If the article didn't exist, there would be no presumption that the SLAM reference card allows "Genius drops". It doesn't tell you to reveal a dial anywhere, and it would be a very clear case of "do what the rules tell you to do, and don't do anything the rules don't tell you to do."

I'm not so sure of that.

Before the article came out people frequently came on here and asked if this would be possible. They were always told "no, you can't. There isn't a dial reveal to trigger the bomb". There was not one single person on here that tried to argue you could drop a bomb before slamming. Then that article came out and threw everything into confusion. After that the answer was always "well, it's against the rules, but FFG put it in that article so we are assuming it will be FAQed once the ship is actually out". Then it came out and we are in this mess we have now.

There's zero question that you can't drop a bomb off a SLAM, according to the rules. The argument against it is simple: SLAM doesn't reveal a dial, so nothing to trigger. Done. The arguments for it, mostly once the article came out, are a convoluted mess of out-of-context readings, twisted rulings, and outright invention.

If you want to house rule it, that's up to you, but the idea that you SHOULD be able to do it, so therefore you CAN do it, is ludicrous.

I almost hate to keep tearing at the wound ... But I'm genuinely interested in the groundrules for interpreting ambiguous rules wording.

There's a lot of reiteration throughout this thread that the "Genius SLAM" bombing mechanic is illegal because the SLAM rules card says it's illegal. Except it doesn't. The word "bomb" never appears on the card. To be clear, the SLAM rules card simply omits the "reveal dial" language as a sufficient trigger for dropping a bomb. And there has been much arguing as to the significance of that omission, with the strict interpretationists relying almost exclusively upon the "do ... do not" axiom, and insisting that an explicit "reveal" instruction is a NECESSARY trigger for dropping a bomb.

(Of course their arguments are now settled as law -- at least for the present -- by Frank's email ruling. Whether his ruling is a naturally correct one, given the existing rules, or an arbitrary one, is something that I continue to struggle with.)

But I have this deep sense that my reading of the SLAM rules card, and my natural inclination to believe it allows the "Genius SLAM", is a defensible interpretation of rules text that, as written, is genuinely ambiguous and not self-evidently clear. And ... if I'm wrong, and my argued interpretation is not defensible in any way, then I suddenly feel a total lack of confidence in my ability to comprehend and articulate the more complicated rules interactions in this game. So maybe I'm just an idiot. But I like to think that I'm a decent logician and reader of law.

So I went searching for a rules statement that at least partly justified my intuitive sense that a "Reveal Dial" step is necessarily implied in the SLAM rules, thus permitting a "Genius SLAM".

The key sentence on the SLAM rules card is:

"To SLAM, choose and execute a maneuver on the ship's dial."

Breaking it down, the "choose" instruction is the relevant step to explore in the quest for a "silent trigger" (to coin a phrase) for bomb dropping, since "execute" is after any such potential trigger.

From my reading of the "Rules Reference" from the new core set, there is ONLY ONE description in the rules for what it means to "choose a maneuver." (The following reasoning likely collapses if I have missed some other description.)

p. 15

Planning Phase:

Sentence 2:

"To choose a maneuver, the player rotates the faceplate of the ship's maneuver dial until the window shows only the desired maneuver."

Sentence 3:

"Then he assigns the maneuver by placing the dial facedown in the play area next to the matching ship."

It seems clear to me from a strict reading of the SLAM rules text that, in light of the above rules quotes, SLAM requires the use of the ship's dial, and the proper selection of the chosen maneuver through rotating it to show this chosen maneuver in the window. Sentence 2 of the Planning Phase rules is the ONLY guide for interpreting the SLAM instruction to "choose ... a maneuver". (Again, please point out an alternative citation from the rules if I missed one.)

The lawyering seems tricky to me after this point. Would Sentence 3 of the Planning Phase rules also apply? if so, this would require, as a necessary result of the SLAM instruction to "choose", that the dial with the chosen SLAM maneuver be placed face down in the play area. It seems self-evident that from this step, the dial must then be "revealed", whether or not the SLAM rules card explicitly says so.

