Tank you @QueensGambit @solkan it's an absurd situation and I don't like it, I am in no way promoting that the rules should work like that, so I'm trying to find a rule or two that make it not legal - but so far all I've found are assumptions. I'm really hoping they plug that in an FAQ by saying that the main target's position need to be in a position you can draw LOF to and that the template needs to be placed to touch the main target's chosen/reference position.
So I think now, if I'm understanding the attempt at rules clarification from HellLois and where this and the other threads seem to be going, I would change the chart to look like this (remember that this is ONLY a BS Attack chart): Summary of changes: 1) Accommodates for active and reactive BS attack differences. In reactive, the only prerequisite to a BS Attack is having ANY valid ARO... not just LoF 2) Related to the above, not having LoF no longer prevents the declaration of a BS Attack (in the active turn - and not necessarily in the reactive turn either, so long as there is the ability to ARO) 3) The target is selected at declaration 4) Per @Mahtamori range to target as well as LoF are checked at any point(s) during the activation. Obviously I could change this if (as everyone suspects) the intent is actually that range and LoF are used together to determine legality, range mods, and partial cover all as one. 5) assumes position of origin of BS Attack is selected at RESOLUTION (!) - this is a controversial assumption and seems to fly in the face of what is commonly believed... but based on my understanding of the intent to shift basically all checks of legality to the final resolution, it seems to me like this needs to be where it happens. 6) Likewise, assumes templates are actually placed at RESOLUTION (this definitely seems to be contradicted by the FAQ entry about specifying the 'details' of a skill - though the reference that the FAQ makes is to White Noise, which can be placed legally more easily now that there is ZoC pre-measuring). It also likely won't work with options that templates afford for ARO response. Any thoughts on this? Particularly 5 and 6. For me, shifting these to resolution completely turns around 1.1.1 from being very confusing to mostly making sense. The main problem is with 6, because if you can't place templates at declaration, when/how would ARO to being affected by a template be triggered?
@Lawson Target unit(s), position you shoot from, weapon, burst splitting, ammo, etc are all part of the BS Attack declaration. Position you shoot at is done just prior to measuring.
Yeah i guess that's how it's supposed to be done - was trying to find a way to clean up the order of operations - was just wondering if maybe 1.1.1 assumed a tweak to declaration that it didn't actually clarify. I've edited the above to also show that it sort of messes up the ability to ARO against template weapons if the template doesn't drop until resolution.
@Mahtamori is it your understanding that there is nothing currently in the rules that prevents someone from declaring a skill as originating from a point that they have not yet occupied? That is to say, I can I declare as my first short skill a BS attack without LoF and draw the line from a point with LoF and then move to/through that point as my second short skill? Are template weapons an exception to this because they must be placed in contact with the shooter's base? Or could you place the template in the spot your are going to be and then move? CB's line of reasoning in 1.1.1 seems to be that they are moving checks to resolution, but in practice that doesn't seem to hold true, as a handful of odd things still must be checked at declaration.
Ugh, started to get interested in the game again after being an active tournament player in N3, but increasingly coming to realise that the game I love has been completely dumbed down and received the Age of Sigmar treatment. Wouldn't be surprised if they just removed pre-measuring completely, which would be such a shame. Ah well, at least I can still paint those lovely miniatures!
While I don't know enough details about 9th edition or AoS to compare the nitty gritty, wasn't pre-measuring introduced in like... 8th edition (?) and the primary fault of AoS release was that it came hot on several 9th ed releases and they released the "vertical slice" version (or the "beer and pretzels" version if you will) first, basically announced that they'd invalidate thousands of each customer's miniatures, and let people entrench opinions based on an incomplete product? As someone who's played N3 and N4 a bunch, the actual turn-for-turn game play was barely changed and the pre-measure of ZoC is a concession to fix a long-standing issue with the game. Going from N3 and N4 is more like going from 6th edition to 7th and doing an AoS release would've been more like replacing N3 with Defiance. That said, there's a reason why a lot of games are doing full pre-measuring, but this isn't that.
> The rules change to let people pre-measure Zone of Control to prevent ARO abuse. The impact on the rest of the game is negligible. > "Oh my god the game is now dumbed down and unplayable" Well well well, looks like someone's a drama queen. Pre-measuring 8" on a 4x4 board is practically nothing, and cleaning up the ZoC-ARO interactions makes the game play much smoother while getting rid of cases where it could be abused, thereby eliminating some of the more frustrating NPEs from the game.
On the other hand, it makes it super easy to get weapon ranges. Anything that wants to be in the 0-24" range has become easily measurable. Not that I mind, I assume all the troopers would have rangefinders.
Only the active trooper's zoc may be measured during at the start of the ARO steps. The start of a HMG's +3 still require similar range estimations as e.g. a BSG did before the FAQ. Oh and a Combi has a built in automatic rangefinder (edit: or rather, the combi speaks with the rangefinder and loads an optimal amount of propellant charge automatically). It's the primary advantage over a rifle, if I recall correctly. (Edit 2: and yes, it's quite a bit of irony that one of few settings on the market where exactly everyone has a rangefinder is basically the most hostile game to pre-measuring)
... how are you measuring 24" out? The 16" band is (somewhat) easy to measure by measuring 8" of ZoC and then mentally doubling it, but mentally tripling it is a bit much for me.
It's pretty easy, tables/buildings/landmarks etc are typically made to specific sizes. Also, once you have a nice visual guide (the ZOC measurement tool) it becomes really easy to guess ranges out to 24" to within an inch or less. HMGs get +3 from 16-32", it's easy to guess if something is within 32" just knowing the dimensions of the table. The biggest thing though is that it immediately tells you if you are in 0-8", which means you can figure out which of your weapons you want to use and how far out templates go. Takes all the guess work out of it. That said, I would be perfectly happy at this point with putting in premeasuring. I would assume that 175 years in the future people can use rangefinders. It makes it easier for new players or people who are not as good at doing the visualization/calculations in their head not be penalized for it.
Surely one way of abusing the ability to check ZoC is that I always know when I'm in teardrop template range? Teardrop template is just over 8 inches, so if I was unsure of the range of my template attack I could just declare I was checking ZoC for 'reasons'. I could also pre-measure to work out which weapon would be best to use, so if I had a rifle and a pistol and was unsure whether I was in or out of 8 inches I could just measure ZoC. Having pre-measuring in some situations but not others is even more confusing, surely?
Yes, that's part of the game now. You don't need "reasons," you're always permitted to check ZoC after the first short skill so you do indeed get to know whether you're in small template range.
At which point, we may as well measure anything at any time. Call it modern fire control and be done.
Everyone knows it the proper procedure for adding pre-measuring to a game is: - Announce that the next edition will be making the change. - Suffer through an interminable year of existing players each saying that pre-measuring will the doom of everything, or that pre-measuring is wonderful. - The new edition arrives, everyone has pre-measuring, and no one ever mentions it again.
