Liberty Prime Rules + Scenario

I played a game with Liberty Prime over the weekend, and a few questions came up:

  • Do Liberty Prime’s attacks get affected by cover? From our reading of the rules, there’s nothing that says they don’t. The rules for height advantage say that the base of the model has to be higher than orange above another model’s base for that, but in Prime’s case that doesn’t make a lot of sense, since all of his attacks come from far above his base position.
  • If Liberty Prime drops unit cards due to a system being damaged, does it lose Readiness markers then? Or only on the next turn when it’s supply refreshes?
  • After a unit performs a melee attack against Liberty Prime, can they perform a Shift move?
  • For LP Scenario 1, Breakpoint, does the breakpoint gain cover from attacks? The scenario setup rules don’t specify, but do say to put lots of cover on the field.
  • As a follow-up to that, the rules for Breakpoint do say “the Breakpoint nor any model within the Defender deployment zone can be Targeted using Liberty Prime’s MK28 Nuclear Bomb”. However, since you can hit an area with splash damage without “Targeting” it, Rules-As-Written it is still possible to hit either the breakpoint or models in the Defender Deployment zone. If that’s not how it’s intended, then perhaps that should be reworded.
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Hey,

  • Looking at both the Huge rules on p17 of the Rules of Play booklet and the rules section of Liberty Prime, it would be my understanding that Liberty Prime’s shooting attacks are effected by cover like any other model.
  • The Readiness Markers would remain on there during a Sub System flip, keeping in line with things like tokens etc which remain on there during a Sub System flip.
  • Enemy Models can perform a Slide whilst in Combat with Liberty Prime.
  • The Searchable would be effected by cover.
  • Targeting something is different to hitting it with splash/AoE damage, so it is currently fine as it stands. We need to add the following to page two, under the General Rules bullet points: ‘Liberty Prime can only ever target models with Attacks, not places on the board’.

Thanks!

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Maybe looking at Elevation ruling😅

The elevation ruling is specifically about the base being higher than the target’s base. Which is why Rules-As-Written Prime’s attacks would count as being affected by cover. IMO, I would be 100% in favor of specifying that Prime (and other huge models) treat their base as being some-amount higher given their size.

Regarding the targeting, I think it’s fine to allow Prime to target an area with the Mk28 bomb - it’s a bomb, there’s no (more) harm in having it be able to target a specific point on the board for maximum carnage. For the scenario, though, it might be worth clarifying that the bomb’s AoE can’t affect the breakpoint/models inside the defender’s set up area.

For the scenario, if Prime’s attacks are affected by cover and it can’t nuke the breakpoint, then it will actually be really difficult for prime’s faction to win the scenario. Since the scenario specifies that there should be a lot of cover in between the setup area and the breakpoint, both of Prime’s ranged weapons are neutered, so its only option would have to close to melee range. IMO adjusting how prime’s attacks react to cover would allow the Liberty Laser to at least help soften the target during the approach, but with how much armor and HP the breakpoint has, then closing to melee would still be necessary. In the game I played, where prime was allowed to lob a bomb and hit the breakpoint in the radius, it did 9 damage in one attack.

Hey,

From a story point of view, sure that makes sense. But when it comes to designing a game rule, we want as few exceptions as possible - which this would be. Prime is effected by cover like normal.

It was the Designer’s intention that Prime’s Bomb couldn’t target spots on the board, so we are bound by that really. If Prime could aim that huge Nuke at a spot on the board, it’d be doubtful that there’d be much left to face him!

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I like the idea that Prime is an AI (fluff-wise) even when it’s on your force. Maybe the programming wasn’t developed enough to deal with the concept of targeting the ground.