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Just out of curiosity, what do you do when the rules as they are written are not 100% clear? For example, 5th ed FNP, on a 4+ the injury is ignored. As it is written, FNP did nothing. On a 1-3 you suffered the Wound. On a 4+ you ignored the injury (whatever that means, since injury is an undefined term).

No, injury is not an undefined term. Webster's dictionary is your friend for Terms GW didn't bother to define(because GW assumes a base level of intellegence in their gamers, obviously their faith is misplaced)

SO basically, if you don't let someone cheat, you are a power gamer/WAAC?

This is the only game where you don't get laughed at for holding that kind of position...

I'm sure you wouldnt mind me altering the ork battle wagon so its sides weren't so damn long making the Front armour 14 less effective, or giving my rhinos huge dozer blades that BLOS behind them either then.

Stormravens have, and have always had, a blind spot for the top mounted weapon. This is not news.

Grey Templar wrote:No, injury is not an undefined term. Webster's dictionary is your friend for Terms GW didn't bother to define(because GW assumes a base level of intellegence in their gamers, obviously their faith is misplaced)

You've answered this yourself.
GW explicitly do NOT make rules for "rules lawyers". They write them with certain assumptions in mind, not only does this make them a hell of a lot easier to read but it makes for a quicker, smoother game.

Grugknuckle wrote:

So if I use parts that are not in the kit, am I cheating? For example, meltaguns on my spess mehrines?

No, but you are living and dying by 'rule of cool'. If your conversion using other parts doesn't change how your model interacts with the game rules (by standing him on a 3" rock to gain LOS advantage or a 3" long barrel to gain distance) then no one will have an issue. If you did put him on a giant rock for 'coolness' then you would play the model as if he was a standard space marine size.

The trick is when converting your model is to not change how it interacts with the game. Putting Ghaz (or a counts as Ghaz stand-in) on a 60mm base had huge in-game advantages when assaulting out of a transport. It is best to not take advantage of the extra distance generated by an oversized base and by telling people you are not taking advantage and measuring as if he was on a 40mm base, most people then are 'cool' with it. In 6th edition, you don't gain extra distance from disembarking with oversized bases anymore so there is less issue with it.

If you use conversions, you need to be respectful of how your custom models or conversions change the game and be willing to play as if the model was 'stock'. 6th edition says this for base sizes explicitly.

No, but you are living and dying by 'rule of cool'. If your conversion using other parts doesn't change how your model interacts with the game rules (by standing him on a 3" rock to gain LOS advantage or a 3" long barrel to gain distance) then no one will have an issue. If you did put him on a giant rock for 'coolness' then you would play the model as if he was a standard space marine size.

The point I was making with the meltagun example is that you can't insist that models be built by the instructions provided in order for them to be legal. In any case, I'm not even talking about conversions when it comes to the Storm Raven. If you and I both built storm ravens by the instructions, then I guarantee that one of them will tilt more than the other - even if neither of us intended them to. Model builders are not precise people.

So I ask again - How much of a down tilt is acceptable before it's called cheating? Is it 1 degree? 5 degrees? 10 degrees? Because there WILL be variation in this tilt even among models that were built without knowledge of the blind spot.

Play it perfectly level, and then you dont gain any advantage

That concept was only mooted what, 5 times?

nosferatu1001 wrote:Play it perfectly level, and then you dont gain any advantage

That concept was only mooted what, 5 times?

You have no RAW basis for that whatsoever.

Grugknuckle wrote:

No, but you are living and dying by 'rule of cool'. If your conversion using other parts doesn't change how your model interacts with the game rules (by standing him on a 3" rock to gain LOS advantage or a 3" long barrel to gain distance) then no one will have an issue. If you did put him on a giant rock for 'coolness' then you would play the model as if he was a standard space marine size.

The point I was making with the meltagun example is that you can't insist that models be built by the instructions provided in order for them to be legal. In any case, I'm not even talking about conversions when it comes to the Storm Raven. If you and I both built storm ravens by the instructions, then I guarantee that one of them will tilt more than the other - even if neither of us intended them to. Model builders are not precise people.

So I ask again - How much of a down tilt is acceptable before it's called cheating? Is it 1 degree? 5 degrees? 10 degrees? Because there WILL be variation in this tilt even among models that were built without knowledge of the blind spot.

If you both assembled them correctly, there will not be differences between the angles of your two assemblies. The top of the flight stand sits flat against the bottom of the model in a slotted entry, if it doesn't, you've done something wrong.

That being said, I'd say the cut off is "is it noticeably angled?". No one is going to grab their protractor to bring with them, so if your model is a couple degrees off due to some caked glue or scratches, you're fine. If it's noticeably tilted, play it as level.

