While I was driving home today I was suddenly struck with a question.
If you're firing your HLC at Omega Leader and he's got a Target Lock on you, and the HLC rolls a crit, does Omega's ability prevent you from reverting it to a normal hit? Off hand I'd think not, because I don't think simply altering a die roll without the effect of a token or reroll isn't prevented (for instance, I believe Palpatine can still be used against OL). But I just thought I'd throw the question out there.
Yes HLC is prevented from changing Crit results to Hit results if TLed by Omega Leader.
Ah right, I remembered that Palpatine worked but forgot why he worked.
I saw a post on The UK Facebook page about this and I disagree Omega Leader stops HLC from changing a crit to a hit. Here's why:
HLC card reads: Immediately after rolling your attack dice, you must change all of your crit results to hit results. Note the words IMMEDIATELY, MUST and CHANGE
Omega Leader says: Enemy ships that you have locked cannot modify any dice when attacking you or defending against your attacks. Note the word MODIFY
Referring to the rules - combat goes:
I think - looking at both card texts - the HLC dice are CHANGED during the roll dice phase (note again 'Immediately after rolling your attack dice..'), they are not MODIFIED. The card does not say to you to MODIFY the dice, but to CHANGE them. Omega Leader stops you from MODIFYING attack dice - which is a subsequent stage in the combat round.
So you MUST change the crits to hits, but can't modify your dice during the MODIFY DICE step of combat with Omega Leader
An FAQ would definitely clear this up though - and I'm not Frank or Alex so happy to be utterly wrong lol! The linked to post above talks a lot about the Emperor, but has HLC been clarified in an email from the devs?
Edited by 13th DukeI saw a post on The UK Facebook page about this and I disagree Omega Leader stops HLC from changing a crit to a hit.
Franks has ruled on this via e-mail.
The effect of Heavy Laser Cannon of changing [crit] results to [hit] results is a dice modification and therefore is prevented by Omega Leader’s ability.
Thanks for playing,
Frank Brooks
Associate Creative Content Developer
Fantasy Flight Games
Omega Leader's ability isn't confined to the Modify Dice steps, and his ability says "Enemy ships that you have locked cannot modify any dice..."
And the Golden Rule on page 2 says:
"If a card ability or mission effect uses the word “cannot,” that effect is absolute and cannot be overridden by other effects."
Cannot wins every time.
Cannot > must. In all the rules, anything that says 'cannot' takes precedence over anything that doesn't. OL says enemies cannot modify dice. HLC modifies dice. So it doesn't work. OL says nothing about what step of combat it happens in, he just says dice modification cannot happen.
To be clearer. If the rules say cannot, a card effect can override this with can or must. If a card effect says cannot it is final and no card saying can or must can override it.
Both HLC and OL are card abilities so cannot is final. And as already stated HLC is a dice modification.
Thanks for clearing this up, guys, and apologies if this has been covered extensively elsewhere. Hopefully, you can see where I was coming from. To me - MODIFY was linked directly to the 'Modify Dice' phase of Combat - rather than the dictionary definition of the word. Looking at it now, I think if OL had been restricted to that phase, the card would have been worded something "during Modify Dice stage" which other cards have if they are related to specific phases ("Check Stress" is commonly cited on cards abilities).
So - yeah - makes sense. And I've learned something new, so it's all good :-)
Duke
There's a part about modifying that isnt always obvious to people playing x-wing and that is because we think of references to modify to be things that change our dice like target locks or focuses. Duke, you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the dictionary definition of the word. Modify in x-wing, made especially apparent where OL is concerned, is making any change to your dice pool after rolling. It cares not how the change takes places, just that there is a change equals 'modify'.
Yep - makes total sense when viewing it that way Darth Emphatic. It's just that 'change' and 'modify' were used on cards to describe the same meaning, and I translated that in my head as 'modify' referencing to the 'Modify Dice' phase. Judging by some of the other posts regarding OL and the arguments that have broken out over his ability - others are struggling with the rules interpretation too. I reckon we are going to need 'X-Wing Rules Experts' like there are 'US Constitution Experts' - lol!
I do wonder if the HLC 'edge case' was an unintended consequence of OL's ability. Did they mean for HLC to work like that against OL, or as people have started to play it and questioned it that interaction had to be considered
Props to FFG for keeping the game very balanced, with no super-power ability or squad that is an instant win, but as the game increases the number of expansions I think these sorts of questions will continue to increase in both volume and complexity. An 'unintended consequence' of the popularity of the game? My hope is it doesn't put new players off and also we don't end up with a rulebook like the 40K one which is thicker than a family bible!
Yep - makes total sense when viewing it that way Darth Emphatic. It's just that 'change' and 'modify' were used on cards to describe the same meaning, and I translated that in my head as 'modify' referencing to the 'Modify Dice' phase. Judging by some of the other posts regarding OL and the arguments that have broken out over his ability - others are struggling with the rules interpretation too. I reckon we are going to need 'X-Wing Rules Experts' like there are 'US Constitution Experts' - lol!
