Panic and AI: Attack Upcoming RRG

By DreadPiratGinger, in Rules

I'm not sure if this has come up yet, so I figured I'd ask. If a droid trooper unit with AI: Attack still has a Panic token after its Rally step, is the decision on which action resolves up to the controlling player? As far as the RRG goes both actions are listed as a "must" and the unit would only have 1 action from the panic token, so which would resolve?

RRG pg 36 Droid Trooper, 2nd bullet, 2nd sub bullet: A droid trooper unit cannot be suppres sed, though it gains suppression tokens as normal and can still panic.

RRG pg 53 Panic 3rd bullet After the “Rally” step of a unit’s activation, if that unit is panicked, it can perform only one action instead of two, and that action must be a move action toward the nearest battlefield edge.

RRG pg 13 AI: Action 1st bullet: During the Perform Actions step of a unit's activation, a unit with the ai: action keyword must perform one of the actions listed after ai as its first action.

RRG pg 12 Activating Units: Step 2 Rally; Step 3 Perform Actions.

RRG pg 4 Reminder Text: Any italicized parenthetical text on cards is reminder text. Reminder text is not an exhaustive description of the rules for a keyword. Rather, it is there to help players remember how and when to resolve each keyword. If a player has questions about how a keyword works, that player should refer to that keyword’s glossary entry. The Golden Rule does not apply to reminder text, as reminder text is not considered to be card text.

So as far as I can tell, assuming a unit of B1s, The unit would be nominated to activate, Perform "before activation" things, Rally, Fail to bring its suppression tokens below 2 and receive a Panic token, loosing 1 action from the Panic token, then hit it's Perform Actions step and be compelled to both attack and move with only a single action.

As far as motivations go, I'm not looking for an exploit in the rules, far from it. I'd rather prevent rules debates before they happen!

It is most probably an omission. I think that they will change a bit the AI:Action definition to say for example:

During the Perform Actions step of a unit's activation, if a unit with the AI:ACTION keyword is not panicked, it must perform one of the actions listed after ai as its first action.

1 hour ago, DreadPiratGinger said:

I'm not sure if this has come up yet, so I figured I'd ask. If a droid trooper unit with AI: Attack still has a Panic token after its Rally step, is the decision on which action resolves up to the controlling player? As far as the RRG goes both actions are listed as a "must" and the unit would only have 1 action from the panic token, so which would resolve?

RRG pg 36 Droid Trooper, 2nd bullet, 2nd sub bullet: A droid trooper unit cannot be suppres sed, though it gains suppression tokens as normal and can still panic.

RRG pg 53 Panic 3rd bullet After the “Rally” step of a unit’s activation, if that unit is panicked, it can perform only one action instead of two, and that action must be a move action toward the nearest battlefield edge.

RRG pg 13 AI: Action 1st bullet: During the Perform Actions step of a unit's activation, a unit with the ai: action keyword must perform one of the actions listed after ai as its first action.

RRG pg 12 Activating Units: Step 2 Rally; Step 3 Perform Actions.

RRG pg 4 Reminder Text: Any italicized parenthetical text on cards is reminder text. Reminder text is not an exhaustive description of the rules for a keyword. Rather, it is there to help players remember how and when to resolve each keyword. If a player has questions about how a keyword works, that player should refer to that keyword’s glossary entry. The Golden Rule does not apply to reminder text, as reminder text is not considered to be card text.

So as far as I can tell, assuming a unit of B1s, The unit would be nominated to activate, Perform "before activation" things, Rally  , Fail to bring its suppression tokens below 2 and receive a Panic token, loosing 1 action from the Panic token, then hit it's Perform Actions step and be compelled to both attack and move with only a single action.

As far as motivations go, I'm not looking for an exploit in the rules, far from it. I'd rather prevent rules debates before they happen!

while you did quote everything, you did forget that if a unit is panic (as you quoted) the action must be a move action towards the nearest battlefield edge. it over rides the ai action as this preforms during the perform actions step after the panic step is checked. if a unit is panic it can't attack and move at the same time. (set for snows who have that ability).

On 8/8/2019 at 2:01 PM, azeronbloodmoone said:

while you did quote everything, you did forget that if a unit is panic (as you quoted) the action must be a move action towards the nearest battlefield edge. it over rides the ai action as this preforms during the perform actions step after the panic step is checked. if a unit is panic it can't attack and move at the same time. (set for snows who have that ability).

Therein lies my hypothetical "rub". There is no "Panic Step", The Activating Units entry goes straight from Rally to Perform Actions. The assumption is that Panic would resolve 'at the end of' the rally step, but before the Resolve Actions step, however there is no specified timing difference currently indicated. It is simply a matter of timing. The Full Activating Units steps are:

1. Start of Unit Activation: If the unit has an ability that triggers “when” it activates or “at the start” of its activation, the ability triggers during this step.

>>At the start of a vehicle unit’s activation, if that unit is damaged, it must roll a white defense die. If this roll produces a blank result, it can perform only one action, instead of two.

2. Rally: If the unit has one or more suppression tokens, it rolls one white defense die for each suppression token it has. For each block (󲉣) or defense surge (􀀏) result the roll produces, the unit removes one of its suppression tokens.

>>>>>Rally (5th bullet): Immediately after the “Rally” step of a trooper unit’s activation, if that unit has a number of suppression tokens equal to or greater than twice its courage value, it panics. A panicked unit still suffers the effects of being suppressed. In addition, during a panicked unit’s activation (see below)

3. Perform Actions: A unit that is not suppressed can perform up to two actions and any number of free actions. A unit that is suppressed or that has lost an action due to being damaged can perform only one action and any number of
free actions.