And to the part I bolded - Come again? Model builders would be a primary example of precise people. Wargamers might not be, but scale modelers are precision personified typically.

Testify wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:Play it perfectly level, and then you dont gain any advantage

That concept was only mooted what, 5 times?

You have no RAW basis for that whatsoever.

You have no RAW ability to use a non-correct model in the game. So, assumin you want to actually play a game playing the model as if it were correctly assembled would be a big help.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

Testify wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:Play it perfectly level, and then you dont gain any advantage

That concept was only mooted what, 5 times?

You have no RAW basis for that whatsoever.

You have no RAW ability to use a non-correct model in the game. So, assumin you want to actually play a game playing the model as if it were correctly assembled would be a big help.

I think that their point is, though, that even "correctly assembled" models could have slightly different arcs of fire because of manufacturing imperfections or unintentional errors during construction.

I like how this will go in a giant circle for all time. Really until there is an FAQ no one can cite RAW for or against MFA.

I know things are heated in here but I have an honest question. What if I purchase a Storm raven and the stand comes bent/damaged but I can still assemble it. What if it makes it lean down or up? How do I tell the fire arc? I have used the pieces given to me only but because its not the exact same my model is a little different.

This isn't meant to say one side is right or wrong its an honest question as I look to by a stormraven this week and the last 3-4 models I have bought have had badly warped/damaged pieces.

I've never seen a broken flight stand come out of a box. If you got one, GW should replace it.

jcress410 wrote:I've never seen a broken flight stand come out of a box. If you got one, GW should replace it.

Yep, if you get any warped/miscasted pieces, GW is generally good at replacing them (by sending you a whole new kit typically).

You paid for the product, expect quality!

nosferatu1001 wrote:Play it perfectly level, and then you dont gain any advantage

That concept was only mooted what, 5 times?

I would amend that; Perfectly level, from every image of the Storm raven on its flight stand I have seen, would require alteration or balancing.

Play it at its natural tilt, and then you don't gain any advantages.

Again though, I will State: If you alter the Angle you will alter the Arc; the natural Angle will allow most weapons to fire at least 48"; for every degree you drop you lose roughly between 1-2" of maximum Range. Test it with your models if you want to see; Take a piece of Paper and fold it through a Corner(giving you a 45* arc), then fold it a second time(giving you a 22.5* arc). Now start fiddling with the Angles of your model with the Paper Triangle centered on your long range guns, see how as you dip the nose you start losing range?

Doesn't the cannon on a thunderhawk have a range of 6 feet plus. Shoot what every you want that is more then 4 feet away.

Kommissar Kel wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:Play it perfectly level, and then you dont gain any advantage

That concept was only mooted what, 5 times?

I would amend that; Perfectly level, from every image of the Storm raven on its flight stand I have seen, would require alteration or balancing.

Play it at its natural tilt, and then you don't gain any advantages.

Again though, I will State: If you alter the Angle you will alter the Arc; the natural Angle will allow most weapons to fire at least 48"; for every degree you drop you lose roughly between 1-2" of maximum Range. Test it with your models if you want to see; Take a piece of Paper and fold it through a Corner(giving you a 45* arc), then fold it a second time(giving you a 22.5* arc). Now start fiddling with the Angles of your model with the Paper Triangle centered on your long range guns, see how as you dip the nose you start losing range?

Except your weapon can also pivot 45 degrees up. So try it again with a 90 degree paper, and remember that there is NOTHING that flies higher than you.
Spoiler: You lose NOTHING.

Purifier - incorrect. You havea total vertical fire arc of 45 degrees, same as your horizontal traverse of 45 degrees when hull mounted. 22.5 degrees up and down.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Purifier - incorrect. You havea total vertical fire arc of 45 degrees, same as your horizontal traverse of 45 degrees when hull mounted. 22.5 degrees up and down.

Ok, my mistake. Then you can still arc it 22.5 degrees before you start getting any negative effects.

edit: so does that mean a tank can only rise its cannon by a pathetic 22.5 degrees and also press it through its hull by 22.5 degrees? That seems silly. And haven't the people in this thread made their calculations of distance based on the weapon pointing 45 degrees down? Otherwise, it's gonna have a ... much larger blind spot.

Yes, unless it can actually rotate by more than that itself. FOr example a basilisk can move through most of 90 degrees.

Target wrote:
If you both assembled them correctly, there will not be differences between the angles of your two assemblies. The top of the flight stand sits flat against the bottom of the model in a slotted entry, if it doesn't, you've done something wrong.

I've seen plenty of players build their models and have obviously, but unintentionally, "done something wrong". How many times have you seen rhinos and / or land raiders with big gaps in the hull?

That being said, I'd say the cut off is "is it noticeably angled?". No one is going to grab their protractor to bring with them, so if your model is a couple degrees off due to some caked glue or scratches, you're fine. If it's noticeably tilted, play it as level.

