But, as I’ve said before, a better option is to increase the ability to interact with models in the tower. Allow melee into and out of the first floor, and remove Bar the Door. Then you have more options between terrible shooting at models inside or destroying the tower.
Maybe I’m in the minority here, but Rockytop lead me to think guard towers are in a pretty good spot. The models that went into one were either removed fairly easily, or their impact was mitigated fairly easily both on my side and on my opponent’s side in the games where they came up
Yep, I missed those. Since that got moved out of the stats, into the core rules for buildings… yeah. Missed it.
Yeah, you’re right. Those two rules make buildings stupid. Those rules need to go away. There’s no narrative reason, no memorable reason, that buildings universally should be un-charge-able. Likewise, there’s no narrative or memorable reason that buildings should be specifically tough versus shooting. (And so tough that they’re in the near-invulnerable range, for the two examples we have so far.)
These rules make no sense.
And buildings don’t need them.
Yeah, those two rules fall under the heading of, “What were they thinking? Get rid of it. No, don’t wait for a playtesting cycle. Don’t wait to see if players find a way to play around it. This makes no sense and it’s anti-fun. Kill it now. Who ever thought this was a good idea?”
The Charging was because people were using the towers as a “Charge Beacon” to get to other targets they might not normally reach, especially for shooting as you don’t engage the tower.
The towers have been a fascinating series of “Well x, so therefore y, but now z”.
The towers aren’t models, so no engaging them. So, you can Charge them , and then shoot something you couldn’t before. So you can’t Charge them .
How are models positioned in the tower? How do you determine Spray targeting? Simple, no Sprays. Same for Hazards. And melee.
Ugh. This is literally why flamethrowers were invented. To clear out bunkers. That’s the entire reason that spray weapons exist in the real world. The solve for that question should be the opposite: Not “you can’t spray a tower” but “a spray weapon hits every target inside the tower”. Again, that’s the literal use case for flamethrowers in the real world: Insert nozzle in bunker slit, cook everyone in the room.
If the game is meant to have resonance with reality, then it might be something like, “A spray weapon further than 1” from a building cannot target the models inside. A spray weapon within 1" of a building targets all the models inside."
Likewise, LOTS of things can be used as alternate charge targets, if the aggressor is trying to find a way around polarity shield, or some similar rule. Why should buildings have a special rule to cover that corner case? It’s already the responsibility of the player with Polarity Shield to not stand that model near an alternate charge target. Don’t louse buildings up with an extra rule for that one obscure case.
I think having sprays hit all on a floor like blasts is fine, but I can see the stance of having no charges for balance reasons. It’s a large target to slingshot a charge off of, and also wasn’t taken in the list like another model might be. Plus it can’t be moved away like another model may be
I guess what I’m saying is the footprint of the guard tower is much bigger than most models, and models can be moved by the player to help mitigate the issue. Yes, I’d say allowing guard tower charges reduces defensive player agency in a problematic way