As a friend on Facebook pointed out to me, the physical resemblance of a thing to a rule (revealing the position of your dial) does not necessarily imply rules significance of that thing. In this case, that translates into the question: Does physically revealing the contents of a dial -- as a necessary consequence of the rule given in Sentence 3 -- constitute the rules step of "Reveal Dial"?

(This boundary-condition evaluation is sort of like asking, is Corran Horn's double-tap attack, coming "At the start of the End phase", still part of the Combat Phase, or at least near enough to be indistinguishable?)

So I feel at least partially well-founded in my initial interpretation of the SLAM rules, but with admitted gaps in my ability to explicate all the way from the written rules to a conclusion that the "Genius SLAM" is, and definitely ought to be, legal.

If nothing else, having gone through this exercise, I think it is a perfectly reasonable position to hold that the SLAM rules, as written, are ambiguous and requiring of formal clarification. They are NOT self-evident on the question at hand, and simple reliance on the "do ... do not" axiom is insufficient to fully explain the SLAM rules in relation to bombing.

Also, those of us lamenting the present inability to "Genius SLAM" are not all just rules-dunce whiney-pants.

Or maybe I'm just an idiot.

I await the applause or reprobation of my fellow rules enthusiasts ...

Hey, look. It's the convoluted mess of out-of-context readings, twisted rulings, and outright invention that Buhallin mentioned.

Hey, look. It's the convoluted mess of out-of-context readings, twisted rulings, and outright invention that Buhallin mentioned.

I'm open to criticism. What part is out of context?

Hey, look. It's the convoluted mess of out-of-context readings, twisted rulings, and outright invention that Buhallin mentioned.

I'm open to criticism. What part is out of context?

And again, no one thought this was possible before the article.

People thought it wasn't possible but then read the article and went "wow! That's cool. I want to do that.", while blithely ignoring the fact that there was no rules support for doing it. They got it so set in their heads that they were going to do this cool thing that when the cold water hit their faces they got pissed off and then began concocting these elaborate rationalizations for why they were blindsided in the first place, and conveniently forgetting that they too once knew it was against the rules.

Did FFG screw up by publishing the article? Absolutely.

Did FFG screw up even bigger by not fixing the article a couple days after it came out? You bet.

Should FFG errata SLAM somehow to enable this? Possibly. I would like them to and I don't see that it would unbalance the game.

If FFG are going to issue errata, are they screwing up even more by waiting longer to post the new FAQ? Yup.

Does any of that mean that the rules as they currently exist allow this?

Nope!

Hey, look. It's the convoluted mess of out-of-context readings, twisted rulings, and outright invention that Buhallin mentioned.

I'm open to criticism. What part is out of context?

You assume that choosing the maneuver involves the dial at all. This is not necessarily the case. Maneuver reference sheets are expressly legal and could do the job just as well. If one knows the dial well enough (and it's not like the K-wing's is hard to remember), you might not even need that outside of your opponent wanting to check your choice. Announcing "I SLAM into a straight-2" after performing say, a hard-2 would satisfy the SLAM reference card entirely. The maneuver is on the dial, and I have chosen it.

Even if you do use the dial, you are not revealing it ala the planning phase. You are using a component as part of an action, just as you might use a dice or template. You no more reveal a dial off a SLAM than you execute a maneuver off a Boost.

You assume that the explicit rules defining "choose a maneuver" can be ignored.

Again, unless there's another definition I'm missing.

Hey, look. It's the convoluted mess of out-of-context readings, twisted rulings, and outright invention that Buhallin mentioned.

I'm open to criticism. What part is out of context?

You assume that choosing the maneuver involves the dial at all. This is not necessarily the case. Maneuver reference sheets are expressly legal and could do the job just as well. If one knows the dial well enough (and it's not like the K-wing's is hard to remember), you might not even need that outside of your opponent wanting to check your choice. Announcing "I SLAM into a straight-2" after performing say, a hard-2 would satisfy the SLAM reference card entirely. The maneuver is on the dial, and I have chosen it.

Even if you do use the dial, you are not revealing it ala the planning phase. You are using a component as part of an action, just as you might use a dice or template. You no more reveal a dial off a SLAM than you execute a maneuver off a Boost.

