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 Manchu wrote:

Mike1975 wrote:
They have plans for tournament play, just not finalized rules for them yet. Having a solid FAQ on what is wrong is a first step in that process.

Well, so far we have at least one thing that is wrong and actually NEEDS an FAQ, the part about friendly models in the same squad not blocking LOS.


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Mike1975 wrote:
So.....center of attacker to any part of target? Gives you a cone and eliminates many of the flower or lamppost problems...

Yeah good point, "center to any" does make sense from a purely FAQ perspective.

I'm sticking to small changes, I think I'll get further that way.

 Manchu wrote:
Well, it does not seem too far off from Infinity given the above, at least in terms of cover. The again, as JudgeDoug mentioned:

 judgedoug wrote:
That Infinity example is the exact problem I have with any "portion of a model" - whether it's "about a quarter" or "25%" or whatever - and immediately makes me never want to play Infinity, considering how dynamic their models are. It's the laziest of game design.

Again that is why with Infinity 3rd Edition they have a template that uses a Silhouette Template, which also shows what is considered 'center'. It eliminates the issue with dynamic poses, miniature modifications, and doesn't leave 'center' up to subjective reasoning.

I realize that the LOS debate is still raging strong, but has anyone looked at the measurement rule?

Page 10, Measuring Distances:

"Although Robotech (r) RPG Tactics (TM) is a three-dimensional game of mecha combat, all the measurement done in the game is performed only on horizontal distances, ignoring elevation, because most of the mecha in Robotech (r) are ground based units (Destroids, Battlepods, etc.) and even the aerial mecha (Valkyries, Gnerls, etc.) tend to fly nap of the earth to take advantage of cover and stay out of the line of fire. Note that this applies to all measurement in the game, even though you will often be drawing Line of Sight on the diagonal."

Um. If I have the right of this, If say, a battlepod is on a rooftop three stories up and a valkyrie is at ground level, and the valk is shooting at the pod I don't measure diagonally from the base of the valk to the base of the battlepod, but rather from the base of the valk to the edge of the building, then from the edge of the rooftop of the building to the base of the battlepod, and that is my total distance.

Please someone tell me that I am just reading this wrong, please :/

Negative. It flat out says you ignore elevation. So you measure from the Valk to the base of the building, and then add a little more if the Battlepod is a bit back, assuming the pod isn't far enough back to be out of LoS.

Good luck checking LoS 2 feet into a table without disturbing anything else and getting a good 'from it's eyes view'.

 Swabby wrote:

Um. If I have the right of this, If say, a battlepod is on a rooftop three stories up and a valkyrie is at ground level, and the valk is shooting at the pod I don't measure diagonally from the base of the valk to the base of the battlepod, but rather from the base of the valk to the edge of the building, then from the edge of the rooftop of the building to the base of the battlepod, and that is my total distance.

Please someone tell me that I am just reading this wrong, please :/

I feel like this is pretty common. Isn't WMH always measured on a single plane regardless of elevation? (I've only played a few games so could be mistaken)

Ir's pretty common, that way you can measure from over minis and don't have to worry about winding through trees or other terrain.

Warmachine is base to base.

Mike, I have never seen a game suggest you measure over the mini. Most are actually pretty strict about measuring from the base.


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Also, guys, I think you are missing the ignoring the elevation part. So if a mini is 12" up in the air, but you are only 4 inches horizontally away from it, you ignore the 12" straight up. At least that is how I am reading this.

 Swabby wrote:
Warmachine is base to base.

Mike, I have never seen a game suggest you measure over the mini. Most are actually pretty strict about measuring from the base.


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Also, guys, I think you are missing the ignoring the elevation part. So if a mini is 12" up in the air, but you are only 4 inches horizontally away from it, you ignore the 12" straight up. At least that is how I am reading this.

Tactics you measure base to base also but on the horizontal plane only. So you can have a Veritech flying 6 inches up but the range is measured over the table. If you have a bunch of terrain, trying to measure up and down and through trees and buildings is a PITA when you can hold the tape measure above the terrain and look straight down to the base and see what the range is.


