How does Hondo work? The first time I read him, I read it as "Take 2 different command tokens that are in game and place them on 2 ships. Then your opponent takes 2 different command tokens you did not choose and place them on 2 ships."

I feel like this is wrong and what you should be doing is picking 2 commands and getting a token for each 1 and placing 1 on a ship and then your opponent gets the other 2 commands. The only reason I don't think that is correct is because of the last sentence on the card. It says "Then your opponent chooses 2 different command tokens you did not choose and places them on different ships."

Since the game only has 4 commands, why wouldn't the card read "Then your opponent places a token on a ship for the other 2 commands you did not choose."

Are you supposed to take 2 command tokens from ships that are carrying them? Or you do pick a command and get 2 tokens?

Does that make sense?

The wording is a little odd (maybe future-proofing in case more commands get added via upgrade cards?), but the card works as follows:

1. Pick two commands. Get a token for each, and assign them to different ships.
2. The opponent then does the same for the other two commands.

EDIT: ...or maybe I read it completely wrong and your token-trading interpretation was right to begin with. It makes sense. In a low-token environment, you effectively get to steal tokens, whereas in a high-token environment you trade them. Either way, this can totally wreck strategies based on Wulff or one of the Pelta fleet support upgrades. Also nice to get rid of Navs before you Phylon enemies. In fact it's probably too powerful for 2 points, even as a discard.

From the hammerhead article:

For example, you might claim a concentrate fire token and a navigation token, leaving your opponent with a squadron token that can't be applied toward the squadrons you've already destroyed and a repair token that can only be assigned to the ship you're about to destroy on your next activation because the other ship already has a repair token.

3 minutes ago, Xeletor said:

From the hammerhead article:

For example, you might claim a concentrate fire token and a navigation token, leaving your opponent with a squadron token that can't be applied toward the squadrons you've already destroyed and a repair token that can only be assigned to the ship you're about to destroy on your next activation because the other ship already has a repair token.

This was my first reading too. But I've learned not to trust articles...

Yea I don't bother with articles. They got TFA wrong.

39 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

The wording is a little odd (maybe future-proofing in case more commands get added via upgrade cards?), but the card works as follows:

1. Pick two commands. Get a token for each, and assign them to different ships.
2. The opponent then does the same for the other two commands.

Yeah, that was my first thought when I read the card during the article reading, but now that I read it again in this post, I think it's saying that you take 2 command tokens in play and place them on 2 diffrerent ships.
The wording is tricky, on this second reading I understood it this way, but I think it would be OP for only 2 points and don't know if it is really the intended way.
I think it's another of those cases that should have to wait for a FAQ or errata

Nothing in the card says you pick two tokens in play. I read the card as ' grab any two different tokens, i.e., nav and squadron, and place them in any ship, one per ship. Then your opponent grabs the other two tokens, i.e., engineering and concentrate fire in this example, and places them in two other ships. These tokens come from your regular yet to be used pile, not from ships in play'. Bear in mind the card does not specify you have to place them in friendly ships, it just says ships....so it looks like you could place them in an opposing ship, and so could your opponent!

1 hour ago, Undeadguy said:

Since the game only has 4 commands, why wouldn't the card read "Then your opponent places a token on a ship for the other 2 commands you did not choose."

Maybe they were counting for the future (or know something we don't). And there will be a new type of command token in one of the next waves?

In short (and with the current ruling) you can just place all 4 command tokens on the table. One of each. You pick two and place them 2 ships of your choice. And after this your opponent pick the other two and place them on two ships of his choice.

Important: It does not say friendly. If your opponent has only one ship left, he has to place one token on one of your ships.

2 minutes ago, Tokra said:

Maybe they were counting for the future (or know something we don't). And there will be a new type of command token in one of the next waves?

In short (and with the current ruling) you can just place all 4 command tokens on the table. One of each. You pick two and place them 2 ships of your choice. And after this your opponent pick the other two and place them on two ships of his choice.

Important: It does not say friendly. If your opponent has only one ship left, he has to place one token on one of your ships.

I don't think they were future proofing. Adding a new command would upset the whole game since command dials only have 4 commands. Maybe if they had a new ship with a 5th command, but I doubt that. It seems more like a complicated way to say what I said.

It would say "up to 2 different ..." if it was referring to tokens on ships. Maybe.

My issue with that interpretation is it never tells you to remove them from their current ships...

Which is a big deal and a rules game-breaker for that interp for me.

Granted, they should have used the word gain rather than place ... But that could also be deliberate - to stop "gains a token" effects (such as Tantive IV)

8 minutes ago, Xeletor said:

It would say "up to 2 different ..." if it was referring to tokens on ships. Maybe.

Unless the card is meant to force you to move your own tokens to a different ship. Like an unlimited range Comms Net.

1 minute ago, Drasnighta said:

But that could also be deliberate - to stop "gains a token" effects (such as Tantive IV)

That's a whole other can of worms - one would argue that the ships did gain the token, even if that specific word is not used.

Just now, DiabloAzul said:

That's a whole other can of worms - one would argue that the ships did gain the token, even if that specific word is not used.

