Is the Kablamo! token intended to be used first round on Hostage Exchange? (It seems to give the Droid army a pretty significant advantage on Hostage Exchange, but so does Rex's Scouting Party keyword for the Republic.) Hopefully this can be cleared up before it becomes the subject of debate during too many games, I've seen it come up a few times and the answer isn't clear. I tend to take things very literally when I go through the rules, so please bear with me.

It seems like Kablamo! is intended to be a mine like Sabine's, Bossk's, or Saboteurs, but as a shell game. Hostage Exchange says that during round 1, units cannot use the DETONATE keyword. All the other units that Arm bombs have or get the "DETONATE X:" keyword on the upgrade card, or the command card. So it's clear they can't use that keyword on their cards in the first round. But Cad Bane's cards say nothing about using DETONATE, the rules insert just says the bomb detonates. So if a unit reveals the Kablamo! token first in the first round of Hostage Exchange, what happens?

• (I think I found this answer in Immune: Enemy Effects, 'cannot be targeted by any enemy card effects' I know this is probably intended for cards that add suppression or have other effects on units...so maybe they couldn't be the target of a Kablamo! attack?, but the question remains, would Kablamo! still flip/detonate or not/go away?)
  My thought process is: the Cad Bane rules insert Kablamo! says "the token detonates using the weapon depicted on Cad Bane's command card 'I Make the Rules Now.' Then the token is removed." The keyword DETONATE in the RRG says "When a charge or condition token detonates, either through an ability or some other game effect, perform a separate attack...etc" and gives the rules for how to handle that area attack. I would argue even though Cad Bane's unit/weapon/command cards don't include the DETONATE keyword, you're still referencing the DETONATE keyword in the RRG to resolve the area weapon attack; and since Hostage Exchange says units can't use that keyword, Cad Bane should not be able to resolve Kablamo! using the DETONATE rules, and the token would just be removed.
• FOUND THIS ANSWER with some RRG digging (Immune: Enemy Effect says that the unit is still subject to battle card effects, so a mine from minefield would still detonate.) The same question could be applied to Minefield in round 1 of Hostage Exchange. Would a unit detonate a mine if they moved in range of it?

The other question is, can a unit claim two hostage upgrade cards? Some people say yes, some say no.

• I think no, based on the one rule under upgrade cards that says: "A unit cannot equip more than one copy of the same upgrade card."
• The Hostage Exchange cards says: "All units gain ACTION: Claim, when a unit claims an objective token, it equips a Hostage upgrade card." Since you can't equip a second card, you shouldn't be able to take the first part of the action.

Thanks in advance for any clarification.

You summed it up pretty well: hostage exchange is a weird one with many unclear interactions. These questions come up on discord every other day and are discussed ad nauseam with no clear resolution.

The common solution is to say Kablamo doesn't work on hostages turn 1. And during invader league it was possible to claim multiple hostages.

Until this is resolved officially (and insider state, that at least in the upcoming RRG update it will not be cleared 😔 ), we have to agree with the opponent on how to play it.

My Cad Bane still didn't arrive so I don't have the rules for when he can trigger one of the bane tokens, but the detonation is a card effect so "Immune enemy effects" should prevent any damage that would be dealt by that detonation.

Regarding the point of having two Hostages equiped, I think that it can be done. To me they are not upgrade cards even though they are equipped. That's because the first dot on the rules under Upgrade cards sais: "Each upgrade card contains an upgrade icon that determines that upgrade’s type."

The Hostage cards doesn't contain any upgrade icon, thus to me they don't qualify as upgrade cards.

That's a good point, but I think that in the end, the intention is not to have upgrade cards defined by their inclusion of a type icon, it's just a functionality statement.

Regarding the topic's question, to me it's pretty clear: First turn, the bomb explodes, but doesn't affect the Hostage unit because it's an emey effect and that unit is inmune to it.

Agreed with everyone on the Kablamo! not affecting an enemy units because of Immune: Enemy Effects. I guess don't put your Kablamo! in the middle if you're playing hostage exchange, because it could hit your own guys and friendly cards can still do damage.

I can definitely see both sides of the argument. I hope they clarify in the next RRG. I agree that the hostage upgrade card doesn't have an icon represented in the upgrade card section. But it is called a 'hostage upgrade card' in the RRG, and the new Supply Deck cards are called 'supply upgrade cards.' The SUPPLY DECK keyword has a bullet specifically calling out: "A unit can equip two copies of the same supply upgrade card." Which leads me to believe if that were the case for Hostages, they would have said the same thing, otherwise you default back to the "only one upgrade card" on each unit.

Thematically it makes sense to me that a unit could only escort/protect one hostage at a time. I guess it's just a waiting game for the next RRG.

Thanks for everyone's input.

We played that a unit with hostage cannot reveal Cad's tokens on first round as it seems to us that it makes more sens thematicaly than revealing the token and not taking damage from the explosion. That unit is not magicaly immune to explosion (eg. minefiled) but it's part of the agreement between sides that exchange hostages.

I'm wating for new RRG also.