1. I activate the link 2. I spend a regular order 3. I declare Move. Alice is the Team Leader, Charlie is out of coherency and drops from the Fireteam, Dave is in coherency. Alice and Dave Move towards Charlie. 4. Bob Dodges in ARO 5. Alice declare a BS Attack vs Bob. Can I cancel the Fireteam and spend a command token to reform the Fireteam with both Alice and Charlie in it at step 3 / anytime prior to step 5? Alice really wants to get the Fireteam bonus when she BS Attacks Bob at step 5.
I think that this leads to some serious logical faults because Charlie will not have been activated by the order.
Yeah. Honestly I don't care about that though, all I want are the sweet sweet bonuses. Also, technically he was activated by the order (at step 1) and then retroactively wasn't (at step 3). So I see no purely logical reason why he can't be retroactively (re)activated. From a gameplay POV though, you could manipulate it to avoid AROs.
I think the simplest solution is that you can't cancel or form Fireteams between the Initial and Final coherency checks. But this isn't what the rules say.
I thought the steps were more like; 1. Activate the link. 2. Check coherency & find Charlie is out of range. 3. Declare Move with those who are left. 4. Etc. Therefore Charlie never activates cos he was never part of the fireteam in the first place? (PS: Although shouldn't he have already left the fireteam following the end-of-order coherency check when they were last activated?)
"In the Active Turn, a player can change the Team Leader by placing the Team Leader Marker next to the Fireteam member he wishes to activate when declaring the first Skill of an Order." "After declaring the Team Leader's first Short Skill or Entire Order the player must perform an Initial Coherency Check to know how many members the Fireteam has." (From Fireteams in the Active Turn) "In the Active Turn, the player must check Coherency at the start of the Order, after having declared the first Short Skill of the Order, or the Entire Order, but before measuring movement, if he has declared any." (From Coherency) So for step 3 this is clearer: 3. I declare Move and that Alice is the Team Leader. The Initial Coherency Check is performed and Charlie is out of coherency and drops from the Fireteam, Dave is in coherency. Alice and Dave Move towards Charlie.
The tricky part of this is how canceling the fireteam mid-order to form a new one interacts. Emphasis mine: In the Active Turn and in the Reactive Turn, a Fireteam is automatically cancelled in the following cases: If the player uses a Command Token to compose another Fireteam of the same type, if that type of Fireteam is exclusive. Dave would retroactively have to have not been activated despite that he was able to move.
It's main point is interesting: but I don't see how that specifically is true. 1. I activate Fireteam 1 (consisting of Alice, Charlie and Dave) 2. I spend a regular order 3. I declare Move and that Alice is the Team Leader. The Initial Coherency Check is performed and Charlie is out of coherency and drops from the Fireteam, Dave is in coherency. Alice and Dave Move towards Charlie. Fireteam 1 now consists of Alice and Dave. 4. Bob AROs 4.5 I use a Command Token to compose a new Fireteam consisting of Alice, Charlie and Dave: Fireteam 2. 5. I declare BS Attack at B5 with Alice's HMG: MODs are worked out based on Fireteam 2, because it's active at this point. Charlie is activated by the order at this point (because prior to this he wasn't, kinda) 6. There are no new AROs. 7. Resolution: MODs are worked out on Fireteam 2, because it's active at this point. Even in the more extreme situation where at 4.5 I compose a new Fireteam that only consists of Alice and Charlie you get this: 1. I activate Fireteam 1 (Alice and Dave) 2. I spend a regular order 3. I declare Move and that Alice is the Team Leader 4. Bob AROs at Dave 4.5 I use a Command Token to compose a new Fireteam consisting of Alice and Charlie (Fireteam 2), I make Charlie the Team Leader. 5. I declare BS Attack at B3 with Charlie's Combi 6. No new AROS 7. Resolution. Bob's attack on Dave and Charlie's attack on Bob are resolved as normal rolls. Troopers activated in that order: Alice, Dave and Charlie. So there's no requirement to retroactively de-activate Dave. However, this logic can lead to extremely degenerate examples where you could theoretically activate 9 troopers which clearly isn't really intended. So yeah, I'm leaning more and more on 'the rules only work if you can't form new Fireteams between Coherency checks'. Which works, but it does mean that you can't go 'oh damn, I fudged that... I'll fix it with a command token'.
