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Here's the scenario:

One of my opponent's wrecked rhinos is 2" away from an objective; there is a sister superior standing right next to the rhino. The rhino is a regular model, he didn't replace it with a damaged model or anything like that.

Here's what he does: rolls for difficult terrain (4) and dangerous terrain (passes); he then proceeds to place the sister "inside" the rhino claiming that he can move "through" the wreck and completely hides her from sight; but still within 3" of the objective... So I can't shoot her or assault her since she's completely out of sight. To be clear: he didn't physically put the model inside the rhino, just placed her on top and claimed she was hiding inside.

Here are the relevant rules I found afterwards:

BRB p.74. Wrecked Vehicles
"Wrecked vehicles are left on the table and effectively become a piece of terrain (conferring a 5+ cover save), counting as both difficult and dangerous terrain. Players must clearly mark that a vehicle has been Wrecked in a way they consider suitable."

No mention of it becoming a ruin or anything of that sort, just difficult and dangerous terrain.

BRB p.90. Moving Within Difficult Terrain
"Note that, as part of their move through difficult terrain, models can move through walls, closed doors and windows and all similarly solid obstacles, unless the players have agreed that a certain wall or obstacle is impassable."

That seems to me to apply to ruins, or other wrecked buildings. How about a steep hill or small cliff designated as difficult and dangerous terrain? Can I just place an objective on it and hide a squad in it? Seems like a plain rule abuse to me.

What do you guys think?

Within the strict letter of the rules, yes, moving right through the wreck (or a hill) is perfectly legal. You'll get some disagreement though over whether or not you can finish the model's move inside such an obstacle, given that you can't physically put the model there. Some players would argue that WMS allows it, some think that WMS requires you to be able to physically place the model in position before it kicks in.


In general practice, it's assumed that you have to move over the wreck, though, not through it. There is not really any rules support for this idea, it's just what most people adopt as the common-sense approach, probably a lot of them without actually considering that there could be any other way to do it.

I would consider your friend's actions RAW legal (for the reasons Insaniak stated) but certainly a little bit gamey (especially since he claimed you couldn't assault/shoot the model).

In response to such a tactic, I would claim that you RAW you are perfectly within your right to assault (making the appropriate difficult/dangerous tests) and I would even argue that given his use of WMS to put the model on the top of the Rhino, it would be an appropriate compromise to allow you to claim LOS to it (albeit with a decent cover save).

DoW

 DogOfWar wrote:
In response to such a tactic, I would claim that you RAW you are perfectly within your right to assault (making the appropriate difficult/dangerous tests) and I would even argue that given his use of WMS to put the model on the top of the Rhino, it would be an appropriate compromise to allow you to claim LOS to it (albeit with a decent cover save).

RAW, you would be unable to assault, as you can't see the model inside the rhino. WMS doesn't cause you to trace LOS to the model's alternate position... you assume that the model is actually where it is supposed to be.

If it's physically impossible to place a standing model somewhere, you can't put it there. For him to do that he'd have to be able to place the model inside the Rhino.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
If it's physically impossible to place a standing model somewhere, you can't put it there. For him to do that he'd have to be able to place the model inside the Rhino.

That's one interpretartion, yes, as I mentioned.

From my experience, it's not the common one. While people may balk at standing inside a rhino wreck, most have no problem with, for example, a model 'standing' halfway through a ruin wall.

Is there a RAW way to counteract this tactic? Especially if the piece of terrain in question is 1.5"x1.5", making it possible for a single model to sit inside it without an enemy model being able to get close enough in the Move Phase to shoot/assault.

Tank-shocking them out into the open would probably be the easiest option.

RAW doesn't support hypothetical posiitons.

If buddy rolled high enough to get to the other side of the wreck and thus out of los, that's one thing, nothing supports hypothetical posiitions. WMS the onus is on the player to show that the model can be placed there, albeit tenuously IE the slightest bump or nudge to the table will make it fall. The whole intent of the wms rule being to avoid damaging models, although some players will try and pull all sorts of horsegak.

My advice to you for future games, discuss in detail and agree on how all terrain will function before dice start rolling, that and put a heavy emphasis on making certain elements impassable. Also, never play this person again, they sound like a dangerously insane human being .


(this image is satire, it pokes fun at how some insane individuals interpret wms)

Exactly! This is a perfect application of the WMS rule. : )

Well, since your opponent was using the wrecked Rhino like a building, shouldn't you be able to shoot/assault it like one?

 Crablezworth wrote:
WMS the onus is on the player to show that the model can be placed there

This part is not true.

By default models can move through a ruined wall. there is nothing stating they can not end their move in a place they are legally allowed to go.

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:
WMS the onus is on the player to show that the model can be placed there

This part is not true.

By default models can move through a ruined wall. there is nothing stating they can not end their move in a place they are legally allowed to go.

There is nothing stating they can.

There's also nothing in the rules stating I can't smash my opponents models with a hammer either, sadly the rules need to give you permission to do something. The rules in this case if you're playing with melthing through stuff lets models move through stuff, it says nothing about allowing them to exist in the forth dimension wielding incomprehensible magics.

 DeathReaper wrote:
By default models can move through a ruined wall. there is nothing stating they can not end their move in a place they are legally allowed to go.

No, you have this completely backwards. You need permission to count a model as being somewhere else, otherwise you measure range and use TLOS based on its actual position on the table. And that permission is only granted in one specific situation: if you can place a model in a given location but both players agree to move it aside because there's a risk of the model falling off. You are never given permission to point at an arbitrary spot halfway through a wall and say "my model is over there".

