As per the CivEvac state, Civilians in CivEvac state trigger AROs. Whether that's an HVT, Xenotech, Rescuee.
Well I must say I feel a bit of schadefreude while seeing all this mess CB put itself into with all those smoke rules/interactions/exploits schanenigas ^^ And we are not even 24h into ITS10 ^^
The G:Sync rule in CivEvac overrides the fact that neutral civilians don't trigger anything. Unfortunately, in CivEvac they force you to react and this can be abused. And this was possible in ITS9 as well. But now you have the fact that this xeno guy starts in your DZ with your MSV2/3 trooper. This can be bad against defensive fireteams and ARO pieces like TR drones which are placed to slow the enemy down. I wonder if we will see that often.
So, do you really happen to roll against a MSV2+Smoke Sniper so often? Smoke -6, Cover -3, add Mimetism, ODD, TO or Range penalties, are you really complaining about not being able to roll a Critical 1 as your only chance of success? Instead of a unmodified PH roll? BTW, bring your own MSV2 to the party. Or do not leave your precious glassware in the open.
Yes, because leaving unlinked MSV2 guy versus Marut/linked Hsien etc. is a good idea ^^ This basicly invalidates usage of linked ML/MSR to slow down the enemy ^^
I don't think the problem will be a MSV guy vs a TR drone. The problem is, that with Xeno+MSV+Smoke a 5man link can be outplayed without any chance to react even though they have SSL2.
Which doesnt do anyhting if you have been forced to dodge against Xenologist. Against normal smoke+MSV2 trick you can ignore -6 while shooting so you have usually higher burst than dodge plus not bad mods (+3 link, +3 (usually) range, -3 enemy cover).
So what? Just because you brought it doesn't mean I can't have ways of going around it. EDIT: If you're talking about using Xenotech on top of MSV2+Smoke, yeah, not going to defend that. Its not the nicest interaction. But just plain MSV2+Smoke, then yes. That's the whole point.
Well the question is if we really want even more power to smoke+MSV trick and general smoke shanenigans ^^ It's funny how MSV2 becomes even less usefull without access to smoke ^^
I'm not sure whether it's worth noting or not but in my view the Civevac actually rules aren't super clear on whether a sync'd civilian provokes an ARO on its own. It just says while sync'd "is activated by the same Order as the Controller, performing the same Skills the Controller declares, and provoking only one ARO from each enemy within LoF or ZoC. ". That one ARO could be read as the one generated by the controller already, with the civilian not generating a further one so there's only one. And I think that reading would have a better gameplay effect. I think it's better if the ability to generate normal roll shot is a special and rare ability at least.
Check wiki: The Controller and the G: Synchronized trooper grant a single ARO to each enemy trooper in LoF or ZoC. Apparently wording is almost same (or it does look like).
Doesn't really change my point IMHO. A Trooper and a Civilian can interact with that same wording in different ways.
If Xenotech is a neutral civilian, can my trooper walk up to a desynced enemy Xenotech and civevac him/her?
Can't you delay your ARO? Well, at least if the attack came from your ZoC. Which is not much, but still something. Imagine all those Maruts shooting full burst HMG from less than 8", now you are saved! http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Sixth_Sense
I would be very interested in having an answer to that. If the answer is yes, it open interesting strategy of killing the xenotech owner and running away with it. By the way, does anything forbid to CivEvac a xenotech already "owned" by someone (friendly or enemy) ?