My take is that when you discard a card for any reason, it is not necessarily still equipped in that slot . It remains on the table, facedown. Nothing more.

I do not presume to say you are wrong, Gadgetron. But I still think that it is ambiguous. Yet the word “discard” has a decently-defined meaning in game, and I think it is presumptuous to ignore that because of a lack of clarity in a non-game term (“replace”).

Cheers!

Well, here's hoping you're right and here's hoping you don't cost someone a tournament win because you're trying to make a game into a college level law class.

50 minutes ago, Gadgetron said:

Well, here's hoping you're right and here's hoping you don't cost someone a tournament win because you're trying to make a game into a college level law class.

Personally, I feel only a player can do that to themselves.

I mean, all me jaded. But I'm a pretty full-on TO of these sorts of things. It states in the Tournament Regulations that I need to be familiar with the Rules and FAQs. That includes (to me, even if not explicitly spelt out) rules discussions online.

Its my responsibility as a TO to make questionable decisions known ahead of time.

Its the responsibility of the players - in the cases when they are aware of using Questionable upgrades - to ask ahead of time.

Now, of course, it is entirely possible that someone could go into a tournament with the assumption that things are under a certain banner - but I also argue that, if the tournament "matters", then they also need to follow the Player regulations and be familiar with the rules and FAQs and all apparent decisions.

If the focus on the tournament is not "competition" (ie, its a lower-ranked tournament as far as the regulations go), then they should be aiming to not be cut up by the potential of a decision not going their way .

The height of sportsmanship is to either be prepared with foreknowledge (as provided by the TO by asking them beforehand), or by at least, being gracious in any instance.

There are exceptions, of course. We've had demonstrated exceptions.

But once again, these are things we stride to avoid as part of these discussions online.

At least. Its what I do and why I do it.

I'm not an Armada God. I'm not a Rules Guru. I have no special knowledge of intent or any line to the designers that no member of the Armada Community doesn't share (mostly, the rules question link).

But I do recognise that rules writing is different to colloquial or standard English writing.

But I stride, personally, to provide discussion and a framework so that other TOs can at least make their own informed decision, and hopefully, do so before the tournament begins, and communicate such things to their players in advance .

And I do enjoy many viewpoints in the discussion. Certainly, I do. The only thing I don't really abide, discussion wise, is a statement that "This discussion is pointless, it clearly says X ."

Because if it clearly said it, we wouldn't have bothered with the discussion .

Or, at the very least, we wouldn't hit a page of notes. There are many examples of such threads here in the Forum... But until we can get intent, and, often to my dismay, proof of said intent from FFG, we cannot argue intent, as we are not privy to it.

Also, College level Law? Sorry mate, I didn't go. I didn't have the money, opportunity, family or even friend support to even consider it after I got bumped from the military on non-qual medical.

Really, the only point that I'm disagreeing on is your seeming statement that a discussion doesn't need to happen.

I feel it does.

So we'll discuss it

You're welcome to join, even if its to state what potential alternatives it could mean, based on English or other languages potential translations...

5 hours ago, Gadgetron said:

Well, here's hoping you're right and here's hoping you don't cost someone a tournament win because you're trying to make a game into a college level law class.

I will say what Dras wont.

You dont need a college law degree to know that your interpretation is wrong.

"Throw out the moldy cheese and replace in the fridge with fresh cheddar"

The moldy cheese is discarded.

The fresh cheese is added to the fridge.

At no point does the word 'replace' have any bearing on what happened to the mouldy cheese.

In the same way, the new fleet command takes its position in the ships upgrades, where the old fleet command previously was. The old fleet command having been 'discarded' so that there is no conflict created. At no point does the word 'replace' have any bearing on what happens to the old fleet command. We have very clear rules for what 'discard' means in Armada.

This is basic english. No need to claim its college level law. Its not even college level food technology.

2 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

I will say what Dras wont.

You dont need a college law degree to know that your interpretation is wrong.

"Throw out the moldy cheese and replace in the fridge with fresh cheddar"

The moldy cheese is discarded.

The fresh cheese is added to the fridge.

At no point does the word 'replace' have any bearing on what happened to the mouldy cheese.

In the same way, the new fleet command takes its position in the ships upgrades, where the old fleet command previously was. The old fleet command having been 'discarded' so that there is no conflict created. At no point does the word 'replace' have any bearing on what happens to the old fleet command. We have very clear rules for what 'discard' means in Armada.

This is basic english. No need to claim its college level law. Its not even college level food technology.

