Goodbye ARO Templates

This is pure gold. Beautiful in it's simplicity. It's how I imagine N4 should be. Sure this leaves a part of the game we all love to implement and hate being implemented, but overall such a change would be a perfect fix for this edition. I for one am fed of with exceptions to exceptions to exceptions and different types of weapons being treated differently. This just makes my brain hurt. I am too old for this edition in it's current state.

 

And this is how you cut a Gordian knot, ladies and gentlemen.

 

Yeah... but this isn't hitting all units equally, though. It's got a much greater effect on the viability of some troopers than others.

I think you might actually be forced to specify where you will be standing when you make the CC Attack. All details means all details as the tautology goes, so detailing where you will be in base contact with the opponent should be one of those details.
Oh, and I can see a reading of the Template rules where it doesn't matter how you place the template, if you get into base contact with a user of a template weapon you're getting hit by it.

 

Seems unlikely to me. BS Attack explicitly requires a decision as to point shot from, which is necessary to resolve LoF and range checks. CC Attack doesn't say anything about attacking from a particular point, and the point you attack from is irrelevant to Resolution as long as you're in sil contact.

Of course this would also be solved, like everything else, under the excellent proposal that short skills can only be declared in the second half of the order :-)

 

While I support @Diphoration on his suggestion (so much cleaner), I think the whole discussion is a smoke screen to distract us from the real issue of power creep, Rambo pieces and alpha strikes destroying the game. Infinity is now reduced to a coin flip at the initiative roll...

 

No absolutely wrong solution, there are so much objectives to reach in a game, I can't afford to loose any movement short only because I have to kill some kind of obstacle in my line of sight before i move forward.

 

You move, ask for aros, and then declare BS attack and designate your starting position as the origin of the shot.

You sure about that? While power creep does exist (and btw is, I believe, inevitable, though thats a discussion for another time) personally I see it equally (or more) with defensive capabilities. 9 points 0swc minelayers? 14 points HI with templates and NBW? BS 13 snipers with marksmanship and visors in 5mans? I think that overall the power creep seems to be faster on the defense side. If the opposite seems to be true, I believe it is chiefly to 15 order cap. It had two effects:
1. You can no longer bog down an opponent in bodies and have orders to spare so defending became harder.
2. Because people spend more points per troop their attackers hit harder so defending became harder.

 

With N4 a lot of troops got cheaper AND better. Avatar being one example. Additionally the increase of troops with extra orders or troops deploying up the field (Impersonators, Parachutist (DZ), Infiltration (+x)) has made alpha striking a breeze. The active turn advantage has made null deployment in combination with DTW, camo spam and hacking the only chance of surviving that fist turn. The ARO mechanic, which was this games gem, has been completely neutered.

I hope I'm being too negative and unfair.

 

Having had a think about it I believe an issue might arise if you’re in contact with a console or other interactive element. If you fail the roll to use the interactive element after first moving in you cannot then as a next order declare activate and move away as you haven’t declared move first. It would also stop units being able to move out of a line of fire after making a shot. Unless I’ve mistaken what you said here.

 

Can't you move away from console wih first half of order and then declare activation of this console? I don't think Diphterion suggestion removes the long standing underlaying rule of inifnity that everything in the order happens at the same time. Unless I'm badly out of touch with the rules. Same applies to the shooting example.
In short Diphterion solution would still allow retroactive shenanigans "I shoot you from a place I were at in the beginning of the order" but disables divination shenanigans "I will shoot you from a place to which I will move with my next half order".

 

If that’s the case then it should be fine as it will be essentially the same as if you declared move at the end. Unless I’ve misread as well you should be then able to still activate said console as you’d essentially have done it from where your movement started.

Edit: unless I’ve gotten activation of interactive elements completely ass backwards. In which case feel free to slap me with the rule book.

 

Page 20:
IMPORTANT
Even if declared one after the other, both Skills in a single Order are performed
simultaneously. For example, if you declare Move plus BS Attack, (the Short
Skill that Troopers use to fire their weapons), you can make the BS Attack at
any point during the declared movement route, and not necessarily at the end
of that route.

So you can move away from enemy LoF and then declare a shot from your starting position. Since BS attack is only an example here and this is a general rule it would work the same for activating a console. I don't think Diphterion suggestion does anything that would supersede this rule. It just forbades people from declaring shot against target they not yet see, or activating consoles they haven't reached.

 

I really like the idea of declaring whatever you want and checking to see if its valid at resolution. It seems like a very easy concept to teach and could be universally applied (Given DTW still work - maybe by changing the timing for placing the template to after the second short skill). There is so much nuance in the game with the current order sequences, I hope we're not forced to move before doing anything else.

Edit: after thinking about it more, declaring move first is fine. Its what's used in 99% of orders anyways.

 

Making Move the mandatory first skill makes a fairly standard tactic of declaring a BS attack and after AROs are declared (and for example AROing models declare dodge instead of BS attack) moving in a place you would not have moved safely.

I am sure other examples can be found.

 

Thanks, was just looking at this, lol. If it does indeed forbid people from declaring a shot against targets they cannot see or activating consoles they haven’t yet reached then it’ll make players think more tactically. (Though to be honest I’ve never seen such a thing in my gaming group).

 

If what you are looking for is to move safely then you have other options such as Idle + Move or Discover + Move. Usually declaring Skill + Move is an unsafe declaration, however, that is best to avoid unless you're specifically doing Shenanigans, tbh.

 

Me neither but I'm under impression this whole FAQ thing initially started from people doing this kind of shenanigans, or something similar.

A valid drawback, but one I'm more than willing to take if it means I don't have to explain both time travel and divination to players when describing how orders/aro work, and then also add even wierded exceptions like if you're equipped with a chain rifle your powers of divination are somehow lesser than a guy's with a rifle:

This FAQ is an abomination.

 

It is a completely valid if somewhat opportunistic tactic to safely move the active model out of cover and out of sight.