Silly question perhaps - but when exactly are you supposed to share courtesy lists (or go over what you have in your army if you don't have a printed courtesy list)? Me and my brother have always played it so that reserve models are private information until they get deployed. Although reading up on open & private information now I'm not so sure that's correct? Also, do you share courtesy lists before deployment? Or is the first player supposed to 'deploy in the dark' without knowing what they're up against?
That's correct. Courtesy list are shared once everything is deployed but all public informations regarding the model deployed are available as soon as these model are deployed (and visible on the table). So if you deploy first, yes you deploy everything (but your reserve model(s)) in the dark
Yeah, this is what makes the idea of printed courtesy lists so frustrating. That hidden information gets revealed incrementally, having it all on one sheet of paper doesn't match the game mechanics. To do everything that you need the courtesy list to do, you really need to have a clip board or something that you can use to stick together individual strips of paper or something for each troop as it gets deployed. And have slips of paper (or whatever) for the AD troopers and Camo/Hidden Deployment/Holo/whatever troopers as they get revealed.
The moment the model (as opposed to a marker) hits the table, all of it's public information, so stats, skills, equipment, weapons, everything except specifically private stuff like LT status or Chain of Command, gets revealed. This can range from saying "This is a Zuyong combi FO" and trusting your opponent to ask if he doesn't know what a Zuyong is, to reading all the contents of its profile immediately. The courtesy list is just what the name says, a courtesy, to speed up tournaments because your opponent won't have to ask what stats most of your stuff has. And yeah, the first player to deploy only knows the opponent's faction/sectorial, not knowing if it's a one-group HI-heavy list, a camo spam, a TAG list or what.
Actually, the amount of combat groups your opponent has is public information once they have selected lists so atleast when the first player to deploy knows if he is up against an LI list.
