Displacer Field

[Brian Wesley]

OK wise sages of the rules....

What happens if a DA IC is close to the edge of the board and is forced to take a 3++ displacer field safe and displaces off the board?

[Sly]

The game ends.
Heh.
Because there are no rules to cover the result. It's not a voluntary movement, so it's not prevented by the rules, but nothing says what the result would be.

[Tynskel]

you move the unit the maximum possible. There are plenty of rules for these. You cannot leave the board unless it is explicitly stated. So, for morale, you can leave the board, flyers (as long as they didn't enter the board the same turn) may leave the board.

Otherwise, you cannot leave. You would just move the maximum possible.

[DarkLink]

You cannot voluntarily leave the board. There are cases in which non-voluntary movement can or cannot leave the board. In all the cases where you can leave the board, the unit is destroyed, with the possible exception of deep striking, in which case you receive special protection due to the Mishap table.

Since the most relevant example that comes to mind is Deep Strike scattering, the most reasonable conclusion is that you would scatter off the board and die, since you don't receive any protection by rolling on the Mishap table.

[Magpie]

I'd say the provision in the rule that tells you to shorten the scatter to avoid impassable terrain etc would indicate that the same thing applies to the board edge.

Technically a unit that is falling back doesn't actually leave the board and become destroyed, all they have to do is come into contact with the edge, an important distinction if your fall back move is only sufficient to bring you up to the board and not off it. This only applies to falling back however, any good order unit can come into contact with the table edge without concern.

Flyers and Deep Strikers are the only things that actually leave the board as a movement action that I can think of off the top of my head and in both cases the leaving of the table does not cause its destruction.

[DarkLink]

But Drop Pods have a rule to reduce scatter which does not apply to the board edge.

[Brian Wesley]

I was thinking the drop pod rule of moving to avoid landing on impassible terrain is similar but also they can land off the table then they suffer deepstrike mishap

[Tynskel]

But Drop Pods have a rule to reduce scatter which does not apply to the board edge.

That's irrelevant to this case. There is an explicit rule being stated there. The only way for a codex rule to override the main rulebook is for the explicit statement of conflict.

The displacer field does not state the explicit conflict, and therefore, your models do not leave the board.

[Magpie]

But Drop Pods have a rule to reduce scatter which does not apply to the board edge.

True enough but as Tynskel says there is a specific case mentioned for that in the Deep Strike rules.

The main thing is that

"In all the cases where you can leave the board, the unit is destroyed," is actually not the case, in fact I can't think of anything that is destroyed when it leaves the board.

Falling Back only goes as far as the board edge and is a special case
Deep Strikers have the potential to be destroyed however that is a separate process, they are actually far more likely to end up back on the board either this turn or next turn.
There are provisions within the rules for units entering from reserves that cover units that cannot make it entirely onto the board to allow them to do so with restrictions and simply be deployed on the board edge.
Tank Shock says that the tank stops 1" away from the board edge if the shock move would take to to or off the board edge.

As there is no clear indication of how the displacer field is resolved when moving off the board the only choice is to take some guidance from what happens in other situations which in the main seems to be that the unit isn't destroyed but stops at or near the edge.

[DarkLink]

That's irrelevant to this case. There is an explicit rule being stated there. The only way for a codex rule to override the main rulebook is for the explicit statement of conflict.

Pretty sure it only says that you can't voluntarily leave the board. If this isn't a voluntary movement, like a Drop Pod scattering, then you can potentially leave the board.