hello~

we received the POD expension recently and deeply love it.

but i'm very confused about the "armour of contempt"...

on the "armour of contempt" card it says: "when defending, your s.m. gain +1 to their roll for EACH support token on their card."

while on the rule-card it says: "...when plays the armour of contempt action card, each of his s.m. only gains a +1 to his roll for any remaining support tokens. this means if his first roll is not enough, and he spends a support token to roll again, he only gains a +1 for the remaining tokens still on his card."

"...he only gains a +1 for the remaining tokens still on his card."
that means only +1 no matter how many tokens he owns?
or +1 for each tokens he owns?

When I unpacked the game for the first time, i got the same question: Does the Armour of Contempt raise the defense only by 1 in general, or it raises the defense by 1 for every single token? I personally think, it raises defense only by 1 in general, regardless of the number of tokens (of course you have to have at least 1 token for it to take effect). The reason is, that after a while the Grey Team would become an unstoppable tank. I think, there is 12 support tokens, so if you would put them all on Chaplain Raziel, which can happen in only several rounds, he would be able to withstand an attack of at least 11 genestealers (yes, I remember, Gideon can block any attack with his shield, but this is balanced by his crappy range), in the next round, he would use Traumatic Blow, and the GS would be paralysed, again, having no chance to harm him. That´s just overpowered. If you would put 6/6 tokens on both marines in the Grey Team, they would become extremely powerful juggernauts, and that just seems unfair to me. They´we got a lot of powerful abilities (along with the new Orange Team), unlike other teams, and this would just make them... well... ultrapowerful.

I had even another questions, on of them was also about the Armour of Contempt: Does it raise armor rating for both marines, even if only one of them has a support token? But I think it is logically impossible. The token represents some upgrade to that team member, and if one of them does not have the token, he is not upgraded.

Well, that was my opinion on Armour of Contempt, so let´s just put other questions in the debate: Using Orange Team´s Cyclonic Volley, you throw a die, which will set Brother Adron´s range of fire. If roll is a 0, nothing happens. Does that mean, that if the die roll is 3, he can attack only positions 1 to 3, but not 0 (GS engaged with him)? This would simulate the destructive potential of the rocket launcher, but the card says "slay GS UP TO THIS NUMBER OF POSITIONS" which means, even 0 position is possible, and I would rather play it that way. I also think, that Cyclonic Volley easily beats Brother Claudio´s Heroic Charge (if Adron rolls 0, nothing happens, if Claudio rolls 0, he dies) in the effect and even the range which is again... kinda unfair

Next question: Target Lock: Can a swarm be "targeted" multiple times? The Target Lock "highlights" the enemy, makes them a little bit more vulnerable. In "reality", I think you wouldn´t get an advantage if the target would be targeted multiple times by a single laser pointer. How would even that work? So logically, it should be impossible to target the same swarm multiple times. But the cards do not put any restrictions on this, so... I think it is possible.

Last one: Can the Target Lock´s token be used to reroll an attack from behind? I think, it´s not possible, because the basic rules put restrictions on ANY rerolling while defending from behind.

Those are my questions and my opinions on them, what do you thinK?

Sorry to necro an old thread, but I believe the answer given here (in regards to Armor of Contempt) is incorrect, and it'd be a shame if it mislead someone into playing the card wrong.

I firmly believe what the card does is give +1 to your defensive roll per support token on that marine. So if you have 3 tokens on the marine, he gets +3 to his roll. So he's (for this round) immune to attacks by 1 or 2 genestealers, and could theoretically survive the round even if facing a swarm of 7 genestealers if the die were kind.

The rules card says "...he only gains a +1 for the remaining tokens still on his card" to clarify that if you spend a support token, the bonus decreases by 1 on the reroll the token gave you.

For example, lets say you had 3 support tokens on the marine and were facing a swarm of 5 genestealers.

• You roll a "0", which is adjusted by +3 to a "3". That's not enough to survive, so you spend a support token and reroll.
• The new roll is (for example) a "1", and it's only adjusted by +2 because there are now only 2 support tokens on the marine. 1+2=3, so this roll is also effectively a "3", and not enough to survive.
• So you spend another support token and reroll yet again. Maybe you get a little higher roll this time, say a "4"... but since you've spent 2 support tokens you've only got one left on the marine, making this a roll effectively 4+1="5", still not enough to survive the swarm.
• You could at this point spend your last token, but since there wouldn't be any tokens left on the marine, you'd be rolling with no bonus (a +0 bonus, technically). The highest you could roll on this last reroll is a "5", which again isn't more than the number of genestealers in the swarm, so you'd die.

Tyrichter said:

1 per token, as mentioned in my previous post.

