Base to Base Measuring and Terrain

[Fert]

The terrain rules allow you scale up and down terrain but that your base is assumed to be parallel with the board surface at all times via rule 9.3.  So let's assume you have a terrain piece that is 1" off the board surface.  Model A is being charged by Model B.  Model A is on the ground level and model B can only make the charge by ending on the terrain piece... putting him with a vertical view within 1/2" but from a horizontal view 1" higher from the target model A.  Thus, Model "B", when measuring his parallel base to A's base is more than 1/2" away and cannot make the charge move via rule 11.1 .

Correct?

If this is correct... then you can wreck anyone's charge by hiding just behind any terrain that is just higher than 1/2".   Unless of course they have enough charge move/distance to navigate their entire base to ground level with your base.

                     

 

[yukishiro1]

The terrain rules in AOS 3.0 are super weird and difficult to play with in practice. Per the FAQ, a model can end its movement halfway up or down a terrain piece, even though it's not possible to actually place the model that way. So you only end your charge "on top" of the terrain piece if your movement is exactly enough to get you to the top but not to get you partially down the other side. 

Quote

Q: Can a terrain feature be climbed over multiple turns? Can a model run or charge up a terrain feature? A: Yes. A model may need to spend several turns climbing an especially high terrain feature (you will need to remember how far it has climbed each turn and measure distances and visibility to or from that model as if it were in that location).

Q: Can a model charge up or down a terrain feature? A: Yes. As noted above, for simplicity and ease of play, models are assumed to be able to climb up terrain features and can finish a move at any point when they do so.

So the way I would treat that is to say that the charge can be completed as long as the model has enough movement to "make it down" to within .5" of the model it's trying to charge, even if it can't "make it down" all the way because there's a model blocking it from ending its movement that way. The language about being able to charge up and down a terrain feature "and finish a move at any point when they do so" seems to imply this is the answer. So you can charge down the wall and end 1mm off the ground, even though you can't end on the other side because there's no place to put your base.

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Fert]

10 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

So you can charge down the wall and end 1mm off the ground, even though you can't end on the other side because there's no place to put your base.

 

Aye, but you can't move through terrain per 9.3.  "You can trace the path of its move over terrain features but not through them."  So you can't "push" the base through the terrain to get on the ground level as you are saying.  Again, if you have enough movement for your entire base move around and get to ground level then no issue.  

[yukishiro1]

No, you can't actually get on the ground, but you can get to within 1mm of it, and that's within .5" of the enemy if they're right on the other side of the terrain feature. There's nothing in the rules saying you have to be at the same level as the thing you're charging, just that you have to be within .5" of it, measured base to base. 

So if you position your models say .51" away from the terrain feature, and there is nowhere for the charging model to move off the terrain feature to end their movement within .5" of you because you've blocked it off, that would indeed RAW make it impossible to charge them. 

If what you are saying is that you can't do that because your base "ends" inside the terrain...that's a gap in the rules. The rules don't specify where your base is while you're halfway up or halfway down a piece of terrain. I.e. if you end your move halfway down a piece of terrain, is your base on the ground adjacent to the terrain as if you had moved off it, but you're floating in the air, or is your base still on top of the terrain piece until you get to ground level and move off it? The rules don't say, but the picture for how to measure "jumping down" on the page with 9.3 doesn't seem to show you have to clear the terrain piece with your entire base before jumping down, it seems to show you get to the edge of the terrain and then measure straight down, without having to first move forward into the air far enough to get the back edge of your base off the terrain too. So that IMO implies that when you end a move halfway down a piece of terrain, your model stays on top of the terrain and you just pretend it sunk down through the terrain.

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Fert]

12 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

No, you can't actually get on the ground, but you can get to within 1mm of it, and that's within .5" of the enemy if they're right on the other side of the terrain feature. There's nothing in the rules saying you have to be at the same level as the thing you're charging, just that you have to be within .5" of it, measured base to base. 

