Infinity: Smoke Grenades

Infinity has a great system for Smoke Grenades, they are an incredibly useful resource, but the use of them is vastly different from 40K.
This confused Bringer of Death and I on Tuesday when we played our second game of Infinity.
To try out this special mechanic, we both used forces with a good deal of smoke, so we could get to grips with it.
However, it was not until Turn 3 that we realised we were doing it totally wrong, far too influenced by our 40K mentalities.
We were throwing the smoke and advancing our troops behind it, confident that it would still be there in the enemy’s Active Turn. This is the 40K logic.
Smoke in Infinity ends at the end of your Active Turn.
So those troops? Yeah, they’d be exposed and out in the open. D’oh!
We figured it out, but still had other issues:
-Like making Intuitive Shots OUT OF the smoke using a weapon called a Nanopulsar.
-Can you really not see someone at all, even after they have shot out of the smoke at you? The only ARO being Turn Facing towards the enemy or dodge?
How does Smoke Work?
Firstly, lets cover this.

Smoke works by throwing the grenade into a space on the board. A template is placed where you want it, we then measure how far away the template is and apply any modifiers that may exist due to the range of the smoke.
For quick reference, up to 4” gains a +3 modifier, up to 8” has a 0 modifier, over 8”-12” (I think) has a -3 modifier.
Using your PH (Physical) statistic not BS (Ballistic Skill), a Normal Roll is made. So this means we just roll equal to or under our PH stat to succeed and land the smoke where we want it.

If you fail, then the smoke makes a Dispersion Roll.
Dispersion Rolls are scatters. The Template has numbers on it, with 1 facing the LOF of the model throwing it. The template scatters in the direction of the SECOND number on the dice you rolled. The distance is calculated by taking what is known as the Failure Category (FC) and x 2.5. FC is HOW MUCH you failed by. If I needed a 12 to succeed, but rolled a 14, the FC is 2…therefore distance would be 5” in the direction 4 (as it is the second digit on the dice roll).

Smoke and Movement:
To throw a smoke grenade from a position of cover and out of LOF (read: TLOS 40kers) and for it to land where you want it, requires a Normal Roll (Please read HERE for how the D20 Dice Mechanic works). If you miss, it scatters (called Dispersion), if you hit, it lands.

A Normal Smoke throw without ARO's from Enemy

However, if when spending your Order from your Reserve you declare throwing smoke as the FIRST short skill of the Order and then declare the second short skill to be movement INTO the smoke, then this may generate an ARO. In the case shown, the enemy model can attempt to shoot you as you move into the new smoke.

As you move into new smoke, the enemy shoots...which happensfirst? Dice and skill decide!

This generates a Face to Face roll to see who is fastest and most accurate. Can you throw the smoke down as you move faster than the model can react and shoot you? These things happen simultaneously so it creates a very cinematic bit of action.
If you succeed in the F2F roll then the smoke goes down fastest, if the enemy succeeds, no smoke is placed AND you get shot!

So how would be best to launch that smoke?
Stay in cover, do not move in and throw the grenade, requiring just a Normal Roll and no ARO response from the enemy.
Or, another model throws the smoke and you move through it afterwards.

Smoke and Impetuous:
An Impetuous unit gets a free Order to spend first, before it spends orders from the Order Reserve, the FIRST part of the Order MUST always be movement TOWARDS the nearest enemy.

Impetuously moving into enemy LOF! Fool!

This can create a problem whereby your Impetuous miniature may move out of cover and charge towards the enemy, but can’t get the smoke down in time before the enemy spots you and takes a shot…forcing the Smoke/BS F2F situation we talked about above.

Impetuous forces the F2F roll to happen... :(

Impetuous can make it hard to get the smoke cover that is needed, but remember that Infinity is full of LOF blocking terrain and cover, so in the early stages of the game, it should be easy for your Impetuous troops to cover the rest of the army for FREE! Remember, that Impetuous order does not come from the Order Reserve of the Army, so there is no negative to giving it a go. Unless of course, the better action would just be to double move towards the enemy if the rest of the army can advance unscathed..

This was a basic ‘how to’ on smoke, not just for you guys but to remind me how things work as I learn the game.
Catch up on other Infinity tutorials by using the label 'Infinity' to the right of the blog.
Search on youtube: 'Infinity the game' and see the host of videos they have there..
That’s all folks…

Anyone that can answer the intuitive shot out of smoke allowed question??