Whatever, whenever FFG addresses it we'll see what interpretation is correct.

7 minutes ago, Gadgetron said:

Whatever, whenever FFG addresses it we'll see what interpretation is correct.

Ok. Lets catch up next christmas.

Or alternatively, we could appreciate that these guys are trying to reach a thought out consensus in advance of the cards release, to mitigate the massive FAQ delay.

Ok, so, if we're going to go full college law to solve this, I have a question, once we've written our lists, are our point values not locked in place? If we build a 400 point list with a 5 point FC, if we trade for the 6 point FC, aren't we breaking our list and DQing ourselves? Or, are the new cards, as they are brought in, just free? Where does it say we're paying points for them, and if we aren't paying points for them, would their cost stack for the purpose of victory points?

15 minutes ago, Gadgetron said:

Ok, so, if we're going to go full college law to solve this, I have a question, once we've written our lists, are our point values not locked in place? If we build a 400 point list with a 5 point FC, if we trade for the 6 point FC, aren't we breaking our list and DQing ourselves? Or, are the new cards, as they are brought in, just free? Where does it say we're paying points for them, and if we aren't paying points for them, would their cost stack for the purpose of victory points?

On 28/11/2017 at 3:44 PM, ovinomanc3r said:

I am "sure" about:

[...]

You have not to pay the new command fleet as per the rules, that requirement works only when building a fleet and you are not building one at that point.

-When building a fleet, upgrade cards can be equipped to ships by adding their fleet point costs to the total fleet point cost.-

[...]

Also paying for them doesn't count for scoring. Being equipped does.

3 hours ago, Gadgetron said:

Ok, so, if we're going to go full college law to solve this, I have a question, once we've written our lists, are our point values not locked in place? If we build a 400 point list with a 5 point FC, if we trade for the 6 point FC, aren't we breaking our list and DQing ourselves? Or, are the new cards, as they are brought in, just free? Where does it say we're paying points for them, and if we aren't paying points for them, would their cost stack for the purpose of victory points?

No, because at time of setup your list is a legal 400 point list... the fact that one of your upgrades allows you to change it* for another is immaterial to that fact,

just remember that whilst an upgrade allows you to do something doesn't mean you have to....

* the negative side of this is part of what's being discussed.... you could end up having 415 point list that will affect your MoV

If your fleet is already at 400 points, can you replace a card with one that would bring your fleet total over 400?

15 minutes ago, Celestial Lizards said:

If your fleet is already at 400 points, can you replace a card with one that would bring your fleet total over 400?

As long as something allows you to do that yes.

Chimaera does.

16 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

As long as something allows you to do that yes.

Chimaera does.

I assumed that people would know that I was referring to the Chimaera in a thread about the Chimaera .

I just tried it out with a proxy card on the weekend...

Basically, after a couple of games, it doesn’t feel bad, cheesy, or wrong (gameplay based) to allow you to re equip a card you discarded, as long as you have a second copy of that card to equip.

For example, I start Chimaera with Entrapment formation.

Second turn, I trigger Entrapment with a token spend, then is Chimaera to discard Entrapment (turning it face down) and replacing it with Intensify Firepower!

If I want to re equip Entrapment Formation, I do not turn the card that is face down face up. I leave it there and have to grab another copy of the card to place there.

This fit neatly with the FFG tournament requirements to use only official cards, and reduced “bookkeeping “ to literally counting the cost of all of the cards, face up and down, when the show was over if Chimaera exploded.

One certainly didn’t feel the need to be relentlessly swapping Fleet Command cards out every or even every other turn... There are only 6 turns in the game after all, and triggering them with tokens (in order to keep the card there so it can be discarded to change - if you discard to trigger, like Adminition and it’s defence tokens, it’s gone before you can spend it) takes wind up and preparation.

From a gameplay perspective, it felt natural that way. Natural, tournament friendly and legal.

It also followed the precedence of no proxy cards, and was the first time I was happy with ever owning multiple Pelta - as I was not 100% sure which ones come in Chimaera, I had 2 of all but Intensify Firepower! ... and that was enough.

So I have no idea if it was intended that way or not, or will be ruled that way - but from a “keep the game running and easy to play” perspective of a tournament, that way had the least amount of issues, and will be personally how I run my local tournaments with it in the time until any official ruling.

Having to have more than one version of the fleet command cards to be able to use a cheap ship title? game design is multiple copies for multiple ships, not multiple copies for a single ship.

