So the latest preview article introduces a lovely little card called Minefield Mapper that lets you throw out your bombs before the game begins. Won't do much with bombs that detonate at the end of the Activation phase, because of the range limits, but Proximity Mines and Cluster Mines will love it. Especially if it happens to work with Extra Munitions. If it does, a TIE Punisher with two sets of Cluster Mines, Extra Munitions and a Minefield Mapper could blanket the midfield with a string of twelve mine tokens!

Question is, when you're discarding your bomb upgrade cards, must you only discard the ordnance tokens instead of the cards, or can you, by discarding "any number" of cards, discard the same card twice, once as an ordnance token and once as itself?

After mulling this over a bit I'd say you can only deploy one set which you would discard the munition tokens on and still have the others for gameplay.

I'm basing that on the "once per opportinity" rule for abilities. The mapper says discard your bomb upgrades. The EM says you can discard the token when you are instructed to discard the card. The tokens are tokens they are not cards. So if you have 2 bomb cards you can trigger the mapper on one, both, or neither during setup, but only once. You have 2 bomb upgrades so you can deploy 2. EM means you can ditch the tokens instead of cards but there's nothing to allow you to trigger either bomb a second time.

16 minutes ago, sharrrp said:

After mulling this over a bit I'd say you can only deploy one set which you would discard the munition tokens on and still have the others for gameplay.

I'm basing that on the "once per opportinity" rule for abilities. The mapper says discard your bomb upgrades. The EM says you can discard the token when you are instructed to discard the card. The tokens are tokens they are not cards. So if you have 2 bomb cards you can trigger the mapper on one, both, or neither during setup, but only once. You have 2 bomb upgrades so you can deploy 2. EM means you can ditch the tokens instead of cards but there's nothing to allow you to trigger either bomb a second time.

I have to disagree. The Minefield Mapper clearly allows you to break the "once per opportunity", as you would normally never be able to activate 2 bombs at once in normal play. Since you are allowed to discard "any number" you can discard the mines, by removing the extra munitions token, then discard them again by discarding the card. So yeah, that is a lot of bombs to throw out before the match even begins. But this is offset by losing the element of surprise on those mines. Sure, there is a chance you'll catch a ship or 2 in a situation where they can't avoid the mines in the first move, but because of the range limit of the mine placement, odds are most pilots will opt to just turn hard and avoid them. This may play into your hand in how you set up your squad, which is great, but we are talking about putting out a 31 point ship before extra upgrades are put in place just to make the first round of deployment inconvenient?

There will not be a consensus until a ruling is made.

Personally, I am in the camp that says you can't choose to discard four bomb cards when you only have two. Once per opportunity says you don't get to activate the MM again to discard the other two. The argument seems to come down to how one resolves the 'any number' part of the text. One camp sees this as sequential (discard one at a time until you decide to stop), while the other sees it as simultaneous (choose any number of your bomb cards and discard them all – tokens aren't cards so aren't valid choices).

To me, the parallel for this is how I would resolve a card that said 'deal any number of ships 1 damage each'. Could you keep resolving the same target over and over again because it said 'any number'? No, and nor would I let a player discard the same card twice to the same effect. But right now it's just an opinion – nothing more.

27 minutes ago, InquisitorM said:

To me, the parallel for this is how I would resolve a card that said 'deal any number of ships 1 damage each'. Could you keep resolving the same target over and over again because it said 'any number'? No, and nor would I let a player discard the same card twice to the same effect. But right now it's just an opinion – nothing more.

I agree that FF needs to put out clear rules on this to prevent bickering, I expect it will be in the first FAQ that comes out after wave 7 hits, so this is probably all for nothing. But in the name of friendly debate..

Which card says 'deal any number of ships 1 damage each'? (I am legitimately asking, I can't think of 1 but am not sure if you are using a true example and I just can't think of the effect, or if this is a theoretical effect) The thing is, in every other case if there is a limit, it is expressly written on the card. And even if a card has that text, the fact that is said 'deal 1 damage each' means that you couldn't deal that ship a second damage, you have dealt it 1, you have met the express limit of the card. In every other instance in the game, the munitions tokens are used exactly as the card, effectively treating them as a copy of the card. The real problem here is there is no precedent for the cards to break the 'only once' rule. In no other case could you drop more than one bomb in a round. But if you can drop more than one, I don't see why there would be an arbirary limit just because some of your bombs are represented by tokens and other are cards. In that scenario your Punisher is holding 4 cluster mines, so they can pre-spend all 4 if they want

3 hours ago, sharrrp said:

I'm basing that on the "once per opportinity" rule for abilities.

