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Your equating effects that have no bearing.


This is no different than shooting a blast weapon at a Land Raider and having it scatter on the Rhino out of LOS behind it. You do not have permission to shoot the Rhino due to no LOS, but you resolve the effects regardless.

Occupied or Unoccupied has nothing to do with resolving hits, only with targeting.

Fragile wrote:
This is no different than shooting a blast weapon at a Land Raider and having it scatter on the Rhino out of LOS behind it. You do not have permission to shoot the Rhino due to no LOS, but you resolve the effects regardless.

Yes, you do. Because the rules tell you to, and because there is a mechanism for damaging units.

There is no such mechanism for damaging unoccupied buildings. So we either have to assume that no damage is applied, or we assume that damage is applied, but have no legal way to resolve it.

You apply it like a vehicle, since the rules say that buildings use the vehicle rules, with the noted exceptions.

Fragile wrote:
You apply it like a vehicle, since the rules say that buildings use the vehicle rules, with the noted exceptions.

Except they don't. They say that they use aspects of the vehicle rules, and then go on to explain what that means.

 insaniak wrote:
and then go on to explain what that means.

Do tell...

 insaniak wrote:
There is no such mechanism for damaging unoccupied buildings.

This is only the case if you assume that "you may shoot at occupied buildings" is the same as "the only way a building can be damaged is if it is occupied". The first paragraph gives you permission to target a building under certain circumstances, the second paragraph tells you how to resolve damage against a building. There is no statement limiting when you can resolve that damage to the situation mentioned in the previous paragraph.

 Peregrine wrote:
...the second paragraph tells you how to resolve damage against a building.

That second paragraph starts out with 'When shooting at a building...' rather than 'When resolving damage against a building...'

 insaniak wrote:
That second paragraph starts out with 'When shooting at a building...' rather than 'When resolving damage against a building...

But note the absence of "occupied" in that sentence. It doesn't require that the building be occupied to resolve shooting against it, that restriction is only imposed at the "choose a target" step. Likewise for applying damage results. It says "if you get a penetrating hit do X", not "if you get a penetrating hit and the building is occupied do X". So if you have a situation which is an exception to the general rule of being unable to attack an empty building you still meet the conditions and follow the appropriate instructions. For example, if a rule says "every building on the table suffers a penetrating hit" you would follow the instructions for applying a penetrating hit to ALL buildings regardless of whether they are occupied or not.

The only question here is whether a blast template landing on a building counts as shooting at it, and IMO the answer is the same as blast templates landing on other targets that would be an illegal choice for a unit's shooting: you can't pick them when you declare the unit's target, but if the blast template happens to land on them you resolve the hits as if you are attacking a legal target.

 Peregrine wrote:
But note the absence of "occupied" in that sentence.

They already told us in the previous paragraph that it has to be occupied. No need to repeat it every single time.

The only time you are given permission to attack the building is when it is occupied. The only way you are given a mechanic to apply damage to a building is when you attack it. There is nothing in the building rules that suggests that collateral damage from an attack against something else can be applied to the building.

The only question here is whether a blast template landing on a building counts as shooting at it,

With the answer being 'no'. If your target was something other than the building, that target was what you were shooting at. You just happened to hit the building instead.

For shooting at anything else, that's not a problem, because the blast rules allow you to apply damage to whatever is under the blast marker. For an unoccupied building, it is a problem, because there is no way to apply that damage.

I have been sitting back as I have said my say in the matter, the rules do not function as they require the building to be occupied, but there is one additional thing I want to throw onto the fire while it is crackling away:

Insaniak, how do we resolve attacks against the Vengeance Weapon Battery?

For those of you whom do not understand what this question is getting at, allow me to give you some background. Not to long ago Game Workshop decided to expand on it's sale of fortifications by releasing a few additional pieces. One of these pieces was the Vengeance Weapon Battery, a specialized fortification built around the idea of an automatic gun platform. To show this unique ability, they gave the building a capacity of 0 and even made it impassable if I remember correctly, ensuring that it will never have a unit inside of it. However the rules still required the building to be occupied in order to fire the emplaced weapons or for the building to be targeted, so they gave some specific permissions outlining how combat with this thing works.

