuss before the actual card is released to the wild but insane if true.

Does this mean we can cancel all our attack dice and choose not add any boom results.

No, your option is to either take the dice as is, or cancel them all and then add 2 <hit> results. The may is not if you add the hits, it's that you have an option to cancel the dice at all.

But there are two mays.

First you may cancel your dice, then you may add 2 hits (filled explosions).

While it feels wrong using this to trigger tactician and gunner, or to force a fletchette torp to miss, it does seem allowed by the card.

But there are two mays.

There are two ways they use the word may.

The first is to make something optional. "You may read this book, but you aren't required to."

The second is in the form of allowing you to do something. "You may leave the table now."

In this case, the first may is the optional type, you may cancel the dice if you so wish. The second it allowing you to do something, but that doesn't make it optional. Frank and/or Alex have commented on this before, that the word may is used in one of those two ways.

Oh, this is weird.

1. I may or may not cancel my dice results.

2. I may or may not add 2 hits to my results.

Can I activate #2 but not #1? Therefore, roll and add 2 hits to whatever I rolled?

Can I activate #2 but not #1? Therefore, roll and add 2 hits to whatever I rolled?

No clearly not.

If you don't do the first half you can't do the second half. The word Then, that starts that sentence is clearly referring to the first one. If this Then that.

But your question does show why the 2nd may is the allowing type of may, because if it was optional then yes you could make the argument that you can do one or the other.

Think just how powerful a 3 point EPT is, that just adds 2 <hits> to your attack. A B-Wing at Range 1 could end up with 6 hits with it's primary attack.

I think "then" is a poor word choice. "If you do..." would've been better and much clearer.

"When attacking, you may cancel all of your dice results. If you do, you may add 2 [hit] results to your roll."

"Then" sounds more like a timing thing. "You have an option to do this. Then you have an option to do this." With the first one being optional, it looks like this in my understanding:

1. Do you want to cancel your dice results?

1a. Yes/No

2. Do you want to add 2 [hit] results to your roll?

2a. Yes/Hell Yeah/Fo sho!/Yep/No (ARE YOU INSANE?)

I do see the point though.... but again, as a non-native English speaker, I still think "then" is a poor word choice. Easily fixed/clarified in a FAQ entry though.

Oh, this is weird.

1. I may or may not cancel my dice results.

2. I may or may not add 2 hits to my results.

Can I activate #2 but not #1? Therefore, roll and add 2 hits to whatever I rolled?

I think a point Vandor is trying to make is that:

1. You may or may not choose to cancel dice results.

2. After you've done that you may add two [boom] results despite just cancelling them all out.

The second 'may' isn't an option but more of an unlock enabling you to do something you normally would be unable to do.

I'm not sure gamblertuba's reading is so implausible. "Then" should indeed be read as making the second sentence conditional on the first--that is, it's acting like "If you do" even if it isn't phrased that way--but it does seem as if you can execute the first sentence and then choose not to execute the second.

I'm not too worried about it, because there are very few situations in which you would intentionally want to miss. If it does prove to be a problem, it's a loophole that's easy to FAQ out of existence.

there are at least 2 reasons you would want to miss. Tactician and gunner on a shuttle (for 2 stress) or with fletchette torpedoes and munitions failsafe on a b wing or e wing.

I can see how it can be read either way to be honest.

If they did not intend the intentional swing and miss, I really hope the final card drops the second you may.

Hard to believe that they would mess it up in the first place. X-wing is usually very consistent with its language. You may in the game always means optional.

As written now I'd read the card as having two components, both optional.

1) You can cancel all dice results.

2) If 1) then can add two Hits.

Making it able to force a miss.

This plus Autoblaster means 2 non-cancelable hits, but the only ship that can do that (off the top of my hit) is the Lambda. Mmmmm....

This plus Autoblaster means 2 non-cancelable hits, but the only ship that can do that (off the top of my hit) is the Lambda. Mmmmm....

B-Wing can do it too.

This plus Autoblaster means 2 non-cancelable hits, but the only ship that can do that (off the top of my hit) is the Lambda. Mmmmm....

