Hi everyone,

Just started playing this game at lunch hour with some co-workers. Totally awesome! I of course have been voted rules emperor so I turn to all of you to help my reign begin. First question is concerning the ion cannon. As I understand it when you roll a hit it will force the targeted ship to only make the 1 straight move next turn. The question arose as to whether the hit ship can have perform an attack on the turn it was hit? The text on the card says something about cancel dice results. Some clarity would be greatly appreciated. Also can the ion cannon fire 360 as long as its in range? Second question involves upgrade cards that have the action header. One of the ships has a droid upgrade card that allows some defense capability (sorry i dont have specifics...sitting at my desk since the lunch hour is long gone) would that ability take the place of performing an action if you wanted to use it and would you just declare that ability to be your action? Thanks for the help!

Ion Cannon: The ship takes an ion token. This does not impact the ship this turn. So, he or she may attack as normal this round or do any actions he may get or do anything else as normal. Next turn for movement, if the ship has an ion token (2 for large ships), the ship does not place a dial, skips the reveal the dial step, and is considered to have a 1-white forward.

As for cancelling dice results, that means that, regardless of how many CRIT or HIT results were rolled, the ship only takes a single damage. So, I'm the attacker. I roll 1 HIT and 2 CRITs with my ion cannon. My enemy rolls 1 EVADE. On a normal attack, the ship would suffer two CRIT results. However, with an Ion Cannon, the ship instead suffers a single damage.

The Ion Cannon cannot fire outside of arc. That means the forward arc only for the Firespray-31 for example. The Ion Cannon Turret, usable only on the Y-Wing and HWK-290 (currently) CAN fire in a 360* arc.

Cards that have the 'Action' header, such as upgrade cards or crits, give you the option of using your action for the turn to trigger those effects. So, I take a green maneuver and don't bump anything, I should get an action. I can use any action on the action bar or use the action listed on any such cards, but I only have so many actions to spend (usually 1). So, yes, it gives you another option for spending your action(s) on.

I think I got all your questions.

It can attack and take actions as normal. I think it's all covered on the reference card that comes with ion weapons. The ship hit with Ion takes 1 damage and executes a white 1-straight the following turn. Then he sheds the Ion token and and perform actions and attack as normal.

What it means by cancelling dice results is that if you roll 3 dice for the Ion turret or Cannon, it doesn't matter if you roll 3 crits: you do 1 regular damage, then ignore the rest of the results. An ion weapon never does more than a single damage no matter how good your attack roll, basically.

The ion cannon turret can fire 360 out to range 2. The Ion cannon only fires in your primary weapon arc.

If you're using an upgrade card that lists its ability as an action (Marksmanship, R2F2), yes: using that action will be your action for that round.

The question arose as to whether the hit ship can have perform an attack on the turn it was hit? The text on the card says something about cancel dice results.

Yes it can. The dice that are canceled are the dice the ship with the Ion rolled in the attack. The whole idea here is that when you shoot a ship with a ion, if you have 1 hit or 4 hits, the result is the same.

1 Ion token and 1 damage. All the normal rules for damage apply here, so if the ship has shields you lose a shield token.

Also can the ion cannon fire 360 as long as its in range?

The Ion Turret can, as it says on the card it has a 360 degree arc of fire. The Ion Cannon on the other hand is limited to the forward arc on the ship that has it.

So far the only ships that can have Ion Turrets are the Y-Wing and HWK-290, the only ships that can use the Ion Cannon are the B-Wing, Firespray and Shuttle. For the Firespay you're limited to the front arc.

would that ability take the place of performing an action if you wanted to use it and would you just declare that ability to be your action?

Yes it would. Lets say you have R2-F2, which as an action lets you increase the ships agility score by 1 until the end of the round. You would use that as an action, same as you would a Focus action, Target Lock action, or Boost action.

There are no tokens that come with any ship for droid or elite pilot skill actions, but there are some companies that sell tokens for them.

One thing to avoid is reading into things that aren't on the cards. Usually they're fairly straightforward: in this case I think the Ion Token reference card that comes with any ship that has an Ion weapon option (below) covers pretty much everything you just asked with regards to Ion:

Thanks for all the speedy answers! I guess we played the Ion shot right except for the fact that the defender can roll to defend against it. Follow up to upgrade cards as actions. Example Marksmanship: You use it as your action and then roll and then decide to change dice or not. And then you still have it for the next round to use as long as the card doesn't tell you to discard it. Right?

It doesn't carry over, if that's what you mean. It says when attacking THIS round, so the effect expires at the end of the round and requires an action the following round to reactivate.

Most actions are only good the turn they are taken. You can use them turn after turn BUT you still need to "use" them as they don't carry over.

Marksmanship is good your entire turn for all attacks you may get to make. I'm not sure you can refuse to turn an [eye] into a [crit] but there is nothing stopping you from using it every attack you make during the round you activate it. Well, nothing that is except it is pretty hard to get more than one attack in this game; Cluster Missiles allow for two attacks and Luke/Gunner will allow you an attack if one misses but that is pretty much it. Marksmanship is usually not worth the points (over just taking a Focus action) unless you will be make a lot of extra attacks or criticals are a vital part of your game plan.