38 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Now, In honor of Ginkapo, I'm gonna stir the pot a little more on this card. If ship A is being attacked while near ship B, both have TFA, and ship B has Major Derlin: Can Derlin be used on ship B when the damage is transferred? Derlin is when "suffers damage from an attack." It isn't like Biggs (worded so Gallant Haven isn't horrifying) where you deal a point of damage with his effect. TTA says the other ship suffers that damage instead.

I'll argue yes. Biggs reads "that squadron suffers 1 damage", TF:A reads "suffers 1 of your damage instead ". To my mind, that means Ship B is suffering 1 damage from the attack . This is based on my interpretation of TF:A, as I fall into the "you can use it multiple times, whereas the 'total damage' wording on Biggs/Derlin/GH/BH always refers to the original total damage pool"* camp.

That raises subsequent questions:

Does Ship B suffer critical effects (specifically the default critical effect)? I'd argue no, since Ship B is not "the defender", as declared by the attacker.

Would the attacker receive a victory token from Fighter Ambush / Superior Positions (if the relevant conditions are met) from the damage on Ship B? As above, I'd argue no, as Ship B is not "the defender".

*In which case Derlin doesn't stack with Bright Hope.

I have to go with the multiple use scenario for the TF Titles, it says multiple times in the rules reference that ships suffer damage one at a time and the wording on the card is pretty clear. If for whatever reason this is restricted to one use per attack then it's not really a task force, it's a wingman.

My plan is to use a few of these with the ability to share damage and regen with shield to max, so obviously I have a stake in the multiple cards per attack interpretation. But with both the the text on the cards and the very clear rules on damage being suffered one at a time I don't see how it could be only once per attack.

I guess we'll have to wait for an FAQ. Although it would be really nice if FFG could release a supplement that doesn't require a FAQ clarification before it can actually be played properly.

46 minutes ago, UberMunchkin said:

I have to go with the multiple use scenario for the TF Titles, it says multiple times in the rules reference that ships suffer damage one at a time and the wording on the card is pretty clear. If for whatever reason this is restricted to one use per attack then it's not really a task force, it's a wingman.

My plan is to use a few of these with the ability to share damage and regen with shield to max, so obviously I have a stake in the multiple cards per attack interpretation. But with both the the text on the cards and the very clear rules on damage being suffered one at a time I don't see how it could be only once per attack.

I guess we'll have to wait for an FAQ. Although it would be really nice if FFG could release a supplement that doesn't require a FAQ clarification before it can actually be played properly.

It says in the rules, during the attack step, the defender suffers the total damage.
Later it tells you how you suffer damage, because of multiple mechanics involved.

So one is when you suffer damage
The other is how you resolve that suffered damage.

It doesn't say on any of the cards "Once per Attack" though and it does specifically state in the rules reference that ships suffer damage one at a time:

"When a ship suffers damage, it suffers that damage one point at a time. For each point, reduce the shields in the defending hull zone by one. If the defending hull zone has no shields to lose, deal a facedown damage card to the ship instead."

and later on in the same section.

"Damage cards are dealt one at a time."

TF:A reads " When you suffer damage ...". So if you suffer damage one at a time then each instance of damage gives you the opportunity to activate any non-exhausted card with the appropriate trigger.

It still exhausts the card so even if you have 6 ships in your TF all the opponent has to do is attack one, you exhaust the card on a nearby ship(s) to shunt the damage over, then you're done, you can't do it more than once per turn and the opponent can just target a ship in your task force that only has ships with an exhausted title in range. It's good but it's not game breaking.

The 4 corners of a card.
Your interpretation, the others interpretation, the rules and the intention of the designer.

Currently the rule corner is off. Because there is no clear rule for this. And the intention is unknown, because the designers do not say what was their intention behind a card.

