Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

If you announce you are holding a unit of say, genestealers off the board and your opponent blocks the table edge, do you keep rolling for the unit to come in later? I saw a guy argue today you lose the unit.

Sorry, rulebook is at home....

Thanks for the answer...

The unit has to come on in the turn in which it becomes available.

The rules don't cover what to do if this is impossible. You'll need to figure it out with your opponent.



It's fairly common to play it as the unit being destroyed. It's not actually a rule, though.

No real solution, similar to a unit in a transport that received a wrecked result while completely surrounded

Honestly though, how on earth did your opponent block sufficient board edge to make this a problem? You could outflank (I think genestealers can outflank, sorry if I am wrong), so he has to block all of both sides, or bring them on regularly, which means all of your edge must be blocked. How often does that happen?

I had a drop pod army with heavy flamers on my sternguard, and 30 scouts. My opponent had all genestealers and put them in reserve. I didn't actually block the units...not in a regular tourney, but in Ard Boyz I would. We talked about it afterwards.

General Hobbs wrote:

I had a drop pod army with heavy flamers on my sternguard, and 30 scouts. My opponent had all genestealers and put them in reserve. I didn't actually block the units...not in a regular tourney, but in Ard Boyz I would. We talked about it afterwards.

They don't come on and are destroyed.

Something very similar happened a few months back, take a look at this:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/277109.page


And see if you can guess who is white scars and who is the Tau player

http://i50.tinypic.com/2re4m4m.jpg

TakamineG wrote:They don't come on and are destroyed.

Again, this is only the case if you are playing with a house rule that says so.

There is no rule in the 40K rulebook that says that Reserves who are unable to move on are immediately destroyed. The closest you get is that any Reserves not on the table at the end of the game are destroyed... but you don't get to the end of the game without a house rule, because the moment you have to bring on Reserves and can't, you hit an unresolvable situation.

insaniak wrote:

TakamineG wrote:They don't come on and are destroyed.

Again, this is only the case if you are playing with a house rule that says so.

There is no rule in the 40K rulebook that says that Reserves who are unable to move on are immediately destroyed. The closest you get is that any Reserves not on the table at the end of the game are destroyed... but you don't get to the end of the game without a house rule, because the moment you have to bring on Reserves and can't, you hit an unresolvable situation.

I can see someone walking to a TO before the game...hey TO, the rules say when reserves are rolled, they HAVE to come in. What happens to the unit if they cannot???

That's a manipulative question, because you've now brought it to the attention of the TO what the hard RAW are. Now he has to make a call consistent with the rules, which IMHOis that the unit is lost. But then I am biased...

General Hobbs wrote:

insaniak wrote:

TakamineG wrote:They don't come on and are destroyed.

Again, this is only the case if you are playing with a house rule that says so.

There is no rule in the 40K rulebook that says that Reserves who are unable to move on are immediately destroyed. The closest you get is that any Reserves not on the table at the end of the game are destroyed... but you don't get to the end of the game without a house rule, because the moment you have to bring on Reserves and can't, you hit an unresolvable situation.

I can see someone walking to a TO before the game...hey TO, the rules say when reserves are rolled, they HAVE to come in. What happens to the unit if they cannot???

That's a manipulative question, because you've now brought it to the attention of the TO what the hard RAW are. Now he has to make a call consistent with the rules, which IMHOis that the unit is lost. But then I am biased...

And it would be equally in accordance with the rules to say that the unit immediately assaults whatever is preventing it from coming onto the board. Or that the unit has to come in somewhere else as close as possible.

That is to say, equally unsupported by what the rulebook actually says as opposed to what various players appear to expect it say.

Indeed - G Hobbs adsking the TO before *any* game starts is EXACTLY what you should do - that way *all* players know *before* the game exactly the situation is.

If the TO rules they are destroyed - brilliant, that is a good Houserule that will keep games moving. If the TO rules that there is no way to block the board edge, i.e. you may have done it, but the unit can stil come on and assault, then that is also a good houserule.

Either way, some form of houserule IS required to actually get the game going.

Personally I think it is a poor "tactic" and so I would "reward" the tactic with the allowance for any unit moving on to be able to assault the unit. Teach you to be idiots standing round next to a low fence shouting that you cant be got

Oh, and tanks CAN tank shock onto the board, and any jump infantry / skimmers can just go over the top.

