Azahul

9 minutes ago, Maladroit said:

If they are all on a flat surface you just need a single straight edge to get them in line though, that's it. In practical terms when one is on a box or fence or whatever it might be laser time, but otherwise no measurement is required. I can see that it bothers you - and I'm not going to really say that it shouldn't, but for me it has never been an in game issue, certainly far less of an issue that the is this model in or out of range for example.

Sure, but if you go the other way you don't need to measure at all. And you certainly don't need to go to the effort of measuring to do something you know deep down you can't actually do

16 minutes ago, Maladroit said:

To put it another way. It is possible for two models to be exactly 2" apart, but it is practically impossible for a player to place the models exactly that distance apart with any more certainty than they could align three models to block line of sight. So to me, it is an abstraction I can live with - it isn't a game where I get my joy from precision measurement.

It is precisely because I don't get joy from precise measurements that this irks me. An exact 2" measurement being off by a minute fraction rarely matters in the same way. Tangent lines being available for LOS would have the net effect of making this particular trick impossible, which removes instances from the game where players need to bust out rulers and lasers (because you do want each thing on the table to be as close to the intended position as possible) and then resort to rule of intent regardless. 

7 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Or perhaps they have a different range of issues they consider, rather than the consistency of tangents being the biggest one?

If they're not going to consider it then maybe they should change the rule to the version that seems to match the way they play the game? 

3 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

I mean that can happen a lot with ranges as well.

I'm exactly 2 inches away from this model and that model is a unique position that you can't actually achieve.

I'm exactly 2 inches away and outside of blast range is probably not realistic for most people.

But there's infinite places for LOS blocking as well, right? There's an entire lane on the board where you can have LOS blocked?

Plus the call needs to be made somewhere. You could have another system for LOS, and then you'd have other corner cases.

I mentioned blast damage above. That gap is observable to the naked eye. You can 100% do that spacing without a problem.

I'm not disputing that you need to make a call somewhere. The thrust of this topic though is that a) I think the call should have been a different one, and b) based on the other design choices they've made I'm not entirely convinced Wyrd knows which call they made. At least they don't seem to be thinking about it too much.

1 minute ago, Maladroit said:

I don't know about your games, but this does happen a fair bit in games I play in other situations. We might like to get a model as close as possible and still be outside charge range, we'll just measure it up to be pretty much exact distance and state that it is 6.01" away for example, or maybe we want to be within range but as far away as possible we'd use rule of intent for that as well. I don't see much difference. Our measurement devices are not that good that we would ever be able to measure that precisely anyway.

Yeah, those scenarios happen. There are two differences in my view:

-With the three aligned bases scenario it is always the case that the models are in the wrong position. It's not "sometimes mistakes happen", it's "this tactical scenario cannot possibly occur without rule of intent". You will similarly never be precisely at your maximum range from a target, but at least you're as likely to be imprecise by being closer as you are by being further away.

-A mistake wherein you are slightly out of range can be rectified. I mean, if you realise you bumped a model out of range by mistake, you can bump it back into range. You can't correct an aligned bases situation, you crutch on the rule of intent to make it work forever.

1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

This comparison doesn't make sense. You should be compare being 11.964 inches away and 12.001 inches away. That goes from attack going off to not happening at all.

Not to mention lots of games have ways to simulate blocking effects. If you have one unit standing in front of another unit, it is quite common to be able to block attacks in a variety of systems.

No, the point was to illustrate that there are many possible places a model can stand and be in range for their ranged attack. If I pull out a tape measure and go "Looks like I'm 11-and-something inches away", if the exact number of the "and something" is wrong then it's irrelevant. The game action resolves correctly.

Not the case with this LOS blocking. There is one spot you can stand. That spot is not discernible to the naked eye. It can't be measured. And if you get the placement wrong it does change how actions resolve. 

My point is to illustrate that overwhelmingly when you check a measurement in the game you can be a little bit off and it wouldn't change the outcome of any action. You don't need to be precise on microscopic level for most actions in the game. It's weird that there exists an instance in this game of a tactic where you do.

