Page 9: Rules Reference 2.0

When a ship is dealt a faceup Damage card, assign a critical hit token to that ship as a reminder of the card’s ongoing effect. That token is discarded if the card is discarded or flipped facedown. • Each faceup Damage card has either the Ship or Pilot trait. These traits have no inherent effect, but they may be referenced by other effects.

My local group has never played with these tokens. When we run Tournaments I want to run them by the letter of the rules. When I watch tournament matches on YouTube, some of which are officiated by the game designers themselves, I never see these tokens being used.

My question is:

Should I push for my group to play using the tokens, should we continue to fly casual in regards to them or should I enforce the rule during tournament play.

The critical hit tokens are likely the most unused component of the game. I would doubt anyone would accuse you of poor management if you didn't use these. I think it can be up to player preference as to whether or not they use them. Personally I don't bother with them as it just creates one more element of clutter on the board.

Personally I don't bother with them as it just creates one more element of clutter on the board.

The only time I'd use the cardboard ones was if I were flying a swarm, and a Tie had a crit without blowing up.

But there are some nice 3rd party critical tokens that can be useful because they have symbols or something on them to describe what the hit is, like PS0 or something.

Should we? Yeah, probably. Do we, in overall practice, no.

That said, if it was any match - tournament or casual - and my opponent requested that I place a Critical Hit token beside any of my ships with an active Crit, I would certainly do so.

Should we? Yeah, probably. Do we, in overall practice, no.

That said, if it was any match - tournament or casual - and my opponent requested that I place a Critical Hit token beside any of my ships with an active Crit, I would certainly do so.

I would but they'd need to lend me one first.

i have never seen a single person EVER use those tokens, even in major tournaments.

What the heck do they remind you of? I know i have crits, i have to look down to remember WHICH crit is the thing. The token doesnt help that. Just clutters the map.

I dont use them for the same reason i hate people that put their dials next to their ship instead of on the card: clutter is annoying

I find them invaluable at remembering a ship has some restriction on it, such as PS 0 or automatic damage on a bump. I always use them myself (save for things like Direct Hit, which don't affect how a ship plays) and recommend that my opponent use them.

people that put their dials next to their ship instead of on the card:

Ummm the rules actually say you need to put them next to the ship, putting them on the cards isn't actually allowed.

From page 15 of the Rules Reference:

Then he assigns the maneuver by placing the dial facedown in the play area next to the matching ship.

The rules also state you use critical tokens when a ship has been dealt a face up card.

From page 9

When a ship is dealt a faceup Damage card, assigned a critical hit token to that ship as a reminder of the card’s ongoing effect.

While many, perhaps most of us don't use them... They are actually required by the rules.

I use them because I'm incredibly forgetful and I like the reminder.

Most people I know don't use them, but I'm much better at remembering when my OPPONENT has a crit on him for some unknown, bizarre reason.

Personally I don't think it matters

I also put my dial on the card, not next to the ship - it's tidier, and I find with swarms that dials can get mixed up sometimes.

people that put their dials next to their ship instead of on the card:

Ummm the rules actually say you need to put them next to the ship, putting them on the cards isn't actually allowed.

From page 15 of the Rules Reference:

Then he assigns the maneuver by placing the dial facedown in the play area next to the matching ship.

The rules also state you use critical tokens when a ship has been dealt a face up card.

From page 9

When a ship is dealt a faceup Damage card, assigned a critical hit token to that ship as a reminder of the card’s ongoing effect.

While many, perhaps most of us don't use them... They are actually required by the rules.

This is one of those "Spirit of the game over letter of the law" things for me. I'd happily go letter of the law for an opponent who wants me to, but I'd also privately question how hollow their lives must be to care.

Related question for folks:

Direct hits - do you just flip it over and draw another damage card(thus making it an ever so slightly simpler case of totalling up the damage)? Or do you keep it face-up and just count it twice when totalling up your damage. Personally I do the latter but I've a couple of mates who do the former - the relationship seems to be how many wounds a ship runs with - I generally use nothing bigger than a shuttle (5 hull), but when it comes to Ghosts and Decimators you can get a pretty decent stack of cards on them.

Virtually no one uses the tokens. I only use them when I fly TIE swarm - it can get a little confusing remembering which TIE has the crit.

Related question for folks:

Direct hits - do you just flip it over and draw another damage card(thus making it an ever so slightly simpler case of totalling up the damage)? Or do you keep it face-up and just count it twice when totalling up your damage. Personally I do the latter but I've a couple of mates who do the former - the relationship seems to be how many wounds a ship runs with - I generally use nothing bigger than a shuttle (5 hull), but when it comes to Ghosts and Decimators you can get a pretty decent stack of cards on them.

There are game effects that manipulate the damage cards assigned to a ship - Saboteur, Colzet, etc. Its always better to follow the actual rule there and keep the Direct Hits face up, or you'll end up having to change what you do depending on who you're playing.

I find them invaluable at remembering a ship has some restriction on it, such as PS 0 or automatic damage on a bump. I always use them myself (save for things like Direct Hit, which don't affect how a ship plays) and recommend that my opponent use them.

This is the reason I use them as well. Otherwise I'd forget that ship has a crit. But at tournaments, I'm usually the only one who does this.

i have never seen a single person EVER use those tokens, even in major tournaments.

What the heck do they remind you of? I know i have crits, i have to look down to remember WHICH crit is the thing. The token doesnt help that. Just clutters the map.

I dont use them for the same reason i hate people that put their dials next to their ship instead of on the card: clutter is annoying

It's a reminder for both people that if you see that token on the battlefield that there is a ship that has a crit on it. You see it and then get reminded that you should look to see what it is.

