Marker Lights and Allies

[herigonz]

So I was curious about Marker Lights and how they interact with allies. In this case I'm not looking to try to increase the BS of an allied unit (I'm pretty sure that doesn't work). But Marker Lights also cause all sorts of other effects, namely...removing cover saves.

In this situation, lets say I pepper a squad of bikes with 3 Marker Lights. I opt at this point to remove their 5+ Jink save by using 2 of those Marker Light hits. I haven't given any unit a but but simply removed their cover save. Could a Doom Scythe come in at this point and lay the wood on the bikes (giving them no armor or cover save)?

[Nachodragon]

The only ally that could potentially benefit would be Brothers in Arms. Necrons have no Brothers in Arms, so, that would not work. I have not looked to far into it but a FAQ might shed some light on it. Hmm, unintentional pun.

Allies of Convenience and Desperate Allies are treated as Enemy units. So neither ally would benefit from anything in the other army.

[Kevlarshark]

The Imperial guard definitely cannot share their orders with other allied races and If you are allied to a Space marine chapter you do not benefit from their chapter tactics.

The Ruling at the GW Doubles tournie was that only Tau can benefit from marker light hits so if you ally with other Tau.

But in the Big rulebook P112 (allies) Battle brothers
"are counted as 'friendly units' for psychic powers special abilities and so on."

In the Tau Codex
"(Marker light) Counters may be expended by subsequently firing Tau (and Vespid units providing the Strain Leader is still alive) at the marked unit."
Page 29 Codex Tau Empires

I would say Codex trumps all... so your allies can only benefit from Markerlight hits if:-
1. They are Tau or Vespid (not Kroot or another race).

[herigonz]

That is a very good point and one I was completely forgetting about. Codex does trump all so in this case they (i.e. allies) wouldn't benefit.

Main reason I ask is that I'm having nightmares thinking of a Necron AV13 Wall (mostly due to the Jink saves all the skimmers get). With my luck my opponent will hit every single 5. One of my friends reminded me of how the Markerlights drop cover saves. On the bright side, this should help my Broadsides do better.

Ooooh, another question:

Normally the unit inside of a transport has to take a pinning test if said transport blows up. If I had 2 Markerlights left on the vehicle, could I assign those 2 Markerlights onto the unit to drop their Leadership by 2? Again, I don't think I can because they were specifically targetting the vehicle and not the unit inside.

[SeattleDV8]

You answered your own question, the markerlights were on the vehicle, it is the only thing they could effect.

[Aramel]

What is the language used to describe the markerlight effect? Does it just say that the cover save is lowered for the turn or counts as lowered for all tau units firing at it? Doom for example allows all units shooting at the target to re-roll to wound without needing to be battle-brothers and has always worked that way.

[thecactusman17]

Sounds like you could shoot at a unit with something nasty, cause enough damage to force a leadership check, and then fire at last with a squad of Firewarriors to harm the Leadership value.

[Kevlarshark]

Only the unit that expended the markerlight counters gains the benefits.

-"To impose a -1 Ld penalty on the marked unit on the Marked unit for the purposes for any pinning test imposed by the firing units shooting. Multiple counters can be expended to impose a cumulative save modifier."
P29

The cover save one is the same.
So since non-Tau units cannot use markerlights they gain none of the benefits.

[thecactusman17]

Only the unit that expended the markerlight counters gains the benefits.

-"To impose a -1 Ld penalty on the marked unit on the Marked unit for the purposes for any pinning test imposed by the firing units shooting. Multiple counters can be expended to impose a cumulative save modifier."
P29

The cover save one is the same.
So since non-Tau units cannot use markerlights they gain none of the benefits.

My bad then, I thought it was just for morale tests in general, but yeah if it's for pinning tests only then it's of no use.