Borders - if you're 0 inches from a deployment zone or centreline, are you 'inside it'?

[Maniacal_cackle]

I've often wondered if borders of areas are inclusive or exclusive. Some examples:

• A December Acolyte deploys 6 inches from a deployment zone, gets staggered, and walks six inches to be precisely on the border of the deployment zone.
  • Is this part of the deployment zone because it is tangent to it? Can you score Breakthrough off of it?
• You're running plant explosives on standard deployment (deploying 10 inches from the centreline).
  • You move precisely 10 inches forward, and drop a strategy marker. Is it 'on' the centreline because it is tangent to it?

Basically if a 30mm object or whatever is tangent to a zone/centreline, does that count?

[solkan]

Warmachine/Hordes tried to define away this problem, and got themselves into a huge mess because of it.  What it boils down to is this:

If you're zero inches away from something, there are several possibilities, depending on your physical position and whether you and the other object are allowed to overlap:

• You're just 0" away (you could be floating above the object)
• You're physically touching the object (in base contact) but not overlapping.
• You're physically overlapping the object.

In order to figure out which of those three cases you're in, you need to supply more information.  

42 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

A December Acolyte deploys 6 inches from a deployment zone, gets staggered, and walks six inches to be precisely on the border of the deployment zone.

• Is this part of the deployment zone because it is tangent to it? Can you score Breakthrough off of it?

You're asking yourself a trick question.  Acolytes can only walk 5.  🥶

The Acolyte deploys exactly 6" from the deployment zone.  If it moves 6" it will be 0" away from the deployment zone.  But that's irrelevant.  Because what you have to ask is "What's the definition of the deployment zone being used, and does the model satisfy the requirement?"

In other words...  Suppose you're playing Standard Deployment, the deployment zone is 8" from a given table edge.  The deployment zone is a full 8" (you can place a model so that the edge of its base is exactly 8" from the table edge) and you have to place the model entirely in the deployment zone, so the deployment zone covers the entire 8" width.

Staying with the assumption of using Standard Deployment, you've marked out a 36" line across the table, and put two models on that line.  Model A is deployed as far forward in its deployment zone as it can be (so the front of its base is exactly 8" from its table edge).  Put model B in base contact with Model A, remaining on the line.

Model A and Model B are both 8" from the table edge, so they both fulfill the "within 8" of the table edge" definition of that deployment zone.  It's like one of the infinity paradoxes where you take infinity, add one to it, and you've still only got infinity.

 

31 minutes ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

You're running plant explosives on standard deployment (deploying 10 inches from the centreline).

• You move precisely 10 inches forward, and drop a strategy marker. Is it 'on' the centreline because it is tangent to it?

I think you've accidentally managed to ask a trick question.  Because if you're exactly ten inches away from the center line, move 10" so that you're now 0" away from the center line, you can drop the marker so that you're overlapping it.  You could, in other words, perfectly center that marker on the center line, if you wanted to.

And note that Plant Explosives is deliberately expansive concerning the center line (last sentence of the strategy):

Quote

Markers on the centerline count as being in both table halves.

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

9 minutes ago, solkan said:

 

You're asking yourself a trick question.  Acolytes can only walk 5.  🥶

 

A staggered acolyte double walks 6, so that's how I got there xD

9 minutes ago, solkan said:

Model A and Model B are both 8" from the table edge, so they both fulfill the "within 8" of the table edge" definition of that deployment zone.  It's like one of the infinity paradoxes where you take infinity, add one to it, and you've still only got infinity.

So it seems like you'd rule that If you move exactly to the border, you qualify for the definition of in deployment. All makes sense I think!

9 minutes ago, solkan said:

I think you've accidentally managed to ask a trick question.  Because if you're exactly ten inches away from the center line, move 10" so that you're now 0" away from the center line, you can drop the marker so that you're overlapping it.  You could, in other words, perfectly center that marker on the center line, if you wanted to.

Well, what you'd want to do in this situation is NOT drop it on the centreline. So in an ideal world you'd want to place the marker perfectly so that it isn't on the centreline.

9 minutes ago, solkan said:

And note that Plant Explosives is deliberately expansive concerning the center line (last sentence of the strategy):

Markers on the centerline count as being in both table halves.

That rule is a bit tautological, since I'm asking what counts as on the centreline. But given the above interpretation for deployment zones, I assume this would be the same thing (aka, a model that moves exactly 10 inches from standard deployment and places a Plant Explosive marker cannot place it in such a way that it only benefits them.

Thanks for your thoughts!