When the attacker has cards which say "after you perform an attack", and the defender has cards that say "after defending", based on the Rules Reference,

If both players have effects that resolve at the same time, the player with initiative resolves all of his effects first.

I would assume that the player with initiative would activate their abilities first. However, the recent FAQ makes this questionable,

If Valen Rudor defends against a ship equipped with Tactician, the range for Tactician is measured after Valen Rudor performs his free action.

So even if the attacker has initiative, Rudor will still trigger first. So my question is: should all "after defending" abilities trigger before "after you perform an attack" abilities, regardless of initiative, or is Rudor/Tactician a special case?

Here's an example of when this timing would be particularly important:
Player A has initiative, and has Captain Oicunn equipped with Ruthlessness, Flechette Torpedoes, Tactician, and Darth Vader.
Player B has Valen Rudor.

Oicunn attacks Rudor at Range 2 using Flechette Torpedoes and hits.
When do Ruthlessness, the stress from the torpedo, and Vader get applied, before or after Rudor triggers? The FAQ is specific about Tactician and it has the same timing as each of those effects.

There's a lot of situations where this matters, Wes Janson, Turr Phennir, Rexler Brath, R5-P8, Dengar (pilot), Boba Fett (crew), even Gunner abilities (though these seem to be intended to occur after other post-attack abilities, in spite of the word immediate on the Gunner and Luke crew cards)!

EDIT:
VanorDM received an official e-mail response, which he posted in this thread:

Got an answer.

In response to your rules question:

Rules Question:
After performing an Attack vs After Defending. Have a question about these two timing windows. When exactly is 'after defending' vs 'after you perform an attack' Because now in X-Wing we have ships that do something after defending and some that do something after performing an attack. But sometimes they may conflict with each other or impact each other.


The timing window of “after defending” and “after you perform an attack” are the same timing window. When multiple effects occur at the same time, the order is resolved with the player with initiative resolving his or her effect first, then the other player.

Thanks for playing,


Frank Brooks
Associate Creative Content Developer
Fantasy Flight Games
[email protected]

I received a similar response, with an exception for Rudor vs Tactician:

In response to your rules question:

Rules Question:
My question is regarding the timing of abilities that occur "After defending" and "After you perform an attack". Initially I assumed that these resolved at the same time, and so initiative would determine which abilities happen first. However, the recent FAQ update states that "If Valen Rudor defends against a ship equipped with Tactician, the range for Tactician is measured after Valen Rudor performs his free action." This implies that "After defending" abilities should be resolved before the attacker's "After you perform an attack" abilities, but I can't find anything (beside Rudor's FAQ) to support this.


The timing window of “after defending” and “after you perform an attack” are the same timing window. When multiple effects occur at the same time, the order is resolved with the player with initiative resolving his or her effect first, then the other player. The Valen Rudor example is an exception to this by giving an explicit resolution to this timing window.

Thanks for playing,


Frank Brooks
Associate Creative Content Developer
Fantasy Flight Games
[email protected]

If 'after defending' is the same thing as 'after performing an attacking' then yes Initiative would matter.

But I think they may not be the same thing and 'after defending' is a trigger for the last part of the attack phase, where 'after performing an attack' is triggered after the attack phase has been fully processed.

But those two timing windows aren't really defined anywhere that I know of.

'ed. Normally Initiative would decide. The Valen Rudor FAQ seems to overrule this. Perhaps they didn't take the initiative rule into consideration, or they just ruled it that way to avoid inconsistency in his pilot ability.

There is no doubt that After defending and after attacking is the same timing.

'ed. Normally Initiative would decide. The Valen Rudor FAQ seems to overrule this. Perhaps they didn't take the initiative rule into consideration, or they just ruled it that way to avoid inconsistency in his pilot ability.

There is no doubt that After defending and after attacking is the same timing.

That was my assumption prior to the FAQ (I was going to have initiative bids for him a lot), but unfortunately there is some doubt now. I was surprised that they ruled the way they did, and didn't simply refer to the initiative rule.

My main issue with this is not that Valen Rudor triggers before Tactician and thus lets him perform a boost/barrel roll before the stress...

... it's that if he moves out of range 2 Tactician can no longer trigger.

Same with Tractor Beam.

I would have thought that in Tactician's After you perform an attack against a ship inside your firing arc at Range 2, the phrase inside your firing arc at Range 2 referred to the ship when you attack it. Coupled with the whole "if two things trigger at the same time, they both happen, even if the first one affects the trigger for the second one" thing we seem to see elsewhere.

