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Mines, ZoC ARO, Gotchas?

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by WiT?, Nov 23, 2021.

  1. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    A question aimed at people who typically play Intent, and there is no judgement for different takes. People who inform their opponent of nothing probably won't derive much from the thread but are welcome to pop in and tell us that!

    How do you play ARO from mines, koalas, hacking, repeaters etc in the context of players accidentally entering an area of effect. Not misjudging 8", taking a chance and goofing it, but simply moving too close to a forgotten koala or an obvious mine or something in the middle of another action and BAM.

    If you walk into a line of fire, many players will say something along the lines of "oh, this guy can see you, did you want to go there" and negotiate the position together. But I've seen from the same players say "oh you came into 8' of my koala, take a save" or leap at the chance to get a model through a forgotten repeater. Again, not judging, just noticing.

    For me that seems a little inconsistent, and I'd prefer for all of these to be considered good sportsmanship to discuss and not wait for a chance to get someone. This plays into my personal views on keeping the game reasonable and importantly fast, as not playing this way rewards overly cautious behaviour. But I'm not the boss lol. So I'm interested to see how other people play it. Do you personally inform your opponent of these types of ARO or do you let them walk into them?
     
  2. RobertShepherd

    RobertShepherd Antipodean midwit

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    I will always remind my opponent of any deployable, repeater etc they have public information regarding. Doubly so now that ZOC is measurable from the active trooper, so it doesn't even have to be the old "uh, you might be in ZOC of this madtrap, just confirming that's how you want to move".

    Mines still require a little bit of "just making sure..." because of the joy of slightly-more-than-8" templates and blast focus placement, but still. It's just better than the alternative.


    EDIT, since someone was asking me about this in another venue:

    While it's absolutely worth noting that there are strict timing windows when you can check ZOC, once measured that becomes public information. Equally, that something is a mine or perimeter weapon placed by a trooper using the place deployable skill is public information.

    Once something is public information - and anything not explicitly labelled as private is public information - it is knowable to all. By the strict letter of the rules you only need to share information when initially revealed and when asked, but in the interests of having a consistently amicable and good time my personal strong preference is to assume a positive obligation to make sure that public information is accessible to my opponent.
     
    #2 RobertShepherd, Nov 23, 2021
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2021
  3. Zewrath

    Zewrath Elitist Jerk

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    @WiT?

    I think you're making the question a bit more complicated than it needs to be.

    My games usually starts with ALWAYS establishing that we play with intent and discuss the table for LOF, windows, special areas etc.

    Once the intent is established, it's usally very easy to play when you ask your opponent what he plans on doing and then you both talk through the order:

    Opponent: 'So I wish to move this way along this path, can something see me along the way?'
    Me: 'No, as long as you don't cross that corner you should be good'
    Opponent: 'Okay, so like.. here?'
    Me: 'Yeah, you're good'.

    This logic is easily extended cover Deployables as well:

    Mines
    Opponent: 'So I wish to move this way along this path, can something see me along the way?'
    Me: 'No, not unless you cross that corner, in which case that camo marker will see you.

    Perimeters
    Opponent: 'So I wish to move this way along this path, can something see me along the way?'
    Me: 'No, but there's a Koala nearby that path, just so you know

    Repeaters
    Opponent: 'So I wish to move this way along this path, can something see me along the way?'
    Me: 'No, but there's a Repeater nearby that path, just so you know

    This will VASTLY reduce any 'gotcha!' down to the point where it will becomes basically more or less either a conscious decision by the opponent or a bad mistake.
    Like, if he starts 12" away from a mine he had LOF to from open ground, and literally just takes a straight line towards the camo markered mine, there's not much you can do other than politely asking; 'So, you're placing your trooping in front of that camo marker. Is that your final placement?'
     
  4. nazroth

    nazroth 'well known Nomad agitator'

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    I play by Intent, prefer clean games.

