@Marduck is describing a very casual style of moving that hasn't got a basis in the rules but always ends up happening when people hurry or when they already know what LOF they will cross for the next handful of moves. For instance if it's turn three and at the start of the turn me and the other player have worked out I'm not going to cross any LOF on the way to an objective, I will probably just say "move-move towards the objective", whip out the tape measure and move my model 4 inches closer to the objective twice. If I am playing against a sectorial with no TO, I might just move the whole 8 in one go if I know the LOF. I know it's not the rules but I wouldn't expect to have to justify playing like that to a judge, there's never been a problem with it and I've never met a player who's not guilty of it. >In b4 "Aha! A number of Pro-intenters confess to not playing by the rules!"
If line of fire is open information to any point of the table, then the result of the fast and intuitive way vs the way described in the rules is pretty much the same, but if it's the more restrictive version then it means you need to eyeball the move, perform the move(measure) , then your opponent declares ARO on your movement path, and at which point you receive the AROs ie in cover in what they think is a better range for them vs out in the open at a worse range etc. The point about when the ARO is fired still stands if you declared the move with knowledge of line of fire though, so it's not a point for or against intent or declared play. In intent/open lof it's important to describe the movement path before you declare so your opponent can let you know that it crosses a line of fire and you can decide what you want to do. In declared/restricted lof it's important because you might move to the wrong place, triggering AROs you didn't forsee(the much maligned 'gotcha') and have to adjust your plans accordingly for the second short skill. Either way you should be declaring the whole path as far as you can, which point you enter cover etc which side of a pillar you moved on and so on. Very rarely will you ever need to describe the situation in full detail, but you need to describe it in as much detail as is necessary.
Well that's a question of how you define variant really. Is ITS the default, or a variant since it's not in the book? What about limited insertion? 20x20, YAMS, recon etc... And that's before we get to house rules, gentlemens agreements and the leeway you give to newer players while teaching the game. Some people want changes to the game for realism, some want perfect balance at all times. Some want a simpler version of the more involved rules, some prefer the complexity and nuance offered by a variety of different options. If you want to play in an ITS game and register the results on the ITS database etc, then it's important that everyone is aware of the rules for ITS and there is as little variation as possible, but if it's your own house, club, or group that decide "hey let's do x instead of y so we can play the game in 90 minutes instead of 2 hours" then as long as everyone knows that technically the rules say y not x and you might have to do y or even z at an event hosted by another group, that's fine.
If people are being loose with the rules, or extra-courteous, or extremely generous in the application of the rules - as long as we know what the rules are, and are acknowledging them to one another, that's not the same thing as creating a variant of the game per se. The 'rules as written'/'play it as it lies' style only requires a straightforward reading of the rules, and the 'play by intent' style requires a very particular interpretation of the rules, but however you want to argue about all that, we have our two basic variants. Then 'pre-measuring' (say the simplest definition of using a ruler to prematurely discover (before Step 7 in Order Sequence) object or unit distances, weapon ranges, zones of control, etc) isn't necessarily acceptable to either faction as a part of their style, so that's a third variant. Then 'takebacks' are not so much a variant as a courtesy for whatever other style you're playing - by definition, you're taking back a move that was played in whatever style you were playing. But if people are required to give takebacks, or rules are being built around takebacks without clearly distinguishing it as purely a courtesy, then it's another variant. You could probably describe most styles I've seen or heard of in terms of those four as basic variants; but maybe there are more?
its hardly a variant. the relative information is that there is no LOF to marducks pathway, theres no point in wasting peoples times moving 4, asking for ARO, moving 4. if you and your opponent agree that nothing can see that specialist as it runs for the console because everythings dea, then Move-move 8, 8, button push and just get the flip on with it
Checking all possible Lines of Fire for all figures and Markers on the table can be cumbersome. It is perfectly acceptable for a player to ask their opponent whether existing Lines of Fire could disrupt the declaration of a given Order before declaring it. Players are expected to share this Open Information in a truthful and sportsmanlike manner. Honesty and fair play are conducive to a better gaming atmosphere, and all players benefit from that. Seems like a straightforwards reading of the rules to the vast majority of players. Furthermore, you've demonstrated time and time again that you play with intent. "I eyeball the situation, and then put my fingernail on the tabletop where I think the model should go. Since model poses can make it difficult to represent Facing and positioning against cover (Pan O Seraph FTW!) I'll say something about that, too. And for the sake of courtesy, I try to keep my fingernail in place, avoid any micro-adjustment, and aim to put the model down fairly where I indicated." the first bold part is no different to a laser line and expressly against Storms argument about knowing the exact final position of the model The second is intent, no ifs or buts, the model is where the model is and you've described your intent.