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I thought WTH why are they not doing this mini to mini so that a Veritech inthe sky is slightly further away BUT in the end I figured that's not a big deal since it also makes things much easier to measure distance when you have tight terrain like a bunch of trees that you could knock over trying to measure through. We always did the same in 40k. Like when you have a mini hiding on the other side of a second story window. You had to measure to the front of the building but if he was inside a ways you had to measure from over the building.

It is a big deal. And nowhere does it say you measure over the mini. Measuring above minis would lead to all kinds of fudging distance. TFG would have a field day with it.

How did no one playtesting catch the ignoring elevation distance issue?

I believe Malifaux ignores elevation as well. You measure on the horizontal, and it recognizes that sufficiently tall terrain might interfere, but it also uses the cylinder method.

Now, this is from my recollection of the game from its 1.5 edition a good year back, but that's basically how it worked at the time. You established a 'height' for terrain, tall enough figures (which also had a set height on their cards, ignoring the figure itself) could see/reach/shoot over it, and be shot over it by others, though with cover, which was pretty damned good in that game.

 Swabby wrote:
Warmachine is base to base.

Mike, I have never seen a game suggest you measure over the mini. Most are actually pretty strict about measuring from the base.


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Also, guys, I think you are missing the ignoring the elevation part. So if a mini is 12" up in the air, but you are only 4 inches horizontally away from it, you ignore the 12" straight up. At least that is how I am reading this.

So if a mini is 12" up in the air, but otherwise in base to base I can punch him? Right?

I am new to wargaming in general, and have never physically played a game, but this LOS argument is fascinating. I personally think their center of mecha to center of mecha is dumb as most here seem to feel too.

From a newb's perspective though, why isn't LOS just figured out from the optics of the mecha? So like, the head of a battaloid to any part of a pod? If it's more than 50% covered, there's a penalty. If you remember from the cartoon, missiles can fly around buildings, so if you can "lock on" even if in 50% cover or less (i'd say less than 50% would be a "sorry, can't lock on") then missiles can most likely hit (with a good roll of course). If you're using lasers or gun pods, etc. Then it would diminish your gunnery skill more. In my mind, it makes more sense to go with the "Can my Destroid SEE the enemy? If 100%, then yay! If lees, but not less than 50%, then roll for lock on and take a penalty".

just my 2 cents.. I know it's most likely laughable. But reading the pages on this, I felt compelled to speak up.

 Theophony wrote:
So if a mini is 12" up in the air, but otherwise in base to base I can punch him? Right?

I think flying units are impervious to melee attacks or something. I vaguely recall it being an attribute of flying.

@fruitlewps

Your opinion is not at all laughable. That's a very intuitive approach and falls into the "true line of sight" family. I would argue against your idea that 50% obstruction blocks LOS, especially considering the very sophisticated targeting computers you mentioned. It seems to me that ideally, LOS should be established by seeing any part of a target (or the volume in which a target could be in a certain period of time) and obstruction should be a matter of cover. It makes sense to me that I can try to shoot at anything that I can see, even if it is a tough shot. This is sorta kinda how the published rule works and certainly how the current version of the FAQ suggestion works.

 Forar wrote:

I think flying units are impervious to melee attacks or something. I vaguely recall it being an attribute of flying.

Flying (special rule) mentions nothing about immunity to melee attacks. You have to be base to base to melee someone though. But if you ignore elevation are you base to base if they are on the edge of a building rooftop and you are touching the building.





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Also Mike the rules state that you measure distance between mecha from the two closest points between their bases, not hovering over them.

 Swabby wrote:

 Forar wrote:

I think flying units are impervious to melee attacks or something. I vaguely recall it being an attribute of flying.

Flying (special rule) mentions nothing about immunity to melee attacks. You have to be base to base to melee someone though. But if you ignore elevation are you base to base if they are on the edge of a building rooftop and you are touching the building.
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Also Mike the rules state that you measure distance between mecha from the two closest points between their bases, not hovering over them.

This is the more common problem to sort out:
If the model is on top of a building and another at the base: how can you engage in melee?
Assume he jump-jets up and applies a flying hammer-blow?
(Forge the Narrative! whoops! wrong system).

On the various 25% rules for targeting, unless a template or some grid on the stand is developed this will be a system with inherent variation.
If I look on an angle and squint just so, I can get what I want. Trying to safeguard against WAAC players is a fools game but I agree on not making it easy for them.

