Can trooper, after failed guts roll go prone and move 2 inches? In wiki its written like that: If the troop fails its Guts Roll, it must go Prone or move up to 2 inches in order to abandon the danger zone, gain Cover, or improve its Cover against the attack. Word "or" suggest that he can do one but not two things - but my opponent argued that the last phrase " or improve its Cover against the attack" let him do both. Is it right?
No, your opponent is mistaken (intentionally or not - I can't say =)) You have two 'or' clauses, the first is specifying WHICH ACTION you can take, and the second is about WHEN can you make this action. The logic chain looks like this: Trooper fails Guts vs. an attack If they Move 2 inches, then: Can they abandon danger zone (in case of Spec. Fire, being clipped by an Impact Template while in Total Cover, or Direct Template attacks)? OR Can they gain Cover (if hit outside of any Cover) (Note, that they MUST take the best Cover available, if they can reach both Partial and Total Covers in their 2inch movement - they must take Total Cover)? OR Can they improve their Cover from Partial to Total? If they cannot move enough to improve the situation - they go prone. Exception is in the case of abandoning the danger zone. If going prone doesn't make the trooper leave this danger zone - they do nothing. If the trooper can't go Prone - they do nothing. Basically, this. If you can't move far enough - you go Prone, if you can't go Prone - you do nothing. Also note, that on the page about Guts Roll there is a description about the best possible result - the best being abandoning the danger zone, then getting Total Cover, then Partial Cover.
I agree that it's "or" - you can never both move and go prone. I had always thought that you could choose prone over movement if prone improved your cover. Reading it again, I can see your point - arguably, you must move unless moving can't improve your cover. If that's so, suppose a unit currently has no cover, and could get partial cover by moving 2". There is no total cover available within two inches. But, the unit is behind a low wall and would get total cover by going prone. Does the unit have to move 2" into partial cover rather than going prone into total cover?
There's nothing that would allow that in the RAW, IIRC. Although you maybe can argue that the line about taking the best result possible would allow you to drop prone instead of moving, if that would provide you with better level of cover. Edit: Or is there? There's Example of play-1 on the page about Guts Roll, that has a similar situation. Look at the wording: "Ortega fails his Guts Roll. Since he is currently in Partial Cover and does not have Total Cover within reach in a 2-inch radius, he goes Prone, thus exiting his enemies' LoF and gaining Total Cover against them." So we only go Prone, if we can't move to get better cover.
There is an old ruling by Palanka on the old forums which I don't think has been repealed or gain-sayed yet which stated that you could cancel Prone when Guts due to it being a Movement. I don't think this is fully accepted*, however, but that's probably where it comes from. I do believe we have, since, a ruling that when Dodging you may enter or exit Prone only if you use Move as your movement skill. (Palanka did a number of rulings in a short period of time and because some were not approved by Interruptor (I think it is) they stopped, the problem was that none of the "bad" rulings were ever truly reviewed so we don't quite know which ones were out of line. To be clear, I think the interrim rulings Palanka did were good because it created consistency while waiting for sanctioning or reversal via slower means such as FAQ)
Since then though it's become clear they in N3 you can only enter to cancel the Prone state by declaring the Move short skill not on any movement. Basically, if you can't cancel the Prone state by declaring Jump then you can't enter the Prone state by moving as part of Guts. Thankfully this problem is solved in C1. :)
This is getting ridiculouly hard to keep track of. Are we now saying that previous ruling is null, without a word, and now prone and move with guts is not allowed?
Seems like it. I was hoping IJW would've set the record straight by now. Btw, the old ruling you won't be able to find, as there's no longer any publicly available source for it.
At this point feels better off simply to ignore any previous ruling, and hope any new ones go into the FAQ where we can all find them.
It's not completely without a word, because of the FAQ entry from a year ago: Q: When can a trooper activate or cancel Prone state? A: Prone state can be activated or cancelled by declaring the Move Short Movement Skill, or where stated in the rules. For example, you cannot activate or cancel Prone state by declaring Cautious Movement or Jump, because they are not the Move Short Movement Skill. The Guts move rules don't say that you can move and go Prone, so wouldn't fall under 'or where stated in the rules'.
Sure, and that can be inferred. But I'm the type of person that once there's a ruling I go with that until its said that the ruling does not apply. That FAQ entry doesn't say the previous ruling on guts prone doesnt apply anymore.,
Which is why there's a more rigorous FAQ process now, with forum rulings getting incorporated into it.
Stuff from the previous forum literally doesn't exist in a published form any more. There's no option but to ignore it.
