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hola. newbie war gamer and first-time poster on dakkadakka. i have a few questions regarding a situation my friend and i have encountered in only our second game (ever); also note that most of the models are unpainted, as we are still painting them while trying to learn the game simultaineously. The scenario can be seen below in the attached pictures. My opponent has a 3-man stealth team on the battlements of a building (home-made so no terrain datasheet; we made it building size small with AV 13). My terminators are on their way to try and take the objective marker on top of it (both our armies are bound). I would like to know how I am allowed to do this.

first consider the anatomy of the building: a ladder on one side providing direct access to the battlements, a door on an adjacent side providing an access point into the building, and a hatch providing an access point between the building's interior and the battlements on the roof.

as you can see in the pictures his stealth suits occupy the entirety of the battlements. correct me if im wrong but i believe heading up through the hatch means disembarking from the building (after embarking within it the previous turn) as per vehicle rules. however, due to the size of the battlements i wouldnt be able to place all of my termies outside of 1" from base contact with the enemy models. in fact it is uncertain whether i'd even be able to fit my termies on the battlements at all.

1) can i assault his unit from directly within the building? what if there is no room for my termies on the battlements?
2) are disembarkation rules exactly the same as they are for vehicles (pg 81 BGB)? ie: prevent me from

disembarking onto the battlements due to space constrictions

assaulting the same turn i disembark

if neither of these options are possible, i am left with some other questions:

3) can i launch an assault on his unit from outside of the building and charge directly up the ladder? and if so:
4) is that considered charging through difficult terrain since ill be on battlements?
5) is the ladder considered an access point (as in a vehicle) or do i incorporate the vertical distance into any movement?

if my terminators enter the building therefore claiming it, i believe that will contest the objective on the roof so,
6) where can i find the rules for contesting an objective?

i really appreciate any insight into this scenario, including issues i may have failed to point out. thanks.

Battlements have undergone so many changes from the start of Sixth Edition, mid-way they where altered greatly and now Seventh has altered them even further. This has made it difficult for me to confirm what is the correct answers, thanks to the amount of different memories blurring the Errata and Editions together. Therefore take the answers below with a grain of salt, there could be a Rule I am over-looking that will correct a big problem I think we are seeing with this scenario: I can't find anything granting the ability to Assault directly from the Building at all, so one would have to Disembark during the Movement Phase like other Assault Vehicles....
There has to be something like that in Seventh, there was in Sixth Edition because battlements are always cramped to the point they made units immune from Assaults!

1) There used to be Rules granting this, I can't find them at this moment so I have to conclude that we would have to Disembark onto the battlements during the movement Phase and the 1 inch bubble is a big problem.
2) Correct, they are, but keep in mind that Buildings have a version of the 'Assault Vehicle' Rule.
3) One may assault directly, but the ladder is just decorative as we can simply 'levitate' up the walls if we make the charge distance in this game...
4) Battlements are Difficult Terrain, so yes
5) Ladders are just decorative, they used to have a purpose but now one does not 'Embark' into battlements so they are useless
6) Controlling Objective Markers, within the Victory sub-section within the Preparing for Battle section


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Curious:
Can someone else double check what I am researching right now and see if I am just going insane but it appears as if they have greatly slashed the 'Multi-Part Building' Rules!

The old Rules used to be three paragraph's long and detailed things such as Assaulting from one part of a Building into another. Now it appears to be nothing more then a single paragraph and it just details how to move between parts, not what to do if that part is filled with the enemy or anything outside of moving into another empty Building. While I will poke about a few other sections of the Rule book, in hopes they simply moved the Rules related to these things to another portion of the book for some bizarre reason, maybe someone else's eyes will be able to assist me in finding the solution to that little problem?

I dont really have anything to add to jinxdragons reply (and I hope it helped clear things up), but Id like to say I greatly enjoyed the well written original post.

We bred raptors, please write more questions like this if anything pops up.

thanks guys this helped a bunch. and i'll try to keep up the detailed questions.

I'm still worried that you might of uncovered a larger problem, do not like multi-part building Rules being slashed.

Just to clarify here, the termies can attempt to assault the tau from the ground, yes? Do they only need to reach the base of the building to become in "base contact"? I think I recall something along those lines in multi-level ruins rules, Something like up to 6" away? Maybe that was just coherency...

You are thinking coherency.
I am still sure I am overlooking something, but from what I have seen so far you would just Roll Charge and take Difficult Terrain into account.

You could always claim Wobbly Model Syndrome (in the Movement section of the rules) to say that the Termies are in base contact with the Stealth Suits, even though they can't physically balance there. You'd still have to use the normal Vertical Movement rules to reach combat, of course.

I think JinxDragon covered it pretty good. The BRB provides no real clarification to the OP's question. Is the Stronghold Assault supplement still valid? Maybe this can provide an answer.

As an alternative, you could charge the building and smash it into pieces.

In the Stronghold Assaults with the updated fortifications, there is no level, floors, or ladder allowing you to walk ontop of the battlements unless you are Jump or Jet Infantry. Another thing is that to enter the battlement ( the roof) you have to disembark from the building itself and the roof acts as one very large access point.

1. You can, if you are saying the enemy unit is ontop of the battlement, you can occupy the fortification if the inside is empty. Next turn you can disembark and assault with the Repel the Enemy special rule which allows you to assault after disembarking from a fortification. The problem is if there is room for your models to be at the end of the movement phase being 1" away from the enemy unit ontop of your newly claimed battlement.