Variant as in. not playing the same way like the other groups in some details, minor or major. Please do not start the argument again.
That probably comes from speeding up the game as you get more familiar with it through playing it a lot and often, especially compared to groups that dont play as often
Daboarder - that's my observation too. Having learned the game along with several new players over the last 8-12 months, it's pretty visible in retrospect that as time passed and we became more comfortable with the rules, we all adopted those time-saving measures. When both players are familiar enough with the execution of the game, it feels natural (or at least, felt natural to us) to skip past the elements that all of us knew the others could do by hand and eyeball (i.e. pie slicing), but which took time, and instead adopt what most people would call a play by intent mentality. (When a new player turns up and is learning, we tend to dial back to manual execution. It's necessary so that the new players actually learn the fundamentals, but is much more time consuming.)
Interestingly id suggest that there arent many. What marduck has proposed is similar to what ive seen other veteran groups play across the otherside of the planet. Id imagine its the logical conclusion of a cooperative game like infintiy. I mean why get antsy about your opponents doing what they are going to do anyway, with or without your help? Honestly even LOF being closed info wont change more than the time this takes, because the good players will always get what they want. If its not fughting straight on they'll just change the angle, spend the move and shoot you anyway. You still arent getting multiple AROs lol
In more isolated groups I expect you'd see a lot of small variances. Infinity has a lot of little complexities that come up only once every dozen or hundred games and which you can't necessarily intuit the RAW answer to. I'm sure a lot of people have run into those 'oh we played this wrong for ages' nuances. So, yeah. I'd expect high variability on the fringes, but with the core experience basically consistent across most groups.
They are not variant play-styles, because multiple methods of resolving an order are likely to occur in the same game (or even the same turn) depending on the complexity of the expected of interaction between active and reactive places during an order, and the degree of cooperation between players. Q: What does playing like this have to do with intent and the question of the thread? A: An open, agreeable and cooperative attitude to discussing existing Lines of Fire and potential Lines of Fire prior to declaration is more likely to result in players merging steps (like declaring an intended location and moving the model there) resulting in faster play without affecting the outcome of the game. Q: What does that have to do with "takebacks"? A: If both agree that it is mandatory for both players to know all exiting and potential lines of fire, when an active trooper gains LOF to a model or marker on the table that the controlling player was not expecting after declaring his moves, then the players agree that a mandatory rule has been violated, and the correct and most agreeable recourse is usually to revert the game to just before the order were declared. I think most players do not feel like they deserve to declare an ARO under these circumstances. An even more extreme example this philosophy is when an active player deliberately gains LOF to a far away model, only to learn that it has far better equipment than the active player was expecting. Unless concealed by holoprojectors or a marker state, it was mandatory for the active player to know what that reactive trooper had. Most of us know we are fallible and could be on either side of it, we don't want to remember games that were swung because we did not make our open information known or because we did not learn all the open information for whatever reason. We want them to swing on dice, lists and the contest of our informed strategies. Either way, when the mandatory requirement for a troopers loadout to be communicated is not met (it almost never is), and this is about to have an effect on the game, the correct and most agreeable recourse is usually to revert the game to just before the order is declared. Honestly I can't see how either example is bad for the game. Simply calling it a "takeback" is a slur, not an argument.
This is factually incorrect. Saying it a bunch of times doesn't make it true. Plenty of people have pointed out that this makes targetless weapons and AROing out of hidden deployment nonfunctional; the fact that you have ignored these strong arguments against your position just shows that you don't really understand the situation.
Guys you realise this argument can go either way so please wait for an official clarification on the subject.
There's enough other things that I've been waiting years for official clarification on that I'm not exactly confident the company that mocks our desire for FAQs openly will deliver. In the meantime I'm playing at cross-meta tournament in 5 days time and the community needs ways to resolve this. I'm not trying to have a go at you Storm, I know such a thing is entirely beyond your control, but the FAQ process hasn't exactly instilled faith that we'll have an answer soon, in fact it's not even the first time this debate has blown up in a big way, if 20 pages in 2015 wasn't enough I'm not sure why we should really expect a hasty resolution.
We need an entire re-write of the rules. Don't change anything, especially not anything major, but just making them clear and ironing out all these little discrepancies would do a world of good.
