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Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Burning the Candle at Both Ends

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Apologies for this not being more substantial, between my IRL gaming, our local tournaments, and preparing for 'Ard Boyz (perhaps a post about that?), I have been kept sufficiently busy. However, the tournament last weekend did give me an odd situation that I hadn't seen specifically come up nor be discussed, and it got me thinking.

The setup was something like this: Eldrad and a group of Wraithguard were strung out along the backside of a ruin; my Tyranids had split around both sides of it and were looking to do some damage. On the left, a large group of Furious Toxic Termagants charged in, catching His Elfiness and effectively no one else; on the right, my Hive Tyrant and a Trygon made contact.

Now, the strange thing: according to the Defender Reacts rules, he was unable to bring a significant portion of his unit to bear. What was relevant was that the unit was required to maintain coherency above all else; thus, the Wraithguard in the middle were unable to move either left or right to engage enemies, as doing so would break the squad in half. While this wasn't a particular help in this scenario- I was chewing apart his dumb robots anyways- there are plenty of times where you'd like to limit how many members of a squad can engage or limit who in a squad can engage which targets, and assaulting different ends of a "conga line" can be helpful in doing so. Note, however, that this is only effective against enemy units that are reasonably widely-spread and that you can outmaneuver sufficiently to pull the trick against.

Still, it's food for thought.

7 pinkments:

Anonymous said...

I had an interesting scenario the other day...

Eldrad and Yriel charged a squad of BA assault foot marines. Took apart the majority of the sqaud, but both ICs were still in combat. The BA held. The next turn some space wolves (it was a 2 vs 2) charged into Eldrad only. Eldrad died and Yriel had left one BA standing.

The wolf player claimed he could leave combat (i.e. consolidate) as he only charged Eldrad and is now no longer locked in combat, but the Eldar player (whom I agreed with) stated it was one big multi-combat and therefore the wolves were still locked in combat with Yriel as the 2 ICs entered combat as a unit AND the BA were tied to the 2 and the wolves joined that combat.

Was I wrong or right to side with the Eldar player??

Matt Varnish said...

Apart from the fact that it is always wrong to side with an Eldar player!!, most people around here play it as the instant an IC is alone, he reverts to being an IC, and therefore they wouldn't have been locked. I disagree with this, as the rules do not allow an IC to 'leave a unit' unless in a movement phase, in fact saying you cannot do it in the shooting or assault phase.

More common is the following: combat ends with the squad an IC was with being wiped out, but the IC survives.. what happens.. does he take the leadership test minus the wounds from the squad? Does he take a regular leadership test? If he runs, can he rally, since he was a "squad" that is now below half? I've seen all these asked. The rulebook isn't much help here either.

Anonymous said...

He takes a leadership minus the wounds as he in only an IC for allocation of hits and part of the unit for all other purposes. He can also rally as after that turn of combat (i.e. his next movement phase) he is just a simple IC... the squad pretty much never existed.

Chumbalaya said...

Lesson learned, don't string out important units :P

For Brolo's problem, I'd say that since it was a multiple combat the Wuffs would have to get into BtB with other units as well if possible.

Unknown said...

@Varnish; Brother Loring is essentially correct. If an IC is part of a squad which gets wiped so is alone, he still takes an Ld -whatever the whole combat lost by (there might be another squad somewhere else). Easiest way to think of it is just pretend the IC was a seperate squad in a multiple combat (that explain generally helps people get ICs in combat). If they fail and run then can regroup as long as no one is within 6" otherwise they can be swept or escorted off the table.

It's one of the main reasons Orks are fail. Oh no 29 Boyz and a Nob. The Nob is over there? I'll assault here then. Or ram 3 tanks into the mob and push the Nob far away and you can't assault those tanks cause you're in combat with me. Make sure you stay 1" away now, etc. Tank shocking is just fun :).

MasterSlowPoke said...

Loring, were Eldrad and Yriel still within 2" when the Space Wolf charged in?

AbusePuppy said...

@Slowpoke:
I don't think it's relevant, since ICs can only leave a unit during the movement phase; if they were 2"+ apart, they were just a unit that wasn't in coherence, which doesn't do anything during an assault as far as I'm aware.

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