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Discover + shoot not permitted against an impersonation marker

Discussion in '[Archived]: N3 Rules' started by QueensGambit, Feb 12, 2020.

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  1. the huanglong

    the huanglong Well-Known Member

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    Is it worth making a survey on how people have been playing it?
     
  2. Dragonstriker

    Dragonstriker That wizard came from the moon.

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    No, it will only inflame things. It’ll be intent all over again.
     
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  3. CaptainVenge

    CaptainVenge Frog with Light Rocket Launcher

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    Situation:
    Model A (active player) sees Model B (reactive player) which is in IMP state and declares Discover.
    Model B declares ARO - shoot Model A.
    Can Model A declare Shoot if it previously tried to Discover?
     
  4. ijw

    ijw Ian Wood aka the Wargaming Trader. Rules & Wiki
    Infinity Rules Staff Warcor

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    That I haven’t made an arbitrary ‘ruling’ to change the game (which is what some of the replies here appear to be implying), I’m pointing out what the rules say.

    That’s definitely not been my intention. To be honest, I wasn’t aware that this was such a controversial way of reading the rule.

    You can’t declare Attacks on IMP markers, period. Whether that’s via Intuitive Attack, Discover-BS Attack, or hitting a nearby enemy with a template and catching the IMP marker. The IMP State rules don’t contain the exceptions that allow this for Camo/TO Camo States.
     
  5. ijw

    ijw Ian Wood aka the Wargaming Trader. Rules & Wiki
    Infinity Rules Staff Warcor

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    As soon as Impersonator B declared their ARO, they revealed themselves, and no special manoeuvre is needed to shoot an enemy Trooper that is not in a marker state.
     
  6. spears

    spears Well-Known Member

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    So as a follow up does this mean that an impersonation marker cannot force a change facing aro by dropping stealth?
     
  7. ijw

    ijw Ian Wood aka the Wargaming Trader. Rules & Wiki
    Infinity Rules Staff Warcor

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    Marker states like Camo or IMP can never force Change Facing AROs, because the Reactive Trooper can simply delay.
     
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  8. spears

    spears Well-Known Member

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    Sorry I remembered where I was going with this:

    A trooper owned by the Reactive Player can declare an ARO if any of the following is true:

    • It has Line of Fire (LoF) to a trooper being activated by the Active Player.
    • An enemy trooper activates within its Zone of Control (ZC).
    • It has a Special Skill or piece of Equipment allowing reaction to enemy actions without LoF.

    Do any of the above scenarios apply to a impersonation marker outside of LoF? If imp marker is friendly it only generates an aro if in LoF so you cant delay.

    Functionally it rarely matters I suppose unless you are mixing in another active trooper somehow.
     
    #28 spears, Feb 13, 2020
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2020
  9. daszul

    daszul Well-Known Member

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    I think the distinction is between "enemy" and "enemy trooper (benefiting from any of the Impersonation states)".
    Biometric Visor talks about the later.
    Discover + BS Attack only talks about "enemy", as which an IMP-Marker does not count.

    But @Mahtamori is right, the wording for Sixth Sense is just "enemy" as well, which would result in not being able to Delay vs am IMP-Marker with Sixth Sense, just with the Delay rules from IMP-Marker. (With Sixth Sense the ARO would not be lost if the Marker does not reveal, as it is with delaying because of Marker state).
     
  10. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    Oh, "ruled" doesn't mean "made up." It means "considered the question and came to a definitive conclusion." It doesn't imply that the conclusion was arbitrary. The word is neutral as to whether I think the conclusion was the right conclusion. Because it doesn't matter what I think - the ruling is by definition the way to play unless overturned by a FAQ or @Hellois.

    I do think this ruling changes the way many of us have been playing (which is why I felt it should get its own thread), but that doesn't make it arbitrary.
     
  11. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    There is no distinction between enemy and enemy trooper.

    "Enemy. Troopers that belong to the opposing player's Army List or to his team mate or team mates if the game is played in pairs or groups."
     
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  12. daszul

    daszul Well-Known Member

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    But hasn't it been said that a marker is no trooper?

    But the rules refer to markers as enemies?!?

    So a marker is indeed a trooper as well?
    Or, "can be", because a mine clearly is no trooper.

    But - does that mean you can not Discover + BS Attack a mine because it is not a trooper and thus no enemy?!?
    Or is the definition in the rules just incomplete, and there are other enemies as well, not just troopers.

    But then there is in fact a difference between enemy and enemy trooper!
     
  13. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    My point is rather that you can't read distinctions between enemy and enemy trooper because the rules are not that tightly written. Arguing the toss about whether it means all your opponent's troopers, markers and figures or just some is the way madness lies.

    IJW's logic doesn't turn on that distinction anyway. It turns on the fact that Camouflage and TO include an additional clause permitting attacks against troopers in a Camouflaged/TO state under a specific circumstance and Impersonation does not.

    Mahtamori essentially argues that that line is unnecessary as Discover + BS Attack already allows a player to declare a BS Attack against a Marker owned by their opponent subsequent to declaring Discover against that marker. At the point the BS Attack is declared the Camouflage/TO trooper is a Marker and no more or less an enemy than the Impersonation marker. This argument also doesn't turn on a distinction between enemy and enemy trooper either.

