Thoroughly disagree with your aside, based almost entirely on the way Smoke works. The LOF of the attack is a thing and relevant.
If "the way smoke works" you mean when a unit is able to use BS Attack to respond to attacks? Yeah, kind of, but responding to shots through smoke is weird to begin with. Given how LOF of shots made aren't decided until after all skills have been declared it does mean that technically BS Attack when responding to attacks through Zero Visibility is made on chance which shouldn't be possible. Keep in mind, however, that when declaring a BS Attack you have to declare where you're shooting from as part of the skill declaration and given how LOF and LOF arcs work it shouldn't be possible to find a point where you can both draw LOF through smoke where the opponent can respond to your attack and draw LOF outside the smoke where the opponent can't respond. (diagram may be necessary, but hopefully you follow what I mean) If you mean the way smoke works with regards to causing face to face, then no. Smoke face to face is caused by placing the template so that it crosses the LOF used by the attacker's actual shots.
"If you mean the way smoke works with regards to causing face to face, then no. Smoke face to face is caused by placing the template so that it crosses the LOF used by the attacker's actual shots." I meant this. This indicates that the LOF used by the actual shots is what matters for determining the LOF of a BS Attack. You can probably make a technical argument that's not precisely what the rules say when you take into account the FAQ. But honestly, I'm not going to buy it as the intent.
I've played a lot of games online, and never once come across this interpretation. And it would come up frequently, given that it would prevent CC units from sneaking up in their targets' back arcs, which they do all the time. Anyway, I'm confident the interpretation is wrong, and I'm skeptical that people are playing it that way, but if you want to ask about it I think it should go in its own thread.
I don't think SS has ever worker that way. As @Mahtamori pointed out, the ability to shoot at someone outside LoF is one of the effects of SS that uncontroversially only works when the trooper is the target of an attack - since the text of the effect itself says so. As to whether it should get its own thread - that might depend on why you think it should work that way (if you still do).
Based on the posts so far, I'm going to try to articulate the two potential interpretations: A) The Requirement of SS that the trooper has to be the target of the attack is meant to apply to all the Effects of SS. The exception is Effect 6, which is the result of poor wording since, as written, the Requirement ought to apply to that Effect too. However, the intention is that the phrase "against Troopers with the SS Special Skill" indicates that Effect 6 applies all the time, whether or not the skill's Requirement is met. B) The Requirement of SS is a restatement of information also contained in Effects 1, 2, 3, and 5, all of which state that they apply when the SS user is the target of an attack. The Requirement isn't intended to apply to Effects 4 and 6 which don't have anything to do with the trooper being attacked. I still don't know which is correct, although I think at this point I'm leaning slightly towards (A).
It's very possible I might've misunderstood the explanation, but keep in mind that I'm extrapolating on it and it is not a way I'd personally prefer to play. It does make some sort of sense, though. LOF is defined without taking the arc into account, drawing/using LOF does take arc into account (except for reciprocal LOF), and generally speaking the process of formally selecting points that you shoot at when declaring BS Attack is poorly explained. The explanation I received didn't deal with melee at all. It was all about whether you can select a spot to shoot at in ARO that's outside your arc so that you can get potentially better MODs (shooting outside cover and/or in a better range band) and what I believe this person was saying was that you can provided your BS Attack declaration is validated by having LOF at some point during the order*. And then along comes this thread reminding me that Stealth no longer removes the ability to use LOF gained from an enemy entering Engaged via back arc... The technical counter-argument I can see that would not quash the above interpretation is that given the All At Once rule, Bob will only have LOF at a single point during the order and that's when he is also Engaged and may not declare BS Attack. I'm not sure that works with the skill validation process, but it is appealing (if only because everyone and their goat has a DTW in this edition). * As a small aside, keep in mind that Total Cover's effects can't be ignored through this interpretation, so no trying to use this to shoot through walls, mkay?
Fair enough. It could also be that the person explained their interpretation to you accurately, but grossly exaggerated the extent to which anyone other than them agrees with the interpretation :-) Anyway, since nobody here is arguing in favour of the interpretation, I won't bother arguing against it. Such argument, if we were to have it, would belong in its own thread imo.
What answer are you waiting on HellLois on? I think pretty much everyone has settled on "6S has a clear requirement, and only functions when that requirement is met". This is essentially what the simplest reading of the rules tells us to do. Stealth separately calls out that it doesn't work against a trooper with 6S - so this continues to work the way everyone expects (ie. troopers with 6S ignore Stealth even when not the subject of an attack). I'd be rather surprised if we actually get an answer to this. It doesn't really need one. @Mahtamori up to you if you add it to your list. I honestly don't think it's needed though.
What a wild generalization and assumtion. Sixth Sense has undisputable bullet points that makes absolutely no sense if you need to be attacked for them to kick in. "Stealth is not effective against Troopers with the Sixth Sense Special Skill." I think this makes it abundantly clear that the requirement means absolutely nothing, especially since every bullet points that pertains to attacks actually have the mention of being attacked in their own bullet points. For that reason, I think the Dodge aspect of Sixth Sense works regardless of what is happening. And that the intention of the skill in that matter is pretty obvious.
Clearly I was mistaken: I honestly didn't realise it still was actually being debated. So it's up in the air *shrugs* my bad. There's 0 chance I'm allowing ignoring the -3 to Dodge without an attack though: still strongly believe that the simplest reading of the rules is 'just apply the requirements'. As I said - a separate section of the rules makes it clear that Stealth doesn't function against troopers with 6S. This really does seem abundantly clear to me.
The other part is a reminder. Ignoring the intent of the stealth bullet point as showing clear intent that the requirements do not match the need for the effect is just bad faith imo. If the other reminder about steath was not present elsewhere in the rule, it would be completey outrageous to argue that sixth sense doesn't negate steath. I think the same reasoning apply to the Dodge.
Extending the stealth bullet point as enabling an entirely unrelated interaction to ignore requirements is a stretch: plausibly intended, but not really supported. Suggesting that me strongly disagreeing with that is a 'bad faith' interpretation is making a personal attack for no good purpose.
I pushed it, because I played without the requirement for 1,5 years and was just recently made aware by battle reports that this is still an open discussion and I'm not the only one intuitively understanding it that way.