Unhinged Astromech and genuine red manoeuvers

By JimGrifter, in X-Wing Rules Questions

Just a precision needed because we have different interpretations in our club following the Nien Numb and R2 Astromech FAQs :

Unhinged Astromech card says to consider all speed 3 manoeuvers are green ones.

Does that transform the red 90° speed 3 turns into green manoeuvers too ?

Sorry if the question seems nooby, but as I said there are arguments on that point, and that gets messy and tiresome...

Yes it does.

As per my sig, you do what the card tells you to do. It tells you to treat all speed 3 maneuvers as green so you do so.

What might cause confusion is the rule that an effect that increases the difficulty of a maneuver trumps one that decreases one. But that doesn't apply here. There is no effect that is making a white maneuver red, that's their default state.

If you were using Stay on Target, which turns a maneuver red then in that case the Unhinged Astromech wouldn't turn it green. Because you now have an effect that's changing the difficulty.

Edited by VanorDM

Yes. If the manuever starts red, R2 Astromech, Nien Nub and Unhinged Astro all change it to green. The case that the FAQs are clarifying is if there's also some other effect that modifies an existing manuever(such as whatever crit causes all turns to be red). In the case where two effects modify a maneuver, the one that makes it worse takes effect.

If I may do a bit of lawyering here...

If I use stay on target to change to a maneuver that is red by default, or if I have the crit that makes all turns red and reveal an allready red turn on my dial... then the effect is not strictly changeing the difficulty of my maneuver. Would that not circumvent the rule about two effect changeing the difficulty of a maneuver?

The FAQ question (enphasis mine):

"If two or more game effects that change the difficulty of a maneuver conflict, which effect takes priority?"

I would imagine the intent (oh no, I used that word!) would be more like:

"If two or more game effects that sets the difficulty of a maneuver conflict, which effect takes priority?"

But then again, the dial it self sets the difficulty of the maneuver, and then R2 and the likes would never do anything...

Ok, now I've lawyered my self well and truly into a corner. Nothing to see here, move along!

(Just to be clear, this was writen in jest, I'm not actualy sudgesting there's any merit to it)

If I may do a bit of lawyering here...

If I use stay on target to change to a maneuver that is red by default, or if I have the crit that makes all turns red and reveal an allready red turn on my dial... then the effect is not strictly changeing the difficulty of my maneuver. Would that not circumvent the rule about two effect changeing the difficulty of a maneuver?

Taking your jest seriously for a moment, I'm struggling to come up with cases where this can actually happen. There are only three make-it-green effects in the game: Nien Nunb, R2 Astromech, and Unhinged Astromech. And there are only two make-it-red effects: Stay On Target and the Damaged Engine card. So you have to combine one from each category with a ship with at least one red maneuver that can be affected by a make-it-green upgrade.

So it can happen on the B-wing and HWK (the only ships with access to both Nien and a red straight maneuver), or on the Y-wing (the only ships with access to R2/Unhinged and a red turn maneuver).

But even on those ships, I think it works out due to timing issues. Look at Kavil + Stay On Target + Unhinged Astromech: the astromech is always on, so it's in effect when Stay On Target is triggered. Both effects are trying to change the difficulty of my 3-turn maneuver: the Unhinged says it changes from red to green, and SoT says it should be changed back to red. That straightforwardly fits into the FAQ's framework, and we're safe.

A "make it red" effect doesn't vanish just because the maneuver is already red. It may not actually do anything, but the effect is still there and active, and so it's conflicting with the "make it green" effect.