A friend of mine just realized something:

R3-A2 reads: "When you declare the target of your attack, if the defender is inside your firing arc, you may receive 1 stress token to cause the defender to receive 1 stress token".

According to the Attack Timing Chart, the attacked ship doesn't become the defender until step 1.v. That was the whole point after R4 Agromech's nerf.

Since the target is declared at 1.iii, that is the step where R3-A2 triggers (as happen with Rebel Captive). At that point there is no "defender" that can receive any stress token.

I think he's right, and that it's pretty clear that, RAW, R3-A2 is useless right now.

Good catch.

It's not useless. You can still eject it to use Integrated Astromech.

That's pretty crazy actually. Rip rebel stress until faq

Darn.

Follow-up question: How should R3-A2, and other cards that trigger after declaring a target but require a defender, be worded?

The super simple but-is-kind-of-a-weird-phrasing might be: "When the target of your attack becomes the defender, ..."

Or maybe the less obvious: "After the “Declare Target” step, ..."

But that seems too similar to "When you declare the target of your attack, ..."

Otherwise, now that Deadeye is small ship only, would un-nerfing R4 Agromech be simpler? IE: have "After declaring your target" abilities trigger after the complete sequence of 1.i to 1.v ?

Edit: TIL, FFG forums censor the word d-a-m-n. ****.

As much as I want to have a free win over rebel stress control lists during the upcoming regional season I just submitted a rules 'question' raising this to their attention since I'm pretty sure this has flown under everyone's radar until now. We'll see what happens.

As much as I want to have a free win over rebel stress control lists during the upcoming regional season I just submitted a rules 'question' raising this to their attention since I'm pretty sure this has flown under everyone's radar until now. We'll see what happens.

How do you submit a rules question.

As much as I want to have a free win over rebel stress control lists during the upcoming regional season I just submitted a rules 'question' raising this to their attention since I'm pretty sure this has flown under everyone's radar until now. We'll see what happens.

How do you submit a rules question.

As far as I know you use https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/contact/rules , that's what I did for my submission.

So does FFG need to Lance Armstrong Paul Heaver's most recent World's title since he clearly won several matches due to an incorrect game state?

****.

Follow-up question: How should R3-A2, and other cards that trigger after declaring a target but require a defender, be worded?

The super simple but-is-kind-of-a-weird-phrasing might be: "When the target of your attack becomes the defender, ..."

Or maybe the less obvious: "After the “Declare Target” step, ..."

But that seems too similar to "When you declare the target of your attack, ..."

Otherwise, now that Deadeye is small ship only, would un-nerfing R4 Agromech be simpler? IE: have "After declaring your target" abilities trigger after the complete sequence of 1.i to 1.v ?

'After the Declare Target step, if the defender is inside your firing arc, you may receive 1 stress token to cause the defender to receive 1 stress token.'

Something like that would make R3-A2 work like everyone has been playing it. It would require the Declare Target step so it would only trigger once for TLT and Cluster Missiles, there would be a defender, and it would assign stress before any dice are rolled.

So does FFG need to Lance Armstrong Paul Heaver's most recent World's title since he clearly won several matches due to an incorrect game state?

uh oh...

His wins were prior to the timing chart faq if I'm not mistaken so they weren't known to be illegal yet.

So does FFG need to Lance Armstrong Paul Heaver's most recent World's title since he clearly won several matches due to an incorrect game state?

no, FFG needs to get its **** together

unless they were trying to make r3 astro look great by comparison, though they only succeeded in making r3-a2 equal to it

All they need to do is to change the wording in the flow chart:

iii. Declare target of attack -> Select/choose target of attack.

Than, the 'when you declare target' wording on the card will mean the entire "1. Declare Target" step, including '1.v target becomes defender' substep.

Seriously if some mofo tried this on me at a game I'd be all like shut your face and eat the stress.

Rules Lawyers need to be ejected from the hatch into space.

https://www.wcl.american.edu/journal/lawrev/44/dougherty.pdf

Seriously if some mofo tried this on me at a game I'd be all like shut your face and eat the stress.

Rules Lawyers need to be ejected from the hatch into space.

https://www.wcl.american.edu/journal/lawrev/44/dougherty.pdf

I mean call it what you want it's actually just applying the rules per the FAQ. I realize that sometimes people can push how the rules work in their favor but this case is plainly rules as written. That's on the rules, not the enforcers, there's no fiddly stuff here.

Generally speaking we here in the rules forum aim to have things resolve into RAW = RAI rather that having to interpret what unintended or intended interactions are.

I think R3-A2's exisiting text is fine. "When you declare the target of your attack..." should apply to the entire "Declare Target" step of the timing chart; in the same way "when attacking" and "when defending" abilities apply to the entire process.

