The situation;

The light side player attacks with several characters, most of the icons among the attacking forces are edge dependent.

The dark side player defends with a single damage capacity 1 unit.

Edge battle cards are played, when revealed, the dark side counts 5 force icons for the edge battle while the light side counts 2, however, those two are provided by a "heat of battle" that kills the dark side unit before the ede battle is actually resolved, leaving the battle with no defending units.

The edge battle is then resolved.

Question; Do the dark side (having actually played more force icons in the edge battle before the death of it's defender) take the edge, denying the light side the use of edge enabled combat icons, or do the light side (now being unopposed in the battle) win?

Fate cards are resolved before counting force icons, so in this case the LS woud win the edge battle. See page 20 in the rule book, 3. Resolve fate cards.

Regards

Arduwin

Sorry Arduwin but you are incorrect. In this case the DS wins the edge battle thus shutting off the LS edge dependent icons. You only need to have a unit in defense to participate in the edge battle. But the attack is also now unopposed so the LS will get the extra damage.

As evidenced by the two distinctly different answers you've gotten, this isn't very well explained in the rules.

My understanding of the rules is as follows. If, after the declare defenders step, the defending player declares no defenders, the engagement is unopposed and the attacker automatically wins the edge battle.

However, once the edge battle begins, it will be fully resolved, regardless of what units remain after the Fate cards are resolved. In this case, the Dark Side will win the edge, but be unable to focus a unit to strike and be forced to pass priority back to the Light. The attacking Light Side units will focus to strike one at a time, but will not gain the benefit of any edge-dependent combat icons.

Also note that the Dark Side player could have defending units come into play after the edge battle, such as Backstabber and Human Replica Droid, in which case they would get to strike first and would have the benefit of their edge-dependent icons.

Toqtamish said:

Ok, I see wat you mean, guess i've been playing that wrong all the time. I thought that when a unit was destroyed, it immediately leaves play, hence no force icons and not winning the edge here. But you do resolve step 4. Finishing the edge battle anyway, regardless of the kill. Cool!!

thx for the correction.

cheers

The force icons of the unit in the engagement don't enter into the edge battle at all, just the ones on the cards played from your hand. So that unit leaving play due to the fate cards doesn't affect the edge battle at all. Like others have mentioned though, it will affect the actual engagement of the objective.

Arduwin said:

The force icons on the destroyed unit don't matter. Just the cards in the edge stack.

D.Knight Sevus said:

I disagree, it is quite clear.

A player must control at least one participating unit
to place cards in the edge battle. If the defending
player controls no defending units , the attacking player
automatically wins the edge battle (although he still has
the option to place cards into the edge battle if
he so desires).

In the example given the defender had a participating unit, edge battle was done, cards were placed and then fate cards were resolved. The fact that after this happened that the defender no longer had any units does not then negate the edge battle already done at this point. Only impact it then has is during Step 6. Reward Unopposed

To add some fuel to the debate, I'd like to add the following;

To my mind, these two parts;

" A player must control at least one participating unit

to place cards in the edge battle. "

And

" If the defending player controls no defending units , the attacking player

automatically wins the edge battle"

Are separate.

On page 20 and 21 each of the steps 1-4 are gone through separately, with "placing edge cards" (step 1, which you are only allowed to do if you control at least one participating unit) and the other steps clearly standing apart from each other and resolving one at a time.

The wording of "if the defending player -controls- no defending units" (as opposed to "committed no units" or any other wording) would imply that it is control at the time of edge resolution (step 4 "Finishing the edge battle") that matters.

Thoughts?

They are not separate. They are all on page 18 together.

4. Fight Edge Battle
The edge battle represents the combatants maneuvering
for position, gathering intelligence, and engaging in
sabotage, infiltration, or other heroic or insidious
endeavors before the physical battle is fought.
The winner of the edge battle makes the first strike
during the resolve strikes step of the engagement, and
is able to use the white-framed edge-enabled combat
icons on his striking units (see page 21).
A player must control at least one participating unit
to place cards in the edge battle. If the defending
player controls no defending units, the attacking player
automatically wins the edge battle (although he still has
the option to place cards into the edge battle if
he so desires).

resolving the edge battle
To resolve an edge battle, the players perform the
following steps in order:
1. Place Edge Cards
2. Reveal Edge Stacks
3. Resolve Fate Cards
4. Finish Edge Battle

In this example the defender had a unit and therefore was eligible to place cards in the edge battle during step 1 . It is not until the step 3. Resolve Fate Cards when the defender has no units now due to the destruction of its one unit.

The force icons on the destroyed unit don't matter. Just the cards in the edge stack.

Yeah, that was what i tried to write, but not clear enough. ("…hence no counting of the force icons of the cards in the edge stack of the DS…".)

And i agree that they are not separate. On p.31 the engagement resolution mentions one step for the resolving of the edge battle; "reveal edge stacks, resolve fate cards, and resolve edge battle". These are the four (sub) steps mentioned on p.19.

Maybe this has nothing to do with it (lol), but that's at least what I think.

Tx again for the quick replies

In the case described above I also agree that the rules are quite clear that the DS players wins the edge battle, even if he has no units left after the dust has settled. But what happens if the unit in question has the Edge(x) trait, where the points obtained from the trait were the deciding factor of the edge battle? I'm guessing that the phases in the edge battle is quite clear and that the edge battle bonus points from the unit trait is lost when the unit is destroyed, but maybe I'm missing something?

gruntl said:

If the unit with the Edge (x) is destroyed then yes those are lost as the force points are counted in step 4. Finish Edge Battle which is after the time when Fate cards are resolved.

I have to say, edge battle considerstion is the biggest thing I still grapple with. I have the tendency to play everything I can during deployment, but that just cripples me for edge battles, both on my turn and the next opponent turn. But if I hold back for edge battles, my units aren't robust enough to both engage and defend. It's definitely a balancing act.