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Does unconscious troopers take up space in combat groups?

Discussion in 'Rules' started by Mahtamori, Apr 22, 2022.

  1. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    The N4 rules do not seem to handle this very elegantly.

    https://infinitythewiki.com/Army_List#Combat_Group

    REMEMBER
    Only those Troopers who contribute or spend Orders take up space in the Army List. Peripherals do not contribute or spend Orders, so they do not count towards the maximum limit of 10 Troopers in a Combat Group.
    https://infinitythewiki.com/Command_Tokens#Command_Tokens:_Executive_Use

    (This doesn't have rules suggesting that Unconscious troopers still take up space)

    https://infinitythewiki.com/Unconscious

    And here's the problem.

    • Troopers in this state cannot declare Orders or AROs.
    • Unconscious Troopers automatically fall Prone unless they are a Troop Type unable to do so.
    • Troopers in this state do not contribute Orders during the Tactical Phase.
    • Automatic Special Skills and Automatic Equipment have no effect while Unconscious.
    • The Trooper does not count towards the Player's Victory Points.
    As we can see, there's nothing that handles whether the trooper takes up space in the combat group here, but the effects makes the trooper not generate order and incapable of spending orders which the very basic rules for Combat Groups suggest means the trooper does not take up a slot in the combat group.

    Historically, units that are down but not out still take up a spot, preventing units from moving, but this fact seems to have been missed in the Unconscious State's effects, presumably because the rules are building knowledge upwards and aren't made to be friendly for looking up information so much as gradually teach a new player the rules at a reasonable pace.

    So the question is partially a quest for missed rules;
    Do troopers that are unconscious still take up space in combat groups?
    If not, how do we handle it if a combat group becomes 11 troopers if a trooper is moved into the group and then you Doctor an unconscious trooper back into shape?

    As with many threads like this, please don't confuse opinions with rules. If you've got a rule that you think says otherwise then please provide a link or reference for the rule or ruling and try to stick to an N4 context. We know that Unconscious troopers took up the spot in N3.
     
  2. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    In my opinion :smirk: I feel like unconscious troops not preventing swapping groups, especially when I don't have any doctor, is a positive change in N4.

    I understand that it might be an unintentional change as it was never put under the spotlight of how N4 is better than N3.
     
  3. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    The Combat Group rules are found in the Army List rules which speak to creation of the list before the game starts ("The Army List is the list of Troopers that make up the combat forces the player will be using during the game." [emphasis added]).

    I would argue that in that context, "those Troopers who contribute or spend Orders" refers to the type of trooper, not to its ability to contribute or spend orders at any specific point in the game. Effectively it just means "not peripherals or spare Posthumans," which is confirmed by the second sentence which contrasts "Troopers who contribute or spend Orders" with peripherals.

    If we instead classified Troopers as "those Troopers who contribute or spend Orders" based on their status at a given moment, I could build a list with more than 10 in a group if the extras had hidden deployment or combat jump.

    Consequently, I would argue that where the Executive Use of Command Token rule says it's constrained by "respecting the 10 members limit," it's referring back to the list-building rule and also refers to the type of trooper (order generator vs. peripheral/posthuman), not the trooper's ability to generate and spend orders at that moment.
     
  4. Tristan228

    Tristan228 Bakunin's best Morlock trainer
    Warcor

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    So in case the unconcious trooper wouldn't be counted against the 10 Trooper maximum, another trooper would fill the group up to 10 again and said unconcious trooper gets healed, of which CG would that unconcioncious Trooper now be part of?
    Due to these two paragraphs right above the orange REMEMBER box and no statement in the unconcious state about leaving or changing the CG an unconcious trooper doesn't leave a combat group since it then had to become part of another combat group
     
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  5. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Yes, but neither does a peripheral leave the combat group without occupying the spot - which is probably the limit of what the remember box wants to say, but it does so in a very open ended way (future proofing maybe)
     
  6. Frodos

    Frodos Active Member

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    I agree that this should be clarified at some point in FAQ or in other way. It's weird to not be able to give a rule to a new player (or someone who would like explicit clarification) and only to answer: "that's how it's played".
     
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  7. tox

    tox SorriBarai
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    This bit of rules ir linked to how to create an Army List.
    When you create an Arly List, you cannot exceed 10 Orders, not counting whatever we know how it works.

    Then, during the game there is the Command Token use:
    Please notice the term. 10 members.
    I like that this term is not defined anywhere. So whatever meaning you apply to it, it will not be supportted.


    Anyway, given the problem generating if you allow to "move over an unconscious and then revive it", I would clearly go with a blatant NOPE!
     
  8. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    So you are basically saying that once the game is started, Peripherals also count towards the max limit of 10 members because the rule that says they don't count towards the 10 member limit only applies during list creation? Those rules are the only rules that define what a Combat Group is, by the way, other rules build on them, but that's the foundation so I do not think you can simply explain away them so easily. It is reasonable to come to this conclusion, but rather in spite of the rules than thanks to the rules, so I do not think it's reasonable to call the rules "clear" as shown by how these interactions are questioned when people learn the rules without N3 baggage to make assumptions from.
     
  9. solkan

    solkan Well-Known Member

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    It seems to me that unless a person is planning on compiling their own FAQ or errata, this sort of thread is pretty much useless.

    Because "If I try to do this thing, it breaks the game" gets a "Then don't do it" answer the same way "If I do this thing, it hurts" gets a "Then you should stop doing that" response.
     