The what now? There's a bit in the FAQ about Missed Opportunities, but other than that...

41 minutes ago, InquisitorM said:

To me, the parallel for this is how I would resolve a card that said 'deal any number of ships 1 damage each'. Could you keep resolving the same target over and over again because it said 'any number'? No, and nor would I let a player discard the same card twice to the same effect. But right now it's just an opinion – nothing more.

Does make a good amount of sense, though.

4 minutes ago, 2068 said:

The what now? There's a bit in the FAQ about Missed Opportunities, but other than that...

Does make a good amount of sense, though.

There is the rule that you cannot spend more than one focus token for an attack to change the result to hit/evades, nor could you spend multiple target locks for re-rolls (like if you were using Redline and had 2 locks on the same ship you couldn't reroll 1 die with 1 lock then reroll another die with a second lock. Or any other case where you are spending tokens for the same effect on the same attack.

But the rule of the Minefield Mapper is expressly breaking the once per opportunity rule (which I don't really think applies here anyway) so if it is breaking it, and allowing you to discard as many as you want, why say you are limited on your discards? if you can keep affording it with more cards to discard, than you should be able to keep going as long as you can pay the cost. you aren't discarding the same card twice, you are discarding a token which represents a card, then a separate card.

1 minute ago, xbeaker said:

There is the rule that you cannot spend more than one focus token for an attack to change the result to hit/evades, nor could you spend multiple target locks for re-rolls (like if you were using Redline and had 2 locks on the same ship you couldn't reroll 1 die with 1 lock then reroll another die with a second lock. Or any other case where you are spending tokens for the same effect on the same attack.

But the rule of the Minefield Mapper is expressly breaking the once per opportunity rule (which I don't really think applies here anyway) so if it is breaking it, and allowing you to discard as many as you want, why say you are limited on your discards? if you can keep affording it with more cards to discard, than you should be able to keep going as long as you can pay the cost. you aren't discarding the same card twice, you are discarding a token which represents a card, then a separate card.

It's not breaking the rule though. It's allowing you, once, to pick any number of your bomb cards, and do a thing with them.

55 minutes ago, InquisitorM said:

There will not be a consensus until a ruling is made.

But this is realistically the most meaningful answer. I think it's clear, but there's enough leeway that it needs FAQ to clarify.

18 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

It's not breaking the rule though. It's allowing you, once, to pick any number of your bomb cards, and do a thing with them.

But this is realistically the most meaningful answer. I think it's clear, but there's enough leeway that it needs FAQ to clarify.

If the card said "Once, during setup..." but it doesn't. FF is usually pretty specific with stuff like that, especially in more recent waves where they have learned the importance of making sure wording is very specific (though they apparently can't remember the importance of blue lines on epic ship bases :P) But since it just says "At Setup..." and "Any number" that sounds like you have the freedom to discard as many as you like, that include the tokens + the card the token is on.

But yeah, this is all just talk and opinions. FF needs to clear this up definitively at release.

Page 8 of the Rules Reference:

Quote

A card ability cannot be resolved more than once during the timing specified on the card.

That is the "once per opportunity" rule people are referring to. It applies to every card in the game. This is the rule that makes it so you can't, for example, declare that you're triggering Predator three times during one attack to re-roll three of your dice, or use R5-P9 to spend two Focus tokens at the end of the round to regen two shields, or any other such shenanigan that starts from the thinking, "Well, it doesn't SAY I can only do it once...".

18 minutes ago, EdgeOfDreams said:

Page 8 of the Rules Reference:

That is the "once per opportunity" rule people are referring to. It applies to every card in the game. This is the rule that makes it so you can't, for example, declare that you're triggering Predator three times during one attack to re-roll three of your dice, or use R5-P9 to spend two Focus tokens at the end of the round to regen two shields, or any other such shenanigan that starts from the thinking, "Well, it doesn't SAY I can only do it once...".

But you are only resolving it once. The debate is what is means to "discard any number" and can you discard the token and the card within the same effect. No other card has the ability to discard a card that has a token, so it is a bit of new territory.