I do wonder if the HLC 'edge case' was an unintended consequence of OL's ability. Did they mean for HLC to work like that against OL, or as people have started to play it and questioned it that interaction had to be considered
Sometimes, things just aren't restricted to the phases we're used to, and OL is a prime example. I think you could be right about HLC just being an unintended consequence. But at least, FFG didn't rule outright that OL didn't affect the HLC, because that would possibly have created more headaches. At the end of the day, the act of changing the HLC crits => hits is still a modification. It's just one that OL won't like that much. 
Yep - makes total sense when viewing it that way Darth Emphatic. It's just that 'change' and 'modify' were used on cards to describe the same meaning, and I translated that in my head as 'modify' referencing to the 'Modify Dice' phase. Judging by some of the other posts regarding OL and the arguments that have broken out over his ability - others are struggling with the rules interpretation too. I reckon we are going to need 'X-Wing Rules Experts' like there are 'US Constitution Experts' - lol!
I do wonder if the HLC 'edge case' was an unintended consequence of OL's ability. Did they mean for HLC to work like that against OL, or as people have started to play it and questioned it that interaction had to be considered
Props to FFG for keeping the game very balanced, with no super-power ability or squad that is an instant win, but as the game increases the number of expansions I think these sorts of questions will continue to increase in both volume and complexity. An 'unintended consequence' of the popularity of the game? My hope is it doesn't put new players off and also we don't end up with a rulebook like the 40K one which is thicker than a family bible!
I am with you on this and so far FFG has been really good with it in that nothing is game breaking, even though the meta might be heavy in one direction for a while. I do also worry as more and more expansions come out, mainly because you have to have that drive for new content. With it, the abilities you are creating just naturally get more and more complex. Thst introduces a lot of room for game breaking mechanics which I envision being harder and harder to avoid as we go along.
What about Omega Leader and TLT? Do I still have to cancel all die results and therefore only deal 1 damage, or does Omega Leader prevent the canceling of the attack dice?
What about Omega Leader and TLT? Do I still have to cancel all die results and therefore only deal 1 damage, or does Omega Leader prevent the canceling of the attack dice?
Cancelling is not a modification.
What about Omega Leader and TLT? Do I still have to cancel all die results and therefore only deal 1 damage, or does Omega Leader prevent the canceling of the attack dice?
TLT works fine, as does anything else that cancels dice and does any effect other than adding results to the dice. So, Accuracy Corrector's addition of twoo boom results fails, but TLT, Ion Cannon, Tractor Beam, Ion Pulse Missile, Wampa, etc etc etc, all work fine.
What about Omega Leader and TLT? Do I still have to cancel all die results and therefore only deal 1 damage, or does Omega Leader prevent the canceling of the attack dice?
TLT works fine, as does anything else that cancels dice and does any effect other than adding results to the dice. So, Accuracy Corrector's addition of twoo boom results fails, but TLT, Ion Cannon, Tractor Beam, Ion Pulse Missile, Wampa, etc etc etc, all work fine.
Ekhem. Why AC should fail? Im not modifying a single dice there. Im just canceling what i rolled and adding another two. No modification there.
Plus: i loled so hard about OL beeing hit by HLC crits ^^
Edited by Vitalis
What about Omega Leader and TLT? Do I still have to cancel all die results and therefore only deal 1 damage, or does Omega Leader prevent the canceling of the attack dice?
TLT works fine, as does anything else that cancels dice and does any effect other than adding results to the dice. So, Accuracy Corrector's addition of twoo boom results fails, but TLT, Ion Cannon, Tractor Beam, Ion Pulse Missile, Wampa, etc etc etc, all work fine.
Ekhem. Why AC should fail? Im not modifying a single dice there. Im just canceling what i rolled and adding another two. No modification there.
Plus: i loled so hard about OL beeing hit by HLC crits ^^
Because adding results is a type of modification. And that's what Accuracy Corrector does after it cancels the initial roll.
What about Omega Leader and TLT? Do I still have to cancel all die results and therefore only deal 1 damage, or does Omega Leader prevent the canceling of the attack dice?
TLT works fine, as does anything else that cancels dice and does any effect other than adding results to the dice. So, Accuracy Corrector's addition of twoo boom results fails, but TLT, Ion Cannon, Tractor Beam, Ion Pulse Missile, Wampa, etc etc etc, all work fine.
Ekhem. Why AC should fail? Im not modifying a single dice there. Im just canceling what i rolled and adding another two. No modification there.
Plus: i loled so hard about OL beeing hit by HLC crits ^^
Because adding results is a type of modification. And that's what Accuracy Corrector does after it cancels the initial roll.
<peeking into Rules Reference> aaaa...right you are. My bad, my bad indeed.
That means that Vader can stuck his ATC in the darkest part of his suit too....
Edited by VitalisYep. OL is great at shutting down aces. No ATC, Soontir can't spend his tokens, Poe can't use his piilot ability, etc etc etc.
Just... you know, let someone else take out HLCDash.
OL does not shut down AC completely. You can still cancel the dice, and just not add the 2 Hit results. This could be of interest if you have Gunner/Luke. Force a miss and attack again.
People will just have to start taking Expert Handling to counteract the ability, if anyone can remember that card...
If we have OL topic already:
OL also "cancels" Evade Tokens right?
If we have OL topic already:
OL also "cancels" Evade Tokens right?
"Cancel" isn't quite the word you want, since it has a specific meaning in X-Wing that doesn't apply here.