So there's this entry in the FAQ with respect to fireteams and certain skills, including Forward Observe: And here's Forward Observer: So Forward Observer is a skill, sure, but so is BS Attack itself, and things like Speculative Shot that do apply fireteam bonuses in certain circumstances. It isn't a piece of equipment - it is actually a BS Weapon, as per its own description. The FAQ ruling gives a justification that seems to hold no water; was it something community-sourced that is in error?
This is a dead horse. It's a skill by dictate. The justification kind of holds because the bonuses ties to weapons. Comparing to BS Attack skill is irrelevant because it uses weapons which gain the bonuses.
I would agree with @Hecaton that this FAQ justification is very shaky So it's more a retcon than a FAQ This being said, it's an official rulling so it's the law and there is no real discussion on its validity (and I agree with the logic behind it)
Forward Observer should work like Discover instead, that is be a short Movement skill. This way that FAQ holds, but you still can have a profile and range modifiers.
FO is a skill that does an attack (not BS attack) with a BS weapon, but itself it a short skill ectr ectr ectr. Essentially the above skills interacted in an non desirable way with the fireteam B bonus creating buggy gameplay and had to be FAQed back to their intended interactivity.
So why does it have the 'BS Attack' Label? I've always found the labels and traits very confusing in this game. For example, are all the labels/traits on skills like FO necessary? Short Skill (necessary) Can only combine within the same Order with a Short Movement Skill. Cannot be declared twice or combined with other Short Skills. Attack (necessary) Being attacked is a requirement for many actions. You cannot declare attacks against allies or Neutral units. BS Attack (Not necessary?) This label requires the FO skill to follow all rules regarding the use of BS Attacks? The only relevant one in this case being to divide burst? BS Weapon (Not necessary?) It's NOT a BS Weapon, but the Attack is made with a BS Weapon. Is this an important distinction? The FO skill doesn't indicate what BS Weapon the attack is made with (the assumption is it's the flash pulse?). Fireteam Burst Bonus adds +1 to burst to BS weapons. Minesweeper has the Label 'BS Attack' and the profile has the 'BS Attack' Trait. (Not necessary?) Deactivator has the Label 'BS Attack' and the profile has the 'BS Attack' Trait. (Not necessary?) MedKit has the Label 'traits'... linking to the traits page. (Not necessary?) Discover has the Label 'Movement' (Not necessary?) Are there any other important facts about these I'm missing? 'BS Attack' isn't listed on the Traits page, why is this found in two places for one skill?. Why do these skills have the 'BS Attack' Label at all? Burst has it's own rules on how we must distribute the Burst value. Sadly the Burst rule tells us how it functions in the context of a BS Attack, but i don't think that's necessary. But more importantly, what are the rules telling me to do when something has the 'BS Attack' Label? The only thing the rules say is below. BS Attack. The use of this Special Skill or piece of Equipment is a form of BS Attack. Does this mean I must follow the same rules and requirements of a BS Attack as well as the skills I'm using? Has this ever helped us? Also, why does FO tell us the attack is made with a 'BS Weapon'? What is being gained or what distinction is being made there? How about Discover, what does the 'Movement' Label do for that skill? I feel like the FAQ just adds another level of confusion on top of all this. It adds a new rule that Skills and items of equipment don't benefit from Fireteam burst bonus. Isn't this covered under the fact these items are not BS Weapons? But if the FAQ is meant to clear up the confusion caused by the labels and terms constantly thrown around within the rules... why not fix those instead of adding another layer of complexity? It's almost like the rules were designed with the intention of streamlining them by letting the labels do some of the heavy lifting, but in the end, most rules/skills try to spell out everything by repeating the same things time and time again. If the 'BS Attack' Label is also supposed to mean the skill requires LoF among other things... why does every skill also tell us it requires LoF? TLDR: Argggghhhhh, /table-flip.
Oh I forgot the Label 'Optional' Why do these skills have that label? Aren't they all skills you must declare yourself? Therefore aren't the skills optional by default? We have skills that are labelled Automatic for a reason.
I was going to argue the Discover has the movement label so that you can Discover + Discover (which was recently FAQ'd to be only used against different markers, I think)... but then I looked at Dodge and wondered if I could declare Dodge + Dodge to get burst 2 dodge (not sure why I'd want to do this yet).
Dodge is a Short Skill / ARO while Discover is a Short Movement Skill / ARO. We can't declare 2 Short Skills like Dodge or combine it with other Short skills. I'm still left asking what the 'Movement' label means. I assume it refers to the fact Dodge contains an effect to move 2". But how to do that is explained within the skill.
Derp. Got it in my head that a Short Skill with the movement label was a Short Movement Skill for a sec...
You can Discover-Discover because that's two Short Movement Skills. Dodge-Dodge would be two Short Skills which isn't a valid order declaration.
Which is exactly what these Labels tend to do. I'm curious what they're actually supposed to add from a rules point of view.
Guys... Colors... Blue => Short Movement Skill Green => Short Skill Red => Entire Order Yellow => ARO only
No, they didn't pull the labels off of it in the wiki. By dictate it's... something. What that is is unclear.
I actually think the gameplay it created was interesting and promoted using Forward Observer which would otherwise often be far too order intensive to be useful. The labels doesn't matter. At all. Fireteam bonus applies a bonus to "the Burst (B) value of his BS Weapons" and the Triangulated Fire skill requires the trooper to make an attack with "one of his BS Weapons". Since Forward Observer was ruled to be a skill and not a BS Weapon, the functionality of Fireteams or Triangulated Fire can not be applied because you're using a BS Attack labelled skill and neither any of the trooper's weapons nor any weapons at all for that matter. The skill does, however, provide an actual weapon in Flash Pulse which can receive the bonuses.
