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I played in an RTT today and was introduced to vibro cannons for the first time, interesting experience.
My opponent placed the battery of 3 cannons 10 inches onto the table and behind a large level 3 building. The building literally blocked his line of sight to everything on my side of the table. He proceeds to fire on turn one and he assures me, per ELD codex pg 45, that he picks a spot on the table 36" away and every model that crosses the line he draws gets hit.

I have looked in the BGB and on page 56 it states "unless firing barrage weapons, there must be a line of sight to the target from both a gun model and a crewman within 2" of it.

Since his vibro cannon battery could not see any units in the 36" path, how could he hit any units?

Thanks in advance,

Darrian

Because vibro cannons are not aimed at particular targets. They just hit anything between the chosen spot and themselves.

RAW of the vibro cannons says nothing about casualty removal, so if you look at the base rules, you can only cause casualties on models in LOS.

So, by RAW, you target models out of line of sight, you just can't hurt them.

The auto glance rule of the vibro cannon is specific to the gun however, so it's not totally useless, by RAW.

frenrik

Hunh?

Can you clarify your position on the basis of your interpretation? The vibro cannon seems pretty clear in its' wording as to how it works.

There was the same types of discussion about FotA.

- G

Sarigar wrote:frenrik

Hunh?

Can you clarify your position on the basis of your interpretation? The vibro cannon seems pretty clear in its' wording as to how it works.

What the Vibro cannon is able to hit is not in question. That much is clear by the wording in the Eldar codex.

However, there is a proviso in the basic rules which specifies that casualties must be drawn from within line of sight of the firer (unless the weapon is a barrage weapon). So regardless of whether the Vibrocannon hits models out of line of sight, they cannot legally be chosen as casualties if they are out of line of sight.

Vehicles, by the RAW, are still fair game when out of line of sight.



That said, I think it is fairly clear that Vibro cannons were likely intended to be able to hit targets out of LOS and that's generally how I see them played. That's the interpretation we're going with at Adepticon.

Actually, the wording on p26 of the BGB is "line of fire", not "line of sight". Casualty removal proceeds as usual.

Iorek wrote:Actually, the wording on p26 of the BGB is "line of fire", not "line of sight". Casualty removal proceeds as usual.

It's pretty clear that "Line of sight" and "Line of Fire" are used interchangeably in the rulebook because:

A) "Line of Fire" is never defined.
B) The diagram on that same page (page 26) does indeed specify that casualties must be taken from within "Line of Sight" of the firers.

The only place I remember line of fire being used is in the casualty removal section; if you rely on the "line of sight" argument, barrage weapons firing at targets out of sight are completely ineffective. I also thought that rules took precedence over diagrams, which were used as an example to illuminate the rule's application.

I had thought that the difference in wording for "line of fire" was specifically included to allow for casualties caused out of line of sight for whatever reason, like the vibrocannon in this example.

Iorek wrote:The only place I remember line of fire being used is in the casualty removal section; if you rely on the "line of sight" argument, barrage weapons firing at targets out of sight are completely ineffective. I also thought that rules took precedence over diagrams, which were used as an example to illuminate the rule's application.

I had thought that the difference in wording for "line of fire" was specifically included to allow for casualties caused out of line of sight for whatever reason, like the vibrocannon in this example.

"Line of Fire" is used a couple of other times in the rulebook.

The barrage weapon exception is covered on page 21 which allows those weapons to choose casualties out of line of sight.

And diagrams are part of the rules. Of course, often they contain summarized versions of the rules text, but that isn't the case here. Again "Line of Fire" is never defined in the rules, so even if we assume that they meant to write it as something different we have no actual basis to tell what "line of fire" is. We can make guesses, or make up our own definition, but one sure isn't provided in the rules.

As noted, the casualty rules pretty much only allow casualties to be removed from within LOS. This is in direct conflict with the way vibrocannons (and barrage weapons, for that matter) work, as it most certainly inflicts hits on units out of LOS. RAW there might be a technical argument to be made, but I think it's clear to everyone that v-cannons are supposed to be able to kill models out of LOS.

Barrage weapons are specifically exempted, so there is no real bearing on this.

I could argue that they intended you to only be able to pick a spot in LOS and that's why they didn't write an exemption to the normal casualty rule and that people that are using it otherwise are just using a loophole, but until I run into Phil Kelly again, I have no way of confirming that.

I mean, ask Darrian how he felt when he had someone tell him a vibro cannon can shoot things out of line of sight. It sounded like the someone had just told him about holofields. It just feels overpowered.

They'd suck otherwise. Weapon platforms are so fragile that they'd be useless if they didn't work from out of LOS. Any other tempting choice to encourage people to use the slot for something other than a holofalcon is a good thing in my book.

Line of Fire and Line of Sight might be used similar in the BGB. But that's not enough to be 'interchangeably' or the same.

As you are able to actually hit the chosen point and aim at it you might use RAI and RAW (Line of Fire =/= Line of Sight, we're left with human intellect here...barrage weapons can be used for comparision.) to sort of prove the point, that the Vibro Cannon shot ignores terrain.

And hey...Mannahnin is sort of right, isn't he?

Wouldn't a good sportsman take the least advantages interpretation.

Ie, the one that would make them useless.

I mean I own a squad of them, and I have yet to field them in the new rules mostly because It's debatable if they are good or useless.

In a tournament I'd let you play them however you thought was fair, but I wouldn't give max sports if you were using t hem to shoot from out of LOS.

I guess I wouldn't get max sports then.