Consider 5 troopers with grenades, and a heavy weapon.
Lets say I set 2 troopers to attack with their primary weapon, and 2 troopers to throw grenades can i make a third pool for the heavy weapon?

I'm guessing no...

(I can't split my primary weapon fire since they must attack the same target, but it doesn't say I can't choose to have 2 troopers throw grenades instead)


1 declare defender and 2 form attack pool.
3 declare additional defenders... here the RRG says (repeat steps 1-2 for any weapons remaining that aren't in the attack pool) It doesn't say to repeat step 3... so I don't get to declare an additional additional defender, and step 3 wants any weapons not part of attack pool 1, to be part of attack pool 2.

Is that correct?

I assumed you could attack as many different units as you have unique weapons.

You make a compelling argument and I really can't find anything in the rules to contradict you. It does say under attack pool on page 15, "During an attack the attacker can create multiple attack pools against multiple defenders." You would think that if to they intended to cap it at 2 attack pools they would have said so.

I think the intent is it yes you can create 3 attack pools but RAW only allow for 2.

With an AT-ST and Weiss you can go for 4:

p14: Declare Additional Defender: If there are any weapons remaining that have not been added to the attack pool, the player may repeat steps 1–2, forming a separate attack pool with the new weapons.

As long as you have weapons not yet in a pool keep repeating.

2 hours ago, Amanal said:

With an AT-ST and Weiss you can go for 4:

p14: Declare Additional Defender: If there are any weapons remaining that have not been added to the attack pool, the player may repeat steps 1–2, forming a separate attack pool with the new weapons.  (Ravncat note - Seperate attack pool is singular)

As long as you have weapons not yet in a pool keep repeating.

Except it only tells you to repeat once, which suggests two pools. Since it does not tell you to repeat step 3 - it means that after you declare your second defender - you don't get a chance to declare another additional defender. After repeating step 2, you'd continue to step 4 right? Step 3 also says that you have to do the pool creation for any weapons remaining - which suggests that if you've got 4 weapons, after your initial allocation, you have to allocate the rest. So you could create pools of the following weapon combinations: 4, 1-3,2-2,3-1.

Coincidentally, the additional defender diagram also only happens to show us two pools. I'm happy to split pools further - though i'm not sure how often that many pool splits will be worth it - though dolling out multiple suppression tokens with one attack seems good. I'm happy to be wrong, maybe they were intending to allow you to repeat steps 1-2 for each weapon remaining - but they chose the wording for any weapons remaining... they could've said for all remaining weapons, or been more explicit... Guess this one will need a developer answer. Especially if the problem is interpretation of how step 3 is applied.

The attack pool you assign to "Unit X" is of course singular, you are not allowed to or able to assign multiple pools to a single unit. You can't activate more than one unit after all.

As far as step 3 goes it says "If there are any weapons left". So, as long as you have weapons step 3 isn't finished, so you are doing 1-2 while stuck in 3 as it were.

So, no you don't bypass step 3 and skip to 4, you finish step 3 before advancing to 4, until you run out of weapons you ar at and doing step 3 you can repeat steps 1-2 as necessary and only once you run out of weapons do you go to step 4.

I think that's where the contention is - it says repeat step 1-2 , a singular time. So from a "programming" perspective - you follow step 1-2, then 3, then repeat 1-2 to resolve 3, then move to 4. I sent in the question to FFG - it's a semantical parsing issue.

Do while NoofWeapons >0
--allocate pool (Step 3)
--repeat step 1
--repeat step 2
loop

Where are you getting the loop step from?

3 hours ago, Ravncat said:

Except it only tells you to repeat once, which suggests two pools. Since it does not tell you to repeat step 3 - it means that after you declare your second defender - you don't get a chance to declare another additional defender. After repeating step 2, you'd continue to step 4 right? Step 3 also says that you have to do the pool creation for any weapons remaining - which suggests that if you've got 4 weapons, after your initial allocation, you have to allocate the rest. So you could create pools of the following weapon combinations: 4, 1-3,2-2,3-1.

