Hello,

I just have a quick question:

Am I able to destroy a wall section when the line of fire doesn't go through that particular wall section. Here is a diagram:


OOOO
OOOO
OOOO
OOOC

The yellow O's are indoors surrounded by a wall. The C is the character.

Basically the character is on the diagonal to the corner of the building. According to the rules, if a character wants to destroy a wall, he draws a LoF to the square on the other side of the wall he wants to destroy.

Can I destroy either the vertical OR horizontal wall section in this case?

i would say yes you can destroy either one. since you are able to draw a LoF to the square on the otherside of the wall. You meet all the pre-req to destroy the wall.

I would say no.

I had a discussion about this with nbperp once. It was shortly before the collapse, so he never got (as far as I know) to get an official answer.

Perhaps I should explain my stance.

The LoF needs to pass through the target wall.

. .|. .
. .|. .
. . . .
. . . C

It kinda seems like this should work, but remove one of the walls.

. .|. .
. .|. .
. . . .
. . . C

Now you can see that the LoF clearly doesn't go through the wall. The presence of the other wall doesn't change this.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but I wasn't aware that the line of fire had to pass through the wall being targeted. I know that you ignore the wall for purposes of targeting the other side of it, but I don't see anything in the rulebook or player's guide that says that the line of fire has to go through the wall. I was under the impression that if a character was in a setup like this:

. .|. .
. 1|2 .
. . . .
. . C .

Because the character can draw line of fire to 1 and 2, that he could destroy the wall between them. That would be incorrect then?

i rule it this way at my venues.
if you take a straight edge and run it from the center of the square you are shooting from to the center of the square passed the wall/ blocking, and it crosses even the slightest part of it, it can be destroyed. if not then no. but it has to be center to center, to target, just like los to a fig.

thanks, Rob

p.s. of course close combat is adjacency and no los is needed.

That is incorrect, and yes it isn't quite in the rules.

It WAS in the E&C/FAQ/PG prior to the FF rules, but it is now gone. I think that it suffered a similar fate to the errata entries for Silver Surfer and Alan Scott. (It was removed because the next document was supposed to have incorporated the fix.)

Look at your example and extrapolate.

. .|. .
. 1|2 .
. .|. .
. .|. .
. .|. .
. . . .
. . . .
. . . .
. C . .
. . . .
Do you really think that C should be able to destroy the wall between 1 and 2?


So you are in agreement that you cannot destroy on the diagonal, since the diagonal would not pass through the wall?


Also, remember that for walls you need more than adjacency.

. .|. .
. 1|2 .
. 3|C .
. . . .

C can destroy the wall between himself and 3, but he cannot desroy the one between 1 and 2.

And, I guess I'll add a frequent blocking misconception.

. B B B
. C B .
. . . .

C cannot destroy the bold B as he is not adjacent.

These examples are great, but not really my question. It seems for the "shooting the corner" part of it it really breaks down to this question:

Does the corner count as part of a wall section? If yes, which one?

There are 4 answers for this:

The corner is part of neither wall section. I would be ok with this, but there are no rules or mentioning of destroying corners, so we really can't work with this.

Two answers are the wall is a part of a specific section. Again, there is nothing in the rules dictating which wall section a corner belongs to.

The last answer is that the corner is part of both wall sections. Since there are rules in place for destroying a wall section on the other side of a wall, this seems to be the most logical choice of them all. At least that's my argument. The other examples are interesting, but in those cases, there is no wall in the way of the shooter. In my case, there is.

That was my point, though.

The "corner" is not part of the wall. That's why my examples were with just one wall.

If the "other" wall is not there, you cannot destroy the main wall, so adding the second wall would not change that.

Look at it this way...

. .|. . .
. E|. . .
. . . . .
. . . C .
. . . . .

As I said before, the LoF needs to pass through the target wall. Since C can shoot E, LoF does not pass through the wall. (If it did, LoF would be blocked.)

Without the LoF, the wall cannot be destroyed.

Now switch the walls.

. . . . .
. E . . .
. . . . .
. . . C .
. . . . .

Again, LoF is clear to E, so the LoF doesn't go through the wall.

Remove E from either of the above. LoF to the center of that square still will not pass through the wall, so the wall cannot be destroyed.

If he can't destroy the wall here:
. .|. . .
. .|. . .
. . . . .
. . . C .
. . . . .
And he can't destroy it here:
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . C .
. . . . .
How would combining them suddenly allow either to be destroyed?
. .|. . .
. .|. . .
. . . . .
. . . C .
. . . . .

I'd say that nothing changes and no wall can be destroyed.

Thanks again Harpua! That example you gave seems so obvious now.

I know I'm playing Devil's Advocate here, but why couldn't you destroy the wall in the much better examples you just posted? The wall goes all the way to the corner, it doesn't stop short.

You are simply allowed to shoot through it because there is no wall next to it. There would be no point in destroying the wall in the first two examples. But does that mean you couldn't do it?

Let's try one more example to try and show my thinking:

. . . . .
.X S . .
. . . . .
. . .C .
. . . . .

According to your reasoning based on the fact that the wall doesn't go to the corner, should C be able to attack figure X?

After all, since the LoF doesn't go through the wall, it should not be blocked by the wall.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, I appreciate the really nice models used, and in no way dismiss your opinions, I'm just trying to logic through them.

my thinking on this if the 2 walls are there u can destroy one. But once one has been destroyed then the other could not from the same square. There is a wall there that constitutes as either one or both the walls as long as both are there.

By the reasoning that when you draw a LoF to that square that it does nt pass through the wall then by that same token i could attack a figure that is standing in that same square.

The wall goes all the way to the corner, but the LoF does not pass through it.

The fact that it is a corner doesn't really play into it.

. .|. .
. 1|2 .
. .|. .
. .|. C
For the same reasoning I used in the earlier examples, I would say that the wall cannot be destroyed between 1 and 2 because the LoF from center to center does not pass through the wall.


(You might want to put hindering under your Batman or your opponent's non-flying Charger.)

You are allowed to shoot through it because there is no continuous blocking, but adding the continuous blocking doesn't cause the LoF to suddenly go through the wall.

No, because LoF is blocked on the diagonal between a wall and a figure.

It isn't. It is blocked by the combination of the wall and the figure.

The best logic I can show you is what I said above. The LoF does not pass through the wall at the diagonal. Adding another wall does not suddenly shift the LoF to pass through that wall.
Not at all....continuous blocking has been formed.

It is a matter of having the LoF from center to center pass through the wall. If the LoF passes through the wall, it can be destroyed. The LoF passes through neither wall, so neither can be destroyed.

It's circumstances like these why I prefer the original wall-destroying rules. Yes, they led to some seemingly odd situations, but those situations are complimentary to the weird ones that appear under the more modern rules.

As a fervent wall-destroyer, I always felt that it was robbery that the effective necessary range for destroying walls was increased by 1!

Speaking of wall rules I wish had changed, it would have been great if Barrier also allowed for the construction of walls instead of just solid squares.