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Some of the recent FAQs have me thinking that these are two completely different things. If everyone recalls these FAQs:

Q: Does a weapon that hits automatically, still hit automatically
when making a Snap Shot? (p13)
A: Yes.

And

Q: How do maelstroms, novas and beams – or indeed any weapon
that doesn’t need to roll To Hit or hits automatically – interact with
Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures? (p13)
A: Only Snap Shots can hit Zooming Flyers and Swooping
Flying Monstrous Creatures. (SIC)

Somehow the community got around to believing that the first entry only worked for abilities which specifically specified were capable of snap shots which I never truly understood but whatever.

However, now we have this:

Q: Can enemy Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous
Creatures be hit by Imotekh the Stormlord’s ‘Lord of the Storm’ special
rule? (p55)
A: Yes.

And this:

Page 37 – Weirdboy Psychic Powers, Zzap
Change the second sentence to “Choose an enemy unit that is
not a Zooming Flyer or Swooping Flying Monstrous Creature,
within range and line of sight.”

The first entry is an FAQ and the second entry is an amendment. This is significant. The first assumes that flyers can be hit by the automatically-hitting Lord of the Storm ability. The second one specifically singles out Zzap as not being able to target Flyers. This amendment should not be necessary if the general rule did not allow for automatically-hitting weapons or abilities to fire Snap Shots. This is not to say that GW doesn't clarify from time to time by stating the obvious, but the language for that sort of thing is usually different. Something like:

Page 37 – Weirdboy Psychic Powers, Zzap
Change the second sentence to “Choose an enemy unit that is within range and line of sight (obviously
not a Zooming Flyer or Swooping Flying Monstrous Creature).”

This is starting to lead me to believe that "Automatically Hit" and "Does Not Roll to Hit" are two completely different things.

Thoughts?

Please note that I have no horse in the race. I have Dakkajets and Lootaz. I don't care one way or the other whether auto-hitting abilities can target flyers.

Well yes," automatically hit" is a sub group of "does not roll to hit".
Lots of things don't roll to hit, blasts, templates, psyhic powers, special rules, unique wargear and etc. but only a few of them hit automatically.

 HoverBoy wrote:
Well yes," automatically hit" is a sub group of "does not roll to hit".
Lots of things don't roll to hit, blasts, templates, psyhic powers, special rules, unique wargear and etc. but only a few of them hit automatically.

What I'm saying is that the recent FAQ makes me believe this is not true.

Its a special ule not a weapon which is the difference? TBH don't know it

I believe there is a difference between effects which 'hit automatically' and those which 'do not require a roll to hit' at all. I'd presume in the first case the roll is considered to be an automatic success, whereas the second effect happens regardless and a 'to-hit' roll of any kind is never made.

I'm also of the firm opinion that Games Workshop could have made the difference between the two a heck of a lot more clear; especially considering their interaction with fliers.

 Neorealist wrote:
I believe there is a difference between effects which 'hit automatically' and those which 'do not require a roll to hit' at all. I'd presume in the first case the roll is considered to be an automatic success, whereas the second effect happens regardless and a 'to-hit' roll of any kind is never made.

I'm also of the firm opinion that Games Workshop could have made the difference between the two a heck of a lot more clear; especially considering their interaction with fliers.

Yeah. I was dubious about the community's ruling on the "Does a weapon that hits automatically, still hit automatically
when making a Snap Shot?" FAQ and I'm even more dubious now.

At some point we need to just apply Ockham's razor and agree that the answer "Yes" to that question really does mean YES and that the excruciatingly RAW ruling on it is just plain dumb.

So Njal's Lord of Tempest now firmly hits flyers or not?

 Tyr Grimtooth wrote:
So Njal's Lord of Tempest now firmly hits flyers or not?

Definitely, 100% maybe. However, based on precedence, I would say yes.

Well...technically "do not roll to hit" would be templates...blast or teardrop.

Neither of them "roll" to hit technically. Even under the Gets Hot! rule it says that on "weapons that do not roll to hit" still roll a D6 for the Gets Hot! result (which is obviously talking about blasts).

Automatically hitting would be under normal rules its off of BS but this gun/character says i hit anyway i cannot fail.

TBH its just me being a wiseguy and playing off of GW's habbit of having flipped words mean totally different things (Gun Emplacements or Emplaced Guns for instance)

Okay read up on that ability...

Quote 2 and quote 3 from OP just do not make sense in conjunction.

So the question is, Why Can enemy Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures be hit by Imotekh the Stormlord’s ‘Lord of the Storm’ special rule, When Zooming Flyers and Swooping MC's can not be hit by 'do not roll to hit' or 'Automatically hits'? Is the key difference in this line;

How do maelstroms, novas and beams – or indeed any weapon

??