You assume that the explicit rules defining "choose a maneuver" can be ignored.

Before I start I want to say there are rules in the Rules Reference that appear to allow "Genius Bombing." When did that become a thing?

As PaulTiberius has pointed out RAW "To choose a maneuver, the player rotates the faceplate of the ship's maneuver dial until the window shows only the desired maneuver." How can you argue against this point, it's RAW.

In two places in the Rules Reference there is mention, with slightly different wording, to when an ability instructs you to do a maneuver.

First on Page 4, fourth bullet point under 3.Perform Action:

" When an ability instructs a ship to to execute a specific maneuver, it resolves only the "Execute Maneuver" step.

Second on page 13 first bullet point under Maneuver.

It reads "When an ability instructs a ship to execute a specific maneuver, it resolves only the "Execute Maneuver" step of the Activation phase."

Obviously this would apply to something like DareDevil.

From this rule it appears when an ability instructs a maneuver to be made it follows all the steps of the Activation phase. One could argue "what about the perform action step." Both cards that I know that allow additional maneuvers are cards that are actions themselves so that the perform action step would be skipped.

Alas, don't take every thing you read as RAW, some interpretation is required. Example Page 4 second bullet point under 3. Perform Action

"If both players have ships with the same pilot skill value, the player with initiative activities all of his ships first." We simply know that is not the case; it omits saying "all of his ships at that pilot skill value first."

At this point in time I'm neither for(was) or against the "Genius Bombing." If it's not for Frank's email there is valid explanation allowing Bombing before Slamming.

TL;DR: what Buhallin and DR4CO said. Although they weren't polite, they were entirely accurate.

There's a lot of reiteration throughout this thread that the "Genius SLAM" bombing mechanic is illegal because the SLAM rules card says it's illegal. Except it doesn't.

Does, too.

...the strict interpretationists relying almost exclusively upon the "do ... do not" axiom, and insisting that an explicit "reveal" instruction is a NECESSARY trigger for dropping a bomb.

It is necessary, yes.

From my reading of the "Rules Reference" from the new core set, there is ONLY ONE description in the rules for what it means to "choose a maneuver." (The following reasoning likely collapses if I have missed some other description.)

p. 15

Planning Phase:

Sentence 2:

"To choose a maneuver, the player rotates the faceplate of the ship's maneuver dial until the window shows only the desired maneuver."

Sentence 3:

"Then he assigns the maneuver by placing the dial facedown in the play area next to the matching ship."

It seems clear to me from a strict reading of the SLAM rules text that, in light of the above rules quotes, SLAM requires the use of the ship's dial, and the proper selection of the chosen maneuver through rotating it to show this chosen maneuver in the window. Sentence 2 of the Planning Phase rules is the ONLY guide for interpreting the SLAM instruction to "choose ... a maneuver". (Again, please point out an alternative citation from the rules if I missed one.)

The alternative meaning, of course, is the plain one: "choose a maneuver" simply means you decide which one you want to use.

The Rules Reference uses "choose" in 31 places, if I counted correctly. Particularly relevant is its use under the heading "Difficulty" in the right column of page 10, where we have the following. (The same text appears on pages 4 and 18.)

If a stressed ship reveals a red maneuver, the opposing player chooses any non- red maneuver on that ship’s dial for the ship to execute.

Here we have another use of "[choose]… maneuver". Are we to believe the opponent uses the dial to choose the "non-red maneuver", and then reveals it? Accordingly, does my opponent's choice of maneuver trigger Navigator, allowing me to change his or her choice? More interestingly, under your interpretation, does planning a red maneuver while stressed allow me to drop a bomb when I reveal my dial and again when my opponent reveals it?

Your version descends into nonsense.

The lawyering seems tricky to me after this point. Would Sentence 3 of the Planning Phase rules also apply? if so, this would require, as a necessary result of the SLAM instruction to "choose", that the dial with the chosen SLAM maneuver be placed face down in the play area. It seems self-evident that from this step, the dial must then be "revealed", whether or not the SLAM rules card explicitly says so.

