I am curious if anyone is aware, why the ruling for UK SOS states, that you cannot spend a Lock to perform a Bonus Attack from Stabilised S-Foils, if you used Fire-Control System to reroll a dice during your initial attack.

FCS : While you perform an Attack, if you have a Lock on the defender, you may reroll 1 attack die. If you do, you cannot spend your Lock during this Attack .

Stabilised S-Foils: After you perform an Attack , you may spend your Lock on the defender to perform a Bonus Cannon Attack against that ship using a Cannon Upgrade you have not attacked with this turn.

The way its written on the cards themselves, it seems that FCS allows you to reroll one die on the initial attack, but prevents you from spending the Lock you have on the Defender. Then after the first Attack is resolved and is already finished, you are free to spend the Lock, since the attack which was limited by FCS is already finished. Then you perform a Bonus Attack by spending the Lock through Stabilised S-Foils.

Does that mean, that any ship, which can equip FCS and has a Bonus Attack cannot spend the Lock if they used FCS to reroll a die in the first Attack? It just all seems very inconsistent.

Under the "Attack" heading in the rules reference (p. 4-5), there are six steps which you perform when performing an attack. Step 6 is this:

Quote

6. Aftermath: Abilities that trigger after an attack are resolved in the
following order.

a. Resolve any of the defending player’s abilities that trigger after a ship
defends or is destroyed, excluding abilities that grant a bonus attack

b. Resolve any of the attacking player’s abilities that trigger after a ship
performs an attack or is destroyed, excluding abilities that grant a
bonus attack.

c. Resolve any of the defending player’s abilities that trigger after a ship
defends or is destroyed that grant a bonus attack.

d. Resolve any of the attacking player’s abilities that trigger after a ship
performs an attack or is destroyed that grant a bonus attack.

The important things here are that:

• "after attacking" abilities occur during this aftermath step; and
• aftermath is listed as a step in the process of making an attack alongside things like declaring a target, rolling dice and dealing damage.

You can make an argument that "during this attack" abilities apply until the end of aftermath, because the aftermath counts as part of the attack. Since spending the lock for the bonus attack using the foils would occur during aftermath, FCS prevents it under this interpretation.

You could further argue that 6c and 6d mean the attack isn't fully resolved until any bonus attacks are resolved, and thus FCS would block spending the target lock on a bonus attack triggered as a result of your attack as well (e.g. cluster missiles). However I think most people would treat these as a separate attack, which is just dropped into the queue during aftermath.

50 minutes ago, Ysenhal said:

Under the "Attack" heading in the rules reference (p. 4-5), there are six steps which you perform when performing an attack. Step 6 is this:

The important things here are that:

• "after attacking" abilities occur during this aftermath step; and
• aftermath is listed as a step in the process of making an attack alongside things like declaring a target, rolling dice and dealing damage.

You can make an argument that "during this attack" abilities apply until the end of aftermath, because the aftermath counts as part of the attack. Since spending the lock for the bonus attack using the foils would occur during aftermath, FCS prevents it under this interpretation.

You could further argue that 6c and 6d mean the attack isn't fully resolved until any bonus attacks are resolved, and thus FCS would block spending the target lock on a bonus attack triggered as a result of your attack as well (e.g. cluster missiles). However I think most people would treat these as a separate attack, which is just dropped into the queue during aftermath.

THAT is a very misleading and confusing way to handle such cases. So technically... If someone has FCS and is performing a Bonus Attack after his Primary Attack, he can reroll 1 Dice on first attack and none on bonus attack: because FCS allows only one reroll and not spnding the lock, or alternatively not reroll anything on first and have the choice to reroll one or spend lock on second. I am talking about any FCS equiped ship with a bonus attack.

For what it’s worth: the devs stated explicitly on stream that the fcs combo works...

1 hour ago, JBFancourt said:

For what it’s worth: the devs stated explicitly on stream that the fcs combo works...

Link for that here

Relevant discussion from before:

My key observation is - if a bonus attack is to be treated as being part of the initial attack, then by extension a theoretical secondary bonus attack triggered by the first bonus attack would have to be a part of the latter.
A single bonus attack can be performed during a round but it will not technically be performed until it is finished. So an attempt to perform a secondary bonus attack should not fail, given there is no previously made bonus attack it could fail due to. This could go on forever, recursively, as Attack( BonusAttack( BonusAttack(...)))

TL:DR - Nesting leads to recursion, recursion leads to suffering, suffering leads to the Dark Side.

Edit: Heh, @Lyianx , you ninja.

2 hours ago, Ysenhal said:

You can make an argument that "during this attack" abilities apply until the end of aftermath, because the aftermath counts as part of the attack. Since spending the lock for the bonus attack using the foils would occur during aftermath, FCS prevents it under this interpretation.

Yep.

//

Honestly, I could go either way on this.

