This reminds me of the moment during a 40k tournament when I wanted to rain down fire on the orks with my grim reaper eldar aspect warriors deployed on a hill. My opponent said this is not possible because they can't shoot through friendly troopers. I told him there is clear line of fire because the grim reapers are on a hill. My opponent replied that we had not defined before the game that this piece of terrain my Eldar were on as a hill. I had to concede that we had not even though the terrain piece was obviously a hill. My opponent was the best 40k player in Germany. You need to discuss every piece of terrain before the game to avoid arguments and disappointment.
And hence I intend to end up with a way of categorizing 'ladder or stairway-like' scenery by default. And if players do not sensibly discuss and clearly agree the terrain beforehand (which inevitably of course, they often won't) then that house default will apply. And this will be written up as a house rule that is printed and displayed. And then - even if people get caught out (which of course they often will) they will not also feel like they've been cheated by the other player. And you may say, "But Wolf, you can't possibly save all the gamers from all the many misfortunes they will contrive to bring upon themselves!" And I will look you in the eye and say "No, but I can make a start, can't I?" <John Lennon's 'Imagine' starts up in the background> <Exit: The Wolf - stage left>
Guys, it is a thread for dealing with odd shaped terrain, we do not need to get excessively strict in the rules for such a case, players can agree to classify it as a stairs or agree to treat each "step" as an individual wall and "vault" it. The FAQ is written to clarify that the model gains the height of the obstacle it vaults over for LoF purposed not that it needs to go up and then down again, it is perfectly acceptable to vault an obstacle and be on top of it, if the base allows it. But really the players should agree beforehand how the terrain elements will work to avoid any on the spot problems.
Anyway, here's a setup so we can agree what we learned. (I apologize that the angle made the shot a poor illustration; I'll reshoot it again ASAP, or provide a diagram.) Father Knight with MOV 10-10 (4-4); S2; boxes are 7cm in length, inferior height to S2 silhouette (marker shown) I think we can say the following, yes? i) The unit can move a full 10cm to the other side of the boxes using the 'vault' clause. ii) As far as ARO's/Lines of Fire when the movement is completed, the unit is considered to have followed an 'up and down' path over over the boxes (even though that path would be longer than the unit's MOV value) to reach the final position at ground level. If that's all ok, I'd like to get back to the 'ladders and stairs' bit, and then wrap up.
With respect Storm, I think we all know we can be more or less strict in applying rules as the situation demands. We can't be more or less strict if we don't know what the rules actually are though, can we. I'm certainly not addressing the whole forum community with this question, and people who aren't interested, don't see the problem, or don't think there's any value in it need not concern themselves. I'm sure there are and more interesting forum topics they can read. It's just a minor puzzle I'm myself interested in addressing because I noticed a quirk of scenery that could catch players out. If anyone else is interested in talking about that, great; if not, no problem. ... It's not as if we're talking about The Topic That Shall Not Be Named.
I was thinking in the past and still think about it sometimes to compile an unofficial document of terrain examples and what rules to use on them, the major issue is how vast and random the terrain is and how defiant it is to get codified.
If the official interpretation is that there is no MOV penalty with moving "up and down" with vaulting, I am fine with that.
Unless those boxes are large enough for the base to be fully supported, doesnt the model go "through" them instead of "up and over" for purposes of aro's?
No thats what the FaQ was clarrifying. Or more accurately itd through but the sillie does elevate over them
Can you clarify that again, please Storm. I thought that if the obstruction is lower than the unit's silhouette, we should measure the movement horizontally, but trace the model's route up and over the obstruction for the purpose of sight lines; is that not correct?
Anyway, I'd like to move on from 'vault' if I may, because I'm curious that whilst stairs and ladders explicitly allow free movement vertically, it's only implied that a model's base can also exceed the confines of the scenery. That's clearly illustrated in the rulebook, and what we all commonly do. Is it a reasonable assumption, and are there any exceptions? (See again the illustrations from the original post - stairways on Bandua Wargames’ buildings, and ladders on the sides of Corvus Belli’s Mototronica shipping containers.)
go to the rules subforum, has been continuously discussed there, pages and pages. As storm IJW and almost everyone else has said, its up to you to actually work with you opponent to define terrain
