5 minutes ago, >kkj said:

Grievous litearlly functions exactly as Vader does just only when the target does not have any readied defense tokens. People easily understood Vaders effect back 5 years ago, this is really not that complicated. The effect is worded very clearly.

The fact that Grievous' ability is very similar to Vader isn't in dispute. It's the conditional parameter specified on the card that dictates when Grievous' ability applies that is the source of the confusion. Vader has no such conditions; Vader always gains +1 damage from rolled crits, hence why people easily understood Vader's ability 5 years ago, as you said.

The reason why Vader's ability is easily understood is because it is worded very clearly. Whereas Grievious' conditional ability is not as easily understood because it is not worded as clearly as it could have been.

Assuming the certain people's interpretation of Grievious's ability is correct, I would've written the card as follows, to ensure there wasn't any confusion:

"General Grievous: While attacking a ship or squadron without defense tokens or with no readied defense tokens, each of your Crit icons adds 1 damage to the damage total."

That is clearly worded and easily understandable because it accounts for squadrons without defense tokens (including ships and squadrons that discarded their def. tokens) and for ships and squadrons that have no readied* defense tokens -- *meaning that all defense tokens are exhausted.

I guarantee that there will be some Armada players who will read Grievous' Squadron card and interpret it as only pertaining to ships and Ace squadrons with exhausted defense tokens, but not generic squadrons that don't have defense tokens.

I've played against players, including veteran players, who have misread or misinterpreted cards that I believed were perfectly straightforward, which led to disputes and sometimes players storming off. And I'm certain that many players have had similar experiences in casual games and even tournaments. That's why I think that the people here dismissing the idea that anyone could misinterpret the Grievous Squadron card are being obtuse and naïve -- as if they'd never played against other people, or only players in their own little bubble who all interpret things exactly the same way. That's not reality.

It's true. I had this problem with the interaction with Yavaris, flight commander and Flight Coordination Team. Seemed clear to me that I could nudge a bomber in range and Yarvaris them to attack twice, but it wasn't clear to everyone. It was ruled I couldn't at a tournament and then cleared up that it was possible by FAQ.

It is often a problem of people reading into something though. Not with the wording itself. But sometimes it does take an official statement to settle it.

If a squad card said "When this squad attacks, if the defender does not have any shields, add one damage", does it apply to attacks on other squads? RAW says yes. RAI.. maybe? I can see someone questioning it.

5 hours ago, Captain Corvid said:

Just because a handful of people on this forum believe that they understand a certain card's ability, doesn't mean that they are correct. And it certainly doesn't mean that all Armada players will interpret the card the correct way.

Do you understand that a particular comment on this forum is only seen by maybe a few hundred Armada players? There are thousands of Armada players who have never visited this forum and probably never will; some of whom might be uncertain about how Grievious' ability works, which could lead to disputes, even in tournament play.

FFG has made rules and card clarifications countless times, which have resulted in FAQs and card updates.

So the dismissive attitude of "The card seems 100% clear to me. FFG doesn't need to clarify it," is unwarranted and unfounded. That unjustified attitude just plays into the fallacy that FFG never makes mistakes. If FFG never made mistakes, the most recent FAQ wouldn't be 24 pages long. That's a lot of uncertainty that had to be resolved by FFG .

Yes, I do understand that posts on forums are seen by a limited amount of people, but that doesn't really have anything to do with whether an effect is clear or not, so what I don't understand is why you feel the need to bring that up.

And I never said FFG doesn't make mistakes. But there is no particular reason to assume that this specific card has any mistakes.

3 minutes ago, Captain Corvid said:

The fact that Grievous' ability is very similar to Vader isn't in dispute. It's the conditional parameter specified on the card that dictates when Grievous' ability applies that is the source of the confusion. Vader has no such conditions; Vader always gains +1 damage from rolled crits, hence why people easily understood Vader's ability 5 years ago, as you said.

The reason why Vader's ability is easily understood is because it is worded very clearly. Whereas Grievious' conditional ability is not as easily understood because it is not worded as clearly as it could have been.

Assuming the certain people's interpretation of Grievious's ability is correct, I would've written the card as follows, to ensure there wasn't any confusion:

"General Grievous: While attacking a ship or squadron without defense tokens or with no readied defense tokens, each of your Crit icons adds 1 damage to the damage total."

That is clearly worded and easily understandable because it accounts for squadrons without defense tokens (including ships and squadrons that discarded their def. tokens) and for ships and squadrons that have no readied* defense tokens -- *meaning that all defense tokens are exhausted.

