"Once per round, while attacking from your front hull zone, you may add 1 blue die to your attack pool for each of your discarded defense tokens."

There's no precedent for this wording - every single other card with a once-per-round ability uses the "exhaust this card to..." mechanic to achieve the same effect. In line with that philosophy, Devastator should instead read something like:

"While attacking from your front hull zone, you may exhaust this card to add 1 blue die to your attack pool for each of your discarded defense tokens."

So why change now? Is it because it would sound a little awkward...

...or because there's going to be a new effect (an Imperial Commander?) that allows the refreshing of exhausted cards mid-round?

EDIT: added card image.

for shiggles, I guess

there may be an upgrade later that forces the discarding of exhausted cards or prevents them from being readied (and devastator would be safe ). Would make for a nice ion cannon upgrade in the future

anyway, it's not terribly complex. Just apply the effect once per round.

Sure, there's nothing wrong with the text. But it's the only instance where you have to remember not to use an effect twice instead of simply making it obvious by turning the card sideways.

The discarding effect might be a little too game-breaking at this stage, but the other possibility (preventing readying) could very well show up!

well, we do have skreed's "once per activation"

of course, exhausting him would make him suck because he'd only apply to one attack per round, but he does have a once per X restriction at least

Screed has similar wording.

well, we do have skreed's "once per activation"

of course, exhausting him would make him suck because he'd only apply to one attack per round, but he does have a once per X restriction at least

D'ho, I've been Ninja ed!

Screed doesn't really qualify because he is intended to be used once per ship, not once per round, so the exhaust mechanic wouldn't work. The question is why Devastator, where the exhaust mechanic would work just fine, is different. I mean, it's not just different from one or two previous cards, it's different from:

Engine Techs

Sensor Team

Electronic Countermeasures

Wulff Yularen

Intel Officer

Adar Tallon

Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams

...all of which use the same wording with the same limiting effect.

It is a quirk.

If its not just a quirk of writing, then really, there are two probably explanations:

1) Future is looking at people refreshing cards mid-round.

2) Titles are simply never expected to be Exhausted - they're "always active" for some reason we don't know of yet.

As it does not specify that you have to be attacking ships, would Devastator allow you to really ruin a squadron's day?

Absolutely. Potentially 6 dice (7 with CF), which is obscene.

But I hope you didn't pay 120 points for that

Consider that Titles are on another tier of upgrades. They don't exhaust but instead have set limitations just like Commander's. They don't have a dedicated slot on a card. They take up arbitrary slots.

It's certainly a possibility.

well, that would be silly to roll up to 6 blue dice at each squadron in forward arc or something.

Its more of a "covering your tracks for later" sort of deal, i would think.

well, that would be silly to roll up to 6 blue dice at each squadron in forward arc or something.

Not at each, at one squadron.

well, that would be silly to roll up to 6 blue dice at each squadron in forward arc or something.

Not at each, at one squadron.

Actually that ace would be mildly bothered. Average of 3 damage from 6 blue dice and then braced or (maybe) scattered to reduce that to 2 or maybe even negate it entirely.

Still, that many blue dice would have a reasonable chance of rolling two accuracies, so I suppose an ace could be in a really bad way after being shot by that.

well, that would be silly to roll up to 6 blue dice at each squadron in forward arc or something.

Not at each, at one squadron.

Yup. Each squadron would be considered a new attack. However, that Ace would be dead. . .

seems very Vader-esque

Its to prevent gunnery team being too OP

Also another obvious interaction:

The Blue dice are added to the pool, so they work at max range too.

Also another obvious interaction:

The Blue dice are added to the pool, so they work at max range too.

Also since its in the modify step you can use Vader to discard a token if its red, then add an additional blue if you haven't triggered it yet. (So burn the contain on the first shot against it, then spend it with vader)

For two points (and the officer slot, which is admittedly a bigger deal), Needa even saves you a couple of points of early-game damage before you trade the Evade for a blue die