Actually the agreement is on the actual position of the model, not that you can invoke WMS

THat is a common mis-parsing of the sentence

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Actually the agreement is on the actual position of the model, not that you can invoke WMS

THat is a common mis-parsing of the sentence

No. The statement:

... as long as both players have agreed and know its 'actual' location.

There is only one way to interpret that: both players must agree to invoke the rule, and both players must know its 'actual' location. For the sentence to mean "both players must agree about the location" it would have to say "both players have agreed ON and know its 'actual' location."

Well said peregrine, you hit it right on the nose.

Not true - potentially in US English, but in British English that is a form of redundancy that is commonly used.

Put it this way - my parsing, in the language the book is written in, involves NOT adding additional words. Yours does.

I guess the models height does not exceed the height of the vehicle? If the models taller its always going to have its head sticking out no matter how many walls your moving through.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Put it this way - my parsing, in the language the book is written in, involves NOT adding additional words. Yours does.

No, mine doesn't. The "added" word is what you would have to add to make the sentence correct with your interpretation. You can not say "if you and your opponent agree the location", you have to include the 'on'/'about'/etc to say that. Therefore since the word is not present you have to do it the way I stated: you and your opponent must agree, and you must know the model's location.

No, your approach requires adding "...to use this rule".

Cute that you ignored that this textual redundancy is common here, almost like it didnt matter to the point.

Let's skip the delusional perceptions of sentance structure and jump right to the part where wobbly model syndrome says a model can be placed in a hypothetical position in defiance of physics.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
No, your approach requires adding "...to use this rule".

No, it just requires knowing how to read a sentence. The "agree" refers to "to leave the model in a safer position". Let's go through it step by step:

In cases like this,

Reference to the situation of having a model in a dangerous spot, not directly relevant to this question.

we find it is perfectly acceptable to leave the model in a safer position,

This explains what we are trying to do.

as long as

This establishes that there are conditions to meet before we can do what we are trying to do.

both players have agreed

This is condition #1. Both players must agree to do the thing we are trying to do.

and

This states that there is a second condition about to be stated.

know its 'actual' location.

This is condition #2. Both players must know where the model is supposed to be.


Conclusion: both players must agree to use the rule (including agreement on how to use it, such as where the model is pretending to be).

OMG. Things like that made me quit 40k. I just had enough of using rules for cheap tricks. WMS is there only to allow you spread your wings in modelling part of the hobby, without handicaping you on the battlefield. Using the rule to brake the game and win it is just lame and childish. Seriously someone needs to win that bad in a game of toy soldiers?

 Crablezworth wrote:
Let's skip the delusional perceptions of sentance structure and jump right to the part where wobbly model syndrome says a model can be placed in a hypothetical position in definace of physics.

Right. Because defying physics is fine, but only if you're moving...

Seriously, the rules allow a model to walk through solid objects. Why is it such a stretch of imagination then to accept the model being able to stop and stand in the middle of that solid object?



Just to be clear here, I'm still not endorsing the 'standing in the middle of a wrecked rhino' thing. I very much doubt that this was intended by the studio. However, most players (again, at least from my experience) have no problem with the idea, within the confines of a rule system that allows models to treat obstacles in difficult terrain features as intangible barriers that can be moved through, that this would mean that a model could move through part way and utilise WMS to stop there.

Whether or not you agree that this is RAW, it is common usage.


So what it really comes down to is just how far you're willing to stretch that usage. For the original example here, I think that it would be perfectly reasonable to treat the wreck as having enough damage done to it that a model inside would still be visible, to avoid this sort of shenanigans.

I don't see anything in the rules that permits you to have models in places you physically can't fit. That makes as much sense as allowing models to be "inside" a tree trunk.

There's a word for what the OP describes, and that word is "cheating". Give your opponent a slap and tell him to sort his gak out.

xruslanx wrote:
I don't see anything in the rules that permits you to have models in places you physically can't fit. That makes as much sense as allowing models to be "inside" a tree trunk.

Which, again, makes as much sense as allowing models to walk through that tree trunk, which is explicitly and unarguably allowed by the rules.

 insaniak wrote:

xruslanx wrote:
I don't see anything in the rules that permits you to have models in places you physically can't fit. That makes as much sense as allowing models to be "inside" a tree trunk.

Which, again, makes as much sense as allowing models to walk through that tree trunk, which is explicitly and unarguably allowed by the rules.

Well, except from a rules perspective ending within then allows you to claim models are invincible because no one can see to target them, this is not an issue when you are only moving -through-.
Being able to end within, is pretty game breaking. Previosly I would have had no problems with models being partially through a wall, but with this highlighted I might need to rethink.

I really do hate this kind of argument.

The Rhino is now terrain.
It is not a multi-leveled ruin you can climb up or down.
If you stop part way through the model you would end on top of it.
It is like a hill, I do not state I want to stay a level down and burrow into the hill and how would the model meet criteria as "walls"?

Peregrine has stated it 100% correct: that permission to substitute actual location of a model needs to be agreed by both players and is a courtesy to avoid model damage which we all could appreciate.

All this does is promote making iron-clad rules like "if it does not physically fit in there, it does not go there" which is my first thought on the matter.
It is funny that adding notes as a "courtesy" by GW, it is rewarded with further ambiguity.
I really am surprised this is being argued (I suppose I really shouldn't be).

Peregrine - again, you arent actualy listening

(agree and know) is a perfectly common redundancy in British English. You cannot claim otherwise, yet you are trying to here.

To parse it the way you want requires adding additional verbiage that doesnt exist, vs a convention in colloquial english that requires no additional text.

Knowing what I actually know about British English, I'm going with the simplest explanation. Feel free to make an alternative standard if you wish