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Howdy,

Guard player here, trying to figure out the ins and outs of fighting characters in 8th.

1) Can artillery ever shoot at a character if it doesnt have LOS?

Character rule under shooting: "A character can only be chose as a target in the shooting phase if they are the closest visible enemy unit to the model that is shooting."

Earthshaker cannon as an artillery example: "This weapon can fire at targets that are not visible to the bearer."

What is the interaction here? Does the weapon rule override the general rule so as long as its the closest unit regardless of LOS I can target?

2) Is there any wiggle room on eligibility to shooting at characters? Ive run into a few games where everyone is locked into combat but the character. My artillery has nobody else to shoot at (character isnt closest model). I am assuming I still cant shoot at them and my artillery has to sit there and look pretty?

Thanks for your time.

MarboLives wrote:
Howdy,

Guard player here, trying to figure out the ins and outs of fighting characters in 8th.

1) Can artillery ever shoot at a character if it doesnt have LOS?

Character rule under shooting: "A character can only be chose as a target in the shooting phase if they are the closest visible enemy unit to the model that is shooting."

Earthshaker cannon as an artillery example: "This weapon can fire at targets that are not visible to the bearer."

What is the interaction here? Does the weapon rule override the general rule so as long as its the closest unit regardless of LOS I can target?

2) Is there any wiggle room on eligibility to shooting at characters? Ive run into a few games where everyone is locked into combat but the character. My artillery has nobody else to shoot at (character isnt closest model). I am assuming I still cant shoot at them and my artillery has to sit there and look pretty?

Thanks for your time.

1) From the Rulebook FAQ:
Q: If I have a weapon that can target enemy units that are not visible to the firer (such as a mortar), can I shoot at an enemy Character that has a Wounds characteristic of less than 10 if it is not the closest enemy model?
A: No.

2) From the Designers Commentary FAQ:
Q: If a model cannot shoot at the closest visible enemy unit for some reason (e.g. it is within 1" of one of your units) but the next closest visible enemy unit is a Character, can that model then target the character?
A: No.

FAQs can be found in the handy sticky at the top of the forum

Nope. Even if they are closer.

Characters can only be targeted if two conditions are met simultaneously.

1) They are the closest unit. 2) They are visible.

If a character is out of line of sight, by definition they are not the closest visible unit. So RAW you can never target characters who are out of LoS with Artillery. Even if there are no other eligible targets.

Which honestly makes sense. A single dude sneaking around is going to be difficult to track with your artillery via spotters. You'd have to have full visual on him to pick him out directly.

Anything that can shoot without LOS can target a character, if he is the closest enemy unit. No need for the character to be visible.

The rulebook faq says : Q: If I have a weapon that can target enemy units that are not visible to the firer (such as a mortar), can I shoot at an enemy Character that has a Wounds characteristic of less than 10 if it is not the closest enemy model?
A: No.

In red it says not the closest enemy model. Doesnt say anything about not the closest visible enemy model.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Nope. Even if they are closer.

Characters can only be targeted if two conditions are met simultaneously.

1) They are the closest unit. 2) They are visible.

If a character is out of line of sight, by definition they are not the closest visible unit. So RAW you can never target characters who are out of LoS with Artillery. Even if there are no other eligible targets.

Which honestly makes sense. A single dude sneaking around is going to be difficult to track with your artillery via spotters. You'd have to have full visual on him to pick him out directly.

That's not correct. Most weapons needs LOS to fire. Some artillery doesn't, so skips the 'visible' requirement. The FAQ only says they still need to meet the 'closest' condition. Artillery can absolutely fire at the closest model out of LOS.

Johnny is mostly correct.

Character as the closest but out of los can be targeted by barrage.

But, how much override does the barrage have over normal los?

If the allowance for targeting out of los counts everything as "visible"; then it is exactly as Johnny says at all times.

If the allowance is just that, a special ability to shoot at non-visible units; then a character that is closer to the firer but out of los cannot be targeted if there is a visible enemy unit within range.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
Johnny is mostly correct.

Character as the closest but out of los can be targeted by barrage.