I guarantee that there will be some Armada players who will read Grievous' Squadron card and interpret it as only pertaining to ships and Ace squadrons with exhausted defense tokens, but not generic squadrons that don't have defense tokens.

I've played against players, including veteran players, who have misread or misinterpreted cards that I believed were perfectly straightforward, which led to disputes and sometimes players storming off. And I'm certain that many players have had similar experiences in casual games and even tournaments. That's why I think that the people here dismissing the idea that anyone could misinterpret the Grievous Squadron card are being obtuse and naïve -- as if they'd never played against other people, or only players in their own little bubble who all interpret things exactly the same way. That's not reality.

The conditional parameter is clear--"does the defender have any readied defense tokens?" That's it. It doesn't care whether it started the game with any or not, it cares if it has any now.

Your wording adds unnecessary text. "without defense tokens" is already a subset of "with no readied defense tokens." If you don't have any tokens, you don't have any ready ones.

And yes, it's possible people will misinterpret stuff that is blatantly obvious. I would even go so far as to say that nearly every rule will get misinterpreted by someone at some point. But that doesn't mean there is necessarily a fault with the wording. Sometimes the wording is fine, and the fault is in the reader.

11 minutes ago, homedrone said:

Sorry. I was slow to edit my statement.

I agree that I think this has a clear effect. Though someone might guess that FFG meant to say something else? I guess?

I don't know why you're phrasing it like "someone might guess that FFG meant to say something else?"

I think it makes sense that Grievous' ability works against all generic squadrons, and ships and Ace squadrons with exhausted (or discarded) defense tokens, but I think the wording on the card could be misinterpreted by some players as Grievous' ability only targets ships and squadrons that have defense tokens, which are exhausted. I never said that was my interpretation of Grievious' card. I was just pointing out something that I recognized could be confusing to some players, and suggested that FFG clarify the issue.

I don't why suggesting that FFG do their job and post a one or two sentence official clarification for General Grievous' Squadron card sparked such "controversy".

I often refer to the Armada Fandom wikia as a reference, and it seems like half of all entries have a Rules Clarification section that refers to the FAQ, indicating that there was something confusing that had to be officially clarified by FFG. Similarly, Ryan Kingston's Fleet Builder also has Rules Clarification notes for certain cards, like Luke Skywalker.

Rules Clarifications are very prevalent in Armada, so I don't understand why certain people here are so dismissive that I have identified a card from Clone Wars Armada that might be confusing, and resistant to the possibility that it might receive an official rules clarification by FFG (or AMG) in the future to resolve any ambiguity -- regardless of whether certain people are willing to acknowledge the ambiguity exists or not.

Furthermore, why did my post get attacked like this? Whereas when someone creates a new thread asking a n00b question about Armada, the only responses that post receives are helpful, non-judgmental answers? 🤨

I said it like that because I know people will think that way, I just can't express well why they think that way. I'm on your side that clarification is fine. But I think it helps to know what it is exactly being asked. In this case the question is not "Does Greivsious affect squads that never had tokens" but instead "Did FFG intend for them to be affected". The card is clear that they do get affected. If they are not supposed to, then FFG would need to reword it.

People here get frustrated with people misinterpreting the rules by reading into them. It's draining to them to debate what seems clear. It would be different if for some reason it didn't makes sense that he could attack them, yet the card somehow implied he could now. But all the mechanics work fine with the wording as is. So why read more than is stated? That's where some people here are coming from.

But I also understand that that doesn't matter, it's fine to ask FFG for clarification.

Except, of course, there's no one left to Clarify

16 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Except, of course, there's no one left to Clarify

"Everybody's dead, Dave."

This is all getting very post truth.

A lot of the hostility toward your comment comes from how you are constructing your arguments in subsequent responses.

In conflict resolution, you focus on defining the conflict. Who is against who, what is against what, because then we can make legitimate progress and maybe find common ground. In this situation, you are making an argument of "this card versus the in-game mechanics", at least originally. Your first post was well done, and your point was taken.

When another player comes in with a different argument about how the card works, with legitimate understanding, and again pitting card against what we have available for in-game mechanics, your response pivots the conflict and makes it much more hostile. Instead of interacting with the card honestly, you make assertions that they arent a spokesperson for all armada players (we know this), FFG makes mistakes (we know this), all the while using very condescending language and accusatory tone. If you had presented in-game evidence, examples of other errata, poorly worded text that involves omission of interaction, then no one would have reacted the way they did. And honestly everyone has been remarkably calm given how hot you came in with your response.

