Hi folks.

Played BSG last night for the 1st time, with my 2 older sons.

The only snag we hit was activating the unmanned vipers.

Pg 25 lists 3 options, ONE of which must be chosen: Launch, Move or Attack

But, my older son the rules lawyer pointed out, if 'activate' means to choose one of those 3 options, the bottom paragraph says "EACH viper may be activated ANY number of times during a player's turn. [emphasis mine]"

...thus, a Viper could be launched, move 2 spaces, and attack a Basestar all in the same turn? Or could all unmanned vipers in the air be moved and attack various raiders in the same player's turn?

My thought: If there are 5 vipers in play, EACh one could have ONE of those things happen, but if the rule reads as my son read it, you could launch the whole squadron and wipe out the Basestar with a few lucky rolls.

Help? This was probably answered earlier on, but I didn't see it.

-J-

Joker said:

Each single Viper may be activated any number of times per player's turn, but one activation only allows to choose one option: Move a single Viper, attack with a single Viper or launch a single Viper. So to have one Viper launch, move twice and attack you need 4 activations at once. This is possible with Lee Adama's OPG ability. I can't think of other ways to achieve this right now.

A single activation never allows more than a single Viper to do something unless a special rule would allow it (and AFIK currently there is no such rule).

Ah! Makes sense. That's what I thought.

So: If there are 4 vipers in play, on my turn I could:

1) Launch one,

2) Move each of the 4 vipers on space, OR

3) attack a Cylon if the Viper starts its turn in the same space.

....or, if the Viper moves into the space, can it attack then?

sorry, but my boys are brutal Rules Lawyers.

Thanks, guys,

-J-

Greetings, Joker.

Here is a fuller explanation of that rule. In short, each activation can *either* launch, move, or shoot one time.

The rulebook is simply attempting to explain that if you have the ability to activate multiple vipers in a turn (say, by using the "Command" location), nothing prevents you from activating the same viper twice (e.g., moving with the first activation and then firing with the second). Hope this helps!

Ah! NOW I get it! Activations are like actions, and the number of actions/activations you get depends on the rules being followed at the time.

Yep, could have been clearer, but it makes sense now.

JDM

....could have been clearer in the instructions, that is. Thank you, Holy Outlaw!

No sweat, Joker. Can't see letting rules lawyers win the day.

Yeah, I forgot to stress the fact that for multiple activations you need actions/effects which provide multiple activations.