The Stealth Device:

After having read this blog post on the Stealth Device I got a very different view on how to actually remove it from a ship.

Basically what the blog post says is that you need to be HIT BY AN ATTACK to remove the Stealth Device. Literally! You don't loose for suffering damage and many other situations.

Now, I have always removed my Stealth Devices once a ship got any sort of damage but I may have been way to hard on myself there. Example: I flew over an asteroid, rolled a dice, took 1 damage and the I removed my Stealth Device. I now see how that's not really what the card and core rules for taking a hit says on the matter.

What is the general consensus on this? I highly recommend studying the blog post before answering since it has loads of details.

It is only removed when the ship using it is hit, the definition of being hit is covered on p. 12 of the Rulebook, (6. Compare Results)

You got it right. Only a direct attack that hits can remove Stealth device.

An attack "hits" when the defender's evade results on his defense roll are not enough to cancel all the attacker's hit or critical hit results from his attack roll.

Automatic damage (such a bombs), mines, asteroids and such are not 'attacks', thus, they don't qualify to remove stealth device.

And even if the defender ends not suffering damage for whatever reason (most commonly by the use of 'Draw their Fire' upgrade card), as long as the original attack 'hit', the defender would still lose the stealth device.

Yeah, the blog post is pretty comprehensive and definitely correct. The Stealth Device is discarded "if you are hit by an attack." In order for that to be true, you must have been the target of the attack and there needed to be more [hit] or [crit] symbols in the attacker's final results than you had [evade] symbols in your final results. Any other source of damage does not qualify as being hit and thus does not remove stealth device (and there's at least one way to be "hit" but not take damage, but still would lose stealth device).

I actually had that happen in a game last night. Howlrunner took a single crit, that a nearby BSP with Draw Their Fire pulled over. BSP took the damage card, but Howlrunner still lost her Stealth.

Yup, thematically it's more or less like your ship's targeting computer finally cracked their stealth and was able to get a solid bead on them - only to have someone come swooping in and throw themselves in front of the incoming fire. The shot itself isn't necessarily why the stealth was lost.

CrookedWookie mentions how I view the Stealth Device. You may not get the benefit of it anymore once someone figures out how to shoot you but you still take it back home with you to use it again next week.

Or you would, if you weren't destroyed shortly thereafter.

Which is where the game and "reality" really start to differ.

Reality would basically say that just landing a single hit on an Interceptor or T/F should be sufficient to remove the ship from the battle. Maybe the mission will be that important that a ship would be required to fight to the death but any sane commander should try to keep as many of his ships alive as possible if for no other reason than to keep the pilots alive. I mean in WWII how often would a damaged plane keep going if its return would be questionable but it could return then with reasonable certainty? Your bomber takes off from England and an engine goes out before you get over the channel you turn around and go home instead of going on.

Although it would purely be a house rule ships that fly off the board should only award a fraction (say half) of their point costs to the enemy UNLESS of course their side is destroyed. If a squadron of 8 T/F engages some rebels, loses two and have four "return to base" because of damage, and have the remaining two "holding the rebels off" it could be considered a win in several ways assuming they actually destroyed over half the rebel fighters.

Which is where the game and "reality" really start to differ.

I always assumed that the flee=destroy rule is a just a pure convenience solution until more advanced campaign rules (cinematic?) are introduced to the game.

In one sense any enemy that leaves the battlefield is an enemy that is "defeated" and thus destroyed. Now in some kind of campaign rule where what happens in one fight carries over to the next "retreating" ships would need to be treated differently. I mean it the Total War games I sometimes send in a "weak" army that has some kind of advantage just to cause havoc to my opponent before retreating allowing them to fight again another day. Alpha strike bombers are a great example of a ship you'd like to send in to see how much hurt they can do but then pull them back instead of letting them be destroyed later.

Although it would purely be a house rule ships that fly off the board should only award a fraction (say half) of their point costs to the enemy UNLESS of course their side is destroyed. If a squadron of 8 T/F engages some rebels, loses two and have four "return to base" because of damage, and have the remaining two "holding the rebels off" it could be considered a win in several ways assuming they actually destroyed over half the rebel fighters.

In one sense any enemy that leaves the battlefield is an enemy that is "defeated" and thus destroyed. Now in some kind of campaign rule where what happens in one fight carries over to the next "retreating" ships would need to be treated differently. I mean it the Total War games I sometimes send in a "weak" army that has some kind of advantage just to cause havoc to my opponent before retreating allowing them to fight again another day. Alpha strike bombers are a great example of a ship you'd like to send in to see how much hurt they can do but then pull them back instead of letting them be destroyed later.

I have barely begun my journey into X-Wing, but I have already spent many a moment thinking along these same lines. I won't play tourneys. Heck, I won't even play at my FLGS. So, a campaign makes a lot of sense for my son and me. We will only play each other, over and over. Basic missions will suffice for a while, but I want something more. I am mulling options in my head and haven't made any decisions, but I like it that I am not the only one thinking about campaigns.

I have a campaign system I wrote up but have yet to actually use. It's based losely on concepts from someone else, as well as the game Star Wars Rebellion. It's kind of based on the idea of 2-4 or 6 people playing. It also has rules for upgrading pilots and such, so in theory you could have lists of 150+ points.

