But if it was confirmed by the staff (I don't know if this is the case), wouldn't that be the opportunity to fix it? I agree with you. Lightning gives your opponent a -6 AND does damage AND is an aro AND is burst 2 active turn. Breakwater having a ZoC/LoF aro requirement doesn't seem too unreasonable.
'Attack' isn't a requirement to trigger Firewall (unless there's something new / I'm missing something): Assuming the Repeater requirements are met, the only other requirement is that the Hacker is performing a Hacking attempt vs a Target/against a hacker. Counterstrike (and Breakwater/Zero Pain) meets this requirement (Allows the user to make a WIP-3 Roll against the attacking Hacker). .
There is a way tu use it: EVO declares breakwater as an ORA when the enemy hacker enters in range IF: (enemy hacker use hacking targeting EVO) Since everything happens at the same time, EVO use Breakwater. ELSE: (enemy hacker makes anything different, for example hacking another unit) Since the conditions aren't matched, it considered as non action.
You can't declare actions that you don't meet the requirements of at the time of declaration, the rules for order expenditure state: "A Skill declaration is not valid if the Requirements for their execution are not met." Note that this language is considerably different for the language where a skill is only found to be invalid when applying it's effects in which case it becomes Null, that is covering a different situation, if the requirements are demonstrably not met at the time of declaration the skill is automatically invalidated and cannot resolve, even if those requirements are met later.
Read the rules for Firewall itself. It mentions Hacking Attack thrice and never "attempt". The rules interpretion is iffy in this game, though, and sometimes definitions aren't all that reliable, so Counterstrike might still qualify as an attack even if it isn't an attack.
So, the RAWest interpretation is if you're using a Repeater to generate a Firewall then it applies to 'attempts' but if it's from any other cause (DHDs/WHDs/Fairy Dust) then it only applies to attacks. Right? /jk TBH I'm not really fussed either way, I'd like a clear answer: I've always applied it to DPs as did Treehouse's old Hacking Guide. I have no issue with buffing DPs slightly. What's the consensus? @Spleen @Teslarod
Well, to be fair, Counterstrike not triggering Firewall would be a very interesting interaction. The target would still get the BTS from Firewall due to being targeted by their own hack, of course.
Did we have this discussion on the old forum? As far as I'm aware Firewalls work as intended. Breakwater does have it's uses, mainly to defend against Hackers in Marker State and with White Hacking Devices/Sixth Sense Hackers. It's simply yet another niche Program with questionable use, but I don't think there is anything particulary wrong with it. CB not adressing this in a FAQ might simply mean they might be testing something that will affect it in the future. Not too long ago Trinity was in the same boat, but with the Shock vs Multiwound NWI change it has enough leverage to stand on it's own - mind you I am not a fan of that particular change, but if nothing else it serves as a cause for the continued existence of Trinity's as it's own program.
Yes, but is Firewall intended to work against Hacking Programs that aren't attacks? Counterstrike is lacking the attack label and if we get an AD3+ HI with the IA release, then the same gets very relevant for knowing whether Hack Transport Aircraft will suffer a further -3 MOD due to Fairy Dust.
Yeah just as you said, no Attack label and the Firewall requires the Hacking Program to be an Attack: In game terms, Firewall imposes an additional -3 MOD to the WIP of the trooper who declared the Hacking Attack. Additionally, Firewall grants the target of the Attack a +3 BTS MOD. Not sure if there even is room to argue that, the rules are pretty obvious here.
You've convinced me of the first argument; but now I don't think this is true. :) Firewall grants the target of the Attack a +3 BTS MOD and Counterstrike doesn't change the target of the attack but rather changes who is affected by it: So it seems to me that you gain no benefit from Firewall if you someone Counterstrikes you.
Sorry, I hid a lot of reasoning behind that. Infinity breaks down completely unless a model that's forced to take an ARM/BTS is not the target of an attack. The key here I think is whether the [Carbonite] attack is considered "the Attack" or whether "the Attack" specifically calls for the enemy hacker in the FtF. My way of reasoning is that it is sufficient to be a target of a hacking attack for Firewall to work, but Firewall is incapable of applying the -3 WIP MOD to the enemy Hacker because they are not performing an attack. It gets a bit weird, but I hope you understand what I mean and can follow the logic.
I don't buy this. Falling and Biotechvore already does this (causes ARM/BTS that does not have a target). Spoiler The only thing that I can think of that it changes is that it means that Criticals with Counterstrike wouldn't automatically cause the effect/wound etc and even then, I'm not certain this is dependant on there being 'a target' or not: will your Critical apply to their attack? I honestly don't know. But even if we assume you are correct: a model hacking through a friendly Repeater can't benefit from Firewall mods by being a target of their own attack because their attack doesn't trigger Firewall MODs (it's not through an enemy Repeater, which is the requirement to trigger Firewall through a Repeater). All you're doing is making them the target of Counterattack which is unaffected by Firewall. This only reverses the problem: a Hacker would benefit from Firewall mods if they were hacking through an enemy Repeater and were successfully Counterattacked. BUT if we go a little further down the rabbit warren: if a HI Hacker with Fairy Dust suffered the effects of their own Hacking Attack then they would get the +3 BTS (the requirement to trigger Firewall from Fairy Dust is 'suffer a Hacking Attack', which would appear to be met even if we don't consider the attacking Hacker to the target of a reflected attack). Which means that there's a circumstance where a model can benefit from Firewall MODs against their own Hacking Attack. But you can distinguish between those cases relatively easily: Repeater firewalls only affect enemy attacks, 'organic' firewalls (Fairy Dust, DHDs/WHDs) affect any attack. I think this is the only interpretation supported by the rules closely read. I would probably prefer either extreme for simplicity: Firewall does not ever provide a benefit against reflected attacks or any Firewall provides a benefit against reflected attacks. Which is what you get if you read the rules loosely (ie Fairy Dust wording is different from DHD/WHD but just treat it the same and treat the 'reflects the Attack' as descriptive rather than intending reflected attacks to be Attacks) and as Firewalls only apply to Hacking Attacks: the effects of Counterstrike aren't due to a Hacking Attack, don't apply Firewall. Simples. And given how often this will come up (maybe slightly more than 'never') I think simple is more important than IAW with the closest reading of the rules possible.
