15 hours ago, Karneck said:

Do we need one? Looking back on this, its pretty clear that his card text overrules escort.

Why is that?

I told him he cannot bypass escort.

🤣

On 11/29/2019 at 10:07 AM, Karneck said:

Do we need one? Looking back on this, its pretty clear that his card text overrules escort.

Yes, because it's similarly clear to me that it doesn't...

Maybe I’m just restating the very obvious, but Escort specifically states that enemy squadrons “cannot” make non-counter attacks while engaged with an Escort. IG88B allows you to toggle his activation slider to “perform an anti-squadron ATTACK against each enemy squadron at distance 1.” “Cannot” has always been absolute. Escort, on the surface, should win.

I understand that the argument is now about whether or not Escort is a “card effect,” and what all of that does to the rules, but to say that a keyword is NOT a card effect is convoluted, confusing, counterintuitive, and frankly seems a very poor ruling. The common understanding of a keyword is that it is merely shorthand for a common card effect. To rule otherwise goes against common sense, and represents the sort of arcane, user-unfriendly rules bloat that kills good games.

If the designers wanted IG-88B to bypass Escort, they should have just written,

“... Treat these attacks as obstructed, and they may ignore the Escort keyword.”

4 minutes ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Maybe I’m just restating the very obvious, but Escort specifically states that enemy squadrons “cannot” make non-counter attacks while engaged with an Escort. IG88B allows you to toggle his activation slider to “perform an anti-squadron ATTACK against each enemy squadron at distance 1.” “Cannot” has always been absolute. Escort, on the surface, should win.

I understand that the argument is now about whether or not Escort is a “card effect,” and what all of that does to the rules, but to say that a keyword is NOT a card effect is convoluted, confusing, counterintuitive, and frankly seems a very poor ruling. The common understanding of a keyword is that it is merely shorthand for a common card effect. To rule otherwise goes against common sense, and represents the sort of arcane, user-unfriendly rules bloat that kills good games.

If the designers wanted IG-88B to bypass Escort, they should have just written,

“... Treat these attacks as obstructed, and they may ignore the Escort keyword.”

Assuming there was room to do so.

with the required size If keyword font it looks like they literally maxed out characters as it is

They could have dropped the reminder text after Rogue.

That is, after all, why games have keywords to begin with; so that they can use shorthand for common card effects!

Which, incidentally, leaves room for interesting and unusual abilities, like bypassing escort.

Escort is a card effect.

It's printed on a card.

2 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

They could have dropped the reminder text after Rogue.

That is, after all, why games have keywords to begin with; so that they can use shorthand for common card effects!

Which, incidentally, leaves room for interesting and unusual abilities, like bypassing escort.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Doubly so when third party.

4 hours ago, Green Knight said:

Escort is a card effect.

It's printed on a card.

No. The keyword on a squadron card is a REMINDER.

Squadron keywords are RRG. It has its own section.

On 1/23/2020 at 9:30 AM, Cpt ObVus said:

Maybe I’m just restating the very obvious, but Escort specifically states that enemy squadrons “cannot” make non-counter attacks while engaged with an Escort. IG88B allows you to toggle his activation slider to “perform an anti-squadron ATTACK against each enemy squadron at distance 1.” “Cannot” has always been absolute. Escort, on the surface, should win.

I understand that the argument is now about whether or not Escort is a “card effect,” and what all of that does to the rules, but to say that a keyword is NOT a card effect is convoluted, confusing, counterintuitive, and frankly seems a very poor ruling. The common understanding of a keyword is that it is merely shorthand for a common card effect. To rule otherwise goes against common sense, and represents the sort of arcane, user-unfriendly rules bloat that kills good games.

If the designers wanted IG-88B to bypass Escort, they should have just written,

“... Treat these attacks as obstructed, and they may ignore the Escort keyword.”

Lets give you something to think:

From the RRG:

• A ship can perform two attacks during its activation, but it cannot attack from the same hull zone more than once per activation.

• If the defender’s speed is “0,” it cannot spend defense tokens.

• Accuray : The attacker can spend this icon to choosen one of the defender’s defense tokens. The chosen defense token cannot be spent during this attack.

• Escort : Squadrons you are engaged with cannot attack squadrons that lack escort unless performing a counter attack.

