Hi

Yesterday I played a game with 3 friends that became extremely hostile in the 5th round because of this scheme card, we spent (and I am not joking) 30+ minutes discussing this quite loudly at some points. Now onto the debate.

The Ork scheme "Mob up!" states: "instead of revealing an order during the operations phase, you may discard this card to resolve an advance order [...]"

Since the wording is "instead of" 3 of us believed that that ment that the player with the "Mob up!" scheme must have an order token left on the board for it to be used "instead of" flipping and executing an order token. Without any order tokens left on the board the rulebook says (page 9 bottom left & top right):

1. The active player must choose one of his order tokens that is on the top of a stack
2. The active player flips the chosen token faceup and then resolves the order's effect

• (5) If a player cannot resolve an order, he skips his turn
• (5a) A player cannot resolve an order if he has no order tokens on the game board[...]

There are more things in that section, but i believe them irrelevant to the question.

Basically our side of the argument was as follows: Since player 4 does not have any orders left on the board, he fails point #1 because he has no order to choose, he fails point #2 because he has no order to flip, he fails point #5a because he has no order tokens on the game board, and thus must skip as according to point #5 because he has no orders to resolve. Therefore he cannot play "mob up!" because of a dual failure of not getting any more turns in the operations phase (which requires an order token on the board) and because there is no order to play the scheme "instead of", as the card requires.


Were the 3 of us correct? if not which rule have we missed?

PS. we did of course let him play it, but insisted that any further uses of the scheme must at the latest be on his 4th order execution when he still has an order token on the board & something to play the scheme instead of.

You were correct, precisely because of points 5 and 5a above. And more precisely, you must have an order on the board at the top of a stack , as having all your remaining order tokens buried underneath other ones is an additional trigger for "cannot resolve an order".

Correct. You must be able to flip an order on top of a stack when it is your turn to be able to play this scheme.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to completely disagree here. Page 7 of the RRG, under the Event Cards heading:

"If an event card uses the phrase "instead of revealing an order" this effect takes the place of a players normal turn during the Operations Phase. He does not reveal or discard any of his order tokens. After resolving this effect, the next player would take a turn revealing and resolving an order."

To me, that pretty clearly indicates that the entire Operations Phase entry wouldn't apply at that point, it's replaced with the Event Card rules for how to proceed.

this effect takes the place of a players normal turn during the Operations Phase.

See, this is the key part. If a player cannot take an action due to his order tokens being covered or all used up; he isn't able to take a normal turn. A normal turn would be when they can activate one of their order tokens. You skip your turn if you are covered by other players tokens or you are out of tokens to activate.

Technically, the books says:

"If a player cannot resolve an order, he skips his turn"

The player would be resolving an order, the Advance Order. Yes, the bullet point that follows would describe a normal limitation on what constitutes being unable to resolve an order, but the Event Card rules override that and replace it with different rules.

Since the phrase "normal turn" isn't actually defined anywhere, I can only use what FFG gives us in the Operations section.

"Starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player takes a turn resolving one of his orders as follows:"

So the closest thing we have to a "normal turn" in that rule is simply when the player would come up in the queue to act. Then, *in place of* everything included in the rest of the phase description, the rules for Event Cards takes over.

Think about it this way, normally you have to reveal an order to resolve it right? Well the Event Card block states not to reveal a token, so if it doesnt override those rules how would it ever function?

This question also came up on BGG. A fellow BGG User then submitted the question and the official ruling is as follows:

Thank you for your question!

These Scheme cards require that you are eligible to reveal an Order to trigger them, since you use the Scheme in place of revealing an Order. If you cannot reveal an Order, then you cannot use these Scheme cards and must skip your turn if you have no Orders on the top of a stack.

I hope that helps!

Samuel Bailey
Game Developer
Fantasy Flight Games

The original Thread can be found here .

A few official answers from the designer. See number 3. Originally posted on boardgamegeek:

Here are some answers from Mr Samuel Bailey:

> 1. Combat is started against routed units only and it is automatically won by the attacker. Can loosing units retreat?

Yes, the loosing units retreat following the normal rules for retreat.

> 2. Player has lost a battle and he needs to retreat his units. Lets assume that there is only one friendly area available with unit capacity 3 and 3 units already there. Can he retreat to uncontrolled area instead?

(I am assuming the losing player is the defender) The player would have to retreat to the friendly planet and then destroy units down to the capacity.

> 3. Many of scheme cards reads: 'Instead of revealing an order during the Operations Phase...' (ex. Mob Up!) Can a player use such scheme card when he has no order tokens on the game board or if he does not have an order token that is on top of a stack?

A player must have the option to reveal an order (having one on the board and it being at the top of a stack) to use any “Instead of revealing an order during the Operations phase…” ability.

> 4. What is 'Event Phase' mentioned in Rules Reference, page 13, Unit Capacity, third 'dot’?

That is a typo. It means the Refresh phase.

> Gitz Dem! - does the Ork player has to participate in combat to use this card?

Yes. Unless specifically stated you can only use abilities within your own combat.

> Through The Warp - does the Chaos player gains morale when he does not move through Warp Storm?

The Chaos player would gain the morale even if he did not move through a Warp Storm.

> Armoured Advance - does damage from both 'asset damage steps' stack?

Damage does not stack. It is two separate instances of damage.

> [some additional info about Armoured Advance] Lets assume that there is only one unit with 3 hit points in combat and enemy is dealing it 2 damage. What happens when Armoured Advance's ability is resolved? Is the unit destroyed?

To answer your question: the unit would take 2 instances of 2 damage. If unrouted, the first instance of damage would route it. The second instance of damage would do nothing.

> Warp gate - can a player start a combat with this card?

No, a player cannot start combat with this card. It will be errata’d since the text is actually incorrect. It should say “…take any of your units from 1 area and place them on any 1 friendly or empty area.”

This question also came up on BGG. A fellow BGG User then submitted the question and the official ruling is as follows:

Thank you for your question!

These Scheme cards require that you are eligible to reveal an Order to trigger them, since you use the Scheme in place of revealing an Order. If you cannot reveal an Order, then you cannot use these Scheme cards and must skip your turn if you have no Orders on the top of a stack.

I hope that helps!

Samuel Bailey

Game Developer

Fantasy Flight Games

The original Thread can be found here .

Thank you very much, that defintively settles the discussion about these two schemes.