REM character?

Pi-Well and Billie haven't been officially answered, but all evidence points at them being Characters. IJW has answered previously that Ghost: Synchronized (and Servant) do not have a troop type which is consistent with Army on Moriarty, so all evidence points at Moriarty not counting as Veteran.

 

That @ijw reference comes before @HellLois stated that "If they have a "unique" name, you have to consider them characters", which - admittedly - was before the ICS update to Army and wasn't specifically in response to this topic.

What the ultimate result is IDK; but saying "all evidence" ignores the fact that we've had this conversation previously and were unable to resolve whether @HellLois intended what he said to apply to Moriarty and Kiss.

https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/missing-unit-designations-kiss-aux-etc.33881/#post-263162

If it's a tournament, ask your TO when you're listbuilding. If it's a casual game, go with whatever your opponent says. Adding an ADHL to Moriarty and Kiss is, IMO, seriously cool (and one of the few benefits of running Moriarty) but hardly game-breaking either way.

 

@Arkhos94 can you add this to the list, it keeps coming up and the existing @HellLois ruling doesn't add any real clarity (because it may or may not cover these troopers).

Question: Does Moriarty and Kiss count as characters for the purpose of "Long Service" in ITS?
A. No. Both Moriarty and Kiss are equipment that belongs to Carlotta and Bit, respectively.
B. Yes. They have a "unique" name, are are considered characters.

 

I write "all evidence" because all evidence do point to those conclusions (and thank you for giving another piece of evidence that it points that way - that Army has been updated). E.g. do we also need a confirmation on whether a Keisotsu counts as a character? So all evidence points that way, because CB hasn't indicated otherwise.

 

We don't need confirmation on whether a Keisotsu counts as a character, because it's ICS is Garrison Trooper IIRC (but, in any event, not Character). Whereas for Moriarty the ICS with which you purchase him is labelled Character AND HellLois stated that broad intent of that classification (to paraphrase, that it applies to all troopers with a unique name: Moriarty is a trooper with a unique name). That's at least some evidence, even if you don't accept it: what you consider weak evidence is still evidence.

I probably wouldn't have argued with 'the preponderance of evidence' because of the way other G Sync are managed (they are not considered to have an ICS). Although, it's worth pointing out that G Servants do have an ICS and they are functionally (in terms of being separate troopers to their parent) no different from Moriarty except for formatting.

My POV is that the intent for what is considered a character, as relayed by @HellLois, is extremely clear: the fact that Army does a poor job of displaying that intent (although nor does it display any other definitive answer) is an issue with Army.

 

Did you check Moriarty before posting this? On my desktop computer Moriarty doesn't have any designation, while Billie does.

Also, I'm not willing to apply an interrim answer fron Helllois that Helllois himself outdated later.

 

Notice my careful phrasing ;)

And it's perfectly reasonable that you think HellLois ruling is not longer applicable. We disagree on that. I just don't find pretending it doesn't exist as reasonable. :)

 

Okay, that's fair enough, but you also need to be transparent about that Hellllois didn't answer a question on whether KISS, the REM, was a Character, he answered a question whether Xi Zhuang the Line Trooper and Hannibal the Mercenary was a Character. It was always doubtful that the answer was ever meant to be applied to anything that you purchase "incidentally" like Billie, KISS, and Moriarty.

However, if we do look at ARMY we see that Moriarty, a Servant, is lacking a designation, Pupniks, a Synch, has a designation, and Billie, a Synch, doesn't have one (and you can also see that regular servants have a designation while servants bought together with other troops lacks them while other synchs in Ariadna lacks them - it's not that Army is bad at it, but rather that we're letting an outdated answer cloud our judgement);

 

Billie isn't a Synch. He's like Pi-well, he takes up a Combat Group slot and generates an order: he's a real boy. The fact he's labelled as Support Troops is interesting. I've never noticed that before.

This is the problem though: Army is inconsistent. With the way ITS has evolved it needs to describe the ICS of every trooper. Pupniks are a really good example of how it should be done.

In the absence of consistency I prefer HellLois guidance on the intent.

 

G:Sync'd bots have troop types normally, Zondbots are "Support Troops". So they're not without a designation.

I'm pretty sure Zondcats not showing up "Support Troops" in army is an oversight as it is the same kind of trooper as a Zondbot and behaves the same exact way (aside from having an extra skill in the form of AD).

We know from HellLois ruling that having a unique name overrides the designations.

I don't know why there would be an exclusive exception for things like Moriarty, Kiss. Unless these Sync'd trooper would somehow for some reason be hard-locked into being without a designation.

For Billie and Pi-Well, I don't see any way to argue that they are not Characters based on HellLois response, they explicitely have a previous designation and are named units.

 

@HellLois response wasn't about these typees of troops. I'm extending it because he gave it a broadly applicable phrasing. It is possible that's in error. So I certainly see a way to argue that they're not Characters: I honestly wouldn't be surprised if @Mahtamori is correct.