This golden rule (cannot on card effects count first) is more for two cards that contradict themselfs.
For example: Valen and IG-88B. Valen cannot be attacked if there is another squadron. This means that IG-88B cannot use his effect for an attack on Valen.
Or Cienna and Jaina's Light. Attacks on Cienna are obstructed. But Jaina says attacks cannot be obstructed. this means that Jaina's Light can attack Cienna with the full dice.
And another important combination: Gunnery Team and Advanced Gunnery. Gunnery Team does not allow you to attack the same ship or squadron twice. Not even Advanced Gunnery is bypassing this.

20 hours ago, Karneck said:

No. The keyword on a squadron card is a REMINDER.

Squadron keywords are RRG. It has its own section.

The IG-88B should be able to ignore Escort?

21 hours ago, Karneck said:

...The keyword on a squadron card is a REMINDER.

Squadron keywords are RRG. It has its own section.

Well put. And I understand that this is the argument.

What I’m saying is that it is not a good idea to make this distinction. It’s the sort of pointlessly convoluted, wonky, difficult to explain and justify thing that people who are not “into rules” are going to encounter the FIRST time, and go, “huh, that’s weird.” The SECOND time they go, “man, that’s annoying,” the THIRD time, “oh come ON!! Why don’t my cards work the way the game tells me they do??” And at some point they say , “Oh, @$&! This game, it takes hours to build a fleet and set up and play, and every time I do I lose because of some stupid rule I didn’t know about, don’t understand, and couldn’t have seen coming!!”

I know there are Armada players who have played other games with keyworded cards, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has played Magic (the game that arguably invented the concept of keywords. No I can’t prove that). In many other games, the concept of having a set of basic rules that are overridden by card effects is central. Keywords in other games are merely shorthand for things they don’t want to type out in a text box every time, such as “Flying” (This creature can only be blocked by other creatures with Flying). Armada would be the first game I’ve encountered where you have a distinction between card text and keyworded card text, and it’s a sloppy and confusing distinction. And frankly, considering that it takes literally months at times for whatever Rules Committee or Rules Guru this game may (or may not!) even have to make a ruling on a card, and when they do, it’s often strange and counterintuitive (Rapid Launch Bays, anyone?), it’s abundantly obvious that FFG does not have a strong aversion to making sloppy and confusing distinctions. And that does not bode well.

“So IG-88B is gonna shoot Wedge, Dutch, and Han.”

”He can only shoot Wedge. Escort.”

”Aaaaactually, that doesn’t save you here.”

”Why not? You told me LAST WEEK that card effects override rules...”

”Yyyyeeeeaaah, well, this is not a card effect.”

”It’s an Effect. It’s ON MY CARD.”

”Except, it’s a keyword. And that’s not actually a card effect. It’s a rule.”

”Oh %#@! this game.”

TL;DR: I understand the argument. What I don’t understand is why they want to do it this way, and how it best serves the community and the game by being clean and user-friendly.

We'll have to wait to see if FFG clarifies wheather or not squadron keywords are card effects.

They ought to have someone who can rule on this stuff within a few days, or a month at the outside, after they get some play testers to try a couple things. It’s not like this game is swimming in cards; they release perhaps two dozen each year. Some games have hundreds of new cards 2-3 times per year.

If they don’t have that guy, perhaps they should hire someone, and also make them responsible for writing an article every month on strategy, upcoming releases... anything, just to let the community know what’s coming down the line. That SAME person could be responsible for getting solid, realistic release dates from the manufacturers, and updating that information to the players... imagine the possibilities!! And all of that together probably wouldn’t even make a full time position.

This company baffles me.

It’s interesting, because part of the holdup is seemingly, for Armada, the fact that anything they rule has to go into an FAQ document, and the FAQ document is a registered LFL copyright text, so it needs to be approved with every change.

That slows things down and complicated things.

Its different for Legion and now XWing as they’ve been able to negotiate new agreements with new editions, but Armada operates under its original where there was only that choice.

In time, well open up, most likely get a living-ish document and things would improve,

But I mean, there HAS to be a legal basis behind it, because screw even being paid, there are MULTIPLE people out there who effectively spend a lot of time already doing it for them for free, but are constantly stymied (and occasionally insulted) die to the fact they have no official backing.

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

It’s interesting, because part of the holdup is seemingly, for Armada, the fact that anything they rule has to go into an FAQ document, and the FAQ document is a registered LFL copyright text, so it needs to be approved with every change...

Aaaahh. That IS illuminating. I understand completely, having been (many years ago) very active in the competitive playing of another Star Wars game (the Star Wars CCG, from Decipher, in the early 90’s). They had to get all sorts of ridiculous approvals from LFL, who had little interest in how the game was actually played. It hung up all sorts of important (from a player’s perspective) decisions. That was one of the things that really held the game back. The other was labyrinthine, inscrutable rules & rulings held together by FAQs. Hence my aversion to anything that violates what a “non-rules-lawyer” might think of as common sense, like words on a card constituting card effects.

