hey guys,

i'd like an official answer to this question

I was playing in a tourney recently and situation came up where my friends Dr. Strange was sitting against a wall. I then moved my Cloak next to him and moved in my Darkhawk to block Strange's line of fire to Cloak like so

S=Dr. Strange D= Darkhawk C= Cloak I=Wall

SI
DC

I did this because i assumed that Darkhawk being diagonal to the wall would block Strange from outwitting Cloak's poison.

It was ruled though that Strange could see Cloak because of a faq entry that i didn't know about.

So then i did some research. The Faq entry in question is:

"All walls are assumed to stop exactly at the edges of squares. Even if it looks like a wall "sticks out" into a doorway it doens't and thus diagonal attacks can pass through without being blocked"


This simply means to me that on maps sometimes the walls art pokes out a bit onto other squares and this faq entry just clears up that walls end exactly at the edge.


Page 32 of the legion of superheroes rule book says this:

"Walls have no boundary lines, but they do have all the effects of blocking terrain"

Okay, so we move to page 31:

"A line of fire that passes through the diagonal between and square of blocking terrain and a square containing a character is blocked"


Now my question is this,

Am i right to think that a wall and a character on a diagonal can block line of fire, or can someone still have line of fire even though this situation occurs?[/

You are right.

Yeah. The FAQ entry was basically just pointing out about LOF passing BY a wall (like on a direct diagonal; eg. if Darkhawk wasn't there, Strange could have shot Cloak with range).... not for blocking LOF while another figure is adjacent like that. It's unfortunate and ironic when someone mis-interprets an E&C or FAQ listing.

Keep in mind, however, that this would only be for line of sight -- Strange is still adjacent to Cloak, and could still make a close-combat attack on him. But no, he shouldn't've been able to use Outwit.

I was the player playing against JiggleBilly. The Judge was watching our championship game, and pointed out that Dr. Strange could still outwit Cloak in this instance. JiggleBilly protested, the judge debated, and we rolled a D6 to settle it. JiggleBilly and the Judge have had some e-mails back and forth to discuss the issue, and since the judge has some issues with being able to sign into hcrealms, on his behalf I will be posting the summary of his points as taken from these original e-mails.

These are not my opinions, they are that of the judge in question.

Judge's Argument

First I wanted to go over the whole blocked diagonal rule.

A character and character block diagonal LoF:

XB
AY

A LoF cannot be drawn from Y to X because A and B are adjacent characters on the diagonal. A cannot draw a LoF through the same diagonal. A cannot draw a LoF to B because B blocks this same diagonal.

Blocking terrain and a character works the same way:

XB
AY

B is Blocking. Character A cannot draw a LoF because B again blocks the diagonal. Y cannot draw LoF to X because of A and B's diagonal adjacency.

Now in the Dr. Strange argument we have:

S=Strange D=Darkhawk C=Cloak |=wall O=open square

S|O
D C

If D and | block LoF from C to S then following the same examples as before D could not draw a line of fire through to O because the wall would be blocking the diagonal LoF just as the other adjacent blocking conditions blocked LoF on that same diagonal.

Lets make it more obvious what I am talking about. If the first two examples are accurate (and they are) then if a diagonal is blocking LoF is it ALWAYS blocking LoF through the same diagonal. It can't block it one way, but when you want to shoot out of it the other way it doesn't miraculously become clear.

If Darkhawk and the wall always block on the diagonal then this:

s

|

D

C

Blocks just as well as

S|O

D C

Strange and Cloak don't actually have to be adjacent to Darkhawk to block that diagonal because Darkhawk and the Wall are doing it, correct?

Then if you had a situation like this:

|

D

Then Darkhawk cannot shoot on the diagonal towards the upper right. This would mean that no characters in the game can shoot out on the diagonal when a Wall is above (or below or beside) them. If it blocks one way it has to block the other way. There are no mechanics in this game that allow you to shoot through the diagonal when you want to but block it for everyone else. You have to decide then if you want this trick to work and for you to never to be able to shoot on the diagonal when adjacent to the end of a wall or if you want to be able to shoot and this trick then becomes illegal. I hope this makes it more clear as to what I am talking about.