Gunfighter and expert marksman

[Angelshard]

I have asked the same question on the guild discord. 

If you have the expert marksman upgrade. (edited in as I forgot to tell). 

Do you lose the armor piercing trigger in melee if you have gunfighter? 

I would argue that you do because of the FAQ. 

4. Gunfighter – When treating a z Action as having a range of y1", is the Action still treated as a (z) Action?
a) No. The entire range of the Action changes from zX" to y1".

Z is gun and Y is melee symbol.

But several others argued that the action receives the trigger and a temporary change in type doesn't remove the trigger. 

[solkan]

I’m confused.  What are you using that’s granting you an Armor Piercing trigger conditional on what sort of attack it is?

 

[Regelridderen]

Yes, according to the FAQ you’re referencing, you lose it.

[Adran]

Is it a guild upgrade that gives the trigger to  actions? In which case, yes its not a  action if you are using gunfighter. 

If the action already had the trigger printed on it then it's not going to lose it. 

[trikk]

41 minutes ago, Adran said:

Is it a guild upgrade that gives the trigger to  actions? In which case, yes its not a  action if you are using gunfighter. 

If the action already had the trigger printed on it then it's not going to lose it. 

I think it depends on how you treat it. I think EM adds the trigger to every  gun action on the card. So when you take it as a melee it's still there. So when you take it as a melee the trigger is still there. I would say there are no rule explanations for both cases. 

Can you mimic the armor piercing trigger?

[Angelshard]

@solkan I'm sorry, I didn't specify. It's the expert marksman upgrade from guild on any model with gunfighter 

[PiersonsMuppeteer]

I've always played that upgrades are modifying the stat card of the model that the upgrade is attached to. Falls in line with the basic rule that a model is 3 things: Figure/Base/Stat Card, and "this model gains X" probably doesn't apply to the figure or the base. Dynamic assigning of a Trigger looks like it requires some external interpretation or reading between the lines, though I could be wrong.

[Maniacal_cackle]

I read it as you only add the trigger if you are using it as a gun shot.

It doesn't edit the card, or when Agent 46 used mimic on Lone Marshal with Expert Marksman, you'd get to copy the trigger I think...

[PiersonsMuppeteer]

9 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I read it as you only add the trigger if you are using it as a gun shot.

The problem I see with that interpretation is that Upgrades do not grant permission to do things based on declared Actions. They grant permanent status to a model upon being attached, which is only revoked when the Upgrade is removed. I think Upgrades would need to be worded like: "When this model takes a  Action, it may declare the following Trigger" to be a dynamic check on Action declaration. However, I think that would grant an Ability to the model instead of granting a Trigger to an Action.

9 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

It doesn't edit the card, or when Agent 46 used mimic on Lone Marshal with Expert Marksman, you'd get to copy the trigger I think...

I'd allow copying the Trigger, the Action gained the Trigger when the Upgrade was attached. Out of curiosity, what rules basis is there for Upgrades not modifying the Stat Card? To add to the question, what portion in the rules stops "upgrade effects modify a model" from modifying one of: figure, base, or stat card?

[solkan]

8 minutes ago, PiersonsMuppeteer said:

The problem I see with that interpretation is that Upgrades do not grant permission to do things based on declared Actions. They grant permanent status to a model upon being attached, which is only revoked when the Upgrade is removed. I think Upgrades would need to be worded like: "When this model takes a  Action, it may declare the following Trigger" to be a dynamic check on Action declaration. However, I think that would grant an Ability to the model instead of granting a Trigger to an Action.

I'd allow copying the Trigger, the Action gained the Trigger when the Upgrade was attached. Out of curiosity, what rules basis is there for Upgrades not modifying the Stat Card? To add to the question, what portion in the rules stops "upgrade effects modify a model" from modifying one of: figure, base, or stat card?

It's not really a question of "editing".  Basically 'gains' doesn't mean that anything permanent has happened.

There are a lot of places in the rules where the conditional is implicit, or at least the fact that what is 'gained' can be lost is.  If an upgrade is discarded, the effects of the upgrade are lost.  If a model leaves an aura, the effects of the aura are lost.  If a model is in a bunch of auras that specify 'friendly models', and it becomes controlled, those auras no longer affect it.  Even though all of those effects are quite likely to just use the word "gain" instead of something more elaborate like 'gains while this upgrade is attached'.

To make a point of it, look at Ophelia's Arsenal upgrades, where the model gains an action and an ability which allows it to discard the upgrade.  No one is going to play it that a model that discards the Arsenal upgrade still has the action that was on the upgrade.

 

[Adran]

I'm fairly confident everyone would expect if the model with the upgrade copied a action they would expect it to have the armour piecing trigger, so the upgrade is obviously slightly dynamic. 

