Oh, I agree that not declaring the use of Stealth at Step 1/3 has some negative gameplay outcomes but I just don't think they're any worse than how Holomask already works. The vast majority of Markers - that start that way in deployment at least - have Stealth so generally you can assume the use of Stealth if Stealth would be beneficial to your opponent. If CB is not going to allow ZOC premeasuring I think "declare what you wilt, check validity at Step 5 and Requirements at Step 6 and if they're not met then Idle" is the most coherent way of handling AROs. So I'd prefer coherency in the rules to neatly resolving one specific issue (ie I'd prefer CB to avoid the use of exceptions that prevent declarations unless absolutely necessary).
Any number that don't have the combo greater than 0 will cause problems, and if you go through the number of situations where Stealth is beneficial, well... it's a bit 50-50, but typically you don't want to use Stealth at all times when you don't think there's an enemy nearby, so playing with the assumption is probably bad, tbh.
How is Holomask on Hackers an issue? With Stealth; you're expecting the reactive player to make assumptions about what the active player does, when the reactive player doesn't necessarily have the knowledge to make those assumptions. Whether the camouflaged trooper has Stealth or not is private information and you're expecting the player who doesn't know it know whether that's used. Even if there are no mimetism combinations available to a unit for that faction; you have just put the onus on the player who doesn't play that faction to know instead of expecting the active player to declare what their intentions are. And riddle me this; my Draal is out on a walk. Is he sneaking or not? What about the Asawira Doctor that just activated? And you should know that those Kanren coming at you are in fact Tian Gou, but do you remember an hour later when I activate them again?
In both cases I'm expecting the Reactive player to make assumptions about which AROs are likely to be valid, assumptions that will be proven correct or not at Resolution. In both cases the the onus is on the player who doesn't play that faction to know instead of expecting the active player to declare what AROs are valid or not. I'm not saying that this is necessarily good, but one is no worse than the other and I prefer the consistency than the other negative outcomes. But my distinct preference is to specifically FAQ Stealth to say that: "the use of this Skill must be announced during the declaration of any Short Movement Skill or Cautious Move for its effects to apply". Because really, we all agree that NCO isn't an issue here, it's Stealth: I honestly can't think of any Automatic Optional skill other than Stealth which creates any issues when the use of it isn't declared, can you? Since we also all agree that Stealth needs an FAQ that rewrites it to function correctly in N4, then I'd prefer just solving the specific issue (whether or not the use of Stealth needs to be declared and when) (rather than creating more confusion by saying "the use of Automatic Optional skills needs to be declared but only under certain situations". Re: NCO. Before IJW weighed in, I thought we all agreed that you didn't need to announce you were using NCO if NCO was private. The question was whether the status of the Order changed when being used with NCO, which is still an open question (its just moot with IJWs answer).
Declaring a Hack or Reset against a trooper that is in your Hacking Area will always be valid, regardless of target trooper (though it will turn into Idle if you declare a Hack against an erroneous target), but you won't know if you are allowed to do that if you have to guess whether the opponent is using Stealth. One case is solved by IJW's ruling and the other case is solved by each player declaring what they're doing instead of leaving it to the opponent to fill in the blanks. And the issue with NCO is not so much one of "this is causing a problem" but one of "we don't know how good this skill is actually meant to be". I'm in the camp where we think absolutely every skill you make use of during an order (that isn't itself Private Information label) has to be declared and with full and complete detail and have been for a while. Not sure if there's anyone else in the camp, but that is to say I didn't agree use of NCO could be kept private.
See, I find that far more consistent than IJWs answer. "Yes if you're using Terrain (Zero G) you need to announce that, because it's a skill that you're using during you're active turn." At which point we'd just need an exception saying "yeah, you don't need to declare the use of deployment skills used during the deployment phase". That makes complete sense to me. What I don't understand is why I'd need to announce NCO but not Terrain (Zero G). I mean I get IJWs justification for it, but I don't buy that it's supported by the rules or even the cleanest way to solve this. Also, you've convinced me that not announcing the use of Stealth is too awkward. So yeah, announce all the (Automatic, Optional) things unless there is a specific exception telling you not to seems like the cleanest answer.
