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Can buildings be area terrain, or are they anyway?

I was pondering this when discussing Lictors.
Lictors are not destroyed and are deployed normally when deepstriking into impassable terrain, making it a rather safe place to deploy them generally. And when deepstriking, buildings are counted as impassable terrain. (So are transports oddly, which could get wierd, but I think that's covered)

So if a building is IN area terrain, they appear. . . inside? On top? Does it depend on the building? If a building can be area terrain, that would just be fun.

One would have to assume no models were previously embarked in any case, but if so, that about the safest DS ever.



shrug

You are free to declare your buildings whatever terrain you choose. Personally I prefer to categorise the roof as either open or difficult terrain if you can ever balance a model on it.

Remember that Lictors can't move horizontally over impassable terrain. So they could never get down from an building counting as impassable area terrain unless you put them right on the edge so the can move down using just the wall.

I think its pretty stright forward to argue backwards in favour of lictors & deep-striking. If they dont get destroyed by impassable terrain then they shouldnt (by working backwards from the worse in severity) take wounds from difficult/dangerous terrain.

kirsanth wrote:

So if a building is IN area terrain, they appear. . . inside? On top? Does it depend on the building?

One would have to assume no models were previously embarked in any case, but if so, that about the safest DS ever.

This was really the more curious issue, the rest was just odd.

Ruins are not buildings. There is no "roof" technically on a building, as far as gameplay goes - some will allow embark models to be placed in visible locations, but that is "open-topped" buildings, the models are not on the roof, per se. They are impassable, other than to embark, as I read it.

Example:
A large area terrain has a bunker in the center. Deepstriking a Lictor into this area terrain, the Lictor scatters into the bunker.


"Deployed normally" regarding a building is inside, not on top, no?

shrug

Webbe wrote:You are free to declare your buildings whatever terrain you choose. Personally I prefer to categorise the roof as either open or difficult terrain if you can ever balance a model on it.

Remember that Lictors can't move horizontally over impassable terrain. So they could never get down from an building counting as impassable area terrain unless you put them right on the edge so the can move down using just the wall.

According to the rules you are patently wrong.

What prompted you to say that?

kirsanth wrote:

Webbe wrote:You are free to declare your buildings whatever terrain you choose. Personally I prefer to categorise the roof as either open or difficult terrain if you can ever balance a model on it.

Remember that Lictors can't move horizontally over impassable terrain. So they could never get down from an building counting as impassable area terrain unless you put them right on the edge so the can move down using just the wall.

According to the rules you are patently wrong.

What prompted you to say that?

If you are talking about the second part of his post regarding impassable terrain he is patently right.

While the lictor has a special rule of it's own that lets it be placed in impassable area terrain it has nothing that would allow it to move through it, the only thing remotely close to allowing it is flesh hooks which only lets them count "'vertically impassable' pieces of terrain such as high walls or cliffs as difficult terrain instead". It does not allow for movement through flat pieces of impassable terrain.

kirsanth wrote:

Webbe wrote:You are free to declare your buildings whatever terrain you choose. Personally I prefer to categorise the roof as either open or difficult terrain if you can ever balance a model on it.

Remember that Lictors can't move horizontally over impassable terrain. So they could never get down from an building counting as impassable area terrain unless you put them right on the edge so the can move down using just the wall.

According to the rules you are patently wrong.

What prompted you to say that?

I am patently wrong?
Can you be more specific and can you back that up with something?


Edit: Maybe I should add a quote from the Tyranid Codex:

Codex Tyranids, page 32 wrote:A creature with flesh hooks counts as being equipped with frag grenades in close combat. Creatures with flesh hooks count ‘vertically impassable’ pieces of terrain such as high walls or cliffs as difficult terrain instead

Emphasis mine.
Nothing lets a Lictor travel across impassable terrain.

The section summarizing the rules agrees.

The details (pg 14. ) about moving through the varying terrain types however specifies "unless the models concerned have a special rule in their profile granting them an exception"

Which oddly enough Lictors do.

So yes, if you look at the summary you are correct, if you read the deatils, its not so obvious.

Razerous wrote:I think its pretty stright forward to argue backwards in favour of lictors & deep-striking. If they dont get destroyed by impassable terrain then they shouldnt (by working backwards from the worse in severity) take wounds from difficult/dangerous terrain.

Can you quote where it says this in the rules? If not they still take dangerous terrain tests until FAQed.

kirsanth wrote:The section summarizing the rules agrees.

The details (pg 14. ) about moving through the varying terrain types however specifies "unless the models concerned have a special rule in their profile granting them an exception"

Which oddly enough Lictors do.

So yes, if you look at the summary you are correct, if you read the deatils, its not so obvious.

No, the rules do not grant an exception to taking dangerous terrain tests. They just talk about what happens when they DS into impassible terrain. Considering they can only DS into area terrain, this impassable terrain shouldn't have much of an impact.

All of this has been done a bunch of times already on this forum. It has come to the conclusion each time that they take the Dangerous terrain test. Please use the search option

I am not saying they do not take a dangerous terrain test in difficult terrain or area terrain that is not impassable.

The rules NEVER state that anyone other than skimmers and jump troops need to make such a test in impassable terrain, however.

That is sort of related to the real issue that I miss.

When a lictor scatters into a building, the building (not a ruin!) is counted as Impassable - into which Lictors are "deployed normally" as per their rules.
What does this mean?

Well being that the codex was written for 4th edition rules
The codex clearly states that any impassable terrain is treated as normal terrain when lictors enter play and that are deployed as if deepstriking only they must be in a piece of terrain

So since a lictor has to deepstrike into area terrain thus making it Impassable terrain, its special rules allow it to deploy as if it where deepstriking into normal terrain.

Since normal terrain not difficult area or impassable terrain has no impact on deepstriking models the lictor ignores it all together

Therefor place them as you would any model deepstrikeing onto the board only you would ignore difficult terrain
place the model where you wanted with no need for dangerous test due to the fact that the lictors rule makes him basically ignore the effects of terrain when entering play

infernus, I don't think anyone is saying that you can't place the lictor into impassable terrain or even that he has to take a test if he lands there. The question that arises, as Webbe has already pointed out, is that the flesh hooks only treat vertical impassable terrain as difficult, so just how are you supposed to move the lictor through the horizontal impassable terrain? Nothing in the flesh hooks description allows him to do that.

Personally, I'd play the horizontal as difficult terrain as well. If the Lictor can use his flesh hooks to scale an otherwise impassable wall he can sure as hell use them to climb over it.

Not RAW but a not entirely unreasonable approach.

I think you should be careful before declaring area terrain impassable. Only deep water and lava IMO.
The top/roof of buildings should be max difficult even if the walls are impassable.

No one cares about dangerous terrain checks.

Or at least they should not in relation to this thread.

Lictors take them almost always - always if you think it matters.

That is not the question I am asking and is in fact unrelated to a somewhat humorous degree.

How is a Lictor played when it touches a building that is (part of?) area terrain?

There are a few times "deployed normally" causes issues, and this is one.

I have used the search function, oddly enough.

I may be missing something, I am however, certain that is not it.

IMO, All it means is that they land on the impassable terrain with no mishap. Anyone else would have to take a mishap for deep striking onto impassable, but not Lictors.

But then what? they get to land, but are stuck there all game?

By pure RAW, yep, they would then be stuck there all game.