Explosive Marker and Zipp prevention

[asrian]

Had a question come up. My Night Terror, flying model, was standing next to an enemy Explosive marker. Zipp runs over next to the marker. Zipp's melee 2", (it cannot target flying models)covering all sides of the marker. 

Does Zipp prevent the Night Terror, who is not within his own 1" reach of Zipp, from picking up the Explosive marker as the Night Terror is flying?

We agreed, Yes Zipp prevents this action, for fairness of play, but I was curious what others think.

 

 

[Clement]

Pretty sure Zipp is engaging your Night Terror, so he'd prevent the interact, even though he cannot actually attack the Night Terror with his ability.

This all hinges on what exactly is "engagement" and does Zipp engage the Night Terror.

From page 26 of the pdf, there are exactly 2 requirements.

1.  Night Terror is within Zipp's longest Action (yep, 2 inches)
2. Zipp has LoS to the Night Terror  (also yep)

That means the Night Terror is engaged.

[Adran]

I would say that yes you are engaged but Zipp can't use that attack to reduce the night terrors disengage distance. 

[solkan]

2 hours ago, asrian said:

Does Zipp prevent the Night Terror, who is not within his own 1" reach of Zipp, from picking up the Explosive marker as the Night Terror is flying?

I'm posting this because of the part in red.

It doesn't matter whether the Night Terror engages Zipp.  Even though the section in the rules is called "Engagement", engaged and engaging aren't reciprocal.  (And even though a lot of M2E veterans might still have left over habits expecting it to be reciprocal...). (Friendly fire is from engaging or being engaged.  The friendly fire penalty is the only thing that makes a huge melee range sometimes inconvenient.) 

Your model was engaged because it fit the two criteria:

• Your model is within the melee range of an enemy model.  Zipp's melee range is 2".  The fact that Zipp can't use that attack on the model doesn't matter.
• Your model is within LoS of that enemy model.  Zipp could see you.

Zipp in that situation would have been able to Interact and place a scheme marker (assuming no one else was around to engage him, and there weren't any other friendly scheme markers too close).