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Consider the following scenario:

I have 3 spore mines, A B and C, located 3.1" away from Primaris Intercessor Adam and 6000" away from Primaris Intercessor Bartholomew, these are the only models on the board.

I charge the Primaris Intercessor with all 3 mines, surviving overwatch, and rolling a 3+ for each mine. The mines then go within 1" of Primaris Intercessor Adam.

The "Floating Death" rule now kicks in. Quoted for the purposes of rules discussion:

Page 99 Codex: Tyranids wrote:Floating Death: A Spore Mine explodes if it is within 3" of any enemy units at the end of any Charge phase. Each time a Spore Mine explodes, roll a D6; on a 1 it fails to inflict any harm, on a 2-5 it inflicts 1 mortal wound on the nearest enemy unit, and on a 6 it inflicts D3 mortal wounds on that unit. The Spore Mine is then destroyed.

The key issue here is they they trigger "if it is within 3" of any unit" vs causing the wound "on the nearest enemy unit". Those are not necessarily the same thing. Since all three trigger simultaneously, the sequencing rules tell us to resolve them one at a time.

I resolve Spore Mine A, and it causes a Mortal Wound to Adam. I resolve Spore Mine B, and it causes a Mortal Wound to Adam, slaying him.

Spore Mine C now has a rule saying it has exploded, since it was within 3" of a model at the end of the charge phase. It now resolves, rolling a 6, then a 3 on the D3, causing a Mortal Wound "on the nearest enemy unit". Since Adam is dead, the Nearest Enemy Unit is now Bartholomew, even though he's 600" away. Thus the Spore Mine should now cause 3 Mortal Wounds to Bartholomew, despite him being 6000" away.

Am I right in thinking this or have I missed something? I am pretty sure the rule is supposed to cause the wound to the unit that "triggered it" but I feel that the rule doesn't do this.

Isen't "at the start of the charge phase" before you even declare charges?

FunJohn wrote:
Isen't "at the start of the charge phase" before you even declare charges?

They detonate at the end.

Seems like you measure for a spore mine, if it is within 3" you follow its sequence and it explodes. Then you measure the next one, and see if that explodes etc.

 DeathReaper wrote:
Seems like you measure for a spore mine, if it is within 3" you follow its sequence and it explodes. Then you measure the next one, and see if that explodes etc.

Except that isn't what the rule says whatsoever, as I detailed in my post.

This isn’t new news, has been posited/discussed before in YMDC, and (quelle surprise) revolves around an unreasonable, obviously unintended reading of a rule... I’m not exactly shocked.

[Shudder] BCB is... Correct.

This has come up often before. It's not often relevant, but it has yet to be FAQ'd to something sensible like 'The closest unit within 3 inches.'

Yes, they all explode at the end of the charge phase if they are within 3".

You then roll for them, one at a time to see what they do.

If you kill everything nearbye with the first 2-4 spore mines, the remaining mines that blew up effectively act like smites, hitting the next closest model.


This is why a squad of Meiotic spores is a bit overpowered atm. 6 of them getting a charge off is pretty damn deadly. granted they are 18 points apiece for suicide models.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:
Seems like you measure for a spore mine, if it is within 3" you follow its sequence and it explodes. Then you measure the next one, and see if that explodes etc.

Except that isn't what the rule says whatsoever, as I detailed in my post.

It is though, your post has flaws. Namely once you check if a single spore mine is in range, you have to resolve its effects due to sequencing before you can measure to see if any others are close enough.

The biggest snaggu with this interpretation though, is that it ignores the end of the rule.

It says you roll to see what the damage is and inflict it upon "that" unit.


Its fair to say that "that" unit is the one the spore mine was within 3" of, which would mean that even though mortal wounds do roll over to models, they wouldn't roll over to other units.

Except that unit is the nearest mentioned phrase before.

Q is do you mearure distances whether triggered simultaneously while resolving effects non-simultaneosly. That's only scenario where this works. If range is checked after previous done doesn't work, if all explode simultaneously doesn't work

AdmiralHalsey wrote:
[Shudder] BCB is... Correct.

This has come up often before. It's not often relevant, but it has yet to be FAQ'd to something sensible like 'The closest unit within 3 inches.'

As it’s been covered before I’m not sure why it needed an attention-seeking post, but hey, quiet month for rules gaps I guess...

It's obviously silly and unintended, but only because Bartholomew is ludicrously far away in the example (you should totally post photos of your awesome 500 foot gaming table, BCB ). If the OP had stated Bartholomew was only 4" away from the spore mine, I'm pretty sure quite a few people would consider it a perfectly reasonable interpretation. You might easily expect a mine's blast radius to be larger than its detection/trigger radius.

All they had to do was make it say "the nearest unit within 3" " and none of this would be a problem.

