Hey everyone.

When a Ywing fires his Ion cannon does the defender still roll dice to see if he can defend it?

Fairly new to the game (I bought it when it first came out, but Star Wars LCg took over my life) and have been playing a lot more recently.

Hope the question was not completely stupid.

thanks

Yep he still gets to try and defend against the Ion shot. If he is hit anyway, regardless of the number of hits, or whether they are crits/hits, he takes 1 damage (following normal rules for shields, etc) and is given an ion token, etc, etc. But yes, it's treated as a normal attack right up until it connects.

thanks @ crookedWookie. We played it as such, since it seemed to make sense.. ie dice representing aiming missing and then the defender evading a shot at him. Just wanted to get an outside opinion on the ruling.

May the Force be with you (lol)

Yep, exactly. The rules for what the shot DOES are unique, but you still have to successfully hit a moving target that presumably would prefer not to get hit, in order TO Ion them. So it's absolutely handled like a normal shot (well a normal shot with a range of 1-2 and a 360 degree arc of fire, anyway) that simply triggers a unique effect once it connects. You guys called it absolutely correct.

And also with you.

Probably another thing to note as well, is that since the ion cannon is not a PRIMARY weapon, the attack and defence bonus for range 1 and 3 do NOT apply.

Well there's Ion Cannon, and Ion Cannon Turret, which the Y-wing can equip. Neither one gets a range 1 bonus, both roll 3 dice, but only the cannon version can shoot out to range 3, the turret has a max range of 2 - but also would deny the target a range 3 defense bonus, if it could in theory reach that far.