These three quotations are the rules regarding which information could be shared from when to when & the Courtesy List. #1. N4 Rulebook: You must share Open Information about your Army List while you deploy your Models, Markers, and Tokens during the Deployment Phase, and also any time your opponent asks during the game. #2. ITS 13: Every player must carry a printed copy of each Courtesy Army List. This version contains only the list's Open Information so it can be shown to his adversaries upon request. #3. FAQ: Q. Is the number of Troopers you kept back in the Deployment Phase Open Information? A. Yes. At the end of a player's main deployment step, they must announce how many Troopers they have kept back. Combining these three, the interpretations divide into two. Interpretation A focuses on the underlined phrase of #1: "You must share Open Information about your Army List while you deploy your Models, Markers, and Tokens during the Deployment Phase." According to this, you don't have to show your opponent your Courtesy List until every step of Deployment Phase(1~4) is finished, since #1 means the Open Information of specific Model, Marker, Tokens can be shared only after they are deployed on the table. Here, since the Courtesy List contains Open Information of any not-yet-deployed Model, Marker, or Tokens, the opponent can only ask for the Courtesy List at the end of Deployment Phase, after every step of it is finished, not during Deployment Phase or anytime the opponent wants. The FAQ also indicates this. If players can exchange Courtesy Lists anytime they want, there's no need to put "you must announce how many Troopers they have kept back at the end of a player's main deployment step". It just becomes meaningless. Interpretation B focuses on another underlined phrase of #1: "You must share Open Information about your Army List while you deploy your Models, Markers, and Tokens during the Deployment Phase." Interpretion B aims to blend in the 'upon request' part of #2 into #1. According to this, any time after the Deployment Phase has started, you have to show the Courtesy List to your opponent upon request, and vice versa. This might reveal the identity of your reserved Trooper(the one you have kept back), but still you can deploy it after seeing how your opponent deploys most of their Troopers. And the FAQ does not become meaningless even if you have to show the Courtesy List to your opponent. When you have to inform the number or Troopers you kept back to the opponent, there could be a mind game between you and your opponent. Suppose you are playing an ITS against Vanilla CA player who's brought an army with Avatar. You are an hardened veteran, so you can precisely calculate the points of the Models the opponent has deployed. The opponent has finished his first deployment step, and there is no Camouflage marker on the table yet. You've done the calculation, and the points cost of undeployed Troopers is 93~94. Now you starts to take a guess, 'Avatar is obviously the Lieutenant, so the opponent must have kept back 2 Troopers. My guess could be Combi Rifle Noctifer + Spitfire Anatematic.' Then you asks the opponent, "How many Troops have you kept back?" Suprisingly, the answer was "Only one". Now you take another guess. 'Well that's weird. Is it a Sphinx? It could be, since I'm playing Caledonian Highlanders which lacks proper MSV, and he might have thought keeping it reserve and deploying it in the oppertune position where he can maximize the damage, after seeing how I deploy mine." The games starts, and it turns out that the opponent didn't kept back Noctifer but deployed normally in Hidden Dep. State, and did kept back Anathematic in reserve, only to confuse you. The point of this anecdote is not wheter this kind of thing happens or not in real life, nor whether the players have acted reasonaly or not. The point is that if you share the Courtesy List even when the Deployment Phase is not finished, there's still a possibility of mind games, so that the FAQ doesn't become meaningless. I know, B might be over-stretching the meanings of ITS, but please be noted that me and others here in this local playgroup have also been playing the game with Interpretation A, but then we've found out the ITS rules regarding the Courtesy List, so we just tried to blend in the rules as good as we can. Please, enlighten me!
doesn't matter if you go A or B. what you are sharing is "Courtesy Army List. This version contains only the list's Open Information" so if you are sharing it early on (if B is RAW) and there are not yet open info on that list, then you must redact it when you share it (by RAW it must have only the open info on it). A pair of scissor works fine to redact the list and make sure it contains only the Open Info. (I don't put too much importance on the Courtesy List printed by the app; it doesn't do well when you chose to deploy bashi bazouk on the table in holomask or when you chose to have your Yuan Yuan combat jumper deployed during deployment to benefit from imp+irr and access to impetuous smoke T1. i usually keep it to give it when the game starts with Game Round #1, Payer Turn #1) edit: my point is that we play A. but if you want to be all rule-lawyer/obnoxious requesting it in advance in an attempt to gain info you are not meant to have, then i'll be equally rule-lawyer/obnoxious in making sure it has, as mentioned by the rules, only the Open Info.
Ugin is suggesting you share the ENTIRE courtesy list as you deploy. Not just the pasrts of it that are relevant as the models are placed. So it's not about redacting the list - it's a suggestion that you share ALL of it.
So far everyone I know plays variant A. Unless for educational reasons if beginner players are involved.
almost. what he is suggesting is that he can request that i give him the courtesy list that i'm carrying. there is no rule against me chopping it up (or writing extra stuff on it) to make it match what it is legally required to be (to have only the open info, all of it, but nothing else than it). He can request that i give it (under scenario B), but cannot request that i don't edit it. edit to add. Suppose he's unhappy that i cut a portion out. Then he ask "hey! give me the COMPLETE list!" What does complete even mean ? It means with nothing left out. Well, since my paper sheet (even if it has holes) is listing every bit of Open Info that currently exists; it is by definition a "Complete" list. So then he has no grounds to force me to volunteer non-Open Info.
The following line is translated from the Spanish ITS document, page 8. "The Courtesy List contains only Public Information and serves to show it to the adversary when he requests it but always after the end of the Deployment Phase." The but is conditional on you showing it to the request only if it's done the Deployment Phase.
