solkan

On 8/31/2023 at 6:44 PM, ezramantis said:

Thank you.

The question arose during a game with a Brocken Spectre who used it's envelop in shadow attack action which reads, "target suffers 1 damage for each friendly shadow marker or friendly umbra model within 2" of it".  We reasoned that, since most language in this game is quite specific and things are worded to mean exactly what they say, if the designers intended for us to tally shadow markers AND umbra models they would have used "and" as opposed to "or".

Counter to this:  Consider the phrases "for each man and woman in the crowd" vs. "for each man or woman in the crowd".  If you're saying "everyone", "every man, woman, and child" or "every man, woman, or child" will do.  But "You get a dollar for every man, woman and child in the crowd" vs. "You get a dollar for every man, woman, or child in the crowd", the common usage diverges--"and" tends to imply that you need groups while "or" doesn't.

The developers attempt to write the rules using as clear language as possible, but also attempt to write in "natural" English where possible.  Of course, there are specific phrases and phrase patterns that rules define to mean specific things instead of their common meanings, but those are more exceptions than common cases.

And while formal logic class was fun in college, one of the continuing lessons from it is that there are enough different alternate ways of contracting a formal subset of English that you have to spend a lot of time defining things explicitly and you can't assume everyone will agree on which of many ways are more natural than the others.

On 8/31/2023 at 6:44 PM, ezramantis said:

I checked the rulebook under "this or that choices" but that only seemed to address the exclusive choices you alluded to. I likewise didn't see an answer in the faq (maybe i overlooked it)

Later when looking at The Kurgan's Avalanche attack action ( "...suffer 1 damage for each model or terrain piece moved through this way...") it made me question our previous reasoning.

Hopefully those examples provide appropriate specifics. I only worded my question in a more general way in an attempt to address all game effects that use this language once I recognized that there are several actions that use "each X or Y".  Sorry if that created a hurdle.

Thanks again

Thanks for supplying the specific examples, the search function in the card app doesn't really do search patterns.  Both of your examples are examples of "inclusive or" lists--you have to choose between the items in the list, any or all of them are valid things to use.

9 hours ago, ezramantis said:

When an effect says to "for each X or Y" does this mean:

The short version is:  It's not an exclusive choice, it's an inclusive list.

9 hours ago, ezramantis said:

A) choose either X or Y?

Or

B) add together X and Y?

You don't choose.  It's X and Y together

9 hours ago, ezramantis said:

So for effects that deal damage for each X or Y in range, do you...

A) deal X damage OR Y damage

Or

B) deal (X +Y) damage?

You count up the number of things that are X or Y, and that's the damage.

Disclaimer:  It is easier to answer questions when you point to a specific model and ask "How does this work?"  In particular because there are exclusive choices in the game, and it's possible that you're mistaking one for this.

7 hours ago, Nidzilla said:

Would the auras be affected by the wardstones at all times or only during the initial use of the action?

Just to be clear, the phrase "non-Actions" means "Actions that are not ".  

Auras, pulses and blasts generated by actions are part of the action and thus are included in the prohibition.

7 hours ago, Nidzilla said:

Would this also include front of the card auras/pulses too?

All of the things on the front of the card are Abilities.  Those are not affected.

50 minutes ago, Flib Jib said:

It’s the root model generating the effect which caused damage that is attributed with the kill

There's no concept of "secondary effect" vs. "root cause" for abilities and actions.  If my model uses Obey to cause your model to make an attack on a model with Black Blood and you take damage from Black Blood which kills you, you were killed by Black Blood.  You were not killed by your own attack or the obey, and the fact that those actions were necessary to create the situation which killed you has no bearing in determining who killed you.

50 minutes ago, Flib Jib said:

If the effect is an external/indirect effect like one that resolves during the end phase like burning then it is not attributed to any player

Deaths from fall damage is attributed to the model that generated the move

Damage from hazardous effects generated by a model are the exception, and cannot be attributed to any player.

Root Model, indicating the first, e.g. Model A obeys model B to kill model C. Model A counts as having killed model C.

From the killed rules:

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Killed models are always considered to be killed by the model that generated the Action or Ability that killed them (as well as by that model’s Crew). If a model is killed by another effect (such as a Condition or Hazardous Terrain), it is not considered to have been killed by any player, model, or Crew.

