In Back to basics timing and round structure we broke down the steps of resolving an attack, in this wright up we are going deep dive into key terms that come up in the attack step, or really anything related to attacking. I would encourage you read the Attack section of the Rules Reference or even to have it handy while going through this as we are going to break down a lot in the wright up so buckle up.
Armament
I think the first thing we need to talk about is Armament and what its. An armament indicates the color and number of dice that can be used during an attack. There are two kinds of armaments anti-squadron armaments, and Battery armaments. Anti-squadron armaments are used when attacking squadrons and battery armaments are used when attacking ships. Each hull zone on a ship has its own battery armament that it uses when it attacks from that hull zone, and each squadron has one battery armament and one anti-squadron armament, lastly ships have a single anti-squadron armament that they use regardless of the hull zone they attack from.
Armament is a fairly simple concept, but remember some upgrades increase your armament, and other cards add dice into your attack pool this is an important distinction, that most often comes up while playing the objective firing lanes, I can't tell you how often I have had a newer player say they had 2 extra dice on an objective token when playing firing lanes because they have Admiral Ackbar as their commander, Ackbar does not increase your armament he adds dice to your attack pool again Important distinction. Armament is really the first block of understanding attacks and everything else we are going to discuss.
Attack range
Attack range is the range that a squadron or a ship's hull zone can attack, this is determined by the armament it is using. If a hull zone only has black dice its maximum attack range is close range medium range if it has at least one blue die, or long range if it has at least one red die, squadrons always have an attack range of 1.
This is again a fairly simple concept, but I have had one person think that because his armament had a red die it meant that he could use all of the dice in his armament, and as written in the Rules refinance guild I can kind of forgive that but under targeting in the learn to play guild it clarifies each range band on the ruler depicts which colors of attack dice can be rolled, for example at long range a ship can roll only its red attack dice.
Attack Pool
A lot of in game effects refer to your attack pool so what is that? The attack pool is all dice being used for an attack, it includes the dice gathered prior to rolling as well as the dice after they are rolled. I really cant think of any effect in game where you have a dice, but it is not considered part of your attack pool, but I might have over looked something. Just remember your attack pool is all the dice you have rolled during an attack.
Damage
when attacking the ultimate goal is to deal damage, but damage can be suffered from other game effects as well. When squadrons suffers damage you simply reduce its hull value by the damage taken clean and simple. Ships suffer damage one damage at a time, this is usually sped up in game as once the damage is totaled its pretty easy to see what is going to happen, also when a ship has damage cards equal to its hull value it is immediately destroyed.
Sometimes damaging effects don't have a specified hull zone, when this happens the ships owner chooses which hull zone suffers all of that damage. It is important to note that damage does not mean damage card. So effects like Boba Fett's or JerJerrod's don't deal damage cards just simply a damage so the owner of the ship suffering the damage will pick one hull zone to suffer all that damage.
Critical Effects
Critical effects can resolve if there is at least one crit icon in your attack pool. You can only resolve one critical effect per attack, but the little used Fire-Cordination team does let you break this rule. While attacking you do not spend a die icon to resolve a critical effect unless the effect says so, I see a lot of newer players thinking they need to spend a die with a critical to get the critical effect this is not how it works if you have an attack pool with 4 damage and one of them is a crit icon, you have an attack pool with 4 damage and a critical effect, you don't spend the die, unless the upgrade says so.
Critical Effects are resolved at the beginning of the “Resolve Damage” step of an attack. This is very important to remember, your critical effect is applied to your attack before any damage is dealt. So if you have an Assault Proton Tropedos go off that face-up card is dealt before any damage is applied and maybe that face up will drain all the shields from one hull zone it really does matter, make sure you are resolving your critical effects before any other damage is applied.
Firing Arc
Every ship token has four firing arc lines these make up the four firing arcs, one for each hull zone, it is important to remember that a firing arc includes the width of the lines that boarder it, so when determining if something is in arc the width of the line counts and sometimes that can be the difference of being in arc or out. So how do we measure that well lets talk about that.
