yes exactly

"for the duration of a single combat, (if the ability is not Sustained)"

and then

" Some non-sustained Squad Mode abilities have a duration different than single combat and are indicated as such ."

Then they go on to Errata the majority of non-sustained abilities as having a durration other than one combat. they make no such indication about this ability so it defaults to the standard one combat durration. Only 3 are in fact not changed from full combat to one turn: Tank Buster, Go to Ground and Soak Fire. It would have actualy been less of a change to say the default is one turn and then say these 3 last longer instead of changing 7 abilities to be 'indicated' as having a different duration than one combat.

We were asking for you to point out where Soak Fire was specified to only last one turn or some other durration than one combat.

The big hint is where the chart says Sustained? No.

Also, if any of those participating use another squad mode ability they can't keep the soak fire ability up, so how will you account for that? Once you use another ability the previous one ends. Its a Reaction plain and simple and Reactions need to end unless your entire soaking group of battle brothers will have NO need to use any other squad mode ability - this desperate belief that you can soak for an entire combat for the cost of two cohesion is pathetic. Now you want to believe that a soak fire can be sustained by the users through an entire combat - so is it sustained if one of them uses his reaction in the next round for something OTHER than soaking fire? And it has to NOT be his turn to act when someone is shot at in the next round/turn (its a Reaction, remember) for him to soak?

So they'll all stay huddled waiting for that grenade/missile/flamer to wipe them out. Smart.

remember that at rank 4 (when this gets upgraded) support range is within 60m. so if you stay about 20-30m in a loose formation and don't block line of sight you can easily keep in support range and an "eligible target" for any attack without bunching up to the point where a well placed missle would hit the whole team or even more than one. You can even get some nice cover as long as they could still try to shoot you you can soak some of your buddie's damage.

As your other options with the oath of loyalty are regroup and tactical spacing I see this as the more powerful option if you can manage to stay at range and tactical spacing for when you get into melee.

Yes, that's the way squad mode abilities work. You spend the cohesion. The ability is now active and the individual battle brothers can choose to benefit from it or not. If you use your actions for something else it doesn't make the ability shut off for the whole group, but it may make you unable to benefit/participate if you are using another squad mode ability or dropped out of squad mode. If half the group is still using it you can jump back in next round. If nobody is using it but you want to, It's like sustained ability that nobody is sustaining at the moment. you activate it again but at no cohesion cost as long as it's within the durration given which in this case is one combat..

We have gone through entire missions having used one sustained ability for the whole mission and never shifting off it because we didn't need to. using one non-sustained ability for the whole of a combat where it is extremely helpful does not sound far fetched to me. unless the Ultramarine is the leader we just don't have that much cohesion to activate all sorts of abilities. and even though he's statted out to be a great leader, he only leads about half the time.

The most interesting thing to me about this is how I'm all in favor of the ability being a single round thing with a much more narrow definition of 'eligible target' to split damage with. In fact my group has already agreed to, but I'm interested in the fact that as written it doesn't and Some People here seem to think it worth getting rather mean about the whole thing.

In summary: I think your view is how it should work but not how it does work as written . In a rules discussion it is rather important to keep these things clear unless we want to move this over to the house rules side of the board.

Good news!

Though it took longer than expected, to get a response, it was precisely as I had suspected and previously indicated. I refrained from posting further in the topic until i received a reply as some people appeared a bit inflexible with their interpretation of the rules. The response I received from Andrew Fischer follows.

Hi Nigel,

Soak Fire works as a Reaction. It affects the attack it was activated in reaction to, and is then finished since it isn't a Sustained ability. There is no Errata currently for Soak Fire.

