(Edit : O sh*t. Stras has answered while I was typing. I hope I haven’t written too many bullshit.)
TLDR : I’ve answered every question except the last one, which is part of a much wider problem. I’ll answer that later, and others can give their opinion too (and ofc check if I haven’t written too many mistakes in my other answers).
- Can any PC take armour in utility slots, or only rookies and officers?
Officers, Heavy, Soldiers, already have armour at light load, so they don’t need to take it in the utility slots. Rookies can. The others, who don’t have Armour in their utility load, can’t, except when it’s included in their load. This is the military: you take the equipment which is given or available to you.
Or, somehow, you convince the QM or one of his aides to equip you with something with is not on your list of utility. Good luck.
- A specialist deprived of their fine gear is only threat 1, and a soldier (or even rookie) who gets their hands on fine gear is threat 2, correct?
Yes. It is not the character, but the equipment which gives the threat level.
- Does a specialist require both fine armour and a fine weapon to be threat 2, or only one or the other? If they only have one or the other do you consider defensive and offensive threat separately?
It’s logical and fictional to consider defensive and offensive threat separately.
- Light load doesn’t have any mechanical benefit (apart from Panther Like Grace) does it, its benefits are handled narratively?
Yes. Light load could give you better position or effect in certain circumstances.
- I think I already know this: 5 reloads for a 5 shot revolver simply means the revolver can be used a total of 6 times, yes?
No. You have a total of 5 ammo. You can shoot five times. But you don’t need to reload between two shots, because it’s a revolver. So you could decide to spend all you shots in one action, as per the exemple in page 76, to get a bonus.
BUT but but… it’s a little bit more complicated. Ammo is not exactly 1 ammo = 1 shot. One ammo is “one SHOOT action”. It could be a salvo, if you have time. Look at the exemple of action p 224.
- The difference between wielding a single pistol or a pair of pistols is narrative, not mechanical?
Yes. Or no. You could decide to make it several SHOOT actions, or only one. Zoom on every shot, or not.
- I don’t grok the wounds system on the Marshal’s sheet at all. Are Wounds the same thing as Harm? Can rookies and soldiers have wounds without being dead? How do the three boxes on the Marshal’s sheet match up to the 3+2+1 boxes on the PC sheets?
- On the Marshal sheet, just note who has been wounded, with the highest wound they have received (level of harm).
- Yes, R & S can be wounded without being dead, if they have been played as PCs in previous missions.
- Does a critical give +1 or +2 to effect?
+2. Page 245 : " Dwayne nods, marks a point of corruption, and grabs an extra die. He rolls and gets a critical! “Holy smokes! That’s what—five segments? This rig really pays off. Are we done here?”
- If using a flashback to provide an assist do you pay stress for both?
I would say you don’t use flashbacks to provide assists.
When you assist, you somehow take part in the action, directly or indirectly, but you are supposed to possibly suffer the consequence of the action . So you can’t assist “in the past”.
Only the Officer could do something like that with “logistical support”. Channels are a sort of flashbacks.
- Do specialists promoted from soldiers have Grit?
Yes. They keep it AND gain their other Specialist action. See exemple page 111.
- Can you channel up something large and bulky (difficult to carry) when you’ve already done things on the current mission that would have been made difficult by carrying the item? (e.g. you climb hand over hand across a rope between two buildings, then after that channel up a heavy barrel of wine that you’ve brought with you…a bit of an extreme example but you get the idea)
If it stays in the fictional limits, yes. Yours to decide.
- The book suggests fictionally describing intel found (sounds good), but then if that description doesn’t match a mission that the players want to use it for, do you disallow its use there?
Two answers:
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They can always use their Intel to ask the intel questions, and choose the questions. Or spend the intel for boosting engagement roll, etc.Don’t deprive them of the mechanical reward of intel.
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But, if they want to use the intel to design a specific mission or trap around it, or other fictional use, they have to work with what they have got, and that’s what you have told them about the intel .
- Are heartless and devourers scale 2 like horrors, or scale 1?
Scale 1. Except the Infamous Devourer, Silver, which is scale 2. Ache the Infamous Heartless could be scale 2.
Not all horrors are scale 2. Only some of them.
- How do you describe successful attempts to physically harm high threat (large clock) npcs that aren’t fictionally capable of absorbing large amounts of damage? E.g. your war machine heavy smashes their huge hammer into/your sniper lands a crimson shot on Viktoria Karhowl - but her clock still has plenty of segments left, you’ll have to do that another time or two to take her down…
This is a question that has no fixed answer, and which has been the object of many discussions without consensus. It is linked to the wider question of clocks in combat.