Why does reactive fire ignore target priority?
CF6.3 Target Proximity (for Phase Fire only), p. 9 Phasing Fire must obey the target priority rules but Reactive Rire doesn’t. You can think of Reactive Fire as an abstract form of ‘friction’ against activities performed by the enemy, while Phasing Fire is used to represent actual controlled and initiated action by your forces against the enemy. When you Reactive Fire you are just providing the general effect of fire from your side against the enemy – the fact that you rolled 3D for Joe Boggs Rifle Section isn’t that critical – it might be they are only half firing and some other fire is incoming from elsewhere – but they are just the key arbitrary point chosen to resolve the effect of that fire and any general ‘friction’ that might interdict the enemy’s activity… While Phasing fire is representing a calculated controlled specific attack by your units on a defined point of the enemy line, etc – and hence why it should always target the closest enemy.