But, how much override does the barrage have over normal los?

If the allowance for targeting out of los counts everything as "visible"; then it is exactly as Johnny says at all times.

If the allowance is just that, a special ability to shoot at non-visible units; then a character that is closer to the firer but out of los cannot be targeted if there is a visible enemy unit within range.

I don't think that rings true. Artillery with those kind of rules don't need the 'visible' element. You can't then subsequently add it back in a different way to prevent the shot. A unit further away from the character would not prevent the character being targetted.

It seems to me that the artillery special rule -- "this weapon can target units that are not visible to the bearer" -- is intended to override the general prohibition on shooting units that you can't see. The character special rule is more specific and takes priority -- artillery still can't shoot a character unless the character is the closest visible unit.

Artillery's ability to shoot things that aren't visible doesn't automatically let them shoot anything that isn't visible if they don't otherwise fulfill the requirements to shoot those units. They can't shoot something which is out of range of their weapons, just because the target isn't visible. Likewise they can't shoot a character which isn't the closest visible unit, just because it isn't visible.

And you certainly can't read the artillery rule as somehow just canceling out the "visible" part of the character rule. The character protection specifies a single condition -- the character must be the closest visible unit. This isn't two independent requirements; it's not that the character must be the closest unit and visible, in which case maybe there's an argument here. So I really can't see how you could turn the character rule into simply requiring that the character be the closest unit -- this ends up working completely differently than the character rule normally does.

p5freak wrote:
Anything that can shoot without LOS can target a character, if he is the closest enemy unit. No need for the character to be visible.

The rulebook faq says : Q: If I have a weapon that can target enemy units that are not visible to the firer (such as a mortar), can I shoot at an enemy Character that has a Wounds characteristic of less than 10 if it is not the closest enemy model?
A: No.

In red it says not the closest enemy model. Doesnt say anything about not the closest visible enemy model.

This doesn't say what you seem to think it does. Artillery can't shoot a character if there is a closer enemy unit, even if that closer unit is not visible. This says nothing about whether artillery can shoot a character which is the closest enemy unit, even if it is not visible.

Dionysodorus wrote:
This says nothing about whether artillery can shoot a character which is the closest enemy unit, even if it is not visible.

Yes it does. Artillery removes the visible requirement. The other requirement, that the char has to be the closest enemy unit remains.

The FAQ wording supports that artillery could target a Character if it was the closest model. The question itself is phrased to say 'artillery can target non-visible units'. Closest and visible are actually two conditions, however you look at it. Artillery can skip the visible part but still need to satisfy closest to target Characters.

p5freak wrote:

Dionysodorus wrote:
This says nothing about whether artillery can shoot a character which is the closest enemy unit, even if it is not visible.

Yes it does. Artillery removes the visible requirement. The other requirement, that the char has to be the closest enemy unit remains.

You keep erroneously claiming that.

Artillery just removes the visibility from general choose a target rules(step 2 of the shooting phase); it does nothing to the character rules requiring them to be the closest visible target.

Personally I would never play with forcing targeting at a further-but-visible non-character unit. Just pointing out that the element artillery actually supercedes is not the character requirements.

so basically, your stating that artillery can't be used to soften up back lines, if my oppo has a blob of troops behind some scarabs for example, I have to target the closer scarabs?

gkos wrote:
so basically, your stating that artillery can't be used to soften up back lines, if my oppo has a blob of troops behind some scarabs for example, I have to target the closer scarabs?

No, the only discussion/contention is about Characters. Artillery are free to target any regular unit within range they like. Soften away!

phew... I was worried for a moment!

 Kommissar Kel wrote:

You keep erroneously claiming that.

Are you saying that the character must be the closest enemy unit and he must be visible to the artillery as well ? If yes, where does it say that in the characters rule ? I dont see it.

"A Character can only be chosen as a target in the Shooting phase if they are the closest visible enemy unit to the model that is shooting."