Specific permissions that, while granting the ability to shoot at the Vengeance Weapon Battery, do not inform us how we go about resolving the damage generated against this unoccupied building....

So, Insaniak; you are asserting that vehicles take no damage from Blast weapons that scatter on to them?

All the rules are for Shooting at Vehicles(as the target).

JinxDragon wrote:
Insaniak, how do we resolve attacks against the Vengeance Weapon Battery?

The same way you resolve what happens to battlements when the building under them suffers a total collapse, probably...

You resolve the attack as you would against any other vehicle.

Fragile,

So your answer is to discard the unique building damaging rules, which require the building to be occupied, and fall back on normal vehicle damage rules?

Insaniak and Jinx; How do you handle Blasts scattering on to vehicles?

JinxDragon wrote:
Fragile,

So your answer is to discard the unique building damaging rules, which require the building to be occupied, and fall back on normal vehicle damage rules?

My answer is to follow the rules as laid out under Attacking Buildings on pg 93. Please note the bolded second sentence.

Units may shoot at or charge an occupied building just as if it was a vehicle.

Your damage table is different, but ....

When shooting at a building, roll To Hit and for armour penetration normally

Uh oh. that "normally" word. Normally what ? Well, refer back to the bolded part about vehicles. This part applies to any scattered shot that would land on the building.

Kommissar Kel wrote:Insaniak and Jinx; How do you handle Blasts scattering on to vehicles?

Any model under the blast marker is hit by the blast.

Fragile wrote:

When shooting at a building, ...

.

... which the section immediately beforehand just explained can happen when the building is occupied, but nowhere is any indication given that it can happen at any other time.

You continue to try to apply 1 restriction to things that it does not apply to with no basis to do so.

I'm not applying a restriction at all. I'm simply not trying to carry out an action that the rules don't give you permission to carry out.

The rules clearly do. The shot is resolved as if shooting at a vehicle, there is no requirement for the building to be occupied or not to resolve the damage.

Fragile wrote:
The rules clearly do. The shot is resolved as if shooting at a vehicle, there is no requirement for the building to be occupied or not to resolve the damage.

The requirement for it to be occupied comes from the fact that you are only given permission to shoot at the building in the first place if it is occupied.

Yes, if you shoot at a building, you resolve the shot as if it were a vehicle. But you can only shoot at it when it is occupied, because no permission is given to do so otherwise.



Here's how I see this - GW could very easily have returned to the 2nd edition system for terrain, where any piece of terrain could be shot at and potentially destroyed. They didn't... they restricted it to buildings, and only when occupied. So why is that?

To my mind, it's because they didn't want to go back down the road of all terrain being damagable, but wanted players to be able to use buildings without them being invulnerable bunkers. So they included a mechanism for destroying a building with a unit in it, which isn't intended to be applied to unoccupied buildings because within that design requirement there is no need for it to affect unoccupied buildings. It's solely there to stop units from being able to hide in impenetrable boxes.


That may be way off base, of course. Start wondering why GW does what they do, and madness is sure to follow. But it makes sense to me, within the rules as they currently stand. YMMV.

That may be how you would play it, but, as you say, there is a mechanic for resolving damage against a building. There is a restriction on shooting or charging, but no listed restrictions on damaging a building. Therefore you have to resolve those hits as you have no permission or restriction to not do it.

Fragile wrote:
That may be how you would play it, but, as you say, there is a mechanic for resolving damage against a building.

... when it is occupied.

Therefore you have to resolve those hits as you have no permission or restriction to not do it.

So how do you resolve the hits when a blast winds up over a forest?

This is no different. The building is only treated as a vehicle when it is occupied. The rest of the time it is just terrain. Blasts have no effect on terrain.

 insaniak wrote:

Kommissar Kel wrote:Insaniak and Jinx; How do you handle Blasts scattering on to vehicles?

Any model under the blast marker is hit by the blast.

That is not what the rules for Vehicles and Blasts says; it only talks about firing Blasts at vehicles.

It is a direct parallel with Buildings which only talk about shooting at buildings, which must be occupied to be shot at.

