Ran into this situation just now: Sierra Dronbot moves to attack Guilang Skirmisher. A friendly Locust is very close to the Dronbot's line of fire... Normally the Skirmisher would NOT be able to target the Locust, since it can only ARO against the figure that activated. However, it is equipped with a Boarding Shotgun. If the Dronbot was conceivably in range of the template, obviously the Skirmisher could shoot at the Dronbot and hit both the Dronbot and, incidentally, the Locust. However, since the Dronbot is clearly out of range without evening needing to see the template on the table, is this a legitimate shot (e.g. claiming that the Dronbot was the target without any intention of actually hitting it)? Or does the attack automatically miss all targets because the "intended" target is not within the blast focus?
The general rule in past editions has been that if a template cannot be placed so that it touches the primary target, it is canceled.
To give you a more concrete answer than vaguely waving my hands about past editions - one of the requirements for an ARO is that you must target the active trooper. However, if the template cannot reach the active troop (as in your example), the ARO was invalid and therefore is canceled. It's no different than firing any other (non-template) BS weapon Locust, even though the REM was active.
