Weekly Question Thread - Rules & Comp Qs

[u/thenurgler]

This is the Weekly Question thread designed to allow players to ask their one-off tactical or rules clarification questions in one easy to find place on the sub.

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[u/Freefly18]

Regarding Charge Moves, I was watching this section of Tactical Tortoise's video and he's basically saying that on a model-by-model basis he can disregard the "within 1 inch if possible, within 2 inches if possible" rules if that would mean his unit does not end in coherency.

While I agree and understand that a Move can only be completed if it is in Coherency, and since you move model-by-model, when you get to the very last model, you are able to disregard While Moving rules to satisfy After Moving rules (namely Coherency). But I don't understand why in his video he is able to not move his 4th marine within 2 inches of the enemy, since Coherency cannot be assessed at that point.

In other words, since obviously Coherency can be temporarily broken in the middle of a Move, how far ahead can you use the argument "otherwise my unit will not be in Coherency" to bypass "if possible" rules?

[u/RindFisch → u/Freefly18]

Not watched the video, but If he used coherency as a reason to not move within 1" when he could, he did it wrong.
That's how 10th edition worked, where you could use coherency to void other rules to be able to go where you wanted. In 11th, coherency is only checked after the whole move is completed and if it isn't adhered to, the whole move is reset.

If you can move into 1", you have to. If that fact means you can't stay in coherency afterwards, the charge is impossible.

[u/Behemoth077 → u/RindFisch]

The problem with that is that it creates ways for you to for example fail a charge where your opponent is 2.1 inches away from you with a high roll of for example 10 if there is anything potentially blocking in the middle. You would have to put some models within 1 on the left side and some within 1 on the right side without being able to hold coherency and fail the charge when by all logic it should be impossible to fail a charge that low without rolling two 1s. That genuinely feels like your opponent is trying to cheat you if they explain that reasoning to you and its a terrible fail case that does actually come up a lot when you know it exists, even more so when charging multiple different units at once, and can be manipulated to happen more when you know about it by for example deliberately standing in front of such a blocking piece of terrain that restricts coherency.

That fail case(failing charges that you definetely could make with your roll because you have to move within 1 or 2) is worse than the potential abuse of allowing a unit to restrict where it can go via coherency during a move. As such WTC for example ruled exactly how Trevy explained it in his video for their event which a lot of people just continued using.

I think it would benefit a lot from an official rules change to make it clearer but I'm not about to tell someone their 12 inch charge roll fails because they have to go within 1 which breaks their coherency in either my own games or my own events so i will rule it as WTC and Trevy have.

And yes, it does create ways to abuse coherency to limit how far your unit needs to go by letting the last model limit how you're able to move via 9 inch coherency as has happened in 10th before but that is an acceptable downside compared to the other option.

[u/The_Black_Goodbye → u/Behemoth077]

Why is a charge failing so abhorrent though? It’s just part of the game.

Shooting doesn’t always succeed due to movement not facilitating LOS or range and most players will specifically pre-measure their opponents units movement next turn to establish what LOS or range they could get and stand 1mm back from it. Now they must take two turns to get that LOS or range and be at risk in the interim.

Same situation here; stand in just the right spot to mitigate the charge or make it really difficult and force the opponent to take two turns to get it and be at risk in the interim.

[u/Behemoth077 → u/The_Black_Goodbye]

Because a charge roll failing or succeeding is be the single most important dice roll in all of 40k, excluding the "who goes first" rolloff before the game starts in some metas. It is the make or break of games in some matchups, a single charge reroll succeeding or not can change the outcome of a game entirely. This is also why command point rerolls are used on charge rolls more than any other and why "i failed my charges" is such a common bad beats story, a charge succeeding or not is the difference between a unit doing nothing at all or doing everything you wanted it to do as a very binary check.

Introducing something as gimmicky as "I was X away and rolled Y and failed the charge anyway" when Y is bigger than X creates too high impact failure points of the rules that then led to heated arguments and generally a bad time for everyone involved. Most players will simply not care enough or be skilled/knowledgable enough to abuse the coherency restrictions as much as theoretically possible, especcially since shenanigans often come with their own downsides, but if you are strictly enforcing getting into 1 inch or 2 inches over keeping coherency and making that unit fail that charge its a matter of time before you have ruin some players game including new players. Top tables can be trusted with having to deal with shenanigans if it means the majority of players have higher quality games.

[u/The_Black_Goodbye → u/Behemoth077]

That’s all very true and fair - I wasn’t disputing that.

My point is more/so that the charging player either needs to accept that the charge they are attempting is risky due to the opponents positioning and manage their expectations and / or take steps to reduce that risk by making use of better positioning on their part or taking an extra turn to shuffle up and make the charge easier to succeed.

In your example presumably the charging unit is 2.1” from an enemy unit with a ruin wall between them. Which they need to now go around to complete their charge.

Why didn’t they instead move off to one side of the wall originally to avoid having to go around both sides? To avoid OW? So they’re trading risk from OW for risk in completing the charge? That was their choice.

Maybe so more of their models would be closer in case they low rolled and could just base the wall to get in engagement? So they hedged their bet in case they rolled low that they could get everyone in on a 2 rather than only on a 3 or 4 or 5 if they’d instead moved to the side more? Fair; but then again they traded one form of risk for another.

And so on with their movement leading up to the charge.

