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2012/05/18 21:47:05
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Incorporating Wet-Blending
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ToBeWilly wrote:Lordhat wrote:ToBeWilly wrote:Nemesor Dave wrote:This is precisely my understanding too.
1-4 hits at S5 AP-.
For each of those hits, you roll again.
1's - nothing
2-5 is a glancing hit. -2 for glancing and -1 for AP-. So -3 on your damage table roll.
6's are a penetrating hit at -1 for AP-. So -1 on the damage table.
I'm of the opinion these are one of those sleeper weapons that people will take some time to realize just how good they are.
The first time I read the Haywire special rule, I thought the same thing. I believe I said as much earlier in this thread. But, after rereading it, I now believe, you only roll once for Haywire, it doesn't seem to matter how many hits there are, as long as there is at least one. " Vehicles hit by a shot from the voltaic staff suffer a...".
Which is the same wording that the Venerable rule uses when allowing re-rolls. "If a Venerable Dreadnought suffers a Glancing or Penetrating hit..." In this case the "a" in the sentence has always been read as "any and all". Why is it different for the Haywire rule?
I don't see them being similar. A Dreadnought's Venerable rule seems more concerned with the roll on the Vehicle Damage table. Not the possible hits that caused the roll. The voltaic staff's Haywire rule is only concerned with if the shots hit, not how many hit.
It's not the subject matter that makes them the same, but the sentence construction. In these sentences the word "a" can either be: (1) An indefinite article, denoting one, many, or one of many : a 2 indef.art. 1. Used before nouns and noun phrases that denote a single but unspecified person or thing: a region; a person. 2. Used before terms, such as few or many, that denote number, amount, quantity, or degree: only a few of the voters; a bit more rest; a little excited. 3. a. Used before a proper name to denote a type or a member of a class: the wisdom of a Socrates. b. Used before a mass noun to indicate a single type or example: a dry wine. 4. The same: birds of a feather. 5. Any: not a drop to drink. (2) a preposition denoting a link for every time something happens and the result: a 3 prep. In every; to each; per: once a month; one dollar a pound. [Middle English, from Old English an, in; see on.] In the case of the Venerable rule "a" has been taken to be a preposition, I don't see why it' would be considered an indefinite article for the Haywire rule. I understand that it could; English can read very differently depending on context, but given no other criteria, there's no difference in how the word "a" is used between the two sentences.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/05/18 21:50:50
Mannahnin wrote:A lot of folks online (and in emails in other parts of life) use pretty mangled English. The idea is that it takes extra effort and time to write properly, and they’d rather save the time. If you can still be understood, what’s the harm? While most of the time a sloppy post CAN be understood, the use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling is generally seen as respectable and desirable on most forums. It demonstrates an effort made to be understood, and to make your post an easy and pleasant read. By making this effort, you can often elicit more positive responses from the community, and instantly mark yourself as someone worth talking to.
insaniak wrote: Every time someone threatens violence over the internet as a result of someone's hypothetical actions at the gaming table, the earth shakes infinitisemally in its orbit as millions of eyeballs behind millions of monitors all roll simultaneously.
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2012/05/18 22:26:33
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Dakka Veteran
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ToBeWilly wrote:Nemesor Dave wrote:This is precisely my understanding too.
1-4 hits at S5 AP-.
For each of those hits, you roll again.
1's - nothing
2-5 is a glancing hit. -2 for glancing and -1 for AP-. So -3 on your damage table roll.
6's are a penetrating hit at -1 for AP-. So -1 on the damage table.
I'm of the opinion these are one of those sleeper weapons that people will take some time to realize just how good they are.
The first time I read the Haywire special rule, I thought the same thing. I believe I said as much earlier in this thread. But, after rereading it, I now believe, you only roll once for Haywire, it doesn't seem to matter how many hits there are, as long as there is at least one. " Vehicles hit by a shot from the voltaic staff suffer a...".
There is nothing in the rule to suggest a limit on the number of hits that would cause the haywire effect. Every hit from the voltaic staff causes a possible haywire effect.
