In the Macron's text it says "USE" this power after allies are invited. So the way I read it is if you are the Macron and the offensive player, you point the cone and put 4 ships in the cone (you have not "USED" your power yet). Then allies are invited and your power activates and you would then remove 3 tokens and put them on any of your bases. Anyone else think it works this way?

This seems like a great way to redistribute your ships to your bases with 1 ship and help against powers like the Shadow, etc.

I'm having trouble writing what I'm trying to say...I've only ever known Macron's power to be "always on", and in CEO he can only ever send one ship and be zapped when the totals are calculated. Only when he loses his power from lack of home colonies can he fit more than one ship into the cone.

The Macron is a mandatory power, so he can't ever put more than 1 ship in the Gate. Even though it says "Use this power" in the desc, it isn't meant to be read as optional. The optional powers read "you MAY use..."

The problem here is that the timing on the card is displayed as Alliance only, not Launch, Alliance, and Reveal (as it should be).

The idea with the Macron is that his ability triggers when he's committing ships. Either A) no one zaps his power and he sends 1 ship worth 4, or B) his power gets zapped, so his ships are worth 1 each, but he can send up to 4. It was another way to quietly strengthen Macron and rein in some timing madness.

Toomai said:

I agree with you Toomai. It seems the Macron should say "use" during launch or ally invitations and "Launch" and "Alliances" should be highlighted in the timing bar.

warpish said:

<Raises eyebrow, then goes to look at the preview.>

Ah ha! That's what's going on. Macron had a last minute clarification before going to press. I'll have the guys post the correct version today, which does a proper job of dealing with both cases of launching and allying, so the Launch and Alliance phases are both lit up on the final alien. Reveal still isn't, however. If you wait until the reveal phase to zap Macron, then you've waited too long.

Ok, the correct Macron is up at http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Cosmic%20Encounter/macron.png now.

KevinW said:

Thank you so much Kevin for clearing that up.

This game is going to rock!