The wording for the other cards that reduce the damage (Bright Hope and Gallant Haven for example) are different compared to the Task Force. These were more clear. You reduce the TOTAL damage before you recieve any damage.
The Task Force is a bit bad worded. And only the rule team or the designer can say what they mean with the card.
If they had choosen a wording like: " before you suffer damage from an attack, you may exhaust any number of Titels (other than the attacked ship) and reduce the total damage by this number " it would be way more clear and there would be no discussion.
But the wording as it is need some clarification (once again... ).

The problem with the rules is, that the wording: "Then the defending squadron or hull zone suffers that total damage, one point at a time." is not clear if something like the Task Force can trigger several times. They HAVE to make the wording this way, because you cannot recieve X damage at the same time. It just does not work. You have to resolve each of the total damage one at a time, because of the defense tokens, the shields, the critical or any other effect.

By this rule both could be said. You recieve a total damage and the Task Force can only trigger once on it, or you recieve a total damage, one by one, and the Task Force can trigger each time on the damage.

This problem will be always happen on each wave. Just because the Designer do not have a strict wording catalogue. You see it really clear now in the last 2-3 waves. The wording of the cards has no constant, no structure. It is worded a bit freely with some own touch.
This is fine on a casual way, but not healthy on a competition style.

I think the intention behind the card is clear, maybe not the specific designers intention but there was an article written that clearly shows multiple TF:A ships sharing out damage from a single hit. But I think I'm going to drop this, clearly this is yet another FFG poorly worded upgrade card that immediately requires a FAQ update to be usable. To be honest it's getting to the point where there is no reason to buy these new wave releases until after the next FAQ update post their release. See Jabba from the X-Wing C-ROC expansion for a genius example of a card whose intention is clear but is totally unplayable using the rules as written.

13 minutes ago, UberMunchkin said:

I think the intention behind the card is clear, maybe not the specific designers intention but there was an article written that clearly shows multiple TF:A ships sharing out damage from a single hit.

I'd love to agree with you, but FFG's pre-release articles have a scarily consistent history of giving examples which are just plain wrong. These articles should be a good basis for inferring intent, but they're just not.

Just now, DiabloAzul said:

I'd love to agree with you, but FFG's pre-release articles have a scarily consistent history of giving examples which are just plain wrong. These articles should be a good basis for inferring intent, but they're just not.

Yep, which is why I'm seriously thinking that it's just not worth buying any of their new releases until the next FAQ after the release, it seems to be the only way to make sure you end up with a playable mechanic.

To me it's obviously that the intent is to share the damage across multiple ships, but I can see why people would interpret it differently. It's just another in a long line of things that have no official ruling and you now have to agree ahead of time with anyone you're playing against, if I was going to play someone I didn't know and they insisted that TF:A is only once per attack then I simply wouldn't play them.

If FFG release a FAQ update stating that TF:A is only once per attack then there is, for me anyway, no point in running more that two Hammerheads, which seems stupid to me and would royally piss me off, especially as I spent £80 on two of these sets for the express reason of trying out the task force idea, based mostly on their preview article.

This should have been answered by FFG 2+ weeks ago. This is ridiculous.

7 hours ago, UberMunchkin said:

It doesn't say on any of the cards "Once per Attack" though and it does specifically state in the rules reference that ships suffer damage one at a time:

"When a ship suffers damage, it suffers that damage one point at a time. For each point, reduce the shields in the defending hull zone by one. If the defending hull zone has no shields to lose, deal a facedown damage card to the ship instead."

and later on in the same section.

"Damage cards are dealt one at a time."

TF:A reads " When you suffer damage ...". So if you suffer damage one at a time then each instance of damage gives you the opportunity to activate any non-exhausted card with the appropriate trigger.

It still exhausts the card so even if you have 6 ships in your TF all the opponent has to do is attack one, you exhaust the card on a nearby ship(s) to shunt the damage over, then you're done, you can't do it more than once per turn and the opponent can just target a ship in your task force that only has ships with an exhausted title in range. It's good but it's not game breaking.

You seem to be missing the most important part of this "suffer damage".

Page 2 of the RRG : under ATTACK (which is a complete breakdown of an attack step, start to finish.)

