Not really a rules question.

I knew it was going to be close because my ISD ended its turn 5 activation with its nose nearly perpendicular and only a few inches from the edge of the play area.

As the last activation of turn 6, and being stuck at speed 2, I positioned the maneuver tool into the only configuration that gave me any chance of just skirting the edge.

This is the result.

It looks like I might have just made it! It’s really close…

If the ISD is safe, the Imperials win with a 150 MoV. But if it did fly off the board, the Rebels win with a MoV of 20. So based off this single ruling, at the very end of the game, the Imperials win 8-2 or lose 5-5.

Now let’s take a closer look from a different angle.

I think the Rebel player would be technically correct and therefore had the right to insist that my ISD did in fact fly off the board. It is ridiculously close but per the Rules Reference, a ship is destroyed if a portion of its base is outside the play area. I promptly removed my ISD from the board and the game ended there. The Rebels won 5-5.

Is the Rebel player a jerk for enforcing this rule so strictly? Or is it unreasonable for the Imperial player to expect the Rebel player to “bend the rules” in the Imperial’s favor?

What if the Rebel player needed this victory to win a tournament or at least place high enough for a prize? Could you fault him for insisting we play exactly by the rules?

What if the Rebel player had no chance to win the tournament with a 5-5 game, but by enforcing this rule, the Imperial player went from winning the whole tournament, with an 8-2 victory in the last round, to placing somewhere in the middle of the pack with the 5-5 loss? Is the Rebel player being a jerk then? Essentially he has nothing to gain by enforcing this rule so strictly other than denying the Imperial player his tournament victory.

Even if letting the Imperial player keep his ship would be considered good sportsmanship, couldn’t it also be unfair to the other competitors? What about the player that gets 2nd place instead of 1st because someone on another table decided to take it easy on rules enforcement?

So what do I think of the Rebel player who won 5-5? I think he’s a jerk. But that has nothing to do with him being a stickler for rules. I just know he is because I was playing a solo game against myself

It’s interesting that with nothing at stake and being completely neutral, I felt most comfortable with strict rules enforcement. Conversely, there are tournament scenarios where I would feel like I should let something like that go. But shouldn’t rules be applied precisely and consistently in a competition?

What would you do if you were the Rebel player in this situation?

Yup, definitely over the edge. I would have enforced the flying-off-the-table rule, with the possible exception of it being like a first-time game against somebody I really wanted to get into the game and not have a bad experience on their first game. Off the mat is off the mat.

Nice yoga mat, btw. Freaking love playing on my yoga mat!

Your voiced confusion over this apparent dilemma is exactly why rules exist. The other tournament game I'm familiar with (Magic) even has Rules Enforcement Levels, which specifically state how competitive the game is, and how acceptable take-backs are. In a casual setting, it is up to the players involved to decide how strict they wish to be, but it is to everyone's benefit to decide this before a question like this comes up. Otherwise, you're just asking for name calling and hurt feelings.

At a tournament, the default assumption is going to be that the rules, as written, are adhered to. A fraction of a millimeter of the edge of your base is out of the play area, so the ship should be destroyed. Would all opponents hold you to that? Probably not, but the default assumption has to be that the game is played as written. As one of the players who not only expects precise play from my opponents, but enjoys being held to a precise standard myself (and who recognizes that this has to be decided before the game because once this situation occurs both players are inevitably biased), I would like the expectation that the game be played precisely to be established clearly in a tournament setting, and I would like to think that I could hold that expectation without being called names for it.

Based on experience, other people disagree with me, but I cannot fathom the notion that people should be expected to turn up to a tournament with any notion about what is "right" or "fair" other than what is written in the rules. Inevitably, there are people who think that their personal values are the ones that everyone should hold, but since there's no codification of quite what those are or how they handle every situation, all we have to go on is the rules document, and any other agreements we've made between each other before the game.

The ship is off the mat, you lose it, unless you agreed before that you'd be generous with measurements, or your opponent feels like handicapping themselves.

This is simple: your base is off the edge, so you're destroyed. Your opponent should not need to 'enforce the rule strictly'. Just remove the model and do better next time - large base ships can be tricky.

Depends on friendly vs competitive play.

In friendly play I would always allow a take back if not doing it spoilt the point of the game or to keep the flow of the game going ( with a smile and a "you would have lost the game there"but let's put the ship back on and keep playing). Freindly games are about fun and practice so it's whatever will support the point of the game as far as it goes. So yes I would say whoops its round two and one of you two isds has flow of the board, we know that would have been a loss for you lets pop it back and try again.

In competitive play, I will generally allow an opponent to make small take backs ( forgetting to take an engineering token until after they have shot, picking up the maunover template starting to measure and then going whoops I need to shoot first). These are things the person obviously wanted to do and just missed because of Human factors ( rushing to be timely, stress, tired), they gain no advantage due to doing them a bit late ( so one thing I will not allow is when waiting until after another result would give an advantage, so adding a fire power token to a dial after the dice rolled, because if the dice were good your opponent would have been able to just keep quite and gain the token for next round).

