Here’s a scenario I had pop in my head before going to sleep. The smoke round upgrade card and the clever loader crew card make an interesting combo that I think is unintended and game breaking.

Clever loader reads, “If you discard an Ammo Upgrade when shooting, but do not score any Hits or Critical Hits, return the upgrade card to the tank.”

Smoke round reads, “When shooting, you may discard this card instead of rolling attack dice. The target tank gains -3 Attack and counts as being in Cover until the end of the shooting phase.”

Going by the plain text of these two cards you would end up with an infinite supply of smoke rounds on a tank. This is familiar to the endless tungsten shot tank I saw someone post on here. That too involved a clever loader crew card. Fortunately the community here saw that that build did not work as its creator had originally thought it did, and no, a tank can’t have an endless supply of tungsten shot. I’m hoping this combo also suffers a smilliar flaw as pointed out in the endless tungsten shot build.

Why it does work -

Let’s break this down by seeing if the three requirements are met to trigger clever loader.

Discarding an Ammo Upgrade Card - Smoke Round is an Ammo Upgrade card and you have to discard it to use it like other ammo upgrade cards. That’s the first requirement covered. Now on to the next.

When Shooting - the Smoke Round upgrade card states when shooting at the very start of its description, so the tank is with out question shooting when using the upgrade. Second down leaving just the final requirement to be met.

Do not score any Hits or Critical Hits - When using the Smoke Round upgrade card you don’t roll any attack dice so it is impossible to score any Hits or Critical Hits. That’s it, all requirements met.

Why it doesn’t/shouldn’t work -

I don’t have a defense on why this combo doesn’t work, I’m hoping the community here or a TANKS official can state why it doesn’t work or that it doesnt work. I do however have a strong opinion of why it shouldn’t work.

Ammo upgrade cards are consumables meant to be used up during the game. Just like potions in rpgs and health packs in video games. To have a combination that makes one of these consumables endless undermines the game mechanic of resource management.

As simple as it is to house rule this combo a no go, the exsitance of this combo leaves open a scary door to gamemanship.

Edited by user Wednesday, December 20, 2017 9:31:11 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thank you, CmdrRook, for the link. I did read the thread, at least skimmed it. It was a bit discouraging to see two conflicting rulings at first before a retraction of one and a finalized ruling given.

I hoped I wasn’t the first person to see this issue and post about it. I just couldn’t find anything on it, but in fairness I didn’t look that deep for other posts. I did go over the unofficial FAQ before posting, but I must have overlooked the point that addressed this particular issue.

I did want to put something in my original post about this being a fine example for the need of an official errata and faq, but I wanted to avoid that topic in this discussion because it has come up in every other thread about rule clarifications and interactions.

In regards to the tungsten shot shenanigans. I had referenced it in my original post since both issues were similar and achieved the same effect. I had thought the tungsten shot one had been disproven or at least it was settled that it does not work in the current state of the rules. I will have to find that thread again and reread it.

Probably.