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Why the change to 'move first then short skill after'?

Discussion in 'Rules' started by freefall357, Mar 30, 2022.

  1. freefall357

    freefall357 Active Member

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    Title says it all really.
    I see several issues that have come up that are easily solved with requiring any movement to be declared before other skills in an order.
    Is there any stated reason this went away? I know it was kinda odd to wrap your head around when learning, but it really did make things smoother.
    OR am I misremembering things...

    Edit: I am more or less looking for a reason houseruling this back in might have any issues.
     
  2. Iskandar

    Iskandar Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure what you mean by went away? During N4 you could always declare a non movement skill first and then declare move.
     
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  3. Amusedbymuse

    Amusedbymuse Well-Known Member

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    AFAIK it was never an official rule. It is something that you learn to "always" do because 99% of the time it's just better and safer to use move and force ARO declaration before you commit to particular skill. The latest FAQ introduced some ARO baiting that can be done with declaring BS before move, and there was similar CC baiting before that they have to fix with previous FAQ or interim rulings.
     
    #3 Amusedbymuse, Mar 30, 2022
    Last edited: Mar 30, 2022
  4. Iskandar

    Iskandar Well-Known Member

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    Yeah there are situations where doing the non move skill first is better though and not related to baiting which is why I dislike the solution of forcing move first
     
  5. psychoticstorm

    psychoticstorm Aleph's rogue child
    Moderator

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    There are situations were moving as a second short skill is advantageous and does not involve "baiting".

    Confining movement first commits the active player in a predestined movement path without knowing the ARO of the opposition taking control from the active player.
     
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  6. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Still think that having to specify which position the trooper is performing the skill from at time of declaration and for that position to be valid at time of declaration is the most elegant solution of them all. This doesn't force order of operation needlessly and it resolves some of the rare edge cases involving MSV and smoke where players might not necessarily be able to know if they have an ARO or not
     
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  7. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    The problem is pretty much only that Templates are always required to be placed at declaration, when everything around them changed.

    You should be allowed to delay Template placement until Resolution, IF you have a legal ARO and the first Short Skill was an Attack.

    If you didn't have an ARO against the first Short Skill, because you're outside of ZOC and someone declares BS Attack+Move you already have the same result.
    If someone baits your ZoC Aro with their first Short Skill Move you don't get to delay (and it's not abuseable for the Active Trooper).
     
  8. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Because being touched by templates causes AROs this is an impossible ask.
     
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  9. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    you place template at declaration but the requirement that it hit the target is only checked at resolution. we thought you could not place the template because you had to check requirement when placing it which is done when you are declaring it, but a post by psychoticstorm in a different thread confirmed "check requirement at end of order" for DTW is no different than non-DTW, so you leave the DTW on the table for the whole order. Which makes it trivially easy for the main target to just move around it; but it might be enough to prevent him from engaging you.
     
  10. Teslarod

    Teslarod when in doubt, Yeet

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    My proposition prevents exactly that from happening.
    If someone declares a BS Attack as the first Skill against you inside of your ZOC you have to place your template ARO and they get to move to avoid it after, resulting in a normal roll BS Attack (also works with CC Attack but is harder to do).

    If you can delay placing the template in the same way a regular BS Attack gets to delay declaring the target's position in that specific scenario (someone attacking you before you know their Movement path) the problem doesn't exist.
     
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  11. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    While DTW placement could provoke ARO (as Mahtamori said), it can never provoke ARO from the Active Player. I don't see a problem with allowing DTW AROs to declare the placement at end of Order, since its positioning can never cause additional AROs.

    Knowing the template placement only matter when the Active Player is declaring DTW. Then it could cause additional ARO (that were not already triggered by ZoC) as a Chain Riffle reaches further than ZoC ARO trigger range. It could be solved with: when declaring your DTW you must also declare the main and non-main targets. Then at end of order you must place the DTW such that it hits those targets and no additional targets. Or it could be left that active player places upon declaration (to see if there is new ARO) and reactive place at end of order (as it is impossible to cause more ARO).
     