Meanwhile the issue with the vagaries of production and physical pieces not always being the right size adds to the issue, not detracts from it. We have a rule that, if it weren't already impossible to use without the rule of intent, would require those bases to be precise to the dot. 

If someone wants to line up three models, and uses a ruler or whatever and lines up the models, telling me all the while that having those models aligned is their intention, I obviously have no problem with it. Those are the rules. Heck, I'm not above exploiting this rule myself. Goodness knows I've summoned models on the opposite side of my base to Charm Warders to dodge Barrier more than a few times. But as a principle I dislike it. It will never be correct. And I don't view it as comparable in that sense to the "anything in physical space will always have minor imperfections", because normally when I'm moving models or measuring ranges it wouldn't make a material difference to the game state if I was slightly closer or slightly further away. A ranged attack made from 11.964" away and a ranged attack made from 11.971" away are going to resolve identically. But that same shift in aligning models turns on auras and pulses and actually materially impacts the game, and the board state where that shift happens isn't humanly possible to achieve.

It doesn't help that the rule also negatively impacts some models to the point of rendering rules on their cards significantly weaker than you might assume when reading them, in ways I tend to think it's unlikely the developers accounted for.

The fact of the matter is I don't need to measure and see if the 30mm bases are aligned. I know they aren't. They will never be, so it doesn't need to be checked. In any situation where three bases look like they are on a line and neither myself nor my opponent specifically stated with the rule of intent that they are meant to be aligned then I will always I assume each base has LOS to the others because the odds of them actually being aligned are so impossible it might as well be zero. It becomes a game state only achievable with the rule of intent, which irks me fundamentally. I like the rule of intent, I like not having to be too careful when pushing base to base models 2" apart, I love big impractical 3d terrain pieces that are often impossible to balance minis on but look damned cool, so I have no beef with a rule that smooths over the play experience in that regard. But it does bother me that it enables three bases on a flat and empty field to achieve tactical scenarios that they otherwise could not.

1 minute ago, santaclaws01 said:

Malifaux is using tangent lines is the point. What you're describing isn't a tangent line, it's a line parallel to the tangent because for it to be a tangent it must start within the curve of the base.


I also don't agree that the placements aren't realistically achievable. You can get into human error and what we can actually measure, but then that would have to apply to literally everything about the game. How do we know that board is actually 3'x3'? How do we know models are actually on 30, 40 and 50mm bases?

Except that isn't the actual definition of a tangent. A tangent touches a curve but if extended does not cross it. That meets all the prerequisites for LOS rules as written, it's just the diagrams make it clear they don't exist. 

And you're right, don't know on any of that. The physical game is full of imperfections, but the overwhelming majority of the time we don't attempt actions or measurements where it matters if a base is 30.0001mm or if the matt is short by even a visible fraction of an inch. If I make sure to stand at maximum range from an enemy model because I have 12" range and at most it can threaten to make a melee attack by walking and charging 11", it doesn't matter if I'm fractionally off because the margin of error is measured in whole inches. Even some of the game's more precise measurements, like standing 2" from a model so that a 50mm blast marker won't catch them both or placing a Break the Line marker its maximum distance so that just three Interacts will get it 8" from the centreline, still involve distances discernible with the naked eye that a human being can realistically achieve. The closest equivalent I can think of to the 30mm issue is charging and ending up base to base with two different models, but at least that only matters for the duration of the movement rather than trying to create an ongoing game state.

3 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

Sightlines fit entirely within the profile of a models base. They do not extend out past it to either side. If something is exactly 30mm wide and is lined up perfectly with another thing that is exactly 30mm wide, there will be no point where it passes the object without overlapping the object.

That is Malifaux's logic, yes. I'm not disagreeing with that. It doesn't have to be though. I've played other base-to-base line of sight games that use tangent lines, in no small part because to do otherwise encourages players towards tactical placements those players would never realistically be able to actually achieve.

