Flame Walls + Flight & Incorporeal

[Makrar]

Put simply can models with Flight and/or Incorporeal move through a flame wall?

 

I was under the impression you could not do this but this was ruled against me at a tournament this weekend

 

So i wanted to see if my interpretation is right and i believe it is for the following reasons

 

 

 

For reference a Flame Wall markers are Ht 5 and have the blocking and impassable traits

 

A Marker does not count as terrain (Page 56 of the mini rulebook)

 

A model can move over and stop on Markers. A Marker is ignored for movement purposes (but terrain below the Marker is not). (Page 64)

 

However i think the impassable rule trumps the above bit 

Impassable - Models cannot enter impassable areas of terrain, which includes moving through the walls of a building or into other solid objects.

 

Flight rules are as 

 

Flight: This model is immune to falling damage and may ignore any terrain or models while moving.

 

As a marker is not specifically mentioned as NOT terrain, i believe flight would not ignore it and so doesnt work here

 

 

 

Incorporeal rules as 

 

Incorporeal: This model ignores, and is ignored by, other models and terrain during any movement or push. Reduce all damage this model suffers from Sh and Ml Attack Actions by half.

 

Again for the same reason as Flight, this rule does not mention markers and so you dont get to move through them

 

 

Any thoughts? i guess you can say Impassable specifically mentions terrain in its description which the marker is not, so does the impassable not work at all? and if it DOES work does that make the markers terrain and thus the above 2 rules would ignore them?

[zFiend]

Good question. We have always played it as Incorporeal going right through it as well as Flight.

[PraetorDragoon]

Interesting question indeed. Well, I would rule (and have ruled) similar markers to be terrain and passable by flight or incorporeal. Seems to make general sense :/

[EnternalVoid]

I would say that this is one of those little bits that slipped through the cracks.  Save for Fire Wall and Ice Pillars stuff like the Waldgiest's forest markers strait out say terrain on them.  Other issues have been found with wording that were written to be very general and short only to have a few odd issues spring up out of them.  I feel this is one of them.  Another example is the fact that by the rules you can technically have a model activation and use Companion on itself if it has reactivation.  Does it go against the concept of companion? Ya, does the rules prevent it?  No, not really.  So yes, I think by your looking at the rules you are likely correct how it should work based on the exact wording.  By the way the missing rule that you are looking for is on page 43 at the top of the second column under "Movement Special Rules" where it stats that Markers do not affect movement unless their description states otehrwise.  It goes on that some markers may gain terrain traits or other rules that affect movement.  That is where you get that Markers can use terrain traits.

 

This all said I am willing to bet that nine out of ten TOs and henchmen would say that incorporeal and flight can move through it just like how nine out of ten say you cannot have a model companion with itself.  If I had been said TO I would have rules the same way and explained that yes, the rules seem to favor what you said, and I can understand and agree to that, but I would also state that I felt this was something that was missed in the playtesting and stick to the ruling.  Afterward I might get on the forums and see what others thought but I would stick with that ruling for that event and determine later if I was wrong to do so.

 

Personally, I would say that the game is better if incorporeal and Flight can go through markers, as it makes story encounters odd and perhaps gives a bit to much to Sonnia and Raspy if you cannot.

[Math Mathonwy]

With Flight, do you have to climb it (it is Ht5, after all)?

Edit: OK, not "climb" it, but ascend it, more like.

[jonahmaul]

With Flight, do you have to climb it (it is Ht5, after all)?

Edit: OK, not "climb" it, but ascend it, more like.

You only pay the cost for ascending if you land on top of something and since you are unlikely to land on top of the marker I'd say no.  If you're just moving from one side to the other then you'd ignore it.

[zFiend]

You only pay the cost for ascending if you land on top of something and since you are unlikely to land on top of the marker I'd say no. If you're just moving from one side to the other then you'd ignore it.

This is my reading as well.

