Deployment with Mandalorians

By Lannes, in Rules

Hi,

Could Mandalorians (or ARCs with jetpacks) be deployed (or placed after scout movement) in different levels of terrain following this rule of cohesion?:

If a unit performs a move that ignores terrain of a
certain height, such as via the hover: air x, jump x, or
speeder x keywords, minis can be placed onto different
levels of terrain than their unit leader, as long as the
vertical distance between the levels is equal to or less
than the height of terrain that is ignored.

Edited by Lannes

The key part of the text you post is "after movement." So it would not apply for deployment, since the unit did not move. Additionally, "Jump" is a card action allowing for a special type of move. You cannot use jump during Scout, as the unit is not able to take actions.

Ok, thanks

On 9/5/2020 at 8:09 AM, Caimheul1313 said:

The key part of the text you post is "after movement." So it would not apply for deployment, since the unit did not move. Additionally, "Jump" is a card action allowing for a special type of move. You cannot use jump during Scout, as the unit is not able to take actions.

Just to be a pain, how does that work when they deploy and then scout? That counts as movement (which I think is what @Lannes was getting at maybe) Things like tactical trigger, so wouldn't those take effect? What about climbing and clambering as part of a scout move ?

30 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Just to be a pain, how does that work when they deploy and then scout? That counts as movement (which I think is what @Lannes was getting at maybe) Things like tactical trigger, so wouldn't those take effect? What about climbing and clambering as part of a scout move ?

Scout lets them perform a standard move, nothing more, nothing less. So Scout can trigger Tactical X (as it's trigger is a standard move), but cannot trigger Steady for example (as Steady triggers from a move action). Also, a standard move is not climbing or clambering, so you cannot use Scout for that.

Edited by Lemmiwinks86
33 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Just to be a pain, how does that work when they deploy and then scout? That counts as movement (which I think is what @Lannes was getting at maybe) Things like tactical trigger, so wouldn't those take effect? What about climbing and clambering as part of a scout move ?

Yes, Scouting counts as (standard) movement because on it's own it's just an ability which triggers when deployed and grants the unit a free standard movement. As such, it triggers pre- while-, and post-movement effects, because it is the exact same type of movement as the regular one, just happening at "turn 0". It's not an action, however.

Jumping however is not an effect triggered by movement - it's a special ability / action that performs a move when it's being resolved (it is not a standard movement, though (RR 51)). It allows to displace minis across different elevation, as referenced by the OP. You might think of it as a modified standard movement, but it's not one.

Clambering / Climbing is a special ability / action available to trooper units. It counts as a movement but not as a standard movement (RR 72). Again, you might think of it as a modified standard movement, but it's not one.

To sum up, Scout X lets you perform standard X move. It will trigger e.g. Offensive Push because your regular move does so;

Jump X, Climb and Clamber do not combine with Scout X because the latter lets you perform a standard move and the former are not one. They do trigger Offensive Push but don't trigger Tactical X, so using OP with them is possible but useless / counterproductive. Any special rules governing this type of movement cannot be applied while Scouting , because none of this movements can be performed while Scouting;

Cheers.

Edited by Ryfterek
25 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Just to be a pain, how does that work when they deploy and then scout? That counts as movement (which I think is what @Lannes was getting at maybe) Things like tactical trigger, so wouldn't those take effect? What about climbing and clambering as part of a scout move ?

It's not a pain, it is good to seek clarification of the rules.

The Scout move doesn't " ignore terrain of a certain height" unlike the keywords mentioned in the above (Jump, Hover, etc).
You can't climb or clamber as part of a scout move, since the unit may only perform a "standard move," which is a different, specific, movement action.

Jump is a card action, not a triggered ability. "
A unit that has the jump x keyword can perform the jump x card action," likely to take advantage of "no multiple uses of card actions" rules to prevent a unit from using Jump twice in their turn. Tactical on the other hand, is a triggered ability which checks for Standard moves.

Interestingly I only just now realized that you cannot use Jump due to a Standby token or Pulling the Strings.

So I realize you can't choose to climb or clamber with a Scout move, but what about triggering Scale..? Since Scale triggers before or after a standard move, I presume you can still use that with Scout x?

51 minutes ago, RejjeN said:

So I realize you can't choose to climb or clamber with a Scout move, but what about triggering Scale..? Since Scale triggers before or after a standard move, I presume you can still use that with Scout x?

No you cannot. The Standard Move from Scout is not a Move Action. Scale requires a Move Action.
Page 68, Scout:

Quote

A move performed with the scout x keyword is a move, but is not a move action.


Page 67 Scout:

Quote

When a unit with the scale keyword performs a move action, it may either perform a free clamber action before performing that move or perform a free clamber action after performing that move.

