Shooting at empty buildings

[MoRmEnGiL]

So buildings count as empty transports (unless they count as impassable terrain)

 

So can I level a building in advance to deny my opponent the chance to occupy it?

 

It would be quite reasonable to be able to do so. The problem is this though:

 

Say you have a large building that can be occupied, and behind it is an enemy unit out of Los from your blast weapon. You cannot fire at the unit, but if you could fire at the building using the vehicle rules, you just have to place the middle hole above the building. This means you can place the whole at the edge of the building, with a part of the blast able to cover the "hidden" squad.

 

This is many levels of wrong.

But saying "you cannot fire at an empty building is also wrong. Besides, the above problem is really an issue even if the building was occupied by a third unit, where you legaly and perfectly can target it, and thus still get "hidden" squads with the blast marker.

 

The most sensible solution to me would be the house rule we use.

 

Unless the firing unit is on a hill or something, it probably cannot draw Los to the building roof, so we always assume that thet blas hole has to be in base contact with the side of the building closest to the firer,representing the blast hiting the face of the bulding.

Also we halve all scatter ranges,since this both makes scattering behind the bulding all but impossible (shooting plasma cannons at an arc is a skill few marines, if any, possess :P) and at the same time represents the big vertical target that is the buildings face, you cannot really miss by that much when trying to shoot a frakking building!

 

But the above are just that, house rules.

 

What would the official rules say on this?

[ShinyRhino]

You want to remember that you can only fire at one level of a ruin with a template weapon, and I would say the same applies to firing at buildings. Shooting at the roof will only hit a unit at roof-level. Any flak, plasma, or flames will either stray off target or dissipate harmlessly by the time it reaches the ground-level unit behind said building.

\Now, if you're firing at the ground floor, scatteringonto the unit behind sounds reasonable to me. Firstly, the building would get a cover save from any obstacles in your way. Then if you manage to get past that, and scatter onto the unit behind, you can figure it as a lucky shot that passed through windows, or blasted concrete out into the hiding unit, causing wounds.

[MoRmEnGiL]

That's an interesting and logical take on the subject.

 

General consensus though is that no, you cannot fire at an empty building because the rules only talk about firing in occupied buildings.

Which is a shame really.

[Olesh]

That's an interesting and logical take on the subject.

 

General consensus though is that no, you cannot fire at an empty building because the rules only talk about firing in occupied buildings.

Which is a shame really.

 

I actually went and looked this up. There is no logical reason that you cannot fire at an empty building except, naturally, the codex specifically says "occupied building".

 

Absurd, but what can you do?

[nighthawks]

you can follow the RAW which says no shooting at unoccupied, intact buildings (or does not allow the shooting at them, at any rate) OR you can house rule it.

 

I would say that a logical house rule would allow the shooting of intact buildings as if they were immobilized vehicles.