MM, as well as anything else, doesn't target the token; only the card can be targeted. If some mechanism (using the bomb, boba fett, MM) causes the card to be discarded then the EM Triggers and spends the token to prevent the discard. You are not targeting the token with MM you are targeting a bomb and then after the EM trigger interrupts for a moment, you are trying to target the same card a second time from 1 trigger of MM. I'd have to think this violates the once per opportunity rule as the token is not a bomb, you are applying the same effect to the same target twice in a single opportunity. (Granted, I think FFG should FAQ it to work)

1 hour ago, Smitty said:

MM, as well as anything else, doesn't target the token; only the card can be targeted. If some mechanism (using the bomb, boba fett, MM) causes the card to be discarded then the EM Triggers and spends the token to prevent the discard. You are not targeting the token with MM you are targeting a bomb and then after the EM trigger interrupts for a moment, you are trying to target the same card a second time from 1 trigger of MM. I'd have to think this violates the once per opportunity rule as the token is not a bomb, you are applying the same effect to the same target twice in a single opportunity. (Granted, I think FFG should FAQ it to work)

Or are you declaring a number of cards you intend to discard and then discard them one at a time until you reach that number or you have no more cards to discard, and each of those time you discard a card, EM triggers and lets you toss a token instead?

7 hours ago, 2068 said:

The what now? There's a bit in the FAQ about Missed Opportunities, but other than that...

Page 8, under Card Abilities.

Quote

• A card ability cannot be resolved more than once during the timing specified on the card. For example, a card with the timing of “when defending” cannot be resolved twice by the defender during a single attack.

The "Once per Opportunity" rule.

If "discard any number of equipped bomb upgrade cards" allows you to choose a number greater than the number of equipped bomb upgrade cards, why doesn't General Hux allow me to assign three focus tokens and his condition all to one ship?

Hint: it's not because of once per opportunity.

2 hours ago, digitalbusker said:

If "discard any number of equipped bomb upgrade cards" allows you to choose a number greater than the number of equipped bomb upgrade cards, why doesn't General Hux allow me to assign three focus tokens and his condition all to one ship?

Hint: it's not because of once per opportunity.

But you aren't discarding more than you have. It's a matter of paying a cost. General Hux makes you choose up 3 ships, and then they get 1 token. First you choose, then you assign, no going back. Everyone is going to cards that let you do 1 thing with a set limit and then saying "Well if you can spend the token and the bomb card then I can use crack shot 45 times in a row and take all the evade tokens out of you storage box too then!" MM lets you spend all the bombs that you have on that ship, with no limit except that of course you can only spend up to the number of bombs you are carrying. You aren't breaking the once per, because the MM is the opportunity in question. You have FOUR things to discard, not TWO. you can't discard a card twice, buy you can discard a token, then the card. When you spend the token, the card is still there, it is still usable in paying a cost. The beginning phase is still going. Once you stop deploying bombs, then the opportunity has passed, until then, you can keep deploying them. It is called "EXTRA munitions", not "SUBSTITUTE munitions". You have all the bombs on you ship, the cards aren't in a box somewhere and only magically materialize once the tokens are spent. That is the impression that I get from the "can only spend the token" supporters. They act like the bombs aren't on the ship until the tokens are removed. But here's the thing.. you CAN spend the card instead of the token. it is right there in the description. "When you are instructed to discard a card, you *MAY* discard the token instead" (emphasis mine) Which means both the card and the token are viable and thus available to pay a cost to deploy a bomb in the beginning phase. MM does not instruct you to declare how many mines you are deploying. You can keep dropping them as long as you can pay the cost.

4 hours ago, xbeaker said:

You have FOUR things to discard, not TWO.

You have two things to discard. Each of them has a one-use token on it that can intercept that discard and discard itself instead, but you still only have two things to discard.

It's entirely possible that FFG's going to rule that "discard any number of equipped bomb upgrade cards" is meant to be implemented as a while loop where you discard the bombs one at a time and keep going until you want to stop, but I don't see any reason to read the text that way to start.

If they do mean it to be iterative, the so-called "Once Per Opportunity"* rule won't stop you from discarding the same bomb twice, by the way. That's not what it does.

They might have thought they were writing something that would work with Extra Munitions in the way you're describing, and if so, the eventual ruling is going to fit nicely with the large and growing library of "Don't overthink it, bro" precedents. But they might not have.