I hope that helps.
--
Andrew Fischer
RPG Producer
Fantasy Flight Games

NGL said:

This is good news, as it is now essentially errated, much like Bolter Assault, Furious Charge, Holy Vengeance, Regroup, and Feel No Pain. All of which were defined explicitly as squad mode abilities that are the special single use powers. I do wonder how many more of thse would also fall under this type of ruling, such as Go To Ground. TBH, if you have an ultramarine with a good fellowship who has spent points in command, you end up with an ever flowing pool of cohesion that kind of takes some of the magic away from the abilities, and non sustained abilities in general often feel like they should be one use powers. Then again, maybe I just don't have enough encounters per game session, and maybe I'm jus playing with a player who min-maxed his cohesion.

@Bobh - AK knows what a non-sustained ability is, trust me, he was pointing out there was no such thing as a non-sustained reaction. Take a deep breath, there isn't a reason to get so upset, use all caps, underlines, and call people pathetic and desparate.

I don't know if it's my experience with alot of RPG's or what; but when I saw the OP, I immediately thought 'it's a reaction, as soon as the reaction rolls/effects are made, the ability ends.' I'm not sure why it turned into such a mess, but it seems clear to me that it's just that simple.

the confusion comes from the errata about the durration of non sustained abilities. it looks like there is almost no reason to have the stated 'one combat' durration as almost all of the non sustained abilities are changed to one round. it would have been a smaller change to say default duration is one round and then clarify the 2-3 abilities as different. but oh well. it's nice to have an 'official' answer.

Oh yeah, NOW the voices of reason enter the fray. Wonderful timing.

It turned into a mess because some people want to argue till they are blue in the face when the facts say they are plain wrong.

Reactions are non-sustained...because they are reactions.

Sustained? No.

Simple.

bobh said:

Are you blue in the face yet?

I agree with your sentiment, bobh, I really do, but before the word from FFG the rules were actually pretty clear, if odd.

Full Actions, Half Actions, and Free Actions are non-sustained, you do them and they're done, right? So how is the 'reaction' cost for a squad mode ability any different? I tried to read through all the posts here and looked at the book again but I can't find where it says anywhere that the ability cost has anything at all to do with how long the ability lasts. The cost is simply a description of the action the marine that activates the power has to spend in order to turn the power on. If it costs a reaction, then the marine can't use that reaction to dodge or parry or use another reaction based ability. If it's a full action, he pretty much can't do anything else.

In the definition of Sustained/non-sustained, which you have provided and agreed to, it said if it is sustained it lasts for the mission. If it's not sustained it lasts for the combat. Then the errata came and said in some special cases the ability would last for less than a combat, but in those cases it would be clearly called out. In the Errata, it calls out Bolter Assault, Furious Charge, Holy Vengeance, Fury of Sanguinius, Lighting Strike, Regroup, and Feel No Pain were called out as lasting for the duration of a single turn. There wer no other abilities where this was called out for lasting only a turn or less than a turn. Furious Charge, Tank Burster, Go to Ground, Regroup, Soak Fire, and Pack Tactics are all Non sutained abilities that are left out.

If you can, please provide a quotation where it says that the action required to activate an ability has an impact on how long the ability lasts. My reading has Action, Cost, and Sustainment all as separate entries in the power's description.

But this is what Nathiel already said, in essence...

Edit: I call out the required action as 'cost' a lot in the above, apologies if that creates confusion. Reactions are the *action* required to activate the ablity, not the cost.

Actions are neither sustained nor non-sustained (although there is extended actions). Same for reactions.

Squad Mode Abilties are sustained or non-sustained. They also have an action cost. In case of Soak Fire the action cost was Reaction. The statement "It's a reaction" is not defined in DW's context. What is defined is a statement like "The duration of the Squad Mode ability is for reaction with which it gets triggered only." However, "Soak Fire works as a Reaction. It affects the attack it was activated in reaction to, and is then finished since it isn't a Sustained ability." suffices as clarification.

The debate arose because the original text only stated the Action Cost and didn't define the duration. There is no guarantee that when a squad mode ability has an action cost of Reaction and must be triggered as a Reaction (instead of expending it during one's turn like an attack with a Servo Arm) that its duration is also merely for that Reaction. It took an explicit clarification to have certainty on the issue.

Now we have the certainty thanks to the request by NGL.

Alex