Gunfighter vs Long melee range

[Rockexe]

I have tried to find anything clarifying this, but couldn't..

If a model with gunfighter has an enemy with a 3" melee range standing 2.5" away from him, can the gunfighter resolve any kind of strike, or does the long melee range create a dead zone at which he can't fire his weapon?

[Forar]

You'd either have to move up and attack in melee, or back out and to shoot (and risk incurring a disengaging strike for doing so).

To be fair, even without gunfighter, if you had a model with a generic 2" melee attack and a gun, they'd be in the same spot against a figure with a 3" melee range.

I believe you could charge it, but don't have my books in front of me to provide a citation on that.

[rannos]

To the best of my knowledge the model with gunfighter is in a dead zone. He cannot use a ranged strike while within melee reange of another model, but can't hit back because he is out of his own melee range.

[Silas Cordell]

Yeah, that is an odd corner case. Fixing it would make gunfighter more complex, but leaving it creates an "unrealistic" scenario.

[Rockexe]

Yeah, that is an odd corner case. Fixing it would make gunfighter more complex, but leaving it creates an "unrealistic" scenario.

Fair enough, it has just come up a few times in my last few matches vs the dreamer and lord chompy bits, and I was just wondering if I was wasting that 1 ap walking into melee range, or having to charge.

Thanks for the answers guys.

[011121]

It wouldn't have to make gunfighter more complex. Just change it to "When this model is engaged in combat they may make melee strikes with their ranged attack." That way it doesn't matter whether they are in their melee range or the enemy's.

[DeleteAccount]

Why should it? I mean, if my range is 1 and the other is 3 I'm also in a dead zone unless I move, gunfighters already get a very nice 2" range, don't see why they have to get a better deal out of it and not be able to be screwed by combat ranges like everybody else.

[Rockexe]

Well, the 1" range guy can't attack at 3" normally, whereas someone with a gun can.

But I guess it represents the different combat style needed to fight with a gun defensively not translating well to long range fights, but if they were to stop and aim down the sights (or other magic equivalents) they'd probably be leaving themselves too open to a disembowling..

[Swan]

Well, the 1" range guy can't attack at 3" normally, whereas someone with a gun can.

Not normally true, since there are many models out there with a 1" Melee range, and a ranged weapon. This is pretty much the standard scenario when facing models with 2" and 3" melee ranges.

[011121]

Why should it? I mean, if my range is 1 and the other is 3 I'm also in a dead zone unless I move, gunfighters already get a very nice 2" range, don't see why they have to get a better deal out of it and not be able to be screwed by combat ranges like everybody else.

because it doesn't make any sense to say "you can use your gun when not in melee, and you can use your gun in melee, but when you're sort of in between the two? No totally can't use your gun." It's obviously an unintended rules artifact.

[psychocamel]

because it doesn't make any sense to say "you can use your gun when not in melee, and you can use your gun in melee, but when you're sort of in between the two? No totally can't use your gun." It's obviously an unintended rules artifact.

But you're not sort of between the two, you're in melee, it's just that the guy you're fighting has enough distance between you that you need to aim, but his giant claws are still in your face preventing you from getting a good shot off.

I'm not saying that that is a concrete sample of how it should be, but as far as illogicalities go, this is a pretty minor one. There's all sorts of weirdness in a game like this that you have to think about to make it 'fit' in a 'realistic' way. But to say it's obviously unintended is a bit much.

Reach is in this game for a reason, so longer reach guys have an advantage over shorter reach guys, they decided to give gunfighter average reach. That is all.

[011121]

I still find that makes no sense. It's fine to say you can't use a ranged weapon in melee as you're too close and it may be too chaotic. But if you allow a person to use it in melee then it makes absolutely no sense at all to say that when the person is a little further away (but still well under the max range of the weapon) they can't use it. There's just no colorable argument for that. If the claws in your face were a problem at 3" they would be at 2 or 1 as well.

I would hope it's an unintended bug from a rule that should have been written differently.