Coincidentally, the additional defender diagram also only happens to show us two pools. I'm happy to split pools further - though i'm not sure how often that many pool splits will be worth it - though dolling out multiple suppression tokens with one attack seems good. I'm happy to be wrong, maybe they were intending to allow you to repeat steps 1-2 for each weapon remaining - but they chose the wording for any weapons remaining... they could've said for all remaining weapons, or been more explicit... Guess this one will need a developer answer. Especially if the problem is interpretation of how step 3 is applied.

Under the Arsenal X section it say, "A mini that has the Arsenal X keyword can divide it's weapons among any number of of units forming a separate dice pool for each weapon or combination of weapons"

So it is clear with Arsenal you would repeat steps 1and 2 until all the weapons were assigned to any number of targets. Again I am very confident it is intended to be this way for all units.

1 hour ago, Ravncat said:

Where are you getting the loop step from?

I think it’s more like this. Haven’t done any real coding in a while so pardon my pseudocode:

function step_3

do while NumWeapons > 0

step_1() //establishes the defender

step_2() //generates the attack pool

return

So the step_3 function doesn’t return until all weapons are allocated. That’s how we’re reading it. Forcing a repeat on step 3 isn’t necessary. It’s waiting for the repeats on 1 and 2 to complete before going on to step 4.

32 minutes ago, nashjaee said:

I think it’s more like this. Haven’t done any real coding in a while so pardon my pseudocode:

function step_3

do while NumWeapons > 0

step_1() //establishes the defender

step_2() //generates the attack pool

return

So the step_3 function doesn’t return until all weapons are allocated. That’s how we’re reading it. Forcing a repeat on step 3 isn’t necessary. It’s waiting for the repeats on 1 and 2 to complete before going on to step 4.

So you only allocate the pool of dice for the first attack?

41 minutes ago, Amanal said:

So you only allocate the pool of dice for the first attack?

Step 3 does not allocate the pool. Step 2 does.

p14: Declare Additional Defender: If there are any weapons remaining that have not been added to the attack pool, the player may repeat steps 1–2, forming a separate attack pool with the new weapons.  (Ravncat note - Seperate attack pool is singular)

While it is true that the word repeat is only used one time, that is much different than if it said "...the player may repeat steps 1-2 once"

RAW heavily implies that you keep going until you have allocated all available weapons

On 5/23/2018 at 9:19 AM, NukeMaster said:

Under the Arsenal X section it say, "A mini that has the Arsenal X keyword can divide it's weapons among any number of of units forming a separate dice pool for each weapon or combination of weapons"

So it is clear with Arsenal you would repeat steps 1and 2 until all the weapons were assigned to any number of targets. Again I am very confident it is intended to be this way for all units.

This is a red herring, the point of that text is that a mini with arsenal can fire multiple unit weapons. A mini without arsenal only fires one, therefore the reminder that they can subdivide amongst as many targets as there are unique weapons systems is totally unnecessary.

Step 3 is both grammatically sound and answers the original posters query already:

“Declare Additional Defender: If there are any weapons remaining that have not been added to the attack pool, the player may repeat steps 1–2, forming a separate attack pool with the new weapons.”

Every time a pool is formed there could hypothetically be minis left over that selected other weapons. Ie if you are on your N-th pool, you can proceed to form new pools until you run out of unique weapons (or unique non-arsenal minis to fire them).

32 minutes ago, Derrault said:

Step 3 is both grammatically sound and answers the original posters query already:

“Declare Additional Defender: If there are any weapons remaining that have not been added to the attack pool, the player may repeat steps 1–2, forming a separate attack pool with the new weapons.”

Every time a pool is formed there could hypothetically be minis left over that selected other weapons. Ie if you are on your N-th pool, you can proceed to form new pools until you run out of unique weapons (or unique non-arsenal minis to fire them).

