Because Night Beast is the active ship. He must activate in the steps listed on page 7.

hothie said:

When Turr Phenirr attacks in his combat phase he is also "the active ship".

Where does it say that free actions have to be taken in the "Perform Action" Step?

Or more precisely, where does it say, that free actions generated within the Activation Phase are treated differently than free actions generated outside the Activation Phase?

You wanted an honest answer to an honest question with your original post. I gave it to you, and told you where to look and why it is. If you don't want to believe it, fine, but your question is answered.

The problem is the meaning of "after executing a green maneuver". There's no other indication of what the timing of the ability is, and free actions are explicitly allowed to occur outside the Perform Action step.

If "after" means "at any point between the trigger and the end of the ship's activation", Night Beast gets his free Focus. If "execute a maneuver" means "the stuff you do during the activation phase that isn't Perform Action", Night Beast gets his free Focus. The rules are not particularly clear about what either of those terms mean--and, in several places, appears to use them to mean slghtly different things. Furthermore, the intent of the rules seems to be that you get to perform actions normally on rounds where you shed your stress token with a green maneuver.

Accordingly, I think Night Beast ought to get his free Focus in such a turn.

There is a valid reading of the rules, however, that says Night Beast must take his free Focus during the "Execute Maneuver" step of the activation phase. (If you're executing a green maneuver, after all, it makes sense to "locate" that activity in the "Execute Maneuver" step.) Since that step comes before the "Check Stress" step, Night Beast still has a stress token when it occurs, and therefore cannot take any actions, including free actions.

I disagree with that interpretation, but it's actually more straightforward than the others. If my wife says "After you go to the grocery store, could you stop and pick up that package from the post office?" she probably doesn't mean after I go to the grocery store, drive home, put the groceries away, eat a sandwich, take a nap, and check my RSS feed--she means after the grocery store but before I do anything else.

***

I think the wording of "after executing a green maneuver" is sorely in need of clarification, since it appears in multiple places and isn't very clear. R2-D2 can't cause this kind of problem, and I have a hard time thinking of how Lando's could, but it remains that "after [trigger]" needs an unambiguous definition.

I'm still going by the first paragraph of page 8, which states explicitly:

1. "each ship may perform one action immediately after moving." The key word here is immediately. So this happens directly after moving, but also after step 4, which is checking pilot stress, as noted on page 7.

2. "Additionally, certain pilot abilities…may allow ships to perform other actions." I'd say this qualifies as a pilot ability that allows the ship to perform another action. Which, I might add again, occurs during the Perform Action step.

Also, from Night Beast's card: "After executing a green maneuver, you may perform a free focus action."  I would then be led to believe that performing this free action would then occur during the perform action step, which as stated above, happens immediately after moving, but I guess I'm wrong about that. Please send this in to FFG. i would love to hear them say how performing a free focus action does not occur during the perform action step.

chrisdk said:

EDIT: And it's Lando.

Well, as stated at the bottom left of page 9 of the rulebook: "Card abilities without the "ACTION:" header may be resolved when specified by the card and do not count as the ship's action." Night Beast is a card ability without the ACTION header, and it specifies its own timing--after executing a green maneuver. It's not entirely clear precisely what that means, but there's no reason to believe it occurs during the Perform Action step.

Page 1 of the FAQ further emphasizes that free actions can be performed outside the Perform Action step (and that "performing an action" is what you do regardless of when it's performed).

I see no proff that Night Beasts free action takes place during step 3.  His card clearly states that it takes effect after the maneuver.  You remove a stress token "after" the maneuver.  If you don't agree with Hothie on his explaination, then explain using the rules why it would take place in step 3.  Remember that Night Beast's card doesn't say "immediately After".

hothie said:

Just to play Devil's advocate, I don't think you can use the wording on Night Beast to justify that the free focus action takes place during the perform action step. The exact same wording appears on Turr Phenirr (After you perform an attack, you may perform a free boost or barrel roll action) and obviously that can't occur during the perform action step as that is already over by the time an attack happens. So that demonstrates a free action can occur outside the perform action step and I see no reason why if a free action can happen after the action step that it couldn't happen before the action step. Just because Night Beast's ability triggers before the perform action step does not mean that you wait until that step to do the free action.

On the other hand, I also agree that there is nothing to specifically state that the free action has to take place in the same step as whatever triggered it. So I am in the school that feels like this needs to be clarified by FFG. If I had to bet, I'd say that FFG will say that in cases like this, the free action happens immediately after the trigger resolves ( I feel this way mainly because of Phenirr's abilty-it wouldn't do him much good for getting out of firing arcs if he had to wait), but it is definitely ambiguous enough to need clarification. Has anyone submitted this yet?

EDIT:I don't know why this text is highlighted, but I did not do it on purpose.

I have submitted it this weekend, but of course there is no reply yet ;-)

I finally have "official" word.

Short Version:

No, he doesn'T get it.

Long version: The full mail:

Hello, Christoph!

This ruling makes perfect sense when you break it down by phase, but my initial reaction was the same as Hothie's. I'm glad they got back to you so fast.

Fair enough. Thanks for the clarification. I've been wondering about this. And I'm glad it's going to be on the FAQ.

Yes, glad this was finally cleared up and that it will be FAQ`d. 

Well, I'm definitely going to play "Night Beast" less now. Or at least not have him do many Koiogran turns, if at all.