  10. Abrilete

    Abrilete Well-Known Member

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    My reasoning:
    - You have rules that explain how to create a list and Combat Groups. It is stated that normally you won't be allowed to reshuffle troops later on.
    - You have rules that explain the exception to the previous rule, how to move troops between Combat Groups using Command Tokens.

    Therefore, the only way to move troops between Combat Groups is using a Command Token and Unconscious troops keep their slot in the Combat Group.


    But my reasoning has a problem... the Dead State doesn't state that you remove the trooper from the Combat Group, just from the game table. So even Dead troopers keep using their slot in the Combat Group.
     
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  11. Nuada Airgetlam

    Nuada Airgetlam Nazis sod off ///

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    Seems logical but that's silly though in light of it being played everywhere I've seen and read about that they vacate the slot
     
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  12. Abrilete

    Abrilete Well-Known Member

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    Agreed, I've always played as "Dead" gets the trooper removed from the game (and thus from the Command Group).
     
    #12 Abrilete, May 4, 2022
    Last edited: May 4, 2022
  13. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    There seem to be three primary interpretations:

    1. There are no rules that remove a trooper from occupying a slot and it is therefore "refilling" an order group is very costly.
    2. The rules for occupying a slot at list creation applies throughout the game and a trooper that ceases to generate an order also ceases to count towards the 10 unit limit.
    3. Follow the N3 rules because the veterans said so. UNC takes up slots, Dead doesn't.

    Common for all I would say is that neither really breaks the game. They've got gameplay implications, but they're not massive compared to other interactions. Obviously, the first one does make moving using CTs fairly niche operation for such a rare and precious resource.

    I'm fairly confident in saying that 3 is by far the most common interpretation, and given how Infinity is typically very literal in how to read rules it does seem to have the least support by the rules. For what it is worth, number 2 is the one that I tend to encounter with people new to the game who haven't yet been told by a veteran how it is played. Obviously, number 2 also comes with the issues that recovering a unit from unconscious can make a group contain more than 10 units much like how that can be an issue for number 3 in specific scenarios.
    In considering this rules interaction I'm starting to lean towards that number 2 is perhaps the least bad interaction both from a gameplay and from a roles compatibility perspective - it seems fairly intuitive and it puts the least restrictions on gameplay. It does probably need to come with the caveat that only 10 troopers per order group may count their orders, but on the other hand it's not like you can actively plan to over-fill an order group so maybe this isn't as much of an issue.
     
  14. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    One of the reasons we all prefer (3) is that it worked that way in N3, it's pretty fundamental to how the game works, and there's no indication that CB intended to change this fundamental interaction in N4. Lots of things changed in N4, but typically they were accomplished by pretty clear wording changes that appeared intentional. Here, it looks to me like CB intended to keep the N3 system and clean up the wording, but flubbed it a bit.

    I get the desire to read the rules without reference to N3, and that it's a problem for new players to be told you can't properly interpret the rules unless you've been playing for 2+ years. But I think that's a consequence of the rules vacuum CB has left us in for more than a year now. We don't have @ijw , or anyone else, to fix these writing inaccuracies with like a one-sentence answer. In that context I'm increasingly thinking that we have no choice but to reference N3 to help explain some of the wording in N4.

    I live in hope that that will change and CB will finally start supporting its ruleset again, and we can leave N3 behind. Until then, I guess I think (3) is the correct answer.

    It doesn't have to be "I've been playing longer than you, shut up and do what I say." It can be "look, here's the situation. The game designer has abandoned rules support. We hope it's temporary. In the meantime, there are rules like this where longtime players understand how it's supposed to work, but the N4 writing is bad and there's nobody to fix it. I know it sucks."
     
  15. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    I mean, I don't agree that this is very fundamental, certainly not to the same degree as the changed order sequence from the FAQs.

    That said, I haven't examined the wording used in N3 but it is possible that the wording isn't much clearer and the way we've played it is a result of traditions from N2 or N1 rather than following rules to the letter.

    N3 edit:
    So, re-examining the N3 rules the relevant passage is just direct copy-pasting, they FAQed how this situation worked in N3 but didn't bring the FAQ rules over to N4. The N3 FAQ makes the assumption that dead troopers do not count as being part of the game (or similar effect) and do not occupy a slot.
     
    #15 Mahtamori, May 6, 2022
    Last edited: May 6, 2022
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  16. Robock

    Robock Well-Known Member

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    yeah, that is an unfortunate behaviour that comes from distant past. They make FAQ but then don't include them in rule revisions, which leads to the same questions being asked again and wait for a new FAQ to answer it the same way.
     
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  17. QueensGambit

    QueensGambit Chickenbot herder

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    Appreciate you doing the research on this.

    This is at least a basis for not having to just say "veteran knows best." If a new player wants to know why unconscious troopers still fill group slots, there's an answer: "The wording was the same in N3 and it was FAQed. It's the same wording in N4 so we think the intention is the same even though, due to the rules vacuum, the FAQ hasn't made it into N4."

    I realize that at the start of N4 there was resistance to that line of reasoning, but I don't think that CB's abandonment of the rules has left us with any other choice at this point. If they won't give us N4 answers, we kind of have to rely on N3 answers in cases where the rules don't appear to have changed between editions.
     
    #17 QueensGambit, May 6, 2022
    Last edited: May 6, 2022
  18. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    Would be nice to know who was dropping the ball on this...
     
  19. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    The company did. Having the customers hunt for a specific person to blame is completely unfair and not helpful.
     
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  20. Hecaton

    Hecaton EI Anger Translator

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    Eh. This is a problem that's repeatedly not been fixed.
     
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