I have no dog in this fight, but I felt compelled to say something after you claimed people here were being overly hostile. I'd suggest you reread your responses and think about how you can move the conversation forward instead of undermining other positions by claiming they arent everyone, because we know that.

I thought your original post was very well worded and edited. I would have wanted you to continue your argument with counter examples because I was a fan of how you presented your opinion originally.

Guys, get a room

Strictly looking at the wording as a legal term, it can only be interpreted one way: If a squad has no readied defense token, Grievous crits are hits. I know it's not a legal term, but basically you can't imply something from the text that isn't explicitly in it. Therefor per text you only have to check if the squadron's card has a green defense token. You doesn't have to check if it ever had any tokens in the first place.

This is only the argument of a lawyer so may not be relevant in gaming

But let's look at it from the points perspective. 22 points is Corran Horn's value for the Rebels. Both have the same hull, speed and defense tokens, and both have 4 AS and 1 bombing die. But there are some key differences:

First is Grievous' double black AS and black bombing die which has a blank face compared to Corran's 4 blues and one red bombing (with Bomber). But the key differences is Bomber+Snipe 4 vs Screen+Relay+Grievie's ability. This makes Grievous slightly worse against uniques (less chance of accuracy) but much stronger against generics, if my interpretation of his ability is correct. Meanwhile it makes him almost indestructible while he has at least 3 squads to engage his attacker, making him practically Valen. But only as long as he has his screen.

From the other point of view he is only one point more than Vader or Maarek. Vader has the same hull, speed and tokens while has only black AS die, but his ability always works and thus he is a pseudo-bomber (if only he could get rid of that Escort). Maarek is faster, has more hull, an ability to always fix his swingy black dice, and Bomber+Grit.

With all that being said and knowing Grievous's abilities form the Clone Wars series, I think they wanted to make him a juggernaut against squadrons but shy if he remains alone, especially against Jedi. And if his ability works against generics as well, that's exactly what you get, for the same point cost as his Rebel and Imperial equivalents. I would even risk o say that Maarek is better because he is more flexible (and has Jendon).

TL:DR if you sum up Grievous's stats and compare him to Rebel and Imperial squadrons, his point cost suggest that his ability should work on generics as well.

On 11/26/2020 at 2:23 AM, FoxOmega44 said:

I've seen a game where 1 player brought 16 Ties, and everyone kind of laughed at the novelty and ridiculousness of that many squads on the board. I think the seps are looking like a faction where this won't be novel or ridiculous, but instead make you nervously count their total squad command value. And I'm a huge fan.

I've played against 12-16 squadron fleets.

Two rounds of blue flak (2 dice for most, 3 dice for some) and they were all gone.

On 11/25/2020 at 8:39 PM, Ginkapo said:

... how does that make up for having no old Intel? They don't have to be activated, they just have to be on the board. Also, Raid tokens suck.

1 hour ago, Petersaber said:

Raid tokens suck.

I have to disagree. Raid tokens are highly annoying and they do achieve something. Namely, they disrupt the oppontent's plan. They can prevent command dials to be executed which can be very useful. Not devastating, but game changing under the right circumstances.

I don‘t want to hurt anybody‘s feelings, but I think the idea of debating over Grievous‘ effect in real combat is quite funny!

Grievous : „Here, take this!“ *rolls dice* „You‘re dead!“

V-19 : „Why, you only got three hits. I‘ve 5 hull.“

Grievous : „Hear, you pathetic fool, I‘ve got this special ability, my two crits count as hits! You can COUNT on me! So, you’re dead! Hwa-hwa-hwa!“

V-19 : „Dammit! — And that special ability is permanent?“

Grievous : „Only a little unconvenience. You need green defense tokens to be safe, otherwise you‘re dead!“

V-19 : „Phew! I‘m glad, I asked.“

Grievous : „How that?“

V-19 : „I don‘t have red defense tokens. So I‘m safe.“

Grievous : „What‘s the point of that?“

V-19 : „You said, if I have red defense tokens I‘m doomed.“

Grievous : „No, I didn‘t. I said you need greens to be safe.“

V-19 : „True. That means, if I would have only reds, I would be radiant debris by now!“

