Amai Gamble Token; is anybody really friendly to it?

[mwan555]

The Amai Gamble token has me confused on how it interacts with the opposing crew. The rule combination that confuses me is thus:

+Gamble: During the Start Phase of Turn 1, Drop an enemy Scheme Marker anywhere on the table.

+Page 26 of Rule PDF 2nd Paragraph: Enemy models, Markers, and terrain are those that have been hired into the opponent's Crew, and those Summoned, Dropped, or Created by the opponent's Crew.

+Page 26 of Rule PDF 3rd Paragraph: Every Ability, Action, and Trigger on a model's State Card and Attached Upgrades treats the use of "friendly" and "enemy" from its point of view.

With those laid out, how would a model like Lord Chompy Bits' Trail of Gore react to that same Scheme token? I understand that Gamble puts an enemy scheme token down, but to the opposing models its an enemy created scheme token. Would that not make that scheme token an enemy scheme token to both sides? I've looked into many times, and everybody just says, o look at page 26 of the pdf or page 62 of the rules. Please help me clear up this confusion.

+Trail of Gore: Remove target enemy Scheme Marker. Take a Melee AtK Action or the Walk Action.

Just to get something out of the way now so people don't use it to cause undo confusion. A trigger like Amai's Threaten's Drop It! makes perfect sense as it is forcing that enemy model to drop a scheme token. The Enemy Model dropped the token making it "friendly" to itself and "enemy" to the Amai's crew.

+Threaten, Drop It!: Enemy only. Target must Drop an enemy Scheme Marker into base contact with itself, in LoS of this model.

 

[solkan]

For what it's worth, the various situations where a scenario wants to create something that is enemy or friendly to all players have always spelled it explicitly as "enemy to all players".

And things like the Drop it! trigger existed in the previous edition.  In M2E the trigger said "place an enemy Scheme Marker within 3" of the target".  That changed to "drop an Enemy Scheme Marker" in M3E with the introduction of drop and create as verbs that applied to markers.

The M2E explanation was, naturally, even less explicit than M3E:

Quote

Some rules reference friendly or enemy models. From a mechanical standpoint, friendly models are any models that are on the same Crew as the model the rule is affecting. Enemy models are any model that isn’t on the same Crew.

and players were expected to work out from -that- how the term applied to markers.

And because I brought it up previously, and found my M2E collection, here's how "neutral" was defined: (Tortoise and Hare encounter booklet, Amphibious Assault encounter booklet, and Creative Taxidermy encounter booklet):

Quote

Neutral models belong to neither player.  These models are considered to be enemies to all models, may not take Interact Actions, and may not drop or place Markers of any kind.  Neutral models may not be buried or scarified and may only be killed by being reduced to 0 Wounds.  The Scenario will state when Neutral models Activate.

The University of Transmortis encounter booklet used similar wording for the scenario models

Quote

Iron Zombies are enemy models to both Crews ...

In other words, in the situation where a model was an enemy to everyone, the rules say so.  This is during the edition which introduced the Bandido's and that trigger.

I think this is one of those situations where the rules get written to where the authors think things are spelled out intuitively, and then get to discover who in the audience disagrees with them.  😕

[santaclaws01]

Normally markers are friendly to the crew that dropped it yes. Gamble is overriding that rule and dropping an enemy marker.

Pg 3:

[solkan]

The one annoyance I can think of is that there are some multi-player formats like Bonanza Brawl, and the document that I'm looking at doesn't make it clear whether that "enemy" scheme marker should be "enemy to player X, friendly to everyone else" or "player X chooses one other player for the scheme marker to be friendly to".

But that's an issue for the formats with more than two sides to work, I suppose.

 

[mwan555]

On 8/24/2023 at 10:26 AM, santaclaws01 said:

Normally markers are friendly to the crew that dropped it yes. Gamble is overriding that rule and dropping an enemy marker.

Pg 3:

But the only rule it contradicts is that the Amai is putting down a marker that is "Enemy" to its crew. It was never a question if it was "enemies" with the Amai's crew though. The issue I have is that nothing prevents it from being an enemy marker to the enemy crew. I can also find no rules that say the enemies' enemy is friendly. Learning there is game type out there that would have more then two crews all fighting against each other leads me to further believe it would be "enemy" to all crews. If Amai's Gamble forced an enemy model to drop an enemy scheme marker onto the board in a location of the Amai's choice I wouldn't even have an issue.

As all the rules seem to read, that token should be enemies to everybody. Is that correct?

[Paddywhack]

8 minutes ago, mwan555 said:

As all the rules seem to read, that token should be enemies to everybody. Is that correct?

Sorry, no. There is nothing in the rules for a generic, enemy to all, scheme marker. 

On 8/24/2023 at 9:14 AM, mwan555 said:

an enemy created scheme token

Again, no such thing in the rules. Scheme tokens are Friendly or Enemy. When you place a marker it has to be clearly discernable. So if Amai is using Green Scheme Tokens and Chompy is using Blue scheme tokens, you have to put one of those on the table, not a grey token. And Chompy could only eat Enemy scheme tokens (green in this example). 

The main thing that you noted, but are missing the connection to is this rule:

On 8/24/2023 at 9:14 AM, mwan555 said:

+Page 26 of Rule PDF 3rd Paragraph: Every Ability, Action, and Trigger on a model's State Card and Attached Upgrades treats the use of "friendly" and "enemy" from its point of view.

