Greetings beatiful people! I have some questions regarding Smoke Ammunition when it is being used as part of a Coordinate Order or as ARO when there is another friendly trooper involved. Imagine the following set up. E(red) is the enemy. A(green) is the smoke ammunition equipped tropper, and B(blue) is any friendly trooper. Now imagine than E declare IDLE. A declares that he is going to ARO BS Attack a Smoke Grenade, and B declares that he is going to ARO BS Attack with a weapon. If the enemy E declares now BS ATTACK to A, he will FtF against the Smoke Throw. That's pretty clear. But what will happen if the declares shoot to B? Following the rules it seems that he will now have to FtF against the BS Attack ARO of B... but also the BS Attack Smoke of A since his LoF has to pass through a Zero Visibility Zone? Below the relevant lines in the rules: Thanks lot for your time! :D
Only against B. The zone is placed on the table at the end of the order. At this point trooper A hasn't even made a roll, we don't know of the zone will be placed at all. Edit: I see you have focused on the part where template is placed at declaration. At this point it's there only to measure distances and check if it blocks lof to someone that might be shooting at the trooper throwing said smoke. It starts being there after the roll, at the resolution of the order. Edit2: Same goes for mines and other deployables. You place them at declaration but they cannot trigger and be targeted until next order.
The rules says otherwise i am afraid, the zone is placed at Declaration, but it will be removed in the Effects Step of the Order if the smoke trooper fails the normal or FtT roll. Highlighted in yellow in my previous post.
Then the example of smoke in the rules is misleading: As every single example is checking if the LoF crosses the Template, and it seems the sole requirement of FtF roll or not. Even pointing to the Multiespectral Visor ability of drawing LoF through the smoke. So it seems that the smoke is already there, in effect.
I see your point, and I think Amusedbymuse got the question wrong. If you are asking if E´s BS Attack to B should also be a FtF vs the smoke throw of A, no, it is not, simply because E´s BS Attack does not target A (therefore, there is no FtF for that shot that involved both A and E). E´s shot on B does not affect A.
Ruling of "Smoke Ammunition" is prety clear: "Performing an Attack with a weapon with Smoke Ammunition allows the user to make a Face to Face Roll against all enemy Attacks that require a Roll and LoF, and whose LoF passes through the Zero Visibility Zone generated by the Smoke Template." Not said that you have to be a target of these atacks. So there definitely will be FtF between A and E. But how it will be resolved, that is the question.
When talking about LoF, they mean the LoF that goes to the smoke thrower as part of the attack that required LoF. The attack require LoF in the sense that it requires LoF to the target. Which means the smoke tosser would be a target. If we take OP image and add a building next to E, such that E only has LoF to B. Now, A still have LoF to the template blast point and as it is A and B coordinated order, E can ARO against B, A can toss smoke, and B can attack E. While it is true that E has a LoF passing through the smoke template (LoF going to its target, B), A makes a Normal roll, not a FTF. Because E attack against B does not fulfill the "mutually affecting each other" clause* to make that interaction a FtF between A and E. As E does not even see A, if E roll a 5 and A roll a 1, why would A's smoke be cancelled by the 5 ? *Dodge is the only exception, as the Dodge rule says even if the dodge does not really affect the target, it is still FtF. But in this thread we are talking about the BS Attack skill, not the Dodge skill. So the A's and E's BS Attack will be FtF to each other if they interact with each other. From the smoke rule, the smoke is considered to affect E by blocking its LoF, but how is E attack against B affecting A at all ?
I think the reasoning here is that "allows to make a Face to Face" is not quite sufficient for there to be a Face to Face roll at resolution. Both actions have to fulfil the requirements for there to be a Face to Face, it's not enough that one of them does.
