Crab Legs Question

[emeraldmaz]

Ok, we recently acquired this game, and he last time we played we had an issue. One of the players drew the Crab Legs card, which, for those who haven't memorized the cards, reads:
"When programming your registers, you may put a move 1 card in the same register as a rotate left or rotate right card. If you do, during that register your robot will move 1 space to the left or right, respectively, without rotating. Priority is that of the move 1."
This is all well and good, but our issue was that he had 2 or 3 of his registers with the 2 cards stacked, and did not have enough cards to complete his register. So, the question is, do you have to use all your registers, or can your special cards allow you to only have to program a few registers so you can do the special moves? It seemed to some of us that you would hvae to program your entire register, then if you had the cardsto do so, use the special card, but others said different. Please help, were playing again this weekend and I'd like some sort of decision. Thanks!

[chaz56]

There are a number of option cards that allow you to put more than one card in a register. In order to active this "option" you must have the extra cards to do it. So if damage leaves you with only enough cards to fill the registers you cannot activate the power.

[mk31bolo]

OK, first, the card says you MAY place a move 1 with a rotate card. So you don't have to do it if you don't want to. And you MUST fill all of your available registers every programming phase. So if you have four or more points of damage, you won't be able to use crab legs, since all your cards will be needed to fill the available registers.

BTW, I'm unclear on whether you can use crab legs on more than one register per turn, but I've been playing RoboRally since the original edition, so I may just be remembering how the card was in an earlier edition. (Or I could just be nuts. :D )

[WickJick]

my understanding is that you CAN use crablegs ability in as many registers as you would like in any given turn as long as you are also able to fill ALL of your other registers with the normal 1 program card, i.e. if you were only dealt six cards (because you had sustained three damage) you would only be able to use crab legs ability in one register, because you would only have one program card to spare.