Grint and Thrawn

By Undeadguy, in Star Wars: Armada Rules Questions

Will Grint trigger off of Thrawn? My initial reading is yes.

swm29_thrawn_card.png swm29_grint_card.png

No.

You is “this ship”

The Thrawn dial is not revealed by the ship.

It is revealed - but not by the ship with the upgrade.

no trigger.

Similar reason as to why the Thrawn dial cannot be turned into a token.

Actually...

Wouldn't Grint resolve off of Thrawn if they are both equipped to the same ship?

7 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

Actually...

Wouldn't Grint resolve off of Thrawn if they are both equipped to the same ship?

It’s intended to not.

The Thrawn dial reveal is not during a ship activation, so it does not follow the same workflow.

Hiwever, absolutely rigid adherence to specific wording would allow it...

My rules comments in this case ARE tempered and stated by the direct design intent, which in a rare case, we do have access to.

"At the start of each Ship Phase, Thrawn's ship may reveal and discard 1 of those dials ..."

"When Grint's ship reveals a command ..."

If both cards are on the same ship, the only difference is that Thrawn reveals "a dial " (showing a command), rather than revealing "a command ". At a glance one might think that this is enough to prevent the interaction... but then the RRG says:

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.

So in fact, if Grint doesn't trigger off of Thrawn, then he doesn't trigger off of regular activations either.

You may be right about RAI, but RAW seems pretty clear. Either way, this is definitely FAQ material.

15 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

"At the start of each Ship Phase, Thrawn's ship may reveal and discard 1 of those dials ..."

"When Grint's ship reveals a command ..."

If both cards are on the same ship, the only difference is that Thrawn reveals "a dial " (showing a command), rather than revealing "a command ". At a glance one might think that this is enough to prevent the interaction... but then the RRG says:

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.

So in fact, if Grint doesn't trigger off of Thrawn, then he doesn't trigger off of regular activations either.

You may be right about RAI, but RAW seems pretty clear. Either way, this is definitely FAQ material.

No disagreement.

Only provided context for my answer.

18 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

"At the start of each Ship Phase, Thrawn's ship may reveal and discard 1 of those dials ..."

"When Grint's ship reveals a command ..."

If both cards are on the same ship, the only difference is that Thrawn reveals "a dial " (showing a command), rather than revealing "a command ". At a glance one might think that this is enough to prevent the interaction... but then the RRG says:

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.

So in fact, if Grint doesn't trigger off of Thrawn, then he doesn't trigger off of regular activations either.

You may be right about RAI, but RAW seems pretty clear. Either way, this is definitely FAQ material.

But it isn't Thrawn's ship that is revealing and discarding that dial, it's DIRECTLY Thrawn

3 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

No disagreement.

Only provided context for my answer.

No doubt - I fully trust your RAW parsing abilities! But I thought it'd be worth to spell out the logic for the benefit of the general public. :)

3 minutes ago, Visovics said:

But it isn't Thrawn's ship that is revealing and discarding that dial, it's DIRECTLY Thrawn

"You" refers to the ship, not Thrawn.

Just now, Visovics said:

But it isn't Thrawn's ship that is revealing and discarding that dial, it's DIRECTLY Thrawn

Source?

RRG, p.3 Commanders:
A commander is a special type of upgrade card with the [Commander] icon on its card back and no upgrade icon in the lower-left corner of the card front.
• A commander can be equipped to any ship .
• A fleet cannot have more than one commander.
• A ship with a commander equipped is a flagship.

RRG p.16, Upgrade cards:

• On upgrade card effects, the term “you” refers to the ship that the upgrade is equipped to.

5 hours ago, DiabloAzul said:

Actually...

Wouldn't Grint resolve off of Thrawn if they are both equipped to the same ship?

Indeed. What a nice way to proc those new ISD fleet commands, too.

So, I asked this question n the other thread, because I didn't see this one: how does "Crew Panic" affect Thrawn? I'm going to argue that it doesn't; on the grounds that his dials are assigned to him, while Crew Panic targets the ship's dials. But the alternative seems fairly reasonable, too.

1 hour ago, JgzMan said:

So, I asked this question n the other thread, because I didn't see this one: how does "Crew Panic" affect Thrawn? I'm going to argue that it doesn't; on the grounds that his dials are assigned to him , while Crew Panic targets the ship's dials. But the alternative seems fairly reasonable, too.

Well, it's not so much a matter of whom they're assigned to (as that's not a trigger), but of who does the revealing.

