Character A goes to attack character B who is on overwatch, so character B activates his overwatch and attacks character A, first. If character A survives can he then make a counter attack against character B, in retaliation for the overwatch attack, and after that complete the original action (attacking character B), hence attacking B twice?

Cheers

No, Counterattacks, may only be made in response to the "Attack" Action, an Overwatch attack is not the same.

Well the book itself is quite unclear on that subject.

An Overwatch Attack is still a regular attack ("An Overwatch Attack is resolved as a normal attack ", Rules of Play p. 27) and there is no restriction on making a Counterattack after an Overwatch Attack ("A character who is attacked by an enemy and survives ...", Rules of Play p. 25).

So I'd say that , yes, you can launch a counterattack if you have the CP for it.

The counter attack rules do state that it has to occur immediately before the original attacker continues their activation.

This could just be spurious wording, but it could also be used to argue that it implicitly means you can't counter attack an overwatch attack, because the overwatch attacker isn't activating at the time (the original attacker is..)

It also makes things tidier, IMO!

After allowing the counter attack last night, i think in future we wouldn't, as it did get messy with the original attacker effectively having to roll two attacks in succession, it also made the overwatch seem less sensible tactically.

I agree with you that to counter attack an overwatch attack would be too powerful, so we never played in that way

I re-analysed the rules, pag. 26 at the right bottom of the page, last line:

"Upon interrupting, the overwatch character launches an
OVERWATCH ATTACK against the character being interrupted."

"Overwatch Attack" isn't an "Attack", it's solved like an attack, but is an Overwatch Attack: indeed it's written in capital red letters.

So you can't make a "COUNTER-ATTACK" (written in capital red letters too) in response to an Overwatch Attack.

Carlos´ logic sounds quite intrigueing to me.

@Katsuyori

maybe you have reason... logic can be a diagnostic method of foresight: what's it better for intrigues?

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I'm not able to remain serious, sorry...

Here's another interesting point (quoting Revised rules, page 27): ""Otherwise, once the overwatch attack has been resolved, the triggering character's activation simply continues as normal from the point of interruption. If the announcement of an action was what triggered the overwatch attack, the character must continue by carrying out the announce action. That is, he may not change his mind about what he wants to do next based on having suffered the overwatch attack."

Seems to me that he also can't change his mind and make a counterattack instead of whatever he wanted to do before suffering the overwatch attack.

i think pumpkin is right. You simply can't counterattack an overwatch attack because it still is YOUR turn.

The rules are quite unclear on that but I think you can only counterattack when it's another player's turn .

Since an overwatch attack does not properly activate the character but rather interrupts the current player's turn, you can't counterattack on it.