Has, unfortunately, been a loophole in the rules for quite some time, but the bwnefits of it has gone down significantly since EXO was removed. Just don't do it near a Perimeter item, 'cause I think the Dodge will not be validated by it.
That was @ijw 's ruling in one of the threads on camo and hacking with uncertain repeater zones. So I think this has been confirmed correct. The Ninja is revealed, even if she didn't have a valid ARO. I would argue against that approach, on the basis that it's too vague and subjective to be a usable rule. Although there will be plenty of cases where it's genuinely impossible that the Ninja has an ARO, there will be others where the impossibility itself is unclear. "This Ninja declares Dodge." "You can't it's clearly outside 8." "I agree that it might be outside 8, but I can't tell for sure. To me it looks like around 7.5 to 9." "No way, I'm a better judge of distances than you, and to me it looks like 8.5 to 9.5." "Well let's measure and find out." "We can't, because the test isn't whether it's _actually_ outside 8, but whether it's _impossible_ that it's outside 8 based on looking without measuring." More broadly, N4 is more permissive than N3 in allowing the reactive player to declare invalid AROs which may fail at resolution. If your unit declares a Move, and I'm 99.9% sure you're about 9" away, I can still declare Dodge. Then if you move into my ZoC for your second skill, the Dodge becomes valid. (The advantage to early declaration is that I still get to Dodge in the 0.1% of cases where it turns out that you were inside my ZoC after your first Move. If I had waited to declare, I would have lost the ARO.) So, I'd also argue that the overall design changes suggest that there's nothing wrong with declaring an invalid ARO and losing your hidden deployment. Also, it doesn't seem game-breaking or unfair, for reasons others have pointed out above.
A simple "troopers in hidden deployment who's ARO is discovered to be invalid, revert back to hidden deployment instead of performing an idle" would have been a nice clause to see.
That has negative consequences for close-range gameplay. Plus, as the Private Information rules work at the moment, there are further consequences.
You also run into problems with hidden if your point of deployment got occupied by something (random unit steping into your marked spot). You loose all access to the hidden trooper for as long as the spot is occupied because there is no rule that would allow you to deploy anymore. This even includes engage via dodge because you can only react after the full mov and repositioning is done. But by that point in the order your deployment is no longer allowed to happen.
The community solution to this (because Sensor can also force you to place the model on the table and because we had this situation in N3 as well) has been to displace the Hidden Deployment unit the absolutely least among of distance possible without making base contact.
Im well aware of that. But there is no rule that allows this. You also wouldnt be allowed to hidde deploy on a ledge that isnt the size of your base or on a roof you cant fit that nice new cutter model.
I mean, without it I can just walk a Pathfinder up on top of your hidden Ninja and break the game for all eternity...
Exactly. Or drop an ad troop on the position of shinobucheatsune in this case, if its ruled she has to revert to hidden... but hidden states you can never do that either. Btw page 27 has a rule for silouhette replacement that could be applied to occupied spaces if reworded: If the space available is less than the volume determined by the silhouette template, the replacement Trooper will enter the Immobilized-A State. This State can only be cancelled by the conditions of the space containing the Trooper changing, and may not be cancelled in the usual manner defined by the State itself. Pieces of Equipment will be removed from the gaming table instead of entering the Immobilized-A State. Works for dogwarrios, not sure ehat kind of equip its talking about. Do mines get eaten by this rule? As currently wirtten hidden goes from no silouhette to having one so its only slightly off. It still doesnt cover the exat position of that new immobilized unit sadly. Were do you put an immob unit if the reason its blocked is a bigger unit in a small space(box/rooftop) Personally dont think hidden should be allowed to reveal if never elligebl for aro or placing in the first place. Idle is not a valid aro so you just string together exploits to get a unit out. And it should be put in the hidden skill. So that the using player has to make sure its applyed correctly. Just like with ad troops who are counted as dead you could put that clause in hidden and be fine. If this results in being able to put something on the potential point of reveal that this should be adressed to. For example in that page 27 ruling. I mean ad troops are counted as dead if never deployed so only the using player has to know and make sure he gets them on the board correctly.