B-Wing can do it too.

As will the soon to be released Aggressors

This plus Autoblaster means 2 non-cancelable hits, but the only ship that can do that (off the top of my hit) is the Lambda. Mmmmm....

B-Wing can do it too.

As will the soon to be released Aggressors

I can see this being a huge hit with B-Wings (Aggressors might be too expensive for this tactic). It only works at range 1 though, so we'll see how it ends up working.

I think "then" is a poor word choice. "If you do..." would've been better and much clearer.

"When attacking, you may cancel all of your dice results. If you do, you may add 2 [hit] results to your roll."

This is pretty much exactly what "Then" means. Ignoring R7-T1, every use of "Then" basically means "If you do". Look at Push the Limit - "After you perform an action, you may immediately perform one free action from your action bar. Then, receive one stress token." If the "Then" is just timing, and not conditional on the previous statement, then you'd get a stress every time you perform an action.

I think I'm with Vorpal on this - the second part is conditional, but also optional. The "may really means mandatory" idea has never really been clarified or strongly developed, and one of our two main examples for it (Dash) turned out to be optional by the time it made print in the FAQ anyway. I think the "may means mandatory" category may (pun intended) still exist, but we don't really have any actual way of telling the difference until FFG tells us. Pending such a declaration, I think the default option has to make it optional.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out, Buhallin. Having another, well-used card to compare against makes it easier to explain "how it works" in my play group if the confusion arises.

Had not even considered autoblaster. Is this the phantom killing combo everybody wants?

Pending such a declaration, I think the default option has to make it optional.

Sounds like something to contact FFG about after the card is released, and that of course assumes the wording doesn't change.

I can see the argument being made, and RAW there's a case to be made for the 2nd may being optional.

there are at least 2 reasons you would want to miss. Tactician and gunner on a shuttle (for 2 stress) or with fletchette torpedoes and munitions failsafe on a b wing or e wing.

Well, that's why I said "few" instead of "none". But I think it remains to be seen whether missing on purpose--which you can already do with target locks and Jonus, although it's a lot more fiddly than the Accuracy Corrector approach--is actually worth doing. You're paying a lot of points (30 minimum for the Lambda, which is the more attractive of those options to me) for an attack that, by definition, can't do any damage.

This plus Autoblaster means 2 non-cancelable hits, but the only ship that can do that (off the top of my hit) is the Lambda. Mmmmm....

Had not even considered autoblaster. Is this the phantom killing combo everybody wants?

That depends. How easy is it to ensure that you end up at Range 1 of a Phantom if the Phantom really doesn't want to be there?

I don't see the cost that high for a lambda with tact and gunner to deal a guaranteed 2 stress. 1 stress isn't so bad to deal with. 2 is devastating. I would gladly deal 0 damage that first attack. Actually, when I do run the stress saw, I pray I don't deal any damage.

AC would let you guarantee your first shot is missed, then guarantee 2 hits on the second attack.

In my mind, if the second part wasn't optional, you could just leave out the 'you may' part and it still makes sense. "Then add 2 [hits] results to your roll". Like buhallin said, it's not like PTL gives you a stress every time you use an action but don't active ptl.

Pending such a declaration, I think the default option has to make it optional.

Sounds like something to contact FFG about after the card is released, and that of course assumes the wording doesn't change.

I can see the argument being made, and RAW there's a case to be made for the 2nd may being optional.

Does anyone remember what the non-Dash example was for this? Because if we have to wait for an email from FFG for every use of "may", it's going to get ugly fast.

Pending such a declaration, I think the default option has to make it optional.

Sounds like something to contact FFG about after the card is released, and that of course assumes the wording doesn't change.

I can see the argument being made, and RAW there's a case to be made for the 2nd may being optional.

Does anyone remember what the non-Dash example was for this? Because if we have to wait for an email from FFG for every use of "may", it's going to get ugly fast.

I think it was R7-T1

Had not even considered autoblaster. Is this the phantom killing combo everybody wants?

If you can get a Phantom in your arc at Range 1, you really don't need this combo.