The Rebel Alliance Card "Fleet Command Center" (Enhancement: Location) has a Reaction that states, "After you refresh, place 1 shield on a target unit."

We just played a game, and I had this card out. On my turn, when I refreshed, I had no units on the board, and my opponent had 2. Nowhere in the card text does it say may, so I chose one of my opponent's units and placed a shield on it. That's the correct thing to do, right?

Reactions by definition are optional. Forced reactions and forced interrupts are not.

Very specifically, actions are only mandatory if they are listed as "forced." Because it is not a forced response, you are not required to.

One question I have involves shielding after you refresh, with cards such as Fleet Command Center and Fleeing the Empire. By timing, "after you refresh" effects occur immediately before removing shield tokens. While I'm sure these cards wind up with an effect, I would like a wording update.

Thanks.

Also helpful to realize that Shield tokens go away in the refresh phase. Woops…

The timing structure at the end of the rulebook places removal of shield tokens as something that occurs during the Refresh phase, between the removal of focus tokens and replacement of missing objectives. Wouldn't "after you refresh" effects trigger later?

MarthWMaster said:

That is what we expect (and were told by a play tester) for the final answer to be. However, on pg 12 of the rule book it specifies that "after you refresh" effects happen after removing focus tokens but before removing shield tokens or flipping new objectives. Again, we've been unofficially told by somebody with inside information that the rulebook is in error, but that is what it says:

2. Refresh Phase
The active player takes the following steps in order:
1. He removes one focus token from each card in
his play area. (Any effect with the text “after you
refresh” can be used after completing this step.)
Exception: During his first turn only, the LS player
does not take this step of the refresh phase.
2. He removes all shield tokens from each card in
his play area.
3. If he has fewer than three current objective
cards, he replaces each missing objective card
by taking the top card of his objective deck and
putting it into play as a current objective card. If
the objective card just put into play has a “When this
card enters play …” (or similar) effect, this effect is
immediately resolved.
If multiple objective cards need to be replaced, they
are put into play, resolving any “When this card
enters play” effects, one at a time.
After taking these steps, the active player proceeds to
the draw phase.

Though I think this is ridiculous, you should also note that on the first turn the rules say for the LS player to skip their refresh phase completely. So even if this were a forced reaction, you wouldn't have to do it on your first turn. I'm not sure exactly why the LS player has to skip their refresh phase, but I suppose there may be some powerful reactionson objectives in the future that require focusing the objective. The LS player would not be able to refresh said objectives on their first turn.

Alternatively, it may be that you only skip the refresh phase because there is nothing to refresh as of the core release, but with future expansions, perhaps the LS player will be free to refresh if necessary.

It would also mean that if the DS is able to place a focus token on a light side objective it would deny the LS use of that objective on their turn. A very powerful effect if it were possible and it may very well be down the road.

The LS skips refreshing on their first turn because otherwise they could pretty much play events on the first DS turn for free.

dbmeboy said:

Many thanks, I had missed that.