    Impersonation Markers are enemies, they are just perceived as allys. Using the loose language of the FAQ 'counts as friendly' to say 'they stop counting as enemy' is drawing a long bow and opens up a lot of issues. Instead it is simpler to say 'counts as friendly' means 'they are perceived as allys and therefore cannot be attacked, and cancel attacks that inadvertently target them'.

    Mahtamori's logic is sound: if Discover + BS Attack works against a Mine then nothing in the Discover rules prevent it from working against an Impersonation marker. However, I find the absence, in the Impersonation rules, of the additional clause instructive. It's dull to split the rule into two parts like that ("you can do this generally" and "you can do that to this specific state") but the fact that there is clearly a deliberate difference in wording leads me to believe that there was intended to be a deliberate difference in game play.

    Discover says: you can do Y then X against A.
    Camo/TO: you can't do X against this subset of A unless you first Y.
    Impersonation says: you can't do X against this subset of A.

    Basically it's a question of whether we go with the general permission of Discover or the more specific restriction of Impersonation.
     
  14. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

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    In this system specific restrictions override general allowances. You cannot draw LoS through Zero Visibility of Smoke, but you can if you have MSV2. If that Zero Vis is an Eclipse, it specifically says you can't, regardless of your MSV level.
     
  15. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Not quite.

    Camouflage says you can't declare X against this subset of A unless you have previously Y, unless it is X1 (Intuitive Attack).

    Which is like... the entire point of Discover-Shoot, to work around that line, because it'll allow you to declare a BS Attack prior to having Discovered the target.
     
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  16. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    Part of the problem is "unless you have previously Discovered" is ambiguous: does it mean successfully Discovered or simply declared Discover, does it mean immediately prior to at any stage prior? The easiest way to resolve that ambiguity is to read it as referring back to Discover + BS Attack, which explains how it works.

    This leads to the conclusion that Discover + BS Attack (and Intuitive Attack) are designed to work around 'you can't declare X', but are referred to by the clause 'unless you have previously Y or unless it is an X1'.

    So, the core argument is that Camo and TO include a line that says, effectively, "Discover + BS Attack and Intuitive Attack work against these states", whereas Impersonation does not. However, Discover does not say "Discover + Shoot only works against states that specifically refer to this tactic". Instead we're left to infer that the absence of a specific permission is actually a specific restriction.

    It would have been much easier to have written this as "generally you can declare Discover + BS Attack against enemy markers" and in Impersonation write "Enemies cannot declare Attacks, including the special tactic Discover + BS Attack or Intuitive Attacks, against a trooper in the Impersonation-2 state." This would provide a clear general permission, specific exception. But this is N3, so...
     
    #36 inane.imp, Feb 15, 2020
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2020
  17. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    1st paragraph: no ifs or buts about it, there's no way "previous discovery" could refer to "previously declared Discover in the same order" without rigorously redefining the use of future perfect verb forms within the system, which hasn't been done. That's just not how language work. Particularly not when the same sentence also points out the exception to this rule (Intuitive Attack)
    Spanish sentence structure makes it even clearer how this is structured as a limitation to the general case and not a reference to the special manoeuvre.

    2nd and 3rd paragraph relies on the previous faulty assumption.

    4th paragraph: it would have been better, according to your supported interpretation, if Discover-Shoot had written "enemy Camouflage and Hiding Marker" or "except Impersonation Markers" or "except where specifically noted otherwise" (and then actually disambiguously written the otherwise) the way it does basically literally everywhere else where the rules mean that the interaction is meant to be limited.
    However, Discover-Shoot is written to be applicable to any target which means that a limitation has to be specific. You're meant to be able to Discover-Shoot a Fusilier who is a Fusilier, just on the off chance it's that Holo Knight. So for IMP's denial pf the manoeuvre to be this fucking convoluted makes no sense what so ever, and I consider CB's ability to write rules a bit higher than that.
     
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  18. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    There's also no way it can refer to previous successful Discovers from previous orders: the text is from the state, which disappears in the event of a previous successful Discover in a previous order. Mechanically it can only refer to a previous declaration of Discover the outcome of which has not been resolved. Linguistically I do agree that it's a poor implementation.

    If "without previously Discovering" doesn't mean "without performing a Discover + BS Attack special tactic" what does it mean and what other attacks does it permit?
     
    #38 inane.imp, Feb 15, 2020
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2020
  19. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    I know we had a pm where I offered to agree to disagree, and I do stick to that, but I still feel like this needs answering.

    It's about context. The line we're talking about is the very first line of rule which denies you the ability to BS Attack against a CH Marker. In this context and given that CB fairly often over-explains things, saying "This Marker may not be attacked in anyway unless it has already been discovered" as a way of over-explaining it makes perfect sense and matches CB's rules writing. Then it goes on to add an exception and says "unless you are declaring a Intuitive Attack", which again it doesn't need to say and is over-explaining the denial and is curiously missing a reference to the Discover special manoeuvre (god I hate spelling that word). IMP may not be intuitively attacked, so it makes little sense to add the line of Discover because that's basically what the very next line says.
    *Paraphrasing.
     
  20. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    Sure, and I'd buy that argument IF the phrasing for Impersonation and Camo were the same.

    But yeah, I agree that's an intent argument rather than a 'no, what does it literally say' argument.
     
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