Unconscious + Retreat token.

This seems to hinge on the definition of what a "Surviving" trooper is, as all "Surviving" troopers get a Retreat token.

Is an Unconscious trooper a "Survivor"? I would say yes, simply because they aren't dead, and not dying means you have survived.

Victory Points do not count survivors but instead anything not in a Null state, so troopers that are still alive but are in the Disconnected or Possessed States do not count for Victory Points, but are very much survivors of the battle.

Some missions treat troopers that are Unconscious at the end of the game as killed, 1) That rule only kicks in at the end of the game, and 2) it only applies to scoring, not to Retreat

Lastly, there is nothing in the effects of the Unconscious State to say that Retreat doesn't affect them, and likewise nothing the the Retreat state says that it doesn't apply to Unconscious troopers.

 

Retreat is judged on the Victory Point total of the survivors. Unconscious troopers do not count for Victory Points so that isn't necessarily inconsistent with Unconscious troopers being Survivors, they're just Survivors that count for zero Victory Points.

https://infinitythewiki.com/Retreat_Situation

> In game terms, each player, at the beginning of their Active Turn, during the Tactical Phase, must make a count of their Victory Points. For this purpose, consider any Troopers that have not yet been placed on the table (Airborne Deployment, Hidden Deployment…) as survivors

 

I would argue the specific Retreat rules page supercedes a quick reference chart which is, by it's very nature, abbreviated.

Indeed, nothing in the screenshot actually contradicts the fact that Unconscious troopers are survivors, as they are worth zero Points.

I would also point out that the turn sequence page also specifically calls out Victory Points

https://infinitythewiki.com/Game_Sequence

> Retreat! Check
The Active Player counts his Victory Points to see if he enters a Retreat! situation.

 

Since they are on the same page, by context these two occurrences of survivor must mean the same thing. (it may or may not mean something else in other rules such as Objective scored for surviving army point)

• When Retreat! State is declared at the beginning of a player's Active Turn, that player places a Retreat! Token (RETREAT!) beside each of their surviving troops.

• At the beginning of each of their Active Turns, players can make a count of their surviving troops. If the point cost of the survivors is more than the 25% threshold–because an Unconscious troop was restored to combat readiness, for example–then Retreat! State is cancelled and the Retreat! Tokens (RETREAT!) are removed.

Also while Victory Point, by definition is only for non-Null troopers, we can't say as much about point Cost. In the Cancellation they infer that is the point cost of survivor is more than the 25"% threshold because Unc was restore, retreat is cancelled.... How do you play a POS TAG then ? If a null state TAG provide 0 VP, then your army enters Retreats, but as a null state TAG count as a 0-VP survivor you would also consider its 70Pts Cost for the 25% threshold ? I think it is more likely that survivors are only the non-null state models that were used to calculate the VP. That is to say, I would not put a Retreat Flag next to a POS TAG or next to a Disconnected model.

Also, it is not a question of Quick Ref Charts, there are 2 rule pages


The chart is present in the main rule for Retreat Situation where it says "Point value of survivors (25% Army Points)" thus drawing a parallel that they are synonyms.
Also the fluff being

i hardly see Unc/POS/Disconnected to be included as part of the last men survivors since they cannot fight at all.

 

Both the Retreat and Retreat State pages specify that the Retreat threshold is Victory Points, though it is shortened to simply "Points" later in the same pages

 

Can you?

The rules say to add up the Victory Points of all survivors, this will include all Unconscious troops however they will have a VP cost of zero.

The main issue is that "Survivor" isn't explicitly defined, but that means there's also nowhere instructing us not to use the actual definition of a survivor i.e. someone who isn't Dead

 

Exactly my point, they are survivors that don't count for VP

 

in a world where everyone has cube and therefore everyone is immortal and thus a survivor, Victory Point already say you only count non-null troopers.

So even if we exclude Dead state as being a non-survivor, the Victory Point and Retreat threshold still work fine with everything else being a survivor. I still think though that survivor are those in a non-null state, I really doubt you put Retreat flags on Unc/Pos/Dis troopers. Of course, now that in N4 the flag doesn't also activate them in a retreat "impetuous" phase, there is no danger in putting a retreat flag next to a Pos TAG (as in, it won't activate it during the retreat phase).

If you think of retreat as other wargames army retreating in disarray, it would be silly that an unconscious model be able to fail Leadership roll and break away from the fight. But, it is also odd for gameplay that once revived, he can keep acting normally while everyone else is running away.

as for the "point value" point, i'll agree that it (the instance used in that table) could be a shorthand for "Victory Point". But there is no reason that "point cost" in the Cancellation effect could be shorthand for "Victory Point"; it has to be a shorthand for a trooper's "Cost" (which is paid in Army Point). Cancellation says the retreat state gets cancelled if the point cost goes over 25%. If POS count as survivors, then the TAGs "point cost" (which is his Cost, in Army Point, about 75 Pts or 75 Points) will cancel the retreat state. Which is why I think a null-state TAG in POS state is not considered a survivor and thus his "point cost" (Trooper's Cost) is not counted along the survivors point cost in triggering the cancellation clause.

 

This is a false claim. The same term can occur multiple times in the same sentence or paragraph, let alone on the same page, with a different meaning for each occurrence.

This situation is why the various scenarios have to include text like this one:

Killing
Troopers are considered Killed by the adversary when they enter Dead state, or they are in a Null state at the end of the game.

Troopers that have not been deployed on the game table, as a Model or Marker, at the end of the game will be considered to be Killed by the adversary.​

If you're in a null state at the end of the game, or you spent all of your time off of the table, the Killing rule makes you not a survivor by killing you.

 

As a rule of thumb, and I believe that IJW has been pushing for them to be consistent about this, a game term is written with an initial capital letter while regular English meaning is written without mid-sentence capitalization.
In other words "survivor" is a verb that is contextual so looking at it outside the context it is written in is counter-productive.

 

I'm saying, the definition should always be found contextually, as Solkan wrote, it is not something you look for in the rulebook at large. In the strictest sense I would say that an unconscious trooper does not count as being a survivor, because in the context of Retreat the qualifying criteria for being a survivor seem to be if you count for the Victory Points calculation or not.
With that said, I don't think that'll pass a round of FAQ as it seems in the spirit of the rules that any trooper that's not immune to Retreat should have a token next to them as soon as they are brought into a state which would make them eligible for it. Or maybe it's not important enough to address.