[Colonel Marksman]

My cousin has rammed my Sky Ray at full speed with his Wave Serpent for lack of better options against a front armor of 13 and side armor of 12. Unfortunately, he was successful in the complete destruction of the Sky Ray.

Another unfortunate event was that he received an Immobilized result from the successful ram, and having moved flat out, is now destroyed. So came my research on the net this morning after having paused the game (it's that important. He had 10 Dire Avengers in there that could turn the tide of the game very easily).

I stated that on the forums (including this one) it is almost unanimously agreed that the unit is destroyed because this is the movement phase.

I already looked this subject up, but didn't find what I needed.

Page 67 states, "The passengers must immediately disembark and then take a Pinning test. Any models that cannot disembark are destroyed. After this, the vehicle becomes a wreck."

However, page 70 states, "Passengers may not embark onto or disembark from a fast vehicle if it has moved (or is going to move) flat out in that Movement phase."


My argument is that disembarking is an action, one that you are not given the choice to do as per page 70. His argument is that the word "must" means that there is no choice in the first place, whereas page 70 states the denial of a choice, and that "cannot" overrides "may not".

His argument, I quote:

page 70, "may not" refers to the players' "ability to choose" regarding disembarkation when the vehicle has move more than 12", in which case the player cannot choose to have the troops disembark. In a wrecked scenario, there is no choice involved, the must disembark per page 67. The argument is based on the notion that "may/may not" has to do with the player's ability to choose, whereas "must/cannot" has to do with player has to do. If the troops survive, the player still did not have a choice in the matter whether to disembark/embark, they must, therefore "may," which has to do with choice and not possibility, does not apply.

A key note: My cousin follows the GW calling service like the law. I know a lot of players typically don't follow GW staff rulings, but if you could call them, this would be over in a single post.

[Boneguard]

The Emergency disembarking suppercedes p.70 IMO, it represent the troop bailing/jumping out of a moving vehicule about to crash, not a deliberate and orderly disembarking before or after the vehicule had moved.

Originally Posted by Colonel Marksman

Page 67 states, "The passengers must immediately disembark and then take a Pinning test. Any models that cannot disembark are destroyed. After this, the vehicle becomes a wreck."

This part refer to the event where the Vehicule access point would be blocked and that the troops could not get out within 2" from them.

[Gatler]

His "argument" involves defining terms such as "may not" and "must", and is longer than a few dozen words, so he's wrong by default. :

Anyway, the rulebook clearly states that the Dire Avengers cannot disembark and are thus destroyed. What the hell gave anybody the idea that they could somehow bail out of a Falcon barrelling along at 300 km/h, anyway? :huh:

[Circus Freak]

What kind of idiot rams with a full transport anyway??? He could have disembarked the Avengers and THEN done the ramming move, which would have been a much more sensible idea!

The Avengers are lost, IMO.

[HijiriOni]

Emergency disembark covers it as they take wounds for disembarking and such. So anyone that survives was just lucky to jump and land safely.

Also emergency disembark is the circumstance where a unit "can't" do it as it was normally intended to.

[khanaris]

Page 67 specifically covers the cases in which Emergency Disembarkation may apply. To quote: "because of enemies or because they would end up in impassable terrain". Speed is not mentioned. This means that in this case disembarkation is still impossible, and the unit would be destroyed. You are not allowed to use Emergency Disembarkation by choice if you moved Flat Out, so you can not use it if forced to disembark.

[Colonel Marksman]

To Everyone: My cousin has read your posts, but sees nothing that really supports either argument (except for maybe Boneguard who's arguing its out of context).

Khanaris, we (my cousin and I) didn't really understand your post. Did you word it right?


I think that his idea is that the "forced disembarkation" as mentioned on page 67 as a "must" overrides a "may". Well.... I just asked him. He believes that the two rules are actually completely unrelated.

[HijiriOni]

It seems more like an oversight in the core rulebook as almost all circumstances where ramming something is viable you can't hurt your own vehicle.

A few examples (From Blood Angels)

A Baal Predator moving at max speed hitting a Land Raider would hit with an S10 capable of hurting the land raider. The land raider having been stationary only has an S5 against my Baals Front Side 13

A Rhino ramming a land raider at max speed can only achieve an S8 hit, given the unlikeliness of actually achieving the max distance required to get S8 and how weak S8 is against armor 14 it's not viable. But the Land Raider still only scores an S5 hit on the rhino so it can't really break the rhino easily. Against another vehicle like an Ork Trukk or Eldar skimmer those vehicles are only likely to score an S3 hit, which cannot harm Front armor 11.

It's more likely that GW didn't think it would be possible to destroy a vehicle with a "Counter Ram" as even Land Raiders cannot beat S5 on it therefore left rules out for an instance of it actually occurring.

Either way I stand by Emergency Disembark being the most likely event to occur on passengers. Unless theres a rule saying during your opponents shooting phase if something moved flat out all passengers have died. Also I guess a rule saying "Ramming prevents emergency disembark" as both vehicles ram each other in this instance.

[khanaris]

My point was just that the emergency disembarkation rules do not apply here.

The "may not" argument holds no weight. When a vehicle is destroyed, you must disembark. If you can not disembark, you are destroyed. "May not" and "can not" mean exactly the same thing here. If you moved Flat Out, you are not permitted to disembark, regardless of whether you actually have a choice in the matter or not.

The caveat is that dealing with passengers in a vehicle that Explodes does not mention disembarkation. So in that case speed is irrelevant.

HijiriiOni, the rules are quite clear. Whether this is an oversight or not is debatable, but you can't write in rules like that unless your opponent agrees. You also may need to review how ramming works. The amount of movement prior to impact is added to the strength of both hits. A model moving 18" and ramming a Land Raider would be hit with the full S10. Moving 11" would earn you a S8 hit in return. Check the example on page 69.

[PNW]

Originally Posted by Khanaris

My point was just that the emergency disembarkation rules do not apply here.

The "may not" argument holds no weight. When a vehicle is destroyed, you must disembark. If you can not disembark, you are destroyed. "May not" and "can not" mean exactly the same thing here. If you moved Flat Out, you are not permitted to disembark, regardless of whether you actually have a choice in the matter or not.

The caveat is that dealing with passengers in a vehicle that Explodes does not mention disembarkation. So in that case speed is irrelevant.

HijiriiOni, the rules are quite clear. Whether this is an oversight or not is debatable, but you can't write in rules like that unless your opponent agrees. You also may need to review how ramming works. The amount of movement prior to impact is added to the strength of both hits. A model moving 18" and ramming a Land Raider would be hit with the full S10. Moving 11" would earn you a S8 hit in return. Check the example on page 69.

I recall the rule book stating that only the distance your opponent moved counts toward your damage, so the vehicle receiving the ram gets a substantially stronger ram than the rammer