S&S Enemy Ship Henchman question

[BamPop]

Since the Enemy Ship is a Barrier, can Thieves Tools be used to defeat the Ship it summons?

[csouth154]

No. There is no check to defeat for the Enemy Ship henchman card, itself. It summons a ship that you must defeat.

[BamPop]

To be fair, the Enemy Ship doesn't say "None" under Check to Defeat, it says "See Below." If I weren't defeating the Enemy Ship, I couldn't attempt to close the location, could I? Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I read that as the check to defeat the Enemy Ship is whatever check is on the ship it summons.

[Malcolm_Reynolds]

BamPop wrote:

To be fair, the Enemy Ship doesn't say "None" under Check to Defeat, it says "See Below." If I weren't defeating the Enemy Ship, I couldn't attempt to close the location, could I? Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I read that as the check to defeat the Enemy Ship is whatever check is on the ship it summons.

Summoning a ship begins a new encounter, and the ship's card type is Ship, not Barrier, so you can't use Thieves Tools. After you resolve the Ship encounter you resume the Enemy Ship encounter, which tells you what to do with it whether the summoned ship was defeated or not.

[BamPop]

Or not. I just re-read the card and it says if you defeat the summoned ship, the Enemy Ship is ALSO defeated, so I guess not.

[Dave Riley]

I asked a similar question, just musing, about Blessing of Abadar and Pirate Hunting and was correct. I didn't -really- think it could be used, I just didn't want to miss out on it if I could. :D But if I'd thought to include Thieves Tools in my example I probably would've immediately thought "oh, no, of course not."

Well, technically my question was about Gozreh on a check to defeat a monster to close a location, but same dif!

[csouth154]

BamPop wrote:

To be fair, the Enemy Ship doesn't say "None" under Check to Defeat, it says "See Below." If I weren't defeating the Enemy Ship, I couldn't attempt to close the location, could I? Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I read that as the check to defeat the Enemy Ship is whatever check is on the ship it summons.

Would you be asking if the card summoned a monster as opposed to a ship? Lots of barriers summon monsters, and I don't think I've ever heard someone ask if they could use Thieve's Tools to defeat the summoned monster.

[BamPop]

Well, most barriers summon the monster after a check against the barrier itself. My confusion was cleared up by this discussion and a closer reading of the card.

My initial confusion was from reading it as "you're facing an enemy ship which is a barrier; randomly pick one of the ships out of the box to see which one it is." After reading again and seeing it said, "the Enemy Ship is also defeated," it was clear. I was also playing with my 12 year old son who may be smarter than I am now and is definitely smarter than I was at 12. It was his idea.