Cosmic Encounter Question

There is a sentence contained in the section "If the Defense Won" that is confusing me a little. The sentence reads:

"Defensive allies do not get to land on the planet they just helped defend."

Am I correct in believing that this rule refers only to defensive allies who don't already have a colony on that planet? So if the defensive ally already has a colony on the planet attacked, they can return ships to that colony if the defense won.

You're correct. (Assuming I remember the Eon rules correctly.)

Cheers. I have been reading the FFG rules in preparation for our first game this weekend and this is the only section that left me scratching my head a bit. Some of the sentences appear contradictory unless you figure out which are the rules and which are the exceptions to the rules.

Death and Taxis wrote:

There is a sentence contained in the section "If the Defense Won" that is confusing me a little. The sentence reads:

"Defensive allies do not get to land on the planet they just helped defend."

Am I correct in believing that this rule refers only to defensive allies who don't already have a colony on that planet? So if the defensive ally already has a colony on the planet attacked, they can return ships to that colony if the defense won.

Defensive allies would get to return ships that defended, *only if* there's still a token of that color on the planet.

So if you have 4 tokens on a foreign base, don't pull them all to defend an attack. You're always free to return tokens to any of your existing bases, and never obligated to defend a planet you have a foreign base on. The results (in general) aren't going to matter to you, since you can't lose the foreign base in that challenge (CE exceptions: Will, or the not-existing yet in FFG Filth power).

Previous versions had the "reverse cone", where ally rewards could be reversed, meaning defenders did get bases on the planet.

Thanks Not Sure. Thankfully that all made sense to me.

The notion of how attacks and allies and multiple player bases on one planet work together can be hard to grasp from reading the rules, but it's easy to understand in play.

Remember, the offensive player is the guy who pulls the destiny card, and the defensive player is the whose color he gets (some exceptions always apply). Anyone else is either an ally or uninvolved, even if they're sitting on the target planet.

For example:
Green's turn, he pulls a Red card. Red lost a challenge to Blue last turn, so there's a Red planet with four Blue tokens and no Red ones.
Green can challenge on that planet, Red still defends (at 0+card), and Blue can ally (on *either* side) or just sit there. Nothing outside of special power/flare/etc effects can dislodge Blue. If Green wins, he and his allies get bases next to Blue.

Destiny is a weird mechanic, but it holds the game together and keeps "bash-the-leader" from getting too predictable.

(also, a minor correction to what I wrote previously. *Defensive* allies are free to return to any existing base if successful. Offensive allies go to the planet.)

Not Sure wrote:

Green's turn, he pulls a Red card. Red lost a challenge to Blue last turn, so there's a Red planet with four Blue tokens and no Red ones. Green can challenge on that planet, Red still defends (at 0+card)

Woah, never realized you could attack a stack of zero.

Gaebril wrote:

Not Sure wrote:

Green's turn, he pulls a Red card. Red lost a challenge to Blue last turn, so there's a Red planet with four Blue tokens and no Red ones. Green can challenge on that planet, Red still defends (at 0+card)

Woah, never realized you could attack a stack of zero.

Which is very useful if you are attacking the virus. I would say that in most situations it is better to get rid of another home base and get them closer to losing their power.

True, if you can win. However, attacking a planet where the defense doesn't have any ships means he may not fight back as hard. There's always a lot of give-n-take and psychology there.