"Before you [= Thrawn's ship ] reveal a command dial , you must either suffer 1 damage or discard that dial . If you discard it, do not reveal a dial this round ."

"At the start of each Ship Phase, you [= Thrawn's ship ] may reveal and discard 1 of those dials ..."

The interesting question is, though, what to do about the "do not reveal a dial this round" bit. If Thrawn's dial got zapped, does it mean the ship will not get to reveal a dial either when it eventually activates later in the round? That's what it sounds like to me.

3 hours ago, DiabloAzul said:

you [= Thrawn's ship ]

OR DOES IT? /salt

I think it's an interesting question, but it only applies if your flagship decides to reveal a Thrawn dial and then decides not to take the damage, which seems pretty unlikely to me. Could maybe come up in a tourney where you forgot about the crit, showed the Thrawn dial, and then your opponent enforced the missed opportunity I suppose.

I'd say no it doesnt (You = thrawn's ship)... as highlighted in other threads You on upgrade cards can mean either the ship Or the player. In this case as the upgrade card is instructions for something to happen outside of a ships activation (its the start of the phase so before ANY ship has activated) it has to be You = player.

13 minutes ago, slasher956 said:

I'd say no it doesnt (You = thrawn's ship)... as highlighted in other threads You on upgrade cards can mean either the ship Or the player. In this case as the upgrade card is instructions for something to happen outside of a ships activation (its the start of the phase so before ANY ship has activated) it has to be You = player.

That is not supported by the rules as written, which specifies, with no unambiguous notions, that You = The Ship this card is equipped to.

and so long as the upgrade works in some fashion with that interpretation, going outside of it Is wish listing at best.

"You" does not mean "the currently active ship". It means "the ship this card is equipped to". It has nothing to do with activations.

The fundamental difference between Thrawn and Strategic Advisor is that Thrawn instructs "you" to do things that ships do (because it is ships that reveal a command dial), while StA instructs "you" to do things that only players can do (ships don't "take turns" doing anything - they just "activate").

...having said that, the RRG says "When a ship is activated, its owner reveals that ship's command dial". Which suggests the opposite... but then that would be entirely inconsistent with a number of other effects. For example, see Crew Panic:

Before you reveal a command dial, you must either suffer 1 damage or discard that dial. If you discard it, do not reveal a dial this round.

If the first "you" is the player, but the second is the ship, does it mean that the ship takes 1 damage every time any of your ships activates? Obviously not.

EDIT - working through this logically and the answer is YES Grint does work :\ (yes a change of mind from me)

Thrawn has his own dials (these are not the ships!)

Thrawn reveals and discards the dial....

ship activates and gains a dial that matches the one that Thrawn has discarded

So the ship now has a dial that matches Grints

Edited by slasher956

Hang on... point of order:

Crew Panic is not an upgrade card.

The logic is flawed for that reason.

If the subject is not an upgrade card - say, because it is a Damage Card - “You” may not mean the equipped ship.

“You” on UPGRADE cards means the ship it’s equipped to.

Edited by Drasnighta
2 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Crew Panic is not an upgrade card.

Fair point, but then do we have instructions at all on how to parse the "you" in that case?

No.

but that’s going to open a can of worms though... the rules don’t tell us how to interpret “and” either.

5 minutes ago, slasher956 said:

Which just proves the point that You is not always 'the ship' on upgrade cards which brakes the 'un-ambiguity' of the rule book

On the contrary, it proves that things break when you take "you" as meaning the player. If it can mean the ship, it means the ship. But sometimes (rarely) it can't, because it instructs to perform a function that a ship cannot perform.

7 minutes ago, slasher956 said:

Now I read Thrawns card to be saying you as the player because the ship has yet to activate so how can I be using an upgrade relating to that ship?

You use upgrades all the time on ships which are not active. Targeting Scramblers, ECM, Toryn Farr, Lando, Goran, Gallant Haven...

3 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

No.

but that’s going to open a can of worms though... the rules don’t tell us how to interpret “and” either.

Oh come on, no need to get silly.

I'm fundamentally agreeing with you here: "you" must always be parsed as "the ship" (as per the RRG)... except when it can't. And with Thrawn it can, so it must.

12 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

Oh come on, no need to get silly.

I'm fundamentally agreeing with you here: "you" must always be parsed as "the ship" (as per the RRG)... except when it can't. And with Thrawn it can, so it must.

As long as you realize it’s tongue in cheek silly ?

It's too early in the morning to initialize the humour module :P