Greetings lovely people. In the ARO rules of the game it is stated that "AROs must choose one of the Troopers activated by the Order as their target." (page 21 of the living rule book) In the coordinated order rules there is an example about how delaying your ARO works when there are multiple coordinated markers that allow delay along non-marker troopers. This example implies that when you choose to react to an specific trooper in marker state, and choose to delay your ARO toward it, you cannot later declare your ARO at another trooper in the coordinated order even in the case that the marker state trooper reveals himself. So my confussion with how Holoecho has been being played around in my gaming group, and in the Infinity The Discord global community is the following extract from the Holoecho rules: Specifically the "are considered real troopers" and "each reactive trooper must choose only one of the holoechos activated by the Order as their target" So far is cristal clear. If you are facing multiple holoechos marker, you treat all of them as real troopers that provide you ARO. And you can not split your burst between them, you must choose one as your ARO. But what happens when you choose to DELAY your ARO? Traditionally in my gaming group and in the Infinity the Discord community it has been read that when you delay instead of AROing against an specific holoecho marker, you delay against all three. As you're delaying not against the markers, but against the real trooper that is behind the markers. This has lessen the utility of Holoecho by a great deal traditionally. But my reading, which may be wrong of course, is that when you delay instead of AROing against an specific holoecho marker, you're delying against that specific trooper that is the marker itself because it's considered as a real trooper for ARO effect and the enemy must choose one of the Holoecho markers as their target. In the same way that you can not delay against Camo marker A and then shoot at another trooper in a coordinated order when you realise Camo marker A is not a threat as it is out of range of his weapon. You were already targeting camo marker A. Or in the same way when faced against a Controller and a Peripheral that has maker state, such as an Streklok (marker A) and a K-9 (marker B). Where if you choose to delay against marker B (the K-9), you can not later ARO attack against the Streklok (former marker A) when he is revealed along the K9 unit when the controller and peripheral declares BS Attack. You were already targetting the K-9 (marker B) In those two scenarios your Delay of the ARO is still allowing you to have an ARO such as Dodge to diminish the upcoming danger. What I am arguing is the way the rule is written is that when faced against holoecho A, B or C you must chose which one you're AROing against, and then Delay against that specific one. If you choose to Delay against marker B, and the real trooper was marker A and he reveals to you, your're still allowed to ARO Dodge, but not shoot him back as you were already targetting for your ARO marker B. Please remember that "Whenever Holoecho State of the Holoprojector bearer is canceled, remove all the holographic decoys at the end of the Order that happened. If the bearer was hidden as a Holoecho Marker or as a different Model, replace it with the bearer’s Model, facing the same direction, at the end of the Order that happened." Along with "IMPORTANT Cancellation of Holoecho State is applied to the entirety of the declared Order, even if the Skill revealing the Holoecho bearer is performed at the end of the Order." So when you react to holoecho marker B (which it is considered as a trooper) and then holoecho marker A is revealed as the real trooper when he declares an Skill against you, the holoecho marker B still exists in your second ARO declaration window, and you're still targeting him because of your Delay. And that Holoecho Marker B is declaring the same skill as holoecho marker A (the real trooper). What I am implying is that the rules do not say that you change your target suddenly to holoecho marker A (the real trooper). But of course you still have the right to ARO, and you can diminish the upcoming danger by declaring Dodge for example. Thanks for your time for all of this. I would sincerely appreciate if an official ruling or aclaration is made in this regard. Be it if it appears in a next FAQ, or if @Koni or @ijw or @HellLois or someone with a role within the rules staff answer this thread. Peace out and thanks lot for @Diphoration, @Iskandar, @Mahtamori, @Prophet LZ35SRX and others for their time spent discussing this rule with me in the Discord chat.
Can you delay ARO against a real trooper (as a Holo Echo is according to the rules)? I thought you can delay an ARO only against marker states (Marker states are not considered real trooprs, aren't they?).
In fact a trooper in marker state, such as CAMO or IMP, is still a real trooper. Decoy without CAMO, for example does not allow to delay your ARO, and it is still a marker state.