Volkov wrote:No real solution, similar to a unit in a transport that received a wrecked result while completely surrounded

What?

"The passengers must immediately disembark and then take a Pinning test. Any models that cannot disembark are destroyed. After this, the vehicle becomes a wreck."

Seems pretty clear to me...

The only thing that comes close to explaining how this mechanic CAN work is the DE webway portal and the DE FAQ about it.

I know, its in a codex and a specific army FAQ, and the codex is waay old. But it says that if the unit in the webway cannot come on due to enemies in the way, they are destroyed. But it says if the unit can go over the unit in question then its ok.

padixon wrote:The only thing that comes close to explaining how this mechanic CAN work is the DE webway portal and the DE FAQ about it.

I know, its in a codex and a specific army FAQ, and the codex is waay old. But it says that if the unit in the webway cannot come on due to enemies in the way, they are destroyed. But it says if the unit can go over the unit in question then its ok.

It only says the models are destroyed if all webway portal carrying models are killed before deploying their portals. If the portal is surrounded, it just says the units cannot use the portal to enter the table, not that they are destroyed, it's just as much up in the air as the main discussion.

Also, It's a horrible FAQ anyway because it changes huge chunks of the Webway portal rules without clarifying the necessary aspects, The webway portal rules are so poorly written that they really should have just Errata'd the whole entry.

-Gasp- A GW FAQ that causes more problems that it Solves?

HERESY!

At the US GTs we predetermined (as in weeks in advance) the answer that they were destroyed. Once upon a time, GW had a ruling out regarding Space Puppy Scouts and OBEL, that if the back table edge was blocked off, the Scouts were destroyed. We used that as the basis for our ruling.

This happened at a European Tournament. Some guy put all of his White Scars army in Reserve to come on from a table edge but his opponent set up his Kroot so that he blocked the table edge the White Scars would come on. After debating it for ages they finally realised that if the unit can't get on the board then they're dead.

Except that wasnt waht was decided - a judge houseruled at that point that they were dead, thus denying one of the players a game.

Awful decision in my opinion - as you are forced to break the rules why not do it in a way that gives both players a game?

Nos, we're going to disagree on this one.

Because, as already stated, the one time GW gave us a clue on how to handle this, they said the unit dies................. So the judge made his houserule by following GW established precedence on ths question at hand.
It's not MY responsibility to help the other player with his tactics. If he goofs, he goofs and I get to take advantage of it. The same thing was possible in 4th ed with certain armies against all-infiltrating armies (ie Kroot). I could deploy part of my IG normally, then if I won the dice off to place infiltrators first, I could deploy a single platoon of infiltrators so that there was nowhere for the Kroot (or the old Chaos Alpha Legion IIRC) to infiltrate. And yep, when discussing it with GW before the US GTs, that meant game over.
Now in a friendly game at the local store I'm going to point this out to my buddy before he goofs (as I did in a GT practice game with a buddy that was taking a Kroot army to the GT), so that he can deploy a unit to prevent me from doing it or some such. But in a tourney, if you make that large a mistake, sorry, I'm going to take advantage of it.

As I said, I dont consider it a tactic at all - it is simply the equivalent of shouting across a low wall that you cant be got at. It doesnt make any sense to me to rule that way.

There is not one ofher thing that can end the game before the opponent has a turn (unlike WHFB, where there are lots of ways to do this - all Goblin army, miscast, panic wave) and so ruling in a way such that that occurs seems, well, dumb - the point of a tournament is to have a game.

Now, if the TO had ruled this *beforehand* then I would have less of an issue, however to effectively deny a game over a cheap trick that only works when you have a *houserule* in your favour? Well, calling it a cheap trick probably sums it up quite well

Maybe the all-reserves guy should have checked with the TOs before placing everything in reserves? Like I've said a couple of times already. GW has indeed ruled on this in the past. The unit dies. Given history and precedence, that's the way I would rule it until they say otherwise.
Maybe that tourney judge was aware of this history and that's why he ruled as he did? I don't know. You don't know.
Maybe there was a ruling in place beforehand and the White Scars player didn't do his research and was unaware of it? Again, we don't know.
Cheap trick. I disagree. no more a cheap trick than making me go first with my shooty IG while putting your entire army in reserves, denying me two turns of shooting. Houserule, sure, but a houserule based on GW history and precedence.

In nothing that is current is there a ruling on this - and in 5th ed they had the oppurtunity to rule on this, and chose not to. Again.

