So, this came up in my final game last night against @Vergilius .

First of all, background: the tourney FAQ ruling ( since there's no official one yet ) was that DTT must be fully resolved before resolving any other effects, such as Vader rerolls, VG, etc.

So, I was attacking with an MC30 with a CF token, CF dial showing, OE, and APT.

I took a side arc shot, threw my three blacks, and got no crits.
So I spent the CF dial and token, used the dial to add a black.
No crit.
Used OE to reroll all four blacks.
No crits (fffffuuuuu...).

Used the CF token to reroll one black (which, as it turned out, was a crit).

The TO ( @Brikhause ) ruled against me. His reasoning was that, if we take the position that an effect must be fully resolved before moving on to another, CF dial + token would have to be fully resolved before moving on to OE because CF is one effect. I completely agree with him, I just hadn't thought it through (and, let's be honest, thought maybe I could get away with cheating against #classicBen ).

So, it got me to thinking... assuming DTT is FAQ'd in this way, what other similar scenarios might come up that we might not have thought of?

Interesting...

But I am not sure if I would agree even when I do with DTT.

First the rules:

Concentrate Fire: Resolve during the “Resolve Attack
Effects” step of an attack.
◊ Dial: Add one attack die to the attack pool. That die
must be of a color that is already in the attack pool.
◊ Token: Reroll one attack die in the attack pool

And:

A ship can spend both a command dial and a command
token to combine their effects. Doing so counts as a
single resolution of the command. For example, a ship
can increase its speed twice by spending a M command
dial and a M command token.

What I see:

Dial and token works as a single resolution of the command and we know you must declare if use one or both before resolving any of them.

But

Are they different effect or not?

Option 1. They are not.

If they are not it is clear you can't move on to the next effect until resolving the entire CF command (dial and token). But what you resolve before? The dial or the token?

This rule:

If two or more of a player’s effects have the same timing,
that player can resolve those effects in any order.

Only apply to different effets. So we can't know. With DTT we have two actions in the same effect but the wording provides us an order. But we don't have this with the CF command.

Option 2. They are.

If they are we can apply the timing rules and resolve them in any order as long as they are different effects.

What I see is that a single resolution of a command is not the same that they are the same effect. The fact that the effects provided by dials and tokens are different makes me think they are different effects are and the rule quoted is intended to point that you can stack both without breaking next one:

A ship cannot resolve the same command more than
once per round.

So IMHO:

If we take both (dial and token) as the same effect here. We must INTEND that the "same-timing-effects rule" would work here but it does not as it is worded right now.

If we take both as different effects. We must INTEND that "single-command-resolution rule" is written just to let us stack command effects but these effects still being different effects so "same-timing-effects rule" would work here.

What is the right one? No idea.

I'm inclined to agree with Baa Baa here... CF dial and CF token are two different effects, each with a separate (albeit identical) timing. If they were a single effect with a common timing, then the resolution order among those two would be undefined.

Okay, I could see that logic, too.

On the other hand:

A ship can spend both a command dial and a command token to

combine their effects.

That sounds a lot like they become one effect. Which, you're right DA, does seem to leave the resolution order undefined. I mean, presumably the resolution order in that case would've been intended to be treated as effects having the same timing , IAW Effect Use and Timing, but if they're two pieces of the same effect, that's not strictly applicable.

13 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Okay, I could see that logic, too.

On the other hand:

That sounds a lot like they become one effect. Which, you're right DA, does seem to leave the resolution order undefined. I mean, presumably the resolution order in that case would've been intended to be treated as effects having the same timing , IAW Effect Use and Timing, but if they're two pieces of the same effect, that's not strictly applicable.

Maybe "combine" as "stack"?

The entire quote is:

A ship can spend both a command dial and a command
token to combine their effects. Doing so counts as a
single resolution of the command. For example, a ship
can increase its speed twice by spending a M command
dial and a M command token.

Doing so (spending both to combine their effects) count as a single resolution of the command. It doesn't say as a single effect.

I don't know. The problem here is the lack of this combination meaning. Or a way to resolve many actions of an effect when the order is undefined.

Yeah, it's a bit Orange vs Purple again. One interpretation follows more intuitively from natural language, the other is tidier rules-wise.

Myself, I tend to gravitate towards interpretations that require the minimum use of "common sense" or guesswork as to RAI.

FWIW, in the example quoted by Baa Baa, it does say "increase its speed twice " rather than "increase its speed by two ". It's a subtle difference, and I may be reading too much into it, but it is consistent with the separate effects interpretation.

Good point. I like it. Makes my MC30's better.

The time I spent on my profile name for nothing XD

So the question is whether you can re-roll the black die that you just added to the pool using CF + token? I agree that in this case, you can't use the CF token after you've used OE. The Concentrate Fire command should be resolved all together before you go to another effect that modifies dice.

How you could have done it, then, is to first roll bad (no crits ;)). Then use CF+token to add a black which you roll and at the same time, pick up one of your other black dice and re-roll it. Then you use OE if you still want to hunt for crits.

Does that keep everything straight?

11 minutes ago, RobertK said:

So the question is whether you can re-roll the black die that you just added to the pool using CF + token? I agree that in this case, you can't use the CF token after you've used OE. The Concentrate Fire command should be resolved all together before you go to another effect that modifies dice.

How you could have done it, then, is to first roll bad (no crits ;)). Then use CF+token to add a black which you roll and at the same time, pick up one of your other black dice and re-roll it. Then you use OE if you still want to hunt for crits.

Does that keep everything straight?

That does work.