The Ability Gamble is on Amai's card, so the term 'enemy' is from Amai's perspective. So you place a Scheme marker down of the other crew (not Amai's - Blue in the above example). The reason its a 'gamble' is you could accidentally be helping the enemy by giving them a scheme token. They could eat it for their own abilities or possibly score VP. Of course Amai and other models also have ways to use Enemy scheme tokens. 

[mwan555]

1 hour ago, Paddywhack said:

So if Amai is using Green Scheme Tokens and Chompy is using Blue scheme tokens, you have to put one of those on the table, not a grey token.

But there is no such rule that the grey marker can't exist, true there is no rule that says it can but markers aren't even a listed Component in the component chapter of the rules. I've looked for it, both under components and markers pages. If you can provide me with reference to this, it would answer my question with finality.

 

1 hour ago, Paddywhack said:

On 8/24/2023 at 9:14 AM, mwan555 said:

an enemy created scheme token

Again, no such thing in the rules.

Refer back to page 26 Friends, Enemies, and Control second paragraph.

+Page 26 of Rule PDF 2nd Paragraph: Enemy models, Markers, and terrain are those that have been hired into the opponent's Crew, and those Summoned, Dropped, or Created by the opponent's Crew.

This is what it seems to boil down to. Amai makes the marker. No it isn't friendly to him. But when you switch over to the other crew, its reads that its not friendly to them either.

[solkan]

3 hours ago, mwan555 said:

But there is no such rule that the grey marker can't exist, true there is no rule that says it can but markers aren't even a listed Component in the component chapter of the rules. I've looked for it, both under components and markers pages. If you can provide me with reference to this, it would answer my question with finality.

Please note the first three paragraphs of Friendly, Enemy & Control:

Quote

Friendly models, Markers, and terrain are those that have been hired into your Crew, and those Summoned, Dropped, or Created by your Crew.

Enemy models, Markers, and terrain are those that have been hired into the opponent’s Crew, and those Summoned, Dropped, or Created by the opponent’s Crew.

Every Ability, Action, and Trigger on a model’s Stat Card and Attached Upgrades treats the use of “friendly” and “enemy” from its point of view.

Please read those three sentences, and apply those definitions to the phrase "Drop an enemy Scheme Marker".  The result you are supposed to arrive at is "drop a scheme marker belonging to the opposing crew."  Because the rulebook is written in its entirety on the assumption that there are two crews (note how "the opponent's Crew" is singular.  (There's a list of about a half-dozen elements in the rulebook that a multi-player scenario has to address, including initiative, event resolution, choosing enemies or not, and so on.  But that's getting off topic...)

You drop an enemy Scheme marker instead of a friendly one.  If they meant it to be "a scheme marker enemy to all players", they would say so (and have done so in the past using the term "neutral".)

[mwan555]

11 hours ago, solkan said:

Please note the first three paragraphs of Friendly, Enemy & Control:

Please read those three sentences, and apply those definitions to the phrase "Drop an enemy Scheme Marker".  The result you are supposed to arrive at is "drop a scheme marker belonging to the opposing crew."  Because the rulebook is written in its entirety on the assumption that there are two crews (note how "the opponent's Crew" is singular.  (There's a list of about a half-dozen elements in the rulebook that a multi-player scenario has to address, including initiative, event resolution, choosing enemies or not, and so on.  But that's getting off topic...)

You drop an enemy Scheme marker instead of a friendly one.  If they meant it to be "a scheme marker enemy to all players", they would say so (and have done so in the past using the term "neutral".)

This in the end is a very unsatisfactory answer as it hinges on assumption of the rules and one that doesn't actually exist. But if that is the way it is suppose to be then that is it. The existence that in the past they used the term "neutral" doesn't help confuse me any less. So thank you for your time, sorry for so much kickback I just wanted to better understand this new game I was getting into.

[Flib Jib]

Theres also FAQ entries relating and support scheme markers being only friendly/enemy

 

e.g. #25

”Are Friendly and Enemy Scheme Markets considered different types of markers, such as for Research Mission?

a) No. The type of Marker is Scheme, their alignment, (friendly/enemy) is the only difference.”

[Flib Jib]

On 8/25/2023 at 8:04 PM, mwan555 said:

But there is no such rule that the grey marker can't exist,

Regrettably, it is difficult to have as productive a discussion that you might find satisfactory when points are made from ad ignoratiam. There is close to an infinite amount of hypotheticals that the rulebook does not tell you you can’t do. None of which should be considered evidence. 
 

But if your point is that there is ambiguity, I think solkan and Paddywhack have given some invaluable clarity.

[Adran]

I think the assumption has always been if something is enemy to you, its friendly to your opponent.  I can't point you to any formal rule or statement that says that. Discussions on the risk of dropping enemy scheme markers from as fat back as the beta testing of the edition have talked about your opponent scoring from the marker ( or using them to prevent them dropping markers with the interact action.)

[mwan555]

Thank you solkan and adran you have been most helpful in this. When it comes to rules I sometimes have a hard time with intuitiveness of how they should be. This has gotten me into more then a few arguments at the local game shop. Never to be malicious, just missing that disconnect of written rule to what the author of the written rule believes people know already. So thank you both for having a rousing discussion with me. Also I found the rules for the existence of neutral markers under strategies; Turf War. Funny enough I do believe it answers this question all on its own.

Though I found the answer unsatisfactory, getting there was great. Its nice to know there are really knowledgeable people like you two to help with this sort of stuff. And nice to know there are also just people adding two cents. This will also be my last post on this question. Maybe I'll have more in the future, if so, I would enjoy the helpful insight of answering.