Ok, so this is a bit of a forward thinking but I ended up with this issue on the TableTop Simulator several times today.

Han solo has a command card that is worded as such:

Reckless diversion
When an enemy unit performs an attack, it must attack a trooper unit with a faceup order token, if able.

Now, we played it as "when in range to perform an attack, all weapons in range must aim at han and/or the other face up unit", but it got me to wonder on how it is actually supposed to work, like:

Stormtrooper with DLT-19 at range 4 from han with a faceup token, range 2-3 of other units, and range 1 from an other possible target. Simple to solve: I HAVE to shoot the DLT on Han, and can make additional attack pools however I see fit.

ST with DLT at range 3 from han with faceup, other targets at range 2-3, a target at range 4, and a target at range 1: Do I have to pour all my shots on Han? Can I only shoot with regular weapons at han and DLT the guys at range 4? Can I decide to shoot the DLT at han, a single E-11 at han, and the grenades at the nearby unit?

Get ridiculously complicated, because it says the unit, not all models of the unit. By making a pool of a single E-11, I abide by the rule of "attack the trooper with the faceup token, if able". Is my understanding correct?

"It" is the unit. If the unit has multiple minis in it, they are all part of the unit and must abide by any rules affecting the unit. If they are able to contribute a weapon to attack Han, they must.

Where does it state this anywhere in RAW?

3 hours ago, Deuzerre said:

When an enemy unit performs an attack, it must attack a trooper unit with a faceup order token, if able.

RRG Pg 43 under Unit:

A unit is a miniature or collection of minis that functions as a single fighting group.

That unit is a collection of minis must as target a trooper unit with a face up token, It doesn't say they have to shoot Han but a unit with a face-up order token. If there are more than 1 trooper units. which han is, with a faceup token you can shoot any of them or split fire between them following standard rules. But if Han was the only face up trooper unit that is eligible to be attacked because all other units in range had not yet been issued orders than you could only shoot at Han to satisfy the Unit qualifier.

25 minutes ago, azavander said:

A unit is a miniature or collection of minis that functions as a single fighting group.

That doesn't actually clarify anything in this regard. It is more a statement than anything.

20 minutes ago, Deuzerre said:

That doesn't actually clarify anything in this regard. It is more a statement than anything.

Except statements are very useful. When we look at the qualifiers:

Enemy: (statement from the RRG) Any units controlled by a player’s opponent are enemy units for that player

Unit: (statement from the RRG) A unit is a miniature or collection of minis that functions as a single fighting group

Attack: (statement from the RRG) Units can perform attacks to attempt to defeat enemy units

Order Tokens: (statement from the RRG) A token with its rank side showing is faceup.

If Able: (statement from Webster dictionary) having the freedom or opportunity to do something

4 hours ago, Deuzerre said:

When an enemy unit performs an attack, it must attack a trooper unit with a faceup order token, if able.

The Enemy Unit, which is a collection of minis that fight as a group by your opponent, must make an attack to attempt to defeat the units with a faceup order token, if they have the opportunity or ability to do so.

IF a miniature that is part of the Unit does not attack a trooper unit with a faceup, then it is not fulfilling the clause if able while being part of that unit.

There is a fair bit of inductive reasoning below, so keep a grain of salt on standby.

First, a couple of relevant passages from page 14:

Quote

During an attack, the unit that is performing the attack is the attacker and the target of the attack is the defender.

There are two types of attacks: ranged and melee.

Combine the above with the ruling we have that there are situations where a unit can do ranged and melee attacks within a single action. OK, we've laid down the foundation... moving on to some conclusions:

It seems to me that the intent here is that an attack -- or an attack action -- is itself composed of multiple sub-attacks. (If true, it suffers from the same vocabulary problem that Armada does, in that a ship's attack against squadrons has multiple separate attacks, and both levels use the word "attack".)

To put "Reckless Diversion" in other words: the defender of each attack must be a unit with a face-up command token, if able.

So, each weapon that can target Han, for example, must target Han because each one is a separate attack that is targeting some defender.

7 hours ago, Deuzerre said:

That doesn't actually clarify anything in this regard. It is more a statement than anything.

