Warhammer 40k 6th Edition Rules Questions

[JWebs]

Ok. I figured this out looking at the Necron Codex and the FAQ.

Reading the rule you must select a point on the battlefield for the Death Ray to originate from and another point on the battlefield for it to end within 3d6" . following this wording the Death Ray can only hit stuff on the battlefield because it travels in a straight line along the ground to cover that distance. Following True LoS if you used a string to travel along the path of a Death Ray from the gun it physically can not hit a flyer model's hull at all without diverging from that path especially with a maximum range of 30" away from the Doom Scythe. The Doom Scythe and other Flyer are at the Same Elevation model wise as well if you mark the Elevation of the Doom Scythe as A and the Maximum distance away B and the Actual Path the Ray travels as Line C you can see that Line C does not a point on that can achieve an Elevation higher than point A Outside of when Line C ends at Point A. Since you can not hit yourself with your own Death Ray you can not hit another flyer. Since its worded that it must elect 2 positions on the battlefield and not in the air above the battlefield you can not shoot the Death Ray at Flyers.

Q.E.D.

There are two ways for this particular chain of logic to work out. Either you mean that nothing not on the ground can be hit (like a skimmer). Or, you mean that if a piece of the hull of a flier is below the plane created parallel to the ground at the level of the death ray than the flier may be hit. Since this is a rather confusing way to rule it and QED is such a near and dear statement to me, I shall have to disagree. I think rather than visualize as simply a line drawn by the death ray it is better seen as a plane perpendicular to the battlefield with the intersecting line segment being the one drawn by the ray.

The real determination as to whether or not it can hit a flier comes down to what Ben is asking. Is it still a "snapshot" albeit one at full BS. If it is, then it cannot hit.
Personally I think that once a flier elects to fire in skyfire mode it is no longer a snapshot at the air but instead one at the ground. Otherwise we may end up with someone trying to throw out that it cannot fire at the ground ever either due to it not having the "snapshot" rule removed by ground firing.

Edit: and there, while I typed out my long winded reply, Sam went ahead and said it wasn't a snapshot while skyfiring.

[JWebs]

2 more Tyranid related questions.

1) Deathleaper: "What was that?" All enemy infantry units within 12" roll one less dice (to a min of one) when moving through difficult terrain.
Assaulting through cover now requires units to roll 3D6 and discard the highest.
Does this mean a unit now rolls 2D6 and discards the highest when charging the deathleaper?

2) Back to your ruling on special characters being characters, ymgarl genestealers are specified as special characters in the FAQ. Does this mean that every member of the squad is a character?

[Loranus]

Ok. I figured this out looking at the Necron Codex and the FAQ.

Reading the rule you must select a point on the battlefield for the Death Ray to originate from and another point on the battlefield for it to end within 3d6" . following this wording the Death Ray can only hit stuff on the battlefield because it travels in a straight line along the ground to cover that distance. Following True LoS if you used a string to travel along the path of a Death Ray from the gun it physically can not hit a flyer model's hull at all without diverging from that path especially with a maximum range of 30" away from the Doom Scythe. The Doom Scythe and other Flyer are at the Same Elevation model wise as well if you mark the Elevation of the Doom Scythe as A and the Maximum distance away B and the Actual Path the Ray travels as Line C you can see that Line C does not a point on that can achieve an Elevation higher than point A Outside of when Line C ends at Point A. Since you can not hit yourself with your own Death Ray you can not hit another flyer. Since its worded that it must elect 2 positions on the battlefield and not in the air above the battlefield you can not shoot the Death Ray at Flyers.

Q.E.D.

There are two ways for this particular chain of logic to work out. Either you mean that nothing not on the ground can be hit (like a skimmer). Or, you mean that if a piece of the hull of a flier is below the plane created parallel to the ground at the level of the death ray than the flier may be hit. Since this is a rather confusing way to rule it and QED is such a near and dear statement to me, I shall have to disagree. I think rather than visualize as simply a line drawn by the death ray it is better seen as a plane perpendicular to the battlefield with the intersecting line segment being the one drawn by the ray.

The real determination as to whether or not it can hit a flier comes down to what Ben is asking. Is it still a "snapshot" albeit one at full BS. If it is, then it cannot hit.
Personally I think that once a flier elects to fire in skyfire mode it is no longer a snapshot at the air but instead one at the ground. Otherwise we may end up with someone trying to throw out that it cannot fire at the ground ever either due to it not having the "snapshot" rule removed by ground firing.

Edit: and there, while I typed out my long winded reply, Sam went ahead and said it wasn't a snapshot while skyfiring.

Well the thing about the Skimmer is that it is still low enough to the ground for it to be hit by the line.  the line went over the skimmer it would hit Based on what I am thinking/saying. Even then its exploding and ripping apart the ground below it possibly wrecking them.



This is a Direct Side view what I am thinking and since 2 points need to be designated on the ground and since when your skyfiring it is a Snapshot picking those places on the ground you wouldn't be able to select them while firing something in the air.


Sam does that mean the Death Ray can be used against flyers cause then I think Necrons are just geared too well for anything now.

[JWebs]

And in your example there if the doom scythe were closer the stormtalon would both be hit by line c and above point b. In addition, if it were further away the skimmer would not be hit by your line c.
As far as I can tell there is nothing in the rulebook giving a specific elevation to the models, there aren't differing heights of flying. The beam will hit either way the only ruling that matters is whether or not it is a snapfire, which when electing to skyfire Sam has just said it is not. So a Doom scythe may shoot and hit either only sky units or only ground units ina turn.