I don't see why Sentence 3 shouldn't apply. Certainly cutting the paragraph off at Sentence 2 would be arbitrary. But you're not acknowledging the problem, or rather you're ignoring it with the invocation of "It seems self-evident...": even accepting the nonsensical entailments of treating "choose a maneuver" as a key phrase with a particular definition, you've painted yourself into a corner. SLAM instructs you to choose a maneuver, which requires using a dial, but it still doesn't instruct you to reveal that dial.

In order to get to the part where you reveal the dial, you have to jump to the Activation Phase, and read "...execute a maneuver" to include not just the three substeps of the Execute Maneuver step but also the previous step (in contravention of the rules). Again, it's nonsense; your reading can't be supported.

So I feel at least partially well-founded in my initial interpretation of the SLAM rules, but with admitted gaps in my ability to explicate all the way from the written rules to a conclusion that the "Genius SLAM" is, and definitely ought to be, legal.

Here's the nut graf of your entire analysis. Under the plain meaning of "choose", the SLAM card doesn't tell you to use your dial. Under the "key phrase" meaning, you have to chop one bit of the rules out but ignore another which uses equally similar language--but you still don't get to a version of the rules that lets you drop a bomb when you use SLAM. To do that, you have to arbitrarily remove a piece of the rules from context and then jump to a completely different section that otherwise isn't implicated at all. Because it's "self-evident" that's what you should do.

If nothing else, having gone through this exercise, I think it is a perfectly reasonable position to hold that the SLAM rules, as written, are ambiguous and requiring of formal clarification.

No, it isn't perfectly reasonable. I'm not particularly averse to lawyers, but even a lawyer has to admit that if you have to take a deep dive through the rules and then arbitrarily remove one piece from context and join it up to a second piece with no prior reference and no particular reason, you've lost the right to call that a "perfectly reasonable" basis for anything whatsoever. This is why non-lawyers have been telling lawyer jokes since (at least) Shakespeare.

Or maybe I'm just an idiot.

You're not an idiot. You're clearly a very smart and thoughtful person, although one who's currently grasping at straws.

This thread has 16 pages?

Jacob

Hey guys-

Looking to buy some K-Wings. They sound pretty crappy to me, too bad you guys got bamboozled into buying them. I'll do you victims a solid and take 'em off your hands for $4 a pop. Keep your Conner Nets!

(Only joking of course, though I probably would buy a naked model, dial, and pilots for $4)

What is the real intended meaning of "Choose and execute a maneuver on the ship's dial."? It is strictly ambiguous in English grammar.

• Choose and execute a maneuver that you know to be on the ship's dial, without actually selecting it with the dial's window.
• Choose on the ship's dial a maneuver by selecting it with the dial's window, and execute it.

Also, when is a maneuver considered to be revealed?

• With the actual physical movement of turning the dial face up?
• Or is it just a virtual way of saying "as the step immediately before executing the maneuver that you have previously selected on your dial".

Because, if it is the literal first case, how does bombs interact with Intelligence Agent? Is your maneuver revealed at the beginning of the Activation Phase when the Intelligence Agent turns it face up? Are you supposed to drop the bombs there? Or does the Intelligence Agent player have to put the dial back face down and then you reveal it again. Do you then have two different windows for dropping bombs?

We all accept that "revealing the maneuver" would only be just before the player were to execute the maneuver that he selected on the ship's dial even if it is already face up, instead of when the Intelligence Agent reveals it for its opponent, right? Regardless of what actually happens in the literal, physical world.

What is the real intended meaning of "Choose and execute a maneuver on the ship's dial."? It is strictly ambiguous in English grammar.

• Choose and execute a maneuver that you know to be on the ship's dial, without actually selecting it with the dial's window.
• Choose on the ship's dial a maneuver by selecting it with the dial's window, and execute it.

Also, when is a maneuver considered to be revealed?

• With the actual physical movement of turning the dial face up?
• Or is it just a virtual way of saying "as the step immediately before executing the maneuver that you have previously selected on your dial".

