FAQs, Notes, and Discussion

[Sleboda]

Hi,

I don't think we have a thread here for this, which on one hand is pretty cool since it means the rules look like they are pretty tight. On the other hand, there are a few things that I think have some wiggle room or are unclear, so I thought I'd start this.

I've played a bunch of games now, and some questions I had early on I was able to answer myself, but what is left I can't seem to figure out 100%. It's entirely possible I've overlooked a rule somewhere, but as far as I can see these need help.

Below I will list the questions and then say how we've been playing them in my house. A few of these are very much clear in the rules if you read them word for word, so I don't really see them as needing a FAQ so much as I want to discuss with others how they are playing them (thus the thread title). I'll call those out.

Anyway, please leave your thoughts and additional questions.

Thanks!

 

Question: When a model is climbing, it can finish an action mid-climb. How do we resolve the space the model occupies? This is important for the range of its attacks. If the base is considered to be flush against the surface it is climbing, then it will have a very limited reach to its targets.  If its base is considered to the parallel to the ground, that opens up much greater possibilities.

Our View: The model's base remains parallel to the ground.

 

Question: If a climbing model reaches a platform that is occupied from the front/"landing point" of the model that climbing, but there is a tiny amount of platform space going around the enemy model that leads to enough space behind it for the climber to rest the center of its base (and the climber has the movement) can the climber climb along the platform's surface, along that tiny space, until it reaches the available space?

Our View: Even though it feels odd to have the model hanging on by his toes if we were to put the model there while climbing, we allow it.

 

Question: Van Hels Dance (and other abilities now or maybe to come) can grant bonus actions to other fighters. Are these bonus actions resolved during the activation of the model granting the bonus actions, or when the model receiving the bonus action activates?

Our View: With the support of a reference on p. 40 of the rules (though still not 100% clear) we say that you use the little general-use red and blue tokens to create reminders that the recipients of bonus actions will get to use those actions when they activate, not as an interrupt to the currently active fighter. Interrupting opens up too many possible debates and seems to be contrary to the idea that a fighter only uses actions during its activation.

 

Question: Is Loadza Arrows permanent and cumulative?

Our View: Yes. If not, the Universal +1A ability is better.  Plus, the wording is so precise in abilities that last to a certain point in time, and this ability has no such limiting wording. 

 

Question: In scenarios where it does not otherwise specify, can treasure tokens be placed on top of each other? For example, in Defend the Find (I think that's the title) it says that token must be placed within 2" of another token. Well, on top of is certainly within.

Our View: Yeah, go ahead. You've met the requirement of within 2". Note: This is one of those I talked about that is clear by the straight up reading of the rules and we just wonder how others play it.

 

Question: Can you grab a treasure or objective that you cannot see, for instance on the other side of a solid wall?

Our View: Yep! The requirement is distance, not line of sight or accessibility. Note: This is one of those I talked about that is clear by the straight up reading of the rules and we just wonder how others play it.

 

Question: There is a Gitz ability that adds the value of the ability to the damage for the damage allocated by hits and crits. Does this apply one time to the total, to each hit and crit, or to each damage point allocated?

Our View: By the rules, the only "wrong" way to play is to add it to each hit and crit, since if you are doing that you are only partially reading the damage allocation rule in the book.  If you read the whole section, you see that damage is allocated one point at a time, which means you must add the bonus damage to each point. This leaves the only reasonable interpretation as adding the bonus one time to the damage from (hits and crits) as opposed to the damage from hits and the damage from crits. Personally, I will be pretty disappointed if the FAQ comes and says to add it to each hit and each crit. On a flying 8" move T5 S5 multi-attack model, this is bonkers.  It is hitting on 3+ in most cases, generating, usually, 20+ bonus damage, meaning a one-attack-kill on most things in the game. If it were on a slower model, or a weaker model, then maybe. But who is going to use this on anything other than a hopper? 

That all said, we are currently, against my better judgement, playing it as applying to each hit and each crit.

 

 

Discussion Topic: The rules for cover talk about proximity to the obstacle. Several scenarios have clusters of terrain touching each other. Are they a single obstacle? If they are not, where is the dividing line between one obstacle and the next? It may seem natural to identify each "glued together" piece as an individual obstacle, but what about people who configure things differently, or even configure them as shown on the cards, but have not glued them together (perhaps to retain flexibility)?  

Essentially, where does one obstacle end and another begin? It's really a murky area of the rules.

