Also concerning Natalya: Are you forced to include a character adjacent to your target in the attack or is it optional?

First Draft of the new FAQ for community review… Let me know how you like it.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BzVAJpIQG8bNblpCMkljNzVhUk0

If you dissagree with any answers in there: All reasoned and well thought arguments will be considered, but profain rage will be ignored.

Notes: the web preview can take a while to load so be paitent, you can also download the original by clicking on the "File" menu at the up left.

Great Job Miah!!

My comments below:

ERRATA AND CLAIRIFACATIONS:

That sentence contains an errata

Can Zor'ka attack herself through a Voïvode standing right
next to her? Can Zor'ka attack an empty space as long as the
"AOE"/spread of the lightning will hit something that can be
damaged by it?

A: Zor’ka and her Voïvodes are immune to the Magnifier. The
Magnifier must target a character.

By that answer Zorka is a Character, she can attack herself, and as she is Inmune, she would receive no harm but surrounding character would, I dont think that was your intended answer, is it?

How do Grenades interact with Smoke Grenades?

A: If a character is on a path under the effects of smoke, he
may only target adjacent circles for his grenade. The number
of successes caused by the grenade is not reduced, so it will
still deal 4 automatic successes. If a character throws a
grenade from a path not affected by smoke, to a circle that is
affected by smoke, the grenade still deals all 4 automatic
successes.

Then a character throwing grenades from non smoked circles to smked circles suffer no limitations? can they target any circle in the smoke or just the first one?

Q: When may you discard a medal that gives command
points?

A: During the Activation of the character that owns it, this
does not require an Action.

I think that this diminishes the value of such objects, I do not see any problem with game mechanics if it can be used at any time to shake off a wound for example, also do not see any problem making it useable for reinforcements as well, it basically acts as a limited "call in the troops" token, and gives the game more strategic possibilities. I honestly think that these tokens should be used at any moment and this does not conflict with game rules. A player might decide before any character activation to use the token any way he chooses but if the cp is unused by the end of the turn the cps would go to waste.

Q: Is Mizu’s allowed to use her Happo like a normal Smoke
Grenade, that is: throw it as an action in Mizu's activation? Is
Mizu forced to use Happo if she is targeted by an attack, or
may she choose not to use Happo?

A: Mizu may only use her Happo if she has been the target of
an attack, she may not simply use an action to deploy it. When
targeted she may choose whether or not to use it.

I dont agree here either, Happo does have the smoke grenade trait, and her optional deploy ability should be in addition to its normal deplyment, not substitution. Same case as with the shuriken which has a pistol trait, we might be ruling contradictory here if did that.

First thing: Great work! A lot of points that were vaguely phrased in the rules or suffered from contradicting answers are solved now. I’d like to add only a few points:
Concerning Ramirez‘ grenade launcher and Kaali: While I absolutely agree with the ruling, I think it should be added that you may not counterattack with weapons that target circles because “the original attacker must be the target” of the counterattack.
Concerning “Prescience” and “Shadowflash”: These abilities seem to be quite similar, yet are ruled differently because of the phrase “in any direction you could legally move” on Prescience. This is a bit stretched because Hoss could legally move on a circle with a penalty using 2 MP. A solution could be to errata the text of Prescience to “in any direction you could legally move using 1 MP” to set it clear.
Concerning Mizu’s Happo: I’m with Moebius here, as Happo has the Smoke grenade trait, it should work as a normal Smoke grenade and have extra abilities on top of that.
Concerning Moebius problem with Zor’ka: If we accept the official answer given some time ago that characters can’t attack themselves at all, there just won’t be a problem with Zor’ka attacking herself and causing damage to others.
Concerning the interaction between Grenades and Smoke grenades: I think the answer given in the FAQ is wrong. The throwing of Grenades should be unaffected by smoke because it is not an attack.
 

Thanks guys, I consider all your suggestions, keep these things in mind…

If I don't make a change you suggest it is not necessarily because I don't agree with it, but because I think the Devs willl overrule it anyway.

Many of these answers are based on previous statments from FFG.

I'm going to go and make the best changes I can, and post an updated version, later today. Thanks again.

I've decided to make most of the changes suggested here…

Except, the ruling on the Medals, because I don't want to set a precident for using an item "randomly outside of the owners activation", for fear that this would create further issues in the future.

And I don't feel that it changes gameplay much, if you feel you need those CP at the begining of your turn, you'll just have to activate the character with them first.

If there are no other suggestions I'll forward this to FFG later this week.

Here's the new version, with better readability…

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BzVAJpIQG8bNNVMzQXBlZ1RCNFk

Remember to download the original for best quality.

I can only repeat: It's great! And I think you are right about the Medals, by the way. If they could be used at any time outside the character's activation, they'd be a lot more powerful, probably would cause some difficult interaction with other characters or tokens and (most importantly) they could probably be used to get reinforcements in 2 CP games where there shouldn't be reinforcements.

??! said:

This is where we agree to disagree.

The whole point of being able to use them out of the activation is to use them to shake off wounds when out of normal cps or bring reinforcements in 2 cp games. There is currently a couple of ways to bring reinforcements on these games, the call in the troops bonus token and irinas holy comisaar token.

I have played both with and without this interpretation and yet found no clash with any other token or rule using mine, so this would not be an issue (imho) there are other tokens that have effects out of the activation like reichdoktor without crashing with any other rule, I just have never come across any conflict playing it this way, at all.

The real discussion is around balance. 

Eva gets more powerful with my interpretation of the rules but she is not the strongest of the characters, usually dropped in favor of yula or hoss, this gets her more chance to appear in a roster.

Mc Neal gets definitely better with my interpretation specially against a team with hoss with command pack, as he grants back the ability of taking reinforcements to his team, anything that nerfs hoss is good (imho)

Miah999 said:

Moebius, as you have actually played the Medals both ways and have never encountered any problems, I accept your experience of course. Yet I still think Miah's got a point here. Tokens that can be used outside of their owners activations should specifically say so and/or name specific conditions or situations when they may be used.

??! said:

Agreed, I think the tokens should be "errata-ed" and added a sentence on when to use them.My proposal:  "You may activate this ability as a command point ability."

I think that it clearly specifies a concrete set of moments during the game: To be precise, any moment when a CP might be spent, for whatever reason.

 Is it possible to "chain" overwatch attacks? I.e., can I interrupt an OW with an OW of my own?

Is Tala's equipment card for the TNR 440GR stating FOUR automatic attack successes (instead of five) a misprint?

Your second answer is alredy in the FAQ and yes it's a mistake.

I'll look in to your first question.

Colgrevance said:

I don't think this would be possible. The point is, an overwatch attack interrupts the active character's activation if certain conditions are met. The target of the overwatch attack has to be the activated character. A character that does an overwatch attack is not the active character and is not even activated, so he could never be the target of an overwatch attack. The rules about placing a character on overwatch specify that this character won't get an activation. That's why I'd say no targeting a character on overwatch with overwatch attacks.

Just to let everyone know I've forwarded the FAQ we've developed here to FFG; it all in their hands now.

A couple of additional questions (for a next FAQ version maybe).

Can Trench gun push a character through a friendly character? (if pushed 2 spaces)

Does a fire grenade trigger a volatile circle?