Hello! In my game yesterday, my Soldier A was firing at Soldier X at 22" range. Soldier X elected to fire a flamethrower hitting my far closer Soldier B with the template, but not Soldier A, as it was outside the flamethrower range. It seemed a bit odd to me at the time, but I let it slide without argument as it ultimately wouldn't affect the match result. Was this legal?
No, if the template does not reach the trooper it was attacking, it has no effect, even if other troops were in the way: http://infinitythewiki.com/en/Template_Weapons_and_Equipment See FAQ: Q: What happens when a Direct Template Weapon in ARO misses the target because it’s out of range? Does it affect the other troops inside the Template or does it get cancelled? A: The Attack is cancelled.
Exactly. Direct Templates must have the model you are AROing to under the template to be a valid declaration.
Not quite. It's a valid declaration, it just fails at resolution and the attack gets cancelled per the FAQ.
I've always been under the impression that it failed at Declaration because that's when you place the template to determine what is hit. So the first time you realise that the attack won't hit its target is during the ARO step, at which point you fulfil all the criteria of the FAQ. That being said, I see no reason why you're wrong. Having it fail at either Resolution or Effects (it doesn't really matter which) would bring it in line with either the BS Attack Resolution (automatically fails due out of range) or Order Expenditure Sequence rules (requirements not met, considered null), respectively. The reason this is significant is that BS Attack + Move can be used to force a reaction other than DTW in situations where you're outside DTW range but want it to move into DTW range. Being able to declare DTW on the assumption that your opponent wants to move into the template area prevents that. This is relatively edge case though, so it's not really a big issue. The other reason it matters is because if the attack is cancelled at Declaration then it won't trigger Dodges whereas if it were cancelled at Resolution it would (for instance in a situation where the template hits a closer trooper that is out of LOF but fails to hit the further, valid target).
This scenario has all of the hallmarks of “declare an action and hope it becomes valid later.” If that doesn’t work for regular BS Attacks, it shouldn’t work for template weapons.
