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Hey there!

Recently I helped run Conquest Toronto, a Toronto based Warhammer Fantasy/40k series of tournaments.

During one of the games, two opponents approached me for a ruling. Here's the situation:

The Bret player said he was going to cast Dweller's Below. He pointed at the Marauder unit he wanted to cast it at. The Marauder unit was about 20" away from the Bret Damsel. The Bret player grabs his dice and rolls to cast. His opponent then tells him, you didn't declare the casting value of Dwellers, so it's automatically the lower value, which has a range of 12". The Bret player is a little upset since it's obvious that he needed to cast the bigger version.

After mulling over, I side with the Bret player. While the Chaos player is correct by RAW, I also felt that what the Bret player was doing was obvious. It's not like Purple Sun or one of the lore of Beasts spells that bubbles around - there should be no confusion about that the Bret player needs to roll or what he is doing.

After sleeping on in a few days, I don't know how comfortable I am with that decision.

How do the folk at Dakka feel?

It seems in this instance to be the right ruling, given the distance between the units it's pretty obvious which level of spell they were going for.

The only issue would be where to draw the line on other rulings in terms of RaW/RaI.

Seems fine to me.

It's pretty obvious that if you are targeting a unit that is 20 inches away you would cast the 24 inch spell not the 12 inch spell.

I think the Chaos player was correct, however you made a reasonable call.

Because he was going to have to cast the big version to have range it can be said to be obvious he is going for the big version.


Otherwise, if he had been in range of both it would have been the smaller version as he didn't declare it.


It depends how competitive the tournament was. If its really hardcore, I would side with the chaos player. Otherwise, I'd give the Brett player the benifit of the doubt. But make sure that he declares what he is casting in the future.



TL/DR You were technically wrong, but don't feel bad about it.

I have come to 2 conclusions based on your tale.

1. The Bret player should specify before rolling.

2. The Chaos player is a douche bag.

Are players allowed to cast spells out of range?

I agree that the Chaos player was bitching about it, which he probably did after he failed to dispel.

This guy probably has to play in tournaments cause he won't get a friendly game with an attitude like that. We need to run these people out of the game, black list them and not allow them to play in the tournament next year. There is a difference between someone being inexperienced and not knowing the rules and ass hats like this.

I wouldn't say to run them out. But people like this, or 90% of players under 18 years of age need to be told how to behave in our particular social setting. If they don't change their behavior, then start black listing.

I think you made the right call, but at the same time I'm not a git.

The main question I'd ask was, did the Bret player pre-measure? If he didn't know the distance, then I'd say it would have defaulted to the lower casting value. If he knew that the spell required the 24" range definitively, then there is no question what the casting value he was trying to get was.

Bang on with you bud, it was an oversite on the Bret players part though this was probably heat of the moment stuff. It's obvious what he was trying to achieve so no worries there.

If the units had been 12.5" apart, and he tried rolling for the 12" cast value, then yes absolutely the Chaos player would be right to raise his concerns, though in this instance Captain Chaos is douching it up

You were in the right, and the Chaos player was being a douche. Even by the standards of the most competitive, hardcore tournament the Chaos player was being a douche.

Obviously the spell is going to be cast at whatever level is needed to make the range. It's a basic part of human communication to leave out stuff that is clear from the surrounding context. If someone measured the range, then said 'it's 20", I'm casting Dweller's and doing it at the maximum value" I assume they thought I was an idiot, and probably start to dislike them for it.

That's how it works, when people explain every piece of detail that should be obvious to the other person, it sounds like they think the other person is an idiot. So we leave that stuff out. Building a tournament expectation that people need to spell out every single piece of detail because RAI is a horrible idea.

Given that this game has premeasuring, you should know exactly what you need. And thus be able to declare the proper level before rolling.

If it were me, I would have said "Too Bad" to the Brett player. As a TO you should stick to the RAW as much as possable(its the best way to remain unbiased)

That said, in a more casual environment its ok to be a little more lenient.

Thanks for the input, everyone!

You were right per reasons stated above. The very first criteria is choose a target of a spell. The lower version of the spell is not valid because it is out of range. If the Chaos player really wanted to be a douche and RAW, the dice roll was meaningless as that comes after the first step. The first step's criteria were never met. So he was rolling dice for the hell of it at the very worst. He simply would have rerolled. No dice would be lost because you can't cast Dwellers at a unit out of range. You simply can't elect to do that. And maybe there would be a reason to (worried about enemy stealing dice?). But it can't be done, so it wasn't done. Just like you can't elect to cast a spell not in your forward arc. Or try and throw 12 dice at a spell or a D3.

I think you made the right call.

Hargus56 wrote:
I have come to 2 conclusions based on your tale.

1. The Bret player should specify before rolling.

2. The Chaos player is a douche bag.

I agree with this, with some nuances.

I think your call is justifiable. I also think there may be a third option here. The Chaos player is assuming, on no evidence, that a spell may be cast if the target is not a legal target. While some of the older lores (and the Chaos book is one of these) word things in a way that would suggest this to be the case, I don't see much justification for it in the BRB. A middle ground ruling might have been that if the target the player aimed at wasn't a legal target for the spell, then by rule he shouldn't have been allowed to cast it, and the players should just pick up the dice and carry on from before the casting. Which would allow the bret player to say "I am casting the upgraded dwellers" and roll to cast again. I think it satisfies RAW (though my rulebook isn't handy) but doesn't completely bone the Bret player for a very justifiable error in a tournament setting, where we expect our opponents to have a certain level of knowledge (e.g. "you can't cast spells on targets out of their legal range") and also a certain level of decency.

I also think, however, that in a case less clear-cut than this (as in, whoops I wanted to cast the bubbled version of this spell rather than the single-target one, particularly when this is said AFTER the casting roll has been made), it only makes sense to be much more hardcore about it.

Here's a rather convoluted example.

What if a Lizardman Slann has cupped hands? His current spells, for whatever reason, can't be cast on any targets in range. Such as he only has magic missiles after he lost some spell levels and everyone is in combat that is nearby. But an enemy caster is near him and he wants to try and give him a miscast using cupped hands. So he says he's casting a magic missile, that is clearly out of range at any power value, at a unit across the table. And he throws all his dice at it.

Can he do that? Everything I see in the BRB says no, because he has selected a spell and target that cannot be used on each other.