So if you are going to have Blasts that happen to scatter onto a vehicle cause damage per the blast rules, you must also apply that logic to buildings that happen to have a blast scatter onto them.

Template weapons and vehicles allow for ancillary hits.

My issue still has not been resolved: There are no mechanics to resolve the hits against unoccupied buildings.

Even if we ignore the many rule based sections that have been quoted, rules that would make it so the building doesn't get hit in the first place, we still can not resolve the hits generated. The standard method of resolving hits all contain instructions to lower a characteristic as part of the process and the instructions for damaging buildings do not deviate from these normal rules. The problem is that buildings do not have these characteristics, and even have a sentence stating this prevents them from being damaged or destroyed. Instead of lowering a characteristic found on the building, we are given instructions that involves creating wounds and allocating them to the unit inside of the building, in order to lower their characteristics instead.

So how do we resolve these wounds against an unoccupied building?

The side that is for applying these hits put forth a solution of using only the fragments which can be applied. While I do not have fault with the idea itself, it does solve the problem, we can not accept such a solution as 'legal' from the Rule as Written point of view. There is simply nothing in the Rule book telling us we have permission to apply a sixth of an individual rule. Nor are there any instructing informing us how we go about deciding what part of a rule can and can not be applied, and it is not unreasonable to request a rule as broad as 'decide when you want to apply parts of individual rules' to contain instructions on when it could be evoked.

We accept that the house rule of 'ignore all wounds generated' would be a very good house rule to have, it solves the problem put forth in this thread and a few other ones as well. However, as we have pointed out repetitively, this would still be a house rule and treating it as anything else does not make it 'legal.' Just because it is designed to to patch a hole that a good editor would of caught doesn't change the fact it is not a rule written by the actual people whom penned the rule book.

 insaniak wrote:

Kommissar Kel wrote:Insaniak and Jinx; How do you handle Blasts scattering on to vehicles?

Any model under the blast marker is hit by the blast.

You just made that up. The rules do not say that. If you read the relevant rules you will find that multiple blasts can hit vehicles but single blasts cannot. Page 33 says that blasts hit bases that they are over and then page 73 only makes an exception to the base requirement in the case of multiple blasts.

RAW to the extreme - just like in the case of the completely rediculous argument that a blast scattering onto a building does not result in a hit. Anyone making this argument is exploiting gaps in the rules to the point that consistently applying their outrageous approach would make the game unplayable.

We all know how it works, so why is anyone wasting even a second of their life on this?

Rapture wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

Kommissar Kel wrote:Insaniak and Jinx; How do you handle Blasts scattering on to vehicles?

Any model under the blast marker is hit by the blast.

You just made that up. The rules do not say that. If you read the relevant rules you will find that multiple blasts can hit vehicles but single blasts cannot. Page 33 says that blasts hit bases that they are over and then page 73 only makes an exception to the base requirement in the case of multiple blasts.

RAW to the extreme - just like in the case of the completely rediculous argument that a blast scattering onto a building does not result in a hit. Anyone making this argument is exploiting gaps in the rules to the point that consistently applying their outrageous approach would make the game unplayable.

We all know how it works, so why is anyone wasting even a second of their life on this?

Becase the rules donot give any mechanism for damaging terrain (Unless it is an occupied building), which is exactly what an unoccupied building is...

Rapture wrote:
You just made that up. The rules do not say that. If you read the relevant rules you will find that multiple blasts can hit vehicles but single blasts cannot. Page 33 says that blasts hit bases that they are over and then page 73 only makes an exception to the base requirement in the case of multiple blasts.

Yes, we covered that earlier. It's an obvious oversight in the vehicle rules.

The issue with buildings isn't quite so obvious, since the normal requirement for the building to be occupied in order to target it leaves doubt as to whether or not collateral damage should affect them when empty.

So that leaves it up to players to figure out the most likely intention of the rules... and to me, the most likely intention (as I just explained) is that we're only supposed to be able to damage occupied buildings.

Anyone making this argument is exploiting gaps in the rules to the point that consistently applying their outrageous approach would make the game unplayable.

