Probably answered earlier but you never can be sure about infinity… Is having a hidden info a public info? There is a lot of hidden info in infinity and there might be different rulings for different situations so let’s start with a simple: Player doesn’t have hidden info troopers in his army. Can he ask his opponent to look away to give an impression that he has a hidden deployment trooper in his army?
Can't recall anything in the rules saying either way. However, it is an estabilished custom in my home meta to ask the opponent to turn back (or step out of the room) "because you want to deploy your Hidden Deployment troopers". Typically accompanied by taking a pic with your phone. Whether you actually have such troops in your list, or not. It is felt as a fair warning to your opponent that you potentially might have them. Another way is noting the deployment location somewhere on your army list (I used it mainly for AD:Parachutist myself in N2/N3). Also considered fair. However, a photo is likely to be somewhat less ambigious when it comes to any disagreements over the model's actual position when activated. That being said, my meta is rather laid-back and non-competitionon-oriented. Not sure how this would fly in a tournament environment.
I'd even say less - "Hey, can you please turn around? I want to mark some things on a picture of the battlefield." I don't need to say whether I'm marking Hidden Deployment or which of the tokens is a mine or not, etc. We don't need to even hint at the possibility of Hidden Dep, because this will change how the opponent approaches the game. It's up to them to draw their conclusions, we don't need to give much of a reason and thus limit the possible tactical choices.
That's fine, too. In fact, nowadays it is more of the "I'd ask you to turn around, please" here, too. It is mostly because 1) once it was used with the Hidden Deployment being mentioned (my meta is tiny, but has history back into N2), and 2) no-one here uses that many Camo tokens as to need to note what is what.
Note. Having one Hidden Deployment by itself in it's own group won't be much of a surprise because the number of groups is Open.
The tryhard player in the example tried to hide the fact that he had parachutist/combat jump trooper instead of hidden deployment HRL/ML.
As in, pretending to deploy a Hidden Deployment model, while he in reality had an Airborne Deployment model? I'd say he was within his rights.
Isn’t everything explicitly not hidden info public info? We get into really interesting territory if player can imply that non-existent hidden info exists. Like asking to opponent to turn around and pretending to check non-existent LoF or ZoCs exist (”the makebelieve Noctifer ML”, available for all factions) just to play mindgames and eat opponent clocktime. I would like to have an official ruling on this, which I know is very unlikely.
You can pretend you have Hidden Deployment by not having full groups, asking to turn around, etc., just don't lie about public Game State. Just like you can pretend not having one, by not asking the opponent to turn around. I always just take a couple pictures of the table at the start and will mark Hidden Deployment on those images. People never know if it's for HD or for a Battle Report or otherwise. If you're worried about time issues, it's a different issue. People can waste time on literally everything. If it's a problem, use a chess clock so people can do their things on their own time.
Is there a rule that says that you can’t have an empty combat group in your list? The purpose of this shenanigans is ofc is to imply that there is a hidden deployment trooper in group 2 when there isn’t.
Not expressedly, but you can't create a Combat Group if there's nothing in it (HD, AD, Camo Token or just plain on the table - but something in it...)
Hmm. The creation of combat groups during list creation isn’t restricted at all. If anything, the rules encourage you to create as many combat groups as you want. The army app doesn’t register an error if there is an empty combat group. However the app appears to delete empty combat groups after saving them. Personally I’m in the camp of “let’s be gentlemen and not flood the opponent with the firehose of noninformation to gain tactical advantage”. “Combat Group A Combat Group is a closed group of Troopers with a maximum number of members no greater than 10. When the total number of Troopers making up an Army Listis more than 10, the player must organize the Troopers into separate Combat Groups. When creating the Army List, the player must assign each Trooper to a Combat Group; he can create extra Combat Groups as needed, as long as the total number of Troopers in each one is no greater than 10. A Combat Group cannot normally be reorganized during the game. Because of this, players are not allowed to transfer Troopers or their Orders from one Combat Group to another.”
Army 7 allows this to occur on the courtesy list. I really grinds my gears when people suddenly start nitpicking over the mechanical side of the game so they can either figure something out because of the absolute structure of the game, or to attempt to obfuscate/mislead someone by using it.
All information not explicitly marked as private information is public information, combat groups are public information, combat groups need troops to be assigned to them so they cannot be null, if your opponent asks you must inform them how many combat groups there are and what visible troops are in them.
So you aren’t allowed to empty a combat group by using cmd-tokens during a battle? IMHO the current rules for combat groups are very simple and permissive.
Of course you can, and in the process you also delete the combat group since it is empty, assuming there are no unconscious models left in that combat group.
Okay, there is an automatic process for deleting combat groups that isn’t in the rulebook. Are you sure that you aren't making this up as you go?
Beyond creating an artificial amount of combat groups to obfuscate the odd chance you have a second combat group full of AD and HD undeployed models, there is nothing to be gained from trying to game the system for such mind games, the combat group structure is so rigid you cannot split a 10 troopers combat group to a 8-2 group for that reason.
@psychoticstorm you do realise that your “empty combat groups are immediately deleted” rulings means that killing non-hidden deployment troopers from (usually smaller) group2 reveals the existence of hidden deployment troopers? Tryhards will be asking this every time it happens. You could also make a ruling that players can make as many combat groups as they like and empty combat groups aren’t automatically deleted.