Delay is not an universal game mechanic, nor is it a Common Skill. Delay is an effect of a specific marker state, so you can't delay your AROs unless a marker state tells you you can delay against it. See bullet point 10 of Camouflaged State effects for example: The state itself specifically tells you when and how you can delay your ARO against the trooper in that state. Same with Holoecho, it specifically states that the source of delay is the trooper in Holoecho State, not an Echo marker: And as for your point about considering HoloEchoes as real troopers - they are not, and the state itself specifically names cases when you do consider them real troopers (that is for purposes of checking LoF, generating AROs and activating enemy deployable weapons). Outside of named cases they are not, and are not treated as, real troopers. In the case in question, Rabble keeps stretching the effect of treating Holoechoes as real troopers to cover every case, as opposed to what the skill explicitly says (only for purposes of checking LoF, generating AROs and activating deployable weapons). The way the rules work is: 1) A Trooper or a group of Troopers activates and declare/perform their first short skill. 2) Reactive Trooper(s) select which of the Active Troopers they will be reacting to (as per the rules of ARO, if there are more than one) 3) Once Reactive Trooper selects the Active Trooper they will be reacting to, they get the benefit of the marker state that allows them to delay their ARO declaration against the selected Active Trooper (this is not targeting, to target something a Reactive Trooper has to declare a Skill, which delaying is not). 4) Then Reactive Trooper chooses whether to declare an ARO right now, or to delay the declaration. In case of a Holoecho State Active Trooper, regardless of how many HoloEcho markers there are, there is only one actual Trooper under them. So when you choose a Trooper to react to, you choose that Trooper, not a specific marker. And the delay effect is granted against the Trooper, not a specific Holoecho marker (again, see the wording of the effect on Holoecho State). In case of several Troopers in marker states in Coordinated Order, each marker has a different Trooper under it. So when choosing an Active Trooper to react to, you have to choose only one from those several different Troopers. And thus you benefit only from their effect of delaying your ARO, and if they do not reveal and other troopers in the Coordinated Order reveal - you cannot switch who you react to, because you have already selected one, and used his delay effect. Same situation with a Trooper with a Peripheral in marker states (the example brought up was a Strelok with a K-9, both in Camo). Both Controller and Peripheral are Troopers, so when reacting you have to select only one of them to react to.
I do agree that the layout of the rules in both the wiki and the rule book is lacking in coherence and consistency. Because as much as Decoy isn’t tagged as a marker state label… You still need to replace a decoy marker with the actual model in case you choose the real model was either decoy-1 or decoy-2 instead of the actual model for the troop. A replace a marker with a model. I understand the logic behind the rules team for not tagging it as a marker state even when you’re hiding your real model behind a decoy-1 or decoy-2 marker. Unlike CAMO, IMP or HOLO, as soon as you’re activating the real trooper the enemy knows for sure what is behind it, even if you declare IDLE as your first order declaration. So maybe they decided to not tag the rule as marker… even when you’re playing shuffle with markers
* I disagree with you in that when you choose to react to a certain trooper/marker/model, and then you DELAY, such DELAY isn’t targeting already the trooper/marker/model you’re choosing to react. Otherwise you could choose to DELAY your ARO and then ARO to another target in the cases exposed before. I do agree with you @LZ35SRX in that there is no separate single ARO skill called Delay. We have three different instances of Delay ARO embedded in the CAMO, IMP and HOLOECHO rules. That happen to be copy-paste of each other. Maybe this discussion wouldn’t happen if the rules would have a different separate rule section about DELAY ARO, what causes it, what can you do, how can you resolve it along examples… Page 91 Second Bullet Point: Against a Marker, the enemy can delay declaring their ARO until it declares its second Short Skill of the Order. Page 100 Again the same second bullet point: Against a Marker, the enemy can delay declaring their ARO until it declares its second Short Skill of the Order. But the rule book fails to provide the same yellow box for HOLOECHO somehow. Again, the lacking of the layout of the rule book and wiki is significant in certain areas. But such a yellow box would have looked look like this: My question sums up down to how this two lines in Holoecho rules: * Holoechoes are considered real Troopers in regard to providing AROs * Each Reactive Trooper must choose only one of the