I'm an ork player who, on more than one occasion, has come across the issue of what constitutes as the base and hull for a defiler.
My chaos friend (with friends like that who needs.. oh never mind) has two defilers modeled. One of which has a clear imaginary square outlined by its legs which led me to think that this square that extended to its feet would be its base (for purposes of assault, etc.) but then he informed me that the front two legs were actually arms for the defiler and to prove this showed me his other defiler that is modeled in a way that the front two arms are twisted inwards (eventually to be holding an ork warboss in a rather sick looking conversion), which then makes sense for the base to not extend to the front two legs as these are just arms. In the same way I can't shoot his daemon prince just because I can see his sword is sticking out over a small building or something to that effect.
Along with assault this also came up in shooting. For example, my dakkaguns might be in range to shoot the arms in front (or for the sake of argument perhaps the legs on the side), but didn't actually reach the main core of the defiler where the guns and engine are. In theory, I can still immobilize, wreck, etc. a walker if I blow out its legs, right? But what if a blast fell in between those legs and/or arms. We were lost and couldn't come up with a solution that satisfied both of us. Rolling off each time we have a problem seems potentially unfair to either one of us and we'd ideally like to play the game based on rules used in Grand Tournaments (would be a shame to get to a GT only to look like a cheat/fool).
Also, deep striking and drifting close to the defiler might one day (though it hasn't yet) prove to be an issue. If the unit lands in between the arms/legs is it a mishap? Mind you, this ruling would also apply to the shooting thing. If it's mishap then shooting at these arms/legs would have to be ok and blasts would be at full strength here. Whereas, if it isn't mishap then shots don't hit and blasts would be half strength here.
Eventually, we came to three possible solutions, but have yet to truly decide upon something that makes sense to us both. These solutions are as follows:
1) The Defiler has a square shaped base that encompasses all six arms/legs as if the model was put together with all six on the ground. Blasts that land within this square are full strength and any shot reaching the square is in range.
2) The front two arms are not included in the base but from the front of the main body all the way to the back legs and all the way out on both sides is a smaller rectangular base that is treated the same way as the base above, only smaller.
or 3) The only base the model has is the main body where the battle cannon, dreadnaught weapons, etc. are mounted. If the range of the gun doesn't reach here it doesn't hit and unless the hole of the blast marker covers this part of the model it is only half strength if it hits at all.
One viewpoint is to see the arms/legs as extra appendages (like the daemon prince's sword from above) and shouldn't make the defiler itself more vulnerable to fire just because it's bigger. On the other hand, it kind of acts like terrain blocking movement, breaking line of sight, etc. and generally getting in the way, thus meaning that the appendages should then suffer the detriments of its size as well as reap the benefits.
Needless to say, we're stuck. Please help?
My chaos friend (with friends like that who needs.. oh never mind) has two defilers modeled. One of which has a clear imaginary square outlined by its legs which led me to think that this square that extended to its feet would be its base (for purposes of assault, etc.) but then he informed me that the front two legs were actually arms for the defiler and to prove this showed me his other defiler that is modeled in a way that the front two arms are twisted inwards (eventually to be holding an ork warboss in a rather sick looking conversion), which then makes sense for the base to not extend to the front two legs as these are just arms. In the same way I can't shoot his daemon prince just because I can see his sword is sticking out over a small building or something to that effect.
Along with assault this also came up in shooting. For example, my dakkaguns might be in range to shoot the arms in front (or for the sake of argument perhaps the legs on the side), but didn't actually reach the main core of the defiler where the guns and engine are. In theory, I can still immobilize, wreck, etc. a walker if I blow out its legs, right? But what if a blast fell in between those legs and/or arms. We were lost and couldn't come up with a solution that satisfied both of us. Rolling off each time we have a problem seems potentially unfair to either one of us and we'd ideally like to play the game based on rules used in Grand Tournaments (would be a shame to get to a GT only to look like a cheat/fool).
Also, deep striking and drifting close to the defiler might one day (though it hasn't yet) prove to be an issue. If the unit lands in between the arms/legs is it a mishap? Mind you, this ruling would also apply to the shooting thing. If it's mishap then shooting at these arms/legs would have to be ok and blasts would be at full strength here. Whereas, if it isn't mishap then shots don't hit and blasts would be half strength here.
Eventually, we came to three possible solutions, but have yet to truly decide upon something that makes sense to us both. These solutions are as follows:
1) The Defiler has a square shaped base that encompasses all six arms/legs as if the model was put together with all six on the ground. Blasts that land within this square are full strength and any shot reaching the square is in range.
2) The front two arms are not included in the base but from the front of the main body all the way to the back legs and all the way out on both sides is a smaller rectangular base that is treated the same way as the base above, only smaller.
or 3) The only base the model has is the main body where the battle cannon, dreadnaught weapons, etc. are mounted. If the range of the gun doesn't reach here it doesn't hit and unless the hole of the blast marker covers this part of the model it is only half strength if it hits at all.
One viewpoint is to see the arms/legs as extra appendages (like the daemon prince's sword from above) and shouldn't make the defiler itself more vulnerable to fire just because it's bigger. On the other hand, it kind of acts like terrain blocking movement, breaking line of sight, etc. and generally getting in the way, thus meaning that the appendages should then suffer the detriments of its size as well as reap the benefits.
Needless to say, we're stuck. Please help?