I'm not sure how I'd have written the card in order to get it to clearly work the way you're saying. Maybe something like:

During setup, after the "Place
Forces" step, you may discard
an equipped [bomb] Upgrade
card to place its corresponding
bomb token in the play area
beyond Range 3 of enemy ships.
If you do, you may continue
discarding [bomb] Upgrade
cards in this way until you no
longer have any equipped [bomb]
Upgrade cards.

Not sure how well that'd fit.

*: So-called because "once per opportunity" doesn't actually appear in the rule:

A card ability cannot be resolved more than once during the timing specified on the card. For example, a card with the timing of “when defending” cannot be resolved twice by the defender during a single attack. -- Rules Reference p7: "Card Abilities"

That doesn't say anything about not being able to affect the same thing more than once in a given resolution. Just that you can't resolve an ability more than once in the same timing window.

19 hours ago, xbeaker said:

I agree that FF needs to put out clear rules on this to prevent bickering, I expect it will be in the first FAQ that comes out after wave 7 hits, so this is probably all for nothing. But in the name of friendly debate..

Which card says 'deal any number of ships 1 damage each'? (I am legitimately asking, I can't think of 1 but am not sure if you are using a true example and I just can't think of the effect, or if this is a theoretical effect) The thing is, in every other case if there is a limit, it is expressly written on the card. And even if a card has that text, the fact that is said 'deal 1 damage each' means that you couldn't deal that ship a second damage, you have dealt it 1, you have met the express limit of the card. In every other instance in the game, the munitions tokens are used exactly as the card, effectively treating them as a copy of the card. The real problem here is there is no precedent for the cards to break the 'only once' rule. In no other case could you drop more than one bomb in a round. But if you can drop more than one, I don't see why there would be an arbirary limit just because some of your bombs are represented by tokens and other are cards. In that scenario your Punisher is holding 4 cluster mines, so they can pre-spend all 4 if they want

You're incorrect, em tokens are not used as cards, they replace the discarding effect of the card. There is nothing allowing you to pick the same card to discard multiple times with mapper.

Well it seems ambiguous for sure. I feel like the once per opportunity really fit the situation.

I disagree that this seems remotely ambiguous, but I will say I've been appalled by the overly-aggressive responses that have come out of the community about it. Kudos to this thread not getting there... yet.

The NOVA FB page has some especially awful instances of how times have changed -- X-Wing really was one of the best gaming communities I've ever seen, but it's extended popularity seems to finally be dragging that down. A lot of it seems to be centered around people demanding that cards be read in the same way as they are interpreting them, and becoming rather aggressive when this isn't so, though there is of course the increased profile on incidents of cheating and other misconduct.

TL;DR -- Get off my lawn.

2 hours ago, Oberron said:

You're incorrect, em tokens are not used as cards, they replace the discarding effect of the card. There is nothing allowing you to pick the same card to discard multiple times with mapper.

But there is nothing preventing you from using it multiple times with the mapper either. We all agree that you can only discard a card once. The very point of EM is to allow you to effectively 'discard' a card and still have that card to use again later. The only thing stopping you currently from using a torpedo, missile, or bomb twice in a round is the hard and fast rule that says you can't. If MM said that you can activate an equipped bomb and place it on the table I'd agree, but the spending of the card is payment for a different ability. And that 1 specific ability, which can be used at that one specific time, allows the breaking of the rule which says you can only deploy 1 bomb per round. So why is everyone so stuck on this fictitious rule that seems to state that you can't spend the card the token is on in the same round you spend the token. This is not a once per opportunity thing, as the opportunity clearly states that you can do it with as you like. There is nothing about the MM that says you CAN'T use the token and the card itself to pay a cost. There is no other ability or precedent that shows you can't use both. This is the first case of being able to discard a card as a cost that could have a token on it, for an effect. It is NOT the same as activating a card or action twice for it's ability. Common sense says you can use both when triggering MM, only people's very specific and unfounded interpretation says that no, you can't use the card if you used the token. On homing missiles, you need the lock to fire, but you can still spend the lock to re-roll. Same attack, that lock is utilized twice. Advanced targeting computer, if you have a lock you can add a crit, but CAN'T spend the lock to re-roll. FF tells us explicitly when we can't use, or re-use something. Timing is sometimes a question like the Snap Wexley debate. But if we can't spend or activate at all, it is clearly defined.