2 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

... screw even being paid, there are MULTIPLE people out there who effectively spend a lot of time already doing it for them for free, but are constantly stymied (and occasionally insulted) die to the fact they have no official backing.

As to this: If I’m picking up the subtext here, you (and/or people you know) are some of these multiple people, and you find yourself (yourselves) stymied, frustrated, and occasionally insulted. For my part, I’d like to make it absolutely clear that I intended no insult! I’ve been lurking these boards long enough to know that you’re a very helpful and positive influence on what appears to be a healthy, helpful, and positive community. So if I inadvertently tweaked your (or anyone else’s) nose while venting my frustrations with FFG and the painfully slow trickle of information, I do apologize.

It gets really exciting once the inofficial rule judges start disagreeing with one another 🙂 See this thread.

On 1/23/2020 at 9:01 AM, Karneck said:

No. The keyword on a squadron card is a REMINDER.

Squadron keywords are RRG. It has its own section.

I was ready to let this lie until we got a ruling, but something was eating at me about this statement. I finally figured out what it was. So (with sincere respect to all parties), let’s look at Biggs Darklighter. The relevant part of his card reads as follows:

Bomber.

Escort. ( Squadrons you are engaged with cannot attack squadrons that lack escort unless performing a counter attack .)

So, what we have here are two keywords, both in bold. Keywords function as shorthand for long rules text that may be difficult to fit on a card, and they’re generally used so that “interesting“ text (like Biggs’ damage-bouncing ability) can fit on a card along with more common abilities like Bomber and Rogue. The long rules text that they replace is often omitted, as it is after the ”Bomber” on Biggs, and is often included, as it is after the “Escort” on the same card. Either way, this text is not needed for the card effect to function; Biggs would not play differently if the parenthetical explanation of Escort were not present. He’s still a Bomber, and we all know what that means, even though the parenthetical explanation is absent.

So what does that make the parenthetical text that appears after Escort? REMINDER text. About how a particular ”card effect” works.

If the keyword text on a squadron is already reminder text, then what is the parenthetical reminder text for?

Are we being given a (parenthetical) reminder of a (keyword) reminder of a (rulebook) rule about an effect that appears on a card, but isn’t a ”card effect?”

Doesn’t that seem a bit convoluted and counterintuitive?

I believe that the keyword on a card is shorthand for a common card effect, and it is merely the definition of that card effect that appears in the rules because sometimes there is room for parenthetical reminder text, and sometimes there isn’t. Simply because certain common card effects are clarified in the rules doesn’t prevent them from being effects that appear on cards (or, in plain English, card effects). That is the simplest, cleanest, and most logical explanation I can see. Anything else would appear to be far more complicated than necessary, for no benefit that I’m aware of.

I have though about it some, and @Karneck is right.

Squad keywords CANNOT be card abilities.

Because Escort says CANNOT. If this is a card ability, IG-88's ability does nothing. It cannot override the CANNOT on a card.

44 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

I have though about it some, and @Karneck is right.

Squad keywords CANNOT be card abilities.

Because Escort says CANNOT. If this is a card ability, IG-88's ability does nothing. It cannot override the CANNOT on a card.

Ignoring the keyword means your actions can’t contradict it, because as far as you’re concerned it doesn’t exist. That’s not the same as just overruling it.

For example, if IG-88’s text read “while engaged with a squadron with Escort you may perform non-counter attacks against a squadron without Escort,” it would matter whether Escort is a card effect or not.

Though Karneck may well be right.

30 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Ignoring the keyword means your actions can’t contradict it, because as far as you’re concerned it doesn’t exist. That’s not the same as just overruling it.

For example, if IG-88’s text read “while engaged with a squadron with Escort you may perform non-counter attacks against a squadron without Escort,” it would matter whether Escort is a card effect or not.

Though Karneck may well be right.

The whole point of CANNOT on a card is that it's can't be bypassed or ignored or whatnot. It's a golden rule.

19 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

The whole point of CANNOT on a card is that it's can't be bypassed or ignored or whatnot. It's a golden rule.

Possibly. Or the point of ”cannot” is that nothing over rules it. (Although as you mentioned, even “cannot” is subject to the card effect/base rule system.) But they are different interactions, and I believe this is the only time we see the word “ignore” used in this way?

10 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

If the keyword text on a squadron is already reminder text, then what is the parenthetical reminder text for?

