Siege's feat and immunity to blast

[bakaryu]

Its something of a corner case, but I had it come up in a practice game yesterday.

Siege had popped his feat, and a grenadier decided to start dropping AOEs onto my stealthed mage hunters, some of which were standing within Discordia's bubble and one of the AOEs drifted onto Discordia.

Now obviously Discordia didn't suffer any damage from said attack, however the question that came up was if he still suffered a damage roll (and thus burned off the one time half armour effect of Siege's feat).

Discordia's effect says (and this is the same for models with Dig In and for Battle Mages) that this model does not suffer blast damage. It does not say that a damage roll is not made, just that the model does not suffer the damage.

When an AOE with automatic fire (such as from a Vanquisher) lands on them they still suffer the Fire continuous effect which is an effect of the AOE, my question is if Breach is considered to be an effect of the attack.

[PG_Stevo]

Breach only triggers if and when an enemy model takes damage. The wording is pretty clear in the feat's text:

"The next time each enemy model suffers damage while in Siege's Control Area, halve its base ARM when calculating damage from the damage roll. Breach lasts for one turn.

While the text references a damage roll, it doesn't matter if the damage roll is made, only if the roll results in damage. In the situation you've outlined even if you were required to roll for Blast Damage against Discordia, the result of the damage roll is irrelevant. Even if the damage roll resulted in a million points of blast damage, Discordia would suffer none of it, and Breach wouldn't trigger.

It's worth noting that some abilities, like the Sanguine Bond of the Protectorate of Menoth's Bastions, trigger Breach without a damage roll at all. The feat only triggers when models *suffer damage*, even if the source of the damage isn't a damage roll. Another example would be models using Sniper or Death Bolt under Siege's feat, as those don't make damage rolls either but *do* trigger Breach.

As to the notion of rolling for damage against a model who doesn't suffer a type of damage, you don't make a damage roll and then ignore the result of the roll. That's not how it works. You aren't required to roll dice and then ignore the results, no roll is made because no damage is suffered. Ever.

Effects peripheral to Blast Damage, like Continuous Effects, Knockdown, Critical Pitch, etc. still trigger, but that's different and doesn't really come into play in this situation.

Now, if Discordia's Imprint said "Blast Damage is immediately Healed and/or Repaired" *AND* the blast damage was sufficient to punch through Discordia's ARM 20, THEN it would trigger the wording of Breach.

[Leo_the_Rat]

The current ruling is that the models do not have to actually have boxes marked off. Only that a damage roll is made against the model for siege's feat to be considered as used against the target model. Now, in this particular case, I'm not sure since the ability says that you can't suffer blast damage. But the general statement requiring damage to occur is now incorrect.
http://privateerpressforums.com/show...mage-quot-mean

[PG_dungeongod]

While the "punch through" portion of PG_Stevo's post was incorrect, his point about suffering damage is correct - if it cannot suffer the blast damage, it doesn't suffer damage, so Siege's feat would not trigger on it.

[bakaryu]

The current ruling is that the models do not have to actually have boxes marked off. Only that a damage roll is made against the model for siege's feat to be considered as used against the target model. Now, in this particular case, I'm not sure since the ability says that you can't suffer blast damage. But the general statement requiring damage to occur is now incorrect.
http://privateerpressforums.com/show...mage-quot-mean

I would argue that cannot and does not are two entirely different things.

Cannot would say that that the event simply cannot happen. In this case no damage roll would be made against a model immune to blast.
Does not would say that the event happens but is ignored. In this case a damage roll would be made but would the result would be irrelevant.

As you pointed out, the current ruling on Breach is that if a damage roll is made then Breach has been used up on that model.

[solkan]

I don't understand why you think "Does not suffer blast damage" does not mean "Does not suffer blast damage."

If it does not suffer blast damage, and the only thing you're doing to the model is inflicting blast damage, then it does not reach a point in time that it suffers damage. Because the rule "Does not suffer blast damage" says so.

[bakaryu]

Going by the way the rules are written, a fearless unit that suffers 50% casualties still takes a command check, they just can never be broken. 99% of players simply don't bother rolling because it has no effect on the way the game is played, whether they pass or not theoretically a command check is still required, even though the end result is the same either way.

Does not suffer blast does not mean that they don't take the damage roll, again most people simply don't bother rolling because the end result is the same either way and it simply eats into a player's time.

[sleet01]

A model with immunity to a certain damage type does not take damage of that type. A single attack can inflict damage of several types. If a model is immune to any of those types, it does not suffer damage from the attack. A model that is immune to damage from an attack can still suffer other effects from the attack.

The next time each enemy model suffers damage while in Siege's control area, halve its base ARM when calculating damage from the damage roll. Breach lasts for one turn.

A model that is immune to, or does not suffer, Blast Damage does not take damage of that type. If a model does not take damage of that type, it cannot suffer the damage. A model that does not suffer Blast damage would not suffer damage at all, and Breach would not expire from it. Or, at least, this is my reading.

[Valander]

A model that is immune to, or does not suffer, Blast Damage does not take damage of that type. If a model does not take damage of that type, it cannot suffer the damage. A model that does not suffer Blast damage would not suffer damage at all, and Breach would not expire from it. Or, at least, this is my reading.

That is my reading as well.

[bakaryu]

EDIT: Double post

[PG_Amaethon]

Going by the way the rules are written, a fearless unit that suffers 50% casualties still takes a command check, they just can never be broken. 99% of players simply don't bother rolling because it has no effect on the way the game is played, whether they pass or not theoretically a command check is still required, even though the end result is the same either way.

Does not suffer blast does not mean that they don't take the damage roll, again most people simply don't bother rolling because the end result is the same either way and it simply eats into a player's time.

page 65 of the mini rulebook actually states under Fearless Models

"A model with the fearless ability never flees and automatically passes command checks against fleeing"

So players aren't just skipping a step; the step isn't needed because it automatically passes also. Irrelevant to the rules question itself, but relevant to using that as an argument for the case in this situation.

[Valander]

The rules for Fearless have nothing to do with the original question. Possibly a better comparison would be Immunity:Fire and not taking any damage from Fire nor suffering Continuous Fire. Regardless, while its good to look for precedent in other rules, it's important to make sure you're comparing rules that are actually close enough to make that comparison.

Locking since original question answered.