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In a tournament I played in, an opponent had a Catacomb Command Barge. At a point during the game, it was in front of a small unit of marines.

The opponent moved it toward the marines, then finished the move by moving it back a bit so it finished its' move in front of the marines, making a sort of boomerang path that ended about 3-5 inches from its' original position. To him, this was enough to get the sweeps, as the vehicle had moved 12 inches. He took his sweeping attacks for moving over the unit, despite being slightly next to his original position, and of course later had an easy charge.

I didn't really have a problem with this but I wanted to see if there was some basis in the rules that makes it legal or not. It seemed odd to me that this vehicle was ~4 inches away from it's original position but counted as having moved more. It's a slippery slope.

Soo... can you just move any vehicle in a circle and end up a molecule away from my starting position but still can trigger movement-based effects? This seems very wrong for obvious reasons, but I can't really find anything in the rulebook that says anything to the effect of "Measure your movement from where you started to where you end up" so it's a tough sell. The closest I can find is the "For distances involving a vehicle, measure to and from it's hull" but that is vague at best and still doesn't prevent it from being debatable. There is some stuff early in the rules about measuring distances and they make it pretty clear (from the fact that everything is a straight line) that you don't get to bend your tape all wacky and make it so that an enemy 6 inches away is actually 35 inches away and can't shoot his melta. It gives lots of specifics about measuring model to model or unit to unit, but... when you are moving a model, it doesn't generally talk about using it's original spot as a frame of reference with the same specific instructions it uses for checking distance between two different models.

Anybody have any insight to this?

I know with screamers of tzeentch, you have to draw a straight line from where they started their move to where they ended their move to get their sweep attacks. This would prevent the situation you described above.

I thought the CCB had to do the same, but im not sure.

Indeed,
I will have to review the Rules myself at some point but I do know that many Units with similar abilities where limited to the 'straight line from starting point to end point, select a Unit underneath that line' method.
However, I think that was Frequently Asked Question supported though and those are shaky at the moment....

 Eihnlazer wrote:
I know with screamers of tzeentch, you have to draw a straight line from where they started their move to where they ended their move to get their sweep attacks. This would prevent the situation you described above.

I thought the CCB had to do the same, but im not sure.

Do you have a rules quote for that ?

There is absolutely nothing in the rules for the sweep attack that restricts how it has to move in this way. What he did was 100% legal.

I didn't find anything either, but it seems a bit funny, no? Otherwise you could literally do what I did as an example to him -- I moved a tank 1 inch forward and 1 inch backward 6 times, and counted as moving 12 inches.

I could SWEAR there was once some statement about measuring movement. Technically the movement rules cover it, but not in any concrete way.

I don't really care about what happened at the event but I am genuinely surprised there is no hidden detail to the contrary on this.

Welcome to GW rule set, and I don't see what benefit you would get from moving 12 single inch movements but yah you could definitely do that.

 Fenris Frost wrote:
I moved a tank 1 inch forward and 1 inch backward 6 times, and counted as moving 12 inches.

That is indeed how vehicle movement works, and there is nothing wrong with that example. If you wish to Snap shoot while not having moved at all, then it's a fair choice.

As for the sweeping attack issue, unfortunately there is no guard against it. All i can suggest is to not get too close...

I really doubt it is *supposed* to be this way. After all, every example in the book that involves models and measuring shows a straight line...it's just not explicitly said anywhere.

I understand why it's not -- this is clearly a clever interpretation of the rules.

The flyer rules state that the vehicle must move 18" forward in a straight line, for example, but it states that this is BECAUSE it can only pivot once. It doesn't say they have to move forward, it says that since they can only pivot once, moving forward is their only option. I mean...I guess not literally so, re-reading it. But it still seems odd. You can have tanks do backflips in tank shocks or ram moves and get extra movement, for example.

I mean...I suppose what is there is enough to make them an exception rather than the rule. But it still seems off. The implication is that a vehicle is intended to move forward. Otherwise, from what you guys are saying, there is really no reason I need to move a flyer literally 18" -- by this interpretation, I could just wave it around in the air above the table and then put it back down in the exact same spot to keep my sweet firing arcs or whatever, and then be like, "Oh I'm still zooming I moved 24 inches bro." As long as I end up slightly forward I moved "forward." No?

