Movement off the map

By bswaim, in X-Wing Rules Questions

On your move you reveal a 3 hard turn and you place your measuring template and it goes off the board in the middle of the curve but the end places you back on the board. So the template leaves the playing area at some point. You move your ship following the template and it too leaves the playing area but it finishes back on the board. Do you lose your ship for running off the board? What if the template doesn't leave the map but moving your ship is large and it would? With asteroids if your template touches one you roll for damage. Does movement and the edge work the same?

Thank in advance.

As long as your final position is fully on the board you are fine. Only your actual final position matters. So, if your final position would be off the board, but you bump and end up back on the board, you are fine.

Edited by SableGryphon

What Sable said.

Additionally, if your final position is partially off the board, boosting or barrel-rolling back into the map will NOT save it, as it's removed immediately.

The edge of the board cares NOTHING about your templates; it only looks at where a ship sits after it has completed some maneuver or movement before it can go on to its next action.

Asteroids are different. Templates to cause rule effects if they touch them. Keep in mind that the rules for touch an asteroid with a template or even having the base land on one are far nicer than the "instant elimination" that comes from stopping with anything off the board. I guess that is some ways the edge is a little like an Asteroid except more extreme; if you just touch it with the template then nothing happens instead of rolling damage and losing the Perform Action step but if you stop on the Edge then the penalty is DEATH where stopping on a Rock is just no actions or attack plus the damage roll if you haven't already made it.

You move your ship following the template and it too leaves the playing area but it finishes back on the board.

I'm surprised no one else gas commented on this bit.

You do not move your ship along the template. If you check the rulebook on how to execute a maneuver you will find that what you actually do is pick the ship up at one end of the template and place it down at the other end. Although the flavor is obviously that the ship is traveling along that path, the actual mechanics of the game include nothing about a ship's base moving along the template (except when an overlap with a ship occurs and it has to back up along the template). This is WHY your ship is not destroyed if the template gives partly off the map, because the ship never does. Another effect of this is that if a template just barely misses an asteroid off to the side, and the ship's final position clears it, then no overlap has occurred, even if the ship's base WOULD have overlapped the asteroid if it moved along the path.

Had a big argument with a guy at my store about this the other day. He simply would not accept what the rules actually say, despite 3 people telling him. He still thinks the FAQ entry on this is an arbitrary ruling in contradiction to the rules.

That's quite amusing that he wouldn't believe what the rules state. It's fairly obvious that the template represents the ship’s path, but the game mechanics are clearly defined. At no point does it say that the ship moves forward along the template. And the FAQ clarifies it.

...wrong thread...

Edited by StevenO

I was just watching the game in question. The asteroids thing through me off. Why it would it penalize you for one but not the other. Rules be rules and we(they) played right so that's what matters. I will remember that if I ever drive off the board again.

Thanks for the answers.

Fly casual but ask a lot of questions is my motto.

I was just watching the game in question. The asteroids thing through me off. Why it would it penalize you for one but not the other. Rules be rules and we(they) played right so that's what matters. I will remember that if I ever drive off the board again.

(Ironically/Amusingly/Sadly), for movement actions (boost or barrel roll) it's the complete opposite. If you try a barrel roll that would land you on an asteroid, you're not allowed to do it and get the action back to do something else. Try a barrel roll that forces you to land off the edge of the board and you must complete it, losing the ship in the process.

(Ironically/Amusingly/Sadly), for movement actions (boost or barrel roll) it's the complete opposite.

Yeah I never quite understood the reasoning behind that. Why are you forced to do one, but not allowed to do the other. Both cases are bad for the ship in question.

Could be because boosting or barrel-rolling onto obstacles or ships are overlap conditions and are not allowed. Boosting or barrel-rolling off the map falls under the same guidelines as though you completed a maneuver and your final position is off the map. The latter is legal, though you end up dead. The former is not.

Edited by ElJeffe313

You move your ship following the template and it too leaves the playing area but it finishes back on the board.

I'm surprised no one else gas commented on this bit.

You do not move your ship along the template. If you check the rulebook on how to execute a maneuver you will find that what you actually do is pick the ship up at one end of the template and place it down at the other end. Although the flavor is obviously that the ship is traveling along that path, the actual mechanics of the game include nothing about a ship's base moving along the template (except when an overlap with a ship occurs and it has to back up along the template). This is WHY your ship is not destroyed if the template gives partly off the map, because the ship never does. Another effect of this is that if a template just barely misses an asteroid off to the side, and the ship's final position clears it, then no overlap has occurred, even if the ship's base WOULD have overlapped the asteroid if it moved along the path.

Had a big argument with a guy at my store about this the other day. He simply would not accept what the rules actually say, despite 3 people telling him. He still thinks the FAQ entry on this is an arbitrary ruling in contradiction to the rules.

