FFG: Is this a legal shot?

By IceQube MkII, in Star Wars: Armada Rules Questions

http://imgur.com/Mkm4N19

In this picture, the Rear Hull of the Victory Star Destroyer is within the Firing Arc of the Left Broadside of the Rebel Corvette. (If not, assume this is the case.)

Following the rules for targeting, you can see via laser line that the Yellow dot (Corvette) does connect with the Yellow dot (Victory). It does not cross another defending hull and the attacker's hull does not matter (Learn to Play and Rules Reference Guide).

Since it is not explicitly written...

Does the yellow dot of the target hull zone be within the firing arc of the yellow dot of the attacker's hull zone?

OR

Can the Left Broadside shoot at the Rear Hull?

Yes or No. This is of utmost importance as there is a Chipolte Burrito with Guac and Extra Meat no less - hanging in the balance of the universe!

Thanks in advance!

No, cause you're firing outside the left arc

I would say it's a legal shot, assuming the defending hull zone is within the attacking hull zone arc. RR page 7, Line of Sight: Attackers hull zones do not block line of sight.

Assuming fire of broadside has a bead on the rear arc of the destroyer, yes, you have a legal shot.

if the back left corner is inside the firing arc of the corvette, yes.

Corvette starboard side DOES have LOS on the aft section of the star destroyer

The basic rules for attack.

Declare attacking hull and defending hull

Corvette port hull to Vic :

"Measure" Line of Sight

Yes, does not cross the defender's hull zone markings.

Not Obstructed

"Measure" Firing Arc

Yes, a sliver of the base is withing the port arc of the Corvette

Measure Range

Duh, its close range

Roll die.

Edited by wjgo

"Measure" Firing Arc

Yes, a sliver of the base is withing the port arc of the Corvette

Interesting that the reverse is not true - the Victory can't use it's aft to fire at the side hull zone of the corvette.

huh I would have said no because you are crossing your own firing arc when determing line of site.

You can cross your own arc but cant cross enemy arc i think

Edited by Microscop

http://imgur.com/Mkm4N19

In this picture, the Rear Hull of the Victory Star Destroyer is within the Firing Arc of the Left Broadside of the Rebel Corvette. (If not, assume this is the case.)

Following the rules for targeting, you can see via laser line that the Yellow dot (Corvette) does connect with the Yellow dot (Victory). It does not cross another defending hull and the attacker's hull does not matter (Learn to Play and Rules Reference Guide).

Since it is not explicitly written...

Does the yellow dot of the target hull zone be within the firing arc of the yellow dot of the attacker's hull zone?

OR

Can the Left Broadside shoot at the Rear Hull?

Yes or No. This is of utmost importance as there is a Chipolte Burrito with Guac and Extra Meat no less - hanging in the balance of the universe!

Thanks in advance!

Page 13 of the Learn to Play book says "To perform an attack, the player first chooses one of his ship's hull zones to attack from. Then he declares the defending hull zone on the ship he wants to attack. The defending hull zone must be within firing arc and attack range ." Then we flip to page 19, which states that "When a ship or squadron attacks, it must trace line of sight from itself to its target... Ship: When tracing line of sight to or from a hull zone, the line is traced using the yellow targeting point printed in that hull zone. If line of sight is traced through any hull zone on the defending ship that is not the defending hull zone, the attacker does not have line of sight and he must declare another target ." To further expand upon this, amongst the bulleted points on page 7 of the Rules Reference book is the statement "The attacker's hull zones do not block his line of sight."

So putting those rules together, we can say that since a portion of the Victory's stern hull zone is within the CR90's port firing arc, and that line of sight can be drawn between the two yellow dots corresponding to these locations, that YES, the shot is legal.

Originally, I was of the opinion that NO, it was not a legal shot, because the yellow dots only connect outside the firing arc. However, in the process of writing this to defend that ruling, I discovered that there is nothing in the rules stating that the dot on the defending hull zone must be within the firing arc, only the hull zone itself. Furthermore, that bulleted point, "The attacker's hull zones do not block his line of sight," indicates to me that there is nothing wrong with drawing line of sight outside of the attacking firing arc, so long as the arc still overlaps the defending hullzone.