From the FAQ:

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8. If a model is killed from an outside effect (such as End Phase Condition Damage or being Buried at the end of the Game), who is it treated as killed by?
a) No one. If a model dies from an effect not generated by a model, no model or player is treated as having killed it.

9. If a model is killed from falling damage, who is it treated as killed by?

a) The model that generated the move which caused the killed model to fall is treated as killing the model.

Note the crucial difference here is that falling damage is resolved as part of the movement effect.  You don't have an separation between the movement and the damage during which you'd have to remember who caused the movement.

For hazardous terrain, the FAQ says:

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6. If a model is generating Hazardous Terrain, and that Hazardous Terrain kills a model, is the model that is generating the Hazardous terrain considered to have killed the model?
a) No. Models killed by the effects of Hazardous Terrain aren’t treated as killed by any specific model.

Part of the reason for the difference is game balance.  And part of the reason why end phase Condition damage isn't attributed is so that's not necessary to track who applied the condition, and adjudicate who gets credit if more than one player has applied the condition.  Note that there's a distinction made:

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If an Action would kill a model from damage suffered from a Condition (such as an Action that states “Target suffers 2 damage from the Burning Condition”), the model taking the Action is considered to have killed the model.

I bring that up because there's two points:

• There are models which don't take damage from the Burning or Poison conditions and may in fact heal instead (like Perverse Metabolism).  When an effect says that damage is "from" one of those conditions, it's causing that damage to feed in to those abilities.  Mentioning the condition doesn't turn it into uncredited damage.
•  "Target suffers 2 damage from the Burning Condition" gets credit for a kill, while End Phase burning doesn't.

For what it's worth, the various situations where a scenario wants to create something that is enemy or friendly to all players have always spelled it explicitly as "enemy to all players".

And things like the Drop it! trigger existed in the previous edition.  In M2E the trigger said "place an enemy Scheme Marker within 3" of the target".  That changed to "drop an Enemy Scheme Marker" in M3E with the introduction of drop and create as verbs that applied to markers.

The M2E explanation was, naturally, even less explicit than M3E:

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Some rules reference friendly or enemy models. From a mechanical standpoint, friendly models are any models that are on the same Crew as the model the rule is affecting. Enemy models are any model that isn’t on the same Crew.

and players were expected to work out from -that- how the term applied to markers.

And because I brought it up previously, and found my M2E collection, here's how "neutral" was defined: (Tortoise and Hare encounter booklet, Amphibious Assault encounter booklet, and Creative Taxidermy encounter booklet):

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Neutral models belong to neither player.  These models are considered to be enemies to all models, may not take Interact Actions, and may not drop or place Markers of any kind.  Neutral models may not be buried or scarified and may only be killed by being reduced to 0 Wounds.  The Scenario will state when Neutral models Activate.

The University of Transmortis encounter booklet used similar wording for the scenario models

Quote

Iron Zombies are enemy models to both Crews ...

In other words, in the situation where a model was an enemy to everyone, the rules say so.  This is during the edition which introduced the Bandido's and that trigger.

I think this is one of those situations where the rules get written to where the authors think things are spelled out intuitively, and then get to discover who in the audience disagrees with them.  😕

On 8/26/2023 at 2:44 AM, Barmution said:

That is exactly the gist of my question when it comes to placing (Drag Behind): When does the marker become Hazardous? Is it "after" it is placed, i.e. it's not in the aura before it's physically put down on the board, so the Hazardous from Seashells doesn't trigger from the placement. Or does the marker count as Hazardous from the instant the placement takes effect thus triggering damage on models in base contact as per usual?

Compare the timing you're asking about to auras like Gravity Well:

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Gravity Well:  Enemy models may not be Placed within 6 unless they are Placed by an effect generated by a friendly model.

or Alpha Marcus's Wilds of Malifaux.  

You don't wait until after you enter the aura to apply the effect.  

3 hours ago, mwan555 said:

But there is no such rule that the grey marker can't exist, true there is no rule that says it can but markers aren't even a listed Component in the component chapter of the rules. I've looked for it, both under components and markers pages. If you can provide me with reference to this, it would answer my question with finality.

