TAG pilots and inhereting game state effects

It would be useful to konw an answer to this that is definite, since some states are a little "hard to believe" they carry over (like being flash pulsed), others are nil (you can't overlord a TAG whitout a pilot, for example) and others have certain logic to carry over (like the aforementioned isolated).

 

Unconscious on a Manned TAG is also interesting since Manned doesn't contain rules for avoiding the Pilot also being Unconscious, but does let you spend orders on the Pilot. Would that mean that the Pilot may receive orders while Unconscious?

 

On this one, I always assumed that when a manned TAG is Unconscious it's the pilot who is KO, but yeah, a complete answer would be great :S

 

So from Manned:

• This Special Skill allows the user to receive Orders from its Order Pool despite being Unconscious. These Orders can only be used to Dismount the Pilot (see General Movement rules, Move), and use the Pilot's Troop Profile

To me that seems to say in that specific scenario (a TAG is unconscious, the pilot is conscious, and the pilot is in the TAG), an unconscious TAG can receive an order to allow the pilot to dismount. Once the pilot is on the table, it's legal to spend orders on it because it is a friendly trooper not in a null state. Once is goes into unconscious, the previously listed specific scenario doesn't apply, so you treat it like any other null state trooper and it can't receive orders.

 

The TAG profile and the Pilot profile are alternate profiles of the same trooper. The only reason you can spend Orders on the Pilot while the TAG is Unconscious is because the rules explicitly specify that to be the case. In this sense, all states DO carry over, but we can ignore the Unconscious state because we're told to.

 

We aren't told to ignore the Unconscious state. We're told we can spend orders on the TAG to dismount the pilot inspite of it being in Unconscious state. That's not the same as stating the Pilot isn't also Unconscious when dismounted, nor is it the same as stating that the Pilot is not Unconscious.

As for the initial discussion on the topic of ITS 8's new Remote Pilot rule;

Interpreting states as carrying over between two different models is problematic. I hold that the only sane way to interpret it is that it is Isolated affecting both that is the divergent reading, the exception. This is a necessary interpretation since the rules don't treat the Pilot as an entity of its own - the Pilot is not the one generating orders - so if the TAG gets Isolated the rules have to handle what happens to the TAG's accessory.

Also, reading the examples in ITS 8, I see that the rules make no references what so ever for the TAG becoming Isolated if the Remote Pilot gets Isolated, but rather just notes that you can spend orders/ARO to attempt a Reset to cancel the TAG's Locked state. No mention of the TAG being Isolated. Same goes for if the Remote Pilot enters the Dead state - just says that the TAG can attempt Reset in order to cancel Locked state.

Come think of it, if states actually did replicate between Pilot and TAG, you'd not need rules telling you to remove the Pilot if the TAG enters Dead state.

No, states persisting between TAG and Pilot does not hold up to inspection and would require some pretty damned heavy clarification to do so.

 

From a “more interesting gameplay” perspective I like the idea of a TAG pilot getting out and using their gun to shoot the guy who just shined that laser in his machines sensor array.

But that isn’t a rules argument so...

 

The FAQ states that if your TAG is the Datatracker, the Remote Pilot is aswell, and when I asked Hellois (using the forum) what would happen if the dismounted Remote Pilot was destroyed to the Datatracker "selection", he clarified that the TAG would recover it after the successful reset.

Mind you, I just say this for the sake of completeness, I doubt "Datatracker" is a state, and in this case the reasoning would be "the consciousness controlling the TAG is the datratracker".

 

@xagroth I fully understand. TAG rules are sort of backwards.
"It's the car that drives the vehicle, the chauffeur is just an accessory and if the car has its tyres punctured the chauffeur will be unable to walk. Electric cars don't need a chauffeur to drive but gets real hard to start if the chauffeur were to die. Also, if the car is ever totalled, the chauffeur will disappear and never be seen again"

 

A quick side question: General movement rules suggest that when I Dismount (and when I mount as well), I activate a Pilot directly, so TAG does not activate and can serve as a big LoF block allowing its pilot to do his stuff with total impunity while staying behind it unless someone sees him from the opposite direction as well.

Manned rules (as quoted above) state that I spend the order on Unconscious TAG itself. What is a correct way to play this?

Extra question because I'm lazy: can I do the same with a biker, if I declare Dismount and state that the following move is being done Prone to fit reliably behind S4 marker? Do markers like that even block LoF?

 

Here's how I understand it:

• Mounting and dismounting a bike is no different from a TAG, they use the same rule.
• When you spend an order on the trooper to mount or dismount, the rules state you use the new profile for the entire order, meaning that it's actually irrelevant whether it's the TAG or the pilot that the order is formally spent on. Formally, I guess, you spend the order on the TAG when dismounting and on the pilot when mounting, though "for the entire order" will shield the initial model from AROs.
  