The player is trading the risk of one fail condition for another and it’s rather unfair to then moan when the fail condition they felt was least likely or found most acceptable came to be.

[u/Behemoth077 → u/The_Black_Goodbye]

I mean situations like this where the unit was previously standing in front of the wall with the X on it on the other side of the vehicle for "situations with terrain in the way". This charge for example would be a failure because, while every model can easily get within 2 inches, having to get within 1 inch makes coherency fail if the charge roll is high enough and the charge becomes invalid.

Situations like that are just going to happen because of how terrain and charges work if you interpret the rules this way. Coherency errors like that become easier to produce the bigger the base size, the higher the charge and the more things are in the way but even just for example charging a unit with Ghazgkull or Guilliman first who have a large enough base size to block coherency from being established from one side of his base to the other without any intervening terrain and then charging with a 10 man unit of boyz or whatever afterwards creates a situation where on a high enough charge roll the boyz have to all be within 1 inch of the opponents units which means none of them can be used to maintain coherency behind Ghaz/Guilliman to connect the boyz on Ghazs left to the ones on his right which means a charge roll of 4 might succeed but a 10 fail.

Thats just too common and too impactful to accept in my opinion. It will happen without deliberately being caused.

[u/The_Black_Goodbye → u/Behemoth077]

Yep; and in that example if they had instead positioned further left or right or back then it wouldn’t be an issue. The player moved them there before charging and so accepted the risk that came with that.

[u/veryblocky → u/Freefly18]

I disagree with Tactical Tortoise on this one, fairly sure he's mistaken about this. There is nothing to suggest that you must maintain coherency mid-move.

Let's say the two red-based models in the video are unable to get within 2" of the enemy unit, so the only applicable "while moving" restriction is that they end their move closer, and that you move those two models as he did in the video. Then you go to move the other 3, since they're all able to get within 1" or 2", so you must move them within that range. Then, only after completing that move do you check the after moving conditions. And here, because the red-based models were not moved very far, the unit is not in coherency, And as per 03.01: "that unit cannot make that move and its models are returned to their positions at the start of that move."

[u/ncguthwulf → u/veryblocky]

I agree with you here. I don’t know if there is a clear rule but generally in my scene people start with the charging models that can satisfy the 1” requirement then those that can make the 2” requirement and then everyone else in coherency.

[u/SoloWingPixy88 → u/veryblocky]

I disagree with Tactical Tortoise on this one, fairly sure he's mistaken about this. There is nothing to suggest that you must maintain coherency mid-move.

Yea, not mid move, just "must end any move in coherency" and also set up. If you can't end it, you can't charge

[u/eternalflagship → u/Freefly18]

In my opinion, you can't. If you can't both follow the While Moving rules and end the move in coherency then your move is illegal.

The While Moving condition does not care about coherency, it cares about whether it is possible to place the model within 1" or 2" of a charge target. If it is, then you must do so.

If it's not possible to fulfill both conditions, then your move is simply illegal: reset the models, and try again.

This is different from last edition where, if we used the same rules format, "can end in coherency" was part of the While Moving condition and would have been assessed when determining possibility. In this edition there is no reason, IMO, to believe there is any sort of lookahead.

[u/AlisheaDesme → u/Freefly18]

There is an FAQ for the core rules:

Question: When a move says that a model or unit must move in a way if it is able, can that requirement force the unit to end their move not in coherency?

Answer: No, when a model or unit is making a move it must follow requirements while ending that move in coherency

So Tactical Tortoise is correct here, ultimately coherency overrules the other requirements.

how far ahead can you use the argument "otherwise my unit will not be in Coherency" to bypass "if possible" rules?

As far ahead as you and your opponent agree, if you can't agree, call for a judge.

[u/veryblocky → u/AlisheaDesme]

I disagree with your conclusion from the given FAQ. The while moving restriction cannot allow you to end a move out of coherency, but you must still follow them. If you can’t end the move in coherency while following the while moving conditions the move is failed, and you return the models back to their starting positions

[u/AlisheaDesme → u/veryblocky]

can that requirement force the unit to end their move not in coherency?

They clearly asked if one can force the other and the answer wasn't "no, you fail the move", it was "no, you have to end in coherency". The answer for the question would make no sense, if it was your way around, as then the answer would have been "no, the move just fails".

[u/veryblocky → u/AlisheaDesme]

“No, you fail the move” is from 03.01 in the core rules. This FAQ does not say you ignore the while moving conditions

[u/AlisheaDesme → u/veryblocky]

Then they didn't answer the question and the FAQ is illogical.

[u/veryblocky → u/AlisheaDesme]

Well no, they did answer the question. The question was can you end a move out of coherency, and the answer is no

[u/AlisheaDesme → u/veryblocky]

That wasn't the question and that is why your answer wouldn't make sense.

Again, the question was:

can that requirement force the unit to end their move not in coherency?

And the answer given was "no".

You want to read this as "the move is automatically illegal", but why wouldn't they say so directly? Why trying to actually say the opposite, unless they clearly wanted to say the opposite?

Hence the answer can make (a) sense or (b) be what you want.

[u/veryblocky → u/AlisheaDesme]

What? I don't get what's difficult to understand about this. The FAQ was addressing whether while moving requirements could force you to end a move out of coherency, which they can't. The FAQ doesn't introduce any new rulings, it's just clarifying that you can't be forced to end a move out of coherency.

It most certainly is not saying anything about ignoring any other restrictions on a move