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Lets say you love backpack banners and such.

Official rules say Sergeant Sacrificial Lamb can be shot to death by a plasma bolt to the backpack banner. Now aside from being fairly ridiculous on the face of it, Sergeant Lamb doesn't actually come with a backpack banner anymore. Assuming you were playing someone who had gone to the trouble to convert their entire army to this extra aesthetic for Rule of Cool - what do you do? Make them let you shoot them in the banner? Houserule it to only "official" parts of the model? Houserule it to only the "main body" of the model so the loincloth on a Knight is also not a threat?

My gut reaction is to limit it to the "official" parts of the model - or what would be the official parts if they were there (i.e. someone drops the raised base piece of the Terminator Captain because they hate enemy-specific bits like a dead Tyrannid body when they might be facing Chaos Space Marines). My secondary reaction is to include the Knight banner, until I think about it. Just because when the model ends its move you can only see the loincloth banner, doesn't mean you couldn't see the leg when it was walking to that point and the model is an abstract of the cubic area the model could be in various poses and movements. What would you do? RAW and shoot the banner? Houserule to avoid punishing modelling for DISadvantage?

Follow RAW as always.

In a tournament ask the TO.

It is just a game so it doesn't matter. It is all for fun anyway.

But Trust me on the "follow RAW".

Would leave the banner as a looking cool item not being a legit target.

Breton wrote:
Lets say you love backpack banners and such.

Official rules say Sergeant Sacrificial Lamb can be shot to death by a plasma bolt to the backpack banner. Now aside from being fairly ridiculous on the face of it, Sergeant Lamb doesn't actually come with a backpack banner anymore. Assuming you were playing someone who had gone to the trouble to convert their entire army to this extra aesthetic for Rule of Cool - what do you do? Make them let you shoot them in the banner? Houserule it to only "official" parts of the model? Houserule it to only the "main body" of the model so the loincloth on a Knight is also not a threat?

My gut reaction is to limit it to the "official" parts of the model - or what would be the official parts if they were there (i.e. someone drops the raised base piece of the Terminator Captain because they hate enemy-specific bits like a dead Tyrannid body when they might be facing Chaos Space Marines). My secondary reaction is to include the Knight banner, until I think about it. Just because when the model ends its move you can only see the loincloth banner, doesn't mean you couldn't see the leg when it was walking to that point and the model is an abstract of the cubic area the model could be in various poses and movements. What would you do? RAW and shoot the banner? Houserule to avoid punishing modelling for DISadvantage?

Simple. You say to your opponent, "I see you have a lot of cool backbanners on your Marines. I don't want to take advantage of your models extra parts during the game. How about we play this game with LOS being from central parts of the model? I'm talking torsos, heads, legs, and upper arm."

If they agree, you with that. If you don't, you play RAW.

 alextroy wrote:

Breton wrote:
Lets say you love backpack banners and such.

Official rules say Sergeant Sacrificial Lamb can be shot to death by a plasma bolt to the backpack banner. Now aside from being fairly ridiculous on the face of it, Sergeant Lamb doesn't actually come with a backpack banner anymore. Assuming you were playing someone who had gone to the trouble to convert their entire army to this extra aesthetic for Rule of Cool - what do you do? Make them let you shoot them in the banner? Houserule it to only "official" parts of the model? Houserule it to only the "main body" of the model so the loincloth on a Knight is also not a threat?

My gut reaction is to limit it to the "official" parts of the model - or what would be the official parts if they were there (i.e. someone drops the raised base piece of the Terminator Captain because they hate enemy-specific bits like a dead Tyrannid body when they might be facing Chaos Space Marines). My secondary reaction is to include the Knight banner, until I think about it. Just because when the model ends its move you can only see the loincloth banner, doesn't mean you couldn't see the leg when it was walking to that point and the model is an abstract of the cubic area the model could be in various poses and movements. What would you do? RAW and shoot the banner? Houserule to avoid punishing modelling for DISadvantage?

Simple. You say to your opponent, "I see you have a lot of cool backbanners on your Marines. I don't want to take advantage of your models extra parts during the game. How about we play this game with LOS being from central parts of the model? I'm talking torsos, heads, legs, and upper arm."

If they agree, you with that. If you don't, you play RAW.

That's kind of where I'd go. Similar to Rules As Written, I'd do Models as Moulded. If the model didn't have a banner, the banner isn't there when checking LOS etc. Just curious what other people do in this sort of situation.

Agree with your opponent. If you decide to house rule and it creates a bunch of arguments about what “counts” during the game then you only have yourselves to blame!

In practice, the LOS rules work fine so I’d just play by the RAW. Saves on judgement calls and disagreements, trust me.

One thing you can do when dealing with counts-as is keep an original model in your bag and swap it out if needed. Obviously not something you could do for everything, but having a spare sarge built by-the-book to check LoS with if it became an issue might sooth some ruffled feathers if people are worried about MFA.

HIWPI - just ignore the banners and extra stuff. This was RAW at point (not that we didn’t argue about it back then) and I still play that way.

Remember that LoS works both ways. If someone wants to shoot your banner, it can shoot back.

You play with ruins that properly abstract LOS to minimize these problems.

 Nevelon wrote:
One thing you can do when dealing with counts-as is keep an original model in your bag and swap it out if needed. Obviously not something you could do for everything, but having a spare sarge built by-the-book to check LoS with if it became an issue might sooth some ruffled feathers if people are worried about MFA.

HIWPI - just ignore the banners and extra stuff. This was RAW at point (not that we didn’t argue about it back then) and I still play that way.

Remember that LoS works both ways. If someone wants to shoot your banner, it can shoot back.

That's one thing I was somewhat planning. If they're bound and determined to RAW Modeled for Cool backpack banners into LOS, I can play without them. The other thing I'm looking at are 3D Printed "tokens" - I found a "servitor" model of a guy in some sort of Cruise Ship Air Duct - you know the big pipe thing that's bent over and cartoon people hide in - with a small writing desk and supplies in front of him. He can easily be a Watcher In The Dark style token with the Calgar banner mounted to the table only instead of being a DA specific Watcher In The Dark, he's a Remembrancer writing reports for Gulliman. At that point the cool bit is on a token, not a model, and doesn't count for anything.

If it is in a tournament, I ask the TO.

Otherwise I prefer to follow the Gentlethem Approach by always offering to play the rules to my detriment, or allowing my opponent to make calls like this.

I draw some kind of line at blatantly obviously modelling for advantage. Such as adding skirts to a Wave Serpent so it will block line of sight to the unit behind it. Then it doesn't matter how good looking the conversion is, I would suggest my opponent does the Gentlethem Approach and plays it to their detriment.