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I had a situation pop up in a recent game and I wanted opinions on how it should work.

Playing a three player free for all,
-Player A has one character within 5 inches of Player C's Necron Warriors
-Player B has one monster within 4 inches of Player C's Necron Warriors
-Can Player C target the character of Player A?

9th ed's rules seem to be written with only single player games in mind, and they seem to contradict within the same paragraph about "Look out, Sir" and I don't currently have a Chapter Approved 2020 so I don't know if this question is solved there.

My thought (and this is what we went off of) is that because the character was not within 3" of a friendly model he was fair game to target, but the rules seem to be written so that all of the conditions have to be invalid for the character to be targeted. I.E he was not the closest visible enemy model.

I may just be understand the rule wrong though.

The Look Out Sir! has nothing to do with CA2020. The Look Out Sir! rule has been errata'd multiple times, and the latest version can be found in the Core Book FAQ.

Since the rules do not account for multiplayer games, it's already houseruleapalooza, so make up whatever you want.

Yeah, as BCB said - we're already talking house rules, so there isn't going to be a real RAW answer here.
So - falling back on fluff (I know, I know!!) I recall the usual explanation for having to target nearer units was always that the closest unit was too distracting to focus on good ol' piddly little one-face in the background. On those grounds, I'd say it makes more sense that you can't target the character.

The rulebook covers this fine from what I can see. The character can be shot, even if he isn't the closest thing to you as long as he doesn't have a unit within 3 inches of him that can give him Look Out Sir. For instance of he was 12 inches from you standing by himself and there is a unit of Necron Warriors standing 3 inches away from you, you can shoot the character because the closest model stipulation only applies when he is within 3 inches of an appropriate unit.

So in the case you that you told us about, the character is standing by himself and is not within 3 inches of a friendly unit, the enemy unit doesn't factor into it so you can shoot the character no problem.

Lord Aureus wrote:
The rulebook covers this fine from what I can see. The character can be shot, even if he isn't the closest thing to you as long as he doesn't have a unit within 3 inches of him that can give him Look Out Sir. For instance of he was 12 inches from you standing by himself and there is a unit of Necron Warriors standing 3 inches away from you, you can shoot the character because the closest model stipulation only applies when he is within 3 inches of an appropriate unit.

So in the case you that you told us about, the character is standing by himself and is not within 3 inches of a friendly unit, the enemy unit doesn't factor into it so you can shoot the character no problem.

playabilty


For playabilities sake, I would treat all models not belonging the active players turn as friendly during all phases other than fight phase.

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
playabilty


For playabilities sake, I would treat all models not belonging the active players turn as friendly during all phases other than fight phase.

The rules state that friendly units are units within your army. Look Out Sir requires you to be within 3 inches of a friendly unit to gain its benefits, so being within 3 inches of a unit from another army does not count, so they played it the correct way.

I'm not sure if they game they were playing was a 3 player free-for-all or 2 players vs. 1 but either way the rules are clear about the situation he described to us. They will have to house rule it in the future if they want that to change for extra playability but that's a different discussion.

Lord Aureus wrote:

 Sazzlefrats wrote:
playabilty


For playabilities sake, I would treat all models not belonging the active players turn as friendly during all phases other than fight phase.

The rules state that friendly units are units within your army. Look Out Sir requires you to be within 3 inches of a friendly unit to gain its benefits, so being within 3 inches of a unit from another army does not count, so they played it the correct way.

I'm not sure if they game they were playing was a 3 player free-for-all or 2 players vs. 1 but either way the rules are clear about the situation he described to us. They will have to house rule it in the future if they want that to change for extra playability but that's a different discussion.

The rules don't cover multiplayer games...

I did have a look at the definitions for friendly and enemy units, and it's not exactly a precise fit for more than two players - which is why I didn't bring it up before.
The problem lies in the definition of enemy models as those in "your opponent's army". The placement of that apostrophe shows that opponent here is singular, so indicates two players as the intent, otherwise it'd be "your opponents' army" to signify possibly plural opponents instead.

True, however it being stated in the singular does not prevent it from applying equally in the plural. In a multiplayer game, you have more than one opponent. Additionally, any (non-fortification) model on the board will either be in your army or one of your opponent's models (unless you are playing a game with allies). That means the model in your opponent's army and is thus an enemy model. Applies equally to opponent A, B, C, etc.

