I want to sanity-check that I'm not missing a rule somewhere:

1. Ello Asty reveals a Tallon Roll.
2. He has fewer than 3 stress tokens (zero, in this case), and so he's able to treat it as white.
3. Leia triggers with the same timing (and thus I elect to have her resolve 2nd); she reduces the difficulty to blue.
4. BB-8 triggers before I execute a blue maneuver, letting me spend a charge to roll or boost to aim this tallon roll.

This is all... sane, yes? It's probably stupid (lots of investment in the gimmick), but it's fair game by the rules? Or am I missing some special rule about how multiple difficulty modifiers must resolve, or something similar?

This might be a monkey wrench in it depending on interpretation (I don't think it does contradict, just making sure to cover that base), but your breakdown pans out otherwise to me.

Hmm... I suspect it's fine. That not only applies to actions, but it also applies when multiple effects are setting a color, instead of adjusting it. Though FFG could rule otherwise at any time.

25 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

This might be a monkey wrench in it depending on interpretation (I don't think it does contradict, just making sure to cover that base), but your breakdown pans out otherwise to me.

I had the same thought. There are a couple of differences, of course. The biggest obvious difference is maneuvers vs actions, but also that the ruling refers only to effects that "Treat ______ as ________" and not effects that reduce difficulty. However, if they use this as precedent, future rulings would likely stipulate that the more difficult difficulty persists.

It really is up in the air until we get official clarification.

First off, I don't think BB-8 (or a standard BB astromech) would have any problem with the combo, as long as the eventual maneuver would be blue. As for Leia/Ello, I'm not sure what I think the answer actually is, but I want to pose a question... looking at the wording of the cards, would Leia still refer back to the original dial of Ello (red)? After all, they both refer to a revealed dial/maneuver. The revealed dial would remain a Red 3 Tallon Roll, no matter what. Does Leia explicitly refer to THAT maneuver (the one that was revealed on its dial), or can it refer to an altered maneuver? Basically... Can Leia see Ello's special circumstance white Tallon Roll, while she's flying through space without a spacesuit?

Also, cards posted for reference!

The "reveals" portion on both Ello and General Organa is only the timing of the abilities so both should enter the ability queue in the order their controlling player chooses.

After thinking on it a lot, here's how I read it: Any effect that references a revealed maneuver still can be affected by other effects. What it sees can be changed by other effects. Ello says treat the maneuver as white. Leia says reduce the difficulty. They're both effects that remain on longer-term (not "while you execute that maneuver" e.g. Kaydel Connix). FFG has already said two effects that both modify difficulty up or down stack (see Difficulty in RR page 10). Two that reduce the difficulty of a maneuver stack down to blue, and if one increases the difficulty and the other decreases (e.g. Damaged Engine + R4 Astromech), then those stack to balance out (this is the example provided in the RR).

In this case, one is setting the maneuver color, and then the other is reducing difficulty. So the first effect sets it to white, and the next looks at the maneuver (through the lens of any effects that alter its difficulty), sees it's white, and reduces it to blue. Neither is a permanent/persistent effect like R4 Astromech or Damaged Engine: they both have specific timings where they take effect, look at the "revealed dial", and change what the "revealed dial" shows for future reference.

At any time we could get a different ruling from FFG on this, but thus far, we don't have anything showing this wouldn't stack. The comparison to actions is both a different effect (actions not maneuvers, though I don't see that as a hard barrier IMO), and a different scenario (two conflicting effects trying to set action color, while in this combo one sets and the other adjusts; I do see this as a hard barrier).

So it's not a strong vote of confidence because I'm not FFG, but I think it works. Hopefully I'm not blind to my own bad reasoning. I've seen a lot of that recently from someone who really wanted a color-based effect to work a certain way, and trying to talk him out of it is what got me thinking about these color modifiers in so much detail.

BTW I flew "That's AMERICA's Asty" once today and it's fun. Not powerful, but very quirky fun. The ability to aim that blue tallon roll with BB-8 or a Coordinate before moving is fantastic. But the fleet lacks teeth, having invested quite a bit in the core gimmick plus a scavenged YT. Perhaps moving Leia to the transport and replacing Rey with a couple A-Wings or a T-70 and A-Wing is the way to go (e.g. this fleet). That Salvaged YT-1300 just isn't up to the task, which is too bad. I really like it conceptually, and Rey is a fun pilot. I've just never been very excited by the results of putting her on the table.

Meme for your enjoyment (unless you haven't seen Endgame, in which case shield your eyes against joke spoilers!):

6 hours ago, Wazat said:

After thinking on it a lot, here's how I read it: Any effect that references a revealed maneuver still can be affected by other effects. What it sees can be changed by other effects. Ello says treat the maneuver as white. Leia says reduce the difficulty. They're both effects that remain on longer-term (not "while you execute that maneuver" e.g. Kaydel Connix). FFG has already said two effects that both modify difficulty up or down stack (see Difficulty in RR page 10). Two that reduce the difficulty of a maneuver stack down to blue, and if one increases the difficulty and the other decreases (e.g. Damaged Engine + R4 Astromech), then those stack to balance out (this is the example provided in the RR).