Holoeches activated by the Order as their target. Mix with the following: * The Reactive Trooper can delay the declaration of his ARO until the second half of the Active Trooper’s Order has been declared. * Against a Marker, the enemy can delay declaring their ARO until it declares its second Short Skill of the Order. Taking in account that: * Whenever Holoecho State of the Holoprojectos is canceled, remove all the holographic decoys at the end of the Order that happened. So it boils down to: If you choose one of the holoechoes markers as your ARO are you targeting the three of them? Rules says no… seemingly If you delay to such a marker you’re now targeting the real trooper behind it? It depends on if we take the yellow box ‘marker’ rule text as ‘each individual marker on the table specifically can be reacted to’ or if such ‘marker’ implies ‘the trooper behind the marker state is the one you’re reacting, even if you’re targeting another individual marker specifically’. And in either case, a better, clearer, rule text would be appreciated and cherished
Additional thoughts for the thread. Suppose the following scenario: * Holoecho trooper is hiden under holoecho marker C, and the A and B markers are also deployed in the table (in reality this is the actual model being used as 'marker C', along A and B holoecho markers) * Holoecho trooper activates. The marker C, which hiddens the real trooper behind, moves up the table. The marker A and B moves as well along it. Marker A happens to move close to two other troopers of the player during such a move... too close in fact, that a terminal template weapon would hit the marker along those two other troopers. * Enemy has a trooper, X, who has Line of Fire to marker A alone, and has a terminal template weapon. And another trooper, Y, who has line of fire to marker A, B and C, with another terminal weapon. X choose to ARO against marker A, Y choose to ARO against maker C. And both delay their ARO declaration. * Holoecho trooper reveals themselves, which we remember is holoecho marker C (the model). By declaring place a deployable for example. * Enemy troopers X and Y can now declare their ARO, because the 'holoecho trooper has reveal himself' clause has happened. Consequences that depend on how the rule is read: Reading 1 - It doesn't matter which marker you choose to ARO, when you delay your ARO you're AROing against the real trooper only: In this case enemy trooper X can not attack the marker A with his terminal template weapon, as marker A is not the real trooper... even when it counts as a real trooper for ARO purpouses, and the holoecho marker A has not been removed from the game yet until the end of order activation sequence. Enemy trooper Y can neither attack marker A, as the real trooper is in fact marker C, and he can only attack now marker C (the real trooper) after delaying his ARO. Reading 2 - It doesn't matter which marker you choose to ARO, when you delay your ARO you're AROing against the real trooper and therefore against all markers. In this case both enemy troopers can attack marker A with their ARO, and hit with their terminal template weapon the two bystander troopers of the active player. Enemy trooper Y has now to decide if it is more convenient to attack the revealed real trooper behind marker C, or template the two bystander troopers ny attacking marker A. Reading 3 - It does matter which maker you choose to ARO, as when you delay your ARO you can only ARO against that marker. In this case enemy trooper X can attack marker A and terminal template the two bystander troopers of the active player. As he had choose to react to marker A originally. But enemy trooper Y can only attack marker C, the real trooper, as he had choose to react to marker C originally. Even if he like to do so, he could not terminal template the two bystander troopers of the active player nearby marker A, as he had not originally choose to react to it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reading 1 is the one which seemingly is being used now by the community? But if feels strange for enemy trooper X who have choose to ARO against marker A not being able to shoot at marker A and hit with the template the two bystander troopers only because the real trooper was C. Reading 2 is the one who takes away more 'power' to holoecho, and the one who makes the reacting player able to punish the holoecho user for any mistakes he may do, such as the one described in this scenario. Reading 3 is a middle road approach. Enemy trooper X is still able to hit the marker A he was originally AROing after the ARO delay. And enemy trooper Y can still react to the real trooper as he had originally choose to ARO to marker C. It makes the very act of choosing what you want to react to revelant.
To me, this makes the question "what's the point of holoechos then?" The one good thing about them was that it forced an ARO against an echo. If you can now Hold against it, it makes it nearly useless. I guess it's only good use is for clearing mines, but now I'm not even sure on that.
