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current rules just say, that you put the template over a model. then you look through it and see what is hit. some people think it means everything under the template (even seeing through floors), others, like me, think that it hits what you see, so you cannot hit models through floors.

Whats the ruling? Can you see through floors?

Don't have my book on me at the moment, but they got rid of levels in terms of shooting. Blasts and templates now hit everything under them, i.e. if you shoot a blast on the top level, it hits everything underneath, no matter what level it is on.

 Sir Arun wrote:
current rules just say, that you put the template over a model. then you look through it and see what is hit. some people think it means everything under the template (even seeing through floors), others, like me, think that it hits what you see, so you cannot hit models through floors.

Whats the ruling? Can you see through floors?

The rules do not say you hit what you see. They state you hit what is under the template, one way of determining this us by looking from above. It is not, therefore, the only one.

 Sir Arun wrote:
current rules just say, that you put the template over a model. then you look through it and see what is hit. some people think it means everything under the template (even seeing through floors), others, like me, think that it hits what you see, so you cannot hit models through floors.

Whats the ruling? Can you see through floors?

What happens if you use an opaque template?

 Cheexsta wrote:

 Sir Arun wrote:
current rules just say, that you put the template over a model. then you look through it and see what is hit. some people think it means everything under the template (even seeing through floors), others, like me, think that it hits what you see, so you cannot hit models through floors.

Whats the ruling? Can you see through floors?

What happens if you use an opaque template?

The rules don't require you to be able to see through the blast marker, just to be able to determine what models are below the blast marker by looking at it from above. The truth is mufti-level terrain is not given a consideration by these rules and there is no interpretation of the RAW that prevents model B, positioned directly underneath model A, from being hit by a blast if model A is in fact hit by that blast.

The notion that I must be able to physically see the model through the blast marker is false. There a plenty of legitimate scenarios where you would be unable to physically see the models of a blast attack when viewed from above, under the wing of a FMC or under a piece of terrain. Yes you can place the marker above the target model but below the offending obstacle, but you would still be unable to see the target model through the blast marker because of the offending obstacle.

Was this an intentional change from previous editions or simply an oversight? We have no way of knowing and its best to assume when there is a change it was intentional. If it where possible to forget previous editions all together and read the rulebook "fresh" you might not even question this. The book is not written for players of previous editions, its written for 1st time players.

 DJGietzen wrote:


The notion that I must be able to physically see the model through the blast marker is false. There a plenty of legitimate scenarios where you would be unable to physically see the models of a blast attack when viewed from above, under the wing of a FMC or under a piece of terrain. Yes you can place the marker above the target model but below the offending obstacle, but you would still be unable to see the target model through the blast marker because of the offending obstacle.

Sorry. That is just completely wrong. Where is the restriction saying the blast marker must be placed above everything on the board? Hint: It doesn't exist. You can put a blast marker under a wing of a flyrant or under the floor of a multi-level ruin. This means that you can hit the second level of a 3 story ruin, but it's only going to hit that level. The only change from previous editions is that if you scatter off the second level the shot isn't lost.

 Mulletdude wrote:
Where is the restriction saying the blast marker must be placed above everything on the board?

What would be the point of not putting above everything?

This means that you can hit the second level of a 3 story ruin, but it's only going to hit that level..

Why?

 insaniak wrote:

 Mulletdude wrote:
Where is the restriction saying the blast marker must be placed above everything on the board?

What would be the point of not putting above everything?

This means that you can hit the second level of a 3 story ruin, but it's only going to hit that level..

Why?

That is because from right above the blast marker you can only see models on the second floor. Models under the second floor cannot be seen by the blast marker.

Except, as has been pointed out, you don't actually need to see them. That's just generally the easiest way to determine that they're under the marker.

Blast weapons don't care if models under the marker are out of line of sight of the firing model, both for determining hits and allocating wounds.

Template weapons don't care if models under the template are out of line of sight of the firing model for determining the number of hits but wounds may only be allocated to models within line of sight of the firing model.

Either way, models under the marker or template, regardless of which level they are on, are counted to determine hits.