In this case, one is setting the maneuver color, and then the other is reducing difficulty. So the first effect sets it to white, and the next looks at the maneuver (through the lens of any effects that alter its difficulty), sees it's white, and reduces it to blue. Neither is a permanent/persistent effect like R4 Astromech or Damaged Engine: they both have specific timings where they take effect, look at the "revealed dial", and change what the "revealed dial" shows for future reference.

At any time we could get a different ruling from FFG on this, but thus far, we don't have anything showing this wouldn't stack. The comparison to actions is both a different effect (actions not maneuvers, though I don't see that as a hard barrier IMO), and a different scenario (two conflicting effects trying to set action color, while in this combo one sets and the other adjusts; I do see this as a hard barrier).

So it's not a strong vote of confidence because I'm not FFG, but I think it works. Hopefully I'm not blind to my own bad reasoning. I've seen a lot of that recently from someone who really wanted a color-based effect to work a certain way, and trying to talk him out of it is what got me thinking about these color modifiers in so much detail.

BTW I flew "That's AMERICA's Asty" once today and it's fun. Not powerful, but very quirky fun. The ability to aim that blue tallon roll with BB-8 or a Coordinate before moving is fantastic. But the fleet lacks teeth, having invested quite a bit in the core gimmick plus a scavenged YT. Perhaps moving Leia to the transport and replacing Rey with a couple A-Wings or a T-70 and A-Wing is the way to go (e.g. this fleet). That Salvaged YT-1300 just isn't up to the task, which is too bad. I really like it conceptually, and Rey is a fun pilot. I've just never been very excited by the results of putting her on the table.

Meme for your enjoyment (unless you haven't seen Endgame, in which case shield your eyes against joke spoilers!):

Per the RR....

◊ If multiple abilities change the difficulty of a maneuver, the effects are cumulative.

So red goes to white... white goes to blue. So... roll and sloop way

The spot where I can see a counter-argument is that Ello Asty isn't "reduce the difficulty of your Tallon Rolls" but rather "treat that maneuver as white." I'm not fully convinced that should stack with Leia, but I'm not going to make a stone I'm willing to die on. Just kinda rubs me the wrong way, is all.

3 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

The spot where I can see a counter-argument is that Ello Asty isn't "reduce the difficulty of your Tallon Rolls" but rather "treat that maneuver as white." I'm not fully convinced that should stack with Leia, but I'm not going to make a stone I'm willing to die on. Just kinda rubs me the wrong way, is all.

Yeah, this is pretty much my feeling. It feels like it shouldn't work, because it's a bit cheesy, but I'm pretty sure it does.

12 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Yeah, this is pretty much my feeling. It feels like it shouldn't work, because it's a bit cheesy, but I'm pretty sure it does.

I mean, I think there's enough to it that, if a judge really wanted to rule against it, I have no problem with that. The idea of "a maneuver treated as white, reduced to blue, ought still be treated as white" has enough sense to it that I wouldn't necessarily fight against it.

I wonder what it takes to get this sort of thing on FFG's radar. The last team of ninjas I sent into their corporate office never returned, and I fear for their safety. We can't just keep sending good, honest ninjas to their doom to sneak questions onto the developers' desks.

Maybe we just need to make this combo super-popular so FFG has to rule on whether the rules work this way. There's the added benefit that a lot of other maneuver color combos will also be explained, and we'll know what to expect in a more general sense for maneuver colors.

The only way to reliably bring stuff to the attention of the rules team is the rules questions line, unless you have a direct line to one of the designers.

1 hour ago, thespaceinvader said:

The only way to reliably bring stuff to the attention of the rules team is the rules questions line, unless you have a direct line to one of the designers.

Know what's awesome? I tried to do just that with their rules submission form. And the form no longer works because they forgot to update their csrf verification token.

25 minutes ago, missileaway said:

Know what's awesome? I tried to do just that with their rules submission form. And the form no longer works because they forgot to update their csrf verification token.

This one looks like it's still available:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/contact/rules/

1 hour ago, nitrobenz said:

This one looks like it's still available:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/contact/rules/

That worked!

I asked them this question:

Quote

X-Wing question: Let's give Ello Asty BB-8, and fly him in a fleet with Leia. Ello reveals a red Tallon Roll. His ability and Leia both trigger with the same timing, so I use Ello's ability first to turn the red tallon roll white. Next, I use Leia to reduce the difficulty to blue. Before he executes the blue maneuver, he's able to trigger BB-8 to boost or roll. Not particularly powerful (massive investment in the gimmick), but lots of fun!

Does this combo work, or do difficulty-changing effects not stack when one sets the color and the other adjusts the color? I know multiple color adjustments stack, but people on the forums aren't so sure it works with a set + adjust, and I want to know if this works so I'm not cheating.

Thank you!

I don't think FFG has ever replied to my questions even once, but hopefully this one will get either a reply or a post in the Official Rulings thread.

They stopped responding to individual questions ages ago. They now just seem to collate them for the thread/FAQ.

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

They stopped responding to individual questions ages ago. They now just seem to collate them for the thread/FAQ.

That's good. I was starting to wonder if I was just uniquely off-putting.