If people are interested I could throw out a link to the PDF on Google or something.

Turns out my gaming group is generally happy with just plain old dog fights and we've never gotten to a point of trying the campaign.

I don't know if this has been mentioned elsewhere but is it possible to formulate a simple rule for this:

YOU CAN ONLY LOOSE A STEALTH DEVICE IF YOU ROLL DEFENSE FOR YOUR SHIP (including SD dice) AND TAKE A HIT.

This way you know that if you didn't roll your evade dice - but somehow suffered damage - then you get to keep the Stealth Device.

Is this solid?

That pretty much covers it, though it still has the issue of using the phrase "take a hit," which is the phrase from stealth device that is often misunderstood. Specifically, that formulation may cause people to miss that there are situations where you may not take any damage, but still be hit by the attack and thus lose stealth device.

Though there are plenty of situations where you don't actualy roll any defence dice and can still be considered hit. Any ship with just 1 agility being attacked by Wedge or suffering the cirtical hit that reduces your agility f.ex.

"You can only loose stealth device if you roll defense dice and fail to cancel all opponent's hit results."

B-Wing with DTF and Stealth.

- Use DTF to get a crit (structural damage) without being "hit". You are now back to 1 agility with Stealth.

- Being attacked by Wedge you roll no defence dice. Surley you are still "hit" if you take damage from Wedge even though you didn't roll any dice? I guess you could say that technicaly you did roll dice, 0 of them to be precise.

I don't know if this has been mentioned elsewhere but is it possible to formulate a simple rule for this:

YOU CAN ONLY LOOSE A STEALTH DEVICE IF YOU ROLL DEFENSE FOR YOUR SHIP (including SD dice) AND TAKE A HIT.

This way you know that if you didn't roll your evade dice - but somehow suffered damage - then you get to keep the Stealth Device.

Is this solid?

There may be an occasion where you dont roll any defensive dice ie Han is being attacked by wedge.

Simple rule is you lose stealth if your ship has been considered hit in an attack when it had been the defender.

I guess you could say that technicaly you did roll dice, 0 of them to be precise.

It's the "technically" that makes the proposed rule no better then the actual rule.

Or you could maybe just dispense with all the "simple" shorthand and understand what being hit by an attack means

It's not really complicated to remember once you get past the initial understanding.

Though there are plenty of situations where you don't actualy roll any defence dice and can still be considered hit. Any ship with just 1 agility being attacked by Wedge or suffering the cirtical hit that reduces your agility f.ex.

Not sure how you define "plenty" of situations. At present no ships have 0 agility dice so adding Stealth Device will bring them up to at least 2. Now Wedge may get to ignore 1 die but that would still leave one. I guess if you can sneak a critical hit onto the Stealth Ship that could reduce the agility but how many ways are there to do that? You've got the Proton Bomb. I guess you could draw enough [crits] and [hits] from other sources to chew through a ship's shield and land the right card face up on the hull without actually getting attacked but that is pretty rare.

I'm going out on a limb and saying the number of times someone has fired on a Stealth Device equipped ship but the target not had the opportunity to roll any agility dice is less than 100. Of those I imagine the number of times that the Stealth Device's survival mattered could be counted on one hand. It can happen but the chances of it being an issue is likely less than 0.001% or to put it another way 99.999% of the time it doesn't happen. If there are "plenty of situations" where a SD equipped ship is going to be targeted and unable to roll any defense I want to hear what they are.

Removal of a Class IV Stealth Device should only be attempted by a certified Kuat Drive Yards technician.

Untrained tampering may invalidate your starship warranty.

Though there are plenty of situations where you don't actualy roll any defence dice and can still be considered hit. Any ship with just 1 agility being attacked by Wedge or suffering the cirtical hit that reduces your agility f.ex.

Not sure how you define "plenty" of situations. At present no ships have 0 agility dice so adding Stealth Device will bring them up to at least 2. Now Wedge may get to ignore 1 die but that would still leave one. I guess if you can sneak a critical hit onto the Stealth Ship that could reduce the agility but how many ways are there to do that? You've got the Proton Bomb. I guess you could draw enough [crits] and [hits] from other sources to chew through a ship's shield and land the right card face up on the hull without actually getting attacked but that is pretty rare.

I'm going out on a limb and saying the number of times someone has fired on a Stealth Device equipped ship but the target not had the opportunity to roll any agility dice is less than 100. Of those I imagine the number of times that the Stealth Device's survival mattered could be counted on one hand. It can happen but the chances of it being an issue is likely less than 0.001% or to put it another way 99.999% of the time it doesn't happen. If there are "plenty of situations" where a SD equipped ship is going to be targeted and unable to roll any defense I want to hear what they are.

In my second post just a bit under the one you quoted I gave an example of how the situation could happen (B-Wing + SD + DTF). But I admit "plenty of situations" is an exegration. I failed to include the extre die from the stealth it self when I made that statement. Sorry about that.

I failed to include the extre die from the stealth it self when I made that statement. Sorry about that.

I didn't consider that 2nd dice either, so StevenO is correct in that it's pretty rare for that to happen. But like Buhallin says, the rule is pretty clear once you understand what a Hit really is. So there really isn't need for a shorthand way to look at it.