Noticeably angled like the one GK storm raven featured on GW's website? Someone posted a picture of it about half-way down page 8 of this thread. Check it out.

And to the part I bolded - Come again? Model builders would be a primary example of precise people. Wargamers might not be, but scale modelers are precision personified typically.

Let me clarify. I take pride in my model building and I try to be precise so I see what you mean. But what I meant was is this; MANY of the people who play this game (perhaps most people in my area) are NOT precise model builders. They usually just slap the plastic together and probably don't even paint it. I see lots and lots of models that were obviously constructed in a hurry and without much attention to detail. And that's what I meant. Some model builders are very precise, granted. But in my experience, most of the model builders who just build the models for the game are not.

Grugknuckle wrote:

Target wrote:
If you both assembled them correctly, there will not be differences between the angles of your two assemblies. The top of the flight stand sits flat against the bottom of the model in a slotted entry, if it doesn't, you've done something wrong.

I've seen plenty of players build their models and have obviously, but unintentionally, "done something wrong". How many times have you seen rhinos and / or land raiders with big gaps in the hull?

That being said, I'd say the cut off is "is it noticeably angled?". No one is going to grab their protractor to bring with them, so if your model is a couple degrees off due to some caked glue or scratches, you're fine. If it's noticeably tilted, play it as level.

Noticeably angled like the one GK storm raven featured on GW's website? Someone posted a picture of it about half-way down page 8 of this thread. Check it out.

And to the part I bolded - Come again? Model builders would be a primary example of precise people. Wargamers might not be, but scale modelers are precision personified typically.

Let me clarify. I take pride in my model building and I try to be precise so I see what you mean. But what I meant was is this; MANY of the people who play this game (perhaps most people in my area) are NOT precise model builders. They usually just slap the plastic together and probably don't even paint it. I see lots and lots of models that were obviously constructed in a hurry and without much attention to detail. And that's what I meant. Some model builders are very precise, granted. But in my experience, most of the model builders who just build the models for the game are not.

You can't follow pictures on GW's website for how to correctly play the game. They commonly get rules just completely wrong in white dwarf for example, or feature models with great but impractical conversions, or have army lists with incorrect points costs/etc. Just because there's a picture of it on their website doesn't make it a legal way to use it, in a tournament game.

And yes, some model builders may be precise and some folks may leave gaps in their rhinos. But they all know how it should have been assembled, even if they couldn't produce that result. It's obvious that the stormraven base sits flat on the bottom of it, it's shown in the instructions to build the thing, and it's the only way it fits. No one will be thick enough to assemble it with an extreme example and then claim "what, i thought this was the correct way!!?"

At this point, it seems more like you're arguing a stance of willful ignorance (and that's not meant as an insult or directed at your personally) of the rules. Such that "well someone could assemble it wrong, and then what???". Yes, they could, but that doesn't change how the model is supposed to be correctly played. The rules are pretty clear on this one.

I don't even use a storm raven personally and more than likely, I would give my opponent the benefit of the doubt. In fact, if he wanted to shoot my dudes with his assault cannon, but they were just a little bit into the blind spot, I'd probably just say, "hey man, just nose it in a little, then you can shoot me."

But here is the thing, I can see a WAAC player (or whatever you want to call that type of guy) instantly start crying MFA any time he sees a storm raven with even a slight tilt. And that irritates me. Especially when it's probably just an accident. People like that ruin the game.

THey will always ruin the game, however claiming that because a small tilt *should* be acceptable that this allows you to model it to gain a real advantage is a bad argument.

In 99.99% of times anyone complaining over a slight tilt, in a tourney, will have the TO raise an eyebrow, shrug, and say to play it as if level. No further issue. I know this because a) have witnessed this at a few GTs in the UK, and b) have been asked as a TO to rule on this before.

We have a standing rulepack entry whcih states that converted models are *encouraged*, but that you *cannot* gain *Any* advantage from the conversion. This means riflemen dreads dont get to shoot over razorbacks (except at models in ruins a decent distance away and a floor or two up) but those funky battlewagons which look cool still get to play.

You can't follow pictures on GW's website for how to correctly play the game. They commonly get rules just completely wrong in white dwarf for example, or feature models with great but impractical conversions, or have army lists with incorrect points costs/etc. Just because there's a picture of it on their website doesn't make it a legal way to use it, in a tournament game.

And yes, some model builders may be precise and some folks may leave gaps in their rhinos. But they all know how it should have been assembled, even if they couldn't produce that result. It's obvious that the stormraven base sits flat on the bottom of it, it's shown in the instructions to build the thing, and it's the only way it fits. No one will be thick enough to assemble it with an extreme example and then claim "what, i thought this was the correct way!!?"