It is discouraging to see people trying to RAW their way into an obviously broken interaction. Clearly, you are not meant to be able to ARO to things happening out of LoF outside ZoC. Stop trying to game oversights. We shouldn't even have to have a ruling on stuff like this. Pointing it out is useful, to get a patch to prevent That F_ing Guy trying to use something like this on players who would let them get away with that. Thanks tot he OP for putting up the post. Here's hoping that a ruling clarifying the obvious comes soon.
This is absolute nonsense. First of all, it's not nearly as clear as you seem to think. It's explicitly allowed in N4 to declare invalid AROs which may become valid later in the order. That wasn't the case in N3. We're still learning the implications of that change. Second, it's not "obviously broken" if a hidden deployed unit can appear on the table - thereby losing the benefit of hidden deployment including any marker state it might have - in an order where it can't do anything anyway. At best, it's a way to keep your Lt safe from a turn one assassination run, at the cost of spending points for a hidden deployment model that can't use its skill effectively. I don't know why you think that would break the game, but if there's a scenario others have missed, by all means point it out. Third, and more importantly, where do you get off calling people "that fucking guy" or accusing them of gaming the system? How about giving your fellow players some credit for wanting to play the game properly? If it's allowed then people will occasionally use this obscure and marginally useful rules interaction. If it's not allowed then they won't. Finding out whether it's allowed is exactly why we have a rules subforum. If you don't like rules discussions, there are other subforums you can read.
It's not an oversight. I dislike the interaction, but it was specifically discussed. You declare an ARO. When checking, the ARO turns out not to be valid. Invalid AROs become Idles. There’s a whole step of the Order Expenditure Sequence specifically there to cover this.
@ijw just to be clear on your last point. You are saying that models do not need to meet the requirements of an ARO to declare them. Taken to an (admitted) extreme, this means that every time an active player declares any order the reactive player could declare an ARO with every model on the board (or in HD) and then in step five those that were invalid would be converted to idle? And that this design change was discussed and intended? Because if that is the case you can’t bait with albedo anymore. If I step out from cover with a linked m-drone and gwailos, normally the only valid ARO would be to shoot at the m-drone for an MSV trooper. Now the reactive player can shoot at the gwailos, and if the gwailos’ second order is shoot then that was a valid ARO?
This issue was also a background problem on N3. The problem here is that this loophole can be used to make measurements when your're not supposed to. You are in the other corner of the table but I'll declare a reset with this miniature, then before making the rolls I'll check de distance with unrelated troops to estimate what choices should I take on the following activation Something similar happens when you're not sure if you are in the range you want but you make a first shot to measure the distance and put the miniature exactly were you want it. The only way of deal with this is enabling measurement just after order declaration, or enabling measurement any time during the game. And there are a plenty actions that would benefit from the later. no more need to idle instead of cautious movement, no more idle because you beleive that template doesn't reach your cammo marker... none of those situations need to be explained nor contemplated on the rules.
FTFY as I'd consider that a perfectly effective use of HD. I still think this is possible. You cannot declare a BS attack pre-emptively on a trooper you can't see because you have to check LoF and specify the target and all that upon declaration. You cannot specify a target that you can't shoot at at the moment (Gwailo), so they would still be forced to fire at the M-Drone.
Good points. I don't think N3 had a definitive resolution, but my preferred solution was always "you can measure 8 out from the ARO declaring model to 'check zone of control,' but you can't measure the full distance to the active model." So it does work as a backdoor way for any model on the table to rangefind one border of its ZoC. The second example always seemed like a feature, not a bug. It's normal in my meta to take a rangefinding shot and use the measurement to judge distances. Seems consistent with the rules, and also narratively sound, since I think "bracketing the target" is a thing IRL where you take shots ahead and behind the target to help line up your third shot. At least in fiction it's a thing :-)
I just don’t see why you could dodge but not declare an invalid BS attack ARO. In the example above you don’t meet the requirements for dodge “in the reactive turn, they have a valid ARO.” However IJW indicates this is not only legal but intended. Why should you need to meet the requirements of a BS attack in ARO but not the requirements of dodge?
I sincerely hope this is right. But I don’t see this distinction anywhere in the rules. If you could point me to it it would be much appreciated.
In another thread, ijw ruled that you can't declare BS attack without a valid target, because when declaring BS attack you have to specify how you will split your burst, and you have to split it among targets to which you have LoF.