If a unit wants to shoot at another unit it must be visible to them. Thats the general rule. Its the same for characters, if i want to shoot a character he must be visible to my unit, and the character must be the closest enemy unit. Artillery removes the visible requirement. Why does it not remove the visible requirement for a character ?

p5freak wrote:
If a unit wants to shoot at another unit it must be visible to them. Thats the general rule. Its the same for characters, if i want to shoot a character he must be visible to my unit, and the character must be the closest enemy unit. Artillery removes the visible requirement. Why does it not remove the visible requirement for a character ?

Because it doesn't say it does.

All indirect weapons say is 'this weapon can target units that are not visible to the bearer'.

The standard rules for shooting require that the firing model must be able to see its target, so the indirect ability clearly overrides it.

The rules for shooting characters require both that the character must be the closest unit AND that it must be visible. GW didn't need to put 'visible' into the character rule at all (without it the rule would have worked fine). But the fact that they put 'visible' into the character rule means that it there are two requirements to that specific character targeting rule that must be met in order to fire at a character.

An ability would have to specifically say that it can target a character that isn't visible for it to override that rule.

 yakface wrote:
GW didn't need to put 'visible' into the character rule at all (without it the rule would have worked fine).

If we remove "visible" from the character rule, it would say : ""A Character can only be chosen as a target in the Shooting phase if they are the closest enemy unit to the model that is shooting."

No one would need to see the character anymore, to shoot him. Every unit with ranged attacks would turn into artillery against that character.

p5freak wrote:

 yakface wrote:
GW didn't need to put 'visible' into the character rule at all (without it the rule would have worked fine).

If we remove "visible" from the character rule, it would say : ""A Character can only be chosen as a target in the Shooting phase if they are the closest enemy unit to the model that is shooting."

No one would need to see the character anymore, to shoot him. Every unit with ranged attacks would turn into artillery against that character.

Except, as the general rule, you still need LOS to target a unit.

p5freak wrote:

 yakface wrote:
GW didn't need to put 'visible' into the character rule at all (without it the rule would have worked fine).

If we remove "visible" from the character rule, it would say : ""A Character can only be chosen as a target in the Shooting phase if they are the closest enemy unit to the model that is shooting."

No one would need to see the character anymore, to shoot him. Every unit with ranged attacks would turn into artillery against that character.

I mean this with all possible sincerity, I am starting to wonder if you understand how multiple restrictions work. You keep insisting Rule B lets you ignore Rule A despite Rule B not doing anything of the sort. Not just here, but in multiple threads.

Let's pretend the line is "A CHARACTER can only be chosen as a target in the Shooting phase if they are the closest enemy unit to the model that is shooting."

We have two rules here:

Rule A: In order to target an enemy unit, a model from that unit must be within the Range of the weapon being used (as listed on its profile) and be visible to the shooting model.
Rule B: A CHARACTER can only be chosen as a target in the Shooting phase if they are the closest enemy unit to the model that is shooting.

So, Rule A is saying they must be in range and visible. Rule B is saying they must be the closest. These two rules thus mean it must be in range, visible and the closest.

If we go by your logic with the real rule, you're arguing characters don't have to be in range of a weapon to be shot at, so long as it's the closest unit, which is both incorrect from a RaW standpoint, but also from a common sense point.

p5freak wrote:

 yakface wrote:
GW didn't need to put 'visible' into the character rule at all (without it the rule would have worked fine).

If we remove "visible" from the character rule, it would say : ""A Character can only be chosen as a target in the Shooting phase if they are the closest enemy unit to the model that is shooting."

No one would need to see the character anymore, to shoot him. Every unit with ranged attacks would turn into artillery against that character.

That's how specific vs. general restrictions work.

You have a general restriction that says you can only target units that are visible.

Then you'd have a more specific restriction that says you can only target characters (with less than 10 wounds) if they are the closest target.

As those two restrictions don't contradict each other, both would still be relevant when attempting to target a character.

You could (theoretically) add even more specific restrictions if you wanted...you could say that characters with less than 5 wounds can only be targeted if they are within 6" of the firing unit. In which case, ALL THREE restrictions would apply to a character model with less than 5 wounds (they'd have to be visible, the closest target and within 6").

Well the amount of discussion makes me feel less silly for posting this.