 Mr. Shine wrote:
Blast weapons don't care if models under the marker are out of line of sight of the firing model, both for determining hits and allocating wounds.

Template weapons don't care if models under the template are out of line of sight of the firing model for determining the number of hits but wounds may only be allocated to models within line of sight of the firing model.

Either way, models under the marker or template, regardless of which level they are on, are counted to determine hits.

Please elaborate on that second part. AFAIK, wounds can only be allocated to models under the template, it doesn't matter about LoS.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Please elaborate on that second part. AFAIK, wounds can only be allocated to models under the template, it doesn't matter about LoS.

That hasn't been the case for quite a few editions now...

The marker or template is used to determine the number of hits you cause. The wounds still follow the normal allocation process, with just a few minor changes (like LOS for blasts/barrage)..

 jreilly89 wrote:
Please elaborate on that second part. AFAIK, wounds can only be allocated to models under the template, it doesn't matter about LoS.

As insaniak says, the template or blast marker are simply used to determine the number of hits scored against the target unit. Template rules state, "Wounds inflicted by template weapons are allocated using the normal rules." Blast rules state, "Remember that any Wounds inflicted by weapons with the Blast special rule must be allocated to the closest model in the target unit even if it is out of sight of any models from the attacking unit."

You put on your xray specs and to see those models you have no good way of knowing if the templates actually clipping them or not.

Then you flip the table because your opponent moved the marker slightly to the left when trying to determine what is hit on the 2nd level.


As it's written, It is everything under the marker on all floors. You might be able to tell I don't like this much, it removes the point of having a marker you can look through and when you give a greater chance of human error it can cause issues with competitive people/play.
Then again, sitting in ruins going 'immune to all your blasts trololol' was never fun anyway, which is why they probably changed it. Immunity is never a good thing.

Models in ruins were never immune to blasts.

 insaniak wrote:
Models in ruins were never immune to blasts.

No, but the guys on level 2 were immune to a Barrage that hit level 3.

This rule change from the previous edition is the one I dislike the most. It gives a small blast weapon a huge damage buff. Specially if you have 3-5 floor buildings, which I have played on. Nothing like having a weapon hit 5+ models vertically, when if it was flat it could only hit 7 if your opponent had just deepstruck a unit, or was a poor player, but has an average of 3 models normally.

 megatrons2nd wrote:
Specially if you have 3-5 floor buildings, which I have played on. Nothing like having a weapon hit 5+ models vertically, when if it was flat it could only hit 7 if your opponent had just deepstruck a unit, or was a poor player, but has an average of 3 models normally.

And how often has this actually occurred?

From my experience, the majority of ruin terrain on people's tables is at most 3 floors high, and it is rare to have models on every floor.

 insaniak wrote:

 megatrons2nd wrote:
Specially if you have 3-5 floor buildings, which I have played on. Nothing like having a weapon hit 5+ models vertically, when if it was flat it could only hit 7 if your opponent had just deepstruck a unit, or was a poor player, but has an average of 3 models normally.

And how often has this actually occurred?

From my experience, the majority of ruin terrain on people's tables is at most 3 floors high, and it is rare to have models on every floor.

When I play Tau on a city terrain table. At least twice a game. I place Broadsides on the upper two levels, and Firewarriors or Pathfinders as an assault interrupt on a lower floor, since you can't assault through them. When I use my Eldar, or Dark Eldar....Never.

I've not seen terrain taller than 4 levels, and I will agree that 3 is the average, but 4 levels are around, and I've played on a table with one in 3 out of my last 5 games.

 megatrons2nd wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 megatrons2nd wrote:
Specially if you have 3-5 floor buildings, which I have played on. Nothing like having a weapon hit 5+ models vertically, when if it was flat it could only hit 7 if your opponent had just deepstruck a unit, or was a poor player, but has an average of 3 models normally.

And how often has this actually occurred?

From my experience, the majority of ruin terrain on people's tables is at most 3 floors high, and it is rare to have models on every floor.

When I play Tau on a city terrain table. At least twice a game. I place Broadsides on the upper two levels, and Firewarriors or Pathfinders as an assault interrupt on a lower floor, since you can't assault through them. When I use my Eldar, or Dark Eldar....Never.