Please note the first three paragraphs of Friendly, Enemy & Control:

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Friendly models, Markers, and terrain are those that have been hired into your Crew, and those Summoned, Dropped, or Created by your Crew.

Enemy models, Markers, and terrain are those that have been hired into the opponent’s Crew, and those Summoned, Dropped, or Created by the opponent’s Crew.

Every Ability, Action, and Trigger on a model’s Stat Card and Attached Upgrades treats the use of “friendly” and “enemy” from its point of view.

Please read those three sentences, and apply those definitions to the phrase "Drop an enemy Scheme Marker".  The result you are supposed to arrive at is "drop a scheme marker belonging to the opposing crew."  Because the rulebook is written in its entirety on the assumption that there are two crews (note how "the opponent's Crew" is singular.  (There's a list of about a half-dozen elements in the rulebook that a multi-player scenario has to address, including initiative, event resolution, choosing enemies or not, and so on.  But that's getting off topic...)

You drop an enemy Scheme marker instead of a friendly one.  If they meant it to be "a scheme marker enemy to all players", they would say so (and have done so in the past using the term "neutral".)

6 hours ago, Barmution said:

Drag Behind, as mentioned in my post, as well as Reel Them In on Clampetts, Fisherfolk, comes to mind.

Then, sure.  You have to satisfy:

Quote

After a Hazardous Terrain Marker is moved and comes into base contact with the model.

and placing an existing marker is movement.

Note that Reel In is a push, so there's one less factor to argue about.

If the marker is not hazardous when it makes contact with the model, then it does't satisfy the bullet point in Hazardous.  If it is, then it does satisfy that bullet point.

You don’t take damage from having a hazardous marker “Dropped” on you (specific game verb Drop).  You take damage from having a hazardous marker moved across you.

Do you have some way of applying a place effect to Tide Markers?

The one annoyance I can think of is that there are some multi-player formats like Bonanza Brawl, and the document that I'm looking at doesn't make it clear whether that "enemy" scheme marker should be "enemy to player X, friendly to everyone else" or "player X chooses one other player for the scheme marker to be friendly to".

But that's an issue for the formats with more than two sides to work, I suppose.

From the rulebook:

Quote

Abilities: Models have Abilities that change how they interact with the rules, such as making the model difficult to damage or changing how it moves. A model’s Abilities are always considered to be active during an Encounter unless otherwise indicated in their description.

In other words, a model’s abilities will apply as soon as they’re hired and continue until they’re removed from the game.

Note that when the ability references capital-D Deployment, that’s referring to Ecounter step 6, Deployment, it!snot referring to the first time you place the model on the table.

Yeah, all of the current Lost Technology upgrade cards are unique, so once all four are in play, that part of the action is going to be subject to the "You have attempted an impossible effect.  Skip it and continue".

Looking at the triggers on that action, it looks like the only point of declaring that action a fifth time would be if you haven't yet used the Rapid Divergence trigger.  🤔  All of the other triggers on that action do stuff that references the created marker, so they'd become impossible effects, so not much point to those.

I don't think so.  While terrain markers are (at least indirectly) included as a type of terrain piece (for example, the terrain markers rules say "All Markers with the same name (i.e., Pyre Markers, Pit Trap Markers, etc.) count as the same piece of terrain for the purposes of the Hazardous Terrain Trait", there end up being multiple types of terrain:

• terrain pieces
  • terrain markers
• auras

Terrain auras do interact with effects like Grave Goo's Trail of Slime which uses the term "terrain" and not "terrain piece".  

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9. * Grave Goo – If the Grave Goo is within range of an Aura Terrain that only affects “enemy models,” such as Vent Steam, do models the Grave Goo considers an enemy treat the Aura Terrain as Hazardous from the Trail of Slime Ability?
a) Yes. The Grave Goo is considered to be in base contact with the terrain, and enemy models will treat the Aura Terrain as

Hazardous (Damage 1 and Poison +1), even though they are not affected by the normal Hazardous damage of Vent Steam.

But I think this is one of those situations where you have to accept that not all terrain are terrain pieces, just like some markers are models.

So I dug out my own photos of the case, and that figure with the outstretched hands is standing surrounded by the seven figures shown for the "It's Alive" box.  

