I've been wanting to make some grenade style rocks for a while. Skaven have a unit called Poison Wind Globadiers that carry around what is basically a poison gas grenade, and I've always envisioned Bel Poison Wind Globadiers as fighting with rocks. Anyway, here is my question.
I wanted to make rocks the same size and shape of a soda can (a 5" x 2.7" cylinder). I've seen rocks that were generally the same size and shape as a soda can in the past. But when I got in the BoW, THE rule for rocks has a 4" diameter requirement. I searched these forums for talk about this and apparently there is no agreement on how this is interpreted; some say that it's on all axises, others say just one.
I've been playing this game for a long time, and my take would be on a single axis. I've seen the rock construction rules add flexibility to the game in a few ways, none of which would be possible with a 4" sphere rock as the de facto minimum (throwing daggers, axes, shrunken, etc.). It'd look rather silly to have a throwing hammer with every axis 4" or more... like a really big cartoon Super Mario Bros. prop. I can see rocks having to pass the 2.5" rule for safety and consistency. But 4", come on.
I did find one interesting point of view that I'll cut and paste here:
Kenneth wrote:Note: There is no 4 inches along all axis requirement if you read the rule closely. It says "a" diameter. Further, diameter is essentially a two dimensional measurement. Two words that imply rocks need only one four inch diameter. Koom's big rock is anything but "spherical". In fact, I'll bet it can deform quite easily to underneath four inches in one dimension. Especially if it was packed a little looser. Thus, there is no requirement for every axis to be 4 inches.
Under a very narrow reading of the rules, I suspect stuffed animal rocks are legal. Then again, under a very narrow reading of the rules, so are dirty sock rocks. Of course, if people really want to rules lawyer it, you'd just put a tiny tiny piece of foam inside your rolled up dirty socks. It never says how much foam, tape, or cloth is required.
What I find most interesting about this is that Sir Kenneth, being from Numenor, probably has no love for rocks and yet gives one of the most generous interpretations of Appendix A - 1.4.9 that I saw during my search.
So which is it? Is it one 4" axis, or infinitely many 4" axes?