And when an exhausted token is spent, it is discarded FYI so technically, discarding a defense token is the same as spending it.

This is the most wrong thing I've heard all day. And I don't just mean here on the forums, either.

He is not wrong though. . . well sort of. You spend the token to exhaust it and when you spend an exhausted defense token it gets discarded.

And when an exhausted token is spent, it is discarded FYI so technically, discarding a defense token is the same as spending it.

This is the most wrong thing I've heard all day. And I don't just mean here on the forums, either.

He is not wrong though. . . well sort of. You spend the token to exhaust it and when you spend an exhausted defense token it gets discarded.

Oh no, he's wrong.

Discarding and spending the token is not the same thing, even when they happen simultaneously.

You spend the token, the cost of spending that token is exhausting it. If it is already exhausted, the cost of spending the token is discarding the token.

One is the result of the other. They are not the same, and should not be confused. You can discard a token for any number of reasons without spending it, from critical effects to face-up damage cards.

One is the result of the other. They are not the same, and should not be confused.

Yeah, people can, but really shouldn't try to equate the two, because then rules stop making sense.

Spending a token is a well defined system. So is discarding something. The two however have nothing to do with each other. The only interaction between them is that one may be the cost of doing something.

Also the argument being made is not valid, because it's based on a concept that is untrue. Might as well try to claim the statement "Pigs can fly" is valid, because you're appending "if they had wings" somewhere.

There is no cost to using Devastator, so the whole argument falls apart, the static mortetvie is getting has nothing to do with his argument being valid, it has everything to do with him not accepting basic facts, and trying to twist the meaning of things to suit the argument being made.

One is the result of the other. They are not the same, and should not be confused.

Yeah, people can, but really shouldn't try to equate the two, because then rules stop making sense.

Spending a token is a well defined system. So is discarding something. The two however have nothing to do with each other. The only interaction between them is that one may be the cost of doing something.

Also the argument being made is not valid, because it's based on a concept that is untrue. Might as well try to claim the statement "Pigs can fly" is valid, because you're appending "if they had wings" somewhere.

There is no cost to using Devastator, so the whole argument falls apart, the static mortetvie is getting has nothing to do with his argument being valid, it has everything to do with him not accepting basic facts, and trying to twist the meaning of things to suit the argument being made.

I can see a distinction with the terms "discard" and "spend" as discarding is what happens after an exhausted defense token is spent. However, if you spend an exhausted defense token, it is effectively discarding it. As mentioned above, I come from a GW ruleset background where things are anything but black and white in many instances so... yeah. It seems like FFG rules are more technical like MTG and not like GW rules.

The bottom line here, though, is not that I am being stubborn and twisting meanings-you guys are getting unnecessarily frustrated. I am simply making an INDUCTIVE argument that it is possible that my interpretation could be correct (and there is a reasonable and logical basis for the reading) because "cost" is not defined anywhere in the rules. Hero, and many others are attempting to address the argument in a DEDUCTIVE manner-which deals with absolutes.

My intention was to highlight the fact that that is impossible without an official ruling from FFG to say 100% that the interpretation I proposed is wrong. Absent an official ruling from FFG, *AT BEST* all you can say is "it is more likely than not that your reading of the card and rules is incorrect because xyz reasons." My "stubbornness" has been trying to point out that distinction. So when I ask people to define "cost" in the actual rules, I am trying to get them to see that it isn't actually defined like the terms "at" or "within" and that absent that they are having to rely on inductive reasoning rather than deductive reasoning to come to their conclusion. I never even maintained that my reading was the correct one, just a possible one-even if it is .00001% possible.

If anything, Hero, who is a personal friend of mine, was having a cow that I even suggested it was a possible interpretation and all I was telling him was that there was a rational basis for the interpretation-that it was reasonable and logically based-even if it was wrong. He then took a private conversation and issue between us and threw it out here for everyone else to weigh in on, which is fine because then everyone has a chance to think things through.

To my credit (or discredit depending on your perspective) I am an actual lawyer and deal with rules, statutes and laws all day and the proper way to read, interpret and apply them... So my job in particular is to look for loopholes and point them out to judges and legislature for them to address and fix them. For example, saying X law says Y thing but it can also be interpreted to say Z thing so you should rephrase A part to say B so that it more accurately reflects (1) the legislative intent and (2) the right thing for the public.

Also, coming from a GW background, I make it a practice to apply rules in the most conservative manner but I still recognize and theorycraft about possible readings of rules and that is all I was initially doing but it quickly got out of hand. Plus, several people that taught me how to play Armada actually agreed with my initial suggested interpretation of Devastator which probably didn't help matters.