    In my opinion Intent play is not "god mode", but rather a tool to speed up the game and keep it clean. As a tool it must be correctly wielded and applied and can be misused. Intent play is all about a declaration and communication between players. If you declare "I move from behind a cover to see miniature X but not miniature Y" and forget about a miniature Z standing behind you all the time, though luck buddy. Depending on person and type of game environment (friendly dude, a dick, some small friendly event, large national event etc.) I might alarm or allow a takeback, but it is a burden of active player to ask, ensure, agree because people tend to get focused on goal, instead of means and pure intention of achieving a goal does not cut it. I believe it is not a time well spent in a game if you play entirely for your opponent. Friendly atmosphere - sure. Being courteous to one another - sure. But taking back stupid declarations after moving a miniature - that's just bad.

    I have some examples:
    - During PL Nationals a veteran top ITS player asks me and points a finger "If I move left from behind this corner, does anything see my miniature?", answer is "no". The guy then moves miniature to the opposite side of where he pointed and asked about, totally different place. With second short he moves into open, again different place than asked and pointed before. Asks me for AROs, my Camo ARO piece drops Camo and shoots. Guy is like "but my intention was to move so that nothing sees me..." - WTF...
    - During large event another top ITS veteran player uses up last order to set up Suppression Fire on a single troop. Troop is standing in parallel to deployment zones, front my direction - player signals sides of LOF with his hands, in parallel to deployment zones. Sometime during my turn I deploy an AD troop behind the SF mini. Guy wants to shoot, from his back. I ask WTF? Guy is outraged, he declared SF and his intention was to see the other side... which wouldn't be possible, as Intent cannot break game rules, this wasn't properly signaled in order for me to correct it on declaration and take it back right the


    So, if you ask if there's gonna be LOF from anything else than your intended target if you move to spot X, I will definitely tell you there's a Camo Marker.
    If you declare I move my troop only so that it sees miniature X and no one else has LOF I will correct you there's a Camo Marker that will also gain LOF to your troop.
    If you ask if miniature X sees your troop if they move to a spot Y, get a negative answer and follow up moving to the spot, but forgot to ask about that Camo Marker over there. You eat up a mine. You should know better.
    You can always ask me if by moving to spot X you enter any ZOCs and if it's open information (not HD etc.) I will gladly provide you with answer.

    As mentioned before, it depends on setting and person. I try to give back what's offered. If someone is overly courteous I'll do the same in which case I don't mind alarming and providing additional info outright.
     
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  5. Abrilete

    Abrilete Well-Known Member

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    I also play by intent and, as most of my games are against friends, we ooperate a lot during games, pointing obvious mistakes like "dude, remember that there is a Camo Marker over there that might be a Mine and you should not get THAT close unless you intend to".
     
  6. Triumph

    Triumph Well-Known Member

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    I normally negotiate LoF, more or less how @Zewrath explains as it just makes the game faster and easier treating the game as a conversation rather than needing to anally retentively bend over and check every corner.

    At the same time I've also done what you've said, and forgotten about Koalas getting dropped near a link team member in the previous turn and getting someone blown the fuck away for no reason. Infinity is a game of unforced errors. Playing consistent perfect games isn't something I think you or anyone should expect, there's alot going on and you'll fuck something up eventually or your opponent's dice will take a shit on you at a crucial moment and double crit something expensive off the table. Eat the mistake and move on, letting mistakes play out is part of the game and determining who played a match better.

    Same is true in most games. People fuck stuff up. I watched the live stream as a certain individual took a sure win for the Australian team at the Warmachine WTC and threw it all away by having a massive brain fart and trying to illegally activate a unit with his Warcaster's Feat a second time, because he forgot he already used them once in the turn.

    I saw him tonight in fact, gave him shit for it again.
     
    #6 Triumph, Nov 23, 2021
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2021
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  7. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    It's a good question. I'm not sure I'm as consistent as I'd like to be on mines. Typically, "if you move there this known mine might go off, is that what you want to do?" and if they forgot about the mine, they get to do something else. IMO that's the right way to play.