I think this is even supported by the rules: Private Information hides "the contents of your Markers." Which doesn't say it hides the actions your Markers take. Which is to say I see nothing in the rules that says the use of (almost) *any* skill is Private Information. Indeed the reverse is true: (emphasis mine). So the actual question isn't "do I need to announce the use of NCO when it's on a Marker?" (A: Yes) but rather "why don't I need to announce the use of Minelayer or Chain-of-Command? (and, what other skills don't I need to announce when I use them?)" Unless there's something else I'm missing :)
I think in the specific case of when you deploy the miniatures, you're not actually using/declaring the skills as such, but rather the skills are active prior to deployment and allows deployment in certain conditions. Or, put another way, it allows you to deploy with certain configurations. The mine of a minelayer unit is deployed alongside the owning unit, the owning unit doesn't deploy and then activates the Minelayer skill. This is more literally spelled out in Camouflage where it says you may deploy in the camouflage state.
That's a little torturous. I mean I get it, and we all understand the intent (mostly) but I don't find that answer satisfying.
@Mahtamori I already said before that when a skill is automatic + optional, we play it as always on unless the player says otherwise. This allows for the player not only to say "this marker/unit moves without Stealth", which is much less conspicuous than saying ALL the time "this marker/unit uses stealth" and suddenly for certain ones not to; this also speeds the game up, because, well, the Greeks retained Stealth on most of their troops with MA, and I prefer to note the exceptions, instead of the regular happening. You know, I'm a big fan of consistency and unobstrusiveness. I don't, but it would be in line with the use of the NCO skill by a marker being always public, even when used by a marker.
I know you do (not least because of N3), but I am saying that I think this needs to change. I think it is safe to assume in general that an opponent will take an obviously beneficial use of a skill - but when it comes to Stealth this is not so obvious. In fact, Stealth is often obviously beneficial to skip. It's a funny skill like that. Bit of a corner case skill and I've definitely been gotcha:ed by accidentally automatically using it.
Doesn't work in N4 because not all units with camo have stealth. So if you declare "I move this camo marker," opponent won't know whether you are using stealth because they don't know whether the marker has the stealth skill. I guess you could house-rule that if you move any camo marker, you have to declare that it's not using stealth. I'm not a huge fan of that, since it would mean that if you forget to declare non-stealth on a camo marker which lacks the skill, you just cheated.
I don't agree with that need for change, but I'm curious about that gotcha. Could you elaborate in the situation that happened? Stealth is an Automatic skill (always on) with the Optional trait (you can decide wether to use it or not). If a marker moves not using Stealth, I declare it is not using Stealth but that doesn't specify if the unit under the marker has or not the skill (granted, do it enough times and it becomes obvious, but you get 1-2 moves in which it's not clear if the unit has the skill, and is not using it, or doesn't have the skill).
You're aware that Change Facing shenanigans require you to avoid using Stealth, correct? Btw, Automatic doesn't mean it's always on, it means that you don't need to declare it using a skill
Yes, that's what the rules say to do. Terrain Skills have no effect at all on how you spend an Order on a Trooper. What would make it be in line with NCO?
Do you have to declare the Optional Skill isn't being used when it's not certain the model has it? Stealth and Camo, for example. To me, saying "This Camo may have Stealth, if it does I am not using it" seems fair. Is that the intent though?
Look. Forget things in terms of Camouflage. That's only an issue with like one unit (the Sphinx) or players not experienced enough to know that there's basically no units with Camouflage, Stealth, but no Mimetism. Start thinking in terms of Holomask. "Not using Stealth. Not using Stealth. Not using Stealth. Not using Stealth. Not using Stealth. Not using Stealth. Oh surprise, it's a Hafza!"