 

Odd Rules Note: The rules for cover while on a platform and being attacked from below mean that such a model will not get cover when using standard Warcry terrain. The base to base measurement and the thickness of a base will negate the 3" gap requirement ever so slightly.

[Moldek]

Question: When a model is climbing, it can finish an action mid-climb. How do we resolve the space the model occupies? This is important for the range of its attacks. If the base is considered to be flush against the surface it is climbing, then it will have a very limited reach to its targets.  If its base is considered to the parallel to the ground, that opens up much greater possibilities.

Our View: The model's base remains parallel to the ground.

> you may have seen this but p42 the rules on falling say that if a model finishes an activation mid climb, it falls. the rules on climbing (same page) say that you must keep climbing until you reach a platform/ the ground. So it seems it’s not allowed to finish an action mid-climb, but the rules seem to allow you to try haha.

[Lior'Lec]

     @Moldek, not exactly. The model can spend multiple actions climbing but they must be consecutive. The model cannot end an activation while climbing but can end an action midclimb. Reference pg 43, the bottom photo gives a clear example of this in action.

     @Sleboda, as above the question is moot because the model may not preform any additional actions so long as they are still climbing. Once the fighter starts moving up the wall/ladder all actions must be used to climb until it gets to a platform. If the fighter doesn’t has enough movement or actions remaining to complete the climb then it falls. 

[Lior'Lec]

16 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Question: If a climbing model reaches a platform that is occupied from the front/"landing point" of the model that climbing, but there is a tiny amount of platform space going around the enemy model that leads to enough space behind it for the climber to rest the center of its base (and the climber has the movement) can the climber climb along the platform's surface, along that tiny space, until it reaches the available space?

     The way we play it is that if there is not enough space for the model to legally set there then they may not use that portion of the platform. Just like moving between fighters on the ground. The fighter can still climb sideways or upwards at an angle however, which means even though we play it differently (I believe closer to RAW and RAI) it makes no difference on 90% of situations.

16 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Question: Can you grab a treasure or objective that you cannot see, for instance on the other side of a solid wall?

     RAW says yes, but we made a common sense ruling and said no. 

16 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Discussion Topic: The rules for cover talk about proximity to the obstacle. Several scenarios have clusters of terrain touching each other. Are they a single obstacle? If they are not, where is the dividing line between one obstacle and the next? It may seem natural to identify each "glued together" piece as an individual obstacle, but what about people who configure things differently, or even configure them as shown on the cards, but have not glued them together (perhaps to retain flexibility)?  

Essentially, where does one obstacle end and another begin? It's really a murky area of the rules.

 

     We decided to play the cover rules by ear. There are a few times that they get a little confusing in application so just wing it. However we’ve considered just adopting Kill Team’s ruling on this matter. If any part of the model is obscured it receives cover bonuses. If the models have an obstruction between them during melee then they receive cover bonuses. Haven’t reviewed yet to make certain but should work just as well or better. 

[Moldek]

2 hours ago, Lior'Lec said:

 

     @Moldek, not exactly. The model can spend multiple actions climbing but they must be consecutive. The model cannot end an activation while climbing but can end an action midclimb. Reference pg 43, the bottom photo gives a clear example of this in action.

 

Sorry that’s what I meant, I should have written activation instead of action at the end. The rules for falling if you end an activation mid climb didn’t make sense to me, but thinking about it it works if you’re climbing down. You might want to use your last inch of movement to climb down a bit and fall from 2’’ instead of jumping from 3’’.

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, Lior'Lec said:

     @Moldek

     @Sleboda, as above the question is moot because the model may not preform any additional actions so long as they are still climbing. Once the fighter starts moving up the wall/ladder all actions must be used to climb until it gets to a platform. If the fighter doesn’t has enough movement or actions remaining to complete the climb then it falls. 

I missed that. Where is that written?

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, Lior'Lec said:

RAW says yes, but we made a common sense ruling and said no. 

The thing is, you could easily rationalize it to say that the token represents the center of the area where the actual treasure might be. Sort of like X marks the spot, but you still have to dig around a few feet around the X to find it. Maybe the treasure itself was actually on the other side of the wall. Your view is appreciated though!

[Lior'Lec]

     @Sleboda On the treasure token: well the good news is I’m not telling you how to play the game; just how we play the game.