Virtually no one uses the tokens.

Except for Myself, and everyone else above who have said they use them.....

who is actually responsible for keeping track of the negative effects of a crit? Let's say a ship suffers from a movement crit but the players forget about it. Later, during combat phase, the opponent remembers about it. Let's say it's something drastic, like certain maneuver are red and the ship was stressed and thus wasn't allowed to conduct red maneuvers (so the opponent would have set the maneuver here). What happens? It can't be "missed opportunity". Who's "fault" is it that the damaged ship did something wrong? Talking about tournament here, not casual (in casual we would see if we could rewind, at least for that one ship, giving the opponent the opportunity to set the maneuver for it - the owing player can't, he has seen all other maneuvers and I feel that it's primarily his responsibility to keep an eye on his ship status)

The tokens help to avoid those situations, I use them every time (but then I'm one of those 3rd party people that produces fancy crit tokens ;-), plus I fly swarms)

who is actually responsible for keeping track of the negative effects of a crit?

There is no official statement regarding how to handle missing a mandatory rule or game effect.

The specific case you mention -- letting your opponent set an illegal maneuver due to forgetting a critical on one of his ships -- isn't really a case of breaking the rules, though, since there's a process built into the game for handling that sort of mistake.

who is actually responsible for keeping track of the negative effects of a crit?

The specific case you mention -- letting your opponent set an illegal maneuver due to forgetting a critical on one of his ships -- isn't really a case of breaking the rules, though, since there's a process built into the game for handling that sort of mistake.

Unless you've already passed activation and are 2 ships into combat before you remember they couldn't do a Hard turn while stressed (or thought it was white and performed actions) thanks to the Damaged Engine crit. do you call that a "Missed Opportunity" on the non crit'ed players side?

People that don't use the critical token to indicate that a ship is suffering an on-going crit damage effect are gaming the system. They may not be doing it intentionally, but in effect is hoping that you will forget that their ship has a on-going crit condition. Just because you don't see it used by people, does not mean that one should ignore the rule. There is always people looking to gain an advantage any way they can.

Unless you've already passed activation and are 2 ships into combat before you remember they couldn't do a Hard turn while stressed (or thought it was white and performed actions) thanks to the Damaged Engine crit. do you call that a "Missed Opportunity" on the non crit'ed players side?

My personal impression is that the Missed Opportunities rule is intended to apply only to optional effects.

It really is intended to be for optional effects. If you move your ship, forget to take an action move another ship or I move mine, it's too late to take that action, you missed your opportunity.

The problem with mandatory effects is it may not always be fair or even possible to rewind the game state to apply them.

Let's say I look down at my ship and realize that it had a -1 attack die crit on it. Yet two rounds ago I forgot to subtract a die when I attacked and killed one of your ships. It is at this point far too late to go back and fix that mistake.

You can't put it back exactly where it was, you can't account for what maneuvers other ships may of made, what attacks they would of made, ect...

Even something as simple as Rebel Captive has the same issue. If I've set my dial for a red maneuver and several ships have moved, it's too late to assign a stress to that ship, letting the other guy pick a maneuver. If that stress token was there then I may not of picked that red maneuver. But it's too late to let me pick a new one because now I can pick one based on where other ships have already moved to.

This isn't really a matter of missed opportunity because that's optional, I can either let you take that action you forgot about or I can refuse to let you... It's up to me.

But in the cases like I mentioned above, it's not really optional it's just that the game state has progressed to a point that the mistake can no longer be fixed.

FWIW... If I were a TO and I had someone who kept forgetting to apply negative effects because they "forgot" I'd at some point issue a warning and perhaps an even larger penalty. Because even though the effect doesn't belong to that person, like say Rebel Captive, it's both players responsibility to remember those kinds of effects.

too many times I find I've moved and left a target lock three moves back etc. it's a great idea to keep track of a critical by moving a token along with the ship, but in practice it ends up being the kind of clutter that slows the game down, and doesn't really add much for all that effort.

It would be nice if there were some way to mark a critical hit on the ship's base or something like that. I'm picturing something like a status flag pole, where the instead of a cardboard chit sitting on the mat, it would be a colored ring you drop on a post to indicate the crit. A single post - not unlike the pegs we put the minis on - could hold three or four colored rings (ion token rings, crit token rings, etc.)

If w had something functional like that, which didn't involve having to monitor a trail of chits on the map as you moved around - I'd probably use the critical indicator more.

While most of us do not use them(myself included) we probably should. It would probably prevent many errors either accidental or on purpose from happening. With that said, I am going to use the critical hit tokens from now on. Probably best for the game.

Of course this thread has a fork from the beginning. I didn't really use them until I got these acrylic Premium Critical Damage Pack tokens from Applied Perspective. As they are functional and useful, I now use critical hit tokens all the time.

Of course this thread has a fork from the beginning. I didn't really use them until I got these acrylic Premium Critical Damage Pack tokens from Applied Perspective. As they are functional and useful, I now use critical hit tokens all the time.

Shame it doesn't include one with a triple arrow (e.g. left, straight, right) to show that you have a maneuverability limitation....

It would be nice if there were some way to mark a critical hit on the ship's base or something like that. I'm picturing something like a status flag pole, where the instead of a cardboard chit sitting on the mat, it would be a colored ring you drop on a post to indicate the crit. A single post - not unlike the pegs we put the minis on - could hold three or four colored rings (ion token rings, crit token rings, etc.)

If w had something functional like that, which didn't involve having to monitor a trail of chits on the map as you moved around - I'd probably use the critical indicator more.

You mean something like this?

They clip to the mounting post on Wings of War aircraft. They'd probably work for X-wing as well.