Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So in a CoD game if a unit occupies an entire floor with no room for enemy models to make it on to the floor and make it in to BtB contact, can they be assaulted?

This came up in a game yesterday and I am SURE will come up a lot more as more CoD games are played.

No rules to back this up but my gaming group treats this as assaulting into a unit in cover from the floor below or above, models stay on the floor they are on until there is room to place them on the appropriate floor. The same as assaulting a unit behind a low wall where you can't actually get into base to base.

Well, this is an interesting dilimma...

The only requirement for a charge to be sucsessful is for one model to make it into Base-to-base. Essentially what you are saying is to put as many models as possible in a floor to make getting to that floor impossible.

Here is the question, does it say that a base has to be fully on that floor to be on that floor? (I.E. a fraction of the base can fit on a floor). If I remember correctly, the only requirement to get on a floor is to have sufficient movement to make it to that floor. So with round bases, it is impossible to fully cover a floor with models. So my arguement would be, if I can't fit my model on the floor but I can still tecnically make it to Base-to-base, than my model did charge and make it to Base-to-base and is technically on the same level, though the rest of the unit is in engaged range.

That is all depending though on whether you base has to be fully on the level or not.

A connvention we have losely used but never commited to is that a model must be able to stand where it is without you sitting there holding it up for x amount of time. Sometimes if a model is partly on a peice of terrain we will prop the base with a die but generally if a model can't stand there on its own, it can't be there.

I understand the convention, and I believe it is one shared by 99% of the gamers, but here is the situation:

What is the requirement for making it into assault?

General Rules say that a single model (at least) has to make it into base to base.

So what does the CoD book say? I know it tells how to determine movement to get to levels, but does it determine the requirements to be on that level. I know it sounds a little off, but if I remember correctly (and I could be wrong) there is no requirement for a model to be fully on that level, so therefore any percentage of the base can be on that level, even the smallest percent.

I know that seems a little weinieish but so is cramping your models to deny charging (which is up there with the interspacing units).

Just don't exploit poorly written rules to your advantage, people. Please.

Ok, I will change the situation a little bit and give exactly what the situaton WAS.

The unit was lined up against one side of the building. It would have been possible to go around to the other side of the unit by going underneath it and then assaulting it from behind, although that would mean another movement phase.

In all fairness, the unit was NOT set up like that to deny chages from the one side but put there to have LOS to the largest field of fire possible.

Posted By Mahu on 06/15/2006 10:30 AM
I know that seems a little weinieish but so is cramping your models to deny charging (which is up there with the interspacing units).

Just don't exploit poorly written rules to your advantage, people. Please.

Err -- this doesn't sound like a rules exploit, more like a sound tactic that a real army would use, and a reasonable approximation of the real world (not that those hold much weight though).

I for one would not like to be the first one up a ladder with a combat knife if the landing at the top of the ladder was chock full of dudes with guns pointing at me.

Andrew.

I don't think in the real world a whole unit would stop in the middle of the street because the first guy "had a hard time".

Happypants, I see what you mean, but it is still impossible with round bases to fully cover a level. Example:

0 0 0 0 0 0 <== Attackers
_________
0 0 0 0 0 0 <==Defenders

0 0 0 0 0
___0____ <== First model
0 0 0 0 0 0

Technically he is on the level, if he makes it like this:

0
V <== Charge
0 0

That thin piece in the front between the two bases.

But again this is contingent upon whether they define how much base needs to be on a level.

As a convention, and something not explicitly RAW, that we use (we're currently playing cityfight with the changeover to COD imminent) is that if the charging unit has the movement to make it into base to base (based on their difficult terrain roll, vertical/horizontal), but cannot 'physically' get into base to base due to a wall, full floor, etc., we assume the charge is completed successfully, but leave the charging models on the ground floor, touching the wall, with the understanding that they 'are base-to-base'.

Seems to work just fine for us.  Of course, if you're arguing from a strictly RAW perspective, then I can't help, cause I'm just trying to play a game here 

I fully support Cruentus' convention; it seems like an eminently reasonable way to resolve an otherwise silly rules exploit.

So is the fish of fury a silly rules exploit?

I'm not sure that I would class being unable to move a model into a space where there physically isn't room for him as a rules exploit.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me. If the model can't fit on the floor, then he obviously can't move there.

It's a discusser, methinks.

If both players like the way it plays then go for it. If you can't make it up to the higher floor, it's likely they won't be able to come down a floor without coming within 1" of the enemy either.

The two units can sit there and trade pot-shots at each other from close range. . .


If both players don't like that concept then they can go with something more along the lines of what Cruentus suggests.