Okay, but let's make this simpler. Ignore the Fireteam cancellation. A Fireteam of Wu Ming are upon a Naga who has placed a Monofilament mine, threatening 3 of them and the Clipper. In order to avoid triggering the mine, the fireteam is cencelled and then an order is spent on the member who is not inside the Trigger area. This Wu Ming declares Discover on the mine, and having received no AROs, the Wu Ming declares BS Attack on the mine. So far, everything normal. The Ikari player figures "these odds are a bit shit" and spends a CT to reform the team while the Aleph player is double checking trigger area prior to rolls are made. Ikari claims that since during the first steps of the order sequence the Clipper and the other 3 weren't activated and since they weren't part of the team they never declared skills, the mine can't trigger on them, but he can still gain the +3 Discover, +3 BS and +1 Burst. The Aleph player claims the extra burst was never allocated and that Ikari is a right bastard for attempting this cheese. The Ikari player is happy to hear their promotional fliers have reached unexpected demographics.
Seems legit...* but also bullshit. My tendency (as above) is go 'it's way too hard... just don't do it'. Edit: actually, no. It's not legit. Without an initial coherency check you can't know how many members were in the Fireteam, so how does the Ikari player know it's a 5 person link? The Aleph player would be well within their rights to go 'nah, the other 4 WM are out of coherency, you don't get any bonuses'. This (the fact that you need to do a coherency check before you know who is or is not in a Fireteam) supports the intuitive position I've been running with. You can't form a new Fireteam after declaring the first skill of an order and prior to the Conclusion of an order, as you can't do an Initial Coherency Check to determine who is or is not a member.
Wouldn't that still result in the mine triggering though? 1. Cancel Fireteam, activate wu-ming. 2. I spend a regular order 3. Declare discover 4. Mine attempts to ARO, cannot because the wu-ming is not in the trigger area. 4.5 I use a Command Token to compose a new Fireteam consisting of all members, including those who would be in a trigger area. 5. I declare BS Attack with the wu ming. All members have declared BS attack, it's just only the Wu-Ming leader may perform the rolls. 6. The mine now has an ARO available, because the members of the team declared a skill inside it's trigger area.
Except he's forming the link at 6.5: 1. Cancel Fireteam, activate wu-ming. 2. I spend a regular order 3. Declare discover 4. Mine attempts to ARO, cannot because the wu-ming is not in the trigger area. 5. I declare BS Attack with the wu ming. 6. The mine doesn't trigger because there's no active troopers in it's trigger area. 6.5 I use a Command Token to compose a new Fireteam consisting of all members, including those who would be in a trigger area. 7. MODs are determined (other than Burst MODs which are determined at declaration) My point is that 7. MODs are determined by the number of members of the Fireteam as determined at the Initial Coherency Check. Since the Initial Coherency Check can't have been performed yet you can't determine MODs so this isn't a valid time to have formed a new link.
What inane.imp wrote; however... If I form the Fireteam at 4.5, I am going to declare a Short Skill at 5 on a group of models that are not activated by the order...
Patient: Hey, doc, it hurts if I spend a command token to form a fireteam during an order. Doctor: How dare you question the scope and coverage of the rule wording.
I'm not sure how relevant it is, but Mines don't ARO, they trigger. So at what point is a trooper considered "executing an order or ARO" in order for a mine to trigger?
Yeah. This is one of those situations where CB didn't put in enough detail and thus it's up to the community to make it sane... this is how I'd play it.
I'm fairly certain this... vulnerability?... also existed in HSN2, and it took the community 7 years or something like that to think up this insanity. Sure, needs to be plugged, but... come on!
I've been in situations before where I've done Exile in ARO and my opponent has said "Oh, I break my link halfway through the order then."
I'm a little confused by this. Are they breaking their link and reforming with some other troops and a command token? Because IIRC, you can't simply say, "OK, I've decided that this fireteam is now 2/3/4 members instead of 5."
