Tank Shock and Skimmers

SO the long and short is that yes a skimmer can cross interveining models to tankshock/ram

Yep. It can fly over enemy models, so no contact is made, and you essentially choose which is the first enemy unit/tank you come into contact with.

Thor665 wrote:

But during the course of the move you can say they're 12' away or .01" away - it really doesn't matter because it has no effect on anything.

But the rules say it does have an effect if you come withing 1in of another vehicle during a tank shock, so, it would make a difference if you're 12in or 0.1in away.

Once again, vertical movement is not taken into account. It is assumed that the model moves sufficiently high enough to avoid the enemy model. To put it another way, the Skimmer must move over an inch "above" enemy models, as you're not allowed to move within an inch of enemy models unless assaulting/tank shocking, yet the Skimmer can move over enemy models freely in the movement phase, without declaring an assault/tank shock.

Unless you're going to argue that Skimmers cannot move over enemy models, as they're only .1" higher than them, which is less than the required 1", then that point is irrelevant.

But we are tank shocking, and moving within 1in of a vehicle stops that, and that's what we've done. Where does it say in the rulebook that a skimmer flies 2in above everything?

Archon Mephitic wrote:

But we are tank shocking, and moving within 1in of a vehicle stops that, and that's what we've done. Where does it say in the rulebook that a skimmer flies 2in above everything?

It would fly high enough to not make contact. Because if it doesn't work that way you couldn't fly over enemy models because you would be tank shocking and ramming everything.

You can fly over them, but, there is nowhere in the rulebook that tells us how far above things a skimmer flies. Yes they ignore everything in a normal movement, but this isn't a normal movement so we have to go with the rules for the tank shock movement. Nominate a distance, move in a straight line, stop if you get within 1in of another vehicle.

No, they ignore everything when moving, nothing specifies they don't when tank-shocking, because vertical movement is irrelevant for Skimmers. They are assumed to move exactly as far as they need to avoid contact. Tank-shocking/ramming is movement, therefore it follows the rules on movement. It has some additional criteria, but they are just that, additional. The Skimmer nominates a distance, moves in a straight line, moving over any terrain/enemy units, and comes into contact with the target.
The rules say Skimmers can move over enemy units, and another rule says your units can't come within 1" of enemy units. However, Skimmers can still move over enemy units, regardless of the other rule. Therefore, the Skimmer is assumed to move over 1" above them, to satisfy that ruling. 40k is a 2D game, for the purposes of movement with Skimmers.

To put it another way, are Fast vehicles not allowed to move faster when tank shocking? After all, according to your logic, the only movement rules allowed during tank-shock/ram are the bog-standard movement rules, which aren't the rules for Fast vehicles.

Who is assuming they are 1in above? You can't assume anything with the rules, they are written and that's that. Even if we don't talk about vertical height, you will still be within 1in before you even need to make the jump, as there would be nothing to fly over until the prow of our raider is almost touching the other vehicle, but, then we are within 1in and must stop our tank shock on the unit behind.

Archon Mephitic wrote:

Who is assuming they are 1in above? You can't assume anything with the rules, they are written and that's that. Even if we don't talk about vertical height, you will still be within 1in before you even need to make the jump, as there would be nothing to fly over until the prow of our raider is almost touching the other vehicle, but, then we are within 1in and must stop our tank shock on the unit behind.

By the rules for Skimmer it allows you to fly over enemy units. To fly over an enemy unit and not tank shock them or ram them you need to stay over 1in away. So by being able to fly over the unit or vehicle you would need to be over 1in away at all times.

Ok, I'm still not convinced. However Inat say you can (I dont' care either way about Inat) BUT say that clarification is needed. This still means there are no definite rules either way or the other. If you're in a tournament using Inat FAQ then your fine. I won't be using this against friends however, because there's still no definite answer.

VEHICLES: SKIMMERS (page 71)
RB.71B.01 – Q: Can a skimmer performing a tank
shock selectively choose to fly over enemy units (and
vehicles) that it doesn‟t want to tank shock or ram?
How about flying over friendly units or intervening
terrain in order to tank shock an enemy unit?
A: Yes, a skimmer may selectively choose to move over any
friendly/enemy units and moves over intervening terrain
without penalty (although it still has to take a dangerous
terrain test if it ends the move in terrain as normal)
[clarification].

Archon Mephitic wrote:

Ok, I'm still not convinced. However Inat say you can (I dont' care either way about Inat) BUT say that clarification is needed. This still means there are no definite rules either way or the other. If you're in a tournament using Inat FAQ then your fine. I won't be using this against friends however, because there's still no definite answer.