[jonahmaul]

I think that both Flight and Incorporeal can ignore the markers being discussed as they have terrain traits but the former perhaps makes even more sense seeing as the markers have a defined Ht of 5 but Flight does not have any limitation as to what height they can ignore.

[Ausplosions]

They don't have the terrain trait. That's the whole reason this thread was made...

[jonahmaul]

They aren't terrain but they do have terrain traits.  Both blocking and impassible that the walls are supposed to be once raised are only described in the 'terrain trait' section of the rulebook (page 73 of the small one).

[The Godlyness]

I see this as simple tbh.

Are flame pillars or ice pillars terrain.

No. No where in their description does it say place flame or ice terrain markers. Therefore you can't walk though them since they are blocking and impassable.

And before the argument that they have terrain traits means they are terrain let me say this; models have the blocking trait does that mean all models are terrain?

Yeah thought not.

[The Godlyness]

Well as stated in the faq models ascending or descending subtract that from their move. And since you can't land on the marker due to impassable you need roughly a 7+walk to fly over it. Good luck with that.

[Myyrä]

I would say that you can't fly over them either, because they aren't climbable.

 

My personal opinion is that this should be FAQed so that models ignoring terrain and models while moving can also ignore markers.

[Paddywhack]

Well as stated in the faq models ascending or descending subtract that from their move. And since you can't land on the marker due to impassable you need roughly a 7+walk to fly over it. Good luck with that.

The FAQ deals specifically with 'landing' on a different height. Generally all distances are measured horizontally. If you had to take into account every obstacle you 'flew' over, Flight would be less than useless (lets see, I crossed a Ht 2 model, Ht 1 wall, the HT 2 crate... Guess I can only move 1"...wait...). The FAQ clarifies one specific instance to avoid giving models with Flight more of an advantage in multiple height terrain than they intended and is only for  that specific case - changing vertical levels and the total distance moved. The rule that the FAQ is very specific and shouldn't be used for other things applies here.

 

Now the fact that they forgot about Markers that have a HT charateristic does lead to a RaW situation, though in my opinion this was unintentional and should be clarified in the FAQ.

[bertmac]

I think wyrd has rectified this on its wave 2 cards just checking flame wall and ice pillars both say traits but then kaeris' flame pillars say terrain its all the same stuff. It is of course raw vs rai because it makes no sense that a model can completely ignore a ht5 wall but cant ignore a ht5 ice pillar when moving.

[Makrar]

Kaeris's pyre markers are a fair bit different to Flame and Ice pillars (they are not impassable so anyone can move through them for a start)

 

I am actually totally fine with flight and incorporeal models ignoring markers, i just dont want to be in a situation where i go into game, cast the spell and then have it ruled that they can be moved through because it makes "sense" 

[zFiend]

There are a few Sonnia flame wall related things that have come up now

[Csonti]

Well, if we are knee deep in rules lawyering:

 

 

Impassable- Models cannot enter Impassable areas of terrain, which includes moving through the walls of a building or into other solid objects.

 

So the main point was: you can't fly over a Flame Wall because it is not a terrain and Flight only ignores terrain. But as you can see the description of Impassable mentions terrain so by that logic a thing that is Impassable but not a terrain itself can be crossed freely.

 

All I would like to say with that: wording is murky and this question needs some FAQ.

[jonahmaul]

How does the 'other solid objects' bit interact with Flight/Incorporeal?  I agree that a FAQ would be good for clarification.  Seems common sense to me that Flight/Incorporeal would ignore flame/ice pillars (Flight more so as above) but would be good to get an official answer as we don't know whether the designers intention was that magically formed pillars of ice/fire would trump Incorporeal/Flight or vice-versa.

[Csonti]

How does the 'other solid objects' bit interact with Flight/Incorporeal?

 

The second part of the description only expands the first part with examples ("which includes..."). The main thing is in the first part, the other could just be cut and it would be still the same thing ruleswise.