2. Again, Repel the Enemy special rule allows any unit that disembarks from a fortification to assault the turn it disembarks like assault vehicles or open-top vehicles.

3. You can assault from the outside with Jump or Jetpack Infantry.

4. Yes it is charging through difficult terrain.

5. There is no ladders or anything of that sort for most of the fortifications detailed.

6. Unit within 3" from an objective can contest it from an enemy unit that is holding it. If the fortification is claimed, the fortification can claim the objective like any other unit.

Rnlmeat0666,
I disagree with your analysis of Stronghold Assault as they had one major Rule when it came to Battlements: They are Upper-floors of Ruins.
Anything that can legally be placed on the upper floor of a Ruin would have permission to be placed on the battlement. It is irrelevant how difficult it would be for vanilla Infantry Units to make the requirement movement distances, should they gain access to some sort of movement related Rule which grants them the ability to do so nothing would Restrict them from alighting on the Ruin-like Battlement. However, as Stronghold Assault is a Sixth Edition book, if we are to substitute these Rules for Seventh's that would mean using all the Sixth Edition Ruin Rules but I am not sure if there would be an answer inside that would make it easier to Assault the Unit on the Battlement.


Maybe another Rule to pen to all the Datasheets I come across:
Enemy Units on this Building's battlements are considered Locked in Combat with the Unit inside the Building.

Multiple part buildings was very clear about this situation in 6th Ed.
They've removed it in 7th so... yaay!
(p92 of 6th Ed.: Second paragraph)

If it is an actual building tho aren't they Impassable? So you can't run up the side to assault unless U have an access point. Like a ladder or something.

 Mythra wrote:
If it is an actual building tho aren't they Impassable? So you can't run up the side to assault unless U have an access point. Like a ladder or something.

Don't think so, p111:
Total Collapse:
"The battlements are considered to be Ruins terrain for the rest of the battle"

and p112:
Note that impassable buildings that have battlements may still not be entered, although units can use their battlements."

They both seem to assume access on-off from ground to top (though Difficult Terrain is still in play)
And because of difficult terrain, you cannot get to battlements above 6" (because you can't stop "halfway up") and have difficulty with anything above 4-5".

As BlackTalos pointed out,
Even if the Building itself was declared Impassable the Battlements still have specific Exceptions to the 'no Model may be placed on Impassable Terrain' Rule.

As a side pondering I am wondering on:
Buildings are not Impassable by default, as that would trigger a few other clauses such as preventing Models from Embarking. However they do function as Units for all purposes, which have Rules Restricting Models from passing through them, but that only occurs after the Building is officially Claimed. Therefore it would be possible to simply walk right through an unclaimed Building, just as it is possible to walk through a solid tree or the wall of a Ruin?

After a few moments of pondering my next move and looking at the situation in person, I remembered that the stealth suits had infiltrated on top of the battlements, but were within 18" of one of my units and both had line of sight on each other. So this whole thread wouldn't even have existed if not for the two of us missing that mistake.

Either way some interesting points have developed. If what JinxDragon and BlackTalos says is true and battlements are considered upper floors of ruins, that clarifies a lot and the circumstances regarding an assault are neatly explained in this Beasts of War article. The only discrepancy I have is at around the 4:00 minute mark in the video. He says he initiates the Assault, but rolls for difficult terrain as he would in the movement phase. Wouldn't he just roll the charge distance and subtract 2" as per BGB? [EDIT: nevermind, that is what he does. I thought he was using the 6 from the dice he rolled, rather than 6+2-2=6]

Also Jinx, where did you find that rule regarding locked in combat between units on battlements and units in the building they are on? And as far as passing through an unclaimed building, would the act of passing through it claim it for the unit's army?

We Bred Raptors,
Keep in mind I was discussing Stronghold Assault Rules when I mentioned upper-floors of Ruins, this was a Supplement Rulebook written for Sixth Edition to replace the really hack and slash job Errata did to them. In Seventh Edition they are their own entity, even once refereed to within their own Rule body as 'Battlement terrain,' that follow nothing but the Rules written for them in their own sub-section. As for when I mention 'Penning a Rule into a Datasheet' I am referring to the sheet that come with Scenery Pieces, even home built terrain should have them, and how any rule found on those sheets trump other sources.

*Cough*
Even Rules added on with a crayon to the very bottom....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also,
The passing through a building is an interesting thought exercise and I do not encourage trying to do it on the table top, though I still can't find anything denying it. In such a situation the Model would not embark into the empty Building so it would not trigger the Rules for claiming it, nor would it have stopped it's movement in the area known as the Battlement's and triggered the one located there. I would have to conclude that the building would therefore remain unclaimed as the Unit moves through the solid matter as if it was not there, phased in that vague area where loopholes seem to breed from. Once the Building is Claimed the issues goes away though as the Claimed Building Rules cause it to trigger other Rules preventing this strange twisting of reality that should only be available to Necrons.

No I am asking if you haven't killed the building and there are people in it they can't just assault up the side right? An occupied building is impassable right?

It being occupied is irrelevant, Models in Seventh Edition have permission to levitate up the side of Terrain in general. There is nothing within the Building Rules designed to prevent a Unit on the ground from Charging straight up the side of a Building to hit a Unit in the Battlements, should they be able to do so. It would be a difficult roll given the size of the Building and the fact it is considered charging into Difficult Terrain, and the assaulting Unit would probably be better off hitting the side of the Building and seeing if they can make it crumble through Hull Point loss, but nothing Restricts them from using standard Assault Rules to achieve it.