Techno-mage "Blink"

[animus]

My son and I had a great game yesterday between a Technomage and a White Star I. It was a close battle and the mage won, but the white star would have had we paid more attention to the thresholds.

Anyway, the only way the Technomage could ever get a shot on the White Star was by "blinking" - the special order that allows it to move anywhere within 10" and spawn 2 "dummy" ships. I never used the dummies - I just blinked behind the whitestar and shot.

I didn't see anything in the rule that said this was wrong, that the blink couldn't be followed by firing (thus negating the dummies, but getting a clean shot). Also, I didn't see anything saying when this special action took place, say before regular movement, thus allowing the pinnaces to move after the blink.

Anyone have any insight?

 

[armbarred]

Being a special action, I would say it happens at the beginning of the movement phase of that ship. So if you lost initiative by some fluke, it would be pretty hard to pull off...

 

[Burger]

1 vs 1 Technomage vs White Star should be a gankfest, just like Shadow Scout vs White Star. You picked up on the trick, do the blink thing. You have 3 higher initiative than him so you'll likely win 80% of the time.

If you win initiative, he's not going to get a shot on you because you'll be behind him.

If you lose initiative then you spawn some dummy ships, he doesn't know which one to shoot. His best tactic would be to let you shoot first (wow, one of the very few circumstances where you allow your opponent to shoot first even though you won init!) to find out which one is the real ship. If he does so then your best tactic is to not fire, let him take the 1 in 3 guess, even if he guesses right he'll probably fail stealth. Then next turn you'll probably win initiative and you're back in action.

 

[animus]

Okay, sounds like I did it right. I only lost initiative once but I only made the blink role half the time which is right since it's a 10+ crew quality check.