CNN newsflash: rules lawyer is actual lawyer. Still wrong on rules.

CNN newsflash: rules lawyer is actual lawyer. Still wrong on rules.

CNN is trash for news.

CNN newsflash: rules lawyer is actual lawyer. Still wrong on rules.

I did post earlier in the thread, but it looks like nobody noticed

BTW, Lyr, you and mort are like two peas in a pod

I did post earlier in the thread, but it looks like nobody noticed

I did. Post #39. But I was already mostly Peace-Out at that point.

I did post earlier in the thread, but it looks like nobody noticed

BTW, Lyr, you and mort are like two peas in a pod

If your gaming background is primarily GW related you need to make a real effort to basically unlearn everything you think you know about how rules work. It is a gaming company that heavily inhibits the ability if it's players to process and interpret the rule set of games created by actual gaming companies.

I always thought the idea of the card was to use one of your redirects and/or contain token early game to discard them and then you enjoy an extra blue die for one of your attacks each round. Gives you extra firepower for the remainder of the game and can also may make your opponent think twice about attacking you to early in the game to avoid the effect as long as possible

Devastator is nice when your opponents have Intel officers galore on ships you will want to use a Brace for or guaranteed multiple sources of Accuracy (Home One) and XI7s all over the place... Your Brace will eventually be used up via Intel/Accuracies (even with ECMs) and the XI7s make Redirect virtually useless... So at that point, you might as well be dishing out more damage because you won't be able to avoid all that incoming damage in any meaningful way.

I've had more success on an ISD II with Devastator because I can discard all but the Brace and save the Brace via ECMs (since ISD II can take ECM) for a ship that doesn't have Intel officer. Intel Officers are real "know it all" jerks... Also, having 8 blue dice and SW7 Turbolasers means that is guaranteed 8 damage right there. Bonus if you have Intel yourself and once a Brace is out of the way, between this guy and another ISD with Avenger, that is pretty much a dead ship...

Once per day, while you walk home, I may hit 1 punch on your face for each hour you come later.

There is no cost for entering home or getting some punishment from your wife. All this is free. The hour just determine the quantity from 0 to whatever. Of course if you know the rules and you are masochist you could go late spending hours in your office, buying flowers or ******* your horny neighbour. Anyway, your wife doesn't ask for the hours. She just look the watch and punch your face. You are spending time on other things but your wife to annoy her and get some bruise but you are not spending time on thrashing.

Other way. I pay you 1$ for each hat you could wear on you head. You have no hats but you have shoes, a lot of them. I friend of you has hats and want shoes so you change our shoes for hats with him. You get 3 hats and I pay you 3$. Do you spend shoes to get $... well, maybe but not really. You spend shoes on hats but you don't spend hats because I give you the money free. I don't want the hats (and I don't get them). I am happy looking how desperate could you be to get some money.

Could your interpretation be right? I think no.

However, if you spend an exhausted defense token, it is effectively discarding it.

No it is not. Discarding it is the cost of spending an exhausted token they are not the same thing. One is the result of the other. It is possible and in fact even likely that FFG will come out with an upgrade at some point that lets you use a defense token a 2nd time without having to discard it.

This would not fall under the 'golden rule', because it breaks an existing rule, it would simply be another option on how to spend your defense tokens.

I am simply making an INDUCTIVE argument

No you are making an invalid argument based on your misunderstanding of the rules. You are started off with a flawed and incorrect premise and going from there, so everything that follows is naturally flawed and incorrect.

If I say 1+1 = 3, therefore 2+2 = 6, it is not a valid statement, because the premise I start off with is itself invalid.

My intention was to highlight the fact that that is impossible without an official ruling from FFG to say 100% that the interpretation I proposed is wrong.

We don't need a ruling from FFG when the plain text is quite clear.

Vandor, I like how you quote only parts of my post and address them while disregarding the other parts of my post that address what you are choosing to discuss... But that may be because you're choosing to quibble over semantics (either intentionally or unintentionally) but thank's for your input anyway. You might want to read http://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/ .

Ultimately, a VALID argument is valid when *if* the premise is true, *then* the conclusion is necessarily true-regardless of how absurd or false the premise actually is. An absurd or false premise does not automatically make an argument invalid. My argument is valid because if discarding a defense token qualifies as a "cost" then a defense token can be spent for that card. Therefore, 2+2=6 is valid if the premise, that adding 2 and 2 yields you a value of 6, is true. Since it is not true that 2+2=6, it is valid but not SOUND. But that is with deductive arguments and I was merely making an inductive one overall. I was also just making the point to my friend Hero that if the premise were true-that discarding a defense token qualifies as a cost-then you could discard defense tokens to pay for a blue dice on demand when attacking from your front hull zone. I was merely pointing out that the lack of "cost" being definitively defined in the rules opened the door for this argument to exist at all.

