Hi Just a quick question about "Expert handling"

The card reads

Action: Perform a "free" barrel roll. If you do not have the barrel roll icon, receive 1 stress token.

You may then remove 1 enemy target lock from your ship.

Now how is this card interpreted?

My friend and I was debating about this, in his opinion expert handling is an action.

you perform a barrel roll as an action and then remove a target lock, however if you do not have a barrel roll ability take 1 stress.

My argument is, what is "free" about that?

In my personal opinion it should be a "free" barrel roll then you should have a second action before continuing the game...

example: im sontir fel flew into enemy arc, perform a free barrel roll with expert handling then do a second action such as, boost, focus or dodge...

please shed some light for me, sorry if this has been asked before

Expert Handling is the action. It gives you a "super barrel roll" that clears 1 target lock from your ship. but if you don't have the barrel roll action it gives you a stress. It is more useful IMO for a ship that doesn't have barrel roll.

As for Sontir don't know anyone that would give him that upgrade.

The cars starts with the header "Action:" In order to use it, you have to spend an action. The free barrel roll action is your second action.

Rulebook page 8 defines the term free action:

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.

You use an Action to activate Expert Handling. Expert Handling then lets you take a second action "free" to perform the BR. In many ways you ARE getting two actions out of it.

I think the original card text was fine. The FAQ is what confuses people. They get wrapped around the "Free" action and completely miss that they had perform an action to get the "Free" action.

I think the original card text was fine. The FAQ is what confuses people. They get wrapped around the "Free" action and completely miss that they had perform an action to get the "Free" action.

This one confused me when I first started playing as well. The 'free' action part could be better explained in the rulebook. I wrote to FFG and this is the reply I got:

Using a card with the "Action:” header requires an action, such as the action you have during the Perform Action step. For example, if you had Luke Skywalker equipped with Expert Handling, during his Perform Action step he can either use the Expert Handling action (which results with him performing a barrel roll), perform a focus action, or perform an acquire a target lock action.

The errata to include the word “free” was because rules as written, Expert Handling would require you to somehow have 2 actions; 1 to perform the Expert Handling action and 1 to perform a barrel roll. By including the words “free action” allowed a ship to use the card as intended.

The original card text did not define the barrel roll as an action, and thus created its own confusion. Now when you take the Expert Handling action, you perform the free Barrel Roll action, which can be used to trigger Experimental Interface and allow you another action. Note that if you don't have the barrel roll action icon, you'll get a stress token, so you can't use EI off the Expert Handling action, but you can use it from the free Barrel Roll within Expert Handling.

I think the original card text was fine.

The original card text allowed Vader to barrel roll twice.

Could you then put EI and EH on Soonts and run this order.

1. Barrel roll

2. Trigger EI

3. Use the Action for EH

4. do a free Barrel Roll

Gain Stress

Add Focus token

Could you then put EI and EH on Soonts and run this order.

1. Barrel roll

2. Trigger EI

3. Use the Action for EH

4. do a free Barrel Roll

Gain Stress

Add Focus token

No, because you cannot perform the same action twice.

Yeah free or not, you cannot barrel roll twice.

Could you then put EI and EH on Soonts and run this order.

1. Barrel roll

2. Trigger EI

3. Use the Action for EH

4. do a free Barrel Roll

Gain Stress

Add Focus token

No, because you cannot perform the same action twice.

Technically you COULD put EH and EI on Fel and then do the BR which triggers EH via EI. Of course the little issue here will simply be that you only get to use the BR part of it once.

I guess I'm not entirely sure what happens when you trigger EH but can NOT perform the BR. Does the "remove TL" part of the card REQUIRE using the card's free BR first?

I'm sure the FAQ says you can't use EH if you've already done a barrel roll.

I'm sure the FAQ says you can't use EH if you've already done a barrel roll.

Now that I've looked in the FAQ it says nothing to prevent using EI to trigger EH after you do a barrel roll. Looking up EH in the FAQ I do believe it would be possible but you can't do free BR after you've already rolled, you wouldn't gain the Stress assuming you have BR as an available action otherwise you would, and finally you do get the opportunity to remove a TL token from the ship.

edit: Finally found the FAQ info.

Except, the FAQ states: A ship equipped with Expert Handling cannot perform a barrel roll and use the Expert Handling action in the same round.

Expert Handling is the free barrel roll action, stress check/token assigning, then optional target lock removal. It does not say "you may perform a free barrel roll". The free barrel roll is a mandatory part of the Expert Handling action. You can't choose not to do it because you've already done one.

Except, the FAQ states: A ship equipped with Expert Handling cannot perform a barrel roll and use the Expert Handling action in the same round.

Expert Handling is the free barrel roll action, stress check/token assigning, then optional target lock removal. It does not say "you may perform a free barrel roll". The free barrel roll is a mandatory part of the Expert Handling action. You can't choose not to do it because you've already done one.