The keyword text isn't a reminder. The thing saying " Bomber " or " Escort " is a card effect, telling you the squadron has that keyword.

But the keyword doesn't do anything on its own. For example, it tells you that Biggs has Escort, but doesn't tell you what Escort does.

The effects of Keywords are set out in the Rules Reference (page 12, Squadron Keywords):

Quote

Each squadron has one or more keywords with matching keyword icons. Each keyword produces the following effect for that squadron...

So the card tells you "Biggs has Escort", but the Rules Reference tells you "Squadrons [Biggs is] engaged with cannot attack squadrons that lack Escort."

Old IG-88 says "You ignore the escort and counter keywords on enemy squadrons." That is a card effect, which affects other card effects. Effectively, it means that as far as IG-88 is concerned no enemy squadrons have the Counter or Escort keywords. But it doesn't change what those keywords mean. So if IG-88 is engaged with a Biggs, IG-88 can attack someone else (without Escort) because as far as IG-88 knows, Biggs does not have the Escort keyword.

Moving on to IG-88B, there is a card effect "you may perform an anti-squadron attack..." and it does not ignore any keywords - so squadrons involved still have all their keywords including Escort and Counter - so squadrons attacked by IG-88B's special attack can still counter (and wouldn't be obstructed unless in the normal way). However, then we get a conflict between rules. IG-88B's card effect says he "may perform an ... attack" and the Escort rule says that he "...cannot attack..." things. But The Golden Rules tell us that if there is a conflict between a card effect and a Rules Reference rule, the card effect wins.

So to answer your question; the Keyword itself is not a reminder, it is a card effect telling you that the squadron has that keyword. The parenthetical bit is a reminder, telling you what the Rules Reference says that keyword does.

The reason that part is in parentheses is that it can be removed without changing anything. Parenthetical bits on cards are reminders or clarifications, but don't change the rules. For example:

Quote

Damaged Controls - Crew - When you overlap a ship or obstacle, deal 1 facedown damage card to your ship (in addition to all other obstacle effects) ,

Lieutenant Blount - While another friendly squadron with Swarm at distance 1 is attacking a squadron, it may reroll 1 die (in addition to any dice rerolled from Swarm) .

General Romodi - While a friendly ship is attacking a ship, if the attack is obstructed by a ship or obstacle, the attacker does not remove a die (even if the attack is also obstructed by a card effect) , and may add 1 red die to the attack pool.

Strategic Adviser - When it is your turn to activate, you may exhaust this card to pass your turn (your opponent activates a ship instead) .

Colonel Jendon - During your activation, instead of attacking you may choose 1 friendly squadron at distance 1-2. That squadron may perform an attack (even if it has already activated) .

Minefields - The second player places all obstacles. He can place them anywhere in the setup area (even in deployment zones) and must place them beyond distance 5 of each other.

In each case, the card effect is not changed by removing the parenthetical statement. It just clarifies or reminds us of the normal rules. They are there, usually, to pre-empt our fun rules questions (so perhaps IG-88B could have benefited from a parenthetical statement saying "(even if IG-88B is engaged with another enemy squadron with Escort)" or even "(ignoring Escort)" but for whatever reason they decided not to go that way). Of course, the RitR objectives break this principle; Ion Storm, Surprise Attack, Asteroid Tactics, Doomed Station, Infested Fields all use parentheses to change the rule. Did a different person write them?

7 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Ignoring the keyword means your actions can’t contradict it, because as far as you’re concerned it doesn’t exist. That’s not the same as just overruling it.

I absolutely agree with this.

21 minutes ago, Grumbleduke said:

The keyword text isn't a reminder....

On 1/23/2020 at 9:01 AM, Karneck said:

No. The keyword on a squadron card is a REMINDER...

Well, is it a reminder or not?

Even if it turns out I’m wrong (and I accept that I might be!), the people on the other side don’t even agree on the rationale behind the ruling.

This points to sloppy rules writing. If people are to enjoy this game, they must understand it, and to understand it, the rules must be as clear and intuitive as possible.

If words appear on a card and have an effect on the game, they are (or ought to be, for clarity’s sake) “card effects.” This is how most people are going to read and understand the rules. To say otherwise is to violate plain language and common sense, and that really isn’t the way games ought to make their rules.

I really don’t care one way or the other whether IG-88B can shoot past an Escort or not, but if he can, please god let it be because he gets an errata allowing him to ignore Escort, and not because of this absolutely weird mess of rulings on reminder text and keywords and rulebooks and “cannot” and card effects.