Serious question that I need some rules lawyers and cheese players input on. The Rule: A model can DELAY it's ARO against a model outside it's LoF but within ZoC (Potential addendum: Skills declared after this delay must require LoF or silhouette contact) How is this rule broken or abusable? Editing as I get input, so it may not line up with early replies
You can do something better than that (not having an ARO against the first Short Skill) if it's not in your ZOC or Hacking Area. Are you trying to fix Template AROs like Chainrifles vs BS Attack + Move?
Yup, kinda. The big one being "I CC around this full cover, you ARO with DTW and place it, I go around the other side instead, ignoring the DTW" So it IS in your ZoC. But I also don't want to have hackers delaying every order.
I'd go with: The Reactive Trooper is allowed to delay ARO If a non Movement Label Skill is declared inside ZOC, but outside LOF. Even if there are other Activations inside your LOF within the same Order (i.e. a secondary Fireteammember baiting your ARO or Coordinated Order participants baiting for the Spearhead to get a Normal Roll/avoid a DTW ARO by walking around it). Was initially thinking to restrict it to Attacks, but it should work on Discover and Move-Move as well. If the Active Trooper has Stealth or is outside ZOC you do not have an ARO against the first Short Skill and do not need to delay. It works against Fireteams where someone else is baiting your ARO for the Spearhead to get an unopposed shot or a free pass to walk pass a Shotgun Template. There might be some problems I'm unaware of, but it seems to solve the initial problem of template AROs being screwed.
I don't think you can make an elegant solution for this problem without causing more problems for either player. The bandaid is to not use too small terrain pieces (anything larger than 2x2" should do it) and simply have players accept that they can often avoid this situation or in the rare cases where they can not will need to use pistol or their own CC attack instead. In fact, clever placement of a template sometimes even means you can cover both directions the opponent can come from. It's not actually such a big deal if you know what you're doing, in my opinion. Delay in general will cause the reactive trooper to act with complete information and the active trooper, the one spending precious resources, will be forced to guess what is happening. Your problems aren't limited to just hackers since there's troopers with Holomask that in some factions can be units with hacking devices, in some can be units with Jammers and in others be units that pretend they have stink-magic to cause issues that are at the very least as bad as what you're trying to avoid. Similar issue with camouflage markers as well. At the bare minimum you'd have to attach a denied clause similar to delay against camouflage markers: if the opponent does not enter into line of fire the delay is lost.
this is the forum to talk about real rules. house rules and other rule suggestions should go here: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/forums/rules-suggestions.246/