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Is it me or is there a contradiction in the rules for spray attacks? On page 60 it says that "The targeting rules apply when choosing the attacks primary target." In the next paragraph it states that you make the attack ignoring cover, concealment and/or, stealth. Does that mean that you can't spray a lone figure that has stealth and is more than 5" away since it would be the primary target and as such not eligible under the normal targeting rules? Or am I reading too much into this or am I just confused (which is obvious). If I could get a clarification from those of you out there I would appreciate the help.

You can target characters with stealth all you want. You just automatically miss. AoE shots will automatically deviate and non-AoE shots just miss. Sprays ignore stealth, however, so you can indeed hit them.

Sprays are one of those funny things that break lots of rules that other ranged attacks have to follow. What I believe they intended when they said that "targeting rules apply when choosing primary target" is that you cannot, for example, target a warrior model that is completely hidden behind two large-based warjacks standing side-by-side.

Sprays ignore a lot of the things that make it hard to target certain models, including the penalty for shooting into melee, IIRC, which makes them great for clearing out stealth infantry and other such nuisances.

They ignore everything except for target at higher elevation.

Mr. Grey wrote:Sprays are one of those funny things that break lots of rules that other ranged attacks have to follow. What I believe they intended when they said that "targeting rules apply when choosing primary target" is that you cannot, for example, target a warrior model that is completely hidden behind two large-based warjacks standing side-by-side.

What's the difference between not being able to "see" the target hidden between 2 bigger bases and not "seeing" figures concealed in woods or behind cover using stealth? In either case the firing figure can't legally draw a line of sight from himself to the target since stealthed characters are ignored for ranged attacks at greater than 5".

I tend to think that they meant that you can't target creatures that normally can't be targeted. But if you do touch them with the template you don't take the cover/concealment/whatever penalty(ies) that you would in normal circumstances.

Since the two parts are in two seperate paragraphs I think that the first about being the primary target is purely about who you can center the template on and then ignore stealth/cover/whatever goes to the attack roll modifiers of any model that "happens" to be under the template. This seems to fly in the face of what a lot of people are saying but I don't see anybody citing rules to the contrary. I don't think that you can, for instance, shoot a a group of figures that have stealth and are greater than 5" away without "metagaming" just like I don't think that you can shoot an AoE weapon at nothing and hope that it scatters the "right direction". For you to put down the template or AoE you need a valid target in the first place otherwise it should be considered an automiss in all instances.

If someone can show me where/how I'm wrong in my interpretation I would be appreciative. However, I won't accept, "that's just how it's played" unless you are a PP rep of some sort. Please cite rules or official resources to back your arguments.

Wow, you might need to read over Stealth again. It has nothing to do with LoS or targeting. Stealth just causes attacks made from more than 5" away to automatically miss. you can still shoot at them with weapons like AoEs, they'll just automatically miss and deviate.

A lot of people think Stealth has something to do with LoS it doesn't. Sprays can target stealthed models from any distance away and because they ignore stealth they won't automatically miss for being more than 5" out.

Stealth doesn't prevent targeting.

If that were so, a lot of stealthy models wouldn't be the target
of lots of pie plates.

And that's what I was wanting to find. So my interpretation of the spray rules wasn't totally wrong. It was my lack of reading of the stealth rules. Thank you both.

Many people see stealth and think that the model is invisible by some magical means. Stealth in warmachine is not that they are invisible, just that they cannot be seen by the attacking model, the attacker knows they are there, but they cant actually see them. This means that firing a rifle with a tiny bullet into some tall grass at the manhunter that you know is there, isnt going to do anything, since you have nothing to aim at. A flamethrower blankets a 10' area in fire, so you dont need to actually be able to see the target to hit it. It would be like shooting a bullet the size of a car, so long as you know where your target is, you are probably going to hit it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when a unit has stealth don't they NOT block LoS to anything beyond them?

I believe it's only if you're more than 5" away from the Stealthed unit.

Correct. If you can't see them due to stealth, you can draw a bead on anything behind them.

Yeah, so no standing your warcaster behind a stealth unit thinking them safe from ranged attacks.

Devilsquid wrote:Yeah, so no standing your warcaster behind a stealth unit thinking them safe from ranged attacks.

Fact. But that's what large base heavy jacks and beasts are for.

Wyliex wrote:Fact. But that's what large base heavy jacks and beasts are for.

Let the slamming begin!

Don't try it against Rowdy and Stryker.