  12. freefall357

    freefall357 Active Member

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    What are these situations?

    Part of the interactivity was things like going "I move to here along this path" and the opponent saying "I aro with these two things, one dodge one BS attack" and you having to go "oh, he can shoot me...crap...um...I second move over to this cover (or "I split burst"). It was also a big part of "I move out of total cover to the corner and back into total cover....any AROs?....ok, now I declare shoot from that corner.

    Now it sounds like you can declare things you can't actually do to bait AROs, then just not do them.
    If I was around a corner with my CC unit and I wanted to attack someone, I would declare move, he would DTW my attack path in ARO then I would declare my CC and we would normal-to-normal each other. Now there is declaring my CC around the corner, him being SoL or guessing where to put the DTW so I can then declare move and choose a different path?
    Or was that sorted at this point?

    Ultimately, the move first just seemed to work in all cases and my original point stands...I am not sure why any change was needed when last edition worked.
    I may just be dumb, tbf.
     
  13. Iskandar

    Iskandar Well-Known Member

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    If I'm behind total cover and declare a spotlight onto your trooper and you declare reset I can then freely walk around the corner without getting shot. Another example is I'm in a fireteam and I'm stood on a corner looking at your trooper. I declare BS Attack at you. You ARO with BS Attack back, the rest of my fireteam then walks past the corner to another building knowing you cannot shoot them because I forced your ARO first.
     
  14. ijw

    ijw Ian Wood aka the Wargaming Trader. Rules & Wiki
    Infinity Rules Staff Warcor

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    You’ve always been able to declare non-move Skills as the first Skill of the Order, from N1 onwards.

    What changed in N4 is being able to declare Skills without fulfilling the Requirements until the Resolution step.
     
  15. freefall357

    freefall357 Active Member

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    Ah, got ya.
    Both make great thematic sense. Hack n distract then run. Or covering fire for your team.
    Admittedly, after spotlight+move, your next order is gonna be risky...and I can't see the second one coming up outside of theory.

    Yeah, I dug into it and sure enough, it was just habit we had because it worked so well. I asked my other players and they never remember anyone saying it was a hard rule...we just all did it that way.

    So, this leads to the question of WHY to that last bit. Assuming players were not trying to abuse the system, does the new rule work out better in the long run?
     
  16. freefall357

    freefall357 Active Member

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    I know one of the problems I have seen pop up was "declare CC, other player around corner can only dodge for ARO, then you move into CC for free"

    One of the REQUIREMENTS listed to even say "I declare CC" is silhouette contact with an enemy.
    If the problem is checking validity at the end of the order then, in theory you can declare ANY skill even if the model doesn't have the gear to allow it.
    So, my next question would be: Why doesn't REQUIREMENT for a given order fall outside the validity check or just have its own?
    If you don't have a BS weapon you simply can never declare a BS attack. If you are not already in b2b you can't declare CC (yes guard dog, blah blah point stands).
    You wouldn't have validity check issues if you couldn't declare orders not available to the model...then, afterwards, the validity check would cover edge cases and loopholes

    Or am I just dumb again?
     
  17. Iskandar

    Iskandar Well-Known Member

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  18. freefall357

    freefall357 Active Member

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  19. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    The reactive player can do the same sort of declaration that the active player can, so they, too, can declare CC Attack against the opponent (or BS Attack). <Edit: too many edits, too many changes. Direct Template Weapons have an exception, I need to refer to the most recent FAQ.>
     
  20. Diphoration

    Diphoration Well-Known Member
    Warcor

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    You could also do Shoot-Move, but it was almost always worst than Move-Shoot. (Outside of some niche applications, like fireteams crossing a narrow gap by forcing opponent to shoot the active trooper and not the one that move through)

    N4 changed it so you don't need to meet requirement and introduced a ton of garbage interactions that give you incentive to do Shoot-Move more to game the system.

    Not meeting the requirements was a terrible change imo, and playing the game as "declare move first" makes for a much better experience. (The amount of options you lose is largely insignificant, but the clarity of the game flow you gain is invaluable for a good experience.)
     
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