[andalucien]

Yes, of course we're all talking out of our asses about this stuff, but to me it looks like Necron flyer spam will be the new "WTF am I supposed to do about this" army. 

That is, until someone figures out WTF to do about it, or another release comes out (which it already did, Aeronautica, and according to rumors GW may soon declare that FW stuff is to be used in normal games of 40k). 

You can't decide rules based on the power level of 1 model though.  See Death Cult Assassins & modelling power weapons.

You're doing a great job Sam!

[JWebs]

"Do enemy units roll 2D6 and discard the highest when charging the deathleaper?" Oddly enough, units charging through cover normally roll 3d6 and use the two lowest (not discard the highest). So when charging through terrain near Deathleaper, the unit just rolls 2d6 and keeps what they roll. Bizarre, I know, but them's the breaks.

Ah, rereading the top part you are correct. I only read the excerpt at the bottom of 22 where it does say to discard the highest, gotta love GW changing their terminology on the same page!

Follow up to the characters question, Deathleaper/Doom/Swarmlord/Old one eye are all in the same category as the stealers in the faq, since only the Swarmlord is based on a unit that is a character is he the only one that is? Not trying to harp on the fact, just confused to where the line is drawn for special characters=characters. The specifically mention Mephiston in the rulebook, but don't bother to list any others.

[Benjamin]

Yes, of course we're all talking out of our asses about this stuff, but to me it looks like Necron flyer spam will be the new "WTF am I supposed to do about this" army. 

IG Master of the Fleet, and some other "dick reserves" character that eludes me at the moment?

And it looks like I'm totally going to have Sam yell at me in full caps Thursday. I never know where the line is between reading the rules and reading too much into the rules. If part of me didn't think it funny, I'd probably make the mistake less often.

[Achillius]

"
"Wait, so Death Rays again." A UNIT/WEAPON WITH SKYFIRE CAN USE A SHOT THAT DOESN'T ROLL TO HIT TO ATTACK FLIERS, BUT NOT GROUND UNITS. A UNIT WITHOUT SKYFIRE CAN USE A SHOT THAT DOESN'T ROLL TO HIT TO ATTACK GROUND UNITS, BUT NOT FLIERS. I can type it again in larger font, if necessary.

Wait, Sky fire states, uses its normal ballistic skill, as beams don't use BS how do they benefit? Please explain this one to me? Feel free to skip the caps though.

[Sam]

It's not about what Skyfire says, it's about what the "Hard to Hit" rule for fliers says. That rule states that anyone without Skyfire can only make Snap Shots at fliers. The BS doesn't matter in this case; the fact that Skyfire provides an exception to the Hard to Hit rule allows beams and the like to fire normally at fliers. Make sense?

[Moosifer]

I think part of the confusion lays in the fact that a beam weapon is such a "weird" concept.  Templates blasts and large blasts cannot hurt flayers in zoom mode but nothing is said about beams.  Good call Sam.

[Mad Dok Rob]

Two questions about skyfire.

Why does it make mention of skimmers, cause I don't see anything about them being hard to hit or what ever the rule is for fliers?

Is there any place in the rule book that says what get the skyfire or would it be in the faq? Hopping its in the book cause other wise I can't shoot at fliers very effectively but, my tanks could be awesome.

not sure about other races, but I know when da Boyz do a strafing run (flyer attack on ground units), if it floats (skimmer and jump infantry) it is harder for us to hit...unless we have an ace like the Krimson Baron....

[Loranus]

I did google it and people are taking it 3 ways. It hits everything no matter what.  It only hits ground or air units it must be declared at the Beginning of the shooting phase if it is going to Skyfire at air with its weapons. And the case of it only hits ground units because of the wording that you choose points on the battlefield.

In my satire I posted something on Games-Workshop North American Facebook Page noone responded yet but.

[Typhus]

Yes, of course we're all talking out of our asses about this stuff, but to me it looks like Necron flyer spam will be the new "WTF am I supposed to do about this" army. 

Honestly, it's not that bad.  If you take a billion flyers, that means you have...5 dudes per unit to score.  And, once you get more than 3 flyers on the board, it's actually really hard to maneuver them all around.  Combined with the fact that you can only reserve Flyers, but 1/2 of your army *cannot* reserve, means you're putting some of those 5 dudes on the ground to get shot at.  And the minute you have no models on the board, you lose, so....

[Loranus]

1 Necron Overlord with Warscythe, 3 Doom Scythes, 2 20 man Warrior Squads, 1 15 Man Warrior Squad, and 1 9 Man Immortals Squad with Tesla Carbines at 1500 points. That is a Lot more than 5 dudes per a scoring unit and all those squads can take out flyers, Vehicles,  or massive amounts of troops with just volume of fire.

I still think Necrons are stupid

[Sir_Prometheus]

1 Necron Overlord with Warscythe, 3 Doom Scythes, 2 20 man Warrior Squads, 1 15 Man Warrior Squad, and 1 9 Man Immortals Squad with Tesla Carbines at 1500 points. That is a Lot more than 5 dudes per a scoring unit and all those squads can take out flyers, Vehicles,  or massive amounts of troops with just volume of fire.

I still think Necrons are stupid

Pat's right on this one.  Good luck killing 20 man Necron units.  Meanwhile, the doomscythes and the douche canoe are having an easy time killing all your stuff. 

Worse lists can be made, I think.