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nosferatu1001 wrote:Except, uif you had read 4 posts up, yuo would see that there is no contingent requirement on being in cover - the disadvantages are for TAKING THE TESTS, and are NOT reliant on you assaulting through cover.

And the only way you're at that disadvantage is if you "assaulted through cover". If you took a dangerous terrain test while you assaulted, but didn't assault through cover, you haven't fulfilled the basic need of assaulting through cover to even get to the second paragraph about reduced intiative.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Reread the rules, note that the "disadvantages" section places no reliance on this being part of cover, merely that you are taking the tests.

Except that it does. The second disadvantage is reliant on there being a first disadvantage. The first disadvantage (and anything following) is contingent on the fact you assaulted through cover.

You're taking the second paragraph out of context, as if it exists on its own, which it does not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nosferatu1001 wrote:"the unit must take the relevant terrain test before moving.This has two disadvantages.The first and most obvious is that such tests might cause the assault to fail altogether if the closest model cannot make it into contact with the enemy"

None of this is contingent on you assaulting through cover.

Quote the entire rule. Just before "the unit must take the relevant. . ." it mentions assaulting through cover. Nevermind, I'll do it for you:

Assaulting through Cover
"if, following the rules for moving assaulting models (see page 34), any model in an assaulting unit will have to go through difficult or dangerous terrain as part of its assault move, the unit must take the relevant terrain test before moving. This has two disadvantages. The first and most obvious is that such tests might cause the assault to fail altogether if the closest model cannot make it into contact with the enemy. Note that if a model stopped 1" away from the enemy in the Movement or Shooting phase, it can Assault even if it rolls a double 1 on its difficult terrain test.

The second disadvantage is that the warriors who are assaulting through cover are subject to deadly salvoes of close range fire as they slowly struggle to get to grips with their foe and may be ambushed by foes that are ready for them. To represent this, if an assaulting unit had to take a difficult or dangerous terrain test during their assault move, all of its models have their initiative lowered to 1 when attacking, regardless of other Initiative modifiers. Remember that assaulting models must try to engage as many enemies as possible - no holding back to avoid the test!"

The unit assaulting a venomthrope had to take a dangerous terrain test, but it did not have to go through any sort of terrain/cover at all, therefore, it is not affected by either disadvantage.

THe "this has two disadvantages" refers to TAKING THE TEST. In context "taking the test" is what confers disadvantages; assaulting through cover without taking a test (ref: harlies) does not reduce your I to 1

I dunno. I'm still torn.

Then what do you think, nos, of the grenades issue? If you're I is reduced by simply taking the test, then do grenades apply, since you didn't "assault through cover"?

Personally, to keep things consistent, I would apply grenades - the cloud provides a cover save, forces a terrain test so it certainly looks and sounds like terrain to me, so to be consistent I woud let grenades work.

IT is doubtful RAW, as you are not assaulting through cover but through something that provides a cover save. Unless you can definitively state that "grants a cover save" is a sufficient condition to be called "cover" then grenades wouldnt apply.

nosferatu1001 wrote:THe "this has two disadvantages" refers to TAKING THE TEST. In context "taking the test" is what confers disadvantages; assaulting through cover without taking a test (ref: harlies) does not reduce your I to 1

Except it does not refer to taking the test. The test is ONE of the disadvantages of going through cover.

I am still not convinced you can use rules for assaulting through difficult/dangerous terrain and apply these to something different. Although the Dangerous Terrain test is mentioned in this part, it is mentioned in an entirely different context (as in assaulting through terrain). This is compacted by the fact that a Dangerous Terrain test is already explained in the rulebook, seperate from this entry. So I just don't understand why you would use this, when it is very clear you are not assaulting through terrain?

The way I see it is that if you get told the venomthrope has this abiltiy that makes you take a Dangerous Terrain test to assault, you look up Dangerous Terrain test and roll 1D6 for your models. There is no reason to look under assaulting through terrain.

Similarly I do not look under assaulting through cover when some outside force (psychic power etc) makes me take a difficult terrain test, unless it specifies it counts as difficult terrain.

Overall I believe there is a real distinction between the Dangerous/Difficult Terrain tests and actually moving through Dangerous/Difficult Terrain. The second means you need to use the rules for assaulting through cover, the first does not.

Yes, yes it does. There is NO disadvantage to moving through cover; the ONLY disadvantage comes when that cover requires you to take a diff-t or dang-t test, as you can lose models or cause the assault to fail.

Please show a disadvantage to moving through terrain that isnt *entirely* down to taking the test, and you may have a point.

You look at the rules because they are related to the game.

You should read ALL the rules in the book and apply them.

There is undisputedly a rule saying that if you take a dangerous terrain test when assaulting, you strike at initiative 1.

There is no stipulation on that.

As for the first disadvantage...it still applies--as ChrisCP pointed out, it is possible that because of the dangerous terrain roll, an assaulting unit cannot make it into CC.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Yes, yes it does. There is NO disadvantage to moving through cover; the ONLY disadvantage comes when that cover requires you to take a diff-t or dang-t test, as you can lose models or cause the assault to fail.

