Had a couple of disagreements come up in some Skirmish games tonight and am looking for some answers. Actual rulebook or FAQ citations would be ideal, but just opinions are welcome as well.

The first involves the command card "Element of Surprise"

Use when you declare an attack. If the target figure did not have line of sight to you at the start of your activation, remove 1 die from its defense pool.

The question was whether an "activation" refers to the deployment card or the specific figure. The other player use a trooper to open a door, then played Element of Surprise when the second trooper attacked, reasoning that the second trooper did not have LoS to my figure when he activated the card. I argued that you activate each figure independently and that you would have to not have LoS when the particular figure activated. An independent observer agreed with the other guy, so we gave it to him. The rulebook at various times seems to use the terms "activate" or "activation" to refer to both.

The other question was about the command card "Meditation"

=>: During your next activation you may perform 1 additional action.

Can you use that extra action to make an additional attack during your activation? I was pretty sure that you can't, but the guy I was playing insisted that you could, that the card makes no sense otherwise, and cited a ruling on "Lord of the Sith",

Use during your activation. For each hostile figure defeated during this activation, you may perform 1 additional action.

that THOSE actions can be used to make extra attacks to justify it.

So, anyone got a rules citation for either of these?

Element of surprise:

When the card says "you" it refers to the individual activated figure for which the card is played when that figure is declaring its attack/target. So in your example Stormtrooper #2 must be out of LoS when it's activation started; simply having had a closed door in front of him when the group was activated doesn't count. However it is usually quite easy to use other Stormies or other figures to make sure that LoS starts out being blocked. I use this tactic all the time when attacking Jyn.

ActIvatIon

During each Activation Phase, each figure receives one activation. During a figure's activation, it performs up to two actions.

• While activating a group of two or more figures, the player activates all figures in the group, one at a time, in the order of his choice.

Second question: you're only allowed a single attack each activation in Skirmish unless a card ability allows you to do more (E-Web, "Blades of Fury", "Pummel" etc). However, that is not the case with neither "Lord of the Sith" or "Meditation". Both simply allow you extra action, but if you've already attacked then you're NOT allowed to do it again this round (unless an elite Officer tells you to :-) )

The reason that "Lord of the Sith" can make sense for Vader specifically is his special action => Force Choke which deals 3 damage to a figure in LoS but it is NOT an attack. So Vader can, in some cases, finish off 2 hostile figures in one activation (1 by melee attack and a 2nd by Force Choke) and then very likely use Lord of the Sith to do 2 X Move action and get the h*%* out of the combat zone

Yes, Meditation and Lord of the Sith really are that bad.

There is certainly no ruling on Lord of the Sith that ever suggested that it would override the one attack rule. (Nor would you be able to reasonably interpret it that way in my opinion.)

Fizz can attest to this most likely.

Forensicus hit each nail directly on its head.

The above are correct.

Each figure of a group gets an activation one after another.

Getting additional actions does not remove the only one action containing one or more attacks limitation unless the figure also has Assault, nor the limit on special actions (use each special action only once per activation). But you can use it for other actions that are not attacks but deal damage...

There is certainly no ruling on Lord of the Sith that ever suggested that it would override the one attack rule. (Nor would you be able to reasonably interpret it that way in my opinion.)

Fizz can attest to this most likely.

Forensicus hit each nail directly on its head.

Forensicus has hit this precisely on its head. Neither allow you to break the "single attack action rule".