Does McTavishes Swamp is our Home do anything?

[decker_cky]

The ability:

 

 The Swamp Is Our Home: Friendly Swampfiend models gain the following Ability while they remain within  6: "Lay of the Land: While in cover, this model receives cover from all non   Attack Actions."

 

 

The cover section:

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

 

Terrain with the soft cover trait will grant soft cover which imposes a    to the Attack flip of any ( ) Attack Actions.

 

Terrain with the hard cover trait will grant hard cover which imposes a    to the Attack and damage flip of any ( ) Attack Actions.

 

I believe the intent is to have the ability grant cover to things like lure. However, I don't think the words in the rule properly express that ability. It seems to me like cover only does anything for  , so the ability in effect does nothing (when you are in cover, it gives you cover). To grant cover to non- attacks, I think it is missing a clause at the end of lay of the land saying "as if it were an  Attack Action."

 

How do others interpret it?

 

[Malal]

 

The ability:

 

 

 

The cover section:

 

I believe the intent is to have the ability grant cover to things like lure. However, I don't think the words in the rule properly express that ability. It seems to me like cover only does anything for  , so the ability in effect does nothing (when you are in cover, it gives you cover). To grant cover to non- attacks, I think it is missing a clause at the end of lay of the land saying "as if it were an  Attack Action."

 

How do others interpret it?

 

If my model is in cover from the attacker and the attacker is using an attack action, they get a  unless it was a  attack action (if it was hard cover, they'd also get a  on dmg). I can't really see any other interpretation.

[decker_cky]

There's no rule saying that they get the  anywhere though. The model gets cover, but cover still only provides benefits against  attacks.

[The Godlyness]

Either we have an ability that does something. Or we have an ability that does nothing.

I choose to play it as it does something. Since to think it does nothing is being disingenuous.

If the ability was worded "non attacks receive a while this model is in cover..." then it would apply additional modifiers on top of cover modifiers.

Since cover does not stack this ability does not put actions at more .

And giving it the icon would make it randomize if the target was engaged.

[decker_cky]

I think it wants to do something, but lacks a strong enough wording to cause an actual consequence. The ability should say something like this: 

"While in cover, this model receives cover from all non    Attack Actions as if it were a Attack Action."

 

The proposed wording doesn't add an extra  , doesn't affect randomization, etc.., but it does provide the benefit that seems to be intended. It just treats all non- Attack actions as if they were   attacks for the purpose of cover.

[DocSchlock]

 

 

There's no rule saying that they get the    anywhere though.

 

You posted it in your first post. It's just changing targeting conditions of Cover to "all non  Attacks" instead of " attacks".

 

 

 

A model will gain the benefits of cover from a Projectile Attack

You can gain cover from anything. It just so happens that normal terrain cover is against Projectile Attacks only.

Why wouldn't a model-specific rule override the cover rules?

I think you're over-reading this a bit.

EDIT:

"Model gains rule X from source A"

"In soft/hard Rule X, you get Effect A from Source A"

Model has rule that Source A changes to Source B.

"In soft/hard Rule X, you get Effect A from Source B".

Swamp is Our Home is not shoehorning the models into the existing cover rules, like your fix would do. It's overriding the cover rules for those models.

 

[decker_cky]

It makes models qualify for cover from different situations, but the consequences of cover also only apply to  effects. The cover section is worded very deliberately, and the specific rule has weak, general wording that doesn't really fit with the cover section's wording.

[DocSchlock]

Go through the cover rules and replace all instances of "Projectile Attack / Attack" with "non- Attack". That's how it works. That's all.

 

[The Godlyness]

I think it wants to do something, but lacks a strong enough wording to cause an actual consequence. The ability should say something like this: 

"While in cover, this model receives cover from all non    Attack Actions as if it were a Attack Action."

As soon as you add as if it were a Attack Action. By normal language it becomes a action and would suffer from randomize.

So yes STRICTLY speaking you are correct and bayou Bushwackers and mctavish have useless abilitys. This is one of those times I won't argue RAW. But rather it is quite intended that the attacker gets a to either the Attack flip (soft cover) or the Attack and Damage flip (hard cover)

But with out writing a page and a half of rules to even make this work. Its much easier and most people will take the correct face value that I benefit from cover vs your non- Attack actions.

[DocSchlock]

The intent is clear and the RAW is clear to me at least.

While in cover, you receive cover from all non-  Attacks.

Pedantic Logic:

"You receive Rule X from all Sources B" - controls how the model is determined to be in cover.

"You receive soft / hard Rule X, which imposes Effect A from Source B" - determines how the effects of cover are taken by the model.

They are both "receive cover" - one controls how you gain the status, the other controls the effect you gain. It would change it for both, since that's what the rules says.

[decker_cky]

As soon as you add as if it were a Attack Action. By normal language it becomes a action and would suffer from randomize.

Disagree strongly. Randomization is not involved in the cover rules. Taking away the extra qualifications, the proposed wording provides cover as if the Attack were a   Attack Action. It doesn't generally add a   to the attack. 

 

So yes STRICTLY speaking you are correct and bayou Bushwackers and mctavish have useless abilitys. This is one of those times I won't argue RAW. But rather it is quite intended that the attacker gets a   to either the Attack flip (soft cover) or the Attack and Damage flip (hard cover)

 

Malifaux, to me, is designed around tight rules where you should be able to use RAW. Where RAW doesn't work, the rule is broken and should be fixed. Obviously you don't need to ignore the rule in the meantime, but that doesn't mean there isn't an issue. 

 

How this came up is when I looked at the rule, on the face of it, if nothing else, it was confusing wording. "While in cover, this model receives cover [...]" That's what the rule says. So you need cover already to benefit from the rule, which provides cover. 

 

To revise my earlier suggested wording, I think that part should be cleaned up with something like:

 

"This model may benefit from cover against all non     Attack Actions as if they were  Attack Actions."

[Myyrä]

Is there actually something unclear about what the ability should do, or are you just determined that it is broken and should be fixed? If it is the latter, you should maybe read this.

[mythicFOX]

<MOD HAT>

We've really been in rule five territory since the beginning of this thread. As there's no debate about how the rule should be played so I'm ending things here.

</MOD HAT>