People are less happy when that works the other way. If it was a trigger added to actions would you expect it to apply to a action on a model with gunfighter

A on all ranged shooting

B on all melee gunfighter attacks

C on ranged attacks after you have made a melee attack with gunfighter

D never on gunfighter attacks

 

Now apply that same logic the other way. My answer would be b,  but I can't work out if you would do a or c or d if you think you do get the armour piecing trigger on a melee attack. 

[PiersonsMuppeteer]

1 hour ago, solkan said:

It's not really a question of "editing".  Basically 'gains' doesn't mean that anything permanent has happened.

There are a lot of places in the rules where the conditional is implicit, or at least the fact that what is 'gained' can be lost is.  If an upgrade is discarded, the effects of the upgrade are lost.  If a model leaves an aura, the effects of the aura are lost.  If a model is in a bunch of auras that specify 'friendly models', and it becomes controlled, those auras no longer affect it.  Even though all of those effects are quite likely to just use the word "gain" instead of something more elaborate like 'gains while this upgrade is attached'.

To make a point of it, look at Ophelia's Arsenal upgrades, where the model gains an action and an ability which allows it to discard the upgrade.  No one is going to play it that a model that discards the Arsenal upgrade still has the action that was on the upgrade.

 

I did say that the permanence is revoked after the Upgrade is removed.

 

49 minutes ago, Adran said:

I'm fairly confident everyone would expect if the model with the upgrade copied a action they would expect it to have the armour piecing trigger, so the upgrade is obviously slightly dynamic. 

People are less happy when that works the other way. If it was a trigger added to actions would you expect it to apply to a action on a model with gunfighter

A on all ranged shooting

B on all melee gunfighter attacks

C on ranged attacks after you have made a melee attack with gunfighter

D never on gunfighter attacks

 

Now apply that same logic the other way. My answer would be b,  but I can't work out if you would do a or c or d if you think you do get the armour piecing trigger on a melee attack. 

A good point on the copying of an ability. Though I would only agree in cases, like Mimic for example, in which the Action is added to the model's Stat Card. If this scenario worked the other way, I'm of the mind that it would be option D because Gunfighter does not modify the Stat Card. 

[trikk]

For me if I put the upgrade on Perdita it is as if her main attack was written as:

Peacebringer 12" 7
Crit Strike
Quick Reflexes
Armor Piercing

So if you copy it you copy it with Armor Piercing
If she takes it as a  it still has Armor Piercing.

If you copy an action, the upgrade make it just have an additional trigger if it's a  action.

This basically comes down to whenever the trigger is basically "printed" on the attack action or is it added at some point during each use (I don't know in what step it would be added)

 

As for Adrian's question: it would be D

[Angelshard]

I'm in the, only as long as the attack is shooting category. 

I'm unsure however, if a model has an upgrade that gives a trigger, does that get mimicked too? 

Expert marksman doesn't say you gain the trigger as an ability, just that your gun actions gains the trigger, so I would say it gets copied. 

[PiersonsMuppeteer]

13 hours ago, Angelshard said:

I'm in the, only as long as the attack is shooting category. 

I'm unsure however, if a model has an upgrade that gives a trigger, does that get mimicked too? 

Expert marksman doesn't say you gain the trigger as an ability, just that your gun actions gains the trigger, so I would say it gets copied. 

That looks like you are using different interpretations for different scenarios. I think Maniacal stated the difference between the two lines of thought best: (1) Trigger is gained dynamically on  action use/declaration, can’t be used during Gunfighter  treated attacks, and cannot be copied, or (2) Trigger gets “printed” on model’s stat card, can be used during Gunfighter  treated attacks, and can be copied.

[Angelshard]

@PiersonsMuppeteer hmm you're right. There's a disconnect in my logic. I'd need expert marksman on the model that copies the attack, not the one that has the attack

[diki]

I think instructions on upgrade cards are written in present tense as instructions for something to do now.

EG Serrated teeth and claws has

The model gains the following Ability:

The model's Actions gains the following trigger

If they wanted attaching the trigger to be a passive effect that your check for each time you declare a trigger I think they would have given the model an Ability that adds the trigger to the action type they wanted it to match.

Actions on models are things, that a model always has. Models can take actions, resolve actions etc, but in the context of the game they fundamentally exist as a thing that models have. If that thing gains something I don't see any logic for why you would later apply unwritten restrictions on what it's gained.

If Marcus mutates a beast so that it's claws are sharper, then a mimic copies its attack - I also don't understand the fluff reason why it wouldn't be copying the mutated version (same for loading your gun with shiny bullets in guild, if your gun has shiny bullets what difference does it make if you shoot them 1" or 12" - they are still shiny bullets)

My "do the gains thing immediately" interpretation ** does make it more confusing and complicated in the mimic case though, as if Doppleganger had LLC Expert Marksman (thanks @Adran) and then copied someone else's gun it wouldn't get the trigger - because I don't think it's a passive ability to later modify future actions.