At this point, it seems more like you're arguing a stance of willful ignorance (and that's not meant as an insult or directed at your personally) of the rules. Such that "well someone could assemble it wrong, and then what???". Yes, they could, but that doesn't change how the model is supposed to be correctly played. The rules are pretty clear on this one.

I must disagree with this stance. As a new player, where else would I go to learn how to assemble the models? I don't know dakka exists or even what MFA means as it's not in the rule book. In fact I'd just follow the pictures on the web page or in the hobby section on how to assemble my models. I'm still not seeing where people are getting that things must be perfectly level. I really don't. Quote me a page number. I just don't see it. I've asked this about 5-6 times now and no one can quote me anything other than you should use the base provided and that's not even remotely close enough to what the building instructions say.

Heck, if you look at the perspective lines on the completed figure in step 15 -16 of the assembly manual, the base isn't even parallel to the side of the aircraft. According to the assembly instructions, it actually looks like I should have the storm raven actually bank to the left about 10 degrees to be properly assembled.



Look at the bottom of the base, if it was truely parallel, the bottom of the stand should have the same angle as the body of the storm raven but it's not. It's actually off by several degrees.

For those that can't quite see it, here's the perspective lines placed on the model and the base.

sudojoe wrote:

You can't follow pictures on GW's website for how to correctly play the game. They commonly get rules just completely wrong in white dwarf for example, or feature models with great but impractical conversions, or have army lists with incorrect points costs/etc. Just because there's a picture of it on their website doesn't make it a legal way to use it, in a tournament game.

And yes, some model builders may be precise and some folks may leave gaps in their rhinos. But they all know how it should have been assembled, even if they couldn't produce that result. It's obvious that the stormraven base sits flat on the bottom of it, it's shown in the instructions to build the thing, and it's the only way it fits. No one will be thick enough to assemble it with an extreme example and then claim "what, i thought this was the correct way!!?"

At this point, it seems more like you're arguing a stance of willful ignorance (and that's not meant as an insult or directed at your personally) of the rules. Such that "well someone could assemble it wrong, and then what???". Yes, they could, but that doesn't change how the model is supposed to be correctly played. The rules are pretty clear on this one.

I must disagree with this stance. As a new player, where else would I go to learn how to assemble the models? I don't know dakka exists or even what MFA means as it's not in the rule book. In fact I'd just follow the pictures on the web page or in the hobby section on how to assemble my models. I'm still not seeing where people are getting that things must be perfectly level. I really don't. Quote me a page number. I just don't see it. I've asked this about 5-6 times now and no one can quote me anything other than you should use the base provided and that's not even remotely close enough to what the building instructions say.

cut for brevity, see above post

Here's where we're getting it:

-You must use the base provided
-You have no permission to modify it
-If you've ever assembled a stormraven, the pieces for the mount make it clearly and easily fit in a "level" position. The top of the stand fits into a slotted piece that attaches flat against the bottom of the raven. You've got to really re-kajigger in order to get a non-level raven (within error). IE, if you have a noticeably tilted/etc. raven you have to have cut the stand or the mount up considerably to make it happen.

I've been thinking since I read the 6e rules one of the key strategies against vehicles is going to be exploiting their blind spots, so I can see why MFA on this issue can matter quite a deal without really having to split hairs.

I'm going to be trying to hide a ravager or venom under a flier.
If someone comes to a table with a storm raven pointed nose down, even if it's not a lot, that's not going to work.

I really don't think you have to be super WAAC to want every edge you can get against flyers right now.

jcress410 wrote:I've been thinking since I read the 6e rules one of the key strategies against vehicles is going to be exploiting their blind spots, so I can see why MFA on this issue can matter quite a deal without really having to split hairs.

I'm going to be trying to hide a ravager or venom under a flier.
If someone comes to a table with a storm raven pointed nose down, even if it's not a lot, that's not going to work.

I really don't think you have to be super WAAC to want every edge you can get against flyers right now.

Also, people in this thread have had a tendency to point "power gamer" "waac" and similar labels at the people who don't like severely tilted ravens and believe they shouldn't be "played" that way in game (you can model it that way, just not get the advantage from it).

Why hasn't the more obvious (to me) parallel been drawn? People who specifically model their stormraven pointing down to get an in-game advantage are being waac/powergamey/etc.?

Just a thought!

But yes, blindspots exist for a reason, and the rules support them having blindspots, live with it! (For the record, I run 2x raven, and both are heavily modified, but I play them as unmodified for the rules/ingame effects).

Target wrote:Why hasn't the more obvious (to me) parallel been drawn? People who specifically model their stormraven pointing down to get an in-game advantage are being waac/powergamey/etc.?

Mostly because I don't throw random insulting labels around to anyone unless they've proven it.
I try not to anyway.