One would, but there's precedent to "place" being an override to the normal rules for doing things.

"Placing" a squadron, rather than "moving" a Squadron, for example.

2 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

My issue with that interpretation is it never tells you to remove them from their current ships...

For the "gain" interpretation to be proven right, the card should say "gain".

For the "move" interpretation to be proven right, the card should say "move".

But the card says "place", which is infuriating .

After much though, the deciding factor for me is that it says "choose two different command tokens". If they were chosen from those in play, then the "different" qualifier would make no sense. So I'm quite positive the article is right... this time

3 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

One would, but there's precedent to "place" being an override to the normal rules for doing things.

"Placing" a squadron, rather than "moving" a Squadron, for example.

It's not quite the same situation, though. Moving is a well-defined term (an action, even), whereas gaining is not. Gaining and assigning are used more or less interchangeably in the RRG (really, I just checked).

1 minute ago, DiabloAzul said:

For the "gain" interpretation to be proven right, the card should say "gain".

For the "move" interpretation to be proven right, the card should say "move".

But the card says "place", which is infuriating .

After much though, the deciding factor for me is that it says "choose two different command tokens". If they were chosen from those in play, then the "different" qualifier would make no sense. So I'm quite positive the article is right... this time

Oh, I'm with you.

Kind of like Sato v1.0 and replace , right?

I think Dras's explanation makes the most sense and I agree with the rest of you that you essentially place all 4 command tokens and you pick 2 and your opponent picks 2. Comms Net says you remove a token and pass it along to another ship, where as Hondo says place a token.

Now that I think about it, you could Hondo for your 2 tokens, place 1 on a ship and another on a Comms Net. Activate Comms Net and use the dial and pass the Hondo token to the other ship so it effectively gains both tokens.

Yes. Going back to the "gain" aspect, though, I think it's important to get some clarity/consensus because it will come up.

Regarding the squadron argument: "placing" a squadron is a transition from not being in the play area at all (due to RLB, overlap, or initial deployment), while "moving" is a transition from being somewhere in the play area to being somewhere else. Quite distinct.

But in the context of command tokens, "gain", "assign" or "place" appear to all involve the same transition: from the ship not having a token to having that token. Moreover, they are used interchangeably for the exact same event :

Command Dials
When a ship is activated, its owner reveals that ship’s
top command dial and places it next to the ship in the
play area. It can be spent immediately to assign the
corresponding command token to that ship .

vs

2. Ship Phase
Players take turns activating one of their unactivated ships,
proceeding through the following steps:
1 . Reveal Command Dial: Reveal the ship’s top
command dial. Choose whether to spend the dial
to gain the corresponding command token .

Not sure what to say. I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter. If you have Tantive and Hondo and want to bounce a token to the other ship, go ahead.

9 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Not sure what to say.

You don't need to say anything. It's a purely academic question. But Dras and I love academic questions.

Indeed. Academic questions are often the nitty gritties.

I see "gain" and "assign" there as current rules, and thus, legitimate precedences, DA... Do we have a precedence for "place" in a context other than squadrons being bumped?

Well, sure... "placing" and "deploying" ships is also used fairly interchangeably*. Obstacles and objective tokens are placed during setup. Other uses of the term are however limited to out-of-play items (maneuver tools, defense tokens, etc.)

But I still think that the interchangeable use of gain and assign means "gaining a token" (in the sense of Tantive IV) must be understood generically as "going from not having a token to having that token". Otherwise, Tantive IV may or may not trigger depending on whether you follow the rules on p.3 or p.16 of the RRG. And it doesn't say "when you gain or are assigned a token".

Having said that - yes, Hondo really should have been written "and assign them to 2 different ships". Like I said, infuriating.

*: compare the following...

RRG: A single deployment turn consists of placing one ship or
two squadrons.

Hyperspace Assault: At the start of any round after the first round, the second player can deploy the ship and squadrons that he set aside at distance 1 of 1 objective token. Then remove all objective tokens. The ship can be deployed overlapping squadrons.

::nodnod::

In Short: Use Common Sense or other things Break.

... Seems like we've been here before.......

6 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

RRG: A single deployment turn consists of placing one ship or
two squadrons.

Hyperspace Assault: At the start of any round after the first round, the second player can deploy the ship and squadrons that he set aside at distance 1 of 1 objective token. Then remove all objective tokens. The ship can be deployed overlapping squadrons.

Deploy Ships: Starting with the first player, the players take turns deploying their forces into the setup area. A single deployment turn consists of placing one ship or two squadrons.

I get where you are going, but deployment is an adjective for turn, where as in HSA, deploy is a verb.

I think this is a better example for you:

"Ships must be placed within their player’s deployment zones. When a player places a ship, he must set its speed dial to a speed available on its speed chart."

This is the first bullet point in deployment. It would appear Deploy is a key word but it has several steps within it that does not follow the same key word terminological found through the rest of the game. It would make more sense to replace all the "place" with "deploy" that way you can say when you deploy a ship, you set it's speed. What we currently have is HSA this:

HSA Deploy -> Deploy Ship -> place ship -> When a player places a ship, he must set its speed dial to a speed available on its speed chart

The language should be consistent.