Playing biotechvore, on my first turn my camo unit foolishly fails to escape the plague zone, and has to take a BTS save. Does this cancel the camo state and reveal the unit? The RAW answer would appear to be no. The Camouflaged state is cancelled when "the Camouflaged trooper receives a successful hit that forces him to make an ARM/BTS Roll." In this case the unit is making a BTS roll because of a mission effect, not a successful hit. But that seems like a weird result, since if the unit fails its save it ends up unconscious while still camouflaged.
Can’t say for certain but your reading would be consistent with the FAQ of for example Riot Stopper, which uses the same logical framework: Q: Is a Camo Marker revealed when it gets hit by a Riotstopper? A: No. The reason being that the Camo Marker gets hit by an attack, which forces a roll but not an ARM/BTS save. You could make the same type of argument like you’re doing know but in all honesty I don’t know. anecdotally, I’ve never actually seen or heard about an Ariadna/TAK army just be straight up immune to biotech, merely by being in camo, so I don’t think you can hide behind simple camouflage.
Nice, that makes sense. Yeah, I'm sure the camo unit has to take the save, just wasn't sure whether taking the save reveals it. So, tentatively, the marker takes the save and remains in marker state if it survives, but is revealed if it falls unconscious. That works for me.
Haven't we established that by necessity the camouflaged state is not dependent on the Camouflage skill, as basically answered by whether you could cancel a state by making use of the optional label? I do think that the game's use of "attack" isn't defined specifically by the "attack" label on a skill, but by whether you're affected by a hostile effect. I.e. it's possible for the environment to cause virtual "attacks". Btw, it seems Hostile Environment rules do not make use of the word "attack", either. Ditto Explode L1, which is not an attack.
Dunno. Is there a thread link? Certainly a reasonable approach, but the alternative (an "attack" is when someone attacks you, and has the "attack" label) seems equally reasonable. The lack of the word "attack" anywhere in the btv mission rules would seem to weigh slightly in favour of the second option, but I'm far from certain. The question can't arise in the context of a hostile environment. The unit has to take an ARM save if it rolls a 20 due to an order or ARO declaration. The order/ARO declaration would already have revealed the unit even if it didn't roll a 20. So I don't think it matters, but you're right, it's not clear whether a hostile environment hit is an "attack" either. Huh, nice. Has anyone considered whether explode L1 does reveal a camo marker? Maybe it doesn't, if the marker decides not to dodge. Interestingly, explode L1 won't reveal an impersonator, since the impersonation state doesn't have a cancellation clause for suffering an ARM save at all. So it's not a crazy idea that explode L1 might also not reveal a camo marker.
I probably should start building a link repository so that searching wouldn't be necessary every time. If I were to search for an answer I'd start with looking for a thread on Perimeter weapons and re-camoing, but don't quite have time for it atm Edit for Big Brain Strats: It's in the FAQ (sort of) N3 Frequently Asked Question FAQ Version: 1.4, Sep 2018 Q: Can you choose to cancel game states that are the result of an optional Skill? For example Camouflaged state or an IMP state. A: No, unless the Cancellation bullet points for the game state say that you can cancel the state voluntarily. Related Pages: Camouflage and Hiding (CH), Camouflaged, IMP-1, IMP-2, Impersonation, TO Camouflaged Context: "Can I cancel Camouflage by activating Mimetism?" was the questions that brought about that FAQ, I think.
Hmmm, doesn't really answer this one then. The argument here would be that the skill CH:lv2:Camouflage "During the game, allows the user to be in the Camouflaged state." It's an automatic skill, so it stops working when you go unconscious. And if you no longer have the skill that "allows you to be in the camouflaged state," you stop being in that state. One could argue that the FAQ implies that if you opt to stop using your CH:l2 skill, you stay in the camo state. But the FAQ could equally imply that the "optional" tag doesn't permit you to just declare that you're no longer using your CH:l2. CH:l2 is "optional" in the sense that you can opt not to deploy in camo state, and you can opt not to spend an order to go into camo state, and when in camo state you can opt to declare an order or ARO that cancels the camo state. But the "optional" tag doesn't give you the ability to just stop being in camo outside the context of an order declaration.
Keep in mind that Camouflage has NFB and so does Mimetism, so if all the FAQ answered was whether the Optional label could be used, then the FAQ would effectively be useless because you could still get around it by declaring "Mimetism's NFB disables all effects of Camouflage skill".
The skill does stop working when you go unconscious. But it also does stop working when you use a different NFB skill, like mimetism. The FAQ answers which says that losing CH2:Camo does not remove Camo state because only the camo state cancelation clause can cancel it, would equally apply to losing CH2:Camo because of unconscious, the only things that can cancel the camo state is the camo state cancelation clauses. At least that was the issue with using Mimetism to get rid of the effect that allowed you "to be in the camo state" even if the FAQ that came back is not quite worded to reflect exactly that conundrum.
It's hard to accept that interpretation of the FAQ, given that it explicitly refers to cancelling states because they result from an "optional" skill, makes no mention of NFB or mimetism, and gives Impersonation as an example even though impersonators don't come with mimetism. Also, mimetism is "obligatory" not "optional," so it wouldn't be possible to opt to turn on mimetism so as to turn off camo. It can sometimes be possible to infer that a rule or FAQ entry is based on a broader unstated principle and apply that principle to interpreting other rules. But it feels like a stretch to say that "you can't opt to turn off the camo state" means "you can opt to turn off the camo skill by turning on mimetism, but turning off the camo skill doesn't cancel the camo state." Especially since we know that many FAQ entries are errata to make the game work as CB intends, rather than interpretations to clarify existing rules. Of course, if the plague is an "attack" then the issue doesn't arise at all because the unit already revealed when it falls unconscious. Still not sure on that question, though.
Look, we don't talk about the fact that it's technically not allowed to go back to using Camouflage or TO Camouflage once Mimetism has been activated ;) As far as I am concerned, I just feel like it is the intention of the rules for ARM/BTS rolls to cancel the state, but this is a good candidate for the pile of unanswered questions. It's just a shame that some of those questions have a tendency to crop up more than a few times.
Yeah, I agree with you there. If I wasn't so bored from social distancing I probably wouldn't bother thinking about it :-) But it comes up in games and nobody knows what to do with it on the spot. I think on the whole I'll go with "the roll cancels the marker state for my camo but not for my opponents' camo." That's the easiest way to avoid in-game rules arguments. Besides, when my opponent's camo is taking plague hits I'm already happy, I don't need the added benefit of it losing marker state even though I kind of agree with you that it probably should.