Please tell me which FAQ you are looking at and where because I don't see there I expect to find it.

Try bottom left of page 12.

Try bottom left of page 12.

Thanks but I'm still not seeing it. What FAQ are you looking at? I'm looking at version 3.01 dated 3.27.15.

Now that I look some more I do see it on the bottom of page 11. I guess I saw Expert Handling up on pg 2 and didn't go looking for the second place although I should have seen it when I looked up Experimental Interface right above it.

Time to go and edit a few post.

Mine says V3.02, but same date.

Mine says V3.02, but same date.

That explains the difference and was also why I was asking for "which FAQ" because that 3.02 has a page covering Debris that isn't in the 3.01 version. That accounts for the different page number. Given that they have the same date I probably didn't notice the other change.

Yeah I did not see that in the FAQ either thanks guys.

I think the original card text was fine. The FAQ is what confuses people. They get wrapped around the "Free" action and completely miss that they had perform an action to get the "Free" action.

This one confused me when I first started playing as well. The 'free' action part could be better explained in the rulebook. I wrote to FFG and this is the reply I got:

Using a card with the "Action:” header requires an action, such as the action you have during the Perform Action step. For example, if you had Luke Skywalker equipped with Expert Handling, during his Perform Action step he can either use the Expert Handling action (which results with him performing a barrel roll), perform a focus action, or perform an acquire a target lock action.

The errata to include the word “free” was because rules as written, Expert Handling would require you to somehow have 2 actions; 1 to perform the Expert Handling action and 1 to perform a barrel roll. By including the words “free action” allowed a ship to use the card as intended.

The original card text did not define the barrel roll as an action, and thus created its own confusion. Now when you take the Expert Handling action, you perform the free Barrel Roll action, which can be used to trigger Experimental Interface and allow you another action. Note that if you don't have the barrel roll action icon, you'll get a stress token, so you can't use EI off the Expert Handling action, but you can use it from the free Barrel Roll within Expert Handling.

So on this basis, "Daredevil" can only be used by ships with access to two actions, because it's wording doesn't include the term "free action".

Is that correct?

I think the original card text was fine. The FAQ is what confuses people. They get wrapped around the "Free" action and completely miss that they had perform an action to get the "Free" action.

This one confused me when I first started playing as well. The 'free' action part could be better explained in the rulebook. I wrote to FFG and this is the reply I got:

Using a card with the "Action:” header requires an action, such as the action you have during the Perform Action step. For example, if you had Luke Skywalker equipped with Expert Handling, during his Perform Action step he can either use the Expert Handling action (which results with him performing a barrel roll), perform a focus action, or perform an acquire a target lock action.

The errata to include the word “free” was because rules as written, Expert Handling would require you to somehow have 2 actions; 1 to perform the Expert Handling action and 1 to perform a barrel roll. By including the words “free action” allowed a ship to use the card as intended.

The original card text did not define the barrel roll as an action, and thus created its own confusion. Now when you take the Expert Handling action, you perform the free Barrel Roll action, which can be used to trigger Experimental Interface and allow you another action. Note that if you don't have the barrel roll action icon, you'll get a stress token, so you can't use EI off the Expert Handling action, but you can use it from the free Barrel Roll within Expert Handling.

So on this basis, "Daredevil" can only be used by ships with access to two actions, because it's wording doesn't include the term "free action".

Is that correct?

No.

Expert Handling allows you to do a Barrel Roll with a bonus, but has the "Free-Action" wording to prevent your ability to do two barrel-rolls in one go.

Daredevil has no such barrier, as it is the only way to receive that action.

Therefore, with a regular ship with that Elite Talent equipped, you can perform the entire Daredevil action.

If you have two actions, you can theoretically Boost beforehand.

Note that Darth Vader's form of double-action is unique in that the stress generated from Daredevil would prevent a second action following it, though performing it before DD is perfectly fine.

See, the bit about preventing two barrel rolls in one go strikes me as odd - because it is plainly stated you can only do any action of any type once, in the core rules (page 9, and is quite specific about "free actions").

I'm happy to play it as just a barrel roll with a bonus, but the card and FAQ seem to have tied themselves into knots to solve a problem that shouldn't exist.

See, the bit about preventing two barrel rolls in one go strikes me as odd - because it is plainly stated you can only do any action of any type once, in the core rules (page 9, and is quite specific about "free actions").

I'm happy to play it as just a barrel roll with a bonus, but the card and FAQ seem to have tied themselves into knots to solve a problem that shouldn't exist.

So they fixed that by changing it to "action: perform a barrel roll action..." That prevented the double-barrel-roll, but then it didn't mesh with the rules for actions, and arguably only Vader could use Expert Handling (if anyone at all could), because he was the only ship that could perform two actions. So very quickly it was changed again to make th barrel roll within EH a free action.