My new process for targeting ships is now as follows:

  1. Check to see that the attacker's firing arc overlaps the defender's hullzone
  2. Check to ensure that line of sight does not cross any hull zones on the defending ship other than the targeted zone

The whole point of crossing arcs feels shifty to me. It's not like there are chunks of metal growing out of the ship, protecting other sides of it. Arcs should just show how far the cannons can turn and what can they shoot. Maybe it would complicate the rules too much, but I feel like there should be something else determining the visibility of ship sides, than just crossing the arcs.

Anyway, me and my friend encountered similar situation today. We ended up not taking the shot. Rules in the rule book aren't too clear about it, but as someone pointed out, if you reverse the situation, Destroyer wouldn't be able to make the shot. But if you looked at it logically, the shot should be possible. I guess it's up to both players to determine how they should proceed.

The whole point of crossing arcs feels shifty to me. It's not like there are chunks of metal growing out of the ship, protecting other sides of it. Arcs should just show how far the cannons can turn and what can they shoot. Maybe it would complicate the rules too much, but I feel like there should be something else determining the visibility of ship sides, than just crossing the arcs.

Anyway, me and my friend encountered similar situation today. We ended up not taking the shot. Rules in the rule book aren't too clear about it, but as someone pointed out, if you reverse the situation, Destroyer wouldn't be able to make the shot. But if you looked at it logically, the shot should be possible. I guess it's up to both players to determine how they should proceed.

Currently the Armada system does not operate under the "if you can shoot me than I can shoot you" doctrine. But yeah, no one has explained why it works this way, only that it does. Maybe it has to do with target size? In the example above, the VSD presents a larger volume of hullzone to target where the CR90 is presenting a smaller volume. Maybe they're trying to make that work?

The whole point of crossing arcs feels shifty to me. It's not like there are chunks of metal growing out of the ship, protecting other sides of it. Arcs should just show how far the cannons can turn and what can they shoot. Maybe it would complicate the rules too much, but I feel like there should be something else determining the visibility of ship sides, than just crossing the arcs.

Anyway, me and my friend encountered similar situation today. We ended up not taking the shot. Rules in the rule book aren't too clear about it, but as someone pointed out, if you reverse the situation, Destroyer wouldn't be able to make the shot. But if you looked at it logically, the shot should be possible. I guess it's up to both players to determine how they should proceed.

Currently the Armada system does not operate under the "if you can shoot me than I can shoot you" doctrine. But yeah, no one has explained why it works this way, only that it does. Maybe it has to do with target size? In the example above, the VSD presents a larger volume of hullzone to target where the CR90 is presenting a smaller volume. Maybe they're trying to make that work?

My impression is that this was the only way to make it possible for multiple arcs on a single ship to potentially hit a single hull zone on their target. The LOS rules had to be disconnected from the distance/arc rules. If it were like X-Wing, where LOS was determined by arc, a ship could never bring more than one battery to bear on a single facing.

My impression is that this was the only way to make it possible for multiple arcs on a single ship to potentially hit a single hull zone on their target. The LOS rules had to be disconnected from the distance/arc rules. If it were like X-Wing, where LOS was determined by arc, a ship could never bring more than one battery to bear on a single facing.

The whole point of crossing arcs feels shifty to me. It's not like there are chunks of metal growing out of the ship, protecting other sides of it. Arcs should just show how far the cannons can turn and what can they shoot. Maybe it would complicate the rules too much, but I feel like there should be something else determining the visibility of ship sides, than just crossing the arcs.

Anyway, me and my friend encountered similar situation today. We ended up not taking the shot. Rules in the rule book aren't too clear about it, but as someone pointed out, if you reverse the situation, Destroyer wouldn't be able to make the shot. But if you looked at it logically, the shot should be possible. I guess it's up to both players to determine how they should proceed.