Tyrichter said:

I suspect you are over-estimating the power of the ability on Armour of Contempt, and that even using it to give +1 PER token on the marine (which I believe is what the rules-as-written intend) it's not that likely to be the game-warping advantage you're expecting it to be.

Yes, you could theoretically lump all 12 tokens on Chaplain Raziel. It would take a couple turns of very dedicated use of Support cards to do so. And then he'd be immune to any swarm of 11 genestealers or less, and could theoretically survive against a swarm of 15 with a lucky roll. For one turn. Yes, the next turn Chaplain Raziel could prevent a single swarm from attacking, and then alternate those two cards to hold down one huge swarm for a very long time provided everything worked out just right. However, he'd still be vulnerable to attacks from behind on every second turn, and if additional genestealers spawned or moved behind him, or the first swarm flanked him, or the "chaos of battle" event turned all the marines around, he'd get ripped apart. So you might be able to pull it off for a few turns in a row, but it's likely to eventually collapse (especially as you move to new locations), and then that stack of nearly a dozen genestealers will starting devouring one marine per turn.

In the meantime, having so many resources tied up on one guy will likely start to hurt you elsewhere. Remember that the hard limit is a dozen tokens (the number that come in the box), so using the strategy described above, there would be little or no tokens available for other marines, none to use to whittle down that huge swarm, none for doors, none for the end location that requires 10 support tokens to win, etc. Just as with the Power Field or Intimidation, over-reliance on any card that doesn't actually kill genestealers can easily backfire.

Similar arguments can be made about putting 6 tokens on each of the two marines in the team, though it is less of an "eggs in one basket" scenario. Yes, it's strong, but it's far from a guaranteed victory, and all it takes is one bad card draw for it to all fall apart.

Tyrichter said:

With the way the card is written, I strongly believe the number of support tokens on the other marines is irrelevant, even if they are from the same player or fire team. If Brother Metraen is defending (for example), he cares only if there's counters on himself, and not how many are on Chaplain Raziel, or anyone else.

Tyrichter said:

Nothing in the rules prevent him from targeting his own row. Since this isn't an RPG, the rules trump logic.

As to the Adron vs Claudio debate, I think they're closer to balanced then they might initially appear. If Claudio rolls a "0" he dies, but the three genestealers die with him. If Adron rolls a "0" the three genestealers stay in play, and they have a very good chance of killing a marine at the end of the turn (and possibly for several turns in a row). So while Claudio looks (and is) riskier, he is also (oddly) more reliable.

Tyrichter said:

For the first Target Lock question, I think yes, you can have multiple support tokens on a swarm, because nothing on the card or rules say you can't. Again, for a card game, we should generally seek guidance from the rulebook, not the in-character logic. If this were an RPG instead of a card game, I might go the other way.

As to the last question, I've been playing it as allowing to reroll attacks from behind, but on reconsidering, I'm not sure that's right. I thought of it as "special" tokens, in the way that support tokens on doors don't function using anything like the normal rules. On further reflection, though, one could argue it's actually just a normal support token being used in the normal way, and just stored (or located) somewhere odd. Hmm...what to do?

Target Lock is a weird card. The default for most cards is that they only do things during the turn they are played, but target lock seems to break that pattern by putting a support token on a swarm and allowing it to be used later. I'd love for FFG to update the FAQ to cover the many issues with Target Lock.

I got a somewhat similar query about "armour of contempt". Can it be used if a swarm is behind the marine?

We in my group believes so. The rules states that "support tokens can't be used to re-roll when defending if the swarm is behind". We ruled, since you don't just use them to re-roll, you still get +1 for each support token on the marines for one roll. But if that fails, the marine dies.

Please pardon my bad English.

Tunte said:

I agree. As I read it, it would definitely give the bonus on attacks from behind.

(off topic)

@ r_b_bergstrom: I just must ask, you are also from Sweden, right? I just got to know.

Tunte said:

I'm from the United States, actually. I do have family in Sweden, though, and I spent a month there one summer in my teens. Beautiful country. I'd love to go visit again some day.

r_b_bergstrom said:

I'm asking because my namn is also Bergström, though not with an "O". It is a beautiful country, love my home town. Surrounded with tall trees. Tell me if you have any plans to visit Växjö or Wexio. Don't know what it says in your atlas. Well not gonna bother you. As I said, just got to know.

Have a nice day, and thanks for solving this query, maybe another question will make us cross paths again.

I interpreted it as adding +1 per support token. If you've got 11 stealers on you, you're not going to be able to play Armour of Contempt every round anyway!

I did actually draw that card that diverts all support tokens to a single marine, and so I did have that scenario and thought I was unstoppable (he had 12!)... until I drew the card that made me discard all support tokens on a single marine... and he was the only one who had any. Buh-bow!