Trooper A is approaching a small scenery object from position A1. Trooper B is prone behind the object. Can Trooper A use the vaulting rule to move to position A2 (and then retreat back to a fully supported ending position)? If B wasn't there, this would be a standard vault. So the question is whether A can still vault when B is underneath, blocking the ground which is notionally supporting A. Is A's base still "fully supported" or does having B underneath prevent this? Proposed by @RobertShepherd here: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/tactics-list.41318/#post-437694 . I can't see any reason it wouldn't work, but it's weird enough that I want to check it.
I think this would fall under a sort of undefined behaviour. The rules for vaulting as we call it says "This vertical movement is not taken into account when measuring how far the Trooper moves, but the Trooper counts as moving up and over the obstacle for the purposes of LoF." (underline emphasis added) so it doesn't actually instruct us to move the miniature itself on to the obstacle, only the LOF gizmo. The rules for Move does state that "The Trooper’s base must always be in contact with the surface on which they intend to move." but the rules for vaulting does not really give instructions for if that surface is the obstacle or the ground that you measure on (it'd make vaulting in general less FAQ-intensive if it flat out called out the ground you measure on as being the surface you're in contact with) I'm not averse to either interpretation, but I'd fully understand a player's displeasure if someone sprang this on them from out of nowhere to deny cover during a game. Because of the requirement in Move I'd say I'm leaning towards that being technically in base contact with Trooper B being the most true to the rules and least janky solution.
Good points, and I think this gets at the heart of the issue. We know a trooper's base has to be fully supported during movement, but when vaulting, "supported" doesn't mean "touching the ground," it means "within 40mm of the ground" (for an S2). Does the trooper actually move up in every way, or do we still consider it to be moving along the ground that it's vaulting over? I think I'm leaning the other way than you, for a few reasons: - The vault rule is "A Trooper can move over any scenery item whose height is equal to or lower than the height of the Trooper’s Silhouette Template, with no need to declare Climb or Jump." The use of the word "over" rather than "through" suggests that the Trooper does indeed move up. - The vaulting diagram in the rules shows the model and the silhouette both moving up over the obstacle. - Having a trooper occupy one position for LoF purposes but a different position for silhouette contact purposes seems counterintuitive and unnecessarily complicated. None of those considerations are definitive, though, and it's also counterintuitive that a trooper could be "supported" by ground that's already occupied by an enemy, so I'm still far from certain. In my diagram, A can deny cover to B anyway, just by vaulting onto the obstacle but not over top of B. So that particular jank isn't an issue though it could be in a different diagram. The context in which it arose is where B is behind a parapet at the top of a ladder. In that scenario, if A can't do the vault, then he can't even get onto the parapet to get LoF on B, let alone get into silhouette contact (assuming the total height of the parapet is >40mm). So B can unassailably block the ladder, which also feels a little janky to me. It's a sort of a jank vs. jank scenario and I'm not sure which outcome I prefer, let alone which is correct.
Considering where the prone jank came from in your original question (prone on a roof in front of a ladder), I much prefer being able to vault. As if the ladder continues up to a parapet, it is literally impossible for the climbing model to have LoF to the prone model or get on the roof in any way.
I'm leaning that way as well. As @RobertShepherd pointed out initially, if A can vault, he can not only get LoF to B, he can even move around him onto the roof. Up the ladder into the vaulting position, then sideways along the parapet until he's no longer above B, then down onto the roof and around into B's back arc. Whereas if he can't vault, as you say he has no way to attack B or get onto the roof at all. On the other hand, if there's no parapet then A can get LoF to B from the ladder, but can't get around him onto the roof and can't get into silhouette contact with him at all. It seems weird that a parapet would make it easier, rather than harder, for A to assault B's position.
Interesting corollary: If it's true that A can vault, then B should deploy with his back to the ladder. When B moves into the vaulting position, he has to overlap A far enough to get into B's front arc from above (he can't stay in B's back arc without extending his silhouette back over empty space which isn't allowed in a vault). And if A moves around and on to the roof, he'll still be in B's front arc. If B intuitively deploys facing the ladder he's trying to guard, then if A has a marker state he can move around into B's back arc and get him from out of LoF in the next order.
This is a player-created problem, so does this deserve a player-created solution or does it deserve to be removed? The game has most of the tools necessary to deal with this problem like Climbing (move up the building somewhere else), jumping (in the rare cases it works), grenades (though usually a bit expensive and on units with bad skills for it), or hacking (if you have the missile launcher to enforce it and the opponent isn't in Marker state) These are still fairly rare abilities, though. From a simulatory perspective, you just don't climb up a ladder if there's an enemy with a weapon up there, even if they're effectively prone*. See Obi-Wan screenshot above. * anyone else find it weird that prone doesn't do... more? Troopers go prone to be harder to hit, reduce their surface area to ground-exploding blasts, get better accuracy from bracing their guns, and be completely ineffective in melee. Anyway, that's an aside
Parkour! If there is a parapet then you can, from the ladder, vault over it, and land on the roof a bit further out. But without parapet, there is nothing to grab on to help you vault onto the roof. edit: the ladder goes all the way up the parapet ? that is a terrain quality problem (ex. cardboard terrain with printed ladders). MDF kit often don't have any parapet where the ladder goes; so you can't vault the parapet on the sides without first landing on the roof.