In your scenario Adam is the unit they are closest to and within the 3 inch bubble. The trigger /ability that allows you to explode and do damage is the 3 inch caveat. It cannot nor would hurt even something 4 inches away. It’s within three. If it’s gone , ie Adam, then the rest of the mortal wounds are lost.

Honestly I doubt it gets a Faq, but I’m betting GW writers are laughing .

Lungpickle wrote:
In your scenario Adam is the unit they are closest to and within the 3 inch bubble. The trigger /ability that allows you to explode and do damage is the 3 inch caveat. It cannot nor would hurt even something 4 inches away. It’s within three. If it’s gone , ie Adam, then the rest of the mortal wounds are lost.

Honestly I doubt it gets a Faq, but I’m betting GW writers are laughing .

Except, like I pointed out, the "unit they are closest to" is not the same as the unit that triggered the mine. The "unit they are closest to" is only checked after it's detonated.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Lungpickle wrote:
In your scenario Adam is the unit they are closest to and within the 3 inch bubble. The trigger /ability that allows you to explode and do damage is the 3 inch caveat. It cannot nor would hurt even something 4 inches away. It’s within three. If it’s gone , ie Adam, then the rest of the mortal wounds are lost.

Honestly I doubt it gets a Faq, but I’m betting GW writers are laughing .

Except, like I pointed out, the "unit they are closest to" is not the same as the unit that triggered the mine. The "unit they are closest to" is only checked after it's detonated.

Except you check if mine 1 is in range then follow the rules for exploding. Then you check mine 2, etc.

You don't check Mine's 1 through 10 for range then follow the section about exploding.

Alternatively, if you consider a dead unit in range for the 3" detonation, then you must also consider that unit as a closer unit than the one 600" away.

JakeSiren wrote:

Except you check if mine 1 is in range then follow the rules for exploding. Then you check mine 2, etc.

You don't check Mine's 1 through 10 for range then follow the section about exploding.

Alternatively, if you consider a dead unit in range for the 3" detonation, then you must also consider that unit as a closer unit than the one 600" away.

Except you don't check for each mine individually. They all check simultaneously at the end of the charge phase. You can't check one after another because then you'd be breaking the rule about checking at the end of the phase. The sequencing rule then kicks in.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:

Except you check if mine 1 is in range then follow the rules for exploding. Then you check mine 2, etc.

You don't check Mine's 1 through 10 for range then follow the section about exploding.

Alternatively, if you consider a dead unit in range for the 3" detonation, then you must also consider that unit as a closer unit than the one 600" away.

Except you don't check for each mine individually. They all check simultaneously at the end of the charge phase. You can't check one after another because then you'd be breaking the rule about checking at the end of the phase. The sequencing rule then kicks in.

Technically you do. You chose the order of resolution for the multiple instances of "Floating Death": which includes checking range when you go to resolve that instance.

JakeSiren wrote:
Technically you do. You chose the order of resolution for the multiple instances of "Floating Death": which includes checking range when you go to resolve that instance.

It doesn't have to be within 3" when it resolves, only at the end of the phase. The end of the phase is simultaneous for all 3 mines. That's the whole reason why this works the way it does.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:
Technically you do. You chose the order of resolution for the multiple instances of "Floating Death": which includes checking range when you go to resolve that instance.

It doesn't have to be within 3" when it resolves, only at the end of the phase. The end of the phase is simultaneous for all 3 mines. That's the whole reason why this works the way it does.

Um, except if you do so you are only partially resolving each instance of the rule. I've quoted the rule below and bolded the part you are trying to partially resolve before resolving the rest.

Page 99 Codex: Tyranids wrote:Floating Death: A Spore Mine explodes if it is within 3" of any enemy units at the end of any Charge phase. Each time a Spore Mine explodes, roll a D6; on a 1 it fails to inflict any harm, on a 2-5 it inflicts 1 mortal wound on the nearest enemy unit, and on a 6 it inflicts D3 mortal wounds on that unit. The Spore Mine is then destroyed.

Read the sequencing rules. Each spore mine is attempting to resolve simultaneously, but the sequencing rules tell you to resolve them one at a time. The mine has already "gone off" despite it being resolved after the other 2, so it doesn't matter there aren't any models left when it resolves because there WERE models at the end of the charge phase.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
All they had to do was make it say "the nearest unit within 3" " and none of this would be a problem.

It would bring a different problem, as it would make it possible for Spore Mines to find themselves out of range as they detonate. The initial condition may be simultaneous, but resolving the damage is not.

Tyran wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
All they had to do was make it say "the nearest unit within 3" " and none of this would be a problem.

It would bring a different problem, as it would make it possible for Spore Mines to find themselves out of range as they detonate. The initial condition may be simultaneous, but resolving the damage is not.