All rules are statements. Just because it doesn't answer the question in the way you'd like it to doesn't mean it's not answered. The collection of minis functions as a single fighting group - therefore any rule referring to the unit refers to that group of minis. More to the point, where is any rule stating that a unit with multiple minis functions differently in this regard? If you recognize that a unit of one mini must direct its attacks at Han, where is there anything saying that having multiple minis in the unit changes how they obey card text?

It really does come down to split fire problems then.. can I make an additional attack>?

Note that "declare additional defender" is within the definition of an attack - so even though this attack has multiple targets, it is one attack. One of those targets is obeying the rules of reckless diversion -

Reckless diversion
When an enemy unit performs an attack, it must attack a trooper unit with a faceup order token, if able.

Since the unit is attacking the required target, what is preventing them from declaring an additional defender as per RRG? Doesn't even a single weapon die headed to the reckless diversion target satisfy the requirement?

Reckless diversion is not worded to say "All weapons within a unit" , "that unit may not declare additional defenders" or "it must only attack trooper units". It doesn't refer to individual mini's either.

As far as I can tell, there is an odd tangential implication here, especially if we are to consider allowing additional targets...
#1 - The defender must be declared first, (before weapons) since the attack is measured from the unit leader - it appears that the implication is that as range is measured from the unit leader, the unit leader's weapon should be chosen first? Meaning perhaps that it's not possible to choose the RD target as the additional defender.

1 hour ago, Ravncat said:

so  even though this attack has multiple targets, it is one attac  k  .   

Well, this conflicts with the following line:

Quote

During an attack, the unit that is performing the attack is the attacker and the target of the attack is the defender

Note the use of singular articles. This suggests each attacker-defender pair is a separate attack. In which case Reckless Diversion would impose its requirements on each of those attacks.

1 hour ago, nashjaee said:

Well, this conflicts with the following line:

Note the use of singular articles. This suggests each attacker-defender pair is a separate attack. In which case Reckless Diversion would impose its requirements on each of those attacks.

I agree with you for most of this topic but I should point out that right under the line you quoted is this bullet point

Quote

Multiple units can be chosen as defenders

2 hours ago, nashjaee said:

Well, this conflicts with the following line:

Note the use of singular articles. This suggests each attacker-defender pair is a separate attack. In which case Reckless Diversion would impose its requirements on each of those attacks.

Nothing really says a single attack can't be made up of an attacker and multiple defenders - our one attack just happens to have 2 pools. I'm happy to be wrong though, but I think there's enough evidence to warrant sending a request to FFG to sort it out.

4 hours ago, SwdPwnzDggr said:

I agree with you for most of this topic but I should point out that right under the line you quoted is this bullet point

Ah yeah, that does throw a wrench into my idea. However, we still have this line:

Quote

There are two types of attacks: ranged and melee.

And we know the AT-ST, for example can use both its melee and ranged weapons together (on different defenders, of course). So wouldn’t each of those have to be separate attacks in order to be different types? What do you think?

I think as noted earlier it also contains the clause if able, so even if you were to split attacks it has to attack a unit with a faceup token if able. They only time i could see a case where a unit couldn't/Shouldn't attack Han is where it doesn't have LOS, such as being around a corner. In that case its not able so it could shoot something else. But otherwise the unit or collection of figures must target the faceup unit if they can.

If someone tried to tell me that their unit was, but this one figure was targeting something else even though it had line of site, my response would likely be a little glib 'no you unit is not 5/6th of your unit is and 5/6th does not a whole make, its a fraction of a unit.'

On 5/23/2018 at 10:30 AM, azavander said:

I think as noted earlier it also contains the clause if able, so even if you were to split attacks it has to attack a unit with a faceup token if able. They only time i could see a case where a unit couldn't/Shouldn't attack Han is where it doesn't have LOS, such as being around a corner. In that case its not able so it could shoot something else. But otherwise the unit or collection of figures must target the faceup unit if they can.

If someone tried to tell me that their unit was, but this one figure was targeting something else even though it had line of site, my response would likely be a little glib 'no you unit is not 5/6th of your unit is and 5/6th does not a whole make, its a fraction of a unit.'