So that certainly looks like the title version.  

6 hours ago, GrumpyGrandpa said:

What does the "Ignoring any special restrictions" clause on Sir Vantes include? Does it mean you get a "free charge", without having to use an action on it? Can you use it to move out of melee engagement and so forth?

A few different points:

1.  You get to take the Charge action for free (without having to use an action on it) because of the words "this model may take the Charge action".  That's all a rule needs to say to generate a charge action, and actions generated by actions and abilities are free.  

2.  The answer to 'What does "ignoring any special restrictions" mean?'

Special Restrictions:

Quote

Some Actions or Triggers have various special restrictions that limit the Action/Trigger so that it can only be declared in specific circumstances. These effects (written in italics) can be complicated, such as “This Action can only be taken while engaged.” Or they can be simple, such as “Enemy only.”

In other words, they're part of the italics at the start of an action.

Quote

Charge

Once per Activation. Cannot be declared while engaged.

Push this model up to its Mv in inches. It may then take a Action that does not count against its Action limit.

Those two italic sentences at the start of Charge are special restrictions (written in italics, and limit when you can declare the action) so Sir Vantes gets to ignore them.

Note that the "does not cost against its Action limit" bit in Charge is completely redundant, and just the rules author trying to be helpful.  

3.  "Can you use it to move out of melee engagement and so forth?"

Walk is the only action in the game which can't leave melee engagement.  

Just remember that those are all models from the one that has already been announced as coming up in a few months as Alt Transmortis. 
Edit: okay, I was wrong.  That one on the left is the wrong pose to be what’s previewed on the box.

7 hours ago, Flib Jib said:

Super niche scenario but because shadows extend to a maximum of 3", any sz4 or greater models need to be within 3" of terrain equal to or greater than their size correct?

I assume you’re asking about cover.  Yeah, shadows cut off at 3” max from the terrain, presumably to limit what might happen if you’ve got terrain stacked in piles, and nor need any shadow zone math.  (2nd edition Infinity indirect fire calculating shadow areas…. 😵‍💫)

On 7/23/2023 at 2:33 PM, Flib Jib said:

This frustrates me hearing the claim that these two inequalities are optimally balanced because it seems so willfully ignorant almost to the point of bad faith. I’m not super interested in counterpoints supporting that the two aspects might actually be balanced. I’m not closed-minded but more interested in creative ideas of how these mechanics might be brought more inline with each other.

Putting aside the fact that your position could be mistaken for arguing in bad faith, I think you should consider a few points:

1.  The game has a five turn limit.  That means that there are a fixed number of activations available to the player to score points.  This is one of the places where playing in a group setting like a tournament may help, because someone who decides to just kill the other player's models and not bother scoring many points won't do well in the relative rankings.  

2.  In many situations, a dead enemy model does not score any points.  In a certain notable scheme, the objective of the scheme is to get a specific friendly model killed by the opposing player.  In other schemes, points are only awarded for killing specific models in specific ways.

Have you only seen the schemes and strategies in the main rulebook, or have you seen the rest of the published schemes and strategies in Gaining Grounds?

On 7/7/2023 at 2:54 PM, Myopik said:

Dia De Los Muertos, La Noche De Duelo (Lady J & Crew)

I*m seeing those listed as "Rotten Harvest", not "Dia De Los Muertos".

Same situation for the Zoraid, except she's listed as "Rotten Harvest 2021".

The Brines and Bones models appear to be listed under their individual aliases (Mary "Blacktongue" Bonnet under Molly Squidpiddge), etc.

Checking Nekima, I see Adi Adara, and The Lagan.  Again, not searchable using "Deepest Depths" but under the individual model names.

But I'm not seeing the Easter stuff or the other recent alts.

On 7/17/2023 at 12:18 AM, MisterWerks said:

How'd I do?

Qualifying that I’m reading this during my lunch break, I think you got everything right.  Although I’ll admit that I want to double check 4.1.  I don’t remember how much ignoring and double-ignoring there is for the cover from the building top.  

Edit:  Okay, got home and double checked the shadow rules.