5 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

A tangential sight line would start from a point on the base. If you line up any number of 30mm models exactly, then that line would go through the base of every model in the line. If a sight line is going through a base, which by definition it would have to, it is blocked by the first base after it starts. I'm not sure what you're imagining a tangential sight line to be where it starts from a point on one model, goes around intervening models, and then ends on that same point in on the final models base.

Why is it ever crossing a base? It starts at the point the base ends. It intersects, touching but not crossing, the points where all the other bases end. It's genuinely not any different in principle to a 30mm base standing atop a marker. If you can touch two bases at the same time then logically you can touch a base without crossing a base.

3 hours ago, solkan said:

I think the issue is that you’ve a fundamental disagreement on the definition of tangents and crossing, and the rulebook says you’re using the wrong definition.

The “one base perfectly overlapping another” situation is: the line ends at the base edge, and does not continue.  Thus the line does not cross the base.

The tangent situation is:  the line touches the base at one point, and then continues.  Thus the line DOES cross the base.

 

Oh I don't disagree with the rulebook. It's clear, tangent lines are blocked. I'm not arguing we're reading the rulebook wrong. In the reality of Malifaux it works as you describe because the book says it does. My fundamental disagreement is not whether the rule works the way the rulebook says (or at least implies) it does, I just don't like that it does.

Now, if we assume the devs do actually mean for tangent lines to work the way the book says it does, there are a few possibilities from there. Either they don't play as though it's something you can actually practically do in a game even though technically it is possible, or they just forgot about how this rule works when it came to writing rules for the Bandit Keyword and how the interaction with Drop It would render several abilities there non-functional. In either case changing this rule would probably be the easiest fix to just have Bandit models function as intended, unless Perdition and Trigger Finger really are meant to be as corner case and niche as written and have no interaction with Drop It outside of the the respective model's own activation.

43 minutes ago, Butch said:

The rules state that LOS is an imaginary line between to points. The line crosses the point of the base in the middle. This one point stops the line to the third base. Otherwise the must be curved.

 

To avoid discussions I state what I want to do if there's room for interpretation: "I place this model right between these two models, okay?"

That is actually one of my issues with the tangent line matter. I like to think I'm a reasonably chill guy when it comes to precision measurements. If a measurement looks like it's pretty much in I'm rarely busting out the widgets to make absolutely certain, it's the kind of thing I'm happy to give the benefit of the doubt to.

The problem I have with this line of 30mm bases it is that it's to all extents and purposes impossible for a person to arrange. You can put down a ruler and line all the models up against it as close as humanly possible and I guarantee you a line of sight would still technically be possible, because we are discussing a level of precision humans are actually physically impossible of achieving. Even minor vagaries in the exact width of a base from manufacturing errors make the whole thing nonsense. There is one spot in the whole of space where the scenario you're attempting to create can occur, and it isn't discernible to the human eye. The rule of intent is a great rule but I like it for making my games smoother, not for enabling mew tactics that would otherwise be impossible. In that regard it strikes me as different to, say, asking your opponent if it's ok to treat a model as balancing a bit further off a ledge of terrain than it physically can be placed safely, which is a game state you can achieve easily with 2d terrain or Vassal or with judicious uses of putty if you want to clean that mess up mid-game or whatever. Encouraging players to adopt tactics representative of actions they could actually never physically do even on a flat plane with no other pieces intervening just bothers me on a fundamental level, though I acknowledge that is likely a pet peeve.

I can't imagine the game would be adversely impacted by allowing tangent lines. It would solve most of the Drop It problems that plague Bandit without having to errata any cards, and it only impacts tactical plays that by and large only exist in niche scenarios in high level play.