• On the one hand, @JBFancourt is right that the Devs were specifically saying they wanted it to work.
  • Likewise, Aftermath has "after attacking" abilities, and how can you be "after attacking" and yet still during "this attack"? There's something silly about that.
  • One more thing: if ever enough judges decide it doesn't work, seems likely the Devs step in and make it work. There's a solid few FAQ entries that read like that, with increasingly labyrinthine scaffolding around what I'd honestly prefer as a no-explanation "because we said so."
• On the other, there's pretty clearly a credible reading of the Aftermath rules that would prevent it.
  • My memory is that Captain Jostero doesn't get to bonus attack someone who Torani Kulda attacked, but then used her ability on. The defender is still "while defending" so CJ doesn't trigger. If I'm recalling that correctly, this is a strike against FCS working. Not perfect, but close-enough.

I really don't think this is a clear rules point. There's enough to go either way, and I wouldn't fault any judge for going with any interpretation.

1 minute ago, Ryfterek said:

Edit: Heh, @Lyianx , you ninja.

I don't see it as nesting a bunch of attacks at all.

The TRIGGER to CAUSE your bonus attack (spending the lock) happens within the original attack (where you used the FCS and triggered it's own ability to stop lock spending)

Then if it can, the Bonus Attack happens and is it's own thing.

8 minutes ago, InterceptorMad said:

I don't see it as nesting a bunch of attacks at all.

The TRIGGER to CAUSE your bonus attack (spending the lock) happens within the original attack (where you used the FCS and triggered it's own ability to stop lock spending)

Then if it can, the Bonus Attack happens and is it's own thing.

Except the Aftermath step sub points say "resolve".

I'm a little confused here. Not unusual but...

In order to get to the Aftermath Step you need to complete the attack. Items 'c' and 'd' under Aftermath specify when a Bonus Attack can take place. If the Attacker gets a bonus attack, you go back to the beginning of the Attack Sequence and start all over. Simple. This includes spending a Lock to reroll dice.

Now I understand some of the arguments against it working like that. IMO, the Aftermath step should have been listed as being a separate step/phase apart from the whole Attack sequence.

10 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

I'm a little confused here. Not unusual but...

In order to get to the Aftermath Step you need to complete the attack. Items 'c' and 'd' under Aftermath specify when a Bonus Attack can take place. If the Attacker gets a bonus attack, you go back to the beginning of the Attack Sequence and start all over. Simple. This includes spending a Lock to reroll dice.

Now I understand some of the arguments against it working like that. IMO, the Aftermath step should have been listed as being a separate step/phase apart from the whole Attack sequence.

It isn't discussing that though. Yes, if you had two locks you could totally spend one for whatever you wanted in the bonus attack from the S-Foils card. Nothing about the bonus attack itself is stopping you.

What the judges have ruled is that the trigger to initiate that bonus attack happens within the first attack. And if you rerolled with FCS during that first attack, you are still (as you are still in the first attack) beholden to the "you may not spend a lock during this attack" rule on the FCS card.

13 minutes ago, Hiemfire said:

Except the Aftermath step sub points say "resolve".

I'm not getting the significance of this. To me it simply means that after the initial attack has been completed you check to see if there are any abilities that trigger after the initial attack has dealt damage and complete then in the prescribed order. If the Defender has no abilities that trigger, excluding an attack, you move to 'b' because 'a' has been resolved. When you get to 'd' you find that the Attacker has an ability that grants him a Bonus Attack . You then start the attack sequence all over, again.

27 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

I'm not getting the significance of this. To me it simply means that after the initial attack has been completed you check to see if there are any abilities that trigger after the initial attack has dealt damage and complete then in the prescribed order. If the Defender has no abilities that trigger, excluding an attack, you move to 'b' because 'a' has been resolved. When you get to 'd' you find that the Attacker has an ability that grants him a Bonus Attack . You then start the attack sequence all over, again.

The issue is, the trigger would require you to spend a lock within window if an attack during which you used FCS to reroll a die. Which prevents you from spending Locks. That's the problem. If FCS blocks the spending of Lock to perform Bonus Attack

this only comes down to whether the aftermath step is part of the initial attack or not. our consensus in the last thread seemed to be that it is not. i also think it's pretty clear from the card that you do not spend the lock during the attack, which FCS would disallow you to do, but that you spend the lock after the attack. that's what the card says.

also, since the devs clearly stated this works and this is their intention when the upgrade card was presented and shown on the live stream, it seems pretty crystal clear that this absolutely works. the TO of the british system open simply didn't do their research. still good that they clarified how things will work during the tournament in advance, though.

timestamp included.

36 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

I'm not getting the significance of this. To me it simply means that after the initial attack has been completed you check to see if there are any abilities that trigger after the initial attack has dealt damage and complete then in the prescribed order. If the Defender has no abilities that trigger, excluding an attack, you move to 'b' because 'a' has been resolved. When you get to 'd' you find that the Attacker has an ability that grants him a Bonus Attack . You then start the attack sequence all over, again.

The Aftermath step is within performing an attack. Everything that the Aftermath step lists as being resolved during it happens within the original attack due to the way the Attack section of the Engagement Phase is laid out in writing.

50 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

IMO, the Aftermath step should have been listed as being a separate step/phase apart from the whole Attack sequence.

I completely agree with this. Aftermath should have been a substep of the Engagement Phase and not part of performing an attack.