No. If you moved 1" forward, you didn't move 18" forward.

It's a skimmer. It flies around in a circle to end up where it started. What's unbelievable about that?

 Fenris Frost wrote:
You can have tanks do backflips in tank shocks or ram moves and get extra movement, for example.

I mean...I suppose what is there is enough to make them an exception rather than the rule. But it still seems off. The implication is that a vehicle is intended to move forward. Otherwise, from what you guys are saying, there is really no reason I need to move a flyer literally 18" -- by this interpretation, I could just wave it around in the air above the table and then put it back down in the exact same spot to keep my sweet firing arcs or whatever, and then be like, "Oh I'm still zooming I moved 24 inches bro." As long as I end up slightly forward I moved "forward." No?

Both of the cases you point to specifically forbid you to do so:

Ram/Tank Shock: "declare how many inches the vehicle is going to move (...) Once the Tank has been ‘aimed’ and the intended distance declared, move the Tank straight forwards until it comes into contact with an enemy unit or it reaches the distance declared."

Flyers: "it must move directly forwards in a straight line" by 18". Anything else is not permitted (Or makes you crash).

If you had a Tank/Rhino/... parked right behind a lamp post, you could move right by 3", forward by 6", left by 3" and be against the lamp post, on the other side. Your vehicle will only have moved a few inches (locally), but will be at cruising speed.
There are many other cases with defined Impassable terrain that might require you to do so, and that brings us back to why vehicle will measure any Travel they perform, even if if is "Forward-back-Forward-back..." etc

If you had a Tank/Rhino/... parked right behind a lamp post, you could move right by 3", forward by 6", left by 3" and be against the lamp post, on the other side. Your vehicle will only have moved a few inches (locally), but will be at cruising speed.

This is kind of what I am talking about. That all makes sense as the vehicle would ostensibly have pivoted, moved the first three inches, pivoted again, moved again, etc. BUT that is dependent on it having to actually move forwards. Without a rule specifying that, we're still at square one.

It would have been not as weird to me had my opponent moved enough to actually clear my unit -- but instead he went and sort of skimmed across it, so it meant the vehicle was literally on top of the models when it turned. I guess this is legal but it still struck me as weird.

While it's game legal, I don't think I personally will play that way. I honestly don't feel right putting a model 3" away from its' original position, and saying it moved 12" -- I can imagine most folks just visually disagreeing, pulling out the tape and saying "what do you mean, you were right there, now you're over here, that ain't 12 inches!" and I just want to avoid that drama regardless (though I concede that there is literally nothing in the rules to this effect).

I feel like your arguing nitpicks just to argue fenris. What he did was totally legal. I get you don't like how the mechanic works, but your literally not gonna find anything that makes the move less than legal.

I realize that is what I'm doing, but it just seemed odd to me. That is why I made the thread -- to see if there was anything in the rules to this effect that I wasn't seeing.

I'm still personally not going to do it for the reasons mentioned above; it just seems very gamey to me. But as I already mentioned, I didn't really have a problem that my opponent did this -- it just didn't seem right to me initially.

Other than this one thing, most of these situations I mention go out of their way to specify moving in a straight line anyway, and I imagine the pseudo-chariot rules from 5E for the barge will disappear anyway when the next book drops. I just wanted to see if there was something I was missing.

 Fenris Frost wrote:
I really doubt it is *supposed* to be this way. After all, every example in the book that involves models and measuring shows a straight line...it's just not explicitly said anywhere.

I wouldn't be so sure.

Its like a fighter pilot making passes on a ground target while basically ending up where he started from.

The CCB is simply making a pass and zipping back to where he was.

In fact, real Chariots would do this exact same thing. They'd charge at the enemy firing their bows and just before making contact they'd wheel back around and go back to where they were before.

The Necron Lord is simply doing the same thing, but with his choppy stick instead of a gun.