Zipp's 'Up We Go!' and the 5" 'place'

[the tick]

Zipp's 'Up We Go!' attack action reads: Place the target anywhere within 5" of its current position, not in terrain.

My understanding of the word 'place' is that you ignore intervening terrain and models. Is this correct? More importantly, can this attack be used to 'place' the target model on top of a building or is that considered 'in terrain'? Is the 5" range of this effect measured strictly from a bird's eye view or would any change in height be included in the 5" range? In my imagination, Zipp is just grabbing somebody, jetting up into the sky and either dropping the poor sap or speeding back to the ground to suplex them into the dirt. But I'm not sure if that accurately depicts how the action functions within the context of the rules. In any event, my goal would be to dump the target on top of a building, or a stash marker, or some other piece of terrain and then force them to sit there or take falling damage to get back into the fight.

[Artiee]

The building is terrain.    Everything is measured from Top Down. 

[Ludvig]

4 hours ago, solkan said:

That sounds like you're committing the fallacy which says that two Ht2 models standing on top of a Ht2 impassible blocking wall can't see each other because there's a Ht2 wall in the way.  Two models standing on top of a wall are not standing in the wall, and they can't be because the wall the impassible.

More importantly, the enclosed trait makes an explicit distinction between the models "in" the terrain and the models "on" the terrain:

 

Which fallacy? Malifaux doesn't deal in true line of sight so we need to use the rulebook to figure out the system used for determining Line of Sight. The rules have their own truth that is pretty far removed from our understanding of LoS. That is the price we pay when we use an abstraction. I would like for you to prove that this is a fallacy using only rules quotes and not stating real world reasoning. If not you can definetly give reasons why it shouldn't be this way but I don't think you can call it a fallacy within the context of the Malifaux rules. All of us use house rules in our daily play of malifaux to correct for these inconsistencies but those house rules are not official malifaux rules. That is why several players at regular intervals ask for an errata to the terrain rules.

From p 41 of the online rulebook we can gather that: 
"When drawing LoS to an object, the lines are drawn from a “top down” view
ignoring all vertical height. The model’s Ht stat does, however, come into play
when determining the quality of the LoS.
Line of Sight
A model has LoS to a target if at least one of the LoS lines drawn between the acting
model and the target does not cross intervening blocking terrain or models.
No Line of Sight
A model has No LoS to a target if no LoS line can be drawn between the acting
model and the target model without crossing blocking terrain or the base of another
model (friendly or enemy). If an Attacker has No LoS to a model, then that model
is not a valid target, unless otherwise noted."

p 42

"Elevation
The Ht of the acting model, target, and intervening objects can effect whether or
not the acting model has LoS. If the blocking object (terrain or model) between the
Attacker and target has Ht lower than the Attacker or target’s Ht, then the blocking
object is ignored for LoS quality (but not cover)."

 

Unfortunately the terrain and ht rules never allow you to add your ht and the ht of terrain you are standing on together. Vantage point terrain allows you to draw LoS diagonally which changes some aspects of it but you still draw LoS from the base of your miniature. Also note that "If the acting model and the target model are both on vantage point terrain with the
same Height, LoS is drawn normally." (p42) so if you are on a ht 2 house and targeting someone else on the same or another ht 2 house then any terrain of ht 2 inbetween you is considered to block your LoS completely since you are not allowed to add the ht 2 of the house to your own ht.

The terrain rules would greatly benefit from a few lines clarifying that you can't claim cover from terrain pieces you are standing "on" instead of "in". No such line exists. It would also be helpful to actually have a definition of "on" and a way to define what terrain it is possible to stand on from a mechanical perspective. If models were permitted to add the ht of terrain they were standing on to their own ht during LoS calculations it would also solve some wonkyness with targeting between vantage points.

[Artiee]

Looking Top down,  it would be in the terrain.

[Clement]

1 hour ago, Artiee said:

The building is terrain.    Everything is measured from Top Down. 

is *on* the building *in* terrain?   I'd get *in* the building being off limits, but I'm not so sure about on top of.

[Ludvig]

It is clear that there is such a thing as terrain you can stand on from the enclosed rules. Unfortunately there isn't a terrain trait to assign to terrain that defines what you can stand on and what you can't. 

In my club we typically bake that into the climbable trait. So a non-climbable impassable terrain piece can't be stood on top of but a climbable one can naturally be stood on top of since climbing would be useless otherwise. That's a good way of resolving it to me, Isincerely doubt they wanted Zipp (or any place effectreally) to be able to effectively take a model out of the game entirely.

[Paddywhack]

21 hours ago, Artiee said:

The building is terrain.    Everything is measured from Top Down. 

Well, except for the FAQ about flight and incorporeal and changing HT. But yes, Places is still measured from Top Down.

I would also agree that the building is terrain. 

[the tick]

Great discussion guys. Thanks for the answers! Although I'm disappointed that I can't just plop an opponents master on top of a building, that seems to be how the rules would direct play and also provide a little more balance. Thanks again!

[Palooka]

There's an awkward side effect about how we typically declare terrain that bothers me slightly about this particular thing:

We have this great swamp board that is primarily on gangways - long pier style things made of wood that are above the swamp. When you're in the swamp hard up against them, they give you soft cover, and are ht1. But essentially - the board is all severe terrain with a large, large covering of wooden walkways that you can walk across to ignore movement penalties. There are buildings and other LOS blockers on the board as usual - but for the ease of declaration of terrain, we call the base of the board the swamp, and everything above this ht1 when you're on the wooden walkways. The walkways are soft cover, climbable, ht1 and impassible.

Here's where this gets complicated - when Zipp's doing his Up We Go thing - everything is an illegal placement - as the whole board is 'terrain'. 

How do we resolve this? Thoughts?

[Joel]

simple answer - don't allow placement in any hazardous or severe terrain, or inside any enclosed space or on top of a building.  anything else is fair game.

 

this would meant the spirit of the rules on the board you described.

[solkan]

5 hours ago, Artiee said:

Looking Top down,  it would be in the terrain.

That sounds like you're committing the fallacy which says that two Ht2 models standing on top of a Ht2 impassible blocking wall can't see each other because there's a Ht2 wall in the way.  Two models standing on top of a wall are not standing in the wall, and they can't be because the wall the impassible.

More importantly, the enclosed trait makes an explicit distinction between the models "in" the terrain and the models "on" the terrain:

Quote

Enclosed - Models without the Incorporeal ability which begin their movement outside of this terrain may not use Abilities or Actions to ignore this terrain if they are ending their move inside of it. Models without Incorporeal lose any Abilities and Actions which allow them to ignore terrain while moving while inside of this terrain. However, models act normally while on top of this terrain and while ending a move on top of this terrain. (For Example: A Nephilim may fly over a building or take flight from its rooftop, but may not teleport through the wall.)