Move+(engaged)CC and ARO

If you choose to BS Attack someone at a position when they weren't in the Engaged state you do not take the -6

 

The Move skill and the BS Attack skill.

 

It's a "warning" text at the beginning of the rulebook, easily missed but widely known accross the community:

N4 v2 p20: "Even if declared one after the other, both Skills in a single Order are performed
simultaneously. For example, if you declare Move plus BS Attack, (the Short
Skill that Troopers use to fire their weapons), you can make the BS Attack at
any point during the declared movement route, and not necessarily at the end
of that route."​

You can then choose a point where the unit isn't engaged in CC.

 

The Activation phase is step one of the Order Expenditure sequence, the one labeled "Activation" when the active player declares which trooper will activate.

 

Look at page 38, where it has the example of a trooper moving up to a corner, and then back away from it, and the trooper shoots from and receives fire at the corner. Look at the cover rules and note: "If the target is in Total Cover, the attacker may not perform a BS Attack with Weapons, Special Skills, or Equipment, that requires LoF."

The first trooper starts in total cover, moves to the corner, and ends in total cover. The two troopers are declaring BS Attacks at the point where the total cover rule doesn't apply.

This doesn't mean what you seem to think it means. All this paragraph is doing is providing an explanation for why BS Attack vs. CC Attack or whatever is face-to-face regardless of who declares what first.

 

Following the order expenditure sequence would seem to indicate the common practice of aro BS vs a model moving into contact is not legal.

We shall assume an open plain as the actual battlefield and models in question do not matter for this, we shall assume that our active model (model A) is within its first move characteristic of the reactive model (model B) and we can step through the steps of an order.

1. Activation.
1.1. Order Expenditure. The Active Player removes from the table, or otherwise marks as spent, the Order he uses to activate the Trooper.

Nothing to see here, as this is straight forward

1.2. Declaration of the First Skill. The Active Player declares the first Short Skill of the Order, or the Entire Order, he wants to use. If movements are declared, the player measures where the Trooper can move and places the Trooper at the final point of its movement.

Emphasis added where relevant for our order sequence, so we know the model in question must be able to declare the chosen skill at this point in the order declaration, this is the first check for the "legality" of our actions. In this case on an open field with no effects in play there is nothing which prevents the declaration of the move skill. If for example model A was in the immobilized-A state you could not declare a move as the only skills it could perform are the Dodge skill.
Next and also emphasized is the fact that we move our model as part of this first declaration step. This is important because after moving our model model A and model B are now in the Engaged State
2. Reactive Player’s AROs

2.1. ARO Check. The Reactive Player checks if they are allowed to declare AROs with their Troopers. Players can check from the Active Trooper if any Trooper or Game Element is inside the Zone of Control (ZoC) of the Active Trooper.
Model B now checks if it can ARO, this is again straight forward and model B is granted an ARO

2.2. ARO Declaration. The Reactive Player declares the AROs of those Troopers that are allowed to declare one. Troopers are not forced to declare AROs, but if a Trooper can declare an ARO and fails to do so, the chance to declare an ARO is lost.

Again Emphasis added, much like before Model B is limited by the actions dictated by any game states it may be in. In this case the Engaged State says that it is limited to "Troopers in this State can only declare CC Attack, Dodge, Idle, Reset, and Skills that specify that they can be used in Close Combat or in Engaged State."
3. Declaration of the Second Skill. The Active Player declares the second Short Skill of the Order, if applicable. If movements are declared, the player measures where the Trooper can move, chooses the route, and places the Trooper at the final point of its movement.
Again Emphasis added, much like before Model B is limited by the actions dictated by any game states it may be in. I may sound like a broken record at this point, but it is relevant to remember model A is also restricted by its game state and thus would also be restricted by the skills available while in the Engaged State

4. Reactive Player’s AROs
5. Resolution: Check that the declared Skills and pieces of Equipment meet their respective Requirements, measure all distances, determine MODs, and both players make Rolls. If any Skill or piece of Equipment doesn’t meet its Requirements, the Trooper performs an Idle.



The most relevant part here is that the order declaration must adhere too any restrictions at the time of declaration, because the movement is performed as part of the first skill declaration in our example, the new state gained as a consequence impacts all other declarations in that order activation sequence.