If the game don't allow to delay the ARO against the holoechos state, and forced a direct ARO, it degenerates down to the following situation: * 3 Holoechos with a 'real gun' pop around a corner menacing your reactive troop. * You know you have only 1/3 (33%) a chance to sucessfully declare BS Attack against the real one, and therefore 2/3 (66%) of the times the holoecho trooper is going to attack you for free without a FtF roll if you try to play the guessing game. * Therefore you declare Dodge 100% of the time to even have the chance of FtF roll. Which is a degenerated bad situation for the game no matter what, as it takes away your agency. The risk is too much to make any other declaration unless you're a gambler with no risk aversion. But what is happening in "reading 1 and 2 of the rules", and what is therefore happening right now in the game, is the following: * 3 Holoechos with a 'real gun' pop around a corner menacing your reactive troop. * You delay your ARO against whatever marker. * The real holoecho either reveals himself, which allow you to BS attack him back as ARO, or not and keep moving forward as you lose your ARO. * In a nutshell, this behaves as a 'worse' CAMO. Which is 'healthy' for the game as it behaves as CAMO and IMP. But it makes us all question 'why so much work for so little real effect' of developing Holoecho rules, specially since it takes away any kind of risk in your desition. Almost all the time your right answer is to delay without thinking what are you delaying at. There are still minor differences about your delaying depending if reading 1 and 2 of the rules is used, as it can be seen in my previous post. And it would be nice to know if it is one or the other for such interpretations of the rule. But to sum up, for all purpouses the rule of 'must choose only one of the Holoechos activated as their target' is devoid of content and makes the act of choosing meaningless as you delay. Instead if the game used the "reading 3 of the rules" this happens: * 3 Holoechos with a 'real gun' pop around a corner menacing your reactive troop. * You ponder which one of them is the real one, take your chance and choose one of those holoechos as your ARO target, then you delay your aro against such target. * If your target is the real one, and he reveals himself, you can BS attack him back for a FtFroll. * If your target is not the real one, and he reveals himself, you are still allowed to Dodge for a FtF roll. * If the holoecho trooper doesn't reveal himself, in either case you forego your ARO and the holoecho keeps moving forward the game table. Which makes Holoechos more interesting for all involved and is still 'healthy' for the game. Holoecho provides value to the game as it differenciate enough with CAMO or IMP, while at the same time guaranteing a FtF roll for the reactive player. The actual work in designing having 3 holoechos moving around the table pays off as it allow the Holoecho user a 2 in 3 chances of being able to BS Attack without being shot back, but still presenting a 100% of the time a FtF opportunity window for the reactive player no matter what. While making the act of choosing which holoecho for a target meaningless and this rule of 'must choose only one of the Holoechos activated as their target' and the very fact that holoecho markers are still present on the game table until end of order relevant. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But after all I just wanted to make this threat not as a request about making Holoecho more useful. But to present to the community, and specially to the Rules Developers of Corvus Belli, the dichotomy that the current actual written rules of Holoecho are confusing. It would be extremely nice that a clarification is made to make clear if it is rules reading 1, or 2, or 3 the right one. And maybe even updates the written rules in the future so no further confussion happens.
The number of troops that even have the equipment is 7. Of those, only the Sepulcher has a gun worth noting. Maybe the Lu Duan Mk12. So is that really that bad for the game? I'd say there's worse offenders that are bad for the game. Also all of the troops are paying for something that's worse camo. Again there's, no advantage to taking these troops now. Kanren already kinda sucked and now it's the nail in the coffin.
I think you're neglecting the board control aspect of holoecho's in ARO. Game example: you move your aggressive fireteam up to a corner guarded by a lu duan. In order to ensure you don't move the fireteam into a heavy flamer template you sacrifice inches of movement, exposing only your attack piece. The lu duan declares no ARO. Do you waste a short skill shooting what may be a holoecho or do you risk moving forward, potentially exposing your link to a template on their next activation?
Since it's in +3 range for most weapons it's an easy shot, easy kill. Holo or not. Either way it's gone.