Also it was more easy than having one of each and changing them around?

Not really that invested with this entire topic, but you can put me in the camp of, "you start the game with 1 equipped, and that single fleet command slot can only ever hold one fleet command."

Just exactly how are you all justifying the argument that discarded cards are kept? how when the ship has one slot for that specific upgrade?? this is where logic dictates that the cards are not kept face down.

26 minutes ago, TheEasternKing said:

Having to have more than one version of the fleet command cards to be able to use a cheap ship title? game design is multiple copies for multiple ships, not multiple copies for a single ship.

Also it was more easy than having one of each and changing them around?

Not really that invested with this entire topic, but you can put me in the camp of, "you start the game with 1 equipped, and that single fleet command slot can only ever hold one fleet command."

Just exactly how are you all justifying the argument that discarded cards are kept? how when the ship has one slot for that specific upgrade?? this is where logic dictates that the cards are not kept face down.

That the rules say they are kept for the purposes of scoring

Besides, the precedent is set on cards, if you do not own an appropriate amount of copies, you cannot equip that many copies.

My play test was to see which way worked BEST.

we tried allowing re-use of a single card, but could not keep track of how many times it had been discarded (for the purposes of scoring) without breaking the rule that disallows note-taking during a tournament... (which is why we didn’t just write it on the army list, for example...)

besides, you can use the title without ever repeating a card- and be perfectly legitimate in your usage... so your argument atbhe start is a little far fetched.

Thrnonlyvreal issue is when you start with card 1, swap to card 2 (no problems yet), but then want to swap back to card 1 later.

Swapping to card 3, and hen card 4, have absolutely no questions asked of it, that are not already answered, I feel, and is a perfectly legal and useful way of using Chimaera.

If you want to go back to 1, then have another 1.

borrow it if you have to. Just like if you want every ship to have Flight Commander and you don’t own any Interdictors.

29 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

That the rules say they are kept for the purposes of scoring

Besides, the precedent is set on cards, if you do not own an appropriate amount of copies, you cannot equip that many copies.

My play test was to see which way worked BEST.

we tried allowing re-use of a single card, but could not keep track of how many times it had been discarded (for the purposes of scoring) without breaking the rule that disallows note-taking during a tournament... (which is why we didn’t just write it on the army list, for example...)

besides, you can use the title without ever repeating a card- and be perfectly legitimate in your usage... so your argument atbhe start is a little far fetched.

Thrnonlyvreal issue is when you start with card 1, swap to card 2 (no problems yet), but then want to swap back to card 1 later.

Swapping to card 3, and hen card 4, have absolutely no questions asked of it, that are not already answered, I feel, and is a perfectly legal and useful way of using Chimaera.

If you want to go back to 1, then have another 1.

borrow it if you have to. Just like if you want every ship to have Flight Commander and you don’t own any Interdictors.

This is the interpretation I'm leaning towards from a rules perspective. Good to hear it passes the "feels right" test too.

So you are basing it all on it being kept for scoring? fair enough, FFG have a distressing habit of doing this with new content, creating something new, and then not explaining it enough.

But as Ard said, we we're all wrong about RLB...well that applies here, why after the RLB debacle are you applying rules you very well know are probably about to get thrown out of the window?

And no, I do not agree that having multiple copies of cards for a single ship is design intent.... certainly not when they come in ISD packs.

3 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

This is the interpretation I'm leaning towards from a rules perspective. Good to hear it passes the "feels right" test too.

Also mine but the uniqueness issue remains from a rules perspective.

13 minutes ago, TheEasternKing said:

So you are basing it all on it being kept for scoring? fair enough, FFG have a distressing habit of doing this with new content, creating something new, and then not explaining it enough.

But as Ard said, we we're all wrong about RLB...well that applies here, why after the RLB debacle are you applying rules you very well know are probably about to get thrown out of the window?

And no, I do not agree that having multiple copies of cards for a single ship is design intent.... certainly not when they come in ISD packs.

You may call it an interpretation but "it remains equipped for purpose of scoring" is other way to say, it is not equipped anymore but count it when scoring. So if it is not equipped anymore, or to be more precise following the rules, if it is not equipped when we were talking about anything but scoring, then the rule you pointed is not broken cause the upgrade is not equipped.

About RLB. Are you saying we cannot talk about rules? Cause that is what I read.

We can point to RLB as a precedence of something that can happen but we cannot just say "there is a precedence of ffg doing what they wish so we better don't talk about rules". I also will say there are precedences of car crashes so don't drive one. About RLB it happened they just added instead where it was unnecessary. If they had written it correctly since the beginning hadn't been wrong.