[Rockexe]

The way I'd like to see it resolved, is that models only be able to lock down models up to 2" away in melee.

It makes sense that some models would be able to lash out 3 or 4 inches, but to effectively bar someone from stepping back at that range seems less likely to me.

Though, it is a pretty big change to some models just so gunfighter makes thematic sense..

Or, they could add 'this model can also make melee strikes up to the rg of the weapon against any model that is engaged in melee combat with this model' to gunfighter

Edited August 20, 2012 by Rockexe
Second idea

[Hateful Darkblack]

In the example given, I'd say the right thing to do is charge them.

Characters with a melee Rg of 3" are rare and powerful. I'd say, let them be rare and powerful.

[psychocamel]

In the example given, I'd say the right thing to do is charge them.

Characters with a melee Rg of 3" are rare and powerful. I'd say, let them be rare and powerful.

Unfortunately for Rockexe he often plays against one of those damn Dreamer players who likes to keep things at the edge of Chompy's 3" claws.

Particularly weird is when he had a model on one building, I had Lelitu on the other that was just under 4" away, and I still had the poor bugger tied in combat because of her 4" whip, which also meant anyone firing at her risked hitting the guy on the other building.

I agree with the rare and powerful thing, but I also fully agree it can look quite unusual, and just not seem quite right.

Hopefully it won't be too long before we can get our gencon stuff and my Dreamer will be out of use for a while

Edited August 20, 2012 by psychocamel

[DeleteAccount]

Why does it have to make sense? It's a rule, it's supposed to be balanced and easilly understandable, the moment you try to apply real world logic a lot of rules outright explode. So why do it?

Hell, if they changed all gunfighter to add a melee weapon that just happened to have the same stats as the gun with 2" melee range, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

[psychocamel]

Very true.

I must be confusing people because I'm sitting on both sides of the discussion >_>

I can see both sides to it but ultimately I think the rules work, it's just in a game like malifaux that is so rich with story and character it feels odd when something like this occurs.

I still take advantage of it though >_>

[Ratty]

Yep, when using Gunfighter you gun is just the same weapon with it's Range Swapped to 2. So if engaged with a Lilitu but outside of 2" you would have to move into range to use your gun.

[011121]

Why does it have to make sense? It's a rule, it's supposed to be balanced and easilly understandable, the moment you try to apply real world logic a lot of rules outright explode. So why do it?

Hell, if they changed all gunfighter to add a melee weapon that just happened to have the same stats as the gun with 2" melee range, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Because the cardinal rule of rules is that they should be as simple as possible while maintaining the desired balance. Things that don't make sense are automatically not clear by running contrary to intuition. Given that there is a much simpler and clearer rule that would accomplish the same goal (using a gun in melee) that works the way intuition suggests it should, an which is simpler overall...why wouldn't you use it?

[Keltheos]

If one a model is in melee range of another they're both engaged in melee and therefore can only use melee weapons. That's pretty simple.

[011121]

That *is* simple, but it's also completely screwed up by gunfighter... which is kind of the point.

Gunfighter would be really simple if it just said you could use a ranged attack while engaged in melee. Simple, no weird edge cases (as with the 3" melee and the current reading of gunfighter)

[pyremius]

The rule "Gunfighter: This model may use its ranged weapon for melee attacks." is completely clear and an absolutely obvious way to phrase such a rule . . . if that was how the developers desired the rule to work.

The fact that we're on the 3rd rulebook and 6th book containing rules (and have a regularly updated website) without the existing rule being changed to something with a different result is a strong indication that the simple result was not desired, and they had to resort to a less elegant solution to get the result that was desired.

[Sybaris]

As strange as it may sound, i like it as it is.

Gunfighter simply gives the model a melee weapon with rg 2". It doesn't create any additional rules to remember, but it also gives a limit to what they can do in melee (which is already great...just ask Perdita or Ophelia)

The limitation to 2" allow models that pay to get a of 3" and 4" rg to keep the safety zone vs those with smaller rg weapons.