Is It Just Me, Or Would This Table Be a Nightmare?

[Willowran]

If the building is 10" high, is the shooters shadow zone 10" if you are trying to lob grenades onto the top of the building?
If so, you need to be at least 16" from the target to be able to fire and have -9 BS...

In this case, Speculative-firing would be almost impossible for Margot.

The building itself is 10 inches high, meaning that Margot would have to be at least 10 inches away from the building to shoot the top of it. Now, if Margot wants to not get melted in ARO as a result, she would have to be near total cover.Say she was hiding behind a 5-inch building. Now she'd have to be 5 inches away from that building in order to shoot over IT.... which, considering the height of the building she is trying to spec-fire means that she's probably in LoF of the very zone she is trying to shoot. Remember, there was tons of cover on the board... but from such a high vantage point, units on this building can see almost everything.

So she'd get one chance to spec-fire the ODF zone... and then get melted.

On TOP of that. So say Margot was firing in plain view, and say she managed to move to the perfect 10-inch range without getting shot. 10 inches away is the building, 10 inches up, say 2.5 inches in (centered on PiWell). That gives you a range of about 16.5 inches, meaning that Margot's speculative fire is firing at the VERY LEAST a -9 (-6 for spec fire, -3 for range).

She'd be spending a full order with at least a 75% chance of failure. And almost definitely die directly afterwards as a result.

Now, actually, a query. On a 10-inch-wall, shadow zones would extend 10 inches on both sides of the wall. What if you were shooting to the top of it? In the case of this building, we're talking maybe 10 inches tall, and 7.5 inches wide. Could you speculative fire anything on the roof, or would the entire roof be in a "shadow zone"? do shadow zones affect the TOP of an obstacle, or only the ground around it?

[Ben Lehman]

Table looks fine to me.

I mean, I love crowded tables (I run heavy on the infiltrators and often use GML, both of which benefit extremely from crowded tables) but in the interests of fairness there do need to be at least a couple of long firelanes for snipers to actually function. Snipers are expensive! They should better than warbands.

yrs--
--Ben

[MarcoSkoll]

The building itself is 10 inches high

That sounds unlikely for something that was earlier described as "a three storey building". That's closer to the scale I'd use for 54mm terrain.

Anywho, I struggle to believe there was nowhere within 24" where Margot couldn't hide and burn through an order or four until she got a hit (or at least accidentally grenaded some of your nearby order-pool).

Also, to an extent, I have to point the finger at you and the other players on that table. If you think the layout is bad, report it to the TO rather than letting "every single player who deployed on that side [win] the game" for the rest of the tourney. Sure, it won't undo the games on it so far, but that's not an excuse to not fix it.

[Willowran]

The building itself is 10 inches high

That sounds unlikely for something that was earlier described as "a three storey building". That's closer to the scale I'd use for 54mm terrain.

Anywho, I struggle to believe there was nowhere within 24" where Margot couldn't hide and burn through an order or four until she got a hit (or at least accidentally grenaded some of your nearby order-pool).

Also, to an extent, I have to point the finger at you and the other players on that table. If you think the layout is bad, report it to the TO rather than letting "every single player who deployed on that side [win] the game" for the rest of the tourney. Sure, it won't undo the games on it so far, but that's not an excuse to not fix it.

Well i don't remember the exact height, but i know that (from the last game i played there) a unit standing on the roof would be out of a hackers range unless the hacker was on the second floor. Those Micro-Art Studio buildings are fairly large.

And it is the very height that would make it so hard to speculative-fire to the roof: it is high enough that only other buildings are large enough to hide you from its LoF... and due to shadow zone rules, you'd have to distance yourself from every building in order to be able to shoot over it.

To be fair to the TO, i WAS the only one there that day with 2 reaktion zonds and an ODF in a list, so the building was probably not as advantageous to anyone else.

We actually did call over the TO during our match once it became apparent that the building really was so poorly placed on the table. However, my opponent and i did not play on the table until it was the last round in the tournament, and the TO ruled that it would be unfair to everyone who had played on the table before us to change the terrain layout at that point.

[ToadChild]

These are the kinds of tables, with numerous long lines of fire that go from one board edge to another, that have ruined entire tournaments for me. Do other people think games on an Infinity table this open would be an utter train wreck or am I missing something?

http://youtu.be/4TKSugP3K3Q?t=21s

It's a little hard to really get a feel for it due to the way everything is black-on-black, but I don't think there are too many sniper nests. The main thing I dislike is that there appears to be an almost completely open horizontal stripe at the centerline.

[IJW Wartrader]

So say Margot was firing in plain view, and say she managed to move to the perfect 10-inch range without getting shot. 10 inches away is the building, 10 inches up, say 2.5 inches in (centered on PiWell). That gives you a range of about 16.5 inches, meaning that Margot's speculative fire is firing at the VERY LEAST a -9 (-6 for spec fire, -3 for range).

Remember that with Speculative Shot the template doesn't have to be centred on the primary target. So in your example the range to the middle of the template could probably be 14-14.5" and still hit Pi-Well.

[chromedog]

He wins the tournament, and you don't because of terrain and for no other reason...

You loose because you didn't use the right tool to get rid of that Sniper.

The game rules do not permit me to use "off table artillery support". This is the recommended way of dealing with snipers. Remove their safety zone, turn it into rubble.

You would, of course, endeavour to move collateral damage out of the locale, first, where possible.

[Ghost]

I really like unbalanced table, it's all the interest of taking initiative or deployment. The worst table for me was a city with aerial train, sewers and big building every where... a nightmare for line of sight ... ^^

[Harlekin]

The game rules do not permit me to use "off table artillery support". This is the recommended way of dealing with snipers. Remove their safety zone, turn it into rubble.

You would, of course, endeavour to move collateral damage out of the locale, first, where possible.

So, you loose every game, where a sniper is involved on the opponent's side?
Or are there other tools avaliable in Infinity to deal with snipers?
See? There you are.

[Claudius Sol]

I mean... weight of fire is usually what gets me through Snipers.

You can also use high mobility models to deal with the issue. AD:3, motorcycles, AD:2, Climbing plus, Super Jump, Infiltration. Plenty of ways to close on the sniper and get him at bad range bands for him yet good range bands for you.

In the case of Pi-Well, a Tom Cat does wonders on his ODF...

[Willowran]

Remember that with Speculative Shot the template doesn't have to be centred on the primary target. So in your example the range to the middle of the template could probably be 14-14.5" and still hit Pi-Well.

Ohhh, very true. I'd forgotten that. I shall mention to my opponent next time i see him. xP Still an overly imbalanced table though.

[chromedog]

So, you loose every game, where a sniper is involved on the opponent's side?
Or are there other tools avaliable in Infinity to deal with snipers?
See? There you are.

You seem to be of the belief that the game and the result are the same thing.
I couldn't care less if I lose EVERY game. The result is meaningless to me, if I am not enjoying the game. If I AM enjoying the game, then the result is irrelevant.

Seems to me, I forgot to put the {/Sarcasm] tags in again. Oops, my bad. I'll try to remember to care enough next time. [/sarcasm]

I generally use my Aquila guard to deal with snipers. He may die during the game, but it's generally AFTER he has dealt with them when losing him isn't an issue. And if my opponent puts me into retreat early, then the game is ended before too much damage is done and can go off and have a beer.