For the base to base measurement we may have to create a telescoping pointer fixture to measure true base to base at height...
"Parallax error" will be fun with the horizontal distance base to base (bad enough figuring out deviation dice results in 40k).

Are your bases touching? If no, then you aren't base to base.

But you ignore elevation.

vitae_drinker wrote:
Are your bases touching? If no, then you aren't base to base.

Gah!
Now we are into the "fighting across a wall" debate that was beaten to death in 40k discussions.
I suppose since this is largely a "shooting" game, it may not matter much but then there would be many instances where it would have been nice to get a melee attack in but cannot.
There is a car/picket fence/tree/garbage can/mailbox/outhouse on the ground between you and your target, I then have to go around.

That's why most games now include something along the lines of "ignore linear terrain" (walls, etc) which would not essentially interfere in a fight. Now, if you're on opposite ends of a car, I'm not sure how you can hit somebody with a combat knife, so i think the restriction for not being in hand to hand is reasonable. Picket fence? No restriction. Mailbox? No restriction. Outhouse? Eh, how big of an outhouse?

The rule says "base to base", right? Are your bases touching? Then that rule is not satisfied. No hand to hand.

The rules also state that you only measure on the horizontal and ignore elevation. In the building example if you remove the height from the building the models are base to base.

Are the bases actually touching? No? Then the rule isn't satisfied. Now this argument is getting to the point of ridiculous, GW, rules-lawyering, and based on as much logic. You can uae that argument to state that if my mech was 0.5" to infinity closer they would be base to base, and therefore I can do melee.

You ignore height for measuring distance, that's it.

Imagine if you were fighting on a two dimensional depiction of a city from birds eye view. Because the measurement rules (of which checking base to base contact would fall under) state you ignore elevation, you are essentially doing just that.

It may sound absurb, but the only absurdity here is the way the rule is written. It is made even worse and more bizzare by having LOS acknowlege the diagonal as a thing while measuring distance does not.

vitae_drinker wrote:
Are the bases actually touching? No? Then the rule isn't satisfied.

So, one mecha has its base slightly elevated because it's on top of a car that doesn't even make it up to the thing's ankle.

It is now immune to melee?

 Swabby wrote:
Imagine if you were fighting on a two dimensional depiction of a city from birds eye view. Because the measurement rules (of which checking base to base contact would fall under) state you ignore elevation, you are essentially doing just that.

It may sound absurb, but the only absurdity here is the way the rule is written. It is made even worse and more bizarre by having LOS acknowlege the diagonal as a thing while measuring distance does not.

You are over thinking it at this point and looking for other issues. The way it is written is actually fine. You only measure distances when dealing with range. If two models are base to base touching, there is no need to measure anything because there isn't a range. You are already in hand to hand combat range. Your range at base to base is 0 if you were using ranged weapons to continue fighting as well. There is absolutely no reason to measure. And no removing elevation doesn't make them base to base contact because they are physically not touching at all.

Removing elevation also doesn't simply mean remove elevation. You measure horizontally when measuring distances. You take the ruler horizontally above Model A and have it it go in a straight line to Model B (on building) from above both models horizontally. In other words you don't measure from the top of the building to the base diagonally, even though LOS is drawn that way (it states this in the rules). Measuring horizontally does not magically make bases of two models touch.

Merijeek wrote:
So, one mecha has its base slightly elevated because it's on top of a car that doesn't even make it up to the thing's ankle.
It is now immune to melee?

I haven't had a chance to really look at terrain and see if there are situations this would arise. If you could move on top of a car or terrain that was slightly elevated, then yes you couldn't use hand to hand because base to base contact isn't happening. Most games are this way, it is the pre-qualifier to hand to hand or melee combat, unless you have a ranged melee. If the intent was to get to use hand to hand, then you wouldn't move to the top of the car. If the intent was to get into melee combat with the model on the car, then you would move on top of the car to initiate base to base contact. I don't see an issue with the base to base contact at all currently.

If the rule states you ignore elevation for measurements the elevation is removed from the equation.

Checking base to base contact is a measurement.

This is not overthinking it, this is the logic presented in the rules as written. The rule is bad.

