so first I have in fact read the fireteam in ARO rules just to be sure I still needed to ask the question. on page 14 there is a bullet point that says this: "After declaring the Fireteam’s ARO the player must perform an Initial Coherency Check to know how many members the Fireteam has." followed by a different bullet point that says this: "Any members that break Coherency are no longer part of the Fireteam (see Fireteam Integrity, page 15)." here is the scenario in game that causes my question: i had 2 (call them A and B) troopers from a 5 man link within range of an enemy mine. my opponent in active turn activated a trooper so they could see only troop A. I then gained an ARO for troop A. the mine goes off and hits troop B giving troop B an ARO. I decided to shoot with troop A and my question is this. at the time of troop A's activation from ARO he made a shot and at that moment he was part of a 5 man link if you do the coherency check at that declaration stage. troop A's declaration activated the mine and the mine now activates troop B in ARO. if troop B dodges and is kicked out of the link, I think that the coherency check has already happened so even though B is kicked out of the link, the 5 man bonus still applies. basically I think the coherency check happens at the exact step of the first ARO declaration and the fact that new AROs are generated at later steps don't affect that coherency step. am I wrong, am I crazy, am I missing something obvious? thanks for the replies!
I think the "something obvious" you are missing is the separate rules bullet points that you didn't mention: In the Reactive Turn, all the Fireteam members have their own ARO to any Order declared in that member's LoF or ZoC. However, the declared ARO must be the same for all of the reactive members, which is called the Fireteam's ARO. Players must consider the Fireteam's ARO to be the one declared by more than half of the declaring ARO Fireteam members. Consequences for deviating from the Fireteam's ARO can be checked in Fireteam Integrity. Which leads us to: Only in the Reactive Turn, if the trooper declares any type of ARO different from the Fireteam's ARO, the one declared by all the Fireteam members. [it breaks Fireteam Integrity] In your specific scenario I would say B is breaking Fireteam Integrity by declaring a separate ARO from the Fireteam, which immediately renders B no longer eligible for Fireteam bonuses.
my question was about whether A loses fireteam bonuses because of B's aro kicking B out of the link AFTER that initial coherency check that happened on A's ARO.
Ah, I see, that was not clear to me from how you phrased it. I do not think 5 man bonuses would still apply, no. That is the decision you have to weigh when declaring an ARO that is different from the Fireteam ARO. The "Initial Coherency Check" takes place "After declaring the Fireteam's ARO ", meaning after the ARO declaration phase is complete. The ARO declaration phase is not complete if you still have more AROs you're declaring. In essence the mine going off has created a separate phase within your overall ARO phase, but it's still all happening together.
okay, that seems like the cleanest way to look at it so there aren't weird exceptions. one ARO phase, when its over you immediately check coherency right before moving on. thank you!
Given there's no alternative specified timing we can only assume that the cancellation clauses in the fireteam integrity rules trigger as soon as they are determined to have happened. This means as soon as Model B dodges, he has met an integrity clause and thus leaves the fireteam instantly. Consequently we also have to assume the following language from the integrity rules takes effect instantaneously as we are given no other alternative. When one or more members leave the Fireteam, the player must recalculate the number of members to check if a Fireteam Cancellation occurs, or to determine the bonus available to the members during that Order if enough remain to compose a Fireteam. The only reasonable conclusion IMO is that, as soon as B leaves, which happens as soon as he declares his order, you recount the fireteam for A, and what you counted before becomes irrelevant. edit: Slight nitpick but I don't think the way you guys are looking at it is the cleanest way to look at it, it still creates situations where a fireteam can have different reactions against an enemy that moves on his second order (because in this case, there are two distinct ARO phases) but continue to gain the 5 man bonus, I do not believe that is intended within the rules
So, Spleen, you're saying that a fireteam of members 1 through 5; A moves, 1, 2 and 3 gains ARO. 1, 2 shoots, 3 dodges and gets kicked out. A moves, 4 and 5 gains ARO. 4 and 5 dodges and are also kicked out. 4 is leader and fireteam is cancelled.
To be precise, the Fireteam's ARO is defined as the ARO chosen by the majority of the Fireteam; in the case of draws, the owning player chooses which is the Fireteam's ARO. Once decided, any member who doesn't perform this ARO is immediately kicked out of the Fireteam. In your example, if #1 shoot, but #3,#4 dodge, then "Dodge" is the Fireteam's ARO and thus 1&2 are kicked out instead. (Also means the Fireteam's not cancelled BTW). Alternatively, if #1 shoots, #3 dodges, and the others don't ARO, then the player chooses the Fireteam's ARO and hence who's kicked out.
@mightymuffin that is how we play it as well, but I'm trying to get clarity in what @Spleen says to be true. Explore the limitations as it were.
@Mahtamori I think that yes, if I was going by strict RAW what you have outlined is how I would handle it. It does create a weirdness where 3 members are kicked out despite declaring the same thing, but I don't think there's room in the language for delaying the determination of the fireteam's ARO if some members are AROing after the first short skill, and I think there's significant evidence that you are meant to remove models from the fireteam before getting to the conclusion phase of the order. I would consider that perhaps for practicalities sake you should wait until the end of declarations to decide majority and kick models out then, either way I still believe the "when one or more members leaves the fireteam" language prompts you to recalculate mods before dice are rolled, so coming back to the root of the thread, regardless of how you time determining majority ARO, I think it's part of one of the declare ARO steps and thus no, you cannot claim that because you found your fireteam was full earlier in the order ignore that it now is not.
@Spleen I see what you mean, and I'm coming to agree with that it is the RAW. It's one of those situations where it's sort of counter-intuitive and it's easy to simply forget how you played it or how you're supposed to play it and simply go for the intuitive approach the few times per year it comes up. I'd make a minor addendum to my sequencing up there, however, since the declaration in the first ARO opportunity doesn't go away, the two figures declaring BS Attack would get kicked out when the total number of figures declaring Dodge has reached three. I do remember that we hashed this out in the rules forums maybe a year ago; Sixth Sense is a weird one, it can not be lost in a simple manner. Declarations that depend on Sixth Sense must remain since facing is a restriction on declaration and not a requirement (so if 5 members of a Fireteam is shot in the back, two members shoot back and the remaining three dodges due to Total cover 'cause of the first 2 members - the two shooters would still be allowed to shoot back, their burst drops to 1, but they don't get to ignore the BS MOD from Smoke since SSL2 is now gone)
