Obstructions and Squadrons.

By Wes Janson, in Star Wars: Armada Rules Questions

If I have my fighter flights on an obstacle token, are enemy squadrons shooting at me obstructed or do I have to be behind it? Also, when my squadrons are on the obstacle are my shots obstructed when shooting out of it?

Second, if an obstruction causes you to lose a dice, does a ship with anti-squadron of one not get to attack at all when shooting at the obstructed squadron? I would say all answers point to yes, but I thought I may always have missed something.

Thanks for the help all.

The line of sight for squadrons is closest point to closest point, so if that line passes over an obstacle it's obstructed, regardless of whether or not either or both squadrons are on the obstacle itself. The same is true when attacking "off" of one. Also, remember that ships obstruct attacks too; this is especially important when placing overlapped squadrons.

As for the second question, the ship cannot attack that squadron. Because of the order of the steps in resolving an attack, if a ship does not have any dice in it's attack pool before resolving card effects or command dials (obstruction is part of determining line of sight) it cannot perform the attack.

This also means you can't use Opening Salvo, Paragon , Dominator , Concentrate Fire command dials, or the like if the original attack is impossible. The only exceptions, as far as I can tell, are Enhanced Armaments and Expanded Launchers, since those directly affect the battery armament itself and not the attack pool during the attack.

Edited by Joker Two

Fair enough, that is how I was using it across the board. Good point on the inability to use added attack dice as no attack is possible to begin with.

Thank you.

The line of sight for squadrons is closest point to closest point, so if that line passes over an obstacle it's obstructed, regardless of whether or not either or both squadrons are on the obstacle itself. The same is true when attacking "off" of one. Also, remember that ships obstruct attacks too; this is especially important when placing overlapped squadrons.

As for the second question, the ship cannot attack that squadron. Because of the order of the steps in resolving an attack, if a ship does not have any dice in it's attack pool before resolving card effects or command dials (obstruction is part of determining line of sight) it cannot perform the attack.

This also means you can't use Opening Salvo, Paragon , Dominator , Concentrate Fire command dials, or the like if the original attack is impossible. The only exceptions, as far as I can tell, are Enhanced Armaments and Expanded Launchers, since those directly affect the battery armament itself and not the attack pool during the attack.

I don't think that's correct.

Dominator adds dice to your attack pool, gathering dice to form the attack pool happens in the Roll Attack Dice step, so if you used Dominator then you could indeed attacking an obstructed squadron.

The line of sight for squadrons is closest point to closest point, so if that line passes over an obstacle it's obstructed, regardless of whether or not either or both squadrons are on the obstacle itself. The same is true when attacking "off" of one. Also, remember that ships obstruct attacks too; this is especially important when placing overlapped squadrons.

As for the second question, the ship cannot attack that squadron. Because of the order of the steps in resolving an attack, if a ship does not have any dice in it's attack pool before resolving card effects or command dials (obstruction is part of determining line of sight) it cannot perform the attack.

This also means you can't use Opening Salvo, Paragon , Dominator , Concentrate Fire command dials, or the like if the original attack is impossible. The only exceptions, as far as I can tell, are Enhanced Armaments and Expanded Launchers, since those directly affect the battery armament itself and not the attack pool during the attack.

I don't think that's correct.

Dominator adds dice to your attack pool, gathering dice to form the attack pool happens in the Roll Attack Dice step, so if you used Dominator then you could indeed attacking an obstructed squadron.

Joker is correct. Dominator is an example of an "Add" modification to the dice pool. All modifications, including adds happen in Step 3 after the initial pool is determined and rolled. Even with Dominator, a ship with a single anti-squadron die would fire at an obstructed squadron with zero dice in Step 2 because "Obstructed" specifically mentions that its' modification occurs in Step 2. Since there are no dice in the pool the attack is canceled immediately during Step 2. There will be no Step 3 for Dominator (or any other modification) to add dice.

See RRG pg8 for Obstructed, pg. for Attack and pg7 for Modification (Add)

Edit: Corrected "Obstruction" to "Obstructed"

Edited by Cuscus

Another thing for you to remember about obstructed squadrons is that they do not engage other squadrons. This means that if the other squadron you are fighting against is obstructed from you, they can still move and/or attacks ships.