     As for the climbing... page 43 where it describes climbing actions. It is a combination of RAW and RAInterpreted but essentially the model starts climbing and can use multiple movement (climbing) actions to get where it needs to go (photo example on bottom of page 44 allows this, but nowhere in the actual rules does it say it) but it states in the rules on page 43 the model must climb until it reaches a point where the center of it’s base is either on a platform or the ground. Without the clarification by the photo you would be limited to exactly how far you can climb in a single movement and if your activation ends you fall (again, stated in the climbing rules page 43).

[Sleboda]

Yep, @Lior'Lec, totally get you're just giving your view (as I hoped folks would!). I was just giving an example of how it could be sensible (I refuse to use the term "common sense" cuz there is no such thing -  but that's another topic) to play RAW with some creativity.

 

As to the climbing thing, yeah. We read that same section, and that's what led us to our question. Sure, you have to keep going until you can land the center of the base, but the real question was about climbing/crawling along a slim portion of the platform to reach the landing spot.  To put it perhaps more simply, can a model "climb" across a platform?

[Lior'Lec]

     @Sleboda, think we got our wires crossed because two of your questions were referencing climbing... for dancing around the edge I’d answered above (posing screen shot of the previous post... to lazy to type it out again).

     My other climbing related posts were in reference to your question about ending an action while climbing and which way does the base face. You have to continue climbing until you’re on a stable platform so it doesn’t matter which way you consider the base to since you cannot attack anyway.

[Sleboda]

3 hours ago, Lior'Lec said:

You have to continue climbing until you’re on a stable platform so it doesn’t matter which way you consider the base to since you cannot attack anyway.

Maybe I'm just overlooking it, but I see no rule anywhere saying a fighter cannot climb with its first action and attack with its second (or possibly even more with certain abilities). 

I do see a rule saying that if you finish your activation still climbing you fall. It looks to me like if you are willing to take the fall, you can move up with a climb, take a swing, and fall down. This is why it's important to know where your base actually is positioned.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Sleboda

[Moldek]

35 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Maybe I'm just overlooking it, but I see no rule anywhere saying a fighter cannot climb with its first action and attack with its second (or possibly even more with certain abilities). 

I do see a rule saying that if you finish your activation still climbing you fall. It looks to me like if you are willing to take the fall, you can move up with a climb, take a swing, and fall down. This is why it's important to know where your base actually is positioned.

In my (french) rulebook it’s on page 42, first paragraph of the « climbing » column :

 « once a fighter has started climbing, he climbs untils the center of it’s base is either on the ground or on a platform »

To me this indicates that you cannot perform any other action while climbing; you have to reach a place to stand on first, or keep climbing until you fall at the end of your activation.

[Sleboda]

Well, it may be a subtlety of language, especially with the prevalence of the phrase "said to be" that is in this book and does not appear in such frequency in any other GW rules set.

 

In the English version, the quote is "Once a fighter begins to climb, they are said to be climbing until the centre of their base is on the battlefield floor or a platform."

 

There is a very important thing to get our heads around with that phrasing. 

 

All it does is assign a 'state' to a climbing model. That state bring "climbing." It is telling us that from the moment the model begins to climb until the moments the center of its base is on a floor or platform, its state/condition is "climbing."

 

So, if any rule applies to a climbing model, it will apply to this model. For example, it is this interaction of words that makes the model fall at the end of its activation. 

 

With this being the case, we need to look to see if a model that is climbing is unable to attack. At present, no such rule is indicated. 

 

Again, this phrasing does not introduce a limitation on actions. It merely adds a state to it.

 

I get that it's subtle, but really, by the printed rules, it's not a prohibition on attacking, or indeed a forcing of its remaining actions to be movement.

[soak314]

@Sleboda @Moldek @Lior'LecI think you can climb and then attack in two parts as one activation.

p42, Falling rules, makes a point of differentiating when a moving, non-climbing fighter falls, and when a climbing fighter falls.

Moving, non climbing is at the end of the move action (ie. doing a scooby doo run right off a ledge). If you do this as your first action, you proceed to Falling rules, resolve those, then do your second action. (Ignore for a moment that this rule is at complete and utter odds with the Jumping mechanics, we'll get back to it in a bit.)

Climbing however does not cause you to fall at the end of the action, only at the end of the activation. If you look at the example diagram on p43, you'll see the fighter making two move actions, the first one transitioning into and ending while in a climbing state (fighters that begin a climb are said to be climbing until their base rests on a platform!). He carries on with another Move action, resuming the climbing state, and getting onto the platform. His activation ends, he isn't in a climbing state, he doesn't fall.