Edit; If this is the case, then the case for Maledictions being able to hit ZFlyers and FMC seems more legitimate, and includes any special ability which is not a 'weapon' or Mealstrom, nova or beam

 Nem wrote:
Okay read up on that ability...

Quote 2 and quote 3 from OP just do not make sense in conjunction.

So the question is, Why Can enemy Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures be hit by Imotekh the Stormlord’s ‘Lord of the Storm’ special rule, When Zooming Flyers and Swooping MC's can not be hit by 'do not roll to hit' or 'Automatically hits'? Is the key difference in this line;

How do maelstroms, novas and beams – or indeed any weapon

??

If it were then you would not get to add the strength of the lightning strikes to the penetration rolls.

 Happyjew wrote:

 Tyr Grimtooth wrote:
So Njal's Lord of Tempest now firmly hits flyers or not?

Definitely, 100% maybe. However, based on precedence, I would say yes.

I lol'd

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

I lol'd

Shouldn't this be spelled, "L'dOL," since we wouldn't say, "Laugh Out Louded"?

 Elric Greywolf wrote:

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

I lol'd

Shouldn't this be spelled, "L'dOL," since we wouldn't say, "Laugh Out Louded"?

Yes, but that's the Internet for you.

Has anyone else had friends or other forums bring this up? Am I just crazy?

Stormlord is just an exception, these things happen. I fully expect a RFP=RFPaaC exception in the next round of FAQ's.

Farseers and using powers while embarked is a classic exception that makes no sense.

It might be important to point out that this "conflict" may be down to the fact that the ruling for the Stormlord is very recent and the Weirdboy (and others) are from older FAQs.

They might be slowly introducing auto-hit abilities at a time?

Iranna.

Yes there is a difference between "automatically hit" and automatically passing a roll it hit. THE ROLL!

Simple test: Is a dice involved in determining if a model is hit or not?

Example: with a flamer template, models are "automatically hit" if they are under the template. No dice was involved.

Example: A model that "automatically passes its to hit roll", would still technically roll to hit, but the out come of that die roll is always a pass.


not that hard to understand.

 HoverBoy wrote:
Well yes," automatically hit" is a sub group of "does not roll to hit".
Lots of things don't roll to hit, blasts, templates, psyhic powers, special rules, unique wargear and etc. but only a few of them hit automatically.

This. As the Hard to Hit FAQ in the BRB FAQ tells us, one is a subcategory of the other.

Lord of the Storm is presently an exception, undoubtedly made because GW thought it made sense from a fluff perspective. Right now Njal's lightning has no such explicit exception, and is thus forbidden from causing hits to a Zooming Flyer or Swooping FMC by the Hard to Hit FAQ.

So, are we actually collectively agreeing that weapons and abilities that cause damage and automatically hit may automatically hit flyers as long as they aren't lines, blast, large blast, or templates?

Oh wait. No we're not.

So, what does the "Does a weapon that hits automatically, still hit automatically
when making a Snap Shot? (YES)" mean?

The shot has to have permission to make a snap shot before hitting automatically?

But... if it hits automatically, it can't snap shot....

But, if it is given permission to snap shot, it can?

But. if it was specifically given permission to snap shot, then why would we need the FAQ?

I'm super confused.

Anything that hits automatically, or otherwise doesn't roll to hit, or causes hits via any means other than snap shooting (rolling to hit at BS1), is not permitted to cause hits on Zooming Flyers or Swooping FMCs. That's per the BRB FAQ specific to hitting ZF/SFMCs.

OTHER times that a weapon/model which hits automatically snap fires (say, when firing out of a vehicle moving Cruising Speed, at a normal ground target), it still gets to hit automatically.

To me, I think there are basically 3 ways you can look at this new ruling from GW.


1) That this is a complete exception to the rule about attacks that hit automatically not being able to affect zooming flyers and swooping FMC...and why not? GW seems to have a massive hard-on for giving Necrons everything they can ever hope or want for in their FAQ.


2) That this ruling was made because the D6 roll required (a '6') is essentially the same mechanic as a snap shot and therefore it seemed okay (and fluffy, of course, let's not forget that!)...and by that metric we can assume that any other ability which triggers hits or damage on a unit on a D6 roll of a '6' should also now work on zooming flyers and swooping FMCs, such as the non-blast Daemon Warp Storm table results that hit enemy units on a roll of '6', for example.


3) That this ruling indicates that anytime an ability requires some sort of dice roll, that this means such an ability is not inflicting 'automatic' hits (as you have to roll something to trigger those hits) and therefore any ability that has any kind of roll in order to inflict hits or damage should be able to affect zooming flyers and swooping FMCs...can't think of exactly what abilities this would include, but I'm sure there are plenty out there.


However, no matter how you slice it, this ruling definitely doesn't affect things like Njal's Lord of Tempest...because all those hits ARE automatic no matter what (its only the number of hits that can change).


