So I'm watching the Portland System Open finals (I think; I'm sick as crap and feverish, so my memory is unreliable) and at one point in the combat phase, the Ghost player -- with his Ghost facing the board edge -- measures to the board edge. (It's a little out of range 1.) I point it out in the Twitch chat. I mean, I don't know ... for all I know, the one player asked the other if he could do it, and if so, I guess you just shrug.

But what amazed we was how many people argued that measuring to the board edge was perfectly legal. (It's not. You can measure to all the other enemy ships you want, and to other ships to check on ability triggers, but you can't measure to nothing.) A few of us pointed this out, but it did not make a dent. Apparently a significant number of players think that measurement was legal. (Someone opined that it didn't make a difference, and I pointed out that he now knows, 100% that a 2-turn is off the map.)

Where do people get these ideas about the rules? It's the weirdest thing. People just invent rules out of nowhere, and the made-up rules seem to spread. Not like wildfire, but like, I dunno, low-level VD.

Burn the witch!

#flycasual?

more like #neverreadtherules

I have no idea.

I've heard some 40K players argue that X-wing should just allow free pre-measurement to get rid of all of the measurement drama (especially with the increasing number of timing windows for abilities that are range dependent). But I feel like this would destroy one of the core elements of the game and make games take forever.

One of the things that grabbed me immediately when I first played X-wing (core set game with my friend on his kitchen table back in wave 3) was the idea that you had to estimate where different maneuvers would take you. It had this element of player skill in spatial reasoning independent of any dice or game mechanics. While it might seem harmless to allow people to measure to the board edge or to asteroids freely it undermines that core value of the game.

I’m guessing the argument(if there was one to be made) is when the ship becomes the active ship in the combat phase you check for range from your firing arc. The ghost player was simply checking from the Primary before checking for TLT.

(Even though you, I, both players, and the rest of the stream know that there was not a ship in his primary)

Rules lawyering has been around since wave 1, sadly. I mean look at the errata to Dash, lone wolf, Gonk, the scum aggressor title, etc.

Just now, FlyingAnchors said:

I’m guessing the argument(if there was one to be made) is when the ship becomes the active ship in the combat phase you check for range from your firing arc. The ghost player was simply checking from the Primary before checking for TLT .

Ah, but see, you check for range to other ships .

I can understand making the mistake (note that there's no accusation against the player in my post). What I struggle with is how, once it's very clear it's not legal, people just refuse to acknowledge it.

"Fake rules," I guess.

Yeah, I bet it's coming from other games where premeasuring is legal.

I went the other way -- started with X-wing -- so I don't pre-measure and it irks me in Armada or other games when someone does until I remember it is legal in those games.

6 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Ah, but see, you check for range to other ships .

I can understand making the mistake (note that there's no accusation against the player in my post). What I struggle with is how, once it's very clear it's not legal, people just refuse to acknowledge it.

"Fake rules," I guess.

Oh I completely misread that. I guess someone wasn’t watching the stream chat?

18 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Ah, but see, you check for range to other ships .

I can understand making the mistake (note that there's no accusation against the player in my post). What I struggle with is how, once it's very clear it's not legal, people just refuse to acknowledge it.

"Fake rules," I guess.

But how can you check to see if other ships in arc if you don’t use the range ruler!! I mean, clearly you can’t just eyeball the arc lines or use common sense because that’s not in the rule book!

Follow up question: what's the penalty for doing something like this?

Just now, Transmogrifier said:

Follow up question: what's the penalty for doing something like this?

TO's discretion. As the other player, I'd just say, "Oh, please don't do that. It's against the rules." As a TO, I'd issue a warning. In both cases, I'd only escalate if the player unreasonably quarreled.

10 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

But how can you check to see if other ships in arc if you don’t use the range ruler!! I mean, clearly you can’t just eyeball the arc lines or use common sense because that’s not in the rule book!

I have a laser line I bought for $5 at a tools shop. And yes, I know you were mostly kidding.

41 minutes ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

I have no idea.

I've heard some 40K players argue that X-wing should just allow free pre-measurement to get rid of all of the measurement drama (especially with the increasing number of timing windows for abilities that are range dependent). But I feel like this would destroy one of the core elements of the game and make games take forever.

See, I take the WHFB measuring rules. NO pre-measure at all. Declare a target lock and it's out - waste of an action. Declare an attack and the target is out or range - wasted attack. Proc an ability and the ships not in range - better luck next turn.

I know it's not gonna happen and I'm not really complaining about the rules as they stand, but I find it very strange that you can measure all your ranges and then decide. But that's just my personal opinion. It's why I gave up on WHFB after 7th edition - 8th edition allowed pre-measure and that just took so much of the skill out of the game.