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2012/05/18 23:03:57
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Loyal Necron Lychguard
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So let's a take a hypothetical here. You look at the gauss rule of 6 always glancing unless it's sufficient to penetrate. Haywire is somewhat of a similar rule but very different wording. It does not have the stipulation of "already being able to penetrate" so if you fired at a vehicle whose armor is reduced to 7 all around, are you still only glancing on a 2-5 and pen on a 6? nothing says to do anything otherwise since there is no strength roll.
So, here we come into another factor then, if you're not using the strength roll then why are you using the AP? Again, gauss and haywire are fairly similar and they could have "easily" used the same rule for gauss to describe haywire except changing gauss to haywire and adding in the 2-5 glance and 6 to pen. But they didn't do that. By comparing and contrasting these two similar but different rules one should come to the conclusion that haywire results and actual weapon damage results are separate from one another on the voltaic staff.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/05/18 23:04:50
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2012/05/18 23:25:37
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Incorporating Wet-Blending
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Kevin949 wrote:So let's a take a hypothetical here. You look at the gauss rule of 6 always glancing unless it's sufficient to penetrate. Haywire is somewhat of a similar rule but very different wording. It does not have the stipulation of "already being able to penetrate" so if you fired at a vehicle whose armor is reduced to 7 all around, are you still only glancing on a 2-5 and pen on a 6? nothing says to do anything otherwise since there is no strength roll.
This is exactly how I see it; the Haywire rule modifies how a glancing/penetrating hit is determined.
So, here we come into another factor then, if you're not using the strength roll then why are you using the AP?
Because nothing has told us that we alter how glancing/penetrating results are determined, therefor we must use the rules laid forth in the BGB. The rules in the BGB tell us that if a glancing/penetrating result is caused by a ranged weapon with ap "-", then the result roll is modified by -1 Again, gauss and haywire are fairly similar and they could have "easily" used the same rule for gauss to describe haywire except changing gauss to haywire and adding in the 2-5 glance and 6 to pen. But they didn't do that. By comparing and contrasting these two similar but different rules one should come to the conclusion that haywire results and actual weapon damage results are separate from one another on the voltaic staff.
I wholeheartedly disagree with you here.
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Mannahnin wrote:A lot of folks online (and in emails in other parts of life) use pretty mangled English. The idea is that it takes extra effort and time to write properly, and they’d rather save the time. If you can still be understood, what’s the harm? While most of the time a sloppy post CAN be understood, the use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling is generally seen as respectable and desirable on most forums. It demonstrates an effort made to be understood, and to make your post an easy and pleasant read. By making this effort, you can often elicit more positive responses from the community, and instantly mark yourself as someone worth talking to.
insaniak wrote: Every time someone threatens violence over the internet as a result of someone's hypothetical actions at the gaming table, the earth shakes infinitisemally in its orbit as millions of eyeballs behind millions of monitors all roll simultaneously.
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2012/05/19 01:32:28
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Tail-spinning Tomb Blade Pilot
Texas
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Nemesor Dave wrote:There is nothing in the rule to suggest a limit on the number of hits that would cause the haywire effect. Every hit from the voltaic staff causes a possible haywire effect.
Hey, I caused this in the initial discussion by assuming there was one roll per volley.
It had nothing to do with parsing "a" as a preposition or indefinite article (ie, "any" or "each"), it was a pavlovian conditioned reflex from rolling for Tesla Destructors. With Tesla, you roll four die, and if you hit roll one more for the special rule "splash". And we beat it to death in here, and I internalized it. When I started using Voltaic Staffs I rolled four die, sorta skimmed the rule and went, "oh, yeah, I know what to do now..." and rolled one more for the special rule.
Nothing deeper than that.
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2012/05/19 01:56:02
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Pyromaniac Hellhound Pilot
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If the rule disregards the str value, why do you have to take into account the ap value?
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2012/05/19 02:02:21
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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The Hive Mind
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Lordhat wrote:This is exactly how I see it; the Haywire rule modifies how a glancing/penetrating hit is determined.
Where does the rule say "Instead of rolling for penetration as normal" or anything like that?
The Haywire is in addition, just like ES is in addition.
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My beautiful wife wrote:Trucks = Carnifex snack, Tanks = meals.