>>>> (From above) it cannot perform free actions and must spend its remaining action to perform a move at maximum speed as directly as possible toward the nearest edge of the battlefield.

>>>>>AI: Action During the Perform Actions step of a unit's activation , a unit with the ai: action keyword must perform one of the actions listed after ai as its first action .

Let me be very clear, I DO NOT THINK that AI should allow units to ignore the effects of Panic. My post and statements are geared more towards clarifying the timing of these abilities so that the order of operations is understood by everyone. I am operating under the assumption that the INTENT of the rules team is that the droids will panic and flee. I perceived the above "ambiguity" and considered it could be exploited so I wanted to prevent that from happening.

1 hour ago, DreadPiratGinger said:

I am    operating  under the assumption that the INTENT of the rules team is that the droids will panic and flee. 

I would assume the same, yet wouldn’t it be an interesting strategy to have panicked droids use AI to prevent them from running off the board? After all, clones can use fire support to prevent a unit from panicking . . .

Hopefully explicit clarification will be in a future RRG or they will introduce a Panic step to eliminate the ambiguity. I’m sure there will be other “Must perform ___ action” in the future that would cause the same issues.

1 hour ago, DreadPiratGinger said:

Therein lies my hypothetical "rub". There is no "Panic Step", The Activating Units entry goes straight from Rally to Perform Actions. The assumption is that Panic would resolve 'at the end of' the rally step, but before the Resolve Actions step, however there is no specified timing difference currently indicated. It is simply a matter of timing. The Full Activating Units steps are:

1. Start of Unit Activation: If the unit has an ability that triggers “when” it activates or “at the start” of its activation, the ability triggers during this step.

>>At the start of a vehicle unit’s activation, if that unit is damaged, it must roll a white defense die. If this roll produces a blank result, it can perform only one action, instead of two.

2. Rally: If the unit has one or more suppression tokens, it rolls one white defense die for each suppression token it has. For each block (󲉣) or defense surge (􀀏) result the roll produces, the unit removes one of its suppression tokens.

>>>>>Rally (5th bullet): Immediately after the “Rally” step of a trooper unit’s activation, if that unit has a number of suppression tokens equal to or greater than twice its courage value, it panics. A panicked unit still suffers the effects of being suppressed. In addition, during a panicked unit’s activation (see below)

3. Perform Actions: A unit that is not suppressed can perform up to two actions and any number of free actions. A unit that is suppressed or that has lost an action due to being damaged can perform only one action and any number of
free actions.

>>>> (From above) it cannot perform free actions and must spend its remaining action to perform a move at maximum speed as directly as possible toward the nearest edge of the battlefield.

>>>>>AI: Action During the Perform Actions step of a unit's activation , a unit with the ai: action keyword must perform one of the actions listed after ai as its first action .

Let me be very clear, I DO NOT THINK that AI should allow units to ignore the effects of Panic. My post and statements are geared more towards clarifying the timing of these abilities so that the order of operations is understood by everyone. I am operating under the assumption that the INTENT of the rules team is that the droids will panic and flee. I perceived the above "ambiguity" and considered it could be exploited so I wanted to prevent that from happening.

the panic step is the rally step, you have to rally every turn.

1 hour ago, azeronbloodmoone said:

the panic step is the rally step, you have to rally every turn.

There's no Panic step. During the Rally step you can determine if you are panicked or not. If you are, you only have 1 action and that action must be a move towards the nearest border of the play area. So actually you enter the action step when you are panicked.

As I mentioned before, I don't think that the intention is so that you can choose wheater you perform the panic move or the AI, but the rule must be slightly changed.

On 8/8/2019 at 2:47 PM, Lemmiwinks86 said:

It is most probably an omission. I think that they will change a bit the AI:Action definition to say for example:

During the Perform Actions step of a unit's activation, if a unit with the AI:ACTION keyword is not panicked, it must perform one of the actions listed after ai as its first action.

@azeronbloodmoone
"while you did quote everything, you did forget that if a unit is panic (as you quoted) the action must be a move action towards the nearest battlefield edge. it over rides the ai action as this preforms during the perform actions step after the panic step is checked. if a unit is panic it can't attack and move at the same time. (set for snows who have that ability). "

No, snow troopers can't attack when panicked.

• Immediately after the “Rally” step of a trooper unit’s
activation, if that unit has a number of suppression tokens
equal to or greater than twice its courage value, it panics.
A panicked unit still suffers the effects of being suppressed.
In addition, during a panicked unit’s activation, it cannot
perform free actions and must spend its remaining action to
perform a move at maximum speed as directly as possible
toward the nearest edge of the battlefield.


No free actions.

Steady

After a unit that has the steady keyword performs a move
action, it may perform a free ranged attack action.

8 hours ago, Derrault said:

@azeronbloodmoone
"while you did quote everything, you did forget that if a unit is panic (as you quoted) the action must be a move action towards the nearest battlefield edge. it over rides the ai action as this preforms during the perform actions step after the panic step is checked. if a unit is panic it can't attack and move at the same time. (set for snows who have that ability). "

No, snow troopers can't attack when panicked.

• Immediately after the “Rally” step of a trooper unit’s
activation, if that unit has a number of suppression tokens
equal to or greater than tw  ice its courage value, it panics.
A panicked unit sti  ll suffers the effects of being suppressed.
In addition, during a panicked unit’s activation, it cannot
perform free actions and must spend its remaining action t  o
perform a move at maximum speed as directly as possible
toward the nearest edge of the battlefield.


No free actions.

Steady

After a unit that has the steady keyword performs a move
action, it may perform a free ranged attack action.

oh yeah forgot about that never really had it played out where i had to look it up either thanks for that.