Also, NEEDING a ruling from FFG for the purpose you discuss above is not the same as for the purpose I discussed above but that distinction is lost on you, as is seemingly everything else I said in the post you are quoting, so meh.

Do you NEED a ruling if the rule is 99% likely to be read a certain way? Probably not... But you absolutely NEED a ruling to be able to say it is 100% a certain way. See the difference?

...if discarding a defense token qualifies as a "cost" then a defense token can be spent for that card.

Except the card in question neither mentions cost (whether explicitly or implicitly) nor refers to the act of discarding a defense token. It merely instructs you to tally the number of tokens which have been discarded thus far, and use that number for a calculation. So, whether or not the argument is "valid" (in your formalistic understanding of the word, as opposed to its more common meaning), it's entirely irrelevant as it simply does not apply here.

Compare

"For each instance of X, do Y"

vs.

"You may do X any number of times to do Y that number of times"

Your argument is that "doing X" can always be understood as a "cost", regardless of grammatical context, if "doing X" is generally unfavourable. I submit that, in the context of an ability, whether an action constitutes or not a "cost" does not depend at all on the nature of that action, but only on whether the ability instructs you to perform said action as a prerequisite for obtaining a specified effect. In other words, that the grammatical context is the only basis for establishing what is or isn't a cost.

But that may be because you're choosing to quibble over semantics

I'm not the one doing that, not when you try to claim a argument is valid if it "could in theory be valid, if a false premise is actually true"

But you absolutely NEED a ruling to be able to say it is 100% a certain way. See the difference?

I see that you think there is a difference. But if the rule is even 95% clear, then no, there is no need to have a ruling, or a FAQ.

Just because someone can come up with a hairbrained, completely lacking any sort of evidence or logic argument for something doesn't mean that argument needs to be taken seriously.

The title in question does not ever use or even imply a cost, so trying to argue that you can pay the cost that doesn't exist is absurd on it's face. As such it does not need to be addressed.

But that may be because you're choosing to quibble over semantics

I'm not the one doing that, not when you try to claim a argument is valid if it "could in theory be valid, if a false premise is actually true"

But you absolutely NEED a ruling to be able to say it is 100% a certain way. See the difference?

I see that you think there is a difference. But if the rule is even 95% clear, then no, there is no need to have a ruling, or a FAQ.

Just because someone can come up with a hairbrained, completely lacking any sort of evidence or logic argument for something doesn't mean that argument needs to be taken seriously.

The title in question does not ever use or even imply a cost, so trying to argue that you can pay the cost that doesn't exist is absurd on it's face. As such it does not need to be addressed.

Vandor, I really don't know what else to say to you... You obviously did not hear/get what I was trying to communicate to you from my posts and you obviously don't understand the difference between deductive versus inductive arguments and their respective components/terms.

Diablo, I see what you are saying and I am not necessarily disagreeing. My line of thinking was that "opportunity cost" (not necessarily simply doing something unfavorable) is the same as any other "cost" in the game , which may not necessarily be the case. For example, in Armada, the abstract format of "give up x resource to gain y benefit" is the way things work so by extension I figured I would be able to give up one defense token for the ability to gain one blue dice. That seemed like a reasonable way to play the card to me but after thinking things through further and also reading the "learn to play" rules more thoroughly regarding their description of upgrade cards, I can easily see how that is less likely than not to be true.

Indeed, it's already been pointed out and argued that just because you have to give something up to get a benefit from a card does not necessarily mean that that "giving something up" is necessarily a "cost" in terms of how the game works.

So either way, I'm not even sure what anyone is really arguing about here anymore so group hug, eat cookies and move on?

Vandor, I really don't know what else to say to you...

you might try spelling my name correctly for one thing.

you obviously don't understand the difference between deductive versus inductive arguments and their respective components/terms.

I get it, and never assume what I do or don't understand. I have simply rejected it as having any bearing on what the rules actually say. FFG does not need to provide an answer to a question when the question is based on a flawed understanding of the rules.

If you want to discuss, debate tactics or something feel free, but this is not the place to do it. Here we discuss what the rules actually say, not what may be true if the rules said something else.

Vandor, I really don't know what else to say to you...

you might try spelling my name correctly for one thing.

you obviously don't understand the difference between deductive versus inductive arguments and their respective components/terms.