Ah, another case of just reading the full rule I see... Thank you, bit unfortunate for BX droids though.

I think the real issue is going to be, with a unit that tall, do they even need jetpacks to get on top of terrain. The silhouettes are only for LoS right now, not movement, so even if they don't take jetpacks, the top of the model is so tall they'll be able to get over terrain no problem, because as the rules currently stand you measure from the top of the model when determining the unit's size for movement.

Edited by Nithorian

@Nithorian The full unit at least (as built from the box) is of mixed heights, which further complicates matters. Presumably if part of the unit treats it as impassible, it is impassible for the whole unit. Hard to say, that situation isn't covered in the RRG as of yet.

It also depends on the terrain you use since the terrain only has to be height than half the height of the model to be impassible, anything that would block LOS to the silhouettes should still be half the height of the flight stands unless I misjudged the height.

9 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

@Nithorian The full unit at least (as built from the box) is of mixed heights, which further complicates matters. Presumably if part of the unit treats it as impassible, it is impassible for the whole unit. Hard to say, that situation isn't covered in the RRG as of yet.

It also depends on the terrain you use since the terrain only has to be height than half the height of the model to be impassible, anything that would block LOS to the silhouettes should still be half the height of the flight stands unless I misjudged the height.

Need to factor in the Trooper on top of that flight stand as well. So on the biggest one, if you position him to be as tall as he can be, the top of his head should be in that range, where he is out of LoS but able to hop terrain quite easily, as well as get up to quite high places without needing to make rolls.

I think the obvious solution here is if you are using the silhouettes for LoS you have to use them for movement as well.

Edited by Nithorian

@Nithorian No argument on using the silhouette height for both. It also comes down to what tables you play on, I don't play on many where the player defined impassible terrain for infantry isn't the full height or taller than a trooper model.

Again, it matters for the strike team more so than the full unit barring conversion or mixing two boxes together. Since we haven't had any tournaments with ARCs, we don't have any sort of "official" ruling. Probably worth sending an email into the rules question line though, about how to handle the mixed unit, and how to handle one converted to be entirely jumping.

1 hour ago, Caimheul1313 said:

@Nithorian No argument on using the silhouette height for both. It also comes down to what tables you play on, I don't play on many where the player defined impassible terrain for infantry isn't the full height or taller than a trooper model.

Again, it matters for the strike team more so than the full unit barring conversion or mixing two boxes together. Since we haven't had any tournaments with ARCs, we don't have any sort of "official" ruling. Probably worth sending an email into the rules question line though, about how to handle the mixed unit, and how to handle one converted to be entirely jumping.

The unit leader's height is all that matters. The height of everything else doesn't matter when it comes to terrain that can be moved through or over without climbing. What am I missing?

28 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

The unit leader's height is all that matters. The height of everything else doesn't matter when it comes to terrain that can be moved through or over without climbing. What am I missing?

It doesn't specify unit leader height in the impassible terrain section of the RRG, it specifies that what is impassable varies from mini to mini.

I suppose it could be read that just the leader matters since the leader is the model that actually uses the movement tool, but the terrain rules specify that impassible terrain is determined on a mini by mini basis... which means that you can have terrain that is impassible to some of the minis in the unit but not others. That's actually been the case since the introduction of the first kneeling trooper I suppose, but I guess it wasn't really as noticeable as it is with the mixed flight stand units...

So then we have the situation here where what is Impassible changes based on how you model the unit leader...

4 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

It doesn't specify unit leader height in the impassible terrain section of the RRG, it specifies that what is impassable varies from mini to mini.

I suppose it could be read that just the leader matters since the leader is the model that actually uses the movement tool, but the terrain rules specify that impassible terrain is determined on a mini by mini basis... which means that you can have terrain that is impassible to some of the minis in the unit but not others. That's actually been the case since the introduction of the first kneeling trooper I suppose, but I guess it wasn't really as noticeable as it is with the mixed flight stand units...

So then we have the situation here where what is Impassible changes based on how you model the unit leader...

In the rules for Movement it specifies that is from the unit leader (page 56):

"While performing a standard move, a trooper mini can move onto or over a piece of terrain that has a height that is equal to or less than the height of the unit leader’s mini."

Even so, this discussion is relevant as some can make the ARC unit leader as a flying model so he will be able to move through terrain that other trooper units can't. This rule should be updated to take the silhouete template for this too or something, to avoid this weird situations.

7 minutes ago, Lemmiwinks86 said:

In the rules for Movement it specifies that is from the unit leader (page 56):

"While performing a standard move, a trooper mini can move onto or over a piece of terrain that has a height that is equal to or less than the height of the unit leader’s mini."

