Hi!

Having recently bought the German-language edition, there's a question the answer to which I haven't found yet searching the forums.

Are the action cards' special abilities for Space Marines only active during the phase in which they're resolved and only if the specific card is chosen by the team that turn?

For example, does Brother Leon only get to attack three times during Attack Phase if the red team has the attack option chosen, or also if, for example, the greens' Run & Gun card is used to make him attack during Event Phase? Or does Lorenzo always counter-attack when defending or only on a turn's Gene Stealer Attack Phase when the blue team supports?

The abilities are only active on the turn that they are played. So Lorenzo only gets to counter attack during a turn that blue played their support card.

The Green "Run & Gun" card can't make Leon attack, it can only be used to make green marines attack during the action phase. The Red support ability allows Red marines to attack at the end of the event phase, but obviously this can't be played on the same turn as "Full Auto".

There is one event card ("Quick Instincts") which allows a marine to attack during the event phase. If that marine didn't play their attack action this turn, then they definately don't get their special attack abilities. If they did play their attack action, it isn't really clear whether they get to use their ability in the event phase or not. In the english version, some cards (like red "Full Auto") are worded in a way that suggests it only works during the action phase, while other cards (like green "Dead Aim") are worded in a way that suggests they would work for a bonus attack in the event phase. That is my opinion though, it is subtle enough that the wording will suggest different things to different people.

There is only one "Quick Instincts" card, so it won't change the game too much whether you allow abilities or not. I usually play that none of the Attack special abilities work with "Quick Instincts", just to make the game slightly harder.

Ah yes, of course Run & Gun only applies to green Marines.

I guess it makes sense Action Card abilities are only active when played that turn. Otherwise the abilities would probably be printed on the Marine cards …

My gut feeling tells me Quick Instinct probably causes Marines to attack normally with one die roll and not their special ability, whether activated or not. (It's not like the game could get any harder anyway.)

So thanks!

I agree with the answer The game is hard indeed, till you realize several very useful things. Check the thread "winning strategies" for advanced advice. Stuff like GS always moving down on the left side and always up on the right, "tongue" GSs being the ones that move the most (so you should kill them before the others), and some nice combos between teams, are explained in that thread. Enjoy the game anyway!

aurax said:

At least in my deck, all symbols have the same number of flank and move events. The probability only changes based on what event cards you've already seen.

The number of times the activation symbols appear are the same, but if you have no information about how many times the symbols have been already activated, or if the information is irrelevant, then you should focus on killing tongues and claws on the swarms, just because tongues and claws appear on every Event Card with 2 major spawns, so the larger the swarm, the more probabilities of being merged and activated, and the more dangerous it will be. Sometimes you can't avoid it, because the symbol will come out of the genestealer spawns, but precisely because of this, you don't want a lot of swarms moving at the same time. Tongues and Claws are more likely to be present when the Event Card is drawn, because you draw more cards from the genestealer deck.