Step 5 : Resolve Damage :

The Attacker can resolve one of its Critical Effects. Then the Attacker determines the total damage amount. Then the defending squadron or hull zone suffers that total damage , one point at a time.

Later we get a break down of how damage is suffered one point at a time.
You suffer damage one point at a time, first removing shields on a 1 for 1 basis, then you suffer hull damage, 1 card is dealt face down, on a 1 for 1 basis until damage total equals hull, or total damage has now been resolved. They could have quite easily said 2 points of damage remove 1 shield, hence why they have a second section that clarifies how total damage is resolved, this is how you inform someone who has never played the game before, or seen the rules, how you remove shields and suffer damage cards.

It is not a contradictory statement meant to confuse people between what they state on page 2 of the RRG in how you resolve an attack step.

And as I posted earlier even only being able to shunt 1 point of damage per attack, is massive, it gives amazing ability to weather attacks by bombers, or multiple small hit attacks from small ships. What it does not do is allow you to shunt 4-5-6 damage from the once per game attack of a large base ship.

I still don't agree. Your own sentence says:

14 hours ago, TheEasternKing said:

Page 2 of the RRG : under ATTACK (which is a complete breakdown of an attack step, start to finish.)

Step 5 : Resolve Damage :

The Attacker can resolve one of its Critical Effects. Then the Attacker determines the total damage amount. Then the defending squadron or hull zone suffers that total damage, one point at a time.

14 hours ago, TheEasternKing said:

The Attacker can resolve one of its Critical Effects. Then the Attacker determines the total damage amount. Then the defending squadron or hull zone suffers that total damage , one point at a time .

Like @UberMunchkin said. It is as well one point at a time. (I added a few colors to give you something to think about )

The reason for this wording/ruling (one point at a time) is clear and understandable. Because you just CANNOT do X damage at once in Armada. Because of the shields, crits, defense Tokens, or whatever other reason (but i already said this earlier....). But it shows as well that you can interrupt and use effects during the reciving of damage. So the TF:A could trigger each time on reciving damage (like the card is saying: when you suffer damage from an attack).
The question is: Does dealing X damage count as one time X or as X times 1.

You do not know what the trigger for the TF:A is. Or how the interrupt for the resolve damage is. Just because the TF:A is so damm badly worded that it is not clear.
How could they have done it better?

• Before you suffer damage from an attack, you may choose and exhaust a copy of this card on another friendly ship to reduce the total damage by 1 and deal one damage to the ship where you exhaust the card.

Or:

• Before you suffer damage from an attack, you may choose and exhaust any number from copies of this card on other friendly ships to reduce the total damage by the number of exhausted cards and deal 1 damage to each ship that exhausted a copy of this card this way.

THIS would have been a better way to write it. This way you can clearly say that you can use one or any number of copies for it. And it does not have to interact with the "one point at a time" sentense at all. This is the wording they have used for the other "reduce damage" cards (for example: Brigth Hope, Gallant Haven).
But the way they wrote it this time (with a wording that was never used so far), it is NOT clear.

10 minutes ago, Tokra said:

• Before you suffer damage from an attack, you may choose and exhaust any number from copies of this card on other friendly ships to reduce the total damage by the number of exhausted cards and deal 1 damage to each ship that exhausted a copy of this card this way.

THIS would have been a better way to write it. This way you can clearly say that you can use one or any number of copies for it. And it does not have to interact with the "one point at a time" sentense at all. This is the wording they have used for the other "reduce damage" cards (for example: Brigth Hope, Gallant Haven).

While I agree with your general conclusion, I will point out that a solution isn't quite that straightforward: there is a difference between "a clearer way" and "a better way"

First, of course, your text would not fit on an upgrade card. But more importantly, the wording you use introduces its own problem, in that both the timing and ownership of the damage received by the other ships becomes undefined.

A simpler option may have been something like:

Before you suffer damage from an attack, for each point you would suffer you may choose and exhaust a copy of this card on another friendly ship at distance 1-3. If you do, that ship suffers 1 of your that point of damage instead.

