Hello! Today's Rules question is as follows: Trooper A is in Engaged state with trooper B, and finally manages to put him in unconscious - thus the engaged state is cancelled in the effects step, as every enemy unit is in null state. In the next turn, Player B heals Trooper B successfully. Neither Trooper A, nor B moved from the initial position of the CC and such, they are touching bases. Are they automatically in engaged state again? Or is there some rule (probably N3 memory fragment) that as soon as the Engage is broken, the trooper moves 1/100000 of an inch to not really be in Silhouette contact. Thank you for your Answers!
Silhouette Contact and Engaged State are two completely different concepts. When the enemy get healed, the Engaged State kicks in again, if the enemy is still in Silhouette Contact
Related to this, I'd like to note an oft-missed line that is new to N4 found in https://infinitythewiki.com/Close_Combat that makes healing/repairing units that are in base contact with an enemy potentially hazardous, or at least annoying to the support personnel. "Any Trooper in Silhouette contact with an Allied Model that is in the Engaged State may only declare CC Attack, Dodge or other related Skills that may be used in CC." Also serves to illustrate the difference between Silhouette contact and Engaged that tox mentions.
If any Trooper A is in silhouette contact with Allied Model B that is Engaged with enemy model C. Then A can only declare CC Attack, Dodge, or other CC usable skills ? If I understand, the verb "is Engaged" has as subject "that" which is a pronoun meaning Allied Model B ? Notably, that would mean that any trooper A that ends his Move still touching allied model B is now stuck in place because it can't declare Move anymore... ? It comes into play when you try to move troopers around to gang up on an enemy. Or does the "that is in the Engaged State" meant to complement "Any Trooper A", not "Allied Model B". In that case what extra rule does it actually adds as we already know that A's skills are restricted if they are in the Engaged State... Or does it only adds that if A is Engaged, and happens to be touching B, he still can't doctor B because A is busy fighting C ?
Rules are supposed to use Oxford commas to avoid this confusion, hence the parse is [an Allied Model that is in the Engaged State] (that is, it is the Ally that is Engaged and not the Doc). Note how if the sentence could be re-ordered without loss of information to "Any Trooper A in Engage state that is in contact with an Allied Trooper B" would make no sense because Engaged state itself would have restrictions on Trooper A. Particularly since the sections is interacting with close combat and not being in close combat :) I wouldn't apply All At Once to this due to how very awkward it gets, so as long as you don't stop a movement in base contact or try to declare something using a position that's in base contact with the ally you shouldn't get stuck. I'd say if the Engaged Ally was meant to halt movement in progress, or further movement declarations in the same order, it'd say that out loud similar to Difficult Terrain.
Ah that second part is what you were getting at. If a doc declared a move (*himself) to touch and back; he can't declare Doc from the position in base contact (only applicable to trying to Doc a non-null model; like Eng a wounded TAG; or Doc an allied in the NWI State or Stun State). *if a servant was to move and back; the doc can still declare and perform a Doc Skill (servants never performs Doc skills, the Doc makes the WIP roll). And the first part is what i was getting at, when moving around with Chimera/Pupniks you have to be careful never to end your Move in Sil contact with another engaged Pupnik or else he'll be stuck there on the next Move. You could use this knowledge defensively too, if you are engaged by 2 pupnik that happen to touch each other, if you manage to dodge and dodge such that you are still engaged with only one pupnik, then the 2nd one won't be able to join the fight anymore. (whereas if you dodged out of all combat, then next order they both could run into you)
