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.

Wyldhunt wrote:
It's one thing for a rhino to block the enemy on your 3 so you can focus on shooting the enemy on your twelve. it's another when the character on your 12 is standing in the middle of a screening unit, and you're suddenly able to shoot him because your tanks did a millimiter-precise synchronized dance routine blind you to the screening models. I see where you're coming from, but do you really feel that using tanks to play peekaboo with one face in a crowd thus suddenly lifting the fog of war is "realistic?" Surely we can agree there's something at least as weird and gamey about that as there is to the current character targeting rules, right?

So you're focusing on the most extreme outlier of this rule rather than the more general case. Also, why is it any better if a wall causes that exact same millimetre peekaboo scenario to happen?

I'll defend named characters until I'm blue in the face, but I feel like you're setting up a false premise here. Tunnel vision rhinos won't necessarily reduce the number of special characters people take. What it would do is make the battlefield toxic for characters that depend on screening to live. So people will stick to taking the cheapest characters, the characters that can somehow survive tunnel vision rhinos, and characters that don't benefit from screening. So you'll see even more of Pask, but you'll discourage people (even more) from taking something inoffensive like a commissar. Lias Issodon might remain viable thanks to his deepstrike bomb antics, but the humble librarian will become a liability.

So the meta will be shaken up, huzzah new meta!

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
It's one thing for a rhino to block the enemy on your 3 so you can focus on shooting the enemy on your twelve. it's another when the character on your 12 is standing in the middle of a screening unit, and you're suddenly able to shoot him because your tanks did a millimiter-precise synchronized dance routine blind you to the screening models. I see where you're coming from, but do you really feel that using tanks to play peekaboo with one face in a crowd thus suddenly lifting the fog of war is "realistic?" Surely we can agree there's something at least as weird and gamey about that as there is to the current character targeting rules, right?

So you're focusing on the most extreme outlier of this rule rather than the more general case.

The thing is, a player has control over their units' positions and can actively utilize the exploit we're describing. Saying it's an "extreme outlier" makes it sound like it's unlikely to come up, but I can line up a squad of devastators or aggressors or whatever in a straight line and scoot a couple of rhinos a millimeter apart from each other. So if there's a any spot within 6" of those devastators that lets them draw a line towards a character without passing over a screening unit's base, I can use this exploit to snipe characters.

The idea of using a tank as cover is cool. An exploit that lets me nuke your characters from across the table by basically ignoring screens is not.

Also, why is it any better if a wall causes that exact same millimetre peekaboo scenario to happen?

A couple of reasons.

A.) That's not ideal either.
B.) Maybe your terrain is very different from the terrain we use around here, but there's not a lot of terrain at the local stores that's likely to result in those super thing vision tunnels described above. And if my character does happen to wander into a position where your shooty units can utilize such a specific vision tunnel, my response is probably going to be along the lines of, "Huh. Wow, I guess they can do that. Guess I shouldn't stand there going forward."
C.) I can't move walls around. I can actively move the rhinos. My character occasionally wandering into a weird vision tunnel created by the terrain is one thing. My opponent blasting away a character each turn by shuffling some infantry and using the sides of his tanks as a sniper scope is another.

I'll defend named characters until I'm blue in the face, but I feel like you're setting up a false premise here. Tunnel vision rhinos won't necessarily reduce the number of special characters people take. What it would do is make the battlefield toxic for characters that depend on screening to live. So people will stick to taking the cheapest characters, the characters that can somehow survive tunnel vision rhinos, and characters that don't benefit from screening. So you'll see even more of Pask, but you'll discourage people (even more) from taking something inoffensive like a commissar. Lias Issodon might remain viable thanks to his deepstrike bomb antics, but the humble librarian will become a liability.

So the meta will be shaken up, huzzah new meta!

Shaking up the meta isn't a good thing if it means discouraging list diversity.

Can we agree that being able to snipe characters with lascannons and krak missiles is bad for the game? Tunnel vision rhinos let you do that. Thus my objections.