I get that an Ion pulse cancels all die rolls if it hits, but what If my opponent rolls 1 attack and I have an evasion token?

Short version: The attack misses if you spend the evade token.

Long version: For each attack, during the Modify Defense Dice Step, you can spend 1 evade token to add 1 evade result (i.e. place an unused die displaying the evade result next to the rolled dice). This evade result acts just like you had naturally rolled an evade. But be aware that things that prevent dice modifications, like being target locked by Omega Leader, will prevent you from adding evade results.

Also be aware that you can not spend more then one evade token for it's normal effect for any one attack. However if you have two evade tokes, you can spend one to add 1 evade result and one to trigger another effect. Or you could spend one token when defending from the first attack and then spend the second when defending from a different attack.

Note that for an attack to hit, the number of hit and crit results must exceed the number of evade results.

Things only hit at that point, not before (Lt Blount excepted).

You can still dodge IPMs even if they rolled 3 hits.

On 1/6/2018 at 9:15 PM, airhendrix said:

I get that an Ion pulse cancels all die rolls if it hits, but what If my opponent rolls 1 attack and I have an evasion token?

Splitting hairs here. Having a token and spending a token are not the same thing. You must spend the evade token to get the standard effect from that token (add 1 evade result as described by @Nspace .)

Done splitting hairs. The most important thing I can tell you in answering this question is this:

Read and Understand the “Timing Chart for Performing an Attack” on page 8 of the FAQ. The timing chart resolves a huge majority of attack realted questions, if you follow it .

The deal with Ion Pulse Missiles is that the only thing that matters is whether you have more hits and critical hit results than the opponent has evades.

The attacker rolls 1 hit, and the defender blanks out: one damage and two ion tokens.

The attacker rolls 3 hits and the defender manages two evades: one damage and two ion tokens.

The attacker rolls 3 critical hit results and the defender is a 0-agility ship like a Decimator or VCX with no agility dice and which happens to have no shields at the moment? One damage and two ion tokens.

So the thing to keep in mind, if you've got an evade token to defend against an Ion Pulse Missiles, or a focus token and some focus results is this: don't bother spending the tokens unless you can equal or exceed their number of hits.

Let's say the attacker with Ion Pulse Missiles gets three hits against a TIE Defender with a focus and an evade token. The defender rolls [blank][blank][focus]. There's no point to spending either token, since you'll get at most 2 evade results, and the attack will still hit. If the TIE Defender rolled [blank][focus][evade] they could either spend both the focus and evade tokens for enough results to cause the attack to miss entirely (3 evade results will cause a 3-hit attack to miss), but there would be no difference between spending only the focus or only the evade.

Rolling a 'hit' result is not the same thing as an attack hitting its target. An attack doesn't 'hit' unless there is a Hit or Critical Hit result that doesn't get cancelled.

In your example with the ion pulse: the attacker rolls 1 hit. The defender rolls 0 evades, but uses their Evade token to add an evade result. The evade result cancels the hit result, leaving zero hits, thus the attack missed.