So if you position your models say .51" away from the terrain feature, and there is nowhere for the charging model to move off the terrain feature to end their movement within .5" of you because you've blocked it off, that would indeed RAW make it impossible to charge them. 

If what you are saying is that you can't do that because your base "ends" inside the terrain...that's a gap in the rules. The rules don't specify where your base is while you're halfway up or halfway down a piece of terrain. I.e. if you end your move halfway down a piece of terrain, is your base on the ground adjacent to the terrain as if you had moved off it, but you're floating in the air, or is your base still on top of the terrain piece until you get to ground level and move off it? The rules don't say. 

 

I'm saying that the terrain piece is an 1" high.  So the two modes parallel bases are 1" vertically apart from each other. 

And since you cant push down through the terrain you can't physically make the charge since you are over 1/2" away.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Fert

[yukishiro1]

See my edit. The rules for jumping down seem to imply you can push down through terrain. And then if you end halfway through that move, you leave the model on top of the terrain, but you treat it as if its base was x inches from the ground, within the terrain piece. So yes, this ends up with your model "in" the terrain piece in terms of the rules. 

You don't have to agree, but that's how I'd read the rules for jumping down. The picture very clearly does not show the model being moved into the air until its entire base clears the terrain feature before it can drop down, it shows it moving till the front base edge reaches the edge of the terrain feature, and then moving straight down through the terrain feature until it reaches the ground, then it begins moving forward again. So I do think you can end your move (charge or otherwise) 1mm from the ground, with your base "in" the terrain feature. 

We are dealing with an imperfect system here either way in that the rules are clearly not very well thought out for vertical engagements. Honestly I kind-of wonder whether the FAQ answer that you can end halfway up or down a terrain feature was answered incorrectly by someone who wasn't thinking very carefully about it before answering. 

Edited October 13, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Fert]

8 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

See my edit. The rules for jumping down seem to imply you can push down through terrain. And then if you end halfway through that move, you leave the model on top of the terrain, but you treat it as if its base was x inches from the ground, within the terrain piece. So yes, this ends up with your model "in" the terrain piece in terms of the rules. 

You don't have to agree, but that's how I'd read the rules for jumping down. The picture very clearly does not show the model being moved into the air until its entire base clears the terrain feature before it can drop down, it shows it moving till the front base edge reaches the edge of the terrain feature, and then moving straight down through the terrain feature until it reaches the ground, then it begins moving forward again. So I do think you can end your move (charge or otherwise) 1mm from the ground, with your base "in" the terrain feature. 

Aye, totally see what you are saying.  Damn GW with your janky terrain rules... can't go through terrain but next paragraph... go through it...

[yukishiro1]

Yeah, it's super weird. And the FAQ just makes it weirder. 

[Arzja]

23 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Honestly I kind-of wonder whether the FAQ answer that you can end halfway up or down a terrain feature was answered incorrectly by someone who wasn't thinking very carefully about it before answering. 

Just want to point out. You can't actually end halfway down. Jumping down can't be done if the distance is greater than your move characteristic.

[yukishiro1]

Hmm, interesting. I do see that the FAQ only explicitly addresses climbing, not jumping. But the core rules don't say anything one way or the other re: whether you can jump partway (just as they don't say whether you can climb partway - and the fact that they said you can via a FAQ rather than an errata implies that they think the core rules don't need modifying, they just do allow you to climb partway, so why wouldn't you also be able to descend partway without the rules explicitly saying so?).  Those FAQ answers are super confusing if they are trying to draw a distinction between going up, where you can end halfway, and going down, where you can't even though they don't say you can't. Climbing isn't even defined or mentioned in the core rules themselves (the only reference is in the diagram), making the whole thing even more of a mess.

If you can't go down a terrain feature part of the way, that leads to even weirder results where e.g. a unit can be stranded on top of a terrain feature it can't get down from, but that it was able to climb. 

 

Edited October 14, 2021 by yukishiro1