None of the people I play with ever use Ion turrets etc but with the tournament season upon us I fancy taking a few ships with these abilities.

However I really need to clear up the rules for using them.

It makes no sense to me.

If the defender avoids all my attacks does the defender still get ionised?

If the defender is "hit" by the attack he suffers the ion effect. "Hit" is actually a game term, it's meaning can be found in the rulebook on page 12 in the compare results section. Basically, if, after the defender is done rolling and modifying defense dice, there are uncancelled boom or kaboom symbols the the attack "hit"s and any relevant effects trigger.

It is very common for players to refer to the icons on the red dice as hits and crits, but those are purely conventions and don't really mean anything, hence the movement to call them booms and kabooms.

The symbols on the dice actually have names. Hit results and Critical hit results. It would be so nice if people would use those names.

And as stated above, if there are uncancelled resultat the defender is Hit.

In which case the defender recieved one damage and one ion token.

Also note that ion torpedoes deals full damage and Blount Hits even if all diverse reults are cancelled.

Edited for spelling

The symbols on the dice actually have names. Hit results and Critical hit results.

Can you point to anywhere in the rulebook or on the cards where they refer to the symbols with a name rather than just printing the symbols?

The symbols on the dice actually have names. Hit results and Critical hit results.

Can you point to anywhere in the rulebook or on the cards where they refer to the symbols with a name rather than just printing the symbols?

What the rules clearly don't say is 'boom' and 'kaboom' results. However, they are clearly associated with 'hit' and 'critical hit' damage respectively.

I imagine that. by the same token, I could call those arrows on the green dice [Wooosh] results... And those rounded symbols [Winkwink] results... And no one could stop me from doing so by the rules, right?.

So how about that, for the sake of universal clarity and consistency, we refer to those symbols by the terms and effects associated to them by the very own rules?

So basically "No Hit" "No Ionise"

So how about that, for the sake of universal clarity and consistency, we refer to those symbols by the terms and effects most commonly associated to them by the very own rules?

Because calling them hits and crits has created non-stop confusion and endless questions from players who don't understand what the game definition of a hit is. How many hundreds of times have we had to explain to people that assault missiles, ruthlessness, ion weapons and I don't even know what all else do not trigger just because they rolled an explosion symbol on the red dice. The game does not provide an official name for those symbols, for the sake of universal consistency they need names, and for the sake of universal clarity they need names that are not existing game terms that mean something else. Boom and Kaboom are reasonably easy to type, instantly understandable as to what is being referred to and most importantly are not used by the game to mean something else. If you have a better option that meets those criteria we're all ears, but until then, for universal clarity and consistency, it makes the most sense to use terms that won't confuse new players and cause them to learn the game incorrectly.

If that's the problem, I think a better solution for everyone would be calling them:

[Damage] result

[Critical Damage] result

[Dmg] -- [Critdmg]

Not everyone understand what certain onomatopoeias mean by default. Specially if they speak other languages, or come from different cultures, since the same meaning can be written in totally different manner. And they can cause confusion too if a player start searching the rules for "Boom" terms.

However, since you asked for it, in the FAQ page 8, under the 'Spending tokens' section, those symbols are specifically called 'Hit' and 'Critical hit' results.

Edit: Oh no!, Arrows on green dice are officially called 'Evade results' too... I was starting to like "Whoosh results", dammit.

I think the ideal solution would be to add those symbols to the list of smileys we currently use.

I think the ideal solution would be to add those symbols to the list of smileys we currently use.

Yes, it certainly would.

That would mean that they should also add the symbols from the SW RPGs and Armada, and I assume Imperial Assault has its own specialty dice, and any other of their games that make heavy use of unique symbols. Might get kinda cumbersome. But then again,X-Wing is their biggest seller,by a big margin, so maybe we deserve special treatment?

I'm using Whoosh from now on.

I'm using Whoosh from now on.

What the hell is a Whoosh?!

Booms and kabooms generally work fine, I think. Throwing the word "hit" into this situation would cause even more confusion when he's trying to define what a "hit" is.

Which is why hit result, critical hit result, evade result, and focus resultat is the names.

Being hit refers the when there are uncancelled hit or critical hit results.

It actually isn't that hard to destinguish in writing.

Which is why hit result, critical hit result, evade result, and focus resultat is the names.

Being hit refers the when there are uncancelled hit or critical hit results.

It actually isn't that hard to destinguish in writing.

Yeah, actually, it is. Which is why we have been forced to answer the same question a couple times a week for the past 3 years.