I've not seen terrain taller than 4 levels, and I will agree that 3 is the average, but 4 levels are around, and I've played on a table with one in 3 out of my last 5 games.

Agreed. It is rare when it happens, but I had it happen in 6th and it was stupid because it should've hit a model on the ground floor, but because I was shooting at the 3rd it missed.


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 insaniak wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Please elaborate on that second part. AFAIK, wounds can only be allocated to models under the template, it doesn't matter about LoS.

That hasn't been the case for quite a few editions now...

The marker or template is used to determine the number of hits you cause. The wounds still follow the normal allocation process, with just a few minor changes (like LOS for blasts/barrage)..

Hmmm, maybe I am misremembering something. Out of curiosity, without LOS, a template can be used to hit models as long as your initial target has LOS, correct? Say unit B is behind a wall you can't see. You place the template on unit A, but are hitting unit B. You wound unit B, right?

 jreilly89 wrote:
Hmmm, maybe I am misremembering something. Out of curiosity, without LOS, a template can be used to hit models as long as your initial target has LOS, correct? Say unit B is behind a wall you can't see. You place the template on unit A, but are hitting unit B. You wound unit B, right?

No. For template weapons you may generate a number of hits based on models out of line of sight, but unlike Blast weapons there is no ability to actually allocate successful wounds to them. Once you are unable to allocate a wound to the nearest model in line of sight (which would have to be from unit A) the wound pool is emptied and the remaining wounds are lost.

Blast weapons on the other hand require wounds to be allocated to the closest model from the target unit to the firer (as usual), even if they are out of sight (not as usual).

 Mulletdude wrote:

 DJGietzen wrote:


The notion that I must be able to physically see the model through the blast marker is false. There a plenty of legitimate scenarios where you would be unable to physically see the models of a blast attack when viewed from above, under the wing of a FMC or under a piece of terrain. Yes you can place the marker above the target model but below the offending obstacle, but you would still be unable to see the target model through the blast marker because of the offending obstacle.

Sorry. That is just completely wrong. Where is the restriction saying the blast marker must be placed above everything on the board? Hint: It doesn't exist. You can put a blast marker under a wing of a flyrant or under the floor of a multi-level ruin. This means that you can hit the second level of a 3 story ruin, but it's only going to hit that level. The only change from previous editions is that if you scatter off the second level the shot isn't lost.

I never said you MUST put the blast marker above everything else. In fact I said "Yes you can place the marker above the target model but below the offending obstacle...." which is the exact opposite of the blast marker being placed above everything on the board. What I did point out is that if you do this you still won't necessarily be able to physically see the target models through the offending obstacle.

Example. I have a lone IC on a 25mm base. That model is positioned under the wing of a FMC a little over an inch away. The wing is 2 inches of the ground and when viewed from above takes up a 3" by 3" square. My IC is 1.5 " tall and is dead center in that square. A blast weapon is fired at my IC and the blast marker is placed (in this example) in the 1/2" gap above my IC and below the wing of the FMC. A hit is rolled on the scatter dice. If my opponent needs to be able to physically see the IC through the blast marker when viewed from above he will not be able to do so. The wing of the FMC eclipses not only the IC but also the blast marker and my opponent will never be able to fit his head in that 1/2" gap.

This is why I said the notion you must be able to physically see the models hit through the blast marker is false.

Unfortunately the RAW state that every floor is hit...I think this is garbage because as someone else stated it makes a small blast marker as powerful as a large blast, sometimes even more so.. Worse it defies logic since the small blast is somehow able to pierce solid floors and kill above and below. From a Real World perspective this could only happen with LARGE ordinance, a JDAM or maybe a good hit from a 155mm. Regardless in games I play I discuss with my opponent before hand and usually he agrees not to play that rule because it is broken. In fact in the last game I played I could have slaughtered a unit of scouts in cover with my burna bomba but allowed it to only hit 1 floor because thats fair to me.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Worse it defies logic since the small blast is somehow able to pierce solid floors and kill above and below.