I think R3-A2's exisiting text is fine. "When you declare the target of your attack..." should apply to the entire "Declare Target" step of the timing chart; in the same way "when attacking" and "when defending" abilities apply to the entire process.

The problem with that is that in the "Declare Target" step there is a substep (is that even a real word?) that has you declare your target. That is a much more specific timing than the entire step.

I think R3-A2's exisiting text is fine. "When you declare the target of your attack..." should apply to the entire "Declare Target" step of the timing chart; in the same way "when attacking" and "when defending" abilities apply to the entire process.

The problem with that is that in the "Declare Target" step there is a substep (is that even a real word?) that has you declare your target. That is a much more specific timing than the entire step.

So just ignore the words "Declare Target" as the name of the entire step because a substep says "Declare Target"?

Well I don't think it's unreasonable to make the assumption that the card has some effect as it costs points. Yes maybe it has been caught by another change. But lets be honest do we really think it now does nothing.

I think R3-A2's exisiting text is fine. "When you declare the target of your attack..." should apply to the entire "Declare Target" step of the timing chart; in the same way "when attacking" and "when defending" abilities apply to the entire process.

The problem with that is that in the "Declare Target" step there is a substep (is that even a real word?) that has you declare your target. That is a much more specific timing than the entire step.

So just ignore the words "Declare Target" as the name of the entire step because a substep says "Declare Target"?

Noone said that ignore those words, but the "declare target" as a timing window is ambiguous with the current wording of the flowchart.

But lets be honest do we really think it now does nothing.

Do I think that per the rules R3-A2 does nothing more than fill an astromech slot? Yes.

Do I think that any tournament of note will follow the rules as written in regards to this card? No.

I think R3-A2's exisiting text is fine. "When you declare the target of your attack..." should apply to the entire "Declare Target" step of the timing chart; in the same way "when attacking" and "when defending" abilities apply to the entire process.

That was what i thought when the timing chart was first released.

But in this new FAQs, the Rebel Captive entry makes me think different. Same wording, step of resolution specified.

Of course, my inner fair play gamer says to ignore this and act as this droid works as always, and i will do that myself. but if i am in a tournament and someone cones to me with the rulebook on the hand and tells me this is the way it goes, i honestly cant say him hes wrong, just with RAI and fair play arguments, because he would be right.

I think R3-A2's exisiting text is fine. "When you declare the target of your attack..." should apply to the entire "Declare Target" step of the timing chart; in the same way "when attacking" and "when defending" abilities apply to the entire process.

That was what i thought when the timing chart was first released.

But in this new FAQs, the Rebel Captive entry makes me think different. Same wording, step of resolution specified.

Of course, my inner fair play gamer says to ignore this and act as this droid works as always, and i will do that myself. but if i am in a tournament and someone cones to me with the rulebook on the hand and tells me this is the way it goes, i honestly cant say him hes wrong, just with RAI and fair play arguments, because he would be right.

He may be right according to the FAQ, but that doesn't make the FAQ right. It has been wrong in the past and most recently within the last few days (see Wingman/Kyle)

If an opponent insisted that my R3-A2 no longer functions under the rules then I'd call the TO and ask him to exercise his authority using this passage from the Tournament Rules:

The head judge is the final authority for all card interpretations during a tournament and may overrule the FAQ when a mistake or error is discovered. (Rules and Interpretations, page 2)

... because as far as I can see, it's clearly a mistake within the timing chart.

I think R3-A2's exisiting text is fine. "When you declare the target of your attack..." should apply to the entire "Declare Target" step of the timing chart; in the same way "when attacking" and "when defending" abilities apply to the entire process.

That was what i thought when the timing chart was first released.

But in this new FAQs, the Rebel Captive entry makes me think different. Same wording, step of resolution specified.

Of course, my inner fair play gamer says to ignore this and act as this droid works as always, and i will do that myself. but if i am in a tournament and someone cones to me with the rulebook on the hand and tells me this is the way it goes, i honestly cant say him hes wrong, just with RAI and fair play arguments, because he would be right.

He may be right according to the FAQ, but that doesn't make the FAQ right. It has been wrong in the past and most recently within the last few days (see Wingman/Kyle)

If an opponent insisted that my R3-A2 no longer functions under the rules then I'd call the TO and ask him to exercise his authority using this passage from the Tournament Rules:

The head judge is the final authority for all card interpretations during a tournament and may overrule the FAQ when a mistake or error is discovered. (Rules and Interpretations, page 2)

... because as far as I can see, it's clearly a mistake within the timing chart.

If an opponent insisted that my R3-A2 no longer functions under the rules I'd do the same, with added laughter at what kind of sad, pathetic individual would try to rules lawyer that hard.

Petty rules lawyers are my pet(ty) hate in any game.

Thankfully I don't think I've ever met anyone who'd try to insist on such a thing.