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So say a vehicle moves around impassable terrain. It uses it's full 12" movement, but it only ends it's movement 6" away from where it started (see picture for details).

Note: when assessing how far a vehicle has moved,
only take into account the actual distance covered from
its original position. Moving backwards and forwards or
driving around in circles does not help!

Do you need 6's or 4's to hit the rhino?



(Interested in both what people think is RaW and House Rules )

Assuming you're talking about assaulting it, I play that you would need a 6 to hit.

The rules tell you to count the actual distance covered from the original position, not just the actual distance from the original position (as it is sometimes interpreted).

So you measure the vehicle's path, ignoring any backtracking.

In assaulting its 6s to hit it. The vehicle moved 12 inches total. It doesnt matter where it started and ended, it moved more then 6 inches, so you roll 6s to hit.

Shooting obviously doesnt matter, you still go by BS

And yet here:



You would have to say 4+, since it's just going in circles as described.

The ONLY difference is that there is impassable terrain in the first picture.

The rules don't specify anything about obstructions such as impassable terrain.

What if it was just difficult terrain?

ihatehumans wrote:And yet here:



You would have to say 4+, since it's just going in circles as described.

The ONLY difference is that there is impassable terrain in the first picture.

The rules don't specify anything about obstructions such as impassable terrain.

What if it was just difficult terrain?

Depends on how far it moved.

I think the OPs argument is that the Rhino's player could say that it moved 12" even though it only HAD to move 6" just so that the anything assaulting the Rhino would need to roll a 6 to hit. So according to the owner the Rhino moved 12" but according to his opponent it only moved 6".

I vote that without the impassable terrain feature the additional movement is redundant. In other words it is the "backtracking" that the Rulebook specifically mentions. Good argument though.

We play it the obvious way (that with some kind of obstruction of note you move 12" but without it you move 6") but I think that the RaW makes it that even when there is an obstruction you can not say it moved 12" because the BRB does not give any reference to intervening terrain features.

a Vehicle can Zig Zag if you want, but you have to make it clear while moving.


the rules only say you can't move backwards and forward to begin and end in the same spot.

Grey Templar wrote:a Vehicle can Zig Zag if you want, but you have to make it clear while moving.


the rules only say you can't move backwards and forward to begin and end in the same spot.

So then you can move 1" and say you went in a circle to achieve the 12" counting move?

NO, you would have to actually pick the vehicle up, move it exactly how it was going to move and end it in a totally different place from where it was.


and the rule book specifically forbids you from driving in circles.

If there are two ways for a vehicle to get to a position, the vehicle took the shorter way. That's the simplest way of dealing with what the book describes.

I have always read and played it as solkan describes.

solkan wrote:If there are two ways for a vehicle to get to a position, the vehicle took the shorter way. That's the simplest way of dealing with what the book describes.

I think the key word here was "Impassable".

well then obviously the shorter way was around the impassable terrain.

Same here, with the caveat that a driver can certainly use the route that would not force a dangerous terrain test. So the Rhino in the first example moves 12" and the Rhino in the second moves 6". The intervening terrain forces the driver to take a longer route, which has the side effect of making him move faster.

solkan wrote:If there are two ways for a vehicle to get to a position, the vehicle took the shorter way. That's the simplest way of dealing with what the book describes.

That would be the perfect way to describe it, but I think that RaW as it stands is not such.

Anyone agree?

ihatehumans wrote:

solkan wrote:If there are two ways for a vehicle to get to a position, the vehicle took the shorter way. That's the simplest way of dealing with what the book describes.

That would be the perfect way to describe it, but I think that RaW as it stands is not such.

Anyone agree?

The shortest possible distance is exactly what the RaW as it stands says.

There is a difference between "Actual distance covered" and "As the crow flies".

You'd need a 6 to hit it.

I took 'distance covered' to mean exactly 'as the crow flies'. If not they wouldn't need to make provisions for moving back and forth, or in circles.

Soup and a roll wrote:I took 'distance covered' to mean exactly 'as the crow flies'. If not they wouldn't need to make provisions for moving back and forth, or in circles.

I agree, it is the same as "as the crow flies" when it's open terrain or normal terrain, but in the case of impassible, if it's not a skimmer, it's impossible for it to go "as the crow flies".

And now a short narrative interlude...

We've been traveling west all day. First, when we got to the bridge, it was washed out, so we had to go twenty five miles down river to the next bridge and then come back up to the road. By the final tally, we only made it twenty miles closer to our destination. I hope we can cover more distance tomorrow.

... And we're back.

As far as I can tell, the most hard line reading of "the actual distance covered" would ignore any and all possible obstacles between the vehicle's initial position and the final position.

What about just difficult or dangerous terrain? The shortest distance is across the terrain, but I think there is a definite reason for the unit to go around it.

Personally, my gaming group plays it as distance covered, but you have to count the shortest route through open terrain.

ihatehumans wrote:And yet here:



You would have to say 4+, since it's just going in circles as described.

That's not going in circles, that's travelling in an arc.


The rule in question was put in place to stop (as happened in previous editions) people from simply leaving the vehicle in place and saying it had moved in a circle, or moved forwards 3 inches and back to its starting place, just to claim movement effects.

So long as the vehicle actually moves, you trace the actual distance covered, not just the distance from the starting point.

@ insaniak: But that would mean they could literally nudge the vehicle and declare it had moved 12". You have the exact same situation as you are describing in previous editions.

I have to go against my common sense and say the example is 6" unless it is avoiding some kind of obstacle. A vehicle trapped in 3 square inches of impassable obstacles has no way of going 6" or more.

Edit for not a soliloquy

Soup and a roll wrote:@ insaniak: But that would mean they could literally nudge the vehicle and declare it had moved 12". You have the exact same situation as you are describing in previous editions.

I didn't say it was a perfect solution...


It's actually a step backwards, IMO. The 'Skimmers moving fast' rule from 4th edition actually specified that the skimmer had to finish its move more than 6" away from where it started in order to benefit. The Turbo Boosters rule works similarly in this edition... but they fluffed it for the vehicle assault rules by telling us to measure the distance covered instead of the distance from the start point.