In the end, I HATE this ruling. It is terrible because it is a clear exception to what they had been saying, and there is no guidance to WHY such an exception was made, which leaves us all scratching our heads as to what this means for other similar abilities.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Anything that hits automatically, or otherwise doesn't roll to hit, or causes hits via any means other than snap shooting (rolling to hit at BS1), is not permitted to cause hits on Zooming Flyers or Swooping FMCs. That's per the BRB FAQ specific to hitting ZF/SFMCs.

OTHER times that a weapon/model which hits automatically snap fires (say, when firing out of a vehicle moving Cruising Speed, at a normal ground target), it still gets to hit automatically.

Okay, so the interpretation is that the first bit allows for snap shots with automatic hits, but then the second bit disallows the hitting of flyers with automatic hit?

Doesn't that seem like a bit of a contradiction? Because wouldn't the reason for the second bit to be true hinge on the concept that weapons that automatically hit can't shoot snap fire?

I think the path of least resistance is to allow shots that automatically hit to hit flyers as long as they aren't described in AOE terms (a whirlwind or some such).

Again, I feel the need to remind everyone that I have no horse in the race as I play Orks.

 Loopy wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
Anything that hits automatically, or otherwise doesn't roll to hit, or causes hits via any means other than snap shooting (rolling to hit at BS1), is not permitted to cause hits on Zooming Flyers or Swooping FMCs. That's per the BRB FAQ specific to hitting ZF/SFMCs.

OTHER times that a weapon/model which hits automatically snap fires (say, when firing out of a vehicle moving Cruising Speed, at a normal ground target), it still gets to hit automatically.

Okay, so the interpretation is that the first bit allows for snap shots with automatic hits, but then the second bit disallows the hitting of flyers with automatic hit?

Doesn't that seem like a bit of a contradiction? Because wouldn't the reason for the second bit to be true hinge on the concept that weapons that automatically hit can't shoot snap fire?

I think the path of least resistance is to allow shots that automatically hit to hit flyers as long as they aren't described in AOE terms (a whirlwind or some such).

Again, I feel the need to remind everyone that I have no horse in the race as I play Orks.

Being able to auto hit snap shot is useful in other circumstances (mainly over watch). The FAQ's, in my opinion, point towards the logic of allowing snap shots with automatic hits so they are not rendered useless for the over watch mechanic, but specifically disallowing them from hitting Flyers because they do not want flyers to be killed that easily.

So we are reading the FAQ here as a rules amendment?

Because the only thing that keeps flyers 100% safe from weapons fire per the rulebook is snap shots. At least as far as I recall.

 Loopy wrote:
So we are reading the FAQ here as a rules amendment?

Because the only thing that keeps flyers 100% safe from weapons fire per the rulebook is snap shots. At least as far as I recall.

The actual line is

Shots resolved at a Zooming Flyer can only be resolved as snap shots

The FAQ is in line with this, if it isn't resolved as a snap shot it can not hit it.

So since weapons which hit automatically can make snap shots as long as they are not a blast, template, or line, then I guess they should be able to hit flyers.

 Loopy wrote:
So, are we actually collectively agreeing that weapons and abilities that cause damage and automatically hit may automatically hit flyers as long as they aren't lines, blast, large blast, or templates?

Oh wait. No we're not.

So, what does the "Does a weapon that hits automatically, still hit automatically
when making a Snap Shot? (YES)" mean?

The shot has to have permission to make a snap shot before hitting automatically?

But... if it hits automatically, it can't snap shot....

But, if it is given permission to snap shot, it can?

But. if it was specifically given permission to snap shot, then why would we need the FAQ?

I'm super confused.

why do you think something that hits automatically can't be fired as a snap shot? I may know where your confusion lies, and it's probably that you're equating "Snap Shot" to requiring a 6 to hit, which is not technically correct. Snap shots simply put your BS at 1 regardless of other modifiers. A model with BS1 firing a weapon (or possessing a rule) that allows for automatic hits is the same as a model with BS8 doing it.

Remember, snap shots are not a set die roll requirement, it is a set value modifier to your BS. I think people get it in their head that "Well I am making a snap shot, so I need a six to hit." and they're completely glossing over the middle step of "well I am making a snap shot, my BS is 1 now, so I need a six to hit."

so if imotekhs lightning works on fliers now, does that mean the tesla weapons can arc into fliers that are within range? or how about njal's vengeful tornado's and chain lightning?

Gw really needs to sit down and figure out how to write FAQ's that clear up questions and not muddy the waters.

sirlynchmob wrote:
so if imotekhs lightning works on fliers now, does that mean the tesla weapons can arc into fliers that are within range? or how about njal's vengeful tornado's and chain lightning?

Gw really needs to sit down and figure out how to write FAQ's that clear up questions and not muddy the waters.

As I stated in another thread
The answer is 100%, positively, absolutely...maybe.