That's the entire point of my proposed change. It's meant to make them detonate, but not cause any damage, if they find themselves too far away from a unit at the time they resolve the damage. Next time don't charge the poor guardsmen with 67 Spore Mines eh?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Tyran wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
All they had to do was make it say "the nearest unit within 3" " and none of this would be a problem.

It would bring a different problem, as it would make it possible for Spore Mines to find themselves out of range as they detonate. The initial condition may be simultaneous, but resolving the damage is not.

That's the entire point of my proposed change. It's meant to make them detonate, but not cause any damage, if they find themselves too far away from a unit at the time they resolve the damage.

I especify, it would mean they may find themselves out of range of the unit that triggered them in the first place.

Spore Mines are hardly some top performing unit to deserve such nerf, because it would be a nerf.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Read the sequencing rules. Each spore mine is attempting to resolve simultaneously, but the sequencing rules tell you to resolve them one at a time. The mine has already "gone off" despite it being resolved after the other 2, so it doesn't matter there aren't any models left when it resolves because there WERE models at the end of the charge phase.

I'm not sure I got the same thing from the sequencing rules that you did. Simultaneous events can be resolved in any order that the player whose turn it is chooses, but that doesn't mean they can be half resolved and interrupted and resumed arbitrarily. Your interpretation requires splitting up Floating Death rules, when sequencing rules tell you to resolve rules one at a time.


- Floating Death Instance 1 - 1st half of rules to check
- Floating Death Instance 2 - 1st half of rules to check
- Floating Death Instance 3 - 1st half of rules to check
- Maybe some other stuff happens "at end of charge phase"
- Floating Death Instance 1 - 2nd half of rules to explode
- Floating Death Instance 2 - 2nd half of rules to explode
- Floating Death Instance 3 - 2nd half of rules to explode

VS

- Floating Death Instance 1, check and explode
- Floating Death Instance 2, check and explode
- Floating Death Instance 3, check and explode

Just because both rules are called Floating Death doesn't mean that they get any special ability to interleave their resolution. They still go 1 at a time.

And if you're trying to say that the rule specifies the 'check' occurs at the end of charge phase but that the explosion occurs at some indeterminate time in the future ... when exactly does the explosion occur if not immediately during Floating Death rule resolution? No really. If you try to say the explosion resolution is "not at the end of charge phase, nor during the Floating Death rule, but some later time eventually", well the end of turn 6 is also 'eventually' and I'm fine with zero spore mines ever getting to explode.

It’s yet another misapplication of Sequencing to generate a stupid effect. It’s pretty obvious the Spores are intended to only hit a unit within 3” and if no enemy are left wishing 3” after resolving a few splosions any remaining exploding Spores just explode and do nowt... but this is the internet where common sense is dead, so it doesn’t stop someone trying to manipulate RAW to claim a weapon has infinite range. Not sure why it’s suddenly been brought up again as new info, given people have already tilted at this windmill in other threads.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Read the sequencing rules. Each spore mine is attempting to resolve simultaneously, but the sequencing rules tell you to resolve them one at a time. The mine has already "gone off" despite it being resolved after the other 2, so it doesn't matter there aren't any models left when it resolves because there WERE models at the end of the charge phase.

Then comes question is damage resolved simultaneously like say when unit shoots at which point your idea doesn't work

tneva82 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Read the sequencing rules. Each spore mine is attempting to resolve simultaneously, but the sequencing rules tell you to resolve them one at a time. The mine has already "gone off" despite it being resolved after the other 2, so it doesn't matter there aren't any models left when it resolves because there WERE models at the end of the charge phase.

Then comes question is damage resolved simultaneously like say when unit shoots at which point your idea doesn't work

That's not how you resolve damage when a unit shoots no, you allocate wounds one at a time.

The base rule is to do each weapon one by one all the way from hit roll to damage even. There are of course fast rolling rules that allow you to do everything up to wound allocation simultaneously, but ONLY if doing so has no effect on the game compared to rolling one by one.

Even if you could apply fast rolling to this situation (which you can't as it's not a shooting attack and the models are separate units), this would be a situation where fast rolling changed the effect and so you wouldn't be able to use it and would have to resolve the entire ability one at a time.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
It’s yet another misapplication of Sequencing to generate a stupid effect. It’s pretty obvious the Spores are intended to only hit a unit within 3” and if no enemy are left wishing 3” after resolving a few splosions any remaining exploding Spores just explode and do nowt... but this is the internet where common sense is dead, so it doesn’t stop someone trying to manipulate RAW to claim a weapon has infinite range. Not sure why it’s suddenly been brought up again as new info, given people have already tilted at this windmill in other threads.

I have to say though: I'd rather have an occasional mine explode 4 or 5 inches into the next unit instead of frequently having them go off but do nothing. Because if you limit it to 3 inches, the defender will just pull from the front and after 1 or two explosions there's no longer a unit within 3.