N18 Flight Trait

[Cmarler]

How do you guys interpret flight? I just played against a piscean spektor and got triple action charged and it got me thinking. The rule often states

• Ignores all terrain (except impassable terrain)
• moves freely between levels without restriction

So can it move straight through a ZM wall , column, door without any penalty? Are said terrain features impassable? (I move over and "across" walls all the time) Does the flying model ignore vertical distance travelled? (I've been playing a lot of killteam) Or is it able to travel in a diagonal plane and you measure that distance? (Potentially going through the floor of something like sector mechanicus platform)

 

[daveh]

Ive always thought of ZM being some sort of tunnel system where the walls go up to a ceiling , also there is little point to the colums if they are not holding up a roof.
GW usually have a crude measurment system of horizontal or vertical , and dont bother with new fangled concepts of diagonal.

 

[TopsyKretts]

-N23 rulebook, page 185

If you measure up and down when flying over a wall, I don't think there's enough movement to get anywhere reasonable, so I'd ignore that. That penalty is reserved for climbers. Other special rules that ignore climb penalty says stuff like "when this fighter climbs, the distance they move is not halved". If Flight measures up & down when flying over a wall, it would have to say something similar, as it at minimum wouldn't suffer the climb penalty.

 

[Cmarler]

Okay, so I looked at the new rule book a little more closely. If I was playing ZM terrain with multiple levels (3D), walls and columns are "almost always considered impassable terrain" and "closed doors are considered impassable terrain". Flight trait does not ignore impassable terrain, so by my thinking, an model with the flight trait can not just moving straight through "almost all" walls or any closed doors. If you interpret that the flight trait ignores vertical distance moved, than this previous point about not ignoring impassable terrain wouldn't matter because you would just fly over the wall or door anyways. I feel like "the move freely between levels without restriction" is the weird part. What does restriction mean? Is movement in inches is a restriction? or just the parts of climbing 1) the climbing cost of double movement and 2) the overhang greater than 1" not being traversable. I attached the "wall scuttler" trait as an example of something ignoring climbing restrictions but obviously it is still climbing whereas we are discussing flying.

We usually measure range for weapons and what not on a model and model basis. Thus, a model on the same level can shoot another model with an autopistol if they are exactly 12" away. Now, if the target is 12" away horizontally and on top of a six inch tower (so 13.4 ish inches away) they are out of range. We will probably use this same logic for flight and say something like " the model X can move in any plane using it's movement characteristic as normal. It cannot move directly through walls, (but can fly over walls that are climbable), floors or doors. It ignores any movement over obstacles/ structures/fighters but cannot end their move with their base overlapping these elements"

With this way, I figure we will just ignore a lot of the shorter terrain elements (using the Pythagorean theorem, the 2 inch wall doesn't really add any significant distance to the diagonal movement) while making the things with flight trait not seemingly teleport a vertical distance or be seemingly faster at working directly against gravity as opposed to moving parallel to the battlefield.

 

[Tk421wayayp]

The way I interpret it re: moving freely between levels is that the model moves around as if the terrain were a 2d surface. So in essence if you reach a vertical terrain feature such as a watch tower in your line of movement you essentially pass "through" it (via the medium of up and over!)

 

[Tk421wayayp]

The way I interpret it re: moving freely between levels is that the model moves around as if the terrain were a 2d surface. So in essence if you reach a vertical terrain feature such as a watch tower in your line of movement you essentially pass "through" it (via the medium if up and over!)

But in ZM I'd say wall sections are in reality representing the sides of a closed tunnel with a ceiling, so no moving up and over them

 

[TopsyKretts]

You need to declare what a wall is. If it is only the physical plastic piece that's 3" tall, then you could fly straight over it. If it is infinite tall or topped by a ceiling, then you can't fly over it. This is up to you as the players to decide how you want to play it. The game rules are split across so many versions and types of terrain, from cardboard tiles with infinite tall walls (2d), to the plastic tiles and walls (2.5d) to sector mechanicus (3d) and now also ash wastes. A wall can be many things.

The "without restriction" part shouldn't be about inches, because models with flight are limited by movement stat just like everyone else. So the restrictions ignored should be climbing and other limitations fighters without flight have to deal with.

 

[Cmarler]

You need to declare what a wall is. If it is only the physical plastic piece that's 3" tall, then you could fly straight over it. If it is infinite tall or topped by a ceiling, then you can't fly over it. This is up to you as the players to decide how you want to play it. The game rules are split across so many versions and types of terrain, from cardboard tiles with infinite tall walls (2d), to the plastic tiles and walls (2.5d) to sector mechanicus (3d) and now also ash wastes. A wall can be many things.

The "without restriction" part shouldn't be about inches, because models with flight are limited by movement stat just like everyone else. So the restrictions ignored should be climbing and other limitations fighters without flight have to deal with.

Okay, I should have made it clear. We only ever play with ZM terrain, sector mech terrain and ash wastes terrain. We never play 2D (unless the mission specifies) and we have yet to play with anything that was touching the ceiling (as long as they can make it on top of something they can try to climb it or jumppack/ grapnel onto it)

 

[Tk421wayayp]

Okay, I should have made it clear. We only ever play with ZM terrain, sector mech terrain and ash wastes terrain. We never play 2D (unless the mission specifies) and we have yet to play with anything that was touching the ceiling (as long as they can make it on top of something they can try to climb it or jumppack/ grapnel onto it)

Then yeah, up and over, as the crow flies. As if the terrain piece in question wasn't there