**(which obviously could be getting the intention wrong)

[Adran]

9 minutes ago, diki said:

I think instructions on upgrade cards are written in present tense as instructions for something to do now.

EG Serrated teeth and claws has

The model gains the following Ability:

The model's Actions gains the following trigger

If they wanted attaching the trigger to be a passive effect that your check for each time you declare a trigger I think they would have given the model an Ability that adds the trigger to the action type they wanted it to match.

Actions on models are things, that a model always has. Models can take actions, resolve actions etc, but in the context of the game they fundamentally exist as a thing that models have. If that thing gains something I don't see any logic for why you would later apply unwritten restrictions on what it's gained.

If Marcus mutates a beast so that it's claws are sharper, then a mimic copies its attack - I also don't understand the fluff reason why it wouldn't be copying the mutated version (same for loading your gun with shiny bullets in guild, if your gun has shiny bullets what difference does it make if you shoot them 1" or 12" - they are still shiny bullets)

My "do the gains thing immediately" interpretation ** does make it more confusing and complicated in the mimic case though, as if Doppleganger had LLC and then copied someone else's gun it wouldn't get the trigger - because I don't think it's a passive ability to later modify future actions.

**(which obviously could be getting the intention wrong)

I am assuming you are adding the unwritten "while this upgrade card is attached" to the triggers/actions, because if not then "upgrade" masters  get a lot better if the upgrade effects remain after they have gone, which is sort of what you seem to be implying. 

Upgrades do give us actions on cards that models don't always have. 

So if you had a model that somehow had serrated teeth and claws and falling rave kick does it matter the order they gained the upgrades as to if the falling river kick has the trigger? 

(I also assume you mean expert marksman and not Lead lined coat, because otherwise I'm lost what you are talking about. )

Mimic does tell us to treat the mimicked action as if it was on this models card, so unless you are strictly "adding" the things as you attach the upgrade and never again looking at the upgrade, I'm not sure how you get there. 

[Yore Huckleberry]

On 11/14/2021 at 5:24 AM, Adran said:

 

People are less happy when that works the other way. If it was a trigger added to actions would you expect it to apply to a action on a model with gunfighter

 

I actually think that if you had something like "Extendable Claw: this model may discard a card to change the range of this attack to a 8" attack," and they had an upgrade called "poisoned claws: add +1 poison to damage from attacks," people would immediately intuit that the poison upgrade would stay when the attack's range was extended.

[Yore Huckleberry]

23 hours ago, trikk said:

 

This basically comes down to whenever the trigger is basically "printed" on the attack action or is it added at some point during each use (I don't know in what step it would be added)

The two "dynamic" options for when the trigger is added would basically be
1) during the range check, the upgrade "notices" that the attack has a ranged nature and temporarily adds it to the attack for its duration
2) during the declare triggers step, the upgrade "notices" that a set of triggers for a ranged attack is being populated by referencing the stat card, and jumps in to add an additional one

The "static" option would be
A) the upgrade adds the armor piercing trigger to all ranged attacks of the model when the upgrade is attached, and if the attack is thereafter modified, the trigger is included

[Yore Huckleberry]

One note about dynamic vs static is that presumably everyone would expect that if a model discarded its upgrade (e.g., in response to Greed's "take it all" trigger on Unchecked Avarice), the model would lose those abilities.

But I think that's also basically the expectation of what we might call a static-interactive approach as opposed to static-absolute -- e.g., the upgrade applies the trigger, but it is still subject to other game effects. The question of gunfighter or mimic would then be engaged by suggesting the abilities referencing the attack make note of the trigger that is applied there, but effects that reference the upgrade can alter what it has done.

[diki]

2 hours ago, Adran said:

I am assuming you are adding the unwritten "while this upgrade card is attached" to the triggers/actions, because if not then "upgrade" masters  get a lot better if the upgrade effects remain after they have gone, which is sort of what you seem to be implying.

I think from a balance and logic point of view you have to play that the gains are only valid whilst the card is attached. it seems extremely likely that is the Intention - but sadly from rules perspective I'm not sure anything ever really calls that out clearly? I feel like as the rules for the triggers/actions/abilities are on a card that is no longer attached they are out of the game (sadly it feels a bug, like there is a link on a webpage but you don't resolve hitting it because it's now a 404 missing page rather than having correctly been told to delete the link when it got removed). Generally model cards etc have rules that exist as long as the card is in play but there are exceptions (eg the outcome from needle and thread could persist till end of turn even if the model who gave it out died because it is effecting another entity)

I wish upgrade cards where just a list of Abilities and Actions the model has these whilst the upgrade was attached (Maybe stat modifications too??) but I can't think of anything that couldn't be accurately defined as an ability. And have Abilities to attach the triggers. I think it would simplify the cards a lot!