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2012/05/19 02:47:34
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Rough Rider with Boomstick
Fond du Lac, Wi
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CKO wrote:If the rule disregards the str value, why do you have to take into account the ap value?
It's because there is no rule allowing us to discount the ap of the weapon, even if it was a special rule from the weapon that caused the hit.
A better way to explain an answer to that is. A sniper rifle rolls a 6 to wound, do you use the AP- of a sniper rifle? No, there is a rule that tells us to use AP 2 instead. This is the perfect example, we are told not to use the listed AP of the weapon for something. Instead we are told to substitute that AP- with AP 2. We needed a rule to change the AP. That means we also need a rule to discard the AP of the Voltaic staff, because it was still a shooting attack that caused the pen/glance and we have to follow the AP- rule until we get a rule to change that.
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“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.”
-Einstein |
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2012/05/19 03:51:16
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Incorporating Wet-Blending
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rigeld2 wrote:Lordhat wrote:This is exactly how I see it; the Haywire rule modifies how a glancing/penetrating hit is determined.
Where does the rule say "Instead of rolling for penetration as normal" or anything like that?
The Haywire is in addition, just like ES is in addition.
I suppose it could be. This is just how I parse the rule, as it also doesn't have language indicating "in addition to normal penetration." I suppose we'll need to get an actual language expert in here to throw around the really fancy words, and analyze this thouroughly to see what language conventions are at work here. 
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Mannahnin wrote:A lot of folks online (and in emails in other parts of life) use pretty mangled English. The idea is that it takes extra effort and time to write properly, and they’d rather save the time. If you can still be understood, what’s the harm? While most of the time a sloppy post CAN be understood, the use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling is generally seen as respectable and desirable on most forums. It demonstrates an effort made to be understood, and to make your post an easy and pleasant read. By making this effort, you can often elicit more positive responses from the community, and instantly mark yourself as someone worth talking to.
insaniak wrote: Every time someone threatens violence over the internet as a result of someone's hypothetical actions at the gaming table, the earth shakes infinitisemally in its orbit as millions of eyeballs behind millions of monitors all roll simultaneously.
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2012/05/19 10:07:58
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Tail-spinning Tomb Blade Pilot
Texas
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Lordhat wrote:I suppose it could be. This is just how I parse the rule, as it also doesn't have language indicating "in addition to normal penetration." I suppose we'll need to get an actual language expert in here to throw around the really fancy words, and analyze this thouroughly to see what language conventions are at work here.
Natural language is inherently ambiguous. An expert can identify and formalize possible ambiguities, but they will still exist. "Mary had a little lamb" - was she on a diet? We really don't know unless the author provides more information, such as the fact that it's still wearing its "white as snow" epidermus. 
Sometimes having a similar-but-not-quite-the-same example to compare with can muddy rather than clarify - if I hadn't been used to shooting Tesla Destructors it wouldn't have occurred to me that "a hit" might mean "any hit", for instance. Or that the author might just be being terse when omitting "in addition to" resolution verbiage.
Basically, your interpretation might be correct, mine might be correct, and it could be the author intended something a bit different altogether.
Edit: End of the day have to pick one interpretation, but recognize alternatives exist.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/05/19 10:16:17
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2012/05/19 16:16:19
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Incorporating Wet-Blending
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Exactly. This is why I wish GW would hire technical writers to write the actual rules, though that'll never happen.
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Mannahnin wrote:A lot of folks online (and in emails in other parts of life) use pretty mangled English. The idea is that it takes extra effort and time to write properly, and they’d rather save the time. If you can still be understood, what’s the harm? While most of the time a sloppy post CAN be understood, the use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling is generally seen as respectable and desirable on most forums. It demonstrates an effort made to be understood, and to make your post an easy and pleasant read. By making this effort, you can often elicit more positive responses from the community, and instantly mark yourself as someone worth talking to.
insaniak wrote: Every time someone threatens violence over the internet as a result of someone's hypothetical actions at the gaming table, the earth shakes infinitisemally in its orbit as millions of eyeballs behind millions of monitors all roll simultaneously.
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2012/05/19 20:23:58
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Tail-spinning Tomb Blade Pilot
Texas
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Lordhat wrote:Exactly. This is why I wish GW would hire technical writers to write the actual rules, though that'll never happen.
