Hello!

So, we were playing the other day and i have an encounter against the Saboteur which i won.

Now , as we understood the rules (after a long discussion back and forth, reading the rules etc) i won the game at that step because as i landed i got my fifth colony and the rules state that for any timing issues the offense is resolved first?

Anyone care to comment on this please?

ok lets see if i can be as pedantic as possible.

as per rules, if offense won. all ships on hyperspace gate placed on planet.(full stop) each player placing new colony advances colony marker.( little bit paraphrasing here).

sabouteur power of booby trap any time ship lands you can reveal token if token bomb send all ships on planet to warp (again little bit paraphrase).

as far as i would play the saboteur activates his power after the (full stop) above, before colony markers are moved and therefore no colony is established.

thats me being pedantic.

some will disagree with this.

Well i dont know what is correct.

I agree that your explanation makes sense, but i dont know where in the sequence the moving of colony markers comes in.

I agree that if we split up the event as you do, it makes sense. I also agree with the idea that as soon as you land, you move colony marker. And THEN he can trigger the traps (because offence won)

I was kinda hoping to get an official answer to this but im not sure they are very active in this board or not. Maybe im better of sending an email?

(I like pedantic btw, after all it IS a board game and we need to know how to intrepet the rules if they are unclear/missing)

I believe that the Saboteur's power kicks in immediately as the ships land on the planet. So therefore you wouldn't be keeping your colony there. The game is won in the resolution phase after all game effects have taken place. The Saboteur has to resolve its power during this phase. Therefore, the colony marker can still be moved but that doesn't mean the game is over yet. The Saboteur does its power. The marker is moved back to 4. All game effects have now been resolved, check the score. No 5? Game's not over then.

Moving the colony marker isn't an immediate win. Notice on the Tick Tock. It says the Tick tock immediately wins the game if there are no tockens left on the sheet. This is because, his power of removing a token is used during the resolution phase.When going to remove the token, that is the time his power can be zapped. But if no one has zapped it, then there are no other circumstances that can be resolved and therefore he wins.

The same can be said with the wild Schizoid flare. After someone has moved the colony marker to 5, someone can play this flare to switch to that player's color. The flare user is now the one with 5 points. That doesn't mean this player one yet. All game effects haven't been resolved because someone can still Card Zap the flare and therefore the colors are not switched, but that still may not be resolved because someone may zap the previous Card Zap etc. Once all that is done and no one can affect the game anymore, then the score is checked the resolution phase is over and the player who has the 5 points wins.

Also with the Glutton Super. During a cosmic quake it can be played to immediately win. An argument can be made because that flare card can be zapped. But does the word immediate trump it? I believe so.

In short, moving the colony marker to five does not constitute an immediate win. In Cosmic anything can happen, therefore you all players must be able to effect the outcome if they can. Once nothing can be affect the outcome anymore, then all effects are resolved, the resolution phase is over and the winner is free to celebrate.

Hope this clears it up as much as possible. Do send Fantasy Flight an email though. They haven't updated the official Errata/FAQ since '09. They've added 60 aliens since then. They should be pressured into giving us an update.