If you want to discuss, debate tactics or something feel free, but this is not the place to do it. Here we discuss what the rules actually say, not what may be true if the rules said something else.

If you recall, Hero initially posted a blurb from my discussion with him-which was a private chat. I just came on here to clarify my thought process, position and perspective because I felt as though he was misrepresenting what I was actually trying to communicate to him. I also wanted to demonstrate that there actually was a logical basis for what I was saying-because there was-even if it may have ended up being incorrect. Then you come on here and make patently false statements that completely disregard or minimize things that in reality are true and legitimately logical, in an abrasive manner, and wonder why we keep going back and forth?

FYI, just because something is incorrect or wrong does not mean it is illogical or stupid. It is one thing to attack or discuss a person's conclusion and another to attack a person for coming to that conclusion or to discuss the thought process and way he got there. My gripe was with people coming across saying things like "you dumb bro, how can anyone in their right mind think what you think-1000% you wrong and you too blind to see it!" Does that resonate with you at all?

Devastator demands nothing so you can't pay a cost. It only reward you if you achieve some goals.

I don't know if it is deductive or inductive or whatever about you read recently. If you want to know how could it works if we understand the title in some way, ok, go ahead. That the rulebook says you can spend defense token as a cost fot something doesn't mean that you cold pay it for whatever you want. Does the title let you pay something? No so in the world where devastator says what it says your logic is wrong. In the world where it says whatever you want it said your logic could be awesome. Trying to mix this two worlds is twisted.

Devastator demands nothing so you can't pay a cost. It only reward you if you achieve some goals.

I don't know if it is deductive or inductive or whatever about you read recently. If you want to know how could it works if we understand the title in some way, ok, go ahead. That the rulebook says you can spend defense token as a cost fot something doesn't mean that you cold pay it for whatever you want. Does the title let you pay something? No so in the world where devastator says what it says your logic is wrong. In the world where it says whatever you want it said your logic could be awesome. Trying to mix this two worlds is twisted.

Ovinomanc3r, I suspect there may be a slight language barrier here (which I can relate to as English is my 3rd language so I am not putting you down). Overall, you are not saying anything that hasn't been said before and I don't necessarily disagree with you. Some things I would like raise (for the sake of argument) are:

(1) what is the ACTUAL definition of "cost" in the rules? (2) What is the actual definition of "spend" in the rules? (3) Devastator technically does "demand" something in that it demands that you have some discarded defense tokens to trigger its effects. (4) I am not saying you can pay for it at "any time" but when you are attacking from your front hull, as the card says.

Now to reiterate all I've been saying... In a purely abstract way, is that the actual "cost" of Devastator is giving up one Defense Token for the benefit of a Blue Dice. You have to have, at some point in time, given up a Defense Token to gain the Devastator card's effects and if anyone says that is not a cost, in SOME sense, then they are simply wrong. Anyway, that interaction (quid pro quo) mirrors any other card that says "spend X resource to gain Y effect."

The problem people are pointing out is that absent any specific and explicit permission to "spend" a resource, on the actual card, to trigger a card's effects, there is no ability to spend those resources. I was reading the rule that lets you spend Defense Tokens as that specific and explicit permission to do so to overcome that issue. Was it wrong? probably. Was it crazy, outlandish, unreasonable? That depends on how you define those terms as they are subjective. Was it illogical? No, as that can be objectively analyzed. Therefore, it is technically incorrect to say my "logic" is wrong. My logic is perfectly fine, it is my conclusion and how I got there that may be at issue which is what you probably meant.

The bottom line is that when you stop to consider that, in the abstract, anytime a card allows you to use a resource to obtain or trigger a specific effect, it takes the form of "spend x resource to gain or trigger Y effect". Therefore, I read into the Devastator card, by virtue of the "spend Defense Tokens for Card Effects" rule, that I could spend Defense Tokens when attacking from my front hull zone to gain X blue dice where X was the number of defense tokens I discarded. If you stop to think about it from a purely logical perspective, that makes sense and isn't as outlandish as people are saying it is.

Overall, I believe the operative word in the rule that lets you spend defense token as part of a cost is "spend" and that should be the focus rather than "cost" because the word "spend" appears on cards that allow you to use X resource to trigger Y effect. I am sure someone already pointed that out. The issue there, however, is they are arguing that point without an official authority (i.e., a FFG ruling).

You still have not addressed the point that discarding tokens is not always voluntary (see e.g. Nym or NK-7 cannons). This casts serious doubt on your loose definition of "cost" - and, at the very least, from that perspective, one could argue that Devastator does not "demand" that you feed it tokens: it merely discourages others from forcefully stripping you of them.