Charge angles, melee ranges and king hits

Just wanted to collate some brief thoughts about the changes on melee ranges and LOS and the like in relation to model placement and the opportunities to proc certain abilities.

Up until the ruling was made in October, I was adhering closely to Mk2 WMH conventions; ensuring models I charged into remained in line of sight, maintaining a tight eye on arcs, or at least accepting my opponent's correction when I would fuck this up, and pull models back to the appropriate position to make a 'legal' charge.

Initially, during my early days as a fledgling WMH player, I was getting whacky as heck charge angles, sending 2" reach models off in all sorts of directions to allow room to get more attacks in on a beast or warjack. That initial assumption, that seemed so natural at the time, has come back. Something seems to have been missing in my reading of the Mk3 ruleset, one of those cheeky re-wordings or omissions that I skipped over, because the clarification by Privateer Press was to confirm that the rules for melee ranges never actually were bound to a model's line-of-sight, and that several rules actually proc off the condition of the distance of a model's melee range, which seems to have been always intended to be applicable from any point on a model's base.

Now goofy charges and the like are opened up all over the show again. The implications of this was pretty apparent on the forums, with incorporeal models being able to charge through to reach opponents' back-arc. Other applications were noting effects such as Gang, Flank and Dark Shroud, all extend around the model's base. In my own games, lots of fun little interactions started to reveal themselves; playing Helga into Caine2 for example, I could charge a Slaughterhouser up past a Ranger to then slam it into Caine at the right angle.

boosh

The idea of Feralgeists charging through heavies to then slam them forward into my lines is another option I've been floating. In another game, it meant I could charge Gerlack past his target to position better for his overtake run, something that previously couldn't happen, particularly with his shorter melee range.

So in application, this wee rule clarification has opened up to me further options that would otherwise not be present, or at the very least be extremely limited. It is these sorts of changes and shifts in the game system that I've grown to enjoy in WMH, where some times the refining or adjusting of the rules opens up a slew of play options and experiences on the table