Please show a disadvantage to moving through terrain that isnt *entirely* down to taking the test, and you may have a point.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

IT is doubtful RAW, as you are not assaulting through cover

The reason I think that DutchSage has a point is because of where the rules are. Sure, you're forced to take a DT test, but so what? Why does that affect how you're assaulting? You didn't "assault through cover," as you pointed out above.

Granted, the rules for the DT test are in the book and they say that you reduce your initiative by 1. But where are those rules? What heading, to be specific? Assaulting Through Cover.

Simply put, why do you apply rules to something that is not happening? It would be like applying a Ram to shooting a bolter. The rules for something causing a ram aren't taking place. In fact, why would you even look under the heading?

When you assault a venomthrope, you're not assaulting through cover, so why does the "Assaulting Through Cover" heading apply? If I'm in my movement phase, I'm not going to be thumbing through the Shooting rules to find out what to do. As DutchSage pointed out, the rules for Dangerous Terrain are listed elsewhere.

As a new player - someone who doesn't know the rules backward and forward - you would assault the venomthrope, turn to the index of the rulebook and then thumb to Dangerous Terrain, which says nothing of Assaulting through it. But you don't think twice because you're not assaulting through terrain.


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kirsanth wrote:You look at the rules because they are related to the game.

You should read ALL the rules in the book and apply them.

And this is true, but context has its place. There are squadron rules that you could apply to lone vehicles, but you don't because they're under the Squadrons heading and aren't referring to them.

Cover has no part in it at all.

"Assaulting through cover" is defined as "if a unit moves through difficult terrain" and has "two disadvantages" of which "the second disadvantage" is that "if an assaulting unit had to take a difficult or dangerous terrain test " they strike at initiative one.

Paraphrased because the whole bloody thing obviously causes confusion. Nowhere does it require you to move through cover (area terrain can easily be difficult terrain but NOT give cover) - but (!) striking at initiative 1 requires:
* one or more of the models assaulting in the unit to have taken a difficult terrain test, which in turn is a consequence of
* one or more of the models in the assaulting unit moving through difficult or dangerous terrain

That is, if your unit for some reason is immune to difficult terrain tests (such as being Eldar Pathfinders) or if they never entered difficult or dangerous terrain, then the unit will not have fulfilled either that it moved through terrain or that it took a DT-test - both of which are important.

Just to repeat myself, the second disadvantage of moving through difficult or dangerous terrain is to be read in the second paragraph on the right side of page 36. It's important to keep track of the disadvantages since they section off the rules into two parts.

It's more or less the same sort of thing as "move as jump infantry" and "type: jump infantry" aren't the same thing (one grants deep strike, the other doesn't).

puma713 wrote:
And this is true, but context has its place.

Exactly. In this context the terrain rolls are not caused by terrain, nor is the cover save. Yet they are required.

And in the context of rolling (dangerous) terrain when assaulting, the rules force initiative penalties.
No mention in those lines about cover/terrain--that is in the assault grenade rules.

As another odd example of context often missed, there are rules for Characters that can apply to models without the word "Character" in their profile.

Context + reading all of the rules lets you know when to apply these special cases.
This is why reading all of the rules is important, not just headings and blurbs.

Editing to add:
This is definately something to discuss with your opponent/TO. . .if you ever see a Venomthrope in play.

As with most other issues, if my opponent has an issue about this I will always play the weaker side of a debatable ruling--regardless of the conviction I hold about it.

Well, after reading this thread, I have to say good arguements have been made for both sides. I have, however, found a logical problem with the whole situation.

My question is based on this rule:
"Models equipped with assault grenades don’t suffer the penalty to their Initiative for assaulting enemies through cover, but fight as normal"

Assaulting an enemy through cover does not lower your initiative, it is the act of making the test that lowers your init, correct?

And because the venomthrope only says you make a test, the logic is that assault grenades (which only mention assaulting through cover) do not apply, since that condition did not happen, and no grenade can offset the init reduction making a terrain test will cause.

HOWEVER, if we interpret that assault grenades do not offset the spore cloud, we have also interpret that assault grenades do nothing! This is because we have ruled that moving through cover is meaningless, only the act of making the terrain test itself matters--grenades dont help the test stipulation, only the assaulting through cover stipulation.

Or, in other words, assaulting through terrain does not make you init 1. Making a terrain test makes you init 1. Assault grenades take away a penalty to init from assaulting through terrain, but there IS NO init penalty for assaulting through terrain! There is only an init penalty for making a terrain test! Thus, if we rule that grenades dont effect the test that a venomthrope produces, the same exact logic says that the effect of assault grenades in general does nothing, as there is no init penalty for simply moving through the terrain if no test is involved.

I'm afraid I disagree with you entirely. I see it as one of two ways. The unit is either not reduced to 1 init because none of the assaulting through cover rules apply, OR assault grenades DO ignore the penalty because the reduction is part of the assaulting through cover rule set. You can't have the init penalty and say that grenades that "ignore the init penalty" don't work.