Alpha Crawler Give Into Hunger Trigger.

[ArcMaster]

For Reference:

R Give In to Hunger: This Action immediately gains +2 Margin Value for every Reinforcement Token on this unit.

Does the Margin gained from this trigger on the Alpha Crawler's attack provide it to just the Duel part of the action, or both the Duel and the penetration flip?

please give as detailed a response as possible to the rules and page numbers used to come up with the answer.  

Thank you a ton in advance.

[solkan]

7 minutes ago, ArcMaster said:

For Reference:

R Give In to Hunger: This Action immediately gains +2 Margin Value for every Reinforcement Token on this unit.

Does the Margin gained from this trigger on the Alpha Crawler's attack provide it to just the Duel part of the action, or both the Duel and the penetration flip?

please give as detailed a response as possible to the rules and page numbers used to come up with the answer.  

Thank you a ton in advance.

I feel like I've read this question somewhere else.

Note the timing of the trigger:

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This Action immediately gains +2 Margin Value for every Reinforcement Token on this unit.

It's an immediately trigger.  So you resolve its effects when declared, and then it's done. (Rules PDF, page 25, Triggers section)

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...  Triggers that resolve "immediately" happen in the Declare Triggers step, before the Action is resolved, and therefore may modify the outcome of the duel. Often, these Triggers modify the amount of damage caused by the Action.

So you declare the trigger and it resolves immediately, changing the margin value for the duel.  And then it's done because it has been resolved.

 

[ArcMaster]

Thank you @solkan.  I may have seen the question somewhere, and was finding a hard time explaining to another individual why it worked the way you so eloquently described it.

[solkan]

In case it comes up again later, here's the follow up for the bigger argument concerning AV modifications and Penetration flips....

For this trigger it's important to note that Margin Value is a "live" value for the duel that usually just gets reduced to declare triggers but can also be modified by various effects.

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When a player declares a Trigger, they spend the indicated suit(s) or Margin Values from their final duel total. Spent suits are removed from the final duel total, while spent Margin Values reduce the Fireteam’s remaining Margin Value by the appropriate amount.

There are units in the game that can lower their Margin Value to gain suits, and triggers that can be declared to increase the Margin Value.  Most of the time those aren't a concern, so most of time a player just looks at their margin value and spends it straight out.  You've got a Margin Value of 8, you declare (5) Powerful Attack, and the remaining Margin Value of 3 doesn't matter.

With the Give In to Hunger trigger, you get various sequences if you've got a Margin Value of 8, a  in the duel total, and a Reinforcement token.

1. Declare Powerful Attack once (reducing Margin Value to 3), remember you've got Give In to Hunger and declare it raising the Margin Value back to 5, then declare the second Powerful Attack to reduce the Margin Value to 0
2. Declare Give In to Hunger to use up the ram, raising the Margin Value to 10, and then declare Powerful Attack twice to lower the Margin Value to 0

But that's not all that the game currently has in it.  Abyssinia has Magic Dampeners (-2 AV to ☄️ actions) and Mechanized Infantry with its Tracer Rounds ability (+1 AV for other fireteams in the unit when taking against the same target unit that activation).  Cult has the Snapping Heads asset (each Snapping Head adds +1 AV to the Snapping Jaws action).  Thrace has her morale action which is going to give +2 AV once she has a Guild unit with a gun to boss around.  The Karkanoi have Hunger (up to +3 AV from Reinforcement tokens).  Kings Empire has Sharpshooter and Soulstone Processing Matrix that give +1 AV and the Bayonettes rule that applies -2 AV for using their  as .

All of those are modifications to the AV of the duel for the action.  This sentence in the Penetration Flip:

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If the Penetration flip is equal to or greater than the Hit Fireteam’s Armor, then the Hit Fireteam suffers 1 damage, plus 1 additional damage for every five points of Margin Value achieved on the Penetration flip.

is a technical error that has to be taken as saying

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If the Penetration flip is equal to or greater than the Hit Fireteam’s Armor, then the Hit Fireteam suffers 1 damage, plus 1 additional damage for every five points it exceeds the Armor value.

to play the game because Margin Values aren't defined for flips and its a result that makes sense.

 This is the definition of Margin Value in the rules PDF:

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MARGIN VALUE

When a Fireteam performs a duel and its duel total exceeds the value it needs, it is said to achieve a Margin Value equal to the amount by which its duel total exceeded its goal.

For example, in the duel described above, Fenton's duel total is 10 and the opponent’s duel total is 6, so Fenton has achieved a Margin Value of 4.

Margin Value is only defined for duels.  And as far as I can tell, those half dozen abilities which manipulate AV for an action are written with that definition in mind.

Edit:  So I shouldn't launch into a tirade when I haven't had my evening caffein yet.  I still think that the fact that Penetration Flips use the phrase "Margin Value" is a technical error, and that technical error is what causes this argument.

But when I started searching for "Margin Value" somehow I got distracted and ended up looking up AV on the cards instead.  😕. Woops.