LR machine spirit targeting units in destroyed transport

[Levitas]

Quick question:

Lets say the MM on my Land raider crusader pops a transport (explodes/wrecked) and the unit bails out, can I then use the machine spirit to fire the TL Assault Cannon at them?

Usually i would say no, but the machine spirit is allowed to target seperate units. So is the transport considered seperate for the purspose of targeting - when separated - from its unit?

Cheers!

[Dingareth]

Is it a seperate unit?

Yes.

Why would it not be? Go ahead and light them up.

[Jwolf]

Absolutely not. All firing from a unit occurs simultaneously. This is not ambiguous, and if you're choosing your PotMS targets after firing your other weapons, you are not following the rules - technically, you need to say "Firing X at Y, Firing Z with PotMS at AA", and if you fail to announce targets before rolling dice for any shots, the weapons don't shoot.

Mostly you can skip that kind of rigor in favor of playing the game, though. Save that for the guy who wants to resolve his plasma weapons individually before seeing if he wants to fire more.

[Culven]

As Jwolf said. One must have a valid target for each weapon that they intend to fire at the time that they begin firing. The unit in the Transport wasn't a valid target when the Land Raider's firing was announced, so it cannot be targetted by the Land Raider.

[Dingareth]

Wow, yeah. Didn't even think about the timing involved! I'm dumb.

As they said, everything shoots at once, and they weren't on the board as you started shooting.

[Frank A]

however if you are going to use that logic then if I have a LR shoot at a transport and blow it up then I couldn't have a completely different squad shoot at the troops that just disembarked from the destroyed vehicle. That makes no sense.

[Culven]

however if you are going to use that logic then if I have a LR shoot at a transport and blow it up then I couldn't have a completely different squad shoot at the troops that just disembarked from the destroyed vehicle. That makes no sense.
I think you are misunderstanding. Firing conducted by each unit is simultaneous, but firing of the units in the army is sequential. So, the Land Raider cannot target something that isn't on the board, but another unit, firing after the Land Raider, may target the unit that was forced to Disembark.

[Bikeninja]

Could you not state that "I am shooting at the Rhino with my MM. If it pops then my AC will target the squad. If it doesn't pop I lose the AC shots."

Just from what I have read then I would say that maybe not but I figure I should just ask.

[Nabterayl]

No, you can't. There is no situation in the rules where you're allowed to declare conditional attacks.

Even if you could, though, the situation you describe still violates the simultaneity of the unit's shooting. All shots from a given unit (in this case the Land Raider) have to be both a) declared simultaneously and b) resolved simultaneously.

To change your example a bit, you could not say, "I'm shooting one twin-linked lascannon at the Rhino, and if it doesn't pop, I'm shooting my second twin-linked lascannon as well; if it does pop, I lose the shots." (Change "twin-linked lascannon" to "plasma gun" and you'll see why this sort of thing isn't allowed).

Since you can't condition part of a unit's shooting even against the same target, you especially can't condition part of a unit's shooting against a different target.

If you keep in mind that the Machine Spirit is not its own unit, you won't go wrong. It can target a different unit, but it still has to shoot at the same time as the rest of the Land Raider. "Power of the Machine Spirit" is not a fancy way of saying "The Land Raider has a passenger who is allowed to fire one of the vehicle's weapons."

[BuFFo]

All shooting done from a single unit is always done simultaneously. There is no such thing as a 'break' in between a single unit's different guns.

[inkzoo]

Well put Buffo.

[Bikeninja]

Well I have been doing that wrong. Thanks for explanation that was helpful.