Yet not once has anyone questioned what was meant by Boom and Kaboom.

Whoosh is a bit more problematic though.

So if I assume boom causes critical damage everything is fine, right?

As was pointed out the FAQ actually refers to the resultsvas hit and xrutucal hit results in text when not using symbols.

boom and kaboom might work well IF both of them are pressent in close proximity in the text you are reading. If I see a boom or kaboom on it's own, it's not that obvious if it referes to the filled or hollow explosion symbol.

So to sum up, any un-cancelled hit (boom) or critical hit (kaboom). Gives 1 damage and ionization to a small ship and/or 1 ion token to large and huge ships. Then you throw out all other hit and critical hit results? So an ion hit can only ever give one face down damage card, right?

So to sum up, any un-cancelled hit (boom) or critical hit (kaboom). Gives 1 damage and ionization to a small ship and/or 1 ion token to large and huge ships. Then you throw out all other hit and critical hit results? So an ion hit can only ever give questions face down damage card, right?

It depends on the specific weapon. Ion Cannon Turret, Ion Cannon and Ion Pulse Missiles all specify that you do 1 damage, add 1(or 2 in the case of the missile) Ion tokens, then cancel all dice.

The Ion Torpedo, on the other hand, has no such dice canceling clause, so it straight up inflicts damage equal the the uncanceled (hit) and (crit) rolls, then does it's "Give an Ion Token to the target and everything in Range 1 of it" in addition to any uncanceled damage.

You can't assume how things work from other cards with similar names.

He specifically mentioned ion turrets in op.

So to sum up, any un-cancelled hit (boom) or critical hit (kaboom). Gives 1 damage and ionization to a small ship and/or 1 ion token to large and huge ships. Then you throw out all other hit and critical hit results? So an ion hit can only ever give one face down damage card, right?

Not quite. You do not "throw out" all other results. You cancel all results. That prevents the deal damage step of the combat sequence from dealing damage.

But yes, there is only ever one point of damage. Which removes a shield or deals a face-down damage card. That point of damage does not come from the deal damage step. It happens at the end of the compare results step.

It doesn't say to remove a shiled. It says deal 1 damage. We have been bypassing shields with it in our games. Under the impression that shields didn't stop ion blasts. So can you take the hit to the shiled? It says deal 1 face down damage.

It doesn't say to remove a shiled. It says deal 1 damage. We have been bypassing shields with it in our games.

That's wrong.

It does not deal a damage card. The target suffers damage. Which follows all the normal rules for suffering damage.

Edit:

It says deal 1 face down damage.

No it does not. "Suffer damage" and "deal a damage card" are not the same.

Wow this thread has turned into a mess at various points.

Ionization: This would be a ship getting an Ion token and the rules regarding those.

Getting Ion tokens is the result of some specific weapon attacks. Those attacks are NOT all the same and probably have additional things going on with them.

Most of the attacks that will generate an Ion token trigger when the attack hits (successful attack dice remain after defender cancels dice) the target. In addition to the Ion token most of these attack cause the target to suffer on damage result and then cancel all dice results.

The damage result that most ion generating attacks generate is treated just like an uncalled filled in explosion symbol. It is not a die result which could be cancelled or moved.

When it comes to naming conventions some of us have taken to using things like [boom], [kaboom], and the like to represent die symbols/results because of all of confusion that comes when you start throwing out hits and the like which are not the same. Besides the obvious example of if an attack hits a target or not another place there can be confusion if when some effect is looking for a specific die result; you may see something that will only trigger when a hit result is rolled on a red die but while it should be clear that a hit result is a filled in explosion symbol [boom] there are many who also call an open explosion symbol [kaboom] a hit because if one is uncancelled it will cause a target to be hit.

For what it is worth I have also taken to calling other die results as [eye] or [squiggly] although are fewer people have trouble with focus or evade results from the dice.

So the damage can be taken to the shield and does not go directly to the hull is what you all agree on, or is it only the one guy? I take it literally to mean what it says. The ship suffers 1 damage.

I take it literally to mean what it says. The ship suffers 1 damage.

You seem to misunderstand what suffering 1 damage means.

When you suffer 1 damage, you first check to see if there are any shield tokens, if there is one you remove one for each damage, then if there are no shield tokens to remove then and only then do you deal a face down damage card to the ship.

There is a case with Proton Bombs where you directly deal 1 face up damage card, that bypasses shields.

So suffer = remove shields first, damage cards if there's no shields.