Measuring Firing arc and Range
to measure a hull one fire arc use the range ruler to extend the arc lines and then if any portion of any component is inside the area that component is inside the arc. When measuring attack range from a ship measure from the closest point of the attacking to the closest point of the defending hull zone.
When ever you measure a non- attack range or distance between two components, measure from the closest point of the first component to the closest point of the second component, this means that the plastic bases count, however you always ignore squadron activation sliders and shield dials including the plastic portion of the shield dial.
Line of Sight
When attacking you must measuring line of sight by drawing a strait line from yellow dot to yellow dot if you are attacking a ship, if attacking a squadron you trace line of sight from the point of the squadrons base that is closest to the opposing squadron or hull zone, in most cases tracing LOS to the peg of the squadron will intersect the closest point, but not in all cases. If you draw line of sight through a hull zone on a defender that is not the target hull zone you do not have line of sight, however if you trace line of sight trough one of your your own hull zones you do have line of sight, however if you want to perform an attack the defensing hull zone must all in in that firing arc. This is an important distinction and I see even veteran players think if they draw line of sight through there own hull zone they don't have LOS this however is not the case.
If line of sight is traced through an obstacle or ship that is not the attacker or defender, the attack is obstructed. Squadrons do not block line of sight or obstruct attacks, what is obstruction well I am glad you asked.
Obstruction
So we know that an attack is obstructed if line of sight is traced through an obstacle or another ship that is not the defender or attacker. What does obstruction do well, if an attack is obstructed by one ore more ships or obstacles the attacker must choose and remove one die from there attack pool, before they roll dice, so no rolling then picking and removing a blank it must be removed before you roll, this is very important as if you only have one die of a particular color if you remove that die you would not be able to con fire in a die of that color as it is not in your attack pool.
Something important to remember is that Obstruction does not stack even if you are shooting through 6 ships and or obstacles you are only removing one die. It is also important to note that if line of sight is drawn over an obstacle the attack is obstructed even if the bases of the attacker and defender are touching.
It is also important to not that while a ship is overlapping an obstacle and the attacking hull zone's line of sight does not pass over a visible portion of that obstacle, or any other ship or obstacle that attack is not obstructed. It is important to note that the base and shield dials do not count as covering an obstacle and if you draw LOS through a part of your base overlapping an obstacle the attack is obstructed, hence attacks are still obstructed even if the bases are touching.
Modifying Dice
We talked about this in the back to basics round structure, but during the modify dice step you will modify your dice, dice can be modified in 5 ways: Re-rolled, Add, Change, Spend, Cancel. As far as re-rolling dice goes unlike some other games the same die can be re rolled multiple times, but each re-roll effect like ordnance experts or Darth Vader can only resolve once. When adding a die you roll a die of the designated color and add it to your attack pool, nothing fancy. When changing a die simply rotate the die to the indicated face, again nothing fancy. When you spend a die, you simply remove that die from the attack pool. When dice are canceled again it is simply removed from the attack pool, not to much fancy stuff happens in this part of the game but it is important to know.
Range and Distance
When attacking some effects ask for Distance or Range, when measuring make the lines on the ruler that divide two adjacent bands always count as part of the band closest tot he bottom of the ruler, it can be all the difference sometimes. there are also several terms used in measuring range and distance.
At: mean if any portion of a hull zone base or token is inside a specified band that component is at that band
Beyond: is if no portion of a hull zone base or toke is inside the specified band or bands, that component is beyond.
Within: The entirety of a base or token is inside a specified band. Well that is pretty much everything that you will need to know while attacking, its a lot and it may not all stick, but I tired to place examples or ways to apply the knowledge found in every section of the rules refinance book that was referenced here. I find that it is easy to gloss over things if they are not presented in an applicable way at least for me. I hope this has been at the very least a good review, I have a few more Back to Basics in the works, along with playing as much as I can with the new rebellion in the Rim stuff, so new stuff will be coming, also Primes are just around the corner so it will be exciting to see how the game has been reshaped, and with Nationals in Vegas I might be able to make a trip down there as it is feasible fingers crossed, but until next time have a great week!
Comments