...but even that would require reducing the font size a little, which is a problem.

Please don't take this as criticism - I just wanted to illustrate that FFG's job isn't as easy as it may seem. It's really hard to be crystal clear and concise, let alone balanced. If you look at most custom cards out there you'll see exactly what I mean.

10 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

While I agree with your general conclusion, I will point out that a solution isn't quite that straightforward: there is a difference between "a clearer way" and "a better way"

First, of course, your text would not fit on an upgrade card. But more importantly, the wording you use introduces its own problem, in that both the timing and ownership of the damage received by the other ships becomes undefined.

A simpler option may have been something like:

Before you suffer damage from an attack, for each point you would suffer you may choose and exhaust a copy of this card on another friendly ship at distance 1-3. If you do, that ship suffers 1 of your that point of damage instead.

...but even that would require reducing the font size a little, which is a problem.

Please don't take this as criticism - I just wanted to illustrate that FFG's job isn't as easy as it may seem. It's really hard to be crystal clear and concise, let alone balanced. If you look at most custom cards out there you'll see exactly what I mean.

Thats true. Their job is not easy. And they have so much to check.

But if you already have a template for an effect you want to use (Bright Hope, Gallant Haven), you dont have to use a different wording that cause only problems. Just stick with what you have.

The wording (yours or mine) both work. And would both way better than the current one is. I just used the one from Bright Hope and was expanding it for multiple damage.
But i dont find mine undefined. The ship would recieve X damage. Now you exhaust Y cards and these ships each recieve 1 damage. The damage, that the target ship would recieve, is reduced by Y. And the remainging damage is dealt to the target ship. One point at a time (like always).

45 minutes ago, Tokra said:

But i dont find mine undefined. The ship would recieve X damage. Now you exhaust Y cards and these ships each recieve 1 damage. The damage, that the target ship would recieve, is reduced by Y. And the remainging damage is dealt to the target ship. One point at a time (like always).

It's just a matter of tweaking the language - "deal 1 damage" leaves ownership/origin unclear (who is dealing the damage? is it "you", i.e. the TFA ship? it matters for some effects), or at least very different from the originally intended effect, which is that redirected damage is still damage from the original attack . Timing is not a big issue, and certainly there's no problem with the remaining damage on the original target. But the question may arise of who chooses the order in which the other ships should resolve the "to each ship" instruction (again, it can matter greatly in some situations). The "one point at a time" clause would not apply here as this is no longer damage from the attack, but a new instance. As written, the owner of the effect would get to choose, but if the wording was adapted to respect the original intention that the redirected damage is attack damage (unlike with Biggs), then the question is less clear.

Again, not saying your wording isn't better, just that the implications of every single word can be quite big and not immediately obvious. One, two, or ten people looking at a text may all understand it the same way and agree it's crystal clear, but give it to ten thousand and they'll quickly show you that it's not

One thing worth mentioning is that "Gallant Haven" does says it reduces the "total damage" by one. I'm unsure if this was intentional but it does make GH work as intended, otherwise it would be crazy.

10 hours ago, UberMunchkin said:

I still don't agree. Your own sentence says:

If you cannot see total damage is suffered one point at a time, then someone better than me needs to explain to you.

10 hours ago, Tokra said:

Like @UberMunchkin said. It is as well one point at a time. (I added a few colors to give you something to think about )

The reason for this wording/ruling (one point at a time) is clear and understandable. Because you just CANNOT do X damage at once in Armada. Because of the shields, crits, defense Tokens, or whatever other reason (but i already said this earlier....). But it shows as well that you can interrupt and use effects during the reciving of damage. So the TF:A could trigger each time on reciving damage (like the card is saying: when you suffer damage from an attack).
The question is: Does dealing X damage count as one time X or as X times 1.

You do not know what the trigger for the TF:A is. Or how the interrupt for the resolve damage is. Just because the TF:A is so damm badly worded that it is not clear.
How could they have done it better?

• Before you suffer damage from an attack, you may choose and exhaust a copy of this card on another friendly ship to reduce the total damage by 1 and deal one damage to the ship where you exhaust the card.

