Hi all,

I'm just trying to get my head around the actions and free actions etc.

I have been playing the following way e.g. Chiraneau with Fleet Officer and Saboteur. Following a green or white maneauver I do a focus or target lock, I would normally then do the Saboteurs action followed by the Fleet Officer action.

Then I got the experimental interface card which says I can do an additional free actions and gain a stress. So does this mean I've been doing this wrong?

Would I do a focus/target lock followed by Saboteur, then use experimental interface to do Fleet Officer?

k you got the actions thing a bit wrong there.

"Action" is anything on your pilot card (the little icons below the pilot ability) OR upgrade/critical cards. When you perform a maneuver and enter the "Action Step" you then pick 1 action of all the actions you have and resolve it.

In your case, you would either Focus, Target Lock, Saboteur, or Fleet Officer. Only one of those four may be resolved as your "normal" action, not one from your bar and a card.

Experimental Interface allows you to do another action at the cost of a stress and is restricted to cards with the Action header (e.g. Fleet Officer or Saboteur). This is how you would get your focus AND use one of those two cards, but not both. Considering Fleet Officer gives you a stress as well, probably a very bad idea to use Experimental Interface on that one (stress effects stack, so you'd have 2 stress).

You normally only get one action during your Perform Action step, no matter how many sources of actions you have. That's all "Free Action" means; it's an action that doesn't count as your one action for the round.

If you want to Saboteur, Focus, and Fleet Officer all in the same turn, you'll need both Experimental Interface and Push the Limit, and it'll go something like this:

Saboteur

trigger Push the Limit

Focus as a free action

trigger Experimental Interface

Fleet Officer as a free action (receive stress from Fleet Officer)

receive stress from Experimental Interface

receive stress from Push the Limit

At this point you've got three stress tokens, and since a green maneuver only clears one stress at a time, you'll need to do three rounds of greens before you can take an action again (no actions of any kind, even free actions, when you're stressed).

This is why "Action Economy" is such a big deal. And why Saboteur is such a bad card.

Can you give me an example of a free actions please. I take it to mean actions that are not on the action bar of the pilot card, or action header upgrade cards or damage cards e.g. Intimidation.

I think this is getting straightened out.

Under normal circumstances you may only perform one "Action" anything during the Perform Action step unless you have Stress which shuts down anything that requires and Action to perform.

Free Actions are still actions although they may happen with different timing and/or requirements. A number of upgrades require an Action to activate the upgrade but part of that upgrade allows some other Action to be performed; this "free action" is tied to the Action that is required for the card it is on.

Free Actions

A free action is an action granted to a ship through a card ability or other effect. It does not count as the one standard action that a ship performs during the "Perform Action" step.

From xwing wiki

Can you give me an example of a free actions please. I take it to mean actions that are not on the action bar of the pilot card, or action header upgrade cards or damage cards e.g. Intimidation.

Expert Handling:

You use an Action to activate Expert Handling. Once activated you are then instructed to perform a Barrel Roll as a Free Action which then allows you to remove a Target Lock someone has one you.

Free Actions

A free action is an action granted to a ship through a card ability or other effect. It does not count as the one standard action that a ship performs during the "Perform Action" step.

From xwing wiki

They don't count as one of the standard actions that a ship takes during the Perform Action step. That does NOT mean you can do them any time you like as they all have some other condition required for their use and often times that condition means spending an Action to activate the upgrade that the free action is on.

Can you give me an example of a free actions please. I take it to mean actions that are not on the action bar of the pilot card, or action header upgrade cards or damage cards e.g. Intimidation.

A free action is just an action that doesn't count towards your limit of normal actions for the turn.

Take Expert Handling as an example. Expert Handling is an Elite card with an Action header. That action involves taking a free Barrel Roll action.

So Jimmy McExpertHandling's turn looks like this:

Execute Maneuver

Perform Action

* "I will perform the Action on Expert Handling!" This is your one action for the round.

* Expert Handling directs you to take a Barrel Roll action, which you wouldn't normally be able to do (because you only get one Action each round and you just said you were using it on Expert Handling), but it's okay because it says it's a "free" Barrel Roll action.

That's it. That's all free actions are for. Any time you're taking more than one action in a turn, unless your name is Darth Vader, all but one of them had better be free.

To be clear: the Action header on an upgrade card does not mean that the action it describes is a free action. It's still a regular action, and unless you have some way to trigger an additional (free) action*, taking an Action header action off an upgrade card is your one and only action for the round.

