Also, what's stopping you from moving up on other model's bases to make units more compact? Or literaly putting your models on the table in a pile, with several models not even touching the ground? That should give you plenty attacks per surface area.
That gave me a good laugh. I wish a pro-painter would paint a beautiful army on round bases and do something ignorant like this with amazingly painted models. The imagery would just be hilarious.
I thought he meant it as an offensive tactics as he said the enemy unit would be pinned down by the first unit. And if you play with all parts of the model counting you don't have to get into almost B2B with the back unit, just get a spear tip within 1/2".
The more I think about it the more annoyed I get at it. There are so many scenarios in which the shape of the model can be abused, like a block of spearmen where the spear get progressively longer in the back ranks, you could have all models reaching the front of the unit and everyone could attack.
Yeah,
@najo uses some active language here and there, so the whole "Pinning" wording might just be a misnomer.
But in regards to your example with spearmen and and whole "modeling to your advantage". That's very interesting. Because previously, I was regarding that rule as harmless since you have to measure from the same point to the same point, so it's basically meaningless as far as "advantage". Plus the game specifies that you can not move
any part of the model further than it's movement distance, so people can't like move 5" with a model that has a spear poking way out, then swing the model to "Further" it's distance. That is not allowed.
As for in combat, I see your point, although it is a double edged sword. The unit that uses such a positioning would then put themselves into range to be attacked as well (Well, assuming they come within 1"). However doing something like maintaining the 1" gap and attacking from the 2nd inch of range means that Spearmen can effectively keep themselves out of touch range from opponents short ranged melee combatants. This is one of the ideas/tactics that
@najo suggested, with the spearmen having a living wall between them as a buffer against other melee units. It's a cool concept.
But I see where you come from with your issue, and how it can be an issue, especially since the game really doesn't declare you have to play with models up-right or not piled up (literally piled up) like you suggested in your half-jest previously quoted. So yeah, there are a bit of problems to be had there.
Honestly, the thing I think is most silly to me is that they elected to use 1" or 2" ranges for melee attacks. I feel this is the most cumbersome rule within the 4 pages, since it encourages/supports things like you suggested with the units model having advantage when they can "reach" farther because you modeled them funny. And I understand that GW was trying to reduce the "Base" requirement to accommodate for square AND round bases, but I think there could have been a slightly better solution. Depending on the intent, I feel like they could have simply granted a "reach" stat to weapons, where X bases back from combat can attack. Then bases could truly not matter, since even on 40mm bases, individual skeletons would attack in the same number of bases away. So for example Reach 1 would only allow the first line of bases nearest to the opponent to attack. Then Reach 2 would enable "Second Rank" of the battle line, or basically a base touching a base that is in base-to-base contact. Granted that brings in the base-size relations and the issues with square vs round. Although it would probably create too much issues with people arguing over which were in range of reach 1 or 2 or what have you, so I could see that rule being bad. But the 1" from model and the "Poking over allies" deal is a fairly stupid situation, I agree. Maybe GW will catch wind of this and find out solutions/FAQ/rule changes very quickly.
Even with play testing, games often receive the most input about bugs and such soon after launching, since so many people playing a game is usually enough to suss out errors better than the time spent looking for them.
To clarify, like ia stated in my blog post, you DO NOT have to move when piling-in! That is how you maintain control in a specific position and block movement or maintain a shield wall etc.