It may be a disadvantage to me but I would allow a go back where the decision making was not effected, the action should have occurred ( fighters shooting, ships shooting, engineering token collection, spending etc).

In the above example of flying off the board in a comp, no matter the amount, this is not something I would allow a take back on, the decision on the manouver has been made, how you manouver is dynamic ( it's not a fixed "this would happen decision" like a fighter always shooting at something if it can) and how the first manouver ended would impact on you decision making on how you would manouver on the take back. Also if your off the board, your off the board, it's a binary yes/no state.

It would be unfair on all the other players in the competition to allow the ship to stay on the board or be taken back it would be cheating on both players parts. If it's so close your not sure ask the TO, it's the only correct action.

I would be mad as hell if I'd found out I'd lost position in a comp because a player had let an opponent keep a ship on the board that was clearly off, I would not be mad if I'd seen the loser had let the winner collect an engineering token after shooting.

You flew off the edge, live with it, don't do it again - you should be enforcing the rules on yourself, and not blaming your opponent in any way, or making him feel bad for his win.

If you have to make that tight of a move to win the previous turn I think you need to plan ahead better to avoid needing that. I'd take it off the board. Something that close is really just praying and not knowing.

I had a bitter moment for one game where a player drove their large ship so close to the edge in an aggressive move that the only move he could make next turn would put him literally parallel to the edge. And ended up "apparently" with only the shield dial off the edge. I didn't check for millimeters. But when I gauged his position I was pretty sure he couldn't get out of that move due to his proximity. It was kind of souring. Though not exactly his fault not out of his rights to try. Maybe it was on maybe it was off by a bit. Who knows now.

This is a little contentious but has anyone actually tried to see how much you can bend or wiggle the maneuver tool imperceptibly? I feel like it can result in 2 mm depending on where and durability of that tool.

You flew off the edge, live with it, don't do it again - you should be enforcing the rules on yourself, and not blaming your opponent in any way, or making him feel bad for his win.

I think you've misunderstood the point of Nerd Rage's post; I don't think he's blaming the opponent at all. Or if he is, it's not a bad thing; the guy was playing himself!

From his original post:

So what do I think of the Rebel player who won 5-5? I think he’s a jerk. But that has nothing to do with him being a stickler for rules. I just know he is because I was playing a solo game against myself

It’s interesting that with nothing at stake and being completely neutral, I felt most comfortable with strict rules enforcement. Conversely, there are tournament scenarios where I would feel like I should let something like that go. But shouldn’t rules be applied precisely and consistently in a competition?

Essentially, Nerd Rage is asking about the ethos and ethics around the game, the spirit in which it is played, and how strictly rules are enforced by the community. I think he's trying to work out what he should expect at tournament level (correct me if I'm wrong Nerd Rage!) in such instances, and that's a very reasonable, and interesting, question

My feeling is that, as the Rebel player, I would personally let it go (I don't like confrontation - ironic in a battle game!), but be annoyed at myself for doing so. I would hope that, at tournament level, the opposing player would have the honesty to abide strictly by the rules himself, but that would depend on the rest of the game. If, say, he had been relaxed on some of my positioning, then I would feel it right to be the same, but if we'd been playing strictly (which is always better to avoid ambiguity), then we'd continue to do so. It would be a question of give and take, but most Armada players I've met have been very pleasant, so I hope it wouldn't cause any animosity.

On a casual level, I'd call it a close shave and keep playing. I'd rather the game progressed than agonise over an in/out decision!

So basically -

Imperial player " Oh, I've flown off the edge! Will you let me get away with it? Please, pretty please, cos I really want to win"

Rebel player "Erm......... "

The question is about the Imperial players ethos, he flew off the map, he should remove his ship. Would you be happy with a win, knowing that in reality, you lost? You want to win that badly? Take it on the chin and fly better next time, if you keep on getting away with it, how will you improve?

Would you allow a player to change his manoeuvre after the manoeuvre tool is locked in position? If not, why not?

Would you allow a player to change his manoeuvre after the manoeuvre tool is locked in position? If not, why not?

I would allow a take back If he had not moved his ship, or actually taken time to review the situation, so if someone immediately went "whoops I did not mean to pop that in" I would allow him to go back. If I observed him reviewing the end point of the ship in any detail or moving the ship I would not allow the take back.

Is as I said in my above post, my test is "the normal action test" and "the decision does not change after the fact depending on the result of action taken after the thing you want to take back" test. So "Whoops I forgot to shoot my fighter before moving the next one" is "ok" according to my tests and I would let him take a shooting action because he always wanted to do that and always would, nothing that came after changes that action. But "I don't like where my ship has moved,can I take it back and start again " would not pass my test, so "not a chance mate".