Because, if it is the literal first case, how does bombs interact with Intelligence Agent? Is your maneuver revealed at the beginning of the Activation Phase when the Intelligence Agent turns it face up? Are you supposed to drop the bombs there? Or does the Intelligence Agent player have to put the dial back face down and then you reveal it again. Do you then have two different windows for dropping bombs?

We all accept that "revealing the maneuver" would only be just before the player were to execute the maneuver that he selected on the ship's dial even if it is already face up, instead of when the Intelligence Agent reveals it for its opponent, right? Regardless of what actually happens in the literal, physical world.

Revealing the dial is something that the rules attach a particular significance to. I don't believe that they do they do the same with choosing a maneuver.

The lawyering seems tricky to me after this point. Would Sentence 3 of the Planning Phase rules also apply? if so, this would require, as a necessary result of the SLAM instruction to "choose", that the dial with the chosen SLAM maneuver be placed face down in the play area. It seems self-evident that from this step, the dial must then be "revealed", whether or not the SLAM rules card explicitly says so.

Would sentence three ("...then assigns a maneuver by...") apply? Not necessarily. You want to read this that way because it's under the "Choosing a Maneuver" heading, and everything in that section is inherently "Choosing a Maneuver". But that section also includes rules prohibiting the use of templates (a rule which extends well beyond choosing a maneuver), and instructions covering the order of selection (which doesn't have anything to do with your dial), and restrictions on viewing your opponent's dials (again, having nothing to do with your own dial). Is every bit of that also how you "Choose a Maneuver"?

Reading the paragraph actually breaks it up nicely into independent elements - "To choose a maneuver...", and "then assigns...by placing the dial." Choosing and assigning are not the same thing. They section above that references them independently - the phase isn't complete once dials are chosen, it's complete once they've been assigned.

And if you actually look at the use of the terms, they mean drastically different things. As Vorpal has already pointed out, there's only one place (outside "Choosing a Maneuver") that uses "choose" in relation to dials - when you select a red while already stressed. Then, your opponent chooses your maneuver. And as he says, would this be a second reveal? On the flip side, there are a number of rules which restrict your selection of maneuvers, often in scenarios, and EVERY ONE references "assigning" a dial, not choosing.

Your second mistake is assuming that your version of self-evident is actually correct because otherwise something weird happens. Many of us made this mistake with Daredevil, assuming that "Execute a Maneuver" self-evidently included a stress check. It did not, hence the errata. We made the same mistake you're making - trying to imply steps which aren't there. X-wing's rules don't generally do that. We argued that since Step 2 placed the template, and Step 5 picked it up, "Execute a Maneuver" was self-evidently Steps 2-5, which included Check Pilot Stress.

Your reading is actually reasonable, even if it did require a ton of effort in order to reach your preordained conclusion.. Continuing to cling to it despite having multiple people lay it out for you, multiple times, in multiple ways... less so.

Before the article came out people frequently came on here and asked if this would be possible.

And again, no one thought this was possible before the article.

People thought it wasn't possible but then read the article and went "wow! That's cool. I want to do that.", while blithely ignoring the fact that there was no rules support for doing it.

Even if you grant that the rules are concise and not open to multiple interpretations, I think this is easily glossed over or taken in the wrong way. Exacting rules can still be prone to misinterpretation: a rule instructing me to solve a differential equation is bound to give me problems, even if there is only one possible solution. In the same vein, even if this rule can only be interpreted in one way, that is not a guarantee that it will probably be interpreted in that way.

So all I'm trying to say is that the notion "without the article we would not be in this mess," is not really supported. Even without the article, I still suspect it would need a clarification in the FAQ.

To illustrate: some of my fellow players thought they could not lose Keyan Farlander's stress when he did not roll any eyes on his attack. Looking at the card, that idea is not borne out by the text. It's not open to much interpretation. But it still needed a clarification: Farlander can lose his stress even if he did not roll eyes. This looks like a similar case.

To illustrate: some of my fellow players thought they could not lose Keyan Farlander's stress when he did not roll any eyes on his attack. Looking at the card, that idea is not borne out by the text. It's not open to much interpretation. But it still needed a clarification: Farlander can lose his stress even if he did not roll eyes. This looks like a similar case.