• A pilot that leaves its vehicle has not yet had an opportunity to declare a Short Move Skill in order to enter the Prone state, so you could immediately declare prone but this won't shield the biker from ARO if the initial placement is not in Total Cover - just like a trooper that's activated while standing behind a chest-high wall won't escape all ARO by declaring Prone as the first Move.

Since the rules on dismounting are so barebones, the last bullet point I am less certain about.

 

@Mahtamori
I'm afraid I still need some clarifications, although reading those rules explained a lot to me.
Basically, when I'm declaring Move and going Prone, accordingly to rules trooper begins its Short Movement Skill Move alredy in Prone state. What stops models from ducking windows they begin their turn in contact with is the fact that activation itself generates ARO (by basic ARO rules Activation itself is a basis to generate an ARO), and they are standing tall when they are activated.

So the question is the following: if we declare dismounting as a part of our first Short Movement Skill, does our pilot really make that activation "ping"? After all, it is only placed on table after we Dismount as a part of movement, unlike the example with waist-high fences. Apparently the "old model" (TAG/bike) doesn't, but does that mean the pilot cannot be ARO'd against before his movement starts (and by that time he's Prone)?

By this logic I see that these 2 cases (hiding behind 4 mm fence and dismounting) are actually dissimilar. Am I missing something?

 

I'm told that slightly over 3 years ago, the Swedish Infinity Facebook was a veritable shit-storm over this topic, specifically.

And that's why I'm uncertain. I think by necessity of movement being executed immediately in Infinity (as opposed to everything else that's resolved simultaneously and later), then yes it does make that ping.

What makes me uncertain is whether you can declare dismount and prone at the same time without making it sequential. Let's wait for IJW or other more articulate individual?

 

I'm not sure here, to be honest. My understanding is that activation and movement are different events for the purpose of ARO generation since they fall under different clauses allowing you to ARO against a model, which is consistent throughout rules IIRC. They both still are parts of "everything is simultaneous" space-time mumbo-jumbo that exists within a single order sequence and which you declare ARO against.

Hm, I don't see why not.
Basically, in my mind it is like this:
You Activate the Pilot and immediately Move him declaring both Dismount and Prone as parts of your first Short Skill. Activation and said movement are basically simultaneous and both equally provide grounds to declare ARO... However, in this case the initial position of the model is not on the table and thus cannot be drawn LoF to / be in ZoC. The following ARO declaration must work with everything else - which is SMS Move trajectory/profile.

It seems to me that nothing breaks the "all at once" rule here. Except that one infinitely small part of pilot's movement isn't registered by units trying to ARO (not uncommon in general for different reasons, like gaining/losing LoF or ZoC contact "during" enemy movement - you don't always have that contact to all points of movement).

At least this is no more sequential than standing during activation then moving Prone, which nobody seems to have problems with these days.

Then again, I can't claim I have accounted for every possible rule there is.

 

Cat/pigeons.

Hacking affects the trooper not the profile. Both the Pilot and the TAG are the same trooper. If I Carbonite a manned TAG who's Pilot has gone walkabouts, what happens to the Pilot?

 

Hehe tags are such a mess.
Here is a fun one.
I declare an idle for the first short in my tag. A Swissguard pops out of HD to ARO me, I then declare a move/dismount to full cover as my second. The Swisguards ARO is now illegal.

 

I'd love to get @ijw's take on this. I believe we concluded that you could not Move with the TAG, then move/dismount with the pilot in the same order... but I'm not sure that same logic would hold here. The game doesn't seem to break nearly as hard in this case, but the only way this "exploit" would work is if you knew they had an HD guy and idled to try to provoke the ARO, at which point the reactive player could just decline the ARO because they know the TAG owner can just dismount. I guess the worst abuse would be from idling, taking a whole mess of AROs, but then dismounting and moving into total cover with the pilot.

That is... if it even works that way.

 

I would call the arbiter and lodge a protest for malicious abuse of the rules and ungentlemanly behavior if my opponent declares such a confusing order. If you want to dismount, but do it as the second short order with the first being an Idle, and do not precise that the TAG is not generating ARO, his only objective is to trick me into revealing a Hidden Deployment troop. If it is during a friendly match, I would laugh, tell him how inappropiate that behavior is, and leave it at that, and if he insist, well, he just lost a playing partner.

No, when you dismount the TAG, the Pilot is the target; if he is now in total cover due to silhouette variation...