Tantalus Tactica

I found this correspondance between "Zen" from tauonline and a GW rep concerning this issue.

Originally Posted by GW
Wow, that’s the second email I’ve gotten today from the very same topic of that forum.

From reading (and re-reading) the wording of the rulebook, A skimmer may pass over enemy units while moving and since the ramming rules require a vehicle to “contact” the target this does not have to happen. Since there is no specific exception to the “pass over” anywhere in ramming of tank shock that is the only way to interpret the rules.

That said, whenever a rules question is answered it is our interpretation of the rules AS WRITTEN, and not in any way what we feel the “spirit” of the rules are.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zenai
OK, so even though the Tank Shock Rules say you can't ram through friendly units EVER, Skimmer are an exception to this because they're Skimmers?

Quote:
Originally Posted by GW
Correct, because again, they don’t come in contact.

Hopefully that helps.

Cheers- Rodentbane

The tank shock rules mention freindly models may not be moved through, so a single wyche would prevent a razorwing flying over to ram a stormraven 30" away. And since the base is ignored except during an assault, it could pass over a land raider to get there, since it would not be tall enough to make contact. The wyche apparently projects impenetrable field into space, only if what passes through field intends to ram something?

The above GW rep reading of rules makes the most sense. Ignoring skimmer rules when ramming leads to alot of weirdness and inconsistency, and still allows a vehicle to be passed over in some rare occasions.

Massaen, the tank shock rules also don't say first, if they did it would be impossible to tank shock multiple units, and infantry would provide impenetrable shield to prevent tanks ramming vehicles behind them. Your reasoning is not affected by the presence or absence of first.

This thing apparently suffers from the penalty for having a lot of different rules. It's sort of the Duke of vehicles.

d6 S7 AP2 shots for FO, which means you aren't firing 12 S5 AP2 shots? That's horrible. If it was 2d6 that would be a consideration, but d6 is a nerf. If you FO with it, I assume you are setting up an assault and thus need to worry about that positioning and not passing over a specific unit.

The other thing that jumps out to me about it is that having a larger capacity isn't a good thing for such an expensive transport that isn't that much more durable. A big squad of Grotesques would be funny, yeah, but this things and 16 Wyches costs over 400? I could take three squads of 7 in Raiders and spend about the same, have more diversity for less fire power (more Wyches too). DE need to spread their targets out, not focus them.

We don't even have a Deathstar unit worth talking about to throw in this thing (for people that are into Deathstars- I guess there is something to say for the sexiness of Vulkan with TH/SS Termies).

Massaen wrote:

I still find this a huge leap as it specifically mentions the first unit it contacts...

As others have said, if you fly over something, which is a permission given in the rules for Skimmers, then you do not make contact with the units you fly above, and since no contact is made, you can continue flying.

To put it another way, we have two different rules, one stating X, and the other stating Y. Neither mentions that they are mutually exclusive, so therefore we must treat them as both being in effect. 40k is permissive, and in this context, nothing has removed the permission of X.
True, we have a general statement that you act a certain way when doing Y, but X directly contradicts that.

In summary, Ramming is movement. Skimmers have special rules that relate to movement. Therefore, Skimmers have special rules that apply to ramming. Ramming may be a special sort of movement, but it is still movement.