Or:

• Before you suffer damage from an attack, you may choose and exhaust any number from copies of this card on other friendly ships to reduce the total damage by the number of exhausted cards and deal 1 damage to each ship that exhausted a copy of this card this way.

THIS would have been a better way to write it. This way you can clearly say that you can use one or any number of copies for it. And it does not have to interact with the "one point at a time" sentense at all. This is the wording they have used for the other "reduce damage" cards (for example: Brigth Hope, Gallant Haven).
But the way they wrote it this time (with a wording that was never used so far), it is NOT clear.

It is clear, as written you suffer total damage, one point at a time

What is not clear is FFGs intent with the card, as others have stated, there is already wording in game used elsewhere, so why use different wording here? But I have come unstuck several times questioning wording, common sense and FFGs intent.

I must be missing something. Why does it even matter if the damage is all at once or one at a time? The RRG on pg. 5 states that, "If two or more of a player's effects have the same timing, that player can resolve those effects in any order." Why wouldn't multiple Task Force effects count for this? Has there been a change that only allows one instance of a time frame (after, when, before)? Is it because it is the same effect?

2 minutes ago, saint1012 said:

I must be missing something. Why does it even matter if the damage is all at once or one at a time? The RRG on pg. 5 states that, "If two or more of a player's effects have the same timing, that player can resolve those effects in any order." Why wouldn't multiple Task Force effects count for this? Has there been a change that only allows one instance of a time frame (after, when, before)?

The timing here is 'after you suffer damage', from the card equipped to ship taking damage.

And 'After' only triggers once.

The question is of it's total damage, or damage one at a time. If the latter multiple triggers occur, once after each damage.

4 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

The timing here is 'after you suffer damage', from the card equipped to ship taking damage.

And 'After' only triggers once.

The question is of it's total damage, or damage one at a time. If the latter multiple triggers occur, once after each damage.

Is that what they mean when they state, "... and cannot occur again for that instance of the event."? It is a bit confusing when they then state that if you have multiple effects with the same timing, you can decide the order you trigger them, meaning you can trigger the same timing event more than once.

I took the meaning that it can't occur again is that they are covering their butts so that a player can't say a turn later, "Hey, this is now after I did such-and-such, so now I get to trigger the effect again."

10 minutes ago, saint1012 said:

Is that what they mean when they state, "... and cannot occur again for that instance of the event."? It is a bit confusing when they then state that if you have multiple effects with the same timing, you can decide the order you trigger them, meaning you can trigger the same timing event more than once.

I took the meaning that it can't occur again is that they are covering their butts so that a player can't say a turn later, "Hey, this is now after I did such-and-such, so now I get to trigger the effect again."

Yes, it can be confusing to understand FFG-lingo!

What they are trying to say is you could have multiple upgrade cards, all with the same timing, and each card gets a change to trigger off the same condition (AFTER in this case).

1 minute ago, Green Knight said:

Yes, it can be confusing to understand FFG-lingo!

What they are trying to say is you could have multiple upgrade cards, all with the same timing, and each card gets a change to trigger off the same condition (AFTER in this case).

Right. So, there you go. One event timing - After. Now multiple effects can trigger. Why not Antilles if each card gets a chance to trigger?

2 minutes ago, saint1012 said:

Right. So, there you go. One event timing - After. Now multiple effects can trigger. Why not Antilles if each card gets a chance to trigger?

Because TF Antilles triggers on the card equipped to the ship taking damage.

The cards on the other Hammerheads don't trigger at all. They only get to exhaust as a result of the original target triggering the TFA effect.

2 hours ago, Green Knight said:

Because TF Antilles triggers on the card equipped to the ship taking damage.

The cards on the other Hammerheads don't trigger at all. They only get to exhaust as a result of the original target triggering the TFA effect.

Duh. Got it now. I had to reread the card.

Except, of course, they still screwed up by stating that damage is applied one at a time, which then should allow you to use the card for every point of damage...