 Swabby wrote:
Because the measurement rules (of which checking base to base contact would fall under)

Checking base to base contact does not fall under measurement rules. They are two separate rules sections. Measuring Distances and Hand to Hand combat are not combined sections, they are two different sections.

There is no measurement done for base to base. Why would you ever need to measure if a model is touching a base of another base. It is either touching or not touching. If it is not touching then you measure. It is that simple.

Checking distance between bases is a measurement. It does not explicitly state otherwise and only mentions base to base contact is required to intiate hand to hand.

The measurement rules still apply unless a special rule overides it.


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To elaborate, checking for a lack of distance is still a type of measurement.

 Dark Severance wrote:
Measuring horizontally does not magically make bases of two models touch.

Merijeek wrote:
So, one mecha has its base slightly elevated because it's on top of a car that doesn't even make it up to the thing's ankle.
It is now immune to melee?

I haven't had a chance to really look at terrain and see if there are situations this would arise. If you could move on top of a car or terrain that was slightly elevated, then yes you couldn't use hand to hand because base to base contact isn't happening. Most games are this way, it is the pre-qualifier to hand to hand or melee combat, unless you have a ranged melee. If the intent was to get to use hand to hand, then you wouldn't move to the top of the car. If the intent was to get into melee combat with the model on the car, then you would move on top of the car to initiate base to base contact. I don't see an issue with the base to base contact at all currently.

That's exactly the point. If I can take a model and put it in a piece of terrain (a wide enough fence, a car, whatever), if there isn't enough room on that piece of terrain for you to fit you model's base, even if it's just a slightly-higher-than-the-thickness-of-your-model's-base high, my model is now literally immune to melee.

 Swabby wrote:
The measurement rules still apply unless a special rule overides it.

The special rule you are looking for is called "Hand to Hand Combat" but you keep combining it with "Measuring Distances". The section on measuring distances is only defining what measuring distances, dice, re-rolls, etc are for when other sections of the rules call upon. When I have judged in tournaments, it is considered a concept or definition and that is why it is in the "General Concepts & Definitions" section. They aren't actually rules, they are what rules call upon when they state they need to do something done like measuring a distance.

In almost every game I have played, even those that do allow pre-measuring, you state what you will be doing combat wise. If you are firing a ranged weapon, then you would measure to check range. If you are using melee then you would check for the qualifier, in this case models must have base to base contact. If you are doing both you would measure distance for your ranged weapons and you would check the qualifier for melee, again in this case is base to base contact.

If you notice in the "Hand to Hand Combat" section, which is the actual rules for for Hand to Hand Combat... at no point does it say we need to measure a distance. There is no talk about distance. The only qualifier for Hand to Hand is that a model must be in base to base contact. There are no range checks, no measuring in melee, you are at 0 range when you are base to base.

In the "Ranged Combat" section, which is the actual rules for Ranged Combat, it calls to use measuring because you have to determine if someone is in range of your weapon.

The measuring is actually explained fine. You are hung up on the 'ignoring elevation' part and not paying attention to the rest of it. The reason it is done in a horizontal position is so you can simply measure with a ruler and don't require string or risk knocking over terrain or figures. It simplifies measurement like most games that do the same method. Otherwise I'm going to need string to go to the base of the building, then up the building then measure that distance. If you measure diagonally then you are going to have a lot of people bumping terrain, knocking it over in a terrain heavy game. That is how you measure horizontally. You keep getting hung up on the 'ignoring elevation'.

How exactly do you then measure from point A to point B horizontally?


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Merijeek wrote:
That's exactly the point. If I can take a model and put it in a piece of terrain (a wide enough fence, a car, whatever), if there isn't enough room on that piece of terrain for you to fit you model's base, even if it's just a slightly-higher-than-the-thickness-of-your-model's-base high, my model is now literally immune to melee.

At this time there is no rules for terrain like a fence or a car. I also have not seen any terrain for a fence or car that could hold a model for this game. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened yet, but chances are this would only come up in a store game and not a tournament. Tournament terrain tends to be fairly straight forward. At the very least if it did then would have a MDC of 1 and can be destroyed and turned to rubble eliminating it. It probably wouldn't even support the model thereby turning it to rubble.