Farlander did not "need a clarification". There was never any question - at all - of how it would work. What it needed was a statement from someone authoritative, because people refused to accept the actual rules. It was, in effect, a conspiracy theory - people didn't want it to work the way they did, so they invented reasons why it didn't. Just like this.

So yes, it is a similar case - it's a case which has absolutely zero actual question as to the rules, but a lot of people don't want to accept that.

There is one difference, though - we didn't get 16 pages of arguing about Farlander once FFG made it official.

Has the "Bomb and SLAM" article been taken down/corrected yet?

The printed SLAM reference card rules against Genius drops.

I think it's a bit misleading to refer to the "Bomb and SLAM" article as a "Genius drop", as it bears very little in common with the mechanic used on the "Genius" salvaged astromech card. It certainly doesn't help when attempting to explain the sequence of events on the "Bomb and SLAM" article (and why they're wrong) to players who haven't seen Frank's ruling before.

"Genius" expressly changes the timing of the bomb drop to happen after a ship's movement instead of before it; the "Bomb and SLAM" article does not. The "Bomb and SLAM" article simply treats a SLAM action as second, full movement of the ship, and allows the dropping of a bomb prior to the SLAM action as a result.

My 5am check-in on the thread... Too tired to fiddle with quotes and replies on my phone, but I'll just say I appreciate those who took the time to dissect in good faith the flaws and merits of my exercise. Very intellectually stimulating. Thanks.

To illustrate: some of my fellow players thought they could not lose Keyan Farlander's stress when he did not roll any eyes on his attack. Looking at the card, that idea is not borne out by the text. It's not open to much interpretation. But it still needed a clarification: Farlander can lose his stress even if he did not roll eyes. This looks like a similar case.

Farlander did not "need a clarification"...What it needed was a statement from someone authoritative...

It got mentioned in the FAQ, and I think that was necessary - for any reason. Dumb players, complex wording, whatever you make of it. Bottom line was that the exact meaning (if such a thing exists - as a onetime student of philosophy I highly dispute this) was actually pretty clear. You can deduce how it works by just looking at the card. But apparently that is not enough, and an entry in the FAQ was still merited.

Has the "Bomb and SLAM" article been taken down/corrected yet?

The printed SLAM reference card rules against Genius drops.

I think it's a bit misleading to refer to the "Bomb and SLAM" article as a "Genius drop", as it bears very little in common with the mechanic used on the "Genius" salvaged astromech card. It certainly doesn't help when attempting to explain the sequence of events on the "Bomb and SLAM" article (and why they're wrong) to players who haven't seen Frank's ruling before.

"Genius" expressly changes the timing of the bomb drop to happen after a ship's movement instead of before it; the "Bomb and SLAM" article does not. The "Bomb and SLAM" article simply treats a SLAM action as second, full movement of the ship, and allows the dropping of a bomb prior to the SLAM action as a result.

I get what you're saying, but comparing it to genius is the most accurate way of describing what exactly you want to happen, which is dropping a bomb after you move. But you're entirely right that this is only a superficial comparison as genius is supposed to bomb yourself.

Exactly. It's just a shorthand for the purposes of this discussion. Which I thought was rather inventive. (Blue Five gets the credit?) It's also an instructive reminder that the mechanic of dropping a "when you reveal" bomb after you move is already in the game.

It's also an instructive reminder that the mechanic of dropping a "when you reveal" bomb after you move is already in the game.

It's also an instructive reminder that Genus specifically says when to drop a bomb, which further reinforces the current ruling.

Just because something is allowed in one case does not mean it will work in other cases.

It's also an instructive reminder that the mechanic of dropping a "when you reveal" bomb after you move is already in the game.

It's also an instructive reminder that Genus specifically says when to drop a bomb, which further reinforces the current ruling.

Just because something is allowed in one case does not mean it will work in other cases.

No disagreement on that.

It just flavors the argument that the pre-SLAM bomb mechanic, if it were to be explicitly legal, isn't inherently breaking the game, and does have a precedent.