    I think I do sometimes just say "this mine goes off." I'd like to say that I only do it if I think the opponent remembered the mine and meant to take the risk, but I'm not sure. Sometimes I may carelessly forget to offer the takeback first.

    If the camo marker isn't already known to be a mine, then the only warning is the standard "the following guys will see you if you move there" and include the camo marker in the list. No warning about potentially walking into template range if the content of the camo marker isn't known.
     
  8. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    There's the other side of this as well.

    Actively talking to your opponent about the state of the game helps you avoid gotchas.

    If you look at @Zewrath's interactions they're the active opponent actively investigating the game state in a way that lets both players get on the same page about what's going on. This prevents surprises, but also it doesn't obligate your opponent to interrupt you to say "Are you sure you want to do that, you appear to be making a mistake?"

    You can get this same 'gotcha' result with LOF if you're uncommunicative:
    "I Move to here, *immediately measure ZOC *, ok you have no AROs, so I Move again"
    "Umm yeah, I do... this guy can see you."

    I do agree with @Triumph though: Infinity is a game of unforced errors, and expecting your opponent to interrupt you while you're making a mistake is asking for more than good sportsmanship. It's certainly something I do - albeit not all the time - but it's being extremely generous, and usually something I'll do with people where there's a significant experience gap.

    If the game state hasn't changed (measuring changes the game state) I'll usually allow my opponents to rewind orders, and sometimes even if the game state has changed in an inconsequential way: for instance I've allowed my opponent to do a Impetuous move after spending their first order, because nothing in the resolution of the Regular order would have affected how they'd have spent the Impetuous - they'd just seen red, and spent orders out of order. Reworking how measuring Move works in N4 makes this a lot easier as its legal to redo the whole Move again and again up until the point that you measure ZOC or your opponent reveals HD / breaks Camo: as a reactive player you should ensure your opponent has finished Moving before you do any of these things (I'm not always the best at this, and sometimes declare my ARO before my opponent has finished his order fully because it was obvious or I got excited - this leads to messiness and I do my best to avoid it).

    Overall, I think the onus needs to be on the active player to ask not for the reactive player to be obliged to offer. But equally a "hey is anything likely to affect me if I move here?" should be sufficient to prompt a "you might be within ZOC of this Koala".
     
  9. WiT?

    WiT? Well-Known Member

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    I'm wondering how to avoid a situation where for each order spent, a player is kind of obliged to say something along the lines of "what can see me along this path and also which zone of controls am I approaching?" That would get, and already does get, quite tedious with just lines of fire!

    Does anyone have a suitable shortcut to avoid some of the verbiage? INB4 remember the gamestate lol, thats obviously the ideal but looking for ways to make that a little easier.

    Typically, when I play I match how accommodating they are to me, favoring making all potential ARO clear if possible. But if that is not reciprocated then I will throw their models under the forgotten mine bus.
     
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  10. toadchild

    toadchild Premeasure

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    Yeah, I remember back in N2 when the public/private info line wasn't quite as clean, people would sometimes "forget" to tell you that a model had the minelayer skill and only two mines left in its pocket unless you remember to explicitly ask for the information. That's a somewhat more extreme example under the current rules, but it's not a good play environment if the entire burden is on one player to explicitly and exhaustively ask for all relevant info at every circumstance.
     
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  11. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    Anything going to screw me if i walk out here?
     
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  12. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    Depending on the circumstances, what sometimes works for me is to sort of say "I don't think anyone can see in this area, so I activate this unit and Move". It's quick and can be done simultaneously with the order, but it cues the opponent to correct me if there is in fact something watching the area that I missed, before it's too late to go back.
     
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  13. Hachiman Taro

    Hachiman Taro Inverted gadfly

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    I guess you could say 'If I move here, what could react?' Or 'I am going to move here if only X can react' rather than just asking about LOF.

    That would include mines, perimeters repeaters etc if applicable.
     
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