From the player's perspective, it still matters because it's more optimal to save your more selective reroll for after the broad one. With the OE reroll, I'm rerolling hits fishing for the APT crit; I want to save the token to fix any blanks that pop up into hits.

It's not a significant difference, but I need every scrap of luck I can get with those **** blacks...

23 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

That does work.

From the player's perspective, it still matters because it's more optimal to save your more selective reroll for after the broad one. With the OE reroll, I'm rerolling hits fishing for the APT crit; I want to save the token to fix any blanks that pop up into hits.

It's not a significant difference, but I need every scrap of luck I can get with those **** blacks...

Yeah honestly here I was thinking we were solid on our DTT ruling. Then wouldn't you know it come round 2 Vergilius is called on an untimely use of the CF token. So I am called up and Vergilius's opponent makes a brilliant argument since we ruled on DTT this way. So not able to provide anything to counter it in a timely matter otherwise, I went with that ruling. So if this ruling stands on DTT's it does open up a whole change on how we view modifications and timing of attack effects.

I definitely think it is worth raising the question. I was a little shocked honestly (it was round-1). I will add for anyone curious about the games themselves that both moments ended up being fairly innocuous. In game 1, I was going to get Yavaris from a follow-up shot whether it did damage or not, and in game 3, Ardaedhel was going to get Mon Karren even on some pretty bad rolls (and he did have some very bad rolls AND get MK).

For my part, I did a pretty thorough search of all existing forum material, FAQs, and emails. The only thing any previous ruling give us is that you have to announce you're spending them at the same time and can only spend them on the single attack. I can't even begin to count the many times I've seen a CF dial for the die, followed by a LS or OE, followed by the CF reroll at the end, but yes, if we're going to fully resolve DTT all in one go without any of this, then we probably should be fully resolving the CF dial/token before doing LS or OE. I could personally live either way with it, but I was a little surprised that I couldn't find the question raised or a specific example worded out in the answer to someone's post by one of our eminent posters in the rules forum.

I think this was the correct ruling. The way you did it was resolving two CF commands, (Because they were separated) instead of resolving one effect.

44 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

I think this was the correct ruling. The way you did it was resolving two CF commands, (Because they were separated) instead of resolving one effect.

Well, what do you know, you learn something new every day. How wonderful!

This is weird because CF token is the only command you get something remarkably different than the dial. When you use squad token/dial, you just get an extra activation, which happen at the same time ( I guess you can declare the token activation but it doesn't matter). Nav is also simple. I don't think there is any need to explain that. Repair gives you half your points, which combines with the dial and you get even more. And since the points last until the end of the round, spending both does not cause an issue with seperate effects generating points and having them not stack.

In regards to the timing issue with when to use a CF dial and token, we have the FAQ:

Q: If a ship spends a dial and a token together, can it reroll the die that it adds? Is it required to reroll a die?

A: It can reroll the die that it adds, and it can choose not to reroll any dice.

This example may refer to using the dial first, and then the token after, but maybe not.

I think to remain consistent with the timing of dials and tokens, they should cause a timing overlap, so the player gets to decide how they resolve. Currently, this only matters for CF, but maybe future upgrades will change this. And if we hold this to be true, it means DTT must resolve its action before doing anything else.

Good catch Brikhause.

1 hour ago, Vergilius said:

I definitely think it is worth raising the question. I was a little shocked honestly (it was round-1). I will add for anyone curious about the games themselves that both moments ended up being fairly innocuous. In game 1, I was going to get Yavaris from a follow-up shot whether it did damage or not, and in game 3, Ardaedhel was going to get Mon Karren even on some pretty bad rolls (and he did have some very bad rolls AND get MK).

For my part, I did a pretty thorough search of all existing forum material, FAQs, and emails. The only thing any previous ruling give us is that you have to announce you're spending them at the same time and can only spend them on the single attack. I can't even begin to count the many times I've seen a CF dial for the die, followed by a LS or OE, followed by the CF reroll at the end, but yes, if we're going to fully resolve DTT all in one go without any of this, then we probably should be fully resolving the CF dial/token before doing LS or OE. I could personally live either way with it, but I was a little surprised that I couldn't find the question raised or a specific example worded out in the answer to someone's post by one of our eminent posters in the rules forum.

This is precisely what I mean. I am sort of having my mind Blown on the ramifications of this. That concentrate fire token did just get sucky when paired with the dial. Not complaining in fact my play style does not ever really use the CF token and dial in conjunction, but there are quite a few ship dependent players that do use this.

2 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

This is weird because CF token is the only command you get something remarkably different than the dial. When you use squad token/dial, you just get an extra activation, which happen at the same time ( I guess you can declare the token activation but it doesn't matter). Nav is also simple. I don't think there is any need to explain that. Repair gives you half your points, which combines with the dial and you get even more. And since the points last until the end of the round, spending both does not cause an issue with seperate effects generating points and having them not stack.

In regards to the timing issue with when to use a CF dial and token, we have the FAQ:

Q: If a ship spends a dial and a token together, can it reroll the die that it adds? Is it required to reroll a die?

A: It can reroll the die that it adds, and it can choose not to reroll any dice.

This example may refer to using the dial first, and then the token after, but maybe not.

I think to remain consistent with the timing of dials and tokens, they should cause a timing overlap, so the player gets to decide how they resolve. Currently, this only matters for CF, but maybe future upgrades will change this. And if we hold this to be true, it means DTT must resolve its action before doing anything else.

Good catch Brikhause.

Honestly like I said I can't take the credit for this. This was the case of a player in the tournament catching this and I could not honestly argue against otherwise.