This came up in our game Friday night, and I’m guessing it’s something the designers never even considered. A unit of Winter Korps Snipers had taken up a position atop a guard tower, and I started shooting at them. The question is - if there’s an electroleap, where does it go? If the shot hits a model inside the guard tower, does the leap go to the closest model in the tower or to the tower itself? What would happen if the only model in range was on a different floor? How about a model outside the tower? Can an elecroleap that hits a model outside the tower leap to a model inside the tower? What if I shoot the tower itself? Does the leap then go to a model inside? Are models inside just totally immune to electroleaps?
There’s a lot of clarification needed on this one.
Here’s one relevant portion from the Building rules. This explains how to target the models inside from a model outside:
Please note that this says nothing about how to measure distances between models inside a building. Therefore, the standard rules for measuring distances between models apply.
Here’s some specific information about the Guard Tower:
So, models must be physically placed inside the Guard Tower. Because no rule tells us otherwise, models are positioned exactly where they are physically positioned inside the Guard Tower. They are where they really are.
I suspect your confusion stems from this particular rule in the Building rules:
Note that this rule tells you a special way how AOEs interact with models in a Building. It does not say anything that otherwise contradicts the standard rules for models being positioned, so the standard rules still apply.
So, wrapping it all up, to answer your questions:
The Electro Leap arcs to the nearest model within 3". This will almost certainly be a model on the same floor.
In the interest of not completely clogging up this answer with a bunch of “Measuring Distances” notes, I’m going to set that aside for now and try to answer that separately later.
Then the lightning would arc to the closest model on a different floor.
If the closest model is within 3" of the bottom edge of the building closest to the model outside of the building, lightning would arc to that model. This is due to the rules for “Combat From A Building”, quoted above.
Yes, per the “Combat From A Building” rule above, and the fact that no rules say otherwise. The closest model is going to be literally the closest model inside the building; only the range to the building is checked with Electro Leap. Essentially, when measuring the distance to a model inside a building, every model treats the structure’s lowest level as its base when checking RNG, but models are physically where they are, so you still find the closest one to the point of origin of the Electro Leap.
Electro Leap triggers when “a model” is directly hit. Buildings are not models; they are terrain. Electro Leap does not trigger if you target and directly hit a building. Reference:
As mentioned above, I lack the time to provide my rationale for the “lightning arcs to different floors” bit. I will try to come back and answer that fully later. The crux of it is: none of the “Measuring Distances” rules say that you do not measure vertical distances, and I am unaware of a ruling that says otherwise.
Twice here, the rules say that structures are independent models. They can be attacked, certainly, as we know that the guard tower and bunker are destructible. And it certainly seems that an electroleap can arc to or from a structure. It just gets weird because what’s the distance when one model is inside another model?
Hmm. Odd that when I search in the app for “building”, the only result is “building your army”. I just figured that PP had at some point changed the terminology.
What’s the difference between a structure and a building then? Aargh!
For the full answer, you’ll need to read the “Structure” and “Building” rules.
(The “quick link” returns “Building Your Army”, but there are currently 72 other results in the core rules themselves, the majority of which are the “Building” rules themselves.)
The super-brief answer is as above: one is a model type, and another is terrain.
Yes, per the “Combat From A Building” rule above, and the fact that no rules say otherwise. The closest model is going to be literally the closest model inside the building; only the range to the building is checked with Electro Leap. Essentially, when measuring the distance to a model inside a building, every model treats the structure’s lowest level as its base when checking RNG, but models are physically where they are, so you still find the closest one to the point of origin of the Electro Leap.
Have to disagree with you here. All models in the tower would be equidistant to the model outside the tower so you would resolve it the same way you would if they were B2B.
It just kills me that PP did so much so simplify the rules, and then they go and do something like making “structures” and “buildings” two completely different things with different rules, and don’t take steps to make it obvious.
The words structure and building have definitions in the non-warmachine world that would lead most folks to have a misunderstanding. battlement or something else besides structure.
I could get behind something like that. For my sake i dont think i use “structure” in everyday language all that much and think of it as more technical language.
I believe the rework this month is changing the wording of buildings for more clarity, but the intent is remaining very similar to now.
Out player base really doesn’t like structures. We were excited for some more 3d interactive models, but the rules don’t support a fun game in our experience so we don’t put them on tables.
I think they should be totally reworked, and be much easier to destroy, but them being destroyed should just knock down the models in them.
The models in them being extremely hard to remove for some armies is horrible.
I mean, let’s be honest, everybody, there are only so many synonyms to go around.
As for the “within 3 inches” thing: I admit there were some mild gymnastics involved, but I was trying not to simply punt half the questions to an Infernal.
I could explain the rationale, but we might as well wait 24 hours and see what tomorrow’s release brings!
