No blind help this time, just some normal old rules clarifications.
Can the Cavalry bonus take a unit past the 3+ cap To Hit that it mentions in Advancements? Playing around with some Varangur cavalry, they start with a Fight score of 3+, so I was wondering if they can go to a 2+, or if for them it just counters penalties.
If a unit is in corner to corner contact, can they spend 2 to charge into flat to flat contact and get the charge bonus? It’d be a tiny charge…
If I have a boulder that is Height 2, and 2" by 2", can a height 3 Cavalry unit get over it? Would they be able to leap, scramble, or some such to get to the other side, or does it stop them dead because they can’t climb? It seems like they can leap walls but I’m not sure about things that aren’t wallish in nature.
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And a couple of more specific advice questions that I’m just curious about:
1B) Is there a reason not to take Full Plate? A 3+ save and Steady on a killy hero just seems so ridiculously good. I’m wondering what sort of things can compete for that rare slot if your damage unit doesn’t have Steady already.
2B) Is there a reason that the Nightstalker’s Butcher Leader unit is less damaging than the standard Butcher? It doesn’t seem to get any kind of bonus or ability that I can see, it’s just a Commander and also less good? Wondering if I’m missing an element about commanders or the base rules that makes it work as a pick.
3B) Can the Ogre’s Boomer SGT use Point Blank to shoot someone he’s engaged with, and also do a normal melee attack in the same round? Further, can he charge, do a melee attack for free, then fatigue to do a short and shoot? Finally, if he’s in base to base contact, does his target count as being in open for the extra die of shooting? I’ve been playing him with all of these as yes, and want to double check I haven’t been making him too good.
I have not played VG for ages, so maybe do not take my answers as guarantied.
We have always played that cavalry can go to 2+ when hitting smaller enemies. However, I have no idea what you mean by Advancements.
When charging you get the charge bonus (+1 dice). The distance does not matter. Though, again I have no idea what you mean by spending 2 to charge.
I would say that cavalry can jump over obstacles/fences but not over terrain pieces that are more than 1" wide.
1B) Sure, I have never taken Full Plate and was doing reasonably well (winning more than losing) in my games. However, I never took a killy hero or a model for more than about 45pts. OK, Full Plate is powerful but not game winning.
2B) I do not play Nighstalkers but I see the commander has 1 white power dice. That’s really a nice improvement. Having a commander also helps you to re-roll a failed power die.
3B) As I do not know much about ogres and Point Blank I will leave this one to someone else.
just because in campaigns you can’t increase a statistic to better than 3+, doesn’t mean you can’t have modifiers to your roll that go better. Those modifiers don’t change your stat anyway, they change the value required on the dice roll.
you can’t come within an inch of an enemy without engaging them, so corner to corner shouldn’t come up much. If things are getting messy and models dying and that leaves you unengaged but very close to an enemy model, then yes you can declare a charge action as a long action to engage them. There is no minimum distance required to move the model.
if you defined the boulder as a linear obstacle at the start of the game, and height 3 (which a 2"-2.99" thing should be), then anything that’s height 3 or more can jump over it costing 2" of movement, including standard cavalry. And models may not stand on top of things defined as linear obstacles. If you defined it as other terrain then if it’s flat enough you can say it doesn’t require climbing, so cavalry can get on top of it. Or if you say it’s jaggy and easy to climb then it’s still a climb but might count as a ladder, or if it’s not easy to climb it might count as difficult terrain to get on to (see Vertical Movement section in the movement rules, rather than the terrain rules). Anything you defined as needing climbing will not be able to be climbed by cavalry by definition. So it’s really more do you want cavalry to be able to get over it or not, or models stand on it or not, and define it as the appropriate type to match what you want from it before you play.
1B) it crunches your movement, and movement is very valuable for getting off the first charge in Vanguard.
2B) having a commander gets you a command power reroll, as well as bringing extra power dice. This is at the expense of some offensive power, yes.
3B) this one I’m checking with the rest of the rules committee because it’s possible we didn’t quite word the ability to match the intent.
Thanks a ton guys. I think I might house rule that models can leap over things that are 1 or more sizes smaller than them by using the jumping rules, and use that for Cavalry to get over things that are suitably big and in the way, but not too big to be a full stop. Feels like it’d be a fun thing to have a crazy guy riding a wolf come hurtling over that rock you thought made you safe. Everything else seems to just about be answered, except:
Re: 2B) I know that the leader butcher is a commander, but I was more wondering what advantages he brought if you took a commander butcher instead of one of the other buffing commanders and a normal butcher. You’d be taking a commander with no special buffing abilities who needs to get up close and try to bully things, but is worse at it than having a normal butcher to bully. I’m curious if there is an aspect to that I’m missing. However, after looking at the rules a bit more I think I figured it out. If you take him as your leader you can technically have two butchers, because the first commander doesn’t count toward your large quota. I suppose that’s the answer, he’s your only way to run 2 butchers.
Re: 3B) It’s pretty strong, but also a hilarious amount of fun to have this crazy shotgun hand cannon guy just going ham. He still doesn’t seem to be as universally useful as the Ogre SGT in full plate backed up by the rerolling armour saves spell, but it’s silly none-the-less.
So Boomer sergeant’s Point Blank is still a melee action. So you can’t do more than one melee action in an activation. It’s just that the Point Blank ability lets you use the ranged weapon attack as that melee action. Because it’s still a ranged attack, you will get clear shot if you can see all their base (which should be most of the time; but you might have terrain or other models blocking part of the base and not be centrally aligned)
Rather than make a new post I thought I’d just add on here…
Are “Run” and “Walk” separate actions? Can I run as a long and then (standard) fatigue to walk a bit further? They look separate to me but I wanted to check.
With inspiring, if there are two inspiring models within range is this still just one re-roll as one cannot re-roll a re-roll?
Correct. Run and Walk are two different actions, so you can do both in an activation if you do the Walk as a fatigue action. Think of doing them both as a kind of sprint. Note that Walk is never a charge though. Only Runs can be a charge.
And correct on the Inspiring as well. You can’t re-roll a re-roll.
Champion - I’d not twigged on the run/walk until just recently and the inspiring seemed like you shouldn’t be able to roll repeatedly but wasn’t specifically mentioned in the rules.
I’d also, until recently, been doing retaliations slightly incorrectly! I’d been activating then fatiguing despite the very clear rules that have it very obviously the other way around… d’oh!
Vicious Swipe - When attempting to Break Away from a Troll, enemy models have a -1 modifier when they make their Armour Save roll.
Just apply the -1 Armour save to any hits the troll lands during the breakaway.
Sergeant:
EVADE (1) - Use this ability when the Sergeant is to perform a Break Away action. The Sergeant may Break Away from any models it is Engaged with without having to make Armour rolls and may then perform a Brace Action if desired.
Veteran Sergeant:
RALLY ON ME! (2) - This is a Group Action. The Veteran Sergeant and all members of the
group may Break Away from any models they are Engaged with without having to make Armour
rolls
The break aways won’t trigger a free melee.
Rule of thumb is if it’s some sort of modifer to rolls on an old text related to a break away, apply it where it would make sense. If it used to let them break away without triggering armour rolls, then it will not trigger attacks now under the new rules. We’ll try and get it added to the next FAQ/errata.
OK, Full Plate is powerful but not game winning.