Is that worse than the fact that the actual guys killed weren't even under the blast marker...?



40K isn't a simulation.

having seen real life explosions hitting 2-3 story buildings and having had to then go into said building it is hard for me to explain how pissed I am at the fact that GW thinks that a small explosive can miraculously kill three different floors worth of people.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
having seen real life explosions hitting 2-3 story buildings and having had to then go into said building it is hard for me to explain how pissed I am at the fact that GW thinks that a small explosive can miraculously kill three different floors worth of people.

Again, you're putting logic in a 40k situation. Who says these are "small explosives" by any means? Look at the power a regular bolter has. Imagine what an upgraded missile would do


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr. Shine wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
Hmmm, maybe I am misremembering something. Out of curiosity, without LOS, a template can be used to hit models as long as your initial target has LOS, correct? Say unit B is behind a wall you can't see. You place the template on unit A, but are hitting unit B. You wound unit B, right?

No. For template weapons you may generate a number of hits based on models out of line of sight, but unlike Blast weapons there is no ability to actually allocate successful wounds to them. Once you are unable to allocate a wound to the nearest model in line of sight (which would have to be from unit A) the wound pool is emptied and the remaining wounds are lost.

Blast weapons on the other hand require wounds to be allocated to the closest model from the target unit to the firer (as usual), even if they are out of sight (not as usual).

That's strange, but makes sense. Thanks for the input. So you'd wound unit A until you run out of wounds or you kill unit A and are unable to wound unit B right?

But they don't think that. It's just an abstraction, in a system where a blast can 'hit' three different floors worth of people and yet the guys who die from the blast are actually nowhere near where the blast landed...

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the blast marker doesn't actually represent an actual explosion hitting those specific models. It's just a way of tallying up how many models are hit by that weapon at that time.

Which if you studied basic ballistics and have ever seen real life explosives you will realize that these "Small explosives" can't in fact do what GW is saying they can in the game. Yes I am putting real life logic into a fictional game.

As for the small explosives thing...yes they are small explosives and I am saying that by comparing what they do to guardsmen who are regular every day humans and then comparing that to modern day weapons. Your Frag missile would be comparable to todays M203 which fires a 40mm grenade. This has a kill radius of i think 5 meters and can theoretically (never seen it happen at 1/3rd this range) wound at 130 meters. When I say kill at 5 meters I mean that you are within 5 meters of the impact and their is nothing in your way. If a piece of plywood got in the way you would probably be fine, it would still wound you but you would live. Now put that into 40k terms. A small blast template makes sense until it says you can wound people on 3 different floors with possibly 2 complete walls (floors) between you and the explosion itself. Im sorry like I said, having seen this stuff first hand its hard to wrap my head around the thought processes in GW.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Which if you studied basic ballistics and have ever seen real life explosives you will realize that these "Small explosives" can't in fact do what GW is saying they can in the game. Yes I am putting real life logic into a fictional game.

You're forgetting this fictional game is set 38,000 years in the future. Small explosives from just 200 years ago can't do what modern explosives can, so why can't small explosives have advanced in the last 38 millennia?

jreilly89 wrote:
That's strange, but makes sense. Thanks for the input. So you'd wound unit A until you run out of wounds or you kill unit A and are unable to wound unit B right?

Yes, if unit B is completely out of sight, they can't be wounded with template weapons.

Ghazkuul wrote:. Yes I am putting real life logic into a fictional game.

And there's your problem.

None of the shooting process makes much sense using real life logic. You're picking out one specific thing as if it's more logic-breaking than the rest.

 insaniak wrote:

jreilly89 wrote:
That's strange, but makes sense. Thanks for the input. So you'd wound unit A until you run out of wounds or you kill unit A and are unable to wound unit B right?

Yes, if unit B is completely out of sight, they can't be wounded with template weapons.

Ghazkuul wrote:. Yes I am putting real life logic into a fictional game.

And there's your problem.

None of the shooting process makes much sense using real life logic. You're picking out one specific thing as if it's more logic-breaking than the rest.

So we can make genetic superhumans and conquer space travel, but big booms is too advanced for us?