3 minutes ago, Schanez said:

The issue is, the trigger would require you to spend a lock within window if an attack during which you used FCS to reroll a die. Which prevents you from spending Locks. That's the problem. If FCS blocks the spending of Lock to perform Bonus Attack

The trigger occurs in Step 'd' of the Aftermath section. By this time the original attack has gone through all the steps to complete the attack. Even to the point of dealing or not dealing damage.

I understand that the Aftermath step is part and parcel of the whole Attack Sequence but to say that restrictions placed upon the first attack by FCS are still in effect after the attack has dealt damage and are still affecting an attack that triggers four steps deep into AFTERMATH is absurd.

1 hour ago, InterceptorMad said:

What the judges have ruled is that the trigger to initiate that bonus attack happens within the first attack

Never, ever, take a judges ruling during an event, as the end-all-be-all ruling for the entire game. Their rulings are only in effect During that event they are judging. As different judges can rule differently on the same question at different events, and they have to make snap judgements based on what they currently know/understand with little to no discussion.

So the fact that a judge ruled on it, literally means nothing in the grand scheme of overall rulings. And as have been posted, FFG themselves are on video record, stating, that the combo works, meaning the aftermath step is NOT *during an attack*.

But this thread is about that ruling so...

Also that very well might be the case, but then FFG need to change the steps to refelct that and make the aftermath it's own, self contained thing.

I suggest that everyone submit a rules request here: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/contact/rules/

A simple way to clarify it is to ask precisely when an "attack" begins and ends, for purposes of effects that state "while attacking" or "after attacking." In addition, it would be good to know precisely when ships gain (and lose) the roles of "attacker" and "defender."

On 1/31/2020 at 2:09 PM, JBFancourt said:

For what it’s worth: the devs stated explicitly on stream that the fcs combo works...

It is not worth a thing, as it is not an officiell rules document.

Rules as intended (RAI) had we before, with rules as written (RAW) not working or doubtful. Still RAW > RAI.

Egregious example: Yushin and Proach were clearly intended to work together, and presented as such in the release article. Most judges ruled it as not working based on RAW interpretation.

(It took FFG over half a year to come with the clarification in the Rules reference, which is a rules document).

Here, though, RAW is in doubt. It is not actually clear that the aftermath step is part of the attack. The rules list the aftermath step among those taken by an attacker who is performing an attack; however, the rules also clearly state that the aftermath step is the timing window for things that trigger after an attack. Unless I'm mistaken, the ruling that aftermath is part of the attack is a relic of first edition that was carried over into second edition by judge rulings and not by actual game rules documents.

Certainly, if the rulebook was clear, then we'd obviously go with that and not what the devs said in a demo video. But if it's not clear, the devs themselves discussing ability interactions is something to go on, until the rules document itself is officially clarified.

26 minutes ago, Maui. said:

Here, though, RAW is in doubt. It is not actually clear that the aftermath step is part of the attack. The rules list the aftermath step among those taken by an attacker who is performing an attack; however, the rules also clearly state that the aftermath step is the timing window for things that trigger after an attack. Unless I'm mistaken, the ruling that aftermath is part of the attack is a relic of first edition that was carried over into second edition by judge rulings and not by actual game rules documents.

Certainly, if the rulebook was clear, then we'd obviously go with that and not what the devs said in a demo video. But if it's not clear, the devs themselves discussing ability interactions is something to go on, until the rules document itself is officially clarified.

"If a card instructs a ship to perform a bonus attack, it performs an additional
attack during the Aftermath step."

[Emphasis mine]

"ATTACK

Ships can perform attacks which thematically represents the ship firing its blaster cannons, ordnance, or other weapons. If a ship performs an attack, it becomes the attacker then follows these steps :

1. Declare Target: During this step, the attacking player identifies and names the defender of the attack (...)

6. Aftermath: Abilities that trigger after an attack are resolved in the following order. a. any of the defending player’s (...)

d. Resolve any of the attacking player’s abilities that trigger after a ship
performs an attack or is destroyed that grant a bonus attack."

[Emphasis mine]

Step 6 is still part of the original attack. It is not listed as a new kind of phase.

Do what the rules say. Do not invent new steps or interrupts which are not there. Same kind of argument as for the Proach debates.

2 hours ago, Managarmr said:

It is not worth a thing, as it is not an officiell rules document.

Rules as intended (RAI) had we before, with rules as written (RAW) not working or doubtful. Still RAW > RAI.

Egregious example: Yushin and Proach were clearly intended to work together, and presented as such in the release article. Most judges ruled it as not working based on RAW interpretation.

(It took FFG over half a year to come with the clarification in the Rules reference, which is a rules document).

The creator’s explicitly stated thoughts on their own game is ALWAYS significant.... 🙄 🙄 🙄

How much weight a judge gives it is a judgement call. No pun intended. 🤣

1 hour ago, Managarmr said:

Do what the rules say. Do not invent new steps or interrupts which are not there. Same kind of argument as for the Proach debates.

Yaeh, the rules say that things supposed to happen after an attack happen during the attack.
They clearly contradict themself with including the Aftermath as step number 6 during an Attack and will be most likely changed with the next RR.