So 5th brothers ability reads "While you perform an attack, after the Neutralize Results step, if the attack hit, you may spend 2 (force) to add 1 (crit) result".

Homing missiles read: "Attack (TL): Spend 1 (charge). After you declare the defender, the defender may choose to suffer 1 damage. If it does, skip the Attack and Defense Dice steps and the attack is treated as hitting."

These are pretty both clear cut and my instinct is that 5th brother can effectively do 1 hit 1crit if the defender skips the rolls. but... you know, rules language BS is real.

so my question is this: If you "skip the Attack and Defense Dice steps" does that skip 5th Brothers "after nuetralize results" trigger?

This topic has been discussed at some length in the rules forum already. Short of it is, "yes, because you don't skip Neutralize Results":

Less clear is the interaction with Mag Pulse warheads, but that is probably also yes:

cool thanks

On 2/1/2020 at 6:50 PM, nitrobenz said:

This topic has been discussed at some length in the rules forum already. Short of it is, "yes, because you don't skip Neutralize Results":

Less clear is the interaction with Mag Pulse warheads, but that is probably also yes:

The more I thought about the rules, the more certain I was that 5th Brother adds the crit for both Homing Missile and Mag-Pulse. He also works with Ion Missiles (perhaps giving them one pilot that can use them well for their price).

Though the fact that his force is in high demand to both defend and make the attack hit, as well as only working every other round at most, makes it a bit of an uncommon trick to pull off. His initial strike from a flanking position should go well, but he's too delicate to assume he can keep storing force for a 2nd missile shot unless he's being mostly ignored. Pairing him with aces seems like a good plan, since the opponent will either ignore the aces to kill him, or more likely let him have free reign while hunting the real threats. But any time he falls in arc, expect to spend force on defense or he may just evaporate.

Still probably better to give him the "generally accepted as good" missiles and then just pile on extra damage. MagPulse might cripple a ship for a turn but Prockets just might kill it.

1 hour ago, Wazat said:

He also works with Ion Missiles (perhaps giving them one pilot that can use them well for their price).

Worth noting that he works with Ion Missiles, but I think the results are different.

Since Ion Missiles don't have an "on hit" trigger like Mag-Pulse, but convert any remaining hit/crit results into Ion tokens, Fifth Brother almost surely doesn't do an extra crit, but an extra Ion. That can be pretty handy.

A single-mod 3-dice ion weapon against 2 focused green dice: 30% chance of causing an Ion move. From Fifth Brother, that becomes a 70% chance. If you roll into 3 hits, a 2-agility small ship can't do anything to stop from being ionized.

I’ve been running 5Bro with Homing or Mag Pulse. I like homing better than Mag Pulse. The deplete is nice but you want to shoot at low initiative pilots to get the most use out of it. With homing if the attack hits, you’re guaranteed 1 hit & 1 crit if you spend 2 force.

9 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

Worth noting that he works with Ion Missiles, but I think the results are different.

Since Ion Missiles don't have an "on hit" trigger like Mag-Pulse, but convert any remaining hit/crit results into Ion tokens, Fifth Brother almost surely doesn't do an extra crit, but an extra Ion. That can be pretty handy.

Pretty confident he would still just add the crit, not ion token. As he adds the crit after the neutralize results step, with the Ion Missiles having handed out any ion tokens during the neutralize results step.

7 hours ago, Roundy1161 said:

Pretty confident he would still just add the crit, not ion token. As he adds the crit after the neutralize results step, with the Ion Missiles having handed out any ion tokens during the neutralize results step.

Well, I obviously disagree with every word that. To start, some reference:

So here's the relevant section of the Attack rules in blue, RR 1.10, p.5:

• 4. Neutralize Results: During this step, pairs of attack and defense dice Neutralize each other. Dice are neutralized in the following order:
  • a. Pairs of Hit and Evade results are canceled.
  • b. Pairs of Crit and Evade results are canceled.
  • The attack hits if at least one Hit or Crit result remains uncanceled; otherwise, the attack misses.
  • Ion Missiles Happens here, and notably it probably changes step 5, which is after Fifth Brother Triggers.
    • One Hit/Crit result is spent to deal one damage.
    • If I'm being charitable in interpretation, I suppose there are two ways to read the second part that "all remaining hit/crit results inflict Ion tokens instead of damage."
      • One way, the way you imply, is that they'd immediately deal Ion tokens. I don't really see this as a strong reading of the text. It doesn't say "cancel remaining results and inflict an Ion token for each one," and to inflict all the Ion damage here really doesn't seem supported by the card. Nothing on the card says to hand out these tokens now.
      • The other way to read it is that this text changes how the "Deal Damage" step happens . I find this makes so much more sense. This is also really consistent with Tractor Beam or Jamming Beam. Those clearly don't cancel hits and crits in the Neutralize Results step to inflict Tractor or Jam tokens, but fundamentally change how the Deal Damage step works.
        • Another thing to note: Mag-Pulse Warheads has a very different text from Ion Missiles. That immediately cancels remaining results, rather than saying "Remaining results do not deal damage." The best way to interpret Ion Missiles really seems to be that it changes step 5.
• Fifth Brother happens here . A crit result is added, and is dealt with like all other crits.
  • I think it's meaningful that Fifth Brother's crit is an added result, rather than text like "After you perform an attack that hits, you may spend 2 Force to cause the defender to suffer 1 Crit damage." To me, this signals that Fifth Brother's crit ought to be handled like any other crit from the attack. If this is correct, then Fifth Brother's crit is handled like any other crit in the Ion Missiles attack, and instead of inflicting damage, it inflicts an Ion token.
• 5. Deal Damage: If the attack hits, the defender suffers damage for each uncanceled Hit and Crit result in the following order:
  • a. The defender suffers 1 Hit damage for each uncanceled Hit result. Then cancel all Hit results.
  • b. The defender suffers 1 Crit damage for each uncanceled Crit result. Then cancel all Crit results.
    • Because Ion missiles changes how the Deal Damage step happens, when Fifth Brother's Crit is resolved now, it ought to inflict an Ion token.
      • I'm mostly phrasing stuff in terms of "seems to be" and "oughts" here. Some of it is a ermeneutic of generosity, but I don't really doubt my reading of the rules. Instead, it's mostly because I think FFG has done a lot of rulings in the FAQ which don't actually make sense to me, not given what the cards say. I wouldn't be shocked to see them say, "No, it does a crit," even though I think it makes pretty much zero sense from the actual text of the cards and rules.

Seems fair. I ran off memory that neutralize results also had the dealing damage part in that step.

Nice breakdown @theBitterFig , that is also how I read the difference between Mag-pulse vs Ion missiles.

Agreed. Still, 2 force to definitely Ionize a small-base ship is... pretty sweet, to be honest.

Are Ions worth 4? Still not sure. But 5bro loves missiles for sure.

Just chiming into this thread to say that I took Fifth Brother (with Homing Missiles, Hate and Passive Sensors) to a 12-person tourney yesterday, and he was fantastic. As a general rule, people were usually more willing to let me roll the 4-die missile attacks than suffer a guaranteed hit and crit, which often meant they suffered even more damage than they would have otherwise. The combination of an Evade action with two Force points also works really well to keep him alive in the face of incoming fire.