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Skaven Slaves + Clan Rats + Shooting into Melee; can it be done?
Topic Started: 12th January 2011 - 03:46 PM (1,648 Views)
turmi110
Chieftain
@Chitterfitz

Thats exactly the way its supposed to be played. In the cannon rules you are forbidden to place a shot in a way that has any chance, no matter how remote it is, to hit either a friendly, or an enemy in close combat. The other warmachine rules allow you to accidentally scatter onto your own units.



Slaves aside for a moment, when firing a WFT, what constitutes at purposfully aiming at one of your units? You're allowed to accidentally hit your units, but what is accidental for a WFT? Does that just mean that you cannot place the template over a friendly model? Because if a model was completely within 2 inches, there'd be no way of hitting said model (except by misfiring), but you'd have to place the template over him. Is that purposeful aiming at your own unit? On the flip side it's very easy to place a template so its not touching any friendlies, but then it 'scatters' onto them, if you could really call it scattering. Does that count as accidental? If the target intent is subjective, then you'd find that what constitutes as 'accidentally' changes depending on if you're the shooter, or shootee.

Take this scenario, WFT is 1 inch away from unengaged phoenix guard 2 ranks deep. On the opposite side of those phoenix guard there is a unit of swordmasters engaged in combat with clanrats, say at a statistically optimal distance and angle to get most of the swordmasters with a few clanrats in the mix, but far enough away so that none of them are touched by the template if you place it down. If you chose the target simply by saying 'I'm aiming at this phoenix guard unit, 3rd guy from the right' and point your template in that direction, you could hit one, but the chances are only 16.7%, and the chances of hitting the illegal target (swordmasters in combat with clanrats) is much higher. So you manage to overshoot and toast the clanrats and swordmasters without even coming close to a phoenix guard, would that be considered accidental or purposeful?

I've had a salamander overshoot a couple of khorne warriors who were chasing my lone skink priest, only to kill the priest I was trying to protect in the first place. It was accidental, I didn't mean to hit the priest, but if I'd looked closer at the distances involved and did the math, then there was actually a very fair chance of hitting the priest. Does that count as accidental? How far away does my priest have to be from the salamander before I could throw fire in his direction?

The stonethrower is clear, you cannot place the template over friendly models (or units in combat), thats written in their specific rules. Cannon is also clear, you cannot place a shot in any way that it might hit a friendly or unit in combat. The fire thrower, salamander, and WFT do not have any additional clarifications on what constitutes as accidental.

My point is there is no definition for what is an accidental WFT shot. We've only got what the cannon, and what the stonethrower are restricted to. They do not apply to the fire throwers, salamanders or WFT (so far as I can tell). If you apply the stonethrower restrictions to the WFT, then you can exploit it in my swordmaster/clanrat combat scenario detailed above, and are restricted from the shots where you have absolutely no chance of hitting your models, but you placed the template over them. If you apply the cannon restrictions, then you've going away from the general allowance of accidentally hitting a unit in combat with a template.
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CapAmr05
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I keep flipflopping on this issue (thanks Rakashani) ;)

--Cap
Lonewolf Grand Tournament April 28-30

The Beer Phase Podcast

Clan Skrittar
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Rakashani
Warlord
As I said to Cap elsewhere...

The Stone Thrower is absolutely clear because you know that you can hit the location you place the template in the first place. There's no reason to pretend you don't know where a WFT template is going to land. You know it cannot travel zero inches and do damage. A model 1" in front of the Team is not going to be hit.

The point is that you can say reliably that the template is going to hit *something* 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10" in front of you and then 8" beyond that. Place the template such that there is *a* result (other than a Misfire) that doesn't hit friendlies. (That is, after all, exactly what the Stone Thrower is doing.)

Read the rules (both the definition of Expendable and the rules in the BRB). It's very simple to set up examples... If your Slaves are 1" in front of an enemy unit then there is no rule to support putting a Plague Mortar template on the BSB in the front rank of the other unit because you hit (clip) friendly models. You can push back a few ranks though and hit the unit without clipping your Slaves in spite of the fact that half your scatter results will still hit your slaves accidentally.

"Fine, I'm going to place my template and I demand that my die roll an 8 or a 10. Oops, it rolled a 4... Damn, lost some slaves." *That's* Expendable. "Look guys, a group of Slaves! Let's hose them down and hope their corpses fall on the enemy!" Not so much.
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turmi110
Chieftain
The way I see the WFT working, is that you can fire it at any viable target, and it hits what it hits as there is no real definition of what is a purposeful or accidental hit for a WFT. It seems like its reliant on the honesty of the person using it, which is a horrible thing to assume that a skaven player has possession of such feeble minded morals :P

I do frown upon that long winded scenario I described earlier where a player purposefully aims at a target he isn't going to hit (or at least not likely to ) in order to most likely hit a much juicier unit that would have been illegal otherwise. Just like I frowned upon people deliberately over guessing with a cannonball in 7th ed to hit a unit that was hiding behind another one.

Sometimes it is obvious when someone is trying to bend the rules to near breaking point to gain an advantage, and with the wording for this rule, it seems like this will be an easy one to take advantage of.

However I for have no reservations about firing into a slave combat, so long as the WFT can see the enemy unit they are engaged with, thereby having a legal target to fire at. Firing into the flank of the enemy unit while clipping only a few slaves (for good measure) is ideal, but even if the shot were likely to hit only slaves, then I still don't mind. To me this is due mostly because of the poor usage of 'purposefully' and 'accidentally' in the rules and not so much the expendable rule. The expendable rule makes the enemy unit a viable target, to me it doesn't negate or contradict the restriction for purposefully hitting your own slave with a template, whatever that really means for a WFT. Fluff wise I'd say you could fire at slaves with anything you want and at anytime you want, because who really cares? They're slaves.
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