Grievous : „Eehm. Yes.“

V-19 : „I don‘t have any red defense tokens. For that ...“

Grievous : „Wait! Do you have a green defense token?“

V-19 : *laughs* „What do you think, old man! I‘m just a generic clone pilot. Never had any defense tokens.“

Grievous : „You‘re dead if you don‘t possess any greens.“

V-19 : „Wait! I think that‘s unclear!“

Grievous : „No, it‘s not! You ...“

V-19 : „No reason to be ... upset. Okay? We will ask a neutral open minded judge! Master Unduli, Master Unduli! What do you say? Am I dead or not?“

Unduli : „No.“

Dooku : „WHAT! That‘s typical for you Jedi. Always betraying. Read my card and you‘ll see, that clone is dead.“

Unduli : „Read mine and you‘ll see the attack was obstructed. Please roll your dice again. Minus one.“

Grievous : *grumbles* „Hate you...“ *rolls dice, swears*

V-19 : „Hey, come on, old man! No reason to loose one‘s head!“

Anakin : *from a distance* „Did anybody call my name?!“

Dooku : *shouts* „Shut up, youngling. You‘re engaged by all my Vulture-class droid fighter squadrons! Do your own business.“

Anakin gins evily and flips a defense token.

1 minute ago, Triangular said:

I don‘t want to hurt anybody‘s feelings, but I think the idea of debating over Count Dooku‘s effect in real combat is quite funny!

Dooku : „Here, take this!“ *rolls dice* „You‘re dead!“

Grievous, though.

*Grievous. Guess you'll have to switch out that headjoke for a hello there one 😐

6 minutes ago, Formynder4 said:

Grievous, though.

You‘re obviously right! The joke with loosing one‘s head isn‘t just the same now ... 😉

3 minutes ago, Triangular said:

You‘re obviously right! The joke with loosing one‘s head isn‘t just the same now ... 😉

V-19: Calm down, Roboman. You gonna burst into flames with all that hatred!

Obi-Wan: Hello there.

Grievous: General Kenobi!

Stop me if you think I'm overthinking here, but I definitely see Hyenas being pretty good bombers in terms of just getting more bang for your buck. I mean, sure, you're running a 62.5% hit chance per die... but I feel like that at least translates to a high chance of singles (while also possessing decent chance for 2dmg and a nice occasional gift of 3-4dmg). Given how long-range focused and slow the CIS ships are, you could conceivably keep them held back rather than seek and destroy like the other bombers in the game are. That means, you can cover them with the ships and your screening fighters more easily. With the move 4, I could easily see them being the counter-punch to GAR ships getting in close for their Black dice throws.

Essentially, CIS ships taunt with their reds, and then when enemy ships take the bait and come close, *BOOM* Hyenas from nowhere!

1 hour ago, Cruzer said:

Stop me if you think I'm overthinking here, but I definitely see Hyenas being pretty good bombers in terms of just getting more bang for your buck. I mean, sure, you're running a 62.5% hit chance per die... but I feel like that at least translates to a high chance of singles (while also possessing decent chance for 2dmg and a nice occasional gift of 3-4dmg). Given how long-range focused and slow the CIS ships are, you could conceivably keep them held back rather than seek and destroy like the other bombers in the game are. That means, you can cover them with the ships and your screening fighters more easily. With the move 4, I could easily see them being the counter-punch to GAR ships getting in close for their Black dice throws.

Essentially, CIS ships taunt with their reds, and then when enemy ships take the bait and come close, *BOOM* Hyenas from nowhere!

I was thinking of dropping them with RLBs when the fighter screen is taken care of

7 minutes ago, EagleScoutof007 said:

I was thinking of dropping them with RLBs when the fighter screen is taken care of

Totally brain farting on what RLBs is right now XP

Rapid Laugh Bays?

1 minute ago, Green Knight said:

Rapid Laugh Bays?

Ahhh that makes sense!

11 minutes ago, EagleScoutof007 said:

I was thinking of dropping them with RLBs when the fighter screen is taken care of

Sure... though personally I'm mostly thinking along the lines of them sitting on the opposite side of a ship and then using that nice big Spd 1-4 to jump right into range of a freshly-activated Acclimator and start busting it in the nose.

6 minutes ago, Cruzer said:

Ahhh that makes sense!

Sure... though personally I'm mostly thinking along the lines of them sitting on the opposite side of a ship and then using that nice big Spd 1-4 to jump right into range of a freshly-activated Acclimator and start busting it in the nose.

That works too. One week! Can't wait try out both new factions!