For what it's worth, I actually don't think there's a difference in the "standing on a marker" case. The LOS rules say a line is blocked when it crosses a base, and tangent lines by their nature aren't crossing. Same situation in effect with the standing on a marker scenario. But I do want to acknowledge that I do recognise that Malifaux's rules do create a difference, simply because the rules say they do. I'm not arguing against the game's version of reality, I just think the game would be a bit cleaner overall if it adopted a slightly more realistic reality.

I've been chewing on this one for a while, it's easily the rule that bothers me the most in Malifaux. It is almost certainly because I play a lot of the Bandit Keyword and it causes some ructions there, but I was curious to see if I was missing something.

For those unfamiliar with term a tangent line is one that touches/intersects with a base but does not cross it. In several games I've played in the past that measure base to base Line of Sight, tangent lines are assumed to exist. What this means is that you can't block line of sight between two models of the same size base by using a third model on the same size base, because a line of sight can be drawn that will touch the intervening model but not cross its base in any capacity.

Malifaux doesn't agree with this. Not in any specific words to that effect (not that I've found, I may have missed something), but largely due to the existence of a series of diagrams on pages 16-18 of the rulebook. One of these, on page 18, shows that tangent lines do not exist in Malifaux's because Iggy standing on a rock is able to block LOS between Ophelia and Pandora.

Now, I'm not disputing this, but I'm increasingly unsure if this was intentional. The point of the diagram is nothing to do with tangent lines, it's meant to demonstrate that terrain can increase a model's effective Size and cause it to block LOS. It could easily be a case where a poorly thought through choice of visual unintentionally manifested a new rule. Had a Gupp on a 40mm base been used for this example we might still be wondering whether tangent lines are meant to exist in Malifaux.

What makes this weirder is that tangent lines explicitly do exist in another form. Specifically, you cannot hide a 30mm marker under the base of a 30mm model. This is the exact same principle as tangent lines for LOS but it comes to a different conclusion entirely because the rules text explicitly calls this example out.

And boy, it sure feels at times that with abilities like Trigger Finger on Bandidos or Perdition on Parker2 that the devs and/or internal testers don't actually play assuming tangent lines are blocked. Drop It lets the opponent place the scheme marker, allowing them to block LOS for the purpose of these auras quite easily a lot of the time. It's not deblitating, I just don't run Bandidos and I've found ways to make Parker2 work regardless, but it does mean these models don't work with the core mechanics of their crew.

Carver really makes me think of Taelor. Stat 7 beaters without the normal "third AP" you would normally expect for models of their cost.

To an extent I wonder how much he's balanced around Pandora giving him a second built in Rams and then Candy adding Fast.

14 hours ago, Usjdkdb said:

Thank you, I wasnt aware that write up existed. It was a pretty interesting read and definitly gave me things to think about. 

I always thought the lasso was the bees knees on that card and sort of wrote perdition of as something that will only occasionaly happen. 

Learning how good repositioning an Alice or a Mad Dog is in M2e, I simply jumped at that action first.

Oh, 100%. The Lasso is the best action on his card. I generally prefer to be hitting enemy models, but a no TN action that can put you in range to score points you couldn't otherwise reach is really valuable. And if it means getting Mad Dog in range Turn 1 for a full three shots, happy to spend the action then.

It also lets you set up some lovely clumps of scheme markers Benny can turn into rat swarms later in the game, which is very fun.

40 minutes ago, Usjdkdb said:

I didnt even consider Pearl for the list. I've so far only tried her in Basse and there she performes like an iverpriced frontiersman. What does she do for you?

Well if you look one topic down in this forum you can see I did a write-up on how I run Parker2:

Long story short though Pearl provides an insane amount of healing and her bonus action is a way to actually make Perdition go off outside of Parker's own activation, which adds up. Combos well with Benny doing his thing.

I've never really been able to make Execute spam work in Daw (or at least not consistently, it has come up occasionally), even with all his additional discard, so I'm a little dubious. I'd be interested to hear how it works though. Montresor is on my list of models I want to try out with my own Parker2 build but he is a touch expensive. Still, with all the staggered from Parker and Pearl I do think he has potential.

