This is an age old (well in terms of how long WotR has been out that is ) niggle with the rules, but I've been prompted into posting this after a 'discussion' with the new manager at GW Swansea (I say manager, but it was basically him saying I'm wrong with no support for his argument and me getting p**sed off at him ).

The queery in question is 'how much movement does turning on the spot cost?'

Let's make this clear - this has nothing to do with turning and moving away or backing up. Those cases are clearly covered in the movement rules - it's obvious that you can move wherever you want within the area of your movement distance (taking into account obsticles of course). What this concerns is doing a 180 or 90 turn while the company stays where it is.

The position held by the manager is that it costs nothing (first he tried to say, you don't turn the tray, you turn the minis, but then I pointed to the part of the rules that says this is illegal He then moved on to saying it doesn't cost anything, but wouldn't back this up with a rule in the rulebook).

The position I hold is that it does cost movement. The rules state that no part of the tray may move beyon its move distence and specifically makes mention of watching the corners when doing this. Clearly the tray moves, so some movement must be used up. Of course, this brings up how do you measure it - do you rotate the tray around the midpoint and measure how far the corners travel, or do you (as I'd think it works) measure corner to corner as that is the greatest distance traveled by any part of the movement tray?

Most of the time, this wouldn't really matter. What matters is when your movement is reduced for whatever reason, such as enemies within 6" Let's look at an example


A company of Orcs moves directly behind a company of WoMT. If the Orcs shoot or charge from this position, then the WoMT do not benefit from their shields. Taking the three viewpoints above:
Turning costs Nothing: The WoMT turn on the spot. The Orcs have flanked for no reason unless another part of their army is in position to advantage of the turn.
Measure Corner-to-Corner Corner-to-corner an infantry tray is 5", over the WoMT's movement value with the modifier for the Orcs being so close. Therefore, they can't turn to face the Orcs this way in one go. Turning 90 degrees costs 3 and 3/4 inches so that's out aswell as a single move. (However, slightly less than 90 degrees will allow you to mostly turn arround with two moves provided the Orcs are over 3" away)
Measure in an Arc: This costs 6 and 1/2 inches so this too disallows a complete 180.

In an alternative scenario, say we have archers instead of WoMT. The crucial element here isn't shields, but whether or not the archers will be able to shoot the orcs. With free turning, they can shoot, so once again it'd only be worth flanking when other parts of the army can benefit. If turning costs movement, then being able to get the orcs into this position is an advantage, as it allows them to come in unharmed (which could be very useful if they were indeed only one company strong).



From my reading of the rules, what matters is no part of the company moves greater than the allowed distance from its start position. When pivoting on the spot, the final position is different to the starting one, so parts of the Company have moved, hence the Company counts as having moved.


What do you guys think?

it's becuase of this graing fact that i don't play WOTR anymore(or Fantasy) becuase of those dam movment trays.
I agree with you and most GW staff are idiots when it comes to LOTR. I had one person who said that both the Warg and the Rider attack in combat and not they use the best value. Some people don't read the bloody rule book....and almost since then if i am there at a LOTR game i often become a temp member of staff as i know what i'm talking about.

The main fact is that it should cost movement and as much as i would hate to say it that it should be from corner to corner which because of the size of the things does make things like Dwarves almost useless.

The problem is that under movement there are two seemingly conflicting rules. One part of Movement says

Quote :

To move a company, pick it up and move it in any direction, ensuring that no part of the company ends the move a distance greater than its Move value away from its start position.

and later it says

Quote :

As a formation moves, you can rearrange its companies as you wish. Companies must remain touching but can be turned arround or arranged into a different legal configuration as you wish.

.


The crucial factor is on how the first one is read. On paper, it appears, to me to be saying that any part of a company can't move over its Move value from where that part began, e.g. corner A must stay within X" of where it started, and coner B must end within X" of where corner B was originally. With this reading, an about face, but remaining where the company was uses up movement as corner A is away from where it started, corner B is away from where it started, etc.
The other reading that I can see is plausable is that the rule means that you can go anywere, provided your within movement distance of the starting position of any other part of the company.

Both these are valid readings, which is why there is a discrepancy.
What makes it worse is that getting into a suitable outflanking position is entirely possible by turn 2! Wings of Terror gives a potential 24" movement (or even 26" depending on how you read the drummer/hornblower rule O.o ) and that's before you remember the potential 14" charge range!


To be honest, I think if one was dedicated to it, then it wouldn't take too much work to clean up the core rules :/

As for staff competance jaws, I wouldn't suprised if the guy I was 'talking' to doesn't actually play. For one, the topic of WotR came up with him asking me if I played and then said he thinks its an amazing system and that that was coming from a 40k player. For two, he didn't know about not turning minis on the trays, which seems like a crutial rule for a dedicated player. For three, his counter-argument was to describe basic movement to me, which had nothing to do with the question being asked. For four, he agreed with a passing Blueshirt that SpirtGrasp can be used with magic. And for five he was confused and didn't understand when I pointed out that Epic heroes have special rules that do nothing

good to know now...and even better tho know that GW has FINALY given us an FAQ...only took them a year!

Not to mention that most SBG FAQ's are rarely ever more than 2 pages long and even then only just. This was 3 and a half!!!! Dam not even Tornimaent FAQ's are that long!

It's a good thing that I've resolved not to go back to GW Swansea - this FAQ makes me look like a twat now considering how irritated the new manager made me when we 'discussed' it

since when has GW staff ever played fair anyway?

I'm just shocked that the Epic Strike abuse will contine and becuase of this we might see more Shades hovering over Aragorn and the such.

jaws900 wrote:

since when has GW staff ever played fair anyway?

It's not that - the new guy has a very sneery voice, so whenever he speaks it grinds your nerves. Coupled with his obtuseness and when he pendantically explained basic movement to me, even though it was irrelevant to the debate, I virtually snapped at him. And after that, seeing that there was no reasoning with him, I just left. Hence why this FAQ will make me look like a twat. If he hadn't resorted to trying to teach me basic movement, and he'd made a reasoned argument (or if he knew this FAQ was imminant, had told me it'd been FAQed thusly) I'd have been more reasonable with him.

some people just think they can't be wrong under any secamstances even when they are right they will be douche's