What happens if...

[Hendrik Booraem VI]

I played two games of WH40K on Saturday. And while the following hypothetical situation did not crop up, it could easily have, and might again in the future, so it's worthwhile to find out what the best resolution of it would be.

Suppose that you have a vehicle on the battlements of a building? A walker, specifically. I see no mention in the rulebook that walkers or vehicles may not occupy buildings or battlements, and while it makes sense that a Leman Russ Battle Tank cannot be INSIDE a bunker, a Dreadnought or Helbrute could probably be on the battlements at least.

When you destroy a building, with an ASPLODES! result, any unit on the battlements takes 2D6 S6 AP- hits. If the unit on the battlements is a walker or other vehicle, how do you resolve that? 2D6 hits against... rear armor for vehicles and front armor for walkers? I fought a Soulgrinder that was on top of a bunker, and rather than charging through the building to attack it (which is how we handled it), I could have attacked the bunker and hoped to destroy that, but if the ASPLODES! damage only hits the front armor, the Soulgrinder would have walked off with a smile on its face.

Just wanted to see what everyone thought. I know we definitely didn't follow the rules by allowing my units to assault through the building, but it seemed like the smartest way to handle the situation at the time.

[Captain Bubonicus]

P.93, "Occupying Buildings:"

...All of the normal rules apply, so only one Infantry unit, plus any Independent Characters that have joined them, may occupy a building at one time.

Also, it notes that moving into or out of a building works the same as embarking or disembarking from a vehicle, and on p.78 "Transport Capacity" it says specifically that "Only Infantry models can embark upon Transports (this does not include Jump or Jet Pack Infantry), unless specifically stated otherwise."

[Mr Mystery]

I think I see what he means.

If it's a Bunker, you can fit troops inside it, and potentially deploy a dakka Dreadnought up top. Strictly speaking there's nothing to really prevent this.

However, Captain Bubonicus shows the RAW - the Dread or Vehicle cannot be on the building.

I say houserule it, and agree between the two players. And for thematic effect, roll damage against Rear Armour - the explosion is going to be all around, thus your weediest armour is in for a test. You also then get an appropriate 'good side, bad side' to the deal. Good Side? Walker or vehicle gains a superior field of fire, and becomes much harder to assault. Bad Side is it's then quite vulnerable should the building be taken out from under it. Hitting the front armour means it's pretty much a rule change solely in favour of the Dreadnought/Soul Grinder etc.

[Denzark]

As said, RAW for something with building rules, is it can't happen. For me, I think in pre-game discussion it would make sense to discuss what is impassable terrain to vehicles, and include buildings/ruins/terrain it is blatantly obvious your vehicle couldn't get up.

As for damage, there is a precedent - barrage hits side armour of vehicles, to represent their softer top armour. You could either do that, or say that on most armoured vehicles, the bottom is even softer. So if a building collapsed below them, take the hits to the rear armour to represent delicate underside.

[Mr Mystery]

I'd say Rear simply because a collapsing building has a tendency to be quite indiscriminate in where the masonry and plasteel spars hit :p

[Hendrik Booraem VI]

Thanks to all for the suggestions. I plan to talk to the Chaos player today about how we handled it and we'll houserule something. I don't really see a problem with allowing walker-type vehicles to deploy on the battlements of bunkers (not wooden or stone buildings, though), so we'll come up with something about what happens when the building is destroyed. Should be fun!

[Andrew Thomas]

P.93, "Occupying Buildings:"

...All of the normal rules apply, so only one Infantry unit, plus any Independent Characters that have joined them, may occupy a building at one time.

Also, it notes that moving into or out of a building works the same as embarking or disembarking from a vehicle, and on p.78 "Transport Capacity" it says specifically that "Only Infantry models can embark upon Transports (this does not include Jump or Jet Pack Infantry), unless specifically stated otherwise."

This applies to being inside the building, not on top of the building. The battlements are, according to the BRB, a separate piece of terrain, that counts as difficult terrain, and provides a 4+ cover save, regardless of whether the model is 25% obscured or not. Unlike the building proper, apart from being an access point for the building itself, the battlements have no Transport Capacity, and do not have any stated limits on who can or can't be there. Thus, being on the Battlements does not count as occupying the Building, because, according to the rules, the Battlements are separate from the Building.

[Captain Bubonicus]

You're right - separate rules for battlements are on p. 112. Not only does it not bar vehicles from being on them, it even refers to one type directly:

"Jump units, Jet Pack units, Jetbikes and Skimmers do not need to take Dangerous Terrain tests if they start or end their move on a battlement."

[Haighus]

I'm gonna agree with Andrew Thomas and Captain Bubonicus on this one. Theoretically means you could deploy a Leman Russ onto a bastion though, with no way of getting the thing down from there... (not sure why you would want to do this, but it sounds amusing)

[Hendrik Booraem VI]

This issue came up again this past weekend! I fought the chaos player again. He allied with my 2nd son, who plays orks, against me and chaos-players brother who plays Adeptus Mechanicus and Imperial Knights.

My ally deployed his Imperial Knight on top of a bunker (same terrain model that the Soulgrinder had been on last time) and we house ruled the crud out of it. Decided that only walkers can come down from battlements, and if they do, they can only disembark the bunker, they can't move. And that furthermore, they have to take a dangerous terrain check or be immobilized upon disembarking.

It all worked out pretty well for my team. However, the end result was so overwhelmingly in our favor, I think Imperial knights are severely undercosted! Also, the knight disembarked the battlements before the bunker got blown up this time (gogo helbrute with multi-melta!) so we didn't get to do the 2D6 attacks against rear armor.