imho the only order that is alowed in this case is to engage the surounding forces. But only as long as there is enough space to place the formation you want to assault with.

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www.ttc-cosmophobia.de

We've been playing it that any formations behind the gate are blocked. I guess we'll find out shortly if that was correct.

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Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Yep.

ZoC over gate - you are entering the ZoC of the enemy and therefore must assault.  On top of that, the assault rules say once you enter enemy ZoC you must move to base contact, so until all the enemy are contacted, you'll have to enter CC.

Physical blocking by models - you cannot move over enemy models, so you can only move in the space allowed.

If there were room for part of the formation to move onto the board, I'd say you could leave the rest in the webway and they would count as being destroyed for being out of formation per 1.7.4.

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Neal

So how do we define 'blocking'?

In the past it was suggested that you had to move sufficient numbers of units into B-B to block the Wraithgate. So how many units would be required?
1) 1x unit
2) 2x units (following the usual transport rule)
3) 6x units (assuming that this is like a DC3 unit)
4) 7+ units

Regarding fighting to get out of the blocked gate, there were three options in the past.
a) Permit all units in the Webway to fight
b) Allow only two units to fight their way out of the gate
c) Deny any fighting

IIRC the majority of opinion was that Wraithgate should be blockable (option c) as outlined by Neal above, in which case IMHO it should be difficult to completely block a gate, so perhaps a minimum of 6x units in B-B to block (options 3 or 4)

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

There seems to be some confusion as to the concept of "blocking" a Portal; there seems to be both a "flavour/real (game) world" concept of "denying its use due to the presence of the enemy" and the we're playing a game "physical placement of game pieces on the battlefield" concept.

I believe most of the concept of "blocking" is about actual physical coverage of the table space occupied by the Wraithgate by enemy models, so that there is no path, nor area of placement, that Eldar models may occupy/pass through when drawing a line of movement from the Wraithgate model, e.g., a Warlord model standing "on" the Wraithgate with its entire base covering the objective: Can the Eldar use this gate?



The poll is, pretty well split on whether the enemy can or cannot completely deny the use of the Gate... hence the ongoing debate.

I have no problem with "physically" blocking the Gate with model placement, forcing the Eldar to use some other formation to clear the enemy away.  I don't think there's a "magic number" of units that need to "touch" the Gate to render it ineffective as there's no defined size for objectives anywhere in the game, and any number selected will be arbitrary.

I'll aslo admit that in all my years of playing Eldar, I've never seen anyone try to "cover" a Gate.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Neither until a game last weekend (Eldar vs eldar ironically)

Now it's happened... am thinking it would be nice to have a clear FAQ or similar organised.

If decided that gates are blockable, then I would be thinking twice about paying the points for them.

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

Nah, Gates are worth it at 50 points even if blockable.  You don't have to place it in the middle of the board and having a Blitz Gate isn't as horrible as it sounds.  Perfect cover for your units and you can bring them out to secure your objective on your own terms.  

As for blocking the gate it isn't clear cut for me.  I think of the only real world example we have to compare it to: Stargate.     Bad guys guarding the gate can easily shoot up the SG teams that travelled through them, yet grenades and other explosives being lobbed through the gate did a number on people doing the guarding.   Then of course there was a natural space around the gate where nobody wanted to be because of the energy output.
If you use all these examples from an obviously reliable source (why would the show producers lie about gate travel?   ) then blocking would not be possible.  

The other problem is Epic positions are somewhat arbitrary.  Your guy isn't just sitting on a stand next to four other guys; their real position is somewhat defined by the unit's ZoC (i.e. in that area).  Then of course the objective is not supposed to block movement or hinder placement of the units in any way, yet we have a physical model we have to deal with that will change how the units are placed on the board.  

For me the easiest way to judge it is to allow assaults to come out, place each unit in BtB with each enemy unit, starting with the closest ones and working my way out to the next closest.  This is obviously open to some problems like exceeding maximum movement or units in the back of the guarding formation(s) being CC'd when it should be the closer ones.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Only time I've seen it done was by Tiny Tim and his speed freak ork horde... There really wasn't any space near the gate! Caused a little rumpus at the time as it was the final game of a tournament on table 1!

I thought there had seen several examples over the years at UK tournaments (definitely happened to me as well) and it has certainly been an onging debate.

However I do agree with Mosc and Neal:- players can minimise the impact of having their gate blocked by having multiple gates, using screens, and positioning counter-attacking formations. So  

The main issue in my mind is how to define 'blocking', Chroma's comments notwithstanding. It is usually difficult to physically place a unit on a gate, and more importantly potentially risks damage to either the gate and/or the model. Given the variation on base sizes etc, setting a 'magic number' seemed a much more appropriate solution than a 'physical' solution, which will kick out questions on interpretation.

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

I'm fine with stating the blocking action as Hena offered, just be very careful about the number of units. You don't want to start another set of endless discussions as to why it's "4" and not "3".

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Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

Why not set the number of units blocking the gate to be relative to the number of units trying to escape the gate?  In other words, the gate can be blocked as long as the number of units is greater than the number of units trying to come out.  Not sure how to work the proximity to the gate but perhaps 5cm?  10cm?  I don't know.  Just throwing it out as a jumpstart to an idea.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I think the easiest way to decide on the number is to look at the smallest formation size that could come out of the gate, and then double that number.

The smallest unit size that can come out is 4 rangers, so 8 units could block the portal.

8 is also good because it is roughly how many infantry units you can squeeze into base contact with the pathetic official model (assuming the newer style 12x40mm bases).

The logic is pretty weak, but there you go.

other options id be happy to see used.

1:  give the gate a DC for purposes of blocking like trapping units in a warengine ?

2: as said above if the blockers are greater in number than the unit travelling out of the gate they are blocked, and if they are smaller they are just barged like a WE to make room for a b2b assualt

3: Give the gate a ZoC  so it cant become blocked.



Tim NZ

Hmm that's an interesting idea actually...

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/