Use it against your friends. I intend to use it against mine! Tank shocking is movement. Skimmers can move over everything. Therefore they could move over a close combat, a titan and a column of tanks on their way to the unit they want to tank shock if the mood took them. This is part of our compensation for having armour 10 all round, open-topped vehicles. You're shooting yourself in the foot if you don't use it when you can. Unless you like tank shocking bullet screen units only to be counter charged by tank busting elites, obviously

Archon Mephitic wrote:

Who is assuming they are 1in above? You can't assume anything with the rules, they are written and that's that. Even if we don't talk about vertical height, you will still be within 1in before you even need to make the jump, as there would be nothing to fly over until the prow of our raider is almost touching the other vehicle, but, then we are within 1in and must stop our tank shock on the unit behind.

Because if they don't move over an inch above enemy units, then they can't move over them in the movement phase! I don't get what's so hard to understand about that. Unless you're trying to argue that a Skimmer can never move over enemy units, then you are agreeing that Skimmers move sufficiently above enemy units to go "around" them.

Skimmers can move over enemy units. Units cannot move within 1" of enemy units. However, Skimmers can still move over enemy units. Therefore, Skimmers move at least over 1" above enemy units when moving. What more do you want? If Skimmers cannot tank shock over enemy units, then they cannot move over enemy units at all, as they aren't moving high enough.

40k movement is done using only 2d measurements, even with Skimmers. You're getting confused because you're demanding that Skimmer movement is measured in 3d, something that the rules do not say happens. The rules simply do not count the third dimension when moving. As such, Skimmers do not take the height of enemy models into account whatsoever, they automatically move high enough to avoid them while moving, which means they don't move within 1". To argue otherwise goes against the rules of Skimmer movement.

Even in a 2 dimensional space, the prow would come within an inch before you need to 'fly' over it. That's where i'm having problems.

But if you argue that way, skimmers could never fly over anything, because they could only fly over other units, if they came closer than 1", but the rule says, they aren't allowed to come closer than 1". And even more so they could never tank shock or ram, in the first place, since they aren't allowed to come closer than one inch, but need to get in contact to attack.
The rules for Tank shocks tell us, that we can move through enemy units, but not through friendly units. The skimmer rules tell us, that skimmers may move over enemy and friendly units.
If you move over something, you can't move through it at the same time, and if you move over something, you don't come into contact with it.
It is negligible if you come closer than 1" or not, because tank shock is not triggered by moving into 1", but by hitting the base, wich you can't, while moving over a unit.

So it's another broken rule? Like Flickerfields, that depends on something impossible to trigger it?

No, it's not, if you move through a unit, you'll inevitably come into contact with them, but if you move over them, you don't.

Archon Mephitic wrote:

So it's another broken rule? Like Flickerfields, that depends on something impossible to trigger it?

Dude, you're adding on extra criteria that don't matter, and then wondering why the rule doesn't make sense. Skimmers can move over enemy units, which therefore means that when moving over enemy units, no part of the Skimmer counts as coming within 1".


Let's put this an entirely different way. As soon as a Skimmer begins its movement, it rises up to 3 feet over the board, only coming back down when it chooses. That is essentially how the Skimmer movement rules work. You're confusing yourself because, for whatever reason, you're assuming that a Skimmer only "rises up" once it comes within 1", therefore coming too close to move over it. However, the very fact that Skimmers can move over enemy units, prow or no prow, tell us that that isn't how Skimmers work. Stop coming up with additional criteria and utilise the rules how they're written.

No units can move within 1" of enemy units. Skimmers can move over enemy units. Therefore, when a Skimmer chooses to move over enemy units, they automatically move sufficiently high to not come within 1". It's really that simple.

Even simpler than that - there is no limiting criteria for how close they come because they ignore all such factors during the course of their move until they stop and then all factors apply. The only specific rule we do know is they move over them - so we know they're not moving under the table.

How are Flickerfield broken that you seem to base skimmer movement as broken? I am just seeing your meaning of broken so I can understand where you are coming from.

Flickerfields by RAW do not work as only models with wounds may take saves!

Well, they can take cover saves, can't they? Plus, I don't think it's ever actually stated that only models with wounds can take saves, it's just that 99.99% of models without wounds don't have saves.

Pg 20 says roll a d6 for each wound suffered... vehicles have no wounds...

Under obscured it talks about taking a cover save exactley like a non vehicle model would against a wound...

nothing about ++ saves... so the flickerfield does not work by RAW

Have you checked the FAQ for the rule book it may say it in their that saves are taken when a model suffers a wound or glanc/pen hit now. And it may state in it aswell that Skimmers can fly over models when tank shocking or ramming.

It says neither. I quoted on page 1 of the thread the only reference to going over models while tank shocking.

As for the flickerfield - everyone plays it the way it is obviously intended... RAW in that case is just silly! Who pays 10pts for something that does nothing!