Except precedent exists for declaring things only to find out that you can, in fact, not actually due it due to being out of range or other factors, during resolution? I don't even see how this is particularly controversial?
Dude, just don't try and cheat. How hard is that concept? If your opponent is bobbing his head up and down like a bird, it's pretty obvious what he's trying to do. Just play like a normal person. Why not? If I payed the price for multiple snipers, and having them in one spot concentrates their firepower for that section of the board, but means I don't have it elsewhere. And even then, It's hardly unassailable, it just means that gasp you might have to split your fire, and unless they're in a fireteam(which just means that they've invested even more points into this and it should require commensurately more effort on your part to deal with.), you should still have the burst advantage. The advantage of the active turn player is that they get more burst on their guns. The advantage of the reactive turn player is that they can shoot with more than one guy. Defensive fortifications ARE a thing, and the correct solution is not to try and batter down the brick wall with your face. Flank it, smoke it up, land drop troopers next to it and take it from behind, just sending your guy on a different route, or even just accepting the fact that to break that position, you have to put your own guy at risk are all acceptable answers. Sure, your guy who took the active shot might go down, but then your next guy in line is only facing half as many AROs from the FtF roll that your first guy did win. This attitude of "I can always have perfect positioning and play and never have to take any risks" isn't just stupid, it's boring. And with N4, it's also against the rules. Thank fucking god. Plenty of times, and amazingly enough, I've even done it in Infinity, and I've never had the kind of issue that you're pretending is such a huge and prevalent problem. The only thing I ever saw crop up as a problem was the "is 1/3 of this model covered?" question, and they reworked the partial cover rules, so that's gone as a potential problem. And here's the thing. That actually makes for a tactically interesting decision making process there. You can hug the wall and get your +3 cover mod, or you can step back so that the geometry isn't impossibly precise to the point of being completely unrealistic, and you can then slice the pie like you want to, but you lose your +3 mod to do so. That's tactically interesting gameplay right there. That's a GOOD thing.
That's the obvious conclusion of this line of argument. Steps 2 and 4 of the OES explicitly allow for LoF determination to the Active trooper _prior_ to ARO declaration. If the active player can't do the same (check LoF prior to declaration of a skill) that's a significant mismatch between active and reactive turn. I'm asking if that is what you are thinking, b/c that seems quite outside of the trend towards simplification of rules differences between active and reactive turn in N4 (for instance, dodge movement being matched in N4 vs. N3).
I'd need to look closer and read the exact wording, but even if that was, it's not a serious mismatch, given the active player is the one moving and being, well, active. Edit: Also, it'd be a simple matter of emergent factors; you can't draw LoF until the model is moved, because until the model is moved, no LoF actually exists. So, the debate over when a reactive or active player can draw LoF, before or after declaring an action, is sort of its own thing, and I'd need to look closer. The important factor is that, as far as I can tell, there is no way to ask or answer the question "If I move to X location, can Y model see me?" prior to the model moving to X location, in terms of the game rules.
Read the rules. Or even the thread. As has been pointed out innumerable times, Requirements are checked in step 6. You declare your short skills and if they weren't legal? They're cancelled and you Idle instead.
Here's the thing, due to humans not having precognition, you don't know that you can see someone until you see them. You can't rewind time so that he doesn't see you.
I'll help you out: So we went from "how could you get that from what I said, that's crazy" to "Oh, that's what it says? It's fine then." Fair enough. So what possible purpose is there for allowing the reactive player to check LoF in steps 2 and 4 _prior_ to declaration? Check, and then check again at resolution? No. LoF is understood to be clearly obtainable by viewing the board at all times, prior to declaration. As active player, do you have to lock to a particular camera view in TTS until you are resolving the skill? I'm asking, b/c _no_one_ plays like this. By your interpretation, would it be legal for a reactive player to check LoF, and then decide to do a no LoF dodge or reset instead of a LoF BS attack? Because if so, then I can't see how the active player cannot prior to their declaration _look_at_the_board_ to decide what they want to do.
What's the purpose? That you don't get to know if you've exposed yourself to enemy fire until you're already exposed. You aren't a precognitive with future-sight, you just move as far as you think that you're safe, and if you're wrong, then it's already too late. Point me to the page in the rules that say you can check line of fire at any time. You can't do this because that page doesn't exist. You move your models. Reactive player checks LoF and declares ARO. Transative property of LoF means that you now know who has LoF to you and who you have LoF to in return. You declare second short skill. If that potentially opened up any new AROs, then the reactive player gets to react accordingly. Everything gets measured, and dice are rolled. You know the fact that play-by-intent players always come screeching back to the "WHY WON'T YOU LET ME CHEAT?" argument as their default position says everything that really needs to be said about the play by intent position as a whole. People weren't playing like this last edition because there was a loophole in the rules. CB closed the loophole so that premeasured LoF is no longer a thing. You move, and if that move exposed you more than you thought? That's tough, but accept it and keep playing the game.
No, but if you're going to be disingenuous there isn't much point to replying. The actual point was "this is outside of my thinking and I don't know where you're going with this." Based on text? Yeah, Reactive gets to check LoF then declare. That's what the rules say.
@iyaerP I might have the wrong end of the stick here, but are you stating that the Active player cannot check his own LOF in his active turn or that he cannot check the reactive players LOF? Or both.
Just gotta say, trying to play the game without looking at the board "wrong" seems pretty difficult. If we have to outlaw looking at certain angles etc to make the rules work, the rules seem pretty retarded.
Look at the order sequence chart. LoF is explicitly checked in Step 2: Declaration of ARO LoF is explicitly checked in Step 4: Declaration of ARO LoF is also checked in Step 6 Resolution when all other Requirements are checked. Usually step 6 is unnecessary to check LoF in, as the transitive property of ARO means that anyone who had LoF to you in steps 2 and 4 you also have LoF to, so where this usually matters is from shooting someone in the back. Berserk is an exception that implicitly calls for a LoF, but doesn't explicitly do so. The LoF rules themselves say nothing about when you can check them, they only define how LoF checks work.
That doesn't seem explicit to me, it doesn't say these are the only occasions when LOF can be checked, its just outlining the ARO sequence in which when an active player activates the reactive player has the opportunity to react, so he is able to check LOF from all the angles in which he may have LOF.
If you think that LoF can be measured at any time, find it in the rules for me. I've gone through the pdf with ctrl-f to every single use of the phrase 'LoF', and it NEVER says that.
It does not. It says that reactive player measures LoF for ARO in steps 2 and 4, and as LoF is a requirement, the active player checks it in step 6 like any other requirement. And again, USUALLY this is unnecessary, since LoF goes both ways, and if something is AROing you, you already know that you have LoF.