Yin Devotion and Impulse Core

By piper_vgl, in Twilight Imperium

Posted at

Getting ready for a game with some actual lawyers.....

Using Devotion, does the destroyer or cruiser the Yin destroys HAVE to come from the active system?

My first thought was, of course it does, it's a kamikaze run. It makes sense thematically.


But reading as written, I'm not so sure.

Devotion
After each space battle round, you may destroy 1 of your cruisers or destroyers to produce 1 hit and assign it to 1 of your opponent's ships.
Impulse Core
At the start of a space combat, you may destroy 1 of your cruisers or destroyers in the active system to produce 1 hit against your opponent's ships; that hit must be assigned by your opponent to 1 of his non-fighter ships if able .
Both abilities state
when it happens (After each round, as the start of Space Combat)
what you do to trigger the ability (destroy DD or CA, destroy DD or CA in the active system)
what happens (assign hit, opponent assigns hit to non-fighter ship)
As an example, Yin have Mecatol with several GF 1 DD and 1 DN. Yin have 6 DD's in the home system.
Hacan invades with 2 carriers, 4 GF, 4 fighters, and 2 cruisers.
At the start of space combat, Yin use Impulse Core, lose the DD in Mecatol, and inflict 1 hit, which the Hacan assign to a CA, destroying it.
Round 1.
Hacan get 2 hits and destroy the DN
Yin get 1 hit, and Hacan uses a fighter.
Yin use Devotion, destroy a DD in the home system, and hit a carrier.
Makes no sense. But it fits the rules as written, unless I'm missing something. Where am I wrong?

Posted at

Yea, you can't blow up ships from non-active systems to produce hits in the active system. "In the active system" is just assumed as part of the Devotion ability because only ships in the active system can participate in the space combat to which hits are being assigned.

Posted at

Then why specify the active system for Impulse Core?

I can readily believe this was the intent. If so, why not spell it out? It's the racial ability, plenty of room on the race card.

Posted at
1 hour ago, piper_vgl said:

Then why specify the active system for Impulse Core?

I can readily believe this was the intent. If so, why not spell it out? It's the racial ability, plenty of room on the race card.

FFG doesn't have a great track record for consistency in wording similar effects, so I wouldn't take that discrepancy as a sign of anything, unfortunately.

Logically it makes sense for the hit to be produced in the active system. How could a blown up destroyer in orbit around Jord destroy a ship in orbit around Mecatol?

Posted at

How can a Sardakk dreadnought destroy 2 WarSuns?

Why do Fighters 2 block movement, but Fighters 1 do not?

How do the Saar keep everyone out of Asteroid Fields?

There are 3 abilities/racial techs that allow you to destroy one of your units to inflict hits or destroy opponent ships.

Exotrireme specifies in the same system.
Impulse Core species in the same system.
Devotion does not.

So far, all the arguments for limiting Devotion to the same system are:

It doesn't make sense.
Nothing else does that.
FFG writes bad rules (most believable)

Perhaps we can get a clarification, or something added to a FAQ.

Posted at

Seems reasonable enough to get a clarification.

Posted at

Seems like you're just trying to find a loophole on the basis of non-ironclad terminology, but in any case I've pinged the designer for a ruling.

Posted at

"In the active system." I've got a suggestion here, maybe everyone will think it's a bad idea, but anyway.

I'm very firmly in the camp of, it is utterly ridiculous to suggest a ship that isn't in the active system (especially the home world, as one of the most potentially farthest away systems), blows up ships across multiple sectors, that's a bad suggestion, unless the rules spelled that out specifically, even then I wouldn't like it.

However, for Devotion, since it is after each round of space combat, perhaps of the ships that survive during a retreat, as they're retreating they could be destroyed? If you're being pursued by someone with warfare this would be potentially useful? I don't know, perhaps the system retreating out of is still the active one, but anyway, that's an interpretation that might satisfy the OP as to why they didn't write it (other than we know FFGs have made various typos in this edition already, and don't write all the rules in the rules section, instead some times leaving game rules to be explained in race specific cards, see Yssaril's "Transparasteel plating" to explain that action cards can be used after passing a round, I couldn't find that in the rules). EDIT: Re-reading the race card I want to clarify. This means that any player who has passed can play action cards, just not during your turn if you're the Yssaril.

Edited by Conza89
Posted at

Long time coming, but highly expected ruling from Dane:

" The Yin’s devotion ability cannot be used to destroy ships in a non-active system or triggered by ships not in the system. I’ll be sure to clarify this in the upcoming FAQ."

Posted at
8 hours ago, Network57 said:

Long time coming, but highly expected ruling from Dane:

" The Yin’s devotion ability cannot be used to destroy ships in a non-active system or triggered by ships not in the system. I’ll be sure to clarify this in the upcoming FAQ."

What is the best source or repository for rulings from Dane?

Posted at
8 minutes ago, Zorprime said:

What is the best source or repository for rulings from Dane?

For TI, I'm not sure. This was an emailed response to a question I submitted on the Customer Service Rules submission form.

Posted at
11 hours ago, Zorprime said:

What is the best source or repository for rulings from Dane?

Unfortunatley, I think that you'd be required to look through all the threads in this part of the forum. At least until the FAQ comes out.

Posted at

It looks like the rules section of Twilight Imperium 4 on Board Game Geek is fairly centralized repository right now.