In 4.1, there's no cover for the Mecha Meemaw in that situation because both the terrain and its shadow are ignored:

Quote

When drawing sight lines, a model standing on terrain that is casting a Shadow ignores that terrain (and its Shadow) if any single sight line drawn between the two objects passes through 1" or less of that terrain.

Copy/paste:

Quote

… and models with the Insignificant Ability are ignored for the purposes of Strategies and Schemes in every way.

The strategy or scheme will ignore the mindless zombie or corpse candle, even if you have an ability which allows you to treat it like a scheme marker.

21 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

So, simply put:

If the target is in the Shadow and the Attacker is using a Projectile Attack - 

1) If a single sight line is blocked by the Terrain casting the Shadow, the target has Cover.

Not quite.  "If a single line of sight crosses the terrain casting the shadow, the target has cover."  You've two Ht2 riflemen, and you've got some Ht1 blocking shrubbery on the table.  Put the shrubbery half an inch from one of the rifleman and put the other rifleman 6" away with the shrubbery between them.  The shrubbery doesn't block line of sight, but it does grant the one rifleman cover from the other one.

Likewise, if you put a Ht2 wall or a Ht3 building on the table, put that Sz2 rifleman about an inch or two away from the terrain piece, and put the shooter somewhere where some line of the lines of sight are getting blocked by wall.  The rifleman near the building gets cover because it's in the shadow area.

21 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

2) If the Terrain is same Height or taller than both of the models, all sight lines are blocked and there is no LoS, which is the normal rule.

Shadow Zone Exception)  If the terrain is the same height or Taller than the model in the shadow, and all lines of sight from the attacker cross the terrain, there is no line of sight.  (If the terrain is the same height or taller than the attacker, there's no line of sight due to #2.  So the shadow zone exception applies when the attacker is taller than the intervening terrain.)

Continuing on with the saga of that Sz2 rifleman standing next to a wall that we'll specify as Ht2.  Along comes Sz3 Peacekeeper, and it's standing around the corner from the rifleman.  Some of the lines of sight cross the wall and some don't, so the rifleman gets cover.

But when the Peacekeeper moves away around the corner (so that all of the lines of sight cross the wall), the shadow rule kicks in.  Because

• the rifleman is not taller than the wall
• the rifleman is within the shadow zone of the wall

any lines of sight involving the rifleman which cross the wall get blocked.  The Sz2 model hides from the Sz3 model by being positioned near the Ht2 terrain piece.

If the rifleman moves further away from the wall, so that it's no longer standing in the shadow area, then you go back to the normal rule, and the intervening Ht2 terrain piece gets ignored because the Sz3 Peacekeeper is taller than it is.

This is part of what the diagram in the book is trying to illustrate.

21 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

3) If the Attacking model is on top of the Terrain casting the Shadow, it gets to ignore Normal Rule (2) if its sight line passes through less than 1" of that Terrain.

This should be:

If the Attacking model is on top of the terrain casting the shadow, it gets to ignore the Shadow Zone Exception if its line of sight passes through 1" or less of that terrain.  The hair's width of distance gets split in favor of the attacker.

21 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

So Shadow really just changes one rule (giving Cover for a single blocked sight line) and provides an exception to the "all sight lines Blocked" rule.

It's the opposite.  The Shadow rule is there to change the "I'm ignoring all of the intervening terrain because I'm taller than it is" situation to give models somewhere to hide, and to give people cover for the single line of sight crossing the nearby terrain whether or not the terrain is blocking that line of sight.  

21 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

If this is right, then all the problems in my head (and I think in many others) come from the cockamamie wording in para 3 under Shadow on p 18 which makes it sound like a new rule for us to get wrapped up in.

Main reason why the shadow zone rules exist is that without them, you'd have a situation where a model on a very tall piece of terrain on the table would be able to draw line of sight to everything, because it's simply taller than every piece of intervening blocking terrain.  But, with the shadow zone rules, if you've got a few of H3 or Ht4 buildings that you can stand, and some H2 wall segments scattered around, a Sz2 model can hide on the other side of a Ht2 wall from some rifleman standing on the Ht4 building.

The idea was that it would let people stick to being able to determine line of sight just looking down at the table (without trying to get out a laser pointer or crouch down for a model's view perspective) for the 36" by 36" table.  Then again, the comprises are also part of the reason why there's the "No buildings that you can stand on should be taller than 4"" statement in the rulebook.