These are my internal checks for fairness and sportsmanship around deviation from the rules, I don't want to win because of a "technical fault by my opponent" if my opponent out thought me I'd rather let him have the glory. I want to outwit and out play him, driving his face into the ground..... That just me,fair and ethilly driven, but a bit overly aggressive .....

Any good imperial officer would just extend the combat zone by logging protocol 224 of the imperial navy combat primer, as to not drift away from battle.

But in all seriousness, in my experience of it's off table then it's out whether it be 1mm or 1m. But it's important to be gracious as either side, encouraging fair and positive gameplay.

If I was the Imperial player, I'd man up and pick the ship up. And laugh with my opponent at the bonehead move.

Ultimately it's a game, and there is a rule. And unless it was a blatant user error with the maneuver tool I witnessed, I'd give my opponent at least a dirty look if they insisted it wasn't off the board.

I like to let my opponent make a call on things I think are close. I usually expect the favor to be returned. I don't like the TO or outsiders to get involved unless we both are unsure.

I agree, off the edge, sorry mate.

Everyone did catch that he said he was playing against himself, right?

At any rate, yeah, off the edge for sure. At least now you know the limitations of the good ol ISD, and why I pretty much try to always ALWAYS have a nav token banked, or have a nav order coming if I don't.

Everyone did catch that he said he was playing against himself, right?

At any rate, yeah, off the edge for sure. At least now you know the limitations of the good ol ISD, and why I pretty much try to always ALWAYS have a nav token banked, or have a nav order coming if I don't.

Yeah, the Rebel player would never be doing anything wrong by not agreeing to ignore the ship flying off the table.

Yes, it's definitely finished its move outside the play area and therefore is removed.

It's not even a subjective/judgment call. It's off.

The more interesting question / dilemma / judgment, (based on that first photo at least) is: assuming the 2nd photo close-up had showed that the rear port 'leg' of the base was in, was the shield dial outside the play area? (because that counts too, and based on its extension from the main base chassis, is easier to accidentally throw outside the play area.)

Nothing to see here. Person talking out their hiney.

The more interesting question / dilemma / judgment, (based on that first photo at least) is: assuming the 2nd photo close-up had showed that the rear port 'leg' of the base was in, was the shield dial outside the play area? (because that counts too, and based on its extension from the main base chassis, is easier to accidentally throw outside the play area.)

Shield Dials don't count for "Off the Board". That is defined in the Rules.

The more interesting question / dilemma / judgment, (based on that first photo at least) is: assuming the 2nd photo close-up had showed that the rear port 'leg' of the base was in, was the shield dial outside the play area? (because that counts too, and based on its extension from the main base chassis, is easier to accidentally throw outside the play area.)

Shield Dials don't count for "Off the Board". That is defined in the Rules.

pfft. I knew that. I just wanted to see if you were awake, Dras.

Note to self: always double check your rulebook before you say something stupid. For those interested, it's found on page 5 of the Rules Reference under "Destroyed Ships and Squadrons".

And so mental note-caveat for "overlapping"; shield dials count in all cases for overlapping except when going off the board. Actually, a better way of understanding overlapping stuff is that it only applies when overlapping "something", not "nothing" (ie, space)

pfft. I knew that. I just wanted to see if you were awake, Dras.

30 minutes earlier and I wouldn't have been

pfft. I knew that. I just wanted to see if you were awake, Dras.

30 minutes earlier and I wouldn't have been

Did you log onto this forum within 30 min of waking up...... I'm still starring at my cup of tea at that point of the day......

Technically, I never log out at night. My system has to sit processing, so the page just sat there...

... Part and Parcel of being Full-Time Stay-At-Home with a 2 Year old, means when they're up and running, you are too...

I won't get my first cup of coffee for another Hour yet.

Any game that is just being played for fun/practice and has no impact on other people I might just allow it to stay on.. As long as it's not against my brother as even when we practice we both get a bit competive and deep down both want that win . In a tournament if a ship flys off the board even by a few mm that ship need to be removed as it's the rules with the game and has an impact on everyone's standings with the tournament. When playing a store championship I was against a rebel player who in the first round of the game due to his deployment made a small error when he finially decided on his first movement causing his AF2 with Ackbar to have a tiny amount of its back end swing around and come off the board, he looked at me and knew he made an error that handed me the game. I had a choice I could go with the printed rule and have the ship removed or allow him to take the move back... I felt bad for doing it but I asked him to remove the AF2 from the board.. In my mind I thought it was a sh*tty thing to do and I had become ^that guy^ but if you ignore one rule where do you stop.. The player who made the error was very good about the whole thing and told me I had no reason to feel bad that it was his error and that if he was to be upset with anyone it would be himself.

Unless the mat has known flaws (the mat we play on is on an angle on one side) off the table is the easy and least controversial call to make.