2 hours ago, admiralvorkraft said:

Fair enough, I'm running him in Hamelin where he's very much not the most problematic thing going...

Yeah he plays very differently in Parker. Much more of a front line model, and a great deal more dangerous. 

Honestly I do think leaving Benny alive is pretty problematic from an opponent's perspective into this crew. He generates so much healing, damage, a good bit of card draw, ping damage, etc. that it can be hard to keep up. But killing him had better work because there's nothing worse than punching Benny a bunch and making several rats only for him to heal all that damage and just be in a more dangerous position.

7 minutes ago, admiralvorkraft said:

That's funny. One of the reasons I like Benny is my regular opponents just don't attack him 😛

If they weren't attacking him and forcing me to activate him early in the turn for the healing from his summon I could have put a lot more markers down than just the handful left over from Pearl and the Emissary's Turn 1 activations

One of the more entertaining aspects of running Parker this way is that I have found the uncapped nature of Swarm Them to be more relevant more consistently than Bleeding Disease ever has been I've played Hamelin since I started Malifaux about two years ago, and I've hit exactly one 9 damage Bleeding Disease. I've barely got into double digit games of Parker and I've hit that mark with Swarm Them a couple of times and it isn't even all that hard. Eight rats can be a surprisingly low bar if your opponent didn't pack AOEs, and unlike Hamelin Parker doesn't immediately signpost that he will be bringing anti-swarm tech. In one game for example I only summoned two rats with Benny on Turn 1 and had him move onto the front line, where he got punched twice for two more rats, then another two times on Turn 2, and then he again only made a two rat summon (well, three, because he killed one of the newly summoned rats himself to get a Perdition pulse plus card cycle plus another marker for Pearl to heal him with when he summoned) and there we have it, eight rats in the brawl.

It's hard to find a pool Schill isn't at least competent in, though I don't adore that scheme pool. Symbols isn't inherently difficult, you probably want to play original Schill rather than his Title version for his extra pushes. Schill himself can theoretically use his Rocket Boots three times in an activation and still Interact at the end if he starts with them on and then uses two Load Up actions with the Give Them Hell trigger. Really card intensive but hey, if it gets you points...

Schemes are trickier. I would include the Hodgepodge Emissary, or at minimum the Effigy with the Effigy of Fate upgrade, in case you decide after seeing your opponent's crew that you would like to go for Detonate Charges. Ideally you probably just want to take Assassinate and Let Them Bleed, but the viability of those schemes can depend on what your opponent brings so it's safer to have a back-up choice. Bait and Switch may be viable too on one of your opponent's Symbol grabbers, especially with Schill's Pull trigger letting you toss an enemy model over to stand near a scheme marker.

Yeah, using the Lasso as a no TN action to freely move a friendly model 4" is pretty neat. Especially since Parker can run and gun to move both himself and, say, Mad Dog for one AP. Not something I do every turn but it's a common play Turn 1 and I use it in a pinch to score a lot.

16 hours ago, Zebo said:

I would like to know what is so good about Broken Man's Lasso. 

I only see a Master's action for a 4" Push and maybe Staggered. 

What I'm missing? What are the tricks I can't see? 

I think the main conclusion I've come to is that Parker's AP aren't "Master's AP", Perdition is doing all the heavy lifting. Broken Man's Lasso is:

-A Perdition pulse (only on the first one of course)

-A marker to fuel Benny's Rat Summon (which at minimum is +1 damage to a future Swarm Them action, but if that rat lives it could well be much more and if it dies then it's usually a card cycle and another Perdition pulse)

-A push to ensure your opponent has some models clumped for when Mad Dog/Pearl blasts them or when Perdition pulses kick in

-A point of healing if Pearl is nearby when that marker gets removed

-Staggered making it easier to land additional Lassos or, ultimately, Benny's Swarm Them

In effect it has a delayed rolling benefit rather than just the initial action, ultimately turning into all kinds of different benefits as the rest of the crew takes their actions.