I'm looking for some clarification on an interaction involving The Inquisitor's Lightsaber Throw action, specifically with regards to triggering the Cleave 3 surge ability.

So the way I'd always played it was to roll the attack, resolve it as normal and when triggering Cleave 3, it was restricted to whatever I had rolled for Accuracy in terms of range to The Inquisitor.

I've been directed to the Rules Reference Guide on the subject and am looking at the following passages;

Cleave (p.8)
"...the attacker may choose a different hostile figure or object that he could target for an attack."

The first bullet point that follows states "The chosen figure must be an eligible target."

So this this lead me to look up the specifics of Attacks (p.5), which has the following lines;

Under "Step 1 Declare Target", first bullet point it says in part "For a ranged attack..., an eligible target is any hostile target within line of sight of the attacker."

So does this mean that after successfully landing performing my attack with Lightsaber Throw, I can activate Cleave 3 with a remaining surge and apply that damage to any hostile figure in Line of Sight, regardless of whether or not the Accuracy of the initial attack would have been enough to hit them?

This question was inspired by comments made on the Twin Troopers podcast episode on The Grand Inquisitor, which prompted me to do a fact check, leading me to this potential Rules Lawyering situation.

I'd love to hear some sound arguments on why you cannot Cleave 3 from any distance, Line of Sight permitting so I can straighten this out.

It seems that if this was actually a valid play that I've horribly mis-used The Quiz all this time.

There has been an unofficial (or maybe official now?) reply from FFG that the target for cleave must be within the accuracy of the attack.

2 hours ago, Stompburger said:

There has been an unofficial (or maybe official now?) reply from FFG that the target for cleave must be within the accuracy of the attack.

Hmm, nothing in the FAQ.

But you are correct, FFG mentioned in the " Hunted by the Empire " article that the eligible target must be within the accuracy of the attack:

Quote

Finally, it’s important to note that you can still trigger Cleave while making a ranged attack with Lightsaber Throw. What’s more, you aren’t limited to a figure adjacent to your target—instead, you can choose any figure within range of your accuracy , making it easy to spread a swath of destruction through enemy figures.

2 hours ago, Armandhammer said:

Hmm, nothing in the FAQ.

But you are correct, FFG mentioned in the " Hunted by the Empire " article that the eligible target must be within the accuracy of the attack:

I'm not near my rules... But wasn't this clarified in the rules supplement for the Inquisitor?

46 minutes ago, neosmagus said:

I'm not near my rules... But wasn't this clarified in the rules supplement for the Inquisitor?

Correct.

The Grand Inquisitor, CLEAVE said:

When a figure uses the Cleave keyword during a ranged attack, the
hostile figure chosen to suffer the damage from Cleave must be within
line of sight of the attacker and within a number of spaces of the
attacker equal to or less than the Accuracy result of the attack.

@neosmagus @a1bert

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I completely forgot to even look at the rules insert from the Inquisitor pack. It's like a mental blind spot for me because the information is usually boiler-plate stuff on how to shuffle in the new item/agenda cards, etc.

I'll make a point to add those to any future research angles.

It turns out they have some use even if they aren't Skirmish maps!

10 hours ago, a1bert said:

Correct.

This should actually be added to the FAQ for folk that don't own the Inquisitor, because Diala

13 hours ago, neosmagus said:

This should actually be added to the FAQ for folk that don't own the Inquisitor, because Diala

Do you mean because of Dancing Weapon?

1 hour ago, Golan Trevize said:

Do you mean because of Dancing Weapon?

Yip, that's where the rule first came from, Diala with dancing weapon and Cleave.

The Inquisitor was created later.

This is a bit off topic-ish, but I'll put it here regardless. This is a vid of Team Covenant explaining the Grand Inquisitor (and a few other packs) and it's clear and well worth a viewing; if nothing else, Zack is very cute and cuddly and I'm bromancing hard for this due, so go watch it