16 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

You may call it an interpretation but "it remains equipped for purpose of scoring" is other way to say, it is not equipped anymore but count it when scoring. So if it is not equipped anymore, or to be more precise following the rules, if it is not equipped when we were talking about anything but scoring, then the rule you pointed is not broken cause the upgrade is not equipped.

About RLB. Are you saying we cannot talk about rules? Cause that is what I read.

We can point to RLB as a precedence of something that can happen but we cannot just say "there is a precedence of ffg doing what they wish so we better don't talk about rules". I also will say there are precedences of car crashes so don't drive one. About RLB it happened they just added instead where it was unnecessary. If they had written it correctly since the beginning hadn't been wrong.

Who said we can't talk? Dras is stating he is going to rule it the way he stated above. Hence my questions.

Nice attempt though.

1 minute ago, TheEasternKing said:

Who said we can't talk? Dras is stating he is going to rule it the way he stated above. Hence my questions.

Nice attempt though.

34 minutes ago, TheEasternKing said:

why after the RLB debacle are you applying rules you very well know are probably about to get thrown out of the window?

Then you maybe wanted to explain me this. Just to understand what are you really saying.

2 hours ago, TheEasternKing said:

So you are basing it all on it being kept for scoring? fair enough, FFG have a distressing habit of doing this with new content, creating something new, and then not explaining it enough.

But as Ard said, we we're all wrong about RLB...well that applies here, why after the RLB debacle are you applying rules you very well know are probably about to get thrown out of the window?

And no, I do not agree that having multiple copies of cards for a single ship is design intent.... certainly not when they come in ISD packs.

Well, the logical follow through to your statement is “why bother discussing rules at all because you were wrong about RLB...”

And rather, the statement that *I* am applying rules that may be thrown out the window....

sure, might be.

might be effing spot on, too.

Call me arrogant, but I’m right more than I am wrong, after all, when it comes to rules. Because I explicitly search for precedence and then rigorously test to see if it makes sense.

also, it’s my rule to set. My group needs and wants a ruling do they can PLAY it, and not ignore it like RLB was. I have that duty to them.

As has been stated time and again - mostly by me - I am not a goddamn rules guru. I do not have special knowledge.

But I do have a responsibility to those who game in my group to make these decisions, and make them fairly on their behalf so they can get on enjoying their games.

part and parcel of that is testing various designs of rules. Part of it is officially asking for advice. Part of it is opening and continue discussions here so I can get feedback and sculpt my decisions around it.

im the end, it is my decision, and no one not in my group, specifically playing in a tournament I run, needs to pay any goddamn attention to what I do decide. Because my decisions have no impact on you.

if your point is that I am wasting my time discussing because it’s pointless and irrelevant to do so...

fine.

ill spend my time how I want, and that will involve a modicum of seconds specifically attributed and set aside to tell people like that to kindly **** off

I still think that if Chimaera blows up, it's just worth it's points plus whatever it had equipped at the time it exploded. But I'm simply basing that on a desire to keep things simple, and of course I could be wrong, and it could be exactly like what Dras proposes. We will see what FFG says in, oh, say a year or three.

@Drasnighta , for what you said I suppose you allow unique upgrades as long as only 1 is "active".

Could you share your reasoning there (if any)?

Thanks in advance.

17 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

@Drasnighta , for what you said I suppose you allow unique upgrades as long as only 1 is "active".

Could you share your reasoning there (if any)?

Thanks in advance.

Unique

Star Wars Armada includes many famous characters and ships from the Star Wars universe. Each of these famous figures is represented by a card with a unique name, which is identified by a bullet (•) to the left of the name. A player cannot field two or more cards that share the same unique name.

I personally interpret "field" as what you bring to the field of battle to begin with. What "comes later" is not what you field, but its what you reinforce with. That is the definition I gained in the Royal Australian Air Force, and it still sticks with me today.

So in short, what I "field" is my Fleet List. And my Fleet list shall specify only one copy of a unique card to be legal.

Honestly, the Unique side is the trickiest rule to parse. Because "field" is such a simple word with such mixed emphasis and lack of definition.

Is there direct rules precedence for any of this? No. No there is not. This is the first time in Armada we're having the ability to take something from "out of the game" and place it into play, so we have no field of local reference. So I scout my frame of reference wider until I find something that works, essentially scouting in ever-widening circles to find it