Even so, this discussion is relevant as some can make the ARC unit leader as a flying model so he will be able to move through terrain that other trooper units can't. This rule should be updated to take the silhouete template for this too or something, to avoid this weird situations.

Thanks for pointing that out. Not the first time the rules have contradicted themselves, since to coincide with this rule, the Impassable Terrain rules should specify "unit by unit, based on the leader mini," which seems to be the intent in this case.

For reference here's the relevant section of Impassable Terrain on Page 8 that I am referencing:
"What is considered impassable terrain varies from mini to mini. Trooper minis treat anything higher than the height of their mini to be impassable terrain, while vehicles treat anything higher than half the height of their mini as impassable terrain. A unit cannot perform a standard move or a reverse during which it would overlap impassable terrain."

So we have these rules saying "units can't be on impassable terrain" while also saying different minis in the unit treat different terrain as impassable, and the movement rules essentially saying you only care about what is impassable for the leader mini.


I agree that this is relevant because it once again opens Legion up to "modeling for advantage," and the potential for different TOs ruling differently on what is and is not allowed for modeling an ARC unit leader. If I recall the directions correctly, the indicated unit leader is on the ground, so putting him on a flight stand could be considered "significantly altering the height" of the model. Same goes for Fives and Echo.

2 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

It doesn't specify unit leader height in the impassible terrain section of the RRG, it specifies that what is impassable varies from mini to mini.

I suppose it could be read that just the leader matters since the leader is the model that actually uses the movement tool, but the terrain rules specify that impassible terrain is determined on a mini by mini basis... which means that you can have terrain that is impassible to some of the minis in the unit but not others. That's actually been the case since the introduction of the first kneeling trooper I suppose, but I guess it wasn't really as noticeable as it is with the mixed flight stand units...

So then we have the situation here where what is Impassible changes based on how you model the unit leader...

The entry for Impassable terrain doesn't mention minis at all, only units. The Terrain entry says some of the stuff you're saying, but it's clarified under Movement (page 56) that it's only the unit leader that matters, especially since it's by unit and not mini (page 😎 . If you did go by your interpretation (ignoring the other entries), it would basically go by the shortest mini's height, since it's for the whole unit (per page 8). I believe that page is referring to the unit leader mini, but it's probably due for a rewrite since it's been like that since RRG 1.0 (there were a few times they mixed up mini and unit in the OG RRG).

23 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

The entry for Impassable terrain doesn't mention minis at all, only units. The Terrain entry says some of the stuff you're saying, but it's clarified under Movement (page 56) that it's only the unit leader that matters, especially since it's by unit and not mini (page 😎 . If you did go by your interpretation (ignoring the other entries), it would basically go by the shortest mini's height, since it's for the whole unit (per page 8). I believe that page is referring to the unit leader mini, but it's probably due for a rewrite since it's been like that since RRG 1.0 (there were a few times they mixed up mini and unit in the OG RRG).

The impassible terrain rules on page 49 explicitly tell you to check page 8 to determine if terrain is impassible:

"Whether or not a piece of terrain is impassable depends on a unit’s type (trooper, ground vehicle, or repulsor vehicle). See "Additional Terrain Rules" on page 8."

Yes, it says unit on page 49, but the rules on page 8 which are to be used to determine if the unit treats it as impassible requires checking the minis. So in order to determine if terrain is impassible for a unit per RAW it seems like you are supposed to check the individual minis in the unit. Which is not at all how I have ever played it, or ever intend to play it, I was just noting the oddity.

I agree this would mean the shortest model in a unit would determine what is impassible for that unit, which is why I am in agreement this is NOT at all intended. I could see it being intended as the unit leader mini, and I can easily see the silhouette being used for this determination for competitive play to allow for more dynamic modeling of unit leaders without it potentially being either a detriment or advantage.

Edit: as it stands, I view page 56 as a direct contradiction of the impassible terrain rules as written. It doesn't specify the unit doesn't treat it as impassible, just that the unit can move there, but the individual minis still is supposed to treat it as impassible with the current wording.. Since both are in the RRG, the golden rule doesn't even apply, but I agree that all of the contradictions make it clear that the only mini that matters for checking impassable terrain is supposed to be the unit leader, it's just not currently written to make that absolutely clear.

Edited by Caimheul1313

so stupid question?

if i put my unit leader standing on some rocks on his base would that mean that i could go past taller obstacles without having to worry about difficult/impassable terrain?

38 minutes ago, 5particus said:

so stupid question?

if i put my unit leader standing on some rocks on his base would that mean that i could go past taller obstacles without having to worry about difficult/impassable terrain?

With the actual rules, for casual play you could do that, but for tournaments you can't:

"Players cannot modify minis or use bases to significantly alter their size, height, or shape. The Head Judge is responsible for determining the legality of any miniature modifications."