But step 3 was the cause of my question - I read it as follows...

Let's say I've got 3 weapons, A,B and C.

I get to step 3. I have allocated A to my first attack pool against 1 target.

now It says repeat step 1-2 forming a separate attack pool (Pool 2) for any weapons (B and C) remaining that aren't in the attack pool (Pool 1).

Pool 1 has weapon A already, and I have 2 weapons left, so. I repeat step 1, Declaring Defender #2, and now I proceed to repeat step 2 - forming attack pool 2. Here, Step 3 told me that I must now add any weapons not in pool 1 (Weapons B and C) to the separate attack pool (Pool 2). I have completed repeating step 2 - so step 3 is now complete and I move to step 4.

What I am missing in step 3 is text that lets me form separate attack pools for each weapon remaining. Step three also tells me that I have to add any weapons remaining to the pool - not just 1 of the remaining weapons. That would allow me to end up with 3 or more attack pools. Repeating steps 1-3 would do this, or changing the wording as I just did above in bold.

The Arsenal X keyword rules seem to suggest that the intent was to create N pools with N weapons, instead of 2 pools containing the full set of N weapons, it certainly means that units with the Arsenal Keyword can create N pools with N weapons.

The only other implication is the name of step 3 itself - declare additional defender s.

I have not received a response from FFG yet. I'm happy to play the rules either way, but as written really seems to force 2 pools max outside of Arsenal. I agree that RAI appears to be create N pools.

Unless you have arsenal if 5 troopers are firing , 3 with, let's say e11s and 2 with grenades you couldn't use the heavy weapon (unless that the unit had arsenal) but you could have 3 pools with this unit of you split it so that each figure fired once , so 2 e11s , 2 grenades and a heavy weapon at 3 separate targets,

4 hours ago, syrath said:

Unless you have arsenal if 5 troopers are firing , 3 with, let's say e11s and 2 with grenades you couldn't use the heavy weapon (unless that the unit had arsenal) but you could have 3 pools with this unit of you split it so that each figure fired once , so 2 e11s , 2 grenades and a heavy weapon at 3 separate targets,

Why not? As long as you fire a different weapon you can form pools with each type of weapon.

Under Attack Pool on page 15:

During an attack, the attacker can create multiple attack pools to attack multiple defenders. However, only one attack pool can be assigned to each defender.

No reason to say multiple if the intent was to limit it to 2.

A Corps unit with grenades and a heavy weapon can fire on 3 different targets.

5 hours ago, Amanal said:

Why not? As long as you fire a different weapon you can form pools with each type of weapon.

Rules reference page 14

Choose Weapons: The attacker can choose one weapon from each eligible mini to contribute to the attack pool

So if you have 5 minis and 3 are using e11s and 2 are using a grenade then each mini in a unit of 5 has used a weapon and since none can use a second (unless it had Arsenal) then no more minis can contribute to the attack pool , so your heavy weapon mini can choose to use the heavy weapon, the grenade or the e11 but no more than one weapon per attack, so you can have 2 grenades 2 e11s and the heavy weapon instead , but not 2 grenades and 3 e11s and a heavy weapon (which would need 6 minis and only 5 was quoted in the original question)

5 hours ago, syrath said:

Rules reference page 14

Choose Weapons: The attacker can choose one weapon from each eligible mini to contribute to the attack pool

So if you have 5 minis and 3 are using e11s and 2 are using a grenade then each mini in a unit of 5 has used a weapon and since none can use a second (unless it had Arsenal) then no more minis can contribute to the attack pool , so your heavy weapon mini can choose to use the heavy weapon, the grenade or the e11 but no more than one weapon per attack, so you can have 2 grenades 2 e11s and the heavy weapon instead , but not 2 grenades and 3 e11s and a heavy weapon (which would need 6 minis and only 5 was quoted in the original question)

Got it, thanks.