Posted: 30 August 2007 at 3:57pm | IP Logged

I wonder if this tactic is legal. Lobo and I agreed that it should work as described but it seems very powerful and I'd like other's opinions about it.

Game Setup:

I have in play more than one terrain all of which have shields built into the card - essentially a handful of promo terrain cards. All of the shields are full. On one of these planets I have a Psy card.

During Lobo's weapon's fire phase he targets the planet which has the Psy on it destroying all of the shields thus exposing the Psy to weapon's fire. He then announces weapon fire against the Psy. In reaction to that announcement I play the Psycanti Fighter to the planet where the Psy is. Lobo has no reaction cards to play and thus we begin to resolve the card/action stack.

The Psycanti Fighter is the last card on the stack and so we resolve it first. The Psycanti fighter uses its ability to move a crew and moves the Psy to a planet which still has undamaged shields. The next effect on the stack is the weapons fire which is now targeted on a Psy who is protected by the new planet's shields.

We ruled that the weapons fire was now void because it is targeted against the Psy but the Psy cannot be targeted because the shields at his location protect him.

I can see that there may be arguments for other solutions - perhaps the planet's shields take the damage?

I'm curious to see what you think.

J--

Posted: 30 August 2007 at 4:35pm | IP Logged

RobPro wrote: Actually, the Terrain's shields would protect the Psy. A great Tactic is to target the Psy to lower the shields of the terrain, then you can target the terrain itself and hit its structure or teleport marines of your own over to deal with them. That's my understanding of it, at least.

I don't understand what you mean when you say, "...target the Psy to lower the shields of the terrain..." Don't you have to target the planet's shields first and seperately before you can target the Psy?

Please elaborate...

J--

Posted: 30 August 2007 at 5:03pm | IP Logged

If I understand this correctly then the enemy weapons fire is not voided but hits the shields of the planet where the Psy end up when moved in reaction.

That works for me. The tactic is less powerful but still useful.

Thanks...

J--

Posted: 31 August 2007 at 1:23pm | IP Logged

Gekonauak wrote: Yes, the shields would intercept the damage, and if the amount of damage is greater than the number of shields, then the Psy would take the remainder of the damage.

look at this line from the 2.1 rules:

"    - The following things can be reacted to: Point allocation, a card being played, a card action, weapons fire, and the discarding of cards during the Discard Phase. "

Reacting to 'weapons fire' seems a bit generically defined. The way I see weapons fire working is:

Lobo: Announces Weapons fire sources picking ships, bases, etc and specific systems from those units (ie: 3 phasers from this base, 2 heavy weapons from this dragon, etc).

Lobo: Announces the Target.

Lobo: Resolves the damage.

Galaktische: Removes destroyed cards as needed.

At what point in this chain may I react? The rules seem to suggest I only get to react once to this series of events. If so, when is my opportunity?

Thanks...

J--

Posted: 31 August 2007 at 1:49pm | IP Logged

Gekonauak wrote: Generally, people react at this point: Lobo: Announces the Target.

I was afraid you were going to say that. It invalidates what I had hoped was a tactic that Psy's could employ but normal ship based races could not.

Because the Psy and the shields on the unit which is shielding him can be targeted as one it means I can't move the psy after the shields are destroyed.

If the planet/base/ship and the Psy it is on can be targted as one I can't wait for the shields to absorb some damage and then react to Lobo targeting the Psy. This means the tactic is voided...

darn!

J--

Posted: 31 August 2007 at 2:59pm | IP Logged

-Dude...

I soooo am claiming a victory for last Monday...

.....Lobo

Posted: 01 September 2007 at 9:32pm | IP Logged

-If i had 8x T1 Helix Crystals, it might be. As it is, i'm just gonna stock more Planet Gouges and see what happens.

I may include a Bartender as well...since we play at Panera, while Galaktische is fetching my next Diet Pepsi i can go all C5/5 Time Knight on his side of the table...

...surely he won't notice.....Lobo

Posted: 02 September 2007 at 8:01am | IP Logged

...and while you're busy wondering what that is floating in your diet pepsi I'll do something really witty and clever that I can't think of just now!

:P

J--

Posted: 03 September 2007 at 2:52pm | IP Logged

We live in Oklahoma.

I can't speak for Lobo - he has connections back east around Boston I believe - but I can't play in NJ anytime soon.

I flew into Newark once or twice but I think I can safely say we don't play in New Jersey.

Maybe we could meet halfway? Say Louisville or Indianapolis?

:)

J--

Posted: 04 September 2007 at 8:27am | IP Logged

-See, while out east i always heard you had to move *away* from New Jersey to reach civilization...

...something about the smell across the river...hmmm, i can't remember exactly...oh well, i'm sure it's not important.....Lobo

Posted: 04 September 2007 at 10:47am | IP Logged

We played the Psy vs Infected duel again last night and honestly I'm just tired of the Psys. They don't seem to have enough 'umpfff', by which I mean enough power to come back from setbacks.

Once Lobo got out enough of a fleet (ships + planets) he could just strip off the shields of anything I tossed out and kill the psys I could drop. The deck didn't make enough repair/economy to overcome the negative cards Lobo threw at it and still repair the shields enough to keep my Psys alive. The planets I'm using to protect the Psys are the nasty promo terrains and are fairly tough to kill but I can't keep them alive.

The deck isn't optomized to protect the terrain... and honestly I'm not certain how I'd do that. I'll look through the database and see if anything applies. I may give them one more chance. I like the way the Psy races play but they take a LOT of other cards to work. They seem like a good match against Dragons but not versus ships.

I've always felt that GE was NOT a good duel game because once a player gets enough of a fleet advantage he can nuke everything the other player puts down. Do others find this to be the case? How do you overcome this disad in GE duels?

J--

Posted: 04 September 2007 at 12:27pm | IP Logged

-The main difficulty with my side of the table is that when a terrain magically protected the HQ, it took me too long to kill it. The Infecteds are good but heavy weapons are lacking.

As for Pirate Outpost, i had a police ship in reserve as well as int he deck with my own Pirate Outposts, so those were only armor to be stripped away quickly. If i would have had my dragon deck on the table, though, they would have been a major factor in preventing my actions.

The Psys last night would have worked better had there been more terrain out early for Galaktische, but a bad set of early draws had everyone on one planet that became a nice resting place for a Scandig Blob (the only one i own, lucky draw early). That locked otu Psy functions for a few turns and allowed my admittedly slower deck to establish three strong ships out and ready to go.

Was a good game as i think i'm honing my Infected deck from horrible to not-as-bad, and it gave both Galaktische and i a good look at Psys. I don't think i'll ever try them, though. I don't have the terrain to protect them like Galaktische did.

Good game, have a good week all.....Lobo