Something denying someone an ENTIRE game, that isnt in the main rule set equivalent to putting something in reserves (part of the main rule set) and coming on in dribs and drabs? Uh, no. One IS a trick, as it is something that requires a houserule to "work"

I'm with Don. I have no problem with someone pulling this move in a tourney. In the discussion about the White Scars vs Tau game, I said the same thing. I would offer to line up and play against the guy 'for fun' so we both got a game in, but in a tourney, I'm taking the full win. At the FLGS, I would point out how I could win like that, and then let the other guy redeploy so that we got a game in.

And again - you can ONLY win if there is a hosuerule, and this should *definitely* be in any tournament set of rules as it is fairly important!

nosferatu1001 wrote:As I said, I dont consider it a tactic at all - it is simply the equivalent of shouting across a low wall that you cant be got at. It doesnt make any sense to me to rule that way.

There is not one ofher thing that can end the game before the opponent has a turn (unlike WHFB, where there are lots of ways to do this - all Goblin army, miscast, panic wave) and so ruling in a way such that that occurs seems, well, dumb - the point of a tournament is to have a game.

Now, if the TO had ruled this *beforehand* then I would have less of an issue, however to effectively deny a game over a cheap trick that only works when you have a *houserule* in your favour? Well, calling it a cheap trick probably sums it up quite well

It certainly isn't a tactic that would work in real life, however 40K is a game not real life and there are compromises to make it work the way it does.

As for using it as a tactic in a competition, one of the principles of competition is that both players are expected to know the rules. If you are let down by poor rules knowledge you can really only complain in cases where the other player deliberately cheated you on a point he knew you would not pick up on owing to ignorance.

nosferatu1001 wrote:And again - you can ONLY win if there is a hosuerule, and this should *definitely* be in any tournament set of rules as it is fairly important!

Agreed. But, it's how INAT FAQ has ruled it. And, while it's not universally accepted, I think most people are okay with its use.

Kilkrazy wrote:As for using it as a tactic in a competition, one of the principles of competition is that both players are expected to know the rules. If you are let down by poor rules knowledge you can really only complain in cases where the other player deliberately cheated you on a point he knew you would not pick up on owing to ignorance.

Having a judge come up with a house rule after the game has started that just hands the game to the other player isn't really being let down by a poor knowledge of the rules, though.

Which was my point.

IF this is *houseruled* BEFORE the game, and, as it is such an important houserule *published* in the Rules (or an announcement made, or something!) then that is fine - however if it isnt and, from the odd looks on peoples faces wasnt (or they really never paid attention) then it is a poor decision to make midgame.

Keeping games going is a TOs job, and handing a win to someone for a tactic reliant on a non-published houserule made up midgame? Not great.

What was he supposed to do? Make them start over? How would you have resolved it, as a ref?

synchronicity wrote:What was he supposed to do? Make them start over? How would you have resolved it, as a ref?

When this has been discussed previously, there have been a whole raft of different house rules suggested. Including:

- counting them as destroyed
- assuming that the rule saying that models may not (implying a choice) move within 1" is over-ridden by the rule requiring models to move onto the table
- simply ignoring the 1" rule in this specific situation
- allowing the unit to move on directly into assault
- allowing the unit to move on from the nearest available open table edge
- allowing the unit to deep strike, ala immobile models in Reserve
- allowing the unit to outflank
- allowing the unit to stay in Reserves until it is able to move on (which amounts to counting it as destroyed, as the blocking unit/s aren't likely to move unless you already have something on the table that can clear them out of the way)

All potential options. Some better than others, although that comes down to personal preference.

In a tournament game where a ruling hadn't been made before the game began, IMO the best solution would have been to either go with one of the non-destroyed options (which means not just handing the game to the other player as a reward for exploiting a loophole) or ruling that it counts as destroyed for the rest of the tournament but to start the game over now that both players are aware of the ruling.

insaniak wrote: - allowing the unit to stay in Reserves until it is able to move on (which amounts to counting it as destroyed, as the blocking unit/s aren't likely to move unless you already have something on the table that can clear them out of the way)

It hardly amounts to destroyed because you don't necessarily get all your units at once, you might roll up 3 infantry units on turn 2, then roll up your 3 skimmers, or tanks, or jump infantry or what have you the next turn.

It actually makes a world of difference.