Now let's pretend that instead of moving for his second activation, he'd done an attack instead. Ending an action in the climbing state makes it so he does not fall. He finishes the second action, the attack, and you now check his status. He's not on a platform or on the board, but is in a climbing state. It's the end of his activation, while in a climbing state, therefore climbing no longer saves him. He now goes into the falling rules, and your opponent decides where he lands.

***

Earlier I mentioned the Jumping rules being at odds with the moving, non-climbing fall state. Take the example of the scooby doo ledge run. If willfully done, it's technically a jump. The Falling state does not occur, and the controlling player puts his fighter straight down horizontally. The opponent won't get to decide where he lands, as they usually would during a Fall. 

Why would you ever not willfully turn the scooby doo ledge run into a jump? Why would you, as the rules writer, go through the trouble of defining a special moving, non-climbing fall state when anyone could just turn instances of those state, during their turn, into (relatively) safe Jumps?

I think this is because Warcry's activation rules were initially written to be like Infinity's. For those not aware, Infinity works off a near identical two-action-per-activation system. The key difference is that in Infinity, you declare both of your actions before you ever touch your tape measure to check if you can actually do them.

***

With this in mind, let's look back at your climbing combat example.

On 8/25/2019 at 10:39 AM, Sleboda said:

Question: If a climbing model reaches a platform that is occupied from the front/"landing point" of the model that climbing, but there is a tiny amount of platform space going around the enemy model that leads to enough space behind it for the climber to rest the center of its base (and the climber has the movement) can the climber climb along the platform's surface, along that tiny space, until it reaches the available space?

(Just to be clear I do think you can solid snake in MGS2 it across the thin ledge via climb up until you get the clearance you need.)

In Warcry with pre-measuring, this is all a risk free endeavor. You see how far your dude can go, see if he can make it to the safe spot. If he can, then peachy. You do a Normal Move, which is also a Climb, to assassins creed around the side safely onto the platform. If he can't, then you don't bother with this course of action at all.

But if you were doing this with no pre-measuring, from the bottom of the climb, you risk not making that second move action all the way. If you'd declared Move > Move, started the climb on the first action, carried it on with the second, and ended up either in a climb state without fitting legally onto the platform, then you'd fall.

Imagine a similar situation, but with both fighters up on the platform.  Say one player activates and wants to move around the other without engaging. He declares Move > Move to run past the other guy while staying up on the platform. If he fudges the first move, and ends up not on full platform contact, he'll then fall. If he saves himself by saying he'll climb around the ledge for the first move, he still has to successfully make it onto a flat surface with both moves. If he ends while climbing, he again falls.

So uh yeah I think you can climb and attack but I also think warcry was made with a "declaration first no pre-measuring" action system initially, up until someone in corporate told them to make it ez premeasure all the time because it was too close to Infinity / too fiddly for their vision of a simple system.  

[Moldek]

@Sleboda I see the english version is more ambiguous.
Personally I'll stick with the french version that says that you have to keep climbing until you're on stable ground because that's what's in my rulebook, and because in 99% of situations it makes little sense how someone clinging to a wall would be able to effectively attack someone freely standing.

But RAW in english you do have a point, it does not explicitly prevent you from doing that. Although the times you'd want to do that are probably pretty rare haha.

[soak314]

1 hour ago, Moldek said:

But RAW in english you do have a point, it does not explicitly prevent you from doing that. Although the times you'd want to do that are probably pretty rare haha.

They're rare, but in the instances you'd WANT to do climb > attack, I bet you will REALLY want to do climb > attack.

Example situation from an actual game: There is an objective on a platform. Stormcast eternals are meant to defend it. Stormcast player parks his 3 massive footprint models on the platform, which is > 3 inches up. There is now no way for you to place any other models on this platform.

If you weren't able to climb > attack, the only way you'd be able to legally attack the stormcast would be through weapons with range > 3 inches. Something some factions straight up do not have, and the ones that do that aren't stormcast will generally be very unlikely to kill a Stormcast Eternal, in cover, within the 3-4 turns of shooting they're provided. Maybe they'll knock one off with a crit? Maybe they're untamed beasts and can harpoon one off? Or maybe they're ironjawz and just cry.

Highly specific example, but platform denial is a mechanic all factions can make use of to a degree! It's important you be able to climb > attack for everyone to be able to have a shot at countering it.

