I just told my group that you can walk up to someone placing a mine and body-block them from completing the action, and it's causing a ruckus. I've been intentionally avoiding doing this during N3 because I knew it'd violate a lot of social norms. @ijw @Koni is it possible for either of you guys to confirm whether this is an intended mechanic or if the location of the mine can be changed at Conclusion so that it's harder to body-block it? Active player: Declares Move Reactive player: Declares Place Deployable with Shock Mine on a spot right in front of them Active player: Declares Move into base to base with Reactive trooper in the spot indicated by the Place Deployable declaration Conclusion: Space for Mine is occupied, mine is spent, skill becomes Idle.
It is placed in the conclusion if you read the Place Deployable skill. Bold is added because that's how it's written in the rules.
The issue is that movement is resolved before the Mine is placed on the table. @Mahtamori my suggestion is that you place the Token on the table when declaring the Skill, as you have to specify where it’s being placed at that time anyway, but that you ignore it for Template Weapons and for being active until the end of the Order. But obviously that’s going to need confirmation by @HellLois.
I've had a few times where the position of a skirmisher is such that the only valid placement is the only space where I can get to the skirmisher for melee or right in a doorway, so playing around avoiding this issue often means the skirmisher instead body-blocks me from performing my preferred skills :( Not an easy balancing act
If a mine is placed in conclusion (later than your full Movement is executed), you can easily occupy the space. One would have to also consider what would happen if an enemy trooper wanted to move into or place a mine on a spot where my HD trooper stands. I believe they would either get pushed away with their Move to a non-collision and non-Engaged spot earlier along their declared path (and the HD trooper revealed) and the mine placement would be cancelled? If so, same thing, your performing a "baseball slide" would deny the enemy trooper the resolution of mine placement, since the spot is already occupied.
Expanding on IJW's point above: The issue is that Movement is resolved after the decision is made on where to place the Mine but before the Mine is placed on the table. So one way is to place the Mine as IJW suggests: ie place the Marker at declaration and ignore it for the purpose of Template Weapons and being active until the end of the order. But, I assume (?), treat it as existing for the purposes of movement. (@ijw - I'm guessing here, is that what you meant?) But an alternative suggestion is, given that the mine is placed during the Conclusion, to allow the decision on where to place the mine to also be made during Conclusion. (This would be similar to Dodge which has an explicit timing exception where the Movement is declared at Resolution rather than at declaration). This would mean that Movement is resolved after the decision is made to deploy a Mine but before the decision is made on where to place the Mine and before that Mine is actually placed on the table. Doing it this way would balance the competing interests and would mean that body blocking Deployable placement would only occur when there are no alternative locations to place the Deployable (a much smaller subset of occasions, usually caused by deliberate positioning of the trooper); but - equally - it means that Deployables don't body block movement. Unfortunately, this is not supported by the rules.