N18 Tactics Cards: Chain Attack Vs. Swift Justice

[noupha]

Hi all,

We had a problem recently in our group: a Delaque Nacht Ghul was trying to ravage some Escher back line, he eviscerated a poor Gang Sister and then he wanted to Chain Attack the Queen a few inches away, but the Escher player also draw the Swift Justice to stop him...

Chain Attack
Play this gang tactic after a friendly fighter has taken an enemy fighter Out of Action with a melee attack.
The fighter may immediately perform a free Charge (Double) action, moving D6" instead of their Movement characteristic +D3".

Swift Justice
Play this card when one of your fighters is taken Out of Action by an enemy fighter's attack.
A friendly fighter can immediately make a free Shoot (Basic) action against the attacker.

Those 2 tactics cards are "simultaneous".
How do you manage that kind of conflict?
Heads or Tail? Priority based? Rock Paper Scisors? 4+ on a D6? First to draw?
Or is there any ruling to ease those cases?

Thanks!

 

[TopsyKretts]

Necromunda rules don't go this deep. Particularly not for tactics cards. Other games that (usually) do cover this (like Underworld or Kill Team) would typically have something like the player with priority for the round decide. Or the options you propose.

 

[Aulenback]

When in doubt, roll off, high roll happens first. But player with Priority for the round going fist with simultaneous card timings makes sense, as TopsyKretts points out.

 

[Scabs]

Immediately Charge. But immediately get shot, first.

 

[Beebopalulla]

Immediately Charge. But immediately get shot, first.

I agree. The bullet or las bolt or whatever has a good chance to travel faster.

 

[Banjulhu]

I suspect we would house rule just rolling off to see who gets to chose the order with an option for the runner up to withdraw their card because there are not really enough instances of this happening to need a hard priority rule but at the same time you don't want to make a NPE by making the very limited resources of tactics cards utterly worthless (enough of them do that by themselves).

 

[Scabs]

Why would you do that? These are not mutually exclusive. Both are valid Tactics Cards. Their interaction isn't hard to do.

Immediately charge. But immediately (so simultaneously) shoot. Easy peasy.

 

[Aulenback]

Why is the order important?
1. If the charge reaches the target before the shot goes off, not only is that now shooting into combat and harder, it also cannot pin because Engaged models are not pinned.
2. If the shot gets off before the charge move finishes, that is an easier shot (close range, not firing into melee), but it can pin the charger, preventing the charge (see "Got Your Six" in the Palanite skill list for comparison).

These two things make a difference, sadly, that can vey solidly affect the turn of events. Thus looking for a way to decide which.

 

[noupha]

Indeed, the case created a lot of tension during the game...

So ok, there is no clear ruling, and best approach is much probably to house rule it.
We will discuss it in my group, and we'll get to an agreement in some way.

For info, just for the sake of a conclusion, here is what happened during the game.
We decided to give priority to the player having priority (the Escher one) and performing the shoot action ("supposed" to be quicker), and it occured that another Gang Sister had a line of sight and had the correct range to shoot the Nacht Ghul with a 5+ to hit... and hit.
The Nacht Ghul was pinned, and we authorized the Delaque player to get the Chain Attack back into his hand.
The issue is, this Nacht Ghul has Spring Up, but the skill only triggers at the beginning of the activation... So the activation of the Nacht Ghul ended there.
Later on, he was OoA by the LasCannon of the Escher Queen, without having a chance to reach her for melee.

Thanks a lot everyone, and please do have a nice skirmish soon in the Underhive!

 

[Scabs]

If it's any consolation, shooting first is similar to:

OVERWATCH If this fighter is Standing and Active, and has a Ready marker on them, they can interrupt a visible enemy fighter’s action as soon as it is declared but before it is carried out. This fighter loses their Ready marker, then immediately makes a Shoot(Basic) action, targeting the enemy fighter whose action they have interrupted. If the enemy is Pinned or Seriously Injured as a result, their activation ends immediately, and their action(s) are not made.

 

[TopsyKretts]

That skill has explicit timing/order. Tactics don't have much explicit at all. You can say that the shooty one takes priority over the chargy one, but you can't say order doesn't matter. Whichever comes first can invalidate the other. Which just brings further questions - is the other one spent, even if having no effect? Or is it returned back to hand (but no longer secret)?

 

[Scabs]

Declaring a Charge and target is immediate. Completing a Charge and Fight is not. Shooting is immediate.

When in doubt, Raiders of the Lost Ark Cairo market scene.

 

[TopsyKretts]

Allright, I see your logic emphasizing the word "immediately". In my experience, that word doesn't really mean much, and even if it did, rules are not written to repeat it like immediately declare charge, immediately move as part of charge and immediately fight.

 

[HugeSamples]

I'm inclined to agree with priority order.

e.g.
- trigger event happens.
- player with priority can decided to play a card or pass.
- next player can then decided to play a card or pass.
- if both players passed then nothing happens.

However, I understand it's not really feasible to go through that workflow after every action/possible trigger.

You could also do something like "first in, last out" (a stack).

e.g.
opponent plays the charge card, then you play the shoot card. The shoot card resolves first because it's the top of the stack.

Personally I'm not a fan of tactics cards in a table top game. I'm in the camp that all information should be on the table top. Don't mix game types--card games and table top games.

 

[Scabs]

"Immediately" here means before taking another action. Or, instead of now ending that fighter's Activation.

Tactics cards are meant to change (break) the rules. Spice things up. Add a little je ne sais quoi to a game (and campaign) this is not meant to be rigidly interpolated. I believe you kids call that "a sandbox." Which is ironic in that sandboxes were passe' even before you kids were kids.

If you were given a chance to be the person charging, or the person shooting the person charging, which would you choose, and why?

Which comes first, the chicken or the bullet? Exactly!

 

[MusingWarboss]

Isn’t this covered by the “just roll off to decide” type rule?

If you play a card surely it is activated and therefore used?

I know the dice thing takes the fun out of it a bit but in these cases if both are to happen simultaneously there’s no way to resolve that other than use another determining system.

You can’t George Lucas it for ever (AKA who shot first, Han or Greedo).

 

[Scabs]

I'm not being contrary (really, I'm not!). But since playing this game since 1995, I can't recall ever "a roll off to decide." Typically (so every time) reaching a mutual agreement has been achievable. Not saying it's not a legitimate process. But even with the occasional rage quits and table flips, I've actually never had to do it.