I'm not sure what you mean by player-created problem, but in any case I'm not proposing to create a solution. My point regarding problems and solutions is only that if we think that the least janky interpretation is the correct one (not always the case in Infinity, but a reasonable interpretive principle nonetheless), then it's still not obvious which interpretation is the least janky. One is janky in that a ladder can become unclimable in a way that feels unintended; the other is janky in that a trooper can hover above an enemy trooper in a way that feels unintended. Neither is a problem as such - the game will play fine either way. But in any case the only question is which interpretation is correct, and I'm not sure the jank-avoidance principle can answer it.
Just as a point of note - the words 'fully supported' don't actually appear anywhere in N4's movement rules (presumably removed to accommodate squeezing). (I don't know if it's actually relevant to the question at hand, but it's something to note whenever vaulting comes up generally.) For myself - I posited so obviously I'm in favour of this being possible. I don't really have the opinion that using models + terrain to block enemy movement is jank; it comes up all the time, albeit usually in more easily parsed and organic ways. But I'm generally in favour of having more options for movement rather than fewer.
Purely philosophically, I would say the fewer problems in the game that are optimally solved by guided missiles, the better.
The “squeezing” rules don’t somehow stop working if you’re on top of terrain that’s next to prone models, nor do the vaulting rules. You’re not fully supported by the half-inch wide surfaces that N4 lets you move across (but not stop on). In other words, this sounds like “You’re stuck remembering the N3 Movement Rules” problem. :)
Interesting. The "fully supported" rule comes from Infinity Rules Staff in this post: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/double-vaulting.38762/#post-383287 (Edited to the correct link) I went back and re-read the post, and there may be some potentially helpful nuance in there. @ijw didn't actually say that your base has to be fully supported during a vault. Instead, he said that you are vaulting whenever your base is not supported, and that while vaulting, "any vertical movement will be limited by the Trooper's Silhouette height." The wording is a bit awkward because it seems to imply that you can use vaulting to lean out past the edge of a building with a parapet (your vertical movement hasn't changed, the ground has dropped off beneath you), which we know isn't allowed, so presumably it must count as "vertical movement" when the distance between the Trooper and the ground changes, whether because the Trooper moves or because the ground moves. But the wording would seem to support the interpretation that A is allowed to vault above B. Contrary to what I'd recalled, A's base doesn't have to be "fully supported" during the vault (raising the weird question of whether you can be supported by ground an enemy trooper is on), rather, A's "vertical movement" can't exceed 40mm (which is hasn't since the rooftop is still there). And it confirms that it is indeed vertical movement that puts the trooper above B (as opposed to A moving vertically solely for LoF purposes.) I'm leaning even more towards "yes you can" now.
Exactly, though as I wrote, the solutions to problems like that are speciality equipment and not something that an all-comer list can be expected to have. Grenades outside of werewolves are quite rare, light grenade launchers are rare outside of lightest infantry and have no good rangeband, and Jammers have limited use issues and are still quite uncommon. Funnily enough, Climb+ on super soldiers is one of the most commonly available tech to address this. Add to it that sensor owing to sniffer's removal is now also a tech that's mostly only accessible to Ariadna and recently Monkehs. So the primary claim to "jank" is that the counter play requires specific preparation and is order intensive (for non-Ariadnans) as a result. You accidentally linked to a Haqq tactics post that's a work in progress and not to the IJW post. You meant to link this, I assume: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/double-vaulting.38762/#post-383287 From memory on what IJW has said on the topic, vaulting and squeezing are not mutually exclusive. You can squeeze while vaulting, basically, which if the scenery is positioned to force your trooper to do this movement would allow you to "overhang", but you can not do this voluntarily when there is room for your trooper to not have to do it. The limit by silhouette height IJW is talking about in that post is the limit by how much you are allowed to displace your trooper upwards or downwards during a vaulting movement (the displacement the rules are referring to as "for LOF purposes" and that may prevent the vaulting movement from being allowed). I do not think you can take this as IJW talking about whether the trooper is counting as still walking on the ground below or not. Context is that the OP in that thread is talking about using a bunch of crates and assorted trash to make a vaulting movement to gain over one silhouette's height in free vertical movement up on to a fairly tall building.
Yes, thanks! Edited. I'm quoting him for his treatment of the word "supported." My difficulty with the idea of A hovering above B was: how can A's base be "supported" by ground that is already supporting B? But @ijw in the post says that in fact, A's base is not "supported" while vaulting. Hence, my concern with A being able to be above B is dispelled: A vaults in the normal way, and his base doesn't have to be supported while vaulting, so it doesn't matter that there's an enemy model a cm or so beneath his base. I'm less concerned about the idea that A actually stays on the ground the whole time and his vertical movement is only "for LoF purposes," because I don't think it's persuasive. In post #3 above, I mentioned some of my reasons for thinking the rules wording say the trooper does in fact move vertically for all purposes. @ijw 's reference to vertical movement also supports that interpretation, though I agree with you that it isn't definitive. And another reason to think that the vertical movement is real movement is that you can use vaulting to climb onto, and stop on, a low obstacle. E.g. if there's a 30mm high, 50mm wide shipping crate, an S2 trooper can Move onto the crate, and end his movement there, by vaulting up onto it. It would be hard to reconcile that with the idea that a vaulting trooper doesn't actually move up over an obstacle, and just stays at ground level while moving vertically only for LoF purposes.
Well, the primary reason that I do not think we could take what he writes in that thread and apply it to a situation he isn't answering is that he's answering a different question and he's using "supported" in context of moving to higher levels and talking about the fact that the vaulting silhouette isn't "supported" by the object it is vaulting over. And we know from other answers that the trooper stops being considered supported for the purposes of the Move skill's requirements if it goes over an overhang, so the requirement for support isn't removed. I think it's only fair to take his answer there at face value of the actual question asked and not apply it to a different situation not considered.
