Ruthless Strategists

“After attacking a squadron” indicates that the defender must spend defense tokens and suffer damage before the attacker is required to decide if he is using Ruthless Strategists or not. The attacker must decide if he is using Ruthless Strategists before moving on to the “Declare Additional Squadron Target” step.

This damage takes place after an attack has been completed, and does not involve the attack step. Card abilities which are used to cancel or move damage during an attack (such as Gallant Haven) thus do not interact with this upgrade card.

This Upgrade Card can trigger from any attack targeting a squadron. This includes cards which grant extra attacks targeting squadrons, such as Ordnance Pods, Impetuous, and Quad Laser Turrets.

The “Friendly Squadron” mentioned in this Upgrade Card may be a squadron that has zero hull points remaining thanks to the effect of General Riekkan. A squadron at zero hull points who suffers damage remains at zero hull points.

Damage suffered from resolving the effect of this Upgrade Card takes place after an attack, and does not involve the attack step. Squadron abilities which are used to cancel or move damage during an attack (such as Axe or Biggs) thus do not interact with this upgrade card.

Tel Trevura’s effect shares a timing window with Ruthless Strategists; both occur “After an attack”. Therefore, the first player’s effect will occur first and the second player’s will occur second. If the second player’s Tel Trevura discarded a defense token and is reduced to zero hull as a result of the first player’s usage of Ruthless Strategists, the second player’s Tel Trevura may still recover up to 3 hull points. This is because Tel Trevura’s effect contains the stipulation “even if you would be destroyed”. If Tel Trevura belonged to the first player and discarded a defense token in the initial attack (even if reduced to O hull), it would recover 3 hull points and then would take this Upgrade Card’s damage leaving 2 hull points left.