Think were people get confused is that if you bump you slide back on the template till you don't overlap. So a lot of people assume that you must be sliding forward to start with.

Could be because boosting or barrel-rolling onto obstacles or ships are overlap conditions and are not allowed. Boosting or barrel-rolling off the map falls under the same guidelines as though you completed a maneuver and your final position is off the map. The latter is legal, though you end up dead. The former is not.

You say this like it's an immutable rule - yes, this is how it is, we get that. The rules themselves are contradictory in how they punish certain situations.

Could be because boosting or barrel-rolling onto obstacles or ships are overlap conditions and are not allowed. Boosting or barrel-rolling off the map falls under the same guidelines as though you completed a maneuver and your final position is off the map. The latter is legal, though you end up dead. The former is not.

You say this like it's an immutable rule - yes, this is how it is, we get that. The rules themselves are contradictory in how they punish certain situations.

I say it hoping to point out the difference being the overlap condition. You're not overlapping anything when you wind up off the map, so I don't see any reason to treat it as though you did. I could understand calling the rules as they apply to boosting/barrel-rolling contradictory if the two situations mentioned were comparable, but they are not.

I could understand calling the rules as they apply to boosting/barrel-rolling contradictory if the two situations mentioned were comparable, but they are not.

Overlapping something has a penalty associated with it, just like flying off the board does.

But in one case you're not allowed to actually perform the action, in the other you are.

The four edges of the map represent the play area.

At the end of the movement phase, a ship must be entirely within the play area or it will be regarded as out of play, and removed from the game.

That's it. No teleportation needed.

What matters isn't whether or not the ship flies outside the map (no penalty or that), what matters is whether the ship is in play after it has moved.

My problem with the barrel roll/boost/decloack off the map rule is why the hell would my ace pilot be able to completely reverse the direction of his barrel roll because it would've clipped an asteroid, but go "oh crap, I'm a foot* too far from the battle, guess I better flee"???

*In relative scale.

Edited by ObiWonka

I say it hoping to point out the difference being the overlap condition. You're not overlapping anything when you wind up off the map, so I don't see any reason to treat it as though you did. I could understand calling the rules as they apply to boosting/barrel-rolling contradictory if the two situations mentioned were comparable, but they are not.

Sure, the difference is the overlap condition - which is, yet again, a rule creation which is not immutable. The edge of the board could be considered equivalent to an obstacle for overlaps during actions, without any serious complication. That would make them somewhat consistent.

As it is, there are three major pieces of movement: Template position, ship position, and movement actions. For one of those (ship position) the rules are the same. For the other two, they're inconsistent. To make it worse, they're inconsistent in opposite directions - template position treats obstacles as worse, while actions treat the board edge as worse.

You're pointing out that the rules say they're different - which, again, we get. Nobody here misunderstands the rules, or why the answer is what it is. We're saying that the rules themselves create inconsistent situations - explaining what those rules are doesn't address the issue at all.

I could understand calling the rules as they apply to boosting/barrel-rolling contradictory if the two situations mentioned were comparable, but they are not.

Overlapping something has a penalty associated with it, just like flying off the board does.

But in one case you're not allowed to actually perform the action, in the other you are.

I say it hoping to point out the difference being the overlap condition. You're not overlapping anything when you wind up off the map, so I don't see any reason to treat it as though you did. I could understand calling the rules as they apply to boosting/barrel-rolling contradictory if the two situations mentioned were comparable, but they are not.

Sure, the difference is the overlap condition - which is, yet again, a rule creation which is not immutable. The edge of the board could be considered equivalent to an obstacle for overlaps during actions, without any serious complication. That would make them somewhat consistent.

As it is, there are three major pieces of movement: Template position, ship position, and movement actions. For one of those (ship position) the rules are the same. For the other two, they're inconsistent. To make it worse, they're inconsistent in opposite directions - template position treats obstacles as worse, while actions treat the board edge as worse.

If you know how to handle overlaps for obstacles and you know how to handle board edge scenarios, need they be handled identically? Why? Obstacles and board edges being different and all.

Edited by ElJeffe313

If you know how to handle overlaps for obstacles and you know how to handle board edge scenarios, need they be handled identically? Why? Obstacles and board edges being different and all.

Because random rules for randomness sake makes for bad rules?

If the board edge is worse than obstacles, fine. If obstacles are worse than the board edge, cool. If they're the same, awesome!

The problem is that if you make a grid of the board interactions with the movements, it's all over the place. There's no consistency - it's not just that obstacles and the board edge are handled differently, it's that they aren't even internally consistent within their own interactions. Just from an objective standpoint, that's pretty poor rules design.