Actually two questions from last night's game:-

'Popped up' and Wraithgate
If some skimmers (Jetbikes) enter the battlefield through a wraithgate that is in 'Dangerous terrain' do they take a 'Dangerous terrain' test?

1. Always.
2. Only if they are not declared to be 'popped-up'.

RAW, skimmers 'pop-up' at the start of their activation (which takes place in the webway), though the wraithgate is usually located on the ground. So which rule takes precedence? (Conceivably the Eldar player could put a Storm Serpent on OW hovering over terrain, so in this case the Jetbikes could also declare themselves 'popped up' and unquestionably enter above the terrain)

This situation could result from voluntary action, or the opponent's strategy :- the Eldar player could move his Storm Serpent into terrain for protection or the opponent could place objective in terrain that the Eldar player converts to Wraithgate. On reflection I tend to favour option a); letting the Wraithgate's location override 'pop-up' for entering the table, though I can see arguments both ways.


'Popped up' and assault
Some skimmers in the open declare an assault on enemy in terrain, so to avoid the Dangerous Terrain test the skimmers declare themselves 'popped up' at the start of their activation. What happens?

1. Perfectly legal. Skimmers pop-up at the start of their activation and only come back down at the end of the activation. So here the skimmers hover over the terrain during the assault, and only take a test if they land in Dangerous Terrain at the end of their consolidation move.
2. Formations must enter terrain to engage enemy. Skimmers may 'rise up above their opponents' as part of the assault, but they must take a Dangerous terrain test if they enter the terrain to engage the enemy

Here I tend to favour option 1); though again I can see arguments both ways.



What do you guys think?

Interesting questions Ginger,

For the first one I would say a) always.

For the second question I can see the argument from both sides, although I hadnt considered the popped up idea before. I have always played that 2) you take the test and would probably say stick with that as skimmers are boosted by the 1) and I'm not sure if the points costs for all the skimmers in the game would need to reviewed or not.

Considering it's taken 7 years for anyone to come up with this question, I'm not sure it's happening often enough for a points cost review of the entire game to be nessesary.

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'Pop up' rules are written for line of fire/sight, not for terrain checks. You could try to use a 'common sense' approach to determine if the skimmers take tests or not when popped up, but then I think you'd find an agreement with your opponent on a case-by-case basis anyway.

By the rules pop up doesn't affect movement and you use the normal skimmer rules (ignore terrain while moving, test when starting or ending in dangerous terrain).

For the Wraithgate - is the movement starting inside the gate or at the point on the table where the gate exit is? If it starts inside the gate the skimmers could blast through and into the open, avoiding terrain tests (which might be stretching it a bit if the gate is inside a forest).

I would also go for a) always.

The way I see it, objectives and gates are not the same as terrain. They do not alter or effect terrain in any way (no blocking of line of sight, no movement restrictions). The objectives are markers, just like blast markers. So the jetbikes would start their move in dangerous terrain.

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Barring something crazy like a floating wraithgate, I agree you'd have to take a terrain test. That's like any other skimmer that starts its move inside terrain. You still take a test for that first move even if you pop up and ignore terrain from there. From the FAQ:


====

Perfectly legal on the assault, imho, and I'd go further to say it doesn't require actually popping up to do it.

The rules say Skimmers ignore terrain while moving, until they "land," but "landing" is never defined as to when it happens. I think the FAQ about embarking Howling Banshees in terrain is probably the best analog. To do that, the vehicle needs to "land" to let them board and has to take a terrain check. I'd say that a skimmer could continue to ignore terrain until all movement was completed, including consolidation and withdrawal moves, unless something specifically requires it to "land" in order to work.

As far as assaults, if the skimmer wanted to engage in CC, I think that would require landing and appropriate terrain checks. As long as it was forcing FF, I would let it ignore terrain until after the assault results are determined (either consolidating or withdrawing). The same would apply to countercharge moves as well. If the skimmer chooses to countercharge, it could countercharge over dangerous or impassable terrain and not "land" until the assault was over.

Neal, thanks for the reply, and for confirming my suspicions on #1), though it is moot whether the troops in the webway are actually *starting* on the table or not.

So skimmers can actually end their movement above a forest?

Can't quite see where that comes from... ("Skimmers may ignores dangerous or impassable terrain as they move.")

Equally interesting is what happens when a wraithgate is in a building, meaning that jetbikes for example can't come out at all.

Not quite; ignoring OW, a skimmer normally 'lands' after each move, or if it declares itself popped up, it lands at the end of the activation.

So, the skimmer could declare an assault, pop up at the start of its movement and complete the entire action airborne, only landing at the end. The advantage is that the skimmer does not take dangerous terrain tests, but the down side is that they can be shot at by troops on OW ignoring blocking terrain.

However, I am less sure about the position if the skimmer is not 'popped up' - and here I agree with you Ulrik. By staying low, the skimmer forces any OW to have LOS, but it is also subject to terrain tests at the start and end of each movement 'hop'. To this end, I would consider the assault move and the consolidation move as separate hops, so subject to terrain tests even if the skimmer rises up out of reach of CC.

Neal, could you explain further why you think skimmers only test once.

I can't see how you get that out of the rules either... Don't get me wrong, I think it's a very reasonable rule - but it's not how the rules are written IMHO. Pop up mentions line of fire and transporting troops, but not terrain effects.


Oh, and another question about skimmers: You only measure the distance to the terrain feature and disregard the size of the feature, correct? So a skimmer that is 2 cm from a 15 cm wide forest can see the tank that is 5 cm from the other side of the forest?

Ginger: Actually, technically being popped-up has no effect at all on dangerous terrain tests. It only effects line of sight. Technically a unit can be popped up and still killed by ground terrain, as silly as that sounds.

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I guess people could choose to take DT tests if they wanted to; from 2.1.13 2nd para:-

"Skimmers may ignore dangerous or impassable terrain as they move".

However the point about popping up is that skimmers do not notionally 'land' after each move (including assault and consolidation) which would otherwise require DT tests. From 2.1.13 4th para

"A skimmer that has popped up, ‘pops down’ at the conclusion of the action".

So, while you are correct that Pop-up affects LOS, it also means that the skimmer stays in the air during the assault, and does not have to 'land' and take a DT test when attacking troops in terrain.
Note, if the skimmer is carrying troops, then they cannot disembark from a 'popped up' transport; it has to be on the ground for them to disembark into an assault: 2.1.13 4th para

"Skimmers with a transport capacity may not embark or disembark units while they are popped up, and if they are destroyed while they are popped up then any units on board will be destroyed with no save."

Yup. Effectively you ignore both the width and more importantly the height of the terrain.

Yeah, another knob rule. We tend to play it that you find the halfway point, and count LOS (but not distance) from there. So if the terrain is on the opponent's half of the distance, no LOS. Terrain on the firer's half, full LOS. Terrain at the halfway point, obscured.

The whole section on 'equal distance' in the rules, is one of those things like charging two units with one. It requires such fiddly silly measurement, that it should be removed, and the onus put one side or the other. Cause they just tend towards creating arguments. "I'm 5cm, and your 5cm." "No, you're 5.1cm!" "No, look, let's measure again!". Bleh.

Morgan Vening