It's a silly rules exploit because it leads to a unit which can be 'invulnerable' to assault - and it's not a particularly unusual situation. It also depends on the particular piece of scenery being used.

Consider the following situation in 'normal' 40k: Model A charges Model B. Model B is behind a wall,with it's base touching the wall. The wall is too thin for Model A to balance on. Therefore is is IMPOSSIBLE for Model A to be in actual base contact with Model B, due to the vagaries of the scenery piece.

The convention I've always seen used (and there may well be something in the rules to back this up, though I can't find it at the moment) is that you should put Model A as close as possible to model B, touching the wall - and it is treated as if it is in base to base contact with Model B.

The wall certainly does not make Model B 'unassaultable'. Claiming that it does would be a silly rules exploit.

A situation that may be more visually similar: the enemy unit is on the first 'shelf' of a stepped hill scenery piece (ie several pieces of flat 1" styrofoam, smaller ones glued to the top of lower ones, leaving 1" shelf to place miniatures on). The enemy unit occupies the entire shelf, such that you cannot balance any more modles on that shelf of the hill.

Is the enemy unit 'unassaultable', just because it is physically impossible to put something in base to base? What would you say to someone who claimed that?

What you are missing is that the unit is NOT invulnerable to assault, killing off 3 or 4 models will usually make the squad assaultable and that is going to be the squad you are shooting at before the assault.

The topic of the thread should probably read "hard to assault unit" not "impossible" because it is not impossible, you are not making it so that the squad is unassaultable, just a pain in the @ss to get at, same as fish of fury.

I've been doing the "set next to wall/structure, move up if a model dies" house rule since I started also. I would hope that it would be an often used convention as it seems to be easy to grasp for most players and avoids problems with terrain. Saying you can charge if they are back an inch but not if they are up on the edge is just exploiting the terrain in an unintended manner.

 

I think it is a viable tactic. Not only is it by the word of the rules but it is fluffy as well. How hard must it be to assault up stairs when the next landing up is crowded with enemies shooting at you? I think a stalemate/shoot out is inevitable.

Otherwise (and this would have to be a house convention) I think you should treat it as assaulting a unit in cover. That keeps the game going and gets the guys inside the building/ on the next floor a decent advantage to represent their better position.

 

ender502

If my opponenet insisted that I was not able to assault because there was not room on the floor, I would probably have to reluctantly agree, but from then on, i would refuse to play with any buildings that did not have stairs modeled on them. Stairs would fix the problem becuase then you don't have this weird void between floors where it's impossible to place a model. I mean, there had to be some way to get up there in the first place, right?

@misterheavy, what you are saying is interesting because in the situation that gave birth to this discussion the building DID have stairs, it was actually a consolidation move that strangelooper wanted to make and he could not make it around the back of the squad to make it in to HTH with the unit.

Posted By yakface on 06/15/2006 9:44 PM

It's a discusser, methinks.

If both players like the way it plays then go for it. If you can't make it up to the higher floor, it's likely they won't be able to come down a floor without coming within 1" of the enemy either.

The two units can sit there and trade pot-shots at each other from close range. . .


If both players don't like that concept then they can go with something more along the lines of what Cruentus suggests.

Genestealers won't be trading potshots  Hopefully people work around it in real life as often as it sounds.

Consider the following situation in 'normal' 40k: Model A charges Model B. Model B is behind a wall,with it's base touching the wall. The wall is too thin for Model A to balance on. Therefore is is IMPOSSIBLE for Model A to be in actual base contact with Model B, due to the vagaries of the scenery piece.

Yup, back in 2nd edition, this was actually covered by the rules. There was even (if I remember correctly) a modifier to your attack roll specifically for this situation, which applied in the first round of combat. For the second round of combat, your model was assumed to have crossed the barrier and combat was fought as normal.

The general convention, as you say, is to move the model as close as possible and count it from there. It's simply not addressed by the rules though... so far as the rules are concerned, no base contact equals no assault.

I think it really comes down to the situation, though. If the unit is sitting somewhere that is hard to get to, and there is physically no room for an attacking model, I see no reason that the model should be allowed to go there. A low wall that can be reached over is one thing, a floor above head height that needs to be climbed to is quite another...

So what if I model a Genestealer or other model with some extra arms or something that physically kept another model from being able to get into base to base?  Is my model unnassaultable?  If I'm charging Genestealers, that are unreachable from the front because of their arms, do I have to have the charge distance necessary to circle around to the back?

Fatman, what you are talking about are two totally different situations, same as assaulting through a wall which is another parallel that keeps on coming up.

These are not the same things because although by RAW they are not supported, they are easily supported by fluff.

Take a look at the 'sound tactic vs. rules exploit' thread in tactics for my last argument on this one.