It was my understanding that when a card has "ACTION: ..." listed on it, that you must use your action to activate that card.

I may be thinking too hard on this, but would that mean for Expert Handling on a TIE Interceptor, the main use for the card would be to shake off a target lock by doing a Barrel Roll? Or would the card allow me to perform an action in addition to the Barrel Roll?

No, you are correct. If the ship that has EH can already BR then all EH does is allow it to shed a TL.

It is used as your action. But lets say your interceptor has push the limit, you could take a focus, then as your second action, use EH and lose a target lock.

No, you are correct. If the ship that has EH can already BR then all EH does is allow it to shed a TL.

Thanks, that's what I thought

It is used as your action. But lets say your interceptor has push the limit, you could take a focus, then as your second action, use EH and lose a target lock.

Except Push the Limit and Expert Handling are both Elite Pilot Talent cards, and an Interceptor can only have one of those...

It is used as your action. But lets say your interceptor has push the limit, you could take a focus, then as your second action, use EH and lose a target lock.

Also, push the limit specifies that the extra action must be on your action bar. Expert handling dies not add an action to your bar, it is an action unto itself.

It is used as your action. But lets say your interceptor has push the limit, you could take a focus, then as your second action, use EH and lose a target lock.

Except Push the Limit and Expert Handling are both Elite Pilot Talent cards, and an Interceptor can only have one of those...

Also, you'd need to take Expert Handling as your first action since PTL only allows you to take actions from your action bar. This would be possible on an A-Wing.

You could, however, use Experimental Interface on an Interceptor to take a focus and then use Expert Handling!

Yea sorry, bad example, better explained by the other posts

I'm still a little confused on the Expert Handling card and how it activates/works in relation to the rules for free actions.

Expert Handling card/errata states:

"Action: Perform a free barrel roll action, if you do not have the the [barrel Roll] action icon, receive 1 stress token. You may then remove 1 enemy target lock from your ship."

Page 8 of the core rule book states: "If an ability allows a ship to perform a "free action" this action does not count as the one action allowed during the "Perform Action" step."

This seems to contradict the conclusion of this thread by implying that you can initiate your Perform Action step with Expert Handling Action which gives you a free barrel roll that doesn't count as your action and so you can then continue your Perform Action step by selecting another action (presuming you have the [barrel Roll] action icon and would not receive a stress token).

Really looking forward to getting this mechanic cleared up in my head.

The action you are performing is the Expert Handling action as per the card. Any card with an Action: header is considered an action. Part of that action is the ability to perform a free Barrel Roll action. Without the "free" in the text it would require you to be able to perform two actions - the Expert Handling action and the Barrel Roll action.

So in your perform action step, you choose to do the Expert Handling action and that's your action for the step. It just happens that you perform the Barrel Roll as part of it for "free".

Page 8 of the core rule book states: "If an ability allows a ship to perform a "free action" this action does not count as the one action allowed during the "Perform Action" step."

An example of this type of free action would be Turr Phennir's ability that allows him to perform a free barrel roll or boost after attacking, or Advanced Cloaking Device allowing you to perform a free cloaking action after attacking.

Technically, you perform two actions with expert handling.

The first is the action which activates expert handling, sometimes called "exert handling action". This is probably the action granted by your perform action step of the activation phase. It may come from another source.

The second action is the free barrel roll action that expert handling grants.