Ultimately, my take away is:

- Artillery can never fire at a character if they dont have LOS to them.
- Even if there are no other viable targets, artillery cant fire at a character even with LOS if its not the closest model.

Thanks everyone who chimed in.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I mean this with all possible sincerity, I am starting to wonder if you understand how multiple restrictions work. You keep insisting Rule B lets you ignore Rule A despite Rule B not doing anything of the sort. Not just here, but in multiple threads.

The rules dont allow to shoot after advancing : "A unit that Advances can’t shoot or charge later that turn." A multiple restriction, advance but no shooting, no charge. Later in the rules they remove the shooting part : "A model with an Assault weapon can fire it even if it Advanced earlier that turn." The restriction advance and no charge remains. So its possible that restrictions, later in the rules, can be removed.

To target an enemy unit, a model from that unit must be within the Range of the weapon being used (as listed on its profile) and be visible to the shooting model. Another multiple restriction, visible and in range of the firing weapon. Lets ignore the poor word choice of model and unit. I know you have a problem with that. Artillery removes the visible part of these multiple restrictions. Again, later in the rules, one part of a multiple restriction is removed.

The character rule, which comes later in the rules, after the targeting rules, without the word visible would remove one part of the multiple restrictions, visible, closest enemy unit, in range of the weapon. The visible part. Therefore everyone could shoot a character as if they were artillery.

p5freak wrote:
The rules dont allow to shoot after advancing : "A unit that Advances can’t shoot or charge later that turn." A multiple restriction, advance but no shooting, no charge. Later in the rules they remove the shooting part : "A model with an Assault weapon can fire it even if it Advanced earlier that turn." The restriction advance and no charge remains. So its possible that restrictions, later in the rules, can be removed.

Actually, Unit is not the same as model. The rules for assault weapons are RaW broken, so using them as an example is not the most convincing of arguments.

Of course restrictions can be removed, but the Pistol rule only removes the restriction on Pistols, not Grenades. You're intentionally ignoring the facts. Wrong thread. The above is still true though.

Wrong thread ?

p5freak wrote:
Wrong thread ?

I can't keep track of your wrongness over so many threads. My mistake.

Point still stands, later rules have to explicitly remove restrictions to, well, remove restrictions. Not mentioning the restriction doesn't magically make it go away.

When debating the rules for games of toy soldiers, it is important to be polite about it.

This is also RULE #1 here, and really applies to life in general as well.

Thanks!

The visible in character is important.

If you have an enemy character 7" away from your unit and in the open, but there is a non-character unit 6" but not visible; then you can still target the character.

The only wording that would have been better is valid.

If it was nearest valid target; then indirect would not have needed an FAQ to begin with, and would be able to fire at a nearer-out of sight character while an in-sight unit that is farther is on the table.

As it stands now, though, indirect only removes the visibility restriction from general choose a target.

I really am confused, why would removing the word 'visible' from the Character rule grant Models the ability to ignore Line of Sight requirements for targeting?

JinxXDragon wrote:
I really am confused, why would removing the word 'visible' from the Character rule grant Models the ability to ignore Line of Sight requirements for targeting?

It wouldn't. P5 was flat out wrong about that. The requirement to have line of sight is completely separate to that rule and wouldn't go away because of that change.

What it would do is mean that you couldn't shoot a plainly visibly character that's closer than any other unit you can see because there is a closer character that's behind LoS blocking terrain. That would suck for units without weapons that ignore LoS.

As Kel suggested this really ought to change to closest viable/permissable/something-similar target. I.E you can only select a character as a target if it's the closest target you're allowed to select given the various unit/model/weapon abilities you may have.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

p5freak wrote:

The character rule, which comes later in the rules, after the targeting rules, without the word visible would remove one part of the multiple restrictions, visible, closest enemy unit, in range of the weapon. The visible part. Therefore everyone could shoot a character as if they were artillery.

The character rule is an additional restriction. It doesn't remove anything. The assault weapon rule makes of point of specifying that it is an exception to the general rule about advancing and shooting. The character rule with 'visible' missing does no such thing.