4 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

Height 2 wall casting 2" Shadow.  Sz 2 Freikorps Scout is 1" away from the wall on one side, Sz 3 Kastore, Awakened is 1" away on the other side.  Both are in the Shadow of the wall.   Which of these is accurate?

Line of sight is blocked because the Friekorps Scout is Ht2 and in the shadow of a Ht2 blocking terrain piece, and all of the lines of sight cross that terrain piece.  

The only way Kastore could draw line of sight to the Friekorps model would be to get on top of the wall, or move to a position where not all lines of sight cross the wall.  Simply being taller than the wall (either because you're standing on some other terrain piece and your relative Ht2 is taller than the wall, or your basic Ht is greater than the wall's Ht) doesn't let you draw line of sight across the wall to the scout (or let it draw line of sight back).

The type of the action (or or neither of those symbols) doesn't matter concerning line of sight.  If the action has a target, you need line of sight unless otherwise specified.  This isn't Infinity where you don't need LoS to make a melee attack.

4 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

4) If the Scout moved outside the Shadow (2.1" away), he'd be able to shoot Kastore since Kastore is taller than the terrain, but Kastore would have Cover from the Shadow

This is true.  

If the scout moved to one end of the wall, so that it was still in the shadow but not every line of sight between the scout and Kastore crossed the wall (but some lines of sight still do), then they'd both get cover from the wall (a line of sight crossing the wall and the target being in the shadow area = cover).  Remember that cover only specifies an effect for actions, so Kastore using Dominate won't care whether the scout has cover, but the scout using Clockwork Rifle will.  (This game being the sort of game that it is, it's possible that some model has a rule stating "If this model has cover, something wonderful happens."  That rule wouldn't care what the type of the attack was.  But that's pretty much the only reason having cover would matter for a or unmarked attack.)

4 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

6) If they were both outside the Shadow, they could shoot each other normally with no regard for the wall since Kastore is taller than it and they're outside the Shadow.

This is true.  If they're both outside of the wall's shadow area, because one of the two models is taller than the wall, the wall gets ignored completely.

-------------

This is the story of why the Cover rules are defined in terms of the shadow area.

Back in second edition, the rule for cover was expressed like so:

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A model will gain the benefits of cover from a Projectile Attack when any LoS line between the Attacking model and the target model can be drawn through any terrain with the soft or hard cover traits that is within 1” of the target model.

and hard vs. soft cover was a matter of which parts of the attack got penalized.  One of the questions that happened during the development of the new edition was "Why is it one inch, shouldn't it matter how big the intervening terrain piece is?" and "Do you measure that 1" along the line of sight (like Warmachine does) or is just 1" between the model and the terrain?"

So that got changed to

- The hard cover and soft cover traits got eliminated.  All blocking terrain will provide cover.

- When they tried to make "How far can I stand from the terrain and still get cover?" a function of the height of that terrain, they realized that they were using the same wording as the shadow area specification.  

The end result was 

- If you're standing in the shadow area of blocking terrain and any lines of sight cross that terrain, you get cover.

and then made it a feature of that Cover has an effect.

Maybe I’m weird, but I think it’s easier to think of shadows in two cases:

  If you’re not taller than the terrain casting the shadow, you’re “shadowed”.  Shadowed models can’t draw line of sight across that terrain piece.  And if you’re standing on that terrain piece, you can’t draw line of sight to a “shadowed” model if you cross more than 1” of the shadowing terrain.

15 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

And since the definition of Shadow of Terrain says it "extends out from the terrain a distance equal to the terrain's Height..." it doesn't cover the terrain itself, right?

Meaning, if both models were on opposite corners of that 4" square building - far enough away they could both use Projectile Attacks - there would be no Shadow rules applied because they're both on top of the same building when they shoot at each other....right?

This is right.  The terrain’s shadow extends outward to surround it, but does not cover it.  So two models on the same terrain piece won’t be in that terrain piece’s shadow.  (They would each be effectively taller than the shadow area anyway, so it wouldn’t matter if they overlapped the shadow partially (by overhanging an edge or something…).