There were like 20 people standing around the table watching at that point (myself included) and we all saw him do that and nobody said anything, so I guess it's a pretty commonly misunderstood rule. The head judge was there but he was also answering rules calls from the Hyperspace Qualifier tables so he may have been away. I thought it was clever when he did it, it allowed him to know that he needed to a 1-hard to stay on the board, but you're right, the FAQ says you can only measure range to enemy ships when you are measuring range during the combat ship when a ship activates.

Measurement rules are the area where I think most people are the least likely to care. On the surface, it seems like something that just doesn't really matter, and that measuring at any and all times ought to be fine. Even once you understand the official measuring rules and what the gameplay ramifications are, it still feels kind of questionable whether it's really needed.

I also don't recall the rulebook ever emphasizing the idea of restricted measurement windows too much, so it's easy to overlook in general.

I think the Force Awakens rulebook still has no rules against putting your maneuver templates in front of your ships during the planning phase. The restrictions on when you can't measure are emphasized in the FAQ instead of the rulebook, and this is the finals of a premiere level tournament we're talking about.

That said, I think this was just an honest mistake from a common misunderstanding of the rules.

I'm very new to X Wing and coming from a 40k pre-measure mindset, it's taken a little time to learn all the permissions for this game.

There seemed to be a fairly random spread of allowable and non-allowable pre-checks. I think several cases of you declare, measure, blocked, ah just go back and declare something else. I'm getting into it, it's fly casual with that pre-check brother.

You wanna see if you can do that thing there? Try it.... No, you can't? Has the state of the game changed so you cant go back? No? Have another go!

Maybe. There's a spirit to the rules in this game, I'm sure of it....

But to me, it was always obvious that you don't pre-measure moves. That's the whole crux of the game right there, the skill and the gamble. Everything else is simply a nice, customisable Star Wars dressing. That and pointing your torches to catch the skulking baddies in the light. With weird dice.

Flying your ship off the table definitely changes the state of the game and there's no rule to say you can't do it.

Measuring distance to an edge seems pretty dodgy to me, since that directly impacts things like whether you'll be able to do a K-turn or not in the next turn. It's a very different thing to measuring distance to a ship for an attack, since it has a concrete impact on the next planning phase. If you measure for an attack, it doesn't have as much impact, because the target won't be in the same spot at the next combat phase. The board edge, however, will always be in that spot.

Definitely agree that this should not have been allowed.

. .

1 hour ago, Hawkstrike said:

Yeah, I bet it's coming from other games where premeasuring is legal.

I went the other way -- started with X-wing -- so I don't pre-measure and it irks me in Armada or other games when someone does until I remember it is legal in those games.

It makes sense in Armada, though. The turns represent a longer space of time and the ships have all sorts of sensoring do-dads equipped on them that mean measuring makes thematic sense.

in X-Wing though turns represent seconds, if that.

. .

In my experience, most of the errors come from players not reading the complete text of an upgrade. As an example, while playing Galactic Civil War, one player was using Palpatine to change his opponent's dice! He didn't read the complete text on the card.

Another source is not reading the rules and understanding them.

Finally to a lesser extent is the rules lawyering mentioned above. The old "It doesn't say I can't" argument.

The last of consistency between the core rule books adds to the confusion.

its mostly people either not reading the errata where its clarified(which is 3/4 of players) or making an assumption because the rules are vague.

for example all five of my friends i play with interpereted the rules as written to allow a pilot to perform the same action twice if a card or ability allowed. We were 5 out of 5 in complete agreement that you could evade and then PTL a second evade. it wasnt until the a 6th person claimed we couldn't that we discovered our rulebook didnt have the clarification that restricted duplicate actions. we were all wrong, but we were all wrong because the ridiculous rules wording around "action" and "free action" left a lot to the imagination.

FFG is terrible at clear and concise wording. I think thats the point

Piggy backing on the 2 evade tokens thing. Early on I thought you could use as many evades as you had when defending. Boy did my heart sink when I discovered you can only use one. My lists with poor, poor Lando Crew shed a tear that day.

26 minutes ago, Force Majeure said:

Piggy backing on the 2 evade tokens thing. Early on I thought you could use as many evades as you had when defending. Boy did my heart sink when I discovered you can only use one. My lists with poor, poor Lando Crew shed a tear that day.

That rule has only been in effect for about 18 months or so, before then you could spend as many evade tokens as you liked in a single attack.

I had a game a couple years back where it was my Hera in the ghost with Lando crew and Experimental interface vs an inquisitor. Over the course of half an hour the inquisitor only did 5 damage to the ghost, and hera got 3 back with a Dorsal Turret as I would end up with between 1-3 evades every turn, usually 2 or more, meaning the inquisitor would have to roll 3 hits every shot and hope lando blanked out on me.

Sadly now that is lost, and yet Latts razi crew as well as Lowhhricks ability are effectively the same thing!! I miss my Multiple evade Ghost, though if I had had the currently available wingmen like Fenn and Lowhhrick it might be a little too good haha.