I like hyperbole as much as the next 15 billion guys, but I have to admit I'm missing the part where a scattering blast marker not being able to damage a building makes the game unplayable. Or is a particularly exciting 'exploit'.

We all know how it works, so why is anyone wasting even a second of their life on this?

Because we don't know how it works, because the rules are unclear. Luckily, we have this handy forum for discussing areas of the rules that we find to be unclear...

The rules are also unclear regarding whether a single blast can hit a vehicle, but no one would entertain a thread about that because there is very clearly a best answer - just like there is in this case.

You honestly think that the intent of the rule writers would be that something that can be hit, damaged, and destroyed should be completely unaffected when an orbital bombardment scatters onto it?

Everyone knows what happens when a blast scatters onto something that that can be damaged. The thing is hit and the damage is resolved - this is why no one argues that single blasts can't hurt vehicles. Admitting that in the case of vehicles and then denying it in the case of buildings is inconsistent when there is a consistent, reasonable, and thematic alternative. There is no compelling argument for why unoccupied building cannot be damaged by scattering blasts other than what is an obvious hole in the rules.

 insaniak wrote:

Rapture wrote:
Anyone making this argument is exploiting gaps in the rules to the point that consistently applying their outrageous approach would make the game unplayable.

I like hyperbole as much as the next 15 billion guys, but I have to admit I'm missing the part where a scattering blast marker not being able to damage a building makes the game unplayable. Or is a particularly exciting 'exploit'.

Read it again if you are having trouble understanding. This one conclusion isn't a problem, the way that it was arrived at is. The rules are not designed in a way that anticipates people picking through them and reading them like a machine - especially when those people dismiss some gaps and then harp on others.

 DeathReaper wrote:

Becase the rules donot give any mechanism for damaging terrain (Unless it is an occupied building), which is exactly what an unoccupied building is...

They also don't give a mecanism for single blasts hitting vehicles. Do you resolve anything when a devil dog shoots at a land raider, or do you just tell your opponent that there is no mechanism and move on?

Rapture wrote:
You honestly think that the intent of the rule writers would be that something that can be hit, damaged, and destroyed should be completely unaffected when an orbital bombardment scatters onto it?

Yes, I honestly think that was their intention. That's why they wrote in an allowance to attack occupied buildings, rather than just allowing us to attack buildings all the time. I already explained why I think that a couple of posts back.

Everyone knows what happens when a blast scatters onto something that that can be damaged.

Indeed they do. The issue here is that when it is unoccupied, the building isn't something that can be damaged.

Admitting that in the case of vehicles and then denying it in the case of buildings is inconsistent when there is a consistent, reasonable, and thematic alternative

It's not inconsistent at all, because buildings and vehicles are different. If vehicles could only be damaged under certain, specific conditions, we would have a similar argument if we were talking about blasts scattering onto them outside of those conditions.

The thing is, GW have a long history of writing vastly different rules to cover two otherwise similar situations, because they write the rules to fit the way they want the game to function, and they don't always want those similar things to function identically... (For example, it wasn't so long ago that we had rulings for whether or not bikers could use two close combat weapons made on a purely arbitrary, codex-by-codex basis with no real explanation as to why they simply all couldn't do so...)

Between that, and the deliberate limiting of attacks to occupied buildings, it's not too much of a stretch to think that they wanted buldings to work differently to vehicles where blasts are concerned.

There is no compelling argument for why unoccupied building cannot be damaged by scattering blasts other than what is an obvious hole in the rules.

And that's where we're going to have to disagree... because what you're seeing as an 'obvious hole' I'm seeing as a deliberate design choice.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Rapture wrote:
The rules are not designed in a way that anticipates people picking through them and reading them like a machine -

... which is an interesting statement, given that this appears to be what you are doing by insisting that if it works one way for vehicles, it must also work that way for buildings...


I'm not 'reading like a machine'... I'm reading the rules as they appear in the book, and where there is some perceived grey area, looking at what I think was the most likely intent of those rules in order to determine how to deal with that grey area. So while I think my interpretation here is the one that fits a strict RAW reading, I also very strongly believe that it matches the intent behind that RAW. If I didn't, I would be arguing for playing as the the building being damaged, regardless of what the RAW appears to say about it.