Ghaz wrote:
The rules don't cover multiplayer games...

I never said they did, hence me mentioning using house rules in the future if they want to avoid certain situations. However his question was if he was fighting alongside another player's army right now, would he get Look Out Sir from that player's unis and he won't because the rules currently say friendly units are only units from his own army.

Super Ready wrote:I did have a look at the definitions for friendly and enemy units, and it's not exactly a precise fit for more than two players - which is why I didn't bring it up before.
The problem lies in the definition of enemy models as those in "your opponent's army". The placement of that apostrophe shows that opponent here is singular, so indicates two players as the intent, otherwise it'd be "your opponents' army" to signify possibly plural opponents instead.

I agree that the definition of enemy may have a difficult interpretation in multiplayer games, though I'm not sure why you are bringing that up in this case unless I'm missing something. What he asked was would Look Out Sir apply to his character when the player he is playing alongside's units are beside the character, and the answer is no because the rules say Look Out Sir needs friendly units to work which have to come from his army. Enemies don't come into it.

Lord Aureus wrote:

Ghaz wrote:
The rules don't cover multiplayer games...

I never said they did, hence me mentioning using house rules in the future if they want to avoid certain situations. However his question was if he was fighting alongside another player's army right now, would he get Look Out Sir from that player's unis and he won't because the rules currently say friendly units are only units from his own army.

Then why are you quoting rules that may not apply to a multiplayer game like they prove your point?

 Ghaz wrote:

Then why are you quoting rules that may not apply to a multiplayer game like they prove your point?

Because he said they were using the 9th edition rules for the game and he asked his question in the context of those said rule? Then I used those rules to answer his question, it's pretty straight forward I thought.

Of course, you are right that multiplayer rules don't exist yet so you have every freedom to choose to ignore what I've said if you like, and with neither of us going to change our minds on this, the easiest way to do things is that you can just advise him not to bother playing multiplayer games because GW don't have rules for it which is seems to be the only thing you want to talk about in relation to his question so far, and I'll give him an answer that is RAW for the rules he says they are playing with and they can keep playing their games, and then he is completely free to choose who he wants to listen to after that. Everyone wins.

 alextroy wrote:
True, however it being stated in the singular does not prevent it from applying equally in the plural. In a multiplayer game, you have more than one opponent. Additionally, any (non-fortification) model on the board will either be in your army or one of your opponent's models (unless you are playing a game with allies). That means the model in your opponent's army and is thus an enemy model. Applies equally to opponent A, B, C, etc.

It's a good place to start, but there would still be some things to house rule, one big thing being how to handle shooting into an assault where only 2 different enemy players are engaged. You don't have any friendly models in engagement range, so there isn't the prohibition against firing into combat. There would need to be a discussion about whether a single unit in the enemy engagement can be picked out the combat and fired upon, or to treat all the models in the combat as one large unit, and in that case how to determine which enemy gets hit by ranged fire.

 doctortom wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
True, however it being stated in the singular does not prevent it from applying equally in the plural. In a multiplayer game, you have more than one opponent. Additionally, any (non-fortification) model on the board will either be in your army or one of your opponent's models (unless you are playing a game with allies). That means the model in your opponent's army and is thus an enemy model. Applies equally to opponent A, B, C, etc.

It's a good place to start, but there would still be some things to house rule, one big thing being how to handle shooting into an assault where only 2 different enemy players are engaged. You don't have any friendly models in engagement range, so there isn't the prohibition against firing into combat. There would need to be a discussion about whether a single unit in the enemy engagement can be picked out the combat and fired upon, or to treat all the models in the combat as one large unit, and in that case how to determine which enemy gets hit by ranged fire.

While there were melees on our board, we pretty much agreed that we couldn't shoot in to a combat only because it was a combat. we talked about how to handle this instance for future multiplayer games, and decided that for purposes of targeting characters between two different enemies, as long as the enemy doesn't have 3+ friendly models within 3" then they are fair game to target, because "why would an enemy protect an enemy from an attack?"

Not to mention it was 1500pts each with Custodes VS Nids VS Necrons(me) the character in question was a jetbike captain...

 peterhend wrote:
I'm sorry for the stupid question, of course, but is this a board game?

It can be but not how most people would think of a board game. GW sells "battle boards" for warzones that people can use. https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Battlezone-Manufactorum-2020