Currently the Armada system does not operate under the "if you can shoot me than I can shoot you" doctrine. But yeah, no one has explained why it works this way, only that it does. Maybe it has to do with target size? In the example above, the VSD presents a larger volume of hullzone to target where the CR90 is presenting a smaller volume. Maybe they're trying to make that work?

Hey Angry Penguin, agreed.

I had -well at least with Battlefleet Gothic, thought the "if you can shoot me, then I can shoot you" doctrine to make sense.

But Armada has turned that doctrine on its head.

So in the OPs example, is everyone in agreement then, that the CR90 is clear to fire, but the VSD can only attack the CR90's front hull zone?

:mellow:

I just chalk this up to a very small ship up close to a very large ship. A few mm out and the Corvette will not have two legal attacks on the Victory. A 5 deg rotation clockwise and the Victory will have a legal firing solution on either the front of port hull zones of the Corvette. And the Victory - although having alot of weapons, may not even be able to full aim at that small area because it is a large ship. We're splitting hairs here.

Yeah, it'd be nice to know what the devs were intending to simulate (or ballance) with this attack mechanic. I'm wondering if it's the vulnerable hull structure, the placement of the guns, or the projection of the shields (i don't recall if star wars shields emit well past the hull or what).

The whole point of crossing arcs feels shifty to me. It's not like there are chunks of metal growing out of the ship, protecting other sides of it. Arcs should just show how far the cannons can turn and what can they shoot. Maybe it would complicate the rules too much, but I feel like there should be something else determining the visibility of ship sides, than just crossing the arcs.

When defending, the arcs of a ship represent the shield projector zones. If my shields in the fore zone are depleted, any shot that hits me in that zone will do so to hull. If you try to shoot my rear zone, but the side zone is in the way, you can't cause damage to the rear zone (the side zone intercepts the shot, or you simply cannot see enough of the ship from that angle to attack that zone).

This is the cool part of the Redirect defense token and the 1pt Engineering option: both represent engineering teams redirecting shield quadrants to reinforce depleted zones, since it's far easier to angle your deflectors than to regenerate them.

Edited by caelenvasius

Interesting that the reverse is not true - the Victory can't use it's aft to fire at the side hull zone of the corvette.

that's not entirely true. it's hard to tell because it's so close, but if the back corner of the VSD is past the front arc of the CR-90 then the VSD DOES have a shot at the left hull zone of the CR-90. Line of sight is checked after the arcs are checked to determine if there is anything such as an obstacle or another ship are blocking line of sight

*edit nvm forgot about the yellow dot can't cross through enemy firing arcs

Edited by executor

Heh heh heh.

executor. Yeah, FFG were pretty thorough about this ehy?

I suppose, the only consolation is that, this rule applies both ways - in that when the opposing player is in a similar situation, they will also not be able to fire.

1 rule for all. :D

Our question is, do the hull zone lines extend infinitely on the targeted ship????

Nope.

It has LOS, it's in the arc (barely), it's def in range. Perfectly legal shot. There's really nothing ambiguous about it so long as you read the rules on this verbatim (as they should be.)

And no, the rear arc of the victory cannot shoot back at the side of the corvette. Can be a good strategy, though difficult to pull off (although in this case, the vette would rather not take dice to it's unshielded face.)

Look at it this way if you like: The guns on the side of the vette are shooting the back corner of the victory, but there are no guns on that corner to shoot back at the side of the vette.

Currently the Armada system does not operate under the "if you can shoot me than I can shoot you" doctrine.

Should it? The Rebel Corvette will move after the dice are rolled and the attack is made, so unless it is speed 0 it will be somewhere else.

I am also inclined to suggest that with the shoot and move mechanic of the game why shouldn't the ability to read/plan well be rewarded?

I think the process is somewhat abstract, the miniatures themselves are not to scale or the corvette would be able to fit into the Star Destroyers Loading Bay. So the shooting rules may seem strange at times.