Ignoring LOS...

[Velcro]

My friend and I played out first games today and we're confused about how ignoring LOS works. In this case it's Lady J we're talking about. We've gone through the rules manual but it still isn't clear to us, and we have no other Malifaux players in the area to ask as we're the only 2 that have picked it up.

How does this rule work with regard to charging/attacking/casting? Let's say I have a HT 2 model behind a HT 3 climbable building and Lady J is on the other side of it. Since she ignores LOS, can she charge the model on the other side by climbing over? Does this change if the building is a vantage point and they still begin behind opposite sides?

Similarly, let's say a HT 2 model is behind a HT 2 wall, how would it work there?

[solkan]

Ignoring LOS for a charge just means that it's incredibly easy for the model to choose a target for the charge.  It doesn't change the mechanics of the charge move.  (Being able to climb over stuff while charging is a completely separate discussion and gets encountered by plenty of models that require line of sight to charge...  )  At most, all it does it make the "I want to climb over something while charging" situation more common.

What it comes down to is agreeing with the other person on what a "straight line" is.  But, practically speaking, there's no real difference between a straight line across a hill and a straight line across a wall if you don't have to worry about line of sight.

 

I'm going to put the previous thread concerning climbing while charging in spoiler tags right here, but you may want to brace yourself first. 

Spoiler

 

 

[Velcro]

I see what you mean... So... I have no idea what to do now. I guess have a house rule...

[Dogmantra]

As you can probably tell from the linked thread I'm on the side of no climbing during a charge, but there are other cases where getting to ignore LoS for charge targets comes into play.

Here are a couple of diagrams that show legal charges for Lady Justice ignoring LoS that don't require climbing

In the top one, Lady Justice cannot see the Ht2 model on the other side of the tree/bush because you can't see through a dense piece of terrain. She charges because she doesn't need Line of Sight, and because she ends up in LoS, she gets to make attacks. Most other models would have to walk into the dense piece of terrain to get LoS and then be able to target the other model (probably not with a charge because they probably won't have enough AP!)

In the bottom one, similarly she can't see her target behind this building. However she can't move through it this time as it's impassible. However, the charge doesn't have to be directly towards the target, so she moves into melee range as shown. As with the other example, most other models would have to walk once and then be in range to attack.

 

There's another distinct example of what can happen but you're unlikely to encounter it outside of shenanigans because it doesn't normally make much sense to actually take the action:

In this case Lady Justice charges an enemy model she can't see behind a wall and ends up closer... but still unable to see the enemy. Because she only ignores LoS when selecting a target for her charge, she still needs it to actually make the attacks, and can't attack her target (note that to make it a legal charge she still needs to end up with the target within her engagement range). As I mentioned, you normally don't want to do this since you're spending 2AP to move 7" in a straight line where you could spend 2AP on walks to move 10" in any direction, but there are some niche interactions where you might want to do this anway (for example Lady Justice has an upgrade that allows certain friendlies to push when she declares a charge).

[Dogmantra]

55 minutes ago, Artiee said:

This action can not be done.  Yes Lady J can see the target for the charge, but at the end of the charge she is not engaged because she does not have LOS with the target so she can not charge.

Charge doesn't require you to be engaged at the end of it, just within engagement range. In this case the wall is thin enough that the two models are within 2" of each other, satisfying that requirement.

[Velcro]

Ah those diagrams are perfect. Thank you Dogmantra

[Artiee]

5 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

In this case Lady Justice charges an enemy model she can't see behind a wall and ends up closer... but still unable to see the enemy. Because she only ignores LoS when selecting a target for her charge, she still needs it to actually make the attacks, and can't attack her target (note that to make it a legal charge she still needs to end up with the target within her engagement range). As I mentioned, you normally don't want to do this since you're spending 2AP to move 7" in a straight line where you could spend 2AP on walks to move 10" in any direction, but there are some niche interactions where you might want to do this anway (for example Lady Justice has an upgrade that allows certain friendlies to push when she declares a charge).

This action can not be done.  Yes Lady J can see the target for the charge, but at the end of the charge she is not engaged because she does not have LOS with the target so she can not charge.