If Model A wished to shoot on its way into CC for some reason, as shown above it can not declare a shoot as its second skill because it is limited by the engaged state. Instead the order sequence would be as follows (abbreviated for space)
it could declare BS Attack as its first skill as there is no restrictions on its action at that time,
then Model B can also declare BS Attack as an ARO as its declarations are not restricted,
Model A then could move into contact
during the resolution step each skill checks its requirements, most important for the 2 BS Attacks declared each model was "Not be in Engaged State during the Activation phase of that Order." i.e. at step 1.


The above is rules as written, the text from page 21 only refers to the performance of the skills i.e. choosing where in the actions Skills take place but does not remove restrictions for when skills can be declared.

 

I'll be quoting Wiki rules here as I don't believe the relevant rules have been altered in v2 of the rules and accessing v2 rules is difficult as is properly copy-pasting from them.

https://infinitythewiki.com/BS_Attack
Requirements
Not be in Engaged State during the Activation phase of that Order.

https://infinitythewiki.com/Trooper_Activation#All_at_Once
For example, if an activated Trooper declares Move + BS Attack and chooses to shoot from its starting position (to take advantage of a favorable Range), and its target reacts with a BS Attack, choosing to shoot at the end of the Movement (again, for Range purposes), then both actions are still considered to be simultaneous for all game purposes.

https://infinitythewiki.com/Close_Combat#Examples
Step 4

Measurements for the BS Attack are made and the dice are rolled. Face to Face Roll:

Active Player: 2 Dice in CC.

Reactive Player: 1 Die in BS.

As we can see, we are told by the rules declaring BS Attack in response to a trooper moving into melee is possible, both in rules and in examples.

 

IMHO this reading of the rules is wrong and forgets the paragraph just above
"All at Once
In Infinity, Orders and AROs are simultaneous regardless of the Skills declared."

the "order expenditure sequence" is a decomposition of the activation to represent this "All at Once" concept.

Thus, moving the figure when declaring the first move skill does not mean that the movement is performed before the rest but just allows the opponent to know the path and "the final point of its movement" in order to know who can declare an ARO. The move skill like the rest of the skills is effective during the resolution (step 5)

 

I quoted the second passage that was explanatory because it was more relevant to the interpretation mistake that Crazedloon did.

The movement rules literally states that the movement takes effect immediately. That's not a rules interpretation mistake and All At Once will ensure that the movement trajectory "sticks around" until the end of the order. The mistake is allowing All At Once to extend the Engaged State beyond the position that is in base contact.

 

Sorry if I’m late to party here but had this yesterday where the question was asked:

active model declares short move that engages them with an enemy model.

reactive model declares bs attack as ARO.

active model declares Cc attack as 2nd short skill.

this seems legal to me because:

requirements of declared skills are checked at the resolution stage of order expenditure, not at the time of declaration.

additionally from the wiki:

Skills can only be declared from a position that the Trooper has already been in or moved through during the current Order. Therefore the Active Trooper cannot declare a Skill from a position they have not reached yet.​

This is the restriction on skills declaration:

where did the active trooper start? Where did they pass through? Where did they finish?

so an ARO checks the requirements of their declared skill based on where the active trooper has already been in or moved through.

hows that sound?

 

Assuming the reactive model gets LoF to the active model before it enters silhouette contact, It is legal.

 

This is legal only if the reactive model has LoF to any point of the movement BEFORE the engagement take place.

 

By similar logic, how wrong am I in this scenario:

active hacker has a KHD & has a high CC. Their 1st short skill declaration is to move from total cover to silhouette contact with reactive hacker.

Reactive hacker gets to declare an ARO, their options include; CC attack, BS attack (because they were facing where active hacker left total cover), dodge & reset.

if reactive chooses dodge, then active can choose trinity. If reactive chooses reset, then active can choose CC attack.

In both those cases the active hackers 2nd skill is unopposed.

So reactive hackers best choices are cc attack, bs attack or a hacking aro as all of those would be face to face rolls?

 

Dodge and Reset are the worst ARO to declare in that case...

CC Attack? FtF to any kind of attack incoming.
BS Attack? FtF to any kind of attack incoming.
Hacking Attack? FtF to any kind of attack incoming.

 

What @tox said.