[Moldek]

@soak314 that's a really good point, I think you changed my mind on this! I guess I can picture the fighter sneaking a wild shot while letting go of the obstacle, hoping to slice a tendon, and then falling backwards 😛

[soak314]

Just now, Moldek said:

@soak314 that's a really good point, I think you changed my mind on this! I guess I can picture the fighter sneaking a wild shot while letting go of the obstacle, hoping to slice a tendon, and then falling backwards 😛

Cheers! Yeah I've had a lot of games since release with people very keen to break this system, that along with making up and testing homebrew rules gets you super aware of how to cheese things.

Extra fun part with this is when you do fall after the climb > attack, your opponent can pick where you land. If there's dangerous terrain within the 2 inches, it'll make for a pretty entertaining back and forth series of events.

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, Moldek said:

But RAW in english you do have a point, it does not explicitly prevent you from doing that. Although the times you'd want to do that are probably pretty rare haha.

Not as rare as you might think! 

We've played a few games where an objective is on a platform and one player positions a few models on that platform in such a way that no other fighter can land on the platform. If the game is won our lost based on controlling that objective, and you can't climb+attack, the occupying warband auto wins.

This could easily be exploited in any game where this is the victory condition.

 

Edit: As @soak314 says! 😀

Edited August 26, 2019 by Sleboda

[tom_gore]

Question: What happens if you use the Untamed Beasts Harpoon ability and the indicated distance would force an enemy model to jump on top of enemy/friendly models or on top of an obstacle (not a platform)?

 

[FractalRain]

2 hours ago, soak314 said:

Cheers! Yeah I've had a lot of games since release with people very keen to break this system, that along with making up and testing homebrew rules gets you super aware of how to cheese things.

Extra fun part with this is when you do fall after the climb > attack, your opponent can pick where you land. If there's dangerous terrain within the 2 inches, it'll make for a pretty entertaining back and forth series of events.

Let me state that you make some great points for allowing the climb-attack being intended to fight platform denial strategies!  However I did want to ask how you handle the "falling" bit.  In most cases, when you climb-attack, you are falling less than 3", so you won't take Impact Damage, but it sounds like you still treat it as "falling" and your opponent moves your model?  Thanks!

[Moldek]

26 minutes ago, FractalRain said:

Let me state that you make some great points for allowing the climb-attack being intended to fight platform denial strategies!  However I did want to ask how you handle the "falling" bit.  In most cases, when you climb-attack, you are falling less than 3", so you won't take Impact Damage, but it sounds like you still treat it as "falling" and your opponent moves your model?  Thanks!

Yes, if you end your activation climbing you fall and all of the relevant rules apply, so you have to be careful about your placement regarding opponents and dangerous terrain. Attacking like that might be interesting combined with aptitudes that grant a bonus action, allowing you to climb, attack twice then fall down!

And if you score some crits you might even knock your opponent off of the platform ( low chance but still, how cool is that? )

[KoganStyle]

Is there any consensus on the drawing of battleplan cards vs resolving the cards? 

I've seen reports where each card is drawn so that the winner of the priority roll has full knowledge of the game to be played and can pick preferred deployment zones etc... when it comes to resolving them, and games where the card is drawn and resolved one at a time. 

I prefer the one at a time approach, and I'd argue that drawing the card is not the same as revealing the card (but revealing the card isn't mentioned as a step ), but that you draw a card so the loser of the priority roll can see that those are the cards that will be used for the battle and not any other. 

 

Thoughts? Experiences?

[Lior'Lec]

     @KoganStyle, this is how we do it and I’m 90% sure it is RAW but will double check when I get home (Haven’t played in a little over a week either so may be forgetting something).

1)Priority roll

2)Draw terrain card and set up terrain

3) Draw Deployment, select player colors

4) Draw Victory condition, select defender/etc.

6) Draw Twist

7) Deploy models 

     We add another step that would be number five but this is a house rule: Check that terrain, deployment, and victory combination do not allow for an impossible/auto-win game, if so agree on which card would make the most sense to replace and do so (usually deployment or victory).

[tom_gore]

By the book, you draw all cards at once and then resolve them in this order:

1. Set up terrain as per terrain card.

2. Priority winner chooses deployment side (red or blue), then sets up his Dagger, followed up by opponents Dagger, then the Shields and Hammers.

3. Check if the victory card asks to roll off and choose a defender/attacker or set up objectives. Resolve these at this point. NOTE! This means that you do deploy your Round1 forces before knowing if you're the attacker or the defender!

4. Apply the rules of the Twist card (including deploying Chaotic Beasts, etc.)