Rapid fire and Pistol mixed weapons

[Enemy5]

If I have a squad of Vanguard Space Marines (Close Combat Fast Marines w/o jet packs if I got the name wrong) with CCW/Bolt Pistol, and a Captain joins the squad with Power Weapon/Bolter what would happen if I tried to shoot, then assault in the same phase?

A) Can I choose to fire just the Bolt Pistols, and not fire the Captain's Bolter, and still assault because the Rapid Fire weapon wasn't used?

B) The whole unit counts as firing, wether or not I roll anything, so the Rapid Fire weapon stops the squad from assaulting?

[Hugz4Genestealers]

Remember, it's not that you can't fire a rapid fire weapon and then assault, it's that you can't elect to fire a rapid fire weapon TWICE and then assault. So your Captain would still be able to fire off a bolter shell along with the pistol fusillade, and then lead the glorious charge to wipe out the remaining traitorous scum.

[DarkLink]

A) Absolutely

B) Only if you actually fire the Rapid Fire weapon.

Remember, it's not that you can't fire a rapid fire weapon and then assault, it's that you can't elect to fire a rapid fire weapon TWICE and then assault. So your Captain would still be able to fire off a bolter shell along with the pistol fusillade, and then lead the glorious charge to wipe out the remaining traitorous scum.

Wrong, actually. You may not charge after firing a Rapid Fire weapon. In fact, there is no "fire twice" or "fire once" or any sort of firing mode for Rapid Fire weapons.

Rapid fire shoots once at 24", twice at 12", and you may not assault after firing the weapon.

You cannot elect to fire a Rapid Fire weapon only once if you are within 12". You must fire twice.

[Grimnar42]

@ Hugz4Genestealers ...... Darklink is correct and you would know that if you had a rule book

[blackarmchair]

What Dark Link said.

But as a general question, why doesn't that captain have a bolt pistol? It'd give him an extra Power Weapon attack...

[DarkAngelHopeful]

The Captain should come with a bolt pistol? Or at least they do with DA. In any event, I'd give him one if he doesn't come with one and then every one can have a gregarious time firing their bolt pistols and charging. =D

[wolflold]

And why would you place your captain with vanguards? Your captain doens't have or gain Heroic Intervention! That way you waste the point of taking Vanguard Marines. Unless you want to go for the sargeant and relic blade. You might want to reconsider to take a full 10 man assault squad or good equiped command squad.

[Enemy5]

It was just something that came up in a small 600 pt game. Trying to relearn the game after taking a break during 3rd Ed era.

[Splug]

The reason to equip a captain with a boltgun and power weapon? It comes that way in AoBR! I ended up playing with the model and calling the gun the largest bolt pistol known to mankind. Later, I decided he could keep the boltgun - I'd just run the power weapon as a relic blade instead.

As for the original question - you may elect to fire any, all, or none of the ranged weapons in a squad during the shooting phase. So you may choose to only fire the pistols, have the captain holster his boltgun, and then charge. By contrast, you must use all attacks in close combat - you can't just roll the power weapons, find out they would kill an entire squad, and then withhold attacks that permit armor saves at the same initiative.

You cannot single-shoot a rapid fire weapon and then assault. Space marines carry boltguns and bolt pistols. They are able to single shot -> assault by firing their pistols - it is not a property of the boltgun at all, and in particular sergeants and captains who carry a close combat weapon must drop either their pistol or their boltgun to do so - this will restrict them to either only having the pistol (can only fire once at 12", but can then charge) or the bolter (can rapid fire twice at 12", OR can fire once at 24" if they did not move, but cannot charge if they fire any shots at all), but not both.