*: Experimental Interface and Push the Limit are the two most common ways to get an additional free action in a round.

Think I'm understanding it.

Think I'm understanding it.

This is good.

And while it may seem like we are coming down hard on you it is a relatively common error people make when they believe they can use "free Actions" anytime they like.

With cards such as 'Expert Handling' don't think of your action for that round as doing what the card says. Your action is activating the card so you can then do what it says. That's why it says "do a free barrel roll action". Without the 'free' in the text, you couldn't do the barrel roll action as you'd already spent your action for that round activating the EH card.

Expert Handling is a pretty interesting example especially when compared to the upcoming Vectored Thrusters.

Both are 2 points although one is an EPT while the other is a Modification.

Expert Handling requires an Action to utilize and by utilizing it you perform a Free Barrel Roll (possibly gain Stress) and remove a TL token.

Vectored Thrust just adds the BR to the ship's Action Bar. This is NOT at "Action" upgrade although it grants the ship BR which can be used just like any other action.

These two upgrades may be similiar in effect as each could allow you to BR during your Perform Action step but HOW they work is very different.

Like freedom, free actions aren't really free, there is a price (usually stress in the cases of EI and PTL). If you are good at keeping other ships close to the Decimator without bumping too much, swap out the saboteur for a system officer, since that is not an action, it just happens when you green maneuver.

Hi all,

I'm just trying to get my head around the actions and free actions etc.

I have been playing the following way e.g. Chiraneau with Fleet Officer and Saboteur. Following a green or white maneauver I do a focus or target lock, I would normally then do the Saboteurs action followed by the Fleet Officer action.

Then I got the experimental interface card which says I can do an additional free actions and gain a stress. So does this mean I've been doing this wrong?

Would I do a focus/target lock followed by Saboteur, then use experimental interface to do Fleet Officer?

In the rulebook under Actions (page 3), it says:

"The active ship can perform one standard action during the “Perform Action” step of the Activation phase."

The key there is "one standard action". It also says:

"The actions available to each ship are listed in that ship’s action bar.

As Vineheart listed in the second post, you have four actions to choose from; two that are in Chiraneua's action bar and two that are Action: header cards. Note that none of them are listed as a "free action". So you execute a manoeuvre and as long as you don't have a stress token assigned, you may choose one of those actions to perform. And that's it. You don't have any more for the round.

Now free actions are a different thing entirely. As has been amply described further up, the free barrel roll action when you perform an Expert Handling action is a prime example. Just because a card might contain a free action of some description, doesn't mean you may do it any time you like. So the rulebook has Free Actions (p12) and says:

"A free action is an action granted to a ship through a card ability or other effect. It does not count as the one standard action that a ship performs during the “Perform Action” step."

This seems to be where most new players get confused. Examples of a free action granted by a card are, Push the Limit or Experimental Interface. They both say: "after you perform an action, you may perform 1 free action..." which means this free action doesn't count as your Perform Action step action. Another example is Advanced Sensors which allows a free action before you reveal your dial, which is basically allowing it out of the regular sequence. Most of the cards that allow a free action come with some form of cost. Push the Limit and Experimental Interface will give you a stress token once you've completed your free action, and Advanced Sensors makes you skip your Perform Action step.

Free actions are not actions that can be taken at any time. That's not what the free part is trying to indicate. The free part of the text is to allow you to perform a certain action or chain of actions without breaking the "one standard action in the Perform Action step" rule.

When I first started playing, I was confused by these "free actions" as well, so I wrote to FFG and asked them about it. I assumed because Expert Handling mentioned a "free action", you could use it anytime:

Rule Question:

Expert Handling: Does use of the Expert Handling card give you an additional action (the free barrel roll) on top of your Perform Action step action, or is it considered your sole action for your Perform Action step?

And they replied:

Using a card with the "Action:” header requires an action, such as the action you have during the Perform Action step. For example, if you had Luke Skywalker equipped with Expert Handling, during his Perform Action step he can either use the Expert Handling action (which results with him performing a barrel roll), perform a focus action, or perform an acquire a target lock action.

The errata to include the word “free” was because rules as written, Expert Handling would require you to somehow have 2 actions; 1 to perform the Expert Handling action and 1 to perform a barrel roll. By including the words “free action” allowed a ship to use the card as intended.

I hope that helps explain things a little for you.

All clear now.Thanks for all the help. May the force be with you!