Data Sphere

Two questions occurred to me as I was reading the Engineer's mine defusing rules. Here's the rules passage:

"In order to deactivate a Mine in a same Order, the figure has to come into its action radius and pass a WIP Roll. If successful, the mine does not explode and is defused. If the WIP roll is failed, then it explodes, affecting the Engineer as normal. "

1. It just says he has to enter into the radius of the mine-- does this mean an Engineer can defuse a mine from across a wall?

2. Based on the last sentence-- let's say I move my Engineer into range of a mine and the opponent doesn't choose to detonate. I make my WIP roll and fail. Does the mine go off, or can the controller still choose to keep it where it is? If it has to blow, what happens if there's a model that is friendly to the mine in the same line as the Engineer?

Or in other words-- does even making the attempt 100% guarantee that the mine won't be there afterward, either because I disabled it or because I forced it to detonate?

The rules seem to be written under the assumption that the player who controls the mine will always choose to detonate against an Engineer, and that the Engineer will always approach the mine from an open lane. They don't really seem to cover the possibility of more conservative plays by either player.

Engineers have to be in a place where, if the mine were to explode, it could potentially hit them, hence action radius, as opposed to, say, Zone of Control.

Mines can choose not to go off in reaction to an order in their activation area, but if so they give up exploding for that Order completely.

Awesome, thanks.

macfergusson wrote:Mines can choose not to go off in reaction to an order in their activation area, but if so they give up exploding for that Order completely.

I think the mine blow up even if its owner didn't choosed to activate it, the explosion being the result of the engineer failure.

takezo wrote:

macfergusson wrote:Mines can choose not to go off in reaction to an order in their activation area, but if so they give up exploding for that Order completely.

I think the mine blow up even if its owner didn't choosed to activate it, the explosion being the result of the engineer failure.

The mine owner always gets to choose to blow up or not blow up the mine when an order is activated within its template effect area. This special circumstance allows the engineer to attempt to prevent the owner from blowing it up before it is defused. If the owner chose not to blow it up at all, and the engineer fails, the mine should still be active and present.

"If the WIP roll is failed, then it explodes, affecting the Engineer as normal. "

As you said this is special circumstances, and this part leaves no place for any choice.
Consider it as an anti-désactivation protocole.
Thanksfully mines rules should be more clear in N3.

takezo wrote:"If the WIP roll is failed, then it explodes, affecting the Engineer as normal. "

As you said this is special circumstances, and this part leaves no place for any choice.
Consider it as an anti-désactivation protocole.
Thanksfully mines rules should be more clear in N3.

So you believe that the rule is intending to penalize the reactive player for the active player's failed roll?

Well, he WOULD still be getting a productive use of the mine-- it blows up and potentially kills the Engineer.

I guess I missread the whole mine thing.
I thought that if you decided to detonate it, the Engineer could try and deactivate it, if he failed, it would still detonate.
If you didn't want it to go off, and he fluffed his roll to deactivate it, then it wouldn't go off.

I think that was the intention of the rule, but as-written it seems like the detonation is forced on a failure.

That said, it could just be a translation error-- is anyone able to check the original Spanish text?

This rule is written with the assumption that the mine detonated based on the Engineer's first skill. If it did not, there are several open questions. I include my own thoughts after each one.

Does the Mine still explode if the Engineer fails their WIP roll? If it does, then you can use Engineers (or G: Servants) to remove enemy Mines whether you pass or fail the roll. This seems overbalanced in favor of the Engineer.

Can an Engineer try to defuse an undiscovered Mine that chose not to detonate? If so, it is a way to pseudo-discover Camo, which seems wrong. So if you move your Engineer into the action radius of a Mine and it elects to not Detonate, you probably need to declare Discover as your second skill.

The PDF rules also say that the Engineer must "... come into its action radius (Circular Template) and pass a WIP roll". The "Circular Template" annotation was removed in the wiki.


Clearly this rule was not properly re-written for 2nd Edition. Hopefully it will be for 3rd.

Given that mines are being discussed here, I figured I might as well ask about minesweepers instead of starting a new topic. Is it the same rule for them, so they have to go somewhere they could potentially be affected by the mine (instead of minesweeping through the wall)?

White Harlequin wrote:Given that mines are being discussed here, I figured I might as well ask about minesweepers instead of starting a new topic. Is it the same rule for them, so they have to go somewhere they could potentially be affected by the mine (instead of minesweeping through the wall)?

Yes, basically the same thing, minesweepers have the advantage of being able to do multiple mines woth one roll.

Also if a minesweeper succeeds the mine isn't just deactivated, it switches sides and comes under the control of the minesweeper player.

macfergusson wrote:

White Harlequin wrote:Given that mines are being discussed here, I figured I might as well ask about minesweepers instead of starting a new topic. Is it the same rule for them, so they have to go somewhere they could potentially be affected by the mine (instead of minesweeping through the wall)?

Yes, basically the same thing, minesweepers have the advantage of being able to do multiple mines woth one roll.