Good interpretation of the rules. Doesn’t that mean that 6/6 minis would need to target the Reckless Diversion? Even if the individual mini has no LOS it still is forced, as part of that unit, to contribute to the attack pool even if it’s contribution is 0. Wouldn’t that be correct? I think Boba and Grievous could get around this using Arsenal to attack a Reckless Diversion that is far and non-RD that is near. But no other trooper units have Arsenal native so I don’t think they get to declare different targets even without LOS.

1 hour ago, smickletz said:

Good interpretation of the rules. Doesn’t that mean that 6/6 minis would need to target the Reckless Diversion? Even if the individual mini has no LOS it still is forced, as part of that unit, to contribute to the attack pool even if it’s contribution is 0. Wouldn’t that be correct? I think Boba and Grievous could get around this using Arsenal to attack a Reckless Diversion that is far and non-RD that is near. But no other trooper units have Arsenal native so I don’t think they get to declare different targets even without LOS.

It isn't eligible to contribute even zero to the dice pool per the rules of Attack. Form Attack Pool, Step a:

"Determine Eligible Minis: Each mini in the attacker is eligible to contribute to the attack pool if that mini has line of sight to any mini in the defender."

Ultimately if a figure could have shot at Han it has to shoot at Han. If for any reason it has the ability to make a different attack after it has done so, or it is prevented from contributing to the attack , for example, due to line of sight it could do so. Note that if that weapon was one that was already used to make an attack on Han then it could not use that weapon.

Example the unit has a heavy weapon figure that does not have line of sight on Han, it could split fire the heavy weapon to another unit. If however the heavy weapon was the only figure with LOS on Han it could attack and the heavy weapon could be used to attack Han then you could also split fire. If the heavy weapon figure only had a unit weapon to fire at Han, it must use (thereby stopping the rest of the unit using that weapon to shoot something else, since that weapon could no longer be used to split fire.)

22 hours ago, syrath said:

Ultimately if a figure could have shot at Han it has to shoot at Han. If for any reason it has the ability to make a different attack after it has done so, or it is prevented from contributing to the attack , for example, due to line of sight it could do so. Note that if that weapon was one that was already used to make an attack on Han then it could not use that weapon.

Example the unit has a heavy weapon figure that does not have line of sight on Han, it could split fire the heavy weapon to another unit. If however the heavy weapon was the only figure with LOS on Han it could attack and the heavy weapon could be used to attack Han then you could also split fire. If the heavy weapon figure only had a unit weapon to fire at Han, it must use (thereby stopping the rest of the unit using that weapon to shoot something else, since that weapon could no longer be used to split fire.)

You can only split fire if the other models literally cannot attack Han, which I'm not sure if that's what you are trying to indicate. I can't use a DLT to attack Han at range 3, then shoot a different unit with the E-11 blasters.

Answer from the FAQ sticky here:

12 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

You can only split fire if the other models literally cannot attack Han, which I'm not sure if that's what you are trying to indicate. I can't use a DLT to attack Han at range 3, then shoot a different unit with the E-11 blasters.

Answer from the FAQ sticky here:

what I'm trying to say is that if you had , let's say, a unit.of stormtroopers with a DLT, and the DLT couldn't shoot Han , for example because the DLT did not have line of sight to Han. The DLT could then split fire because it is a separate weapon. Likewise if the DLT was the only figure in the unit that had line of sight to Han and it shoots with the DLT, then the rest of the unit can split fire elsewhere. If however one figure with a standard blaster rifle can shoot at han you can't choose to use the same weapon to shoot elsewhere, because you can't split fire with the same weapon.

1 hour ago, syrath said:

what I'm trying to say is that if you had , let's say, a unit.of stormtroopers with a DLT, and the DLT couldn't shoot Han , for example because the DLT did not have line of sight to Han. The DLT could then split fire because it is a separate weapon. Likewise if the DLT was the only figure in the unit that had line of sight to Han and it shoots with the DLT, then the rest of the unit can split fire elsewhere. If however one figure with a standard blaster rifle can shoot at han you can't choose to use the same weapon to shoot elsewhere, because you can't split fire with the same weapon.

I think I may have misread your earlier post, for which I apologise.

Edit: my brain processed "unit" where you typed "figure" for some reason.

1 hour ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I think I may have misread your earlier post, for which I apologise.

Edit: my brain processed "unit" where you typed "figure" for some reason.

No worries I've done similar myself before.