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Markerlights appear to operate by this order of operations:

1) Declare markerlights in movement phase (start for everyone other than pathfinders who declare at the end)

2) At the start of the commander phase, they all complete simulatenously and you choose what order to execute them by picking 1 unit at a time. Pick a unit

3) Pick a markerlight model in that unit

4) On that model, pick one of its markerlight(s)

5) Pick a target for that markerlight

6) roll a D6

7) on a 3+, that unit gains a markerlight token

8) Repeat steps 4-7 for any additional markerlights on that model

9) Repeat steps 2-7 for each model in that unit

10) Repeat steps 1-7 for each unit that completed the action

So basically you do resolve markerlights completely 1 at a time. This is efficient for markers but potentially EXTREMELY time consuming. Because of this I think it needs to be 100% standard courtesy for us Tau players doing more than just beerhammer use a clock, even if just for themselves. Even for beer hammer, set the clock to half of the 6 hours you set aside anyway lol, just to keep yourself honest.

Is this how everyone else interprets the order of operations?

Wording:
Markerlights: Units in your army can perform the following action:
Fire Markerlights (Action):

'One or more MARKERLIGHT units in your army can start to perform this action at the start of your movement phase. AIRCRAFT MARKERLIGHT units can perform this action. The action is completed at the start of your next shooting phase. If this action is successfully completed, for each model in that unit that is equipped with one or more markerlights, for each markerlight that model is equipped with, select one enemy unit within 36” of that model that would be an eligible target for for that model if its unit had been selected to shoot, and roll one D6: On a 3+, that unit gains a markerlight token.'

Or, just go "all marker lights in this unit as rolling ..." and that makes it far faster.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Or, just go "all marker lights in this unit as rolling ..." and that makes it far faster.

Right but what I think the OP is saying is that if this is the correct order of operations, which unit you put the token on is going to depend a lot on your specific knowledge at the moment of what markerlights you've already put out and how many you have left to roll.

Because you pick target before each roll, fast rolling and picking targets after would be hugely beneficial to the Tau player, whereas picking targets first then rolling is hugely beneficial to the opponent.

Yes, it no more so than fast rolling to wound gives an advantage to the shooter, and fast rolling saves gives an advantage (even if mild) to the defender. Here is a situation where for the sake of finishing a game, rather than trying to min max marker lights the tau player should use target prio to work out which units need a ML and assign before rolling. Anything else is too slow.

Even if you roll single dice one after the other the time it takes should not be significant.

"these 6 markerlights, I'll start on your terminators *throw 2 dice, throw 1 more, throw 1 more* ok so 2 markers on them, 1 on that rhino *throw dice* and the last on your dreadnought *throw dice*"
Is this really what people are worried about will take a lot of time?

No you shouldn't roll 6 dice and then decide how to divide the success across multiple units but you shouldn't need to do that to make the game proceed at a good pace.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Yes, it no more so than fast rolling to wound gives an advantage to the shooter, and fast rolling saves gives an advantage (even if mild) to the defender. Here is a situation where for the sake of finishing a game, rather than trying to min max marker lights the tau player should use target prio to work out which units need a ML and assign before rolling. Anything else is too slow.

Its very different to fast rolling wounds in most situations. Most of the time, fast rolling wounds makes no difference. Fast rolling markerlights will almost always make a HUGE difference.

I strongly disagree that a Tau player should just suck it up and assign before rolling (and I dont play Tau fwiw). You're asking them to give up way too much for a frankly very modest time saving in most cases.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ordana wrote:

Is this really what people are worried about will take a lot of time?

Agree. This is a lot of fuss over nothing imo

 Ordana wrote:


No you shouldn't roll 6 dice and then decide how to divide the success across multiple units but you shouldn't need to do that to make the game proceed at a good pace.

If there was common mechanism by which a person could roll twenty six sided dice one at a time while:
- giving both players enough time to recognize the result (having the die remain visible would be preferable)
- not having the dice accidentally bump into each other
- ensure that each die is properly rolled (and not just dropped)
- not take longer the more dice you have to roll
there wouldn't be any discussion in the rules about fast rolling.

By all means, though, if you've found the trick to that, please say so.

Bare in mind that your markerlights are likely spread over many units anyway, so even if you're fast rolling you're surely still batching by unit..? So the saving is probably less than some people are imagining

you have to declare all your targets before you roll.

The action doesnt complete until later on in the phase remember.

you select a target when the action completes. And the rule doesn't actually make it clear you need to select all before rolling.

Shooting says you need to declare everything before you roll, actions don't have that stipulation and the wording is open to interpretation.

for each model in that unit that is equipped with one or more markerlights, for each markerlight that model is equipped with, select one enemy unit within 36” of that model that would be an eligible target for for that model if its unit had been selected to shoot, and roll one D6: On a 3+, that unit gains a markerlight token

You can resolve the action model by model. Select target, roll dice, move on to next model and follow the rule correctly.

Its written at the end...

"If this action is successfully completed, for each model in that unit that is equipped with one or more markerlights, for each markerlight that model is equipped with, select one enemy unit within 36” of that model that would be an eligible target for for that model if its unit had been selected to shoot, and roll one D6: On a 3+, that unit gains a markerlight token."

If the action is completed which means the declare fire markerlights, dont move and at the start of the shooting phase its complete, do the next step.

Then it explains at the start of the shooting phase, this is before any normal shooting is happenning because its the START of the ohase not any other part of the phase, you have to designate targets for each marker light "shots" that are going off so like 10 for pathfinders or 1+5 for cadre fireblade with lantern relic. So say 2 into this squad 2 into that squad and so forth like normal shooting then you roll for 3+ to out a ML token on the targets that were designated.

In this way the lantern is actually redundant because according to the way fire markerlights is written he has 1 markerlight and the lantern just adds 5 additional 3+ chances to get up to a max of 6 tokens on the same target. What is going to need that many shots unless you are fighting titanic things? I feel for 1 cp this is too much of a niche choice.

So back to the original yes you can fast roll for all the markerlights designated to the same squad. There is no roll 10 for pathfinders then designate because that is not how the rules are written. It is designate what units will have how many dice rolled against it till all are alocated just like designating targets in normal shooting then you roll to see if any tokens are distributed.