Funny thing is, I would never use MM myself. The range at which you have to put the bombs means they will be avoided in almost all cases, I'd only put it on if I was at 100, had bombs and a free system slot and just wanted to make my opponent second guess his setup. I doubt I'd ever deploy them.

13 minutes ago, xbeaker said:

So why is everyone so stuck on this fictitious rule that seems to state that you can't spend the card the token is on in the same round you spend the token.

The issue comes from the MM card itself. You may choose any cards . As a Punisher, you only have two bomb cards equipped -- as the EM tokens aren't cards, when you are prompted to decide how many cards you're going to discard, you only have the options of zero, one, or two.

THAT side says you have to choose that number up front, then proceed, therefore once-per-opportunity stops you from revisiting "discard any" text on MM -- you've done that and moved on.

YOUR side says that you can choose on a card-per-card basis, you don't have to determine how many you're discarding upfront.

The reason why this grates is because there is nothing else in X-Wing that lets you choose targets like that. When you are instructed to re-roll any number of dice, for example, you have to choose how many you're re-rolling upfront, re-roll them at the same time, then move on. You don't get to re-roll one, then decide to re-roll another.

^This shouldn't be a hard concept to see where both sides are coming from, and I don't personally think it's all that vague, but I certainly understand where both sides are coming from.

Oh, get where both side come from. but I see the tokens as cards. so even if you had to declare them in advance, I think they should be legal to use all 4.

Look at the combination of the Illicit cloaking device and Jabba. you have a token on the cloaking device. You are cloaked, then during your end of round roll you roll a focus. You discard the illicit token. Do you have to decloak/remove the cloak token? By strict definition, the card says "Discard this card, then delcloak..." Since you didn't discard that CARD, by rule the the "then" portion shouldn't trigger. But the token counts as a card in this case, so you discard the token, decloak/remove the cloak token then still have the cloak to use next turn. In game mechanics, the token is a copy of the card, it only sits on the actual card to show want card it represents.

... and now I just really hope I didn't create a subthread about the cloaking device / Jabba interaction. lol

13 minutes ago, xbeaker said:

Oh, get where both side come from. but I see the tokens as cards. so even if you had to declare them in advance, I think they should be legal to use all 4.

Look at the combination of the Illicit cloaking device and Jabba. you have a token on the cloaking device. You are cloaked, then during your end of round roll you roll a focus. You discard the illicit token. Do you have to decloak/remove the cloak token? By strict definition, the card says "Discard this card, then delcloak..." Since you didn't discard that CARD, by rule the the "then" portion shouldn't trigger. But the token counts as a card in this case, so you discard the token, decloak/remove the cloak token then still have the cloak to use next turn. In game mechanics, the token is a copy of the card, it only sits on the actual card to show want card it represents.

... and now I just really hope I didn't create a subthread about the cloaking device / Jabba interaction. lol

You seeing the tokens as cards doesn't make them cards. It might be a handy rule of thumb for you to remember how they work, but it's going to lead you astray in some cases.

Jabba's tokens and Cloaking Device don't require the token to count as the card to work. Cloaking Device starts as:

1. Discard Cloaking Device
2. Do some stuff

The addition of Jabba's token interrupts that, and you wind up with:

1. Discard Cloaking Device
   1. Wait, no, don't discard the card, discard this here token instead.
2. Do some stuff

Step 2 doesn't check to see what happened during Step 1, so there's no need for the token to pass for a card.

21 minutes ago, xbeaker said:

Oh, get where both side come from. but I see the tokens as cards . so even if you had to declare them in advance, I think they should be legal to use all 4.

On this, there is nothing to support this -- the text on Extra Munitions makes no assertions for the tokens counting as cards; they definitively aren't "Bomb upgrade cards". They can be discarded in lieu of the bomb upgrades, yes, but at no point do they count or turn into "Bomb upgrade cards."

The only way the "discard EM tokens and bomb cards" argument is supported is if you are allowed to constantly check, via MM, to see if a card is still equipped, not that you're actually starting with four cards. And this is why people are citing the once per opportunity rule.

To repeat, to suggest that EM tokens = Bomb upgrade cards is 100% fallacious and unsupported in any rules or card text.