Y'know, they did that complete rewrite thing with Squad Leader back in the 80's. Very popular, very complex boardgame, lots of "new" rules when they released each national army expansion (akin to codecs). Turned into a special-case nightmare. Avalon Hill bit the bullet and "formalized" the rules in a rewrite, called it "Advanced Squad Leader". Even more complex, but with rules cross-references for disambiguation etc, much smoother to play. <shrug> could happen for 40k.
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2012/05/19 20:44:53
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Incorporating Wet-Blending
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More than likely it won't. GW makes plenty of money the way things are. Why would they mess with their profit margin when we are all content to buy anyway?
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Mannahnin wrote:A lot of folks online (and in emails in other parts of life) use pretty mangled English. The idea is that it takes extra effort and time to write properly, and they’d rather save the time. If you can still be understood, what’s the harm? While most of the time a sloppy post CAN be understood, the use of proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling is generally seen as respectable and desirable on most forums. It demonstrates an effort made to be understood, and to make your post an easy and pleasant read. By making this effort, you can often elicit more positive responses from the community, and instantly mark yourself as someone worth talking to.
insaniak wrote: Every time someone threatens violence over the internet as a result of someone's hypothetical actions at the gaming table, the earth shakes infinitisemally in its orbit as millions of eyeballs behind millions of monitors all roll simultaneously.
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2012/05/19 21:13:54
Subject: Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Tail-spinning Tomb Blade Pilot
Texas
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Lordhat wrote:More than likely it won't. GW makes plenty of money the way things are. Why would they mess with their profit margin when we are all content to buy anyway?
OT, but whatever. I believe there's another more altruistic motive on their part. I think they want to appeal to the casual gamer, and that this hypothetical "casual" guy would be turned off by too formal and legalistic rules. Not saying I agree 100% necessarily, but I could see that happening.
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2012/05/20 00:30:03
Subject: Re:Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Dakka Veteran
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Ok, so i kinda skipped around and read and reread the rule, and with Formosa, this is what ive come up with.
Every hit equals a haywire roll.
The special rule is dissimilar almost 100% from the tl tesla destructor. The destructor says once the initial shot has been resolved roll a d6.
Special rule for haywire is Vehicles hit by a shot suffer a blah blah.
How many shots does the destructor shoot? 4. How many of those shots initiate the arc? 1. Further clarified in the FAQ (although, personally, without ever reading the FAQs this is how i played it when i first got my crons
How many shots does the voltaic staff shoot? 4. how many of those shots initiate the haywire? The shots that hit the vehicle.
This is like the ctans immune to natural law, and wraiths wraithflight. Although they are both very similar, and at a glance, identical, they are actually two very different things.
Have a nice day
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2012/05/20 01:15:09
Subject: Re:Cryptek Harbinger of Storm
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Tail-spinning Tomb Blade Pilot
Texas
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I got a reply from Alex Fennell on how he plays it. And then remembered to ask him if I could share.
disclaimer: although how one particular person plays it doesn't necessarily mean that's the way it should be played, if a dude is flying to different continents to play 40K I suppose he's probably got enough experience to be a reliable source. Also, he's a Necron player, and his interpretation isn't particularly favorable for Necrons, so that lends more credibility.
Basically, when fired at a vehicle, he doesn't play the "first resolve fire as normal" - each hit goes right to the Haywire roll. And then, each result on the hit table gets the -1 mod for AP '-'.
So, that's the way I'm going to play it too.
NOTE: this means that the Voltaic Staff is NOT an adequate "poor man's melta" short range AT weapon. By far the majority of the hits will give us "shaken" results only. (Which again, against some common targets like Coteaz lists, is largely ignored.) Back of the napkin probability of getting a "meaningful" result with it is...
4 shots x 2/3 hit chance x 2/3 glance chance x 1/6 weapon damaged + 4 shots x 2/3 hit chance x 1/6 pen chance x 1/2 (result better than stun)
== about a 50/50 chance (51.85%) of something meaningful, with over half those being weapon destroyed results.
Not a terrible way to get rid of searchlights. But not a good way to actually destroy or immobilize a transport.
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