The approximate point cost for an extra order is roughly 4. Please mind that discussing the game formula is forbidden, so just accept that having an extra order by itself is not really expensive. You can do your own investigation in this regard by taking a look at certain profiles with alternative loadouts that varies in just exactly one extra order. Therefore we could say that delaying a short declaration like in the scenario proposed is less than 4 points of value in the table. Of course this have their caveats like game position, order needed to reach a certain target, and so on. The point cost of a Lu Duan is 24. If he dies / falls unconcious he also implies the loss of a full order for the upcoming turns. Of course you can always patch it up, with it also implies losing at least one order to do so. Therefore the following Matrix is presented for the aggresive ARO player. For this example we are going to use the most common weapon of the game, the trusty combi rifle, wielded by a humble BS 10 keisotsu full linked in a core. Please mind the odds are only better the better the weapon is and the better the BS of the wielding trooper: * Is an fake Holoecho and active player declares BS Shot: 98.5% chance of revealing the holoecho with a less than '4 points of value' lost due to only losing 'half a order and some inches' * Is not an Holoecho but the real trooper and active player declares BS Shot: 80.7% of causing a wound. Therefore a loss of a full order to the enemy player and the lost of Lu Duan. A net '24 point gain' with no risk taken. * Is a fake Holoecho and active player declares move again: Nothing bad happens. No gain, no losses * Is not an Holoecho but the real trooper and active player declares move again: The whole aggressive fireteam is compromised by Heavy Firethrower Template which requires a risky dodge declaration and may involved the potential loss of the whole fireteam, or most probably the losses of some of their members. A net lose with of undetermined points and catatosphric consequences. See the solution of such Matrix? Game Theory explain the reasonable move of the aggresive fireteam player is to declare BS Attack no matter what. At worst is only a 'less than 4 points lost' (half an order). But at it best is a net 24 point gain (the loss of the Lu Duan). This have the consequence of the Lu Duan player never exposing the real Lu Duan that way ever. He knows the game theory solution of the enemy is to always shot, because of the almost negligible lost and the potential jackpot gain. Because his own matrix is the following once we know what the logical answer for the active player is: *Exposing a fake holoecho and not declare an ARO: Make the enemy lost rougly less than 4 points by losing 'half an order and some inches' *Exposing the real holoecho trooper and FtF the enemy: Even against the most humble linked shooter of the game, a linked combi rifle keisotzu, the lu duan has a prospective of receiving a wound 62% of the time and only causing a wound 8.8% of the time. Horrible odds wich by the way are expected, as a Lu Duan is not a suitable ARO piece. The net lose of 24 points of the Lu Duan and its upcoming order are the expected result. *Exposing the real holoecho trooper and not declare an ARO: Against the same humble linked combi rifle keisotzu, 80.7% of the time receiving a wound and obtaining a net lose of 24 points and the upcoming orders of the Lu Duan. So the boring consequence is that holoecho aro mindgames are a solved game. And the solution is: Not use the real trooper for Holoecho ARO if you're the Holoecho player, always declare BS attack against the unresponsive Holoecho. This is the reason by Holoecho is useless for ARO by itself. And boring, which is even worse. CAMO and IMP instead are a much more useful rules for ARO duty. Firstly because the loadout under the marker is unknow until reveal. Second because the enemy can't solve the matrix with a short skill declaration of BS Attack against an unresponsive CAMO or IMP token. The Discover mechanic is much prone to failure in opposition. And at it very best scenario of succesful discover, further activation and declaration of BS Attack the cost is now of one full order and half of the other for roughly 8 points of value 'lost'-
Point costs don't actually matter once you've selected your force so evaluating based on a perception of "4 points of value" is erroneous. Barring zone control missions the true currency of Infinity is declarable skills. If I have an ability that costs no short skills to utilize that will efficiently cause you to waste your limited number of declarable skills then that ability has value. Everyone who has played a significant amount of Infinity has lost a game or three because at the bottom of turn three they were just one or two short skills away from flipping that last console; or they CC attacked the supply box holder to death with their last order only to run out of juice before they could pickup the box now laying nicely at their feet. To follow the reductive logic here, IMP is objectively a better "marker state" than CAMO which is a "better" state than HOLOECHO. Since IMP is better than CAMO for at least three reasons (a) you're safe from intuitive attacks, (b) you're safe from deployable equipment, and (c) access to the IMP state, at least through the Impersonation skill, ALSO grants deployment special rules which CAMO does not. this is a rules sub, the OP's rules question has been answered and this is veering into a subjective discussion on the relative value of skills. We've stated our opinions, we disagree, I'm not invested in changing your opinion, therefore I'm out.
I agree that we should keep the discussion back to rules. Although I disagree that it has been fully answered and solved. I appreciate @LZ35SRX input into this thread. But even counting that if the intention of the ruling that the trooper can switch back from the holoecho marker target/designation to target the real trooper for after delaying his ARO declaration... he can now only ARO to the real trooper such as "reading 1 of the rules" or he can ARO now to any of the two fake makers and the real trooper too such "as reading 2"? As it can be seen in my previous post, the "reading 1 of the rules" would not allow the ARO trooper to shoot against an holoecho marker after the delay of the ARO as he could only ARO now to the real trooper, even if that would be ideal for him due to being able to hit unsuspected enemies by a terimal template weapon. While in the reading 2 he can shoot any marker he wants or the real trooper. This is unclear, and should be better detailed at the rules.