This ruling has huge knock-on implications for Dengar.

copying from a post by the "Leader" ("Marshal?") of the Phoenix Store Championship coming up on Saturday:

"Lacking an FAQ entry on Dengar, the ONLY evidence I can find for when the timing of "after defending" takes place is in the FAQ entry for Valen Rudor. Since "Tactician" is "after performing an attack", it appears that "after defending" takes place PRIOR to "after performing an attack" - period.

Ramifications of this being Dengar's timing window are that Dengar returns fire:
- before Advanced Cloaking Device triggers
- before Whisper gets a focus token
- before Darth Vader crew can trigger
- before Turr Phennir can perform his free boost/barrel roll
- before Tactician stress
- before Wes Jansen strips a token
- before Bossk crew triggers
- before BTL-A4
- before Gunner/Luke"

Where are the cool kids with Frank's email address to get this sorted quickly?

I would say Valen triggers right at the end of the 'deal damage' step/ You resolve all those abilities and such (like damage cards, crit, tokens from ion/tractors), THEN he gets a free action if possible. Then the attack is complete and stuff like Tactician triggers.

Unless the FAQ just means that in the event of Valen having initiative and moving first, you measure Tactician after. But I think it's the former.

I emailed FFG about this. We really need these terms defined because right now they really aren't.

I'm going to say it is just as written, After rolling defense dice you get a free action.

What you are forgetting is that you may only preform any action only once per turn...

So you will run out fast and if you preformed that action in your action step you cannot

now do it for free..

I'm going to say it is just as written, After rolling defense dice you get a free action.

The term "defending" is not equivalent with "rolling defense dice". You are defending, when someone is performing an attack against you, and that includes the compare results, and deal damage steps.

I'm going to say it is just as written, After rolling defense dice you get a free action.

What you are forgetting is that you may only preform any action only once per turn...

So you will run out fast and if you preformed that action in your action step you cannot

now do it for free..

At earliest I'd say that it happens after the Deal Damage step.

Even if it's ruled that the timing is always Deal Damage > After Defending > After you perform an attack, that still leaves us with some odd situations, particularly Rexlar Brath and Boba Fett (crew).

Here's an insane example, lets say that two players with Dengar and Boba Fett crew attack each other (and each has the other in arc):

Dengar A attacks Dengar B, dealing one crit

Dengar B triggers (A's Fett is put on hold), attacks and deals a crit to A

Dengar A triggers (B's Fett is put on hold), attacks but doesn't deal a crit

Dengar B can't trigger again.

Which Fett triggers first (the one with initiative, the most recent attack, the first attack)?

If "After defending" and "After you perform an attack" were the same timing window, then (assuming he had initiative) Dengar A could've triggered Fett before Dengar B triggered. (the sequence of events could get quite complicated either way, but in either case we need to know if one always occurs before the other, or if they're the same timing window.)

After I posted it I just knew someone would quote the bible.... Of corse it's after everything is resolved.. Here'she you card...

you're card...

Sorry ... Just cracks me up how quick people are to say someone is wrong then say the same thing in a different way ..

Was anyone confused that an attack wouldn't be resolved ?

I'm going to say it is just as written, After rolling defense dice you get a free action.

What you are forgetting is that you may only preform any action only once per turn...

So you will run out fast and if you preformed that action in your action step you cannot

now do it for free..

At earliest I'd say that it happens after the Deal Damage step.

Even if it's ruled that the timing is always Deal Damage > After Defending > After you perform an attack, that still leaves us with some odd situations, particularly Rexlar Brath and Boba Fett (crew).

Here's an insane example, lets say that two players with Dengar and Boba Fett crew attack each other (and each has the other in arc):

Dengar A attacks Dengar B, dealing one crit

Dengar B triggers (A's Fett is put on hold), attacks and deals a crit to A

Dengar A triggers (B's Fett is put on hold), attacks but doesn't deal a crit

Dengar B can't trigger again.

Which Fett triggers first (the one with initiative, the most recent attack, the first attack)?

If "After defending" and "After you perform an attack" were the same timing window, then (assuming he had initiative) Dengar A could've triggered Fett before Dengar B triggered. (the sequence of events could get quite complicated either way, but in either case we need to know if one always occurs before the other, or if they're the same timing window.)

This is one instance where, were it to happen in real life and someone asked me to rule over it, I would sincerely hope that both Dengars simply blow up from the raw damage, ending the debate