Thoughts on Assault Allocations

[Ming]

An interesting discussion came up, that offers a bit of finesse to the combined assault rules, RAW or RAI?

I've been playing 40K for a while, and until about a month ago, regardless of being the attacker or defender, as long as you declared your dice allocations in the assault phase before you rolled them, I did not care where you allocated them, except for the caviats of the IC rules for allocation.

About 2-3 months ago, in the Badab campaign, the renegades (all a great group of players) identified that they thought we non-renegades had been allocating assault dice in error. They then to back up their claims, showed us the BRB page 41 bullets and the added third bullet from the FAQ. In a nutshell they wanted us to play in the following manner:

1. If a unit is assaulted in turn A by one unit of side X, pretty much everything is as normal. You fight it out, and say for argument sake, both sides X and Y have survivors that remain locked in combat...you fight again on Y's player turn. yadayada. Bullet 1 on Page 41.

[as normal, the defender consolidates the 6 inches into the combat before declarations and dice are rolled]

2. Then it is turn B. Side X charges in a second unit. Side Y is now attacked by 2 units! The renegade's interpretation of the rules as written is that side Y has to allocate all their attacks vs the first unit for this assault phase (X's turn), but any survivors can allocate their attacks on Y's turn to either attacking unit. This is worded in Bullet 2 on P41.

[note here that any unengaged enemy models can move up to 6 inches to consolidate with the new assaulting unit before declarations and dice rolls are made]

3. Lastly, if the attacker is actually assaulting 2 units, the attacker's units BTB with each enemy unit has to apply it's attacks to the unit it is BTB with. Non-BTB units can allocate to either defending unit, distance requirements (the 2-inch rule) applies. Declaration of attacks occur before dice are rolled. This is bullet 3 from the FAQ.

Overall, at the insistence of the players, we adopted these "clarifications" and played happily, and it actually created tactical finessing for assaults (hit a strong unit with a weaker unit, and while it is busy, hit them with a more powerful unit, to get a benefit for just one assault phase). It actually seemed to make the details of all these assault bullets and pages of text make sense.

We then used this when it came up in a monthly tournament.

I created a situaltion that one guy did not like - the microbattle within the battle went like this:

T1 my phase: I pod in a 10-man sternguard squad, libby, and kantor. I shoot up a bike captain and his command squad on bikes. Kill the retinue.

T1 his phase: His bike captain, nearby venerable dread, and dismounted tac squad shoot up my 12 guys, I lose like 7 sternguard. Ouch!

T2 my phase: normal assault squad deep strikes next to the pod (beacon). The asault squad shot up his tac squad. The libby, sternguard, kantor pistol the captain and then do a combined assault on he captain and the adjacent venerable. A bad choice, but we hoped for the best. The I5 T5 arty (2+/4+) bike captain applies his attacks to the libby and kills him. The dread fails to wound Kantor. We remain locked in combat.

T2 his turn: his tac squad stands there and shoots my assault squad. I take a bunch of casualties. Then we continue the assault. His dread misses Kantor, the captain kills all but 2 of the remaining sternguard.

T3 my turn: A terminator squad beacons in and shoots up the neaby tac squad. The assault squad piles in to aid the assault on the captain. This is where we get tricky - the other player wants to apply all the captains hits on the new assaulters, and I tell him he cannot for this phase, he has to continue on the remaining sternguard. Everyone else says has has to. We fight it out. At I5 the captain kills the last sternguard. At I4, Kantor is smushed by the venerable and then my assault squad kills his captain. We consolidate (I'm stubborn), the venerable is now BTB withe remnants of my assault squad (still very bad for me). The opposing player is pissed over losing the captain. Heck, I'm not happy either, the venerable is impossible to defeat, the captain had a S6 sword, and I've lost 3 KPs to 2 (plus both my HQs) and in T3 his turn I lose the assault squad. Not the best example, but, it illustrates what we are doing (besides trying to kill a venerable with a I1 powerfist...). In the end, I lost the actual game (the primary objective was table quarters, and I lost 1-0...). If I had killed the venerable T5 with my assault termies then I'd have had a draw 1-1 or maybe a win 2-1).

Thoughts? Does the actual details of the rules as written imply the allocation be finessed? Or is it just a free-for-all? If his captain had survived to T3 his turn and he was in BTB with 2 units (say both Kantr and the assault squad), he would allocated the captain's hits to either unit. Got it? RAW seems to be that he just could not do it on my turn, as he would be too busy with the ongoing attackers to turn around and decide to hit the new ones. On his phase/player turn, those restrictions would not apply....WWJD [what would Jervis do?]....

Lengthy....

[Old_Paladin]

This has come up before on this board.

But, to answer your question; Nope, you were wrong and he was right. His Captain was allowed to direct his attacks to whomever he wanted.

The reason: the rule book says you can only place attacks against units whom you are locked in combat with at the start of the combat.
The important phrase is "start of combat."
It does not say at the start of the assault phase (which it sounds like everyone else thought). The rulebook even defines 'start of combat,' being "before any attacks are made."

That means that until dice are rolled for melee, you can select any unit (within the normal restrictions of base contact, range, etc.) that are part of the potential target group(s).

[Ming]

Ah, but that is the rub.

I guess the guys who brought this up were thinking - If "at the start of combat" means at the start of dice rolling, and not at the start of the assault phase of that player turn, why would you need to have any of these bullets concerning it? There would never be the means for the units to change position after the dice rolls start until all dice are rolled. The other issue itself becomes bullet #3, which locks the attacker to allocating his hits specific to units he is BTB with, but would also "unlock" that requirement in the opponents turn/assault phase. Further complicating it is the text on page 33, resolve combats, which talks about resolving combats after "move assault units" and "defenders react".

Ultimately, if you don't think of anything other than which unit you are actually engaged with after the moves are made (for either side, any phase), then all goes back the what I'd been doing before all this started. Regardless, in the game I played in the tournament, the outcome would have been the same. The Captain would have died, from one unit or the other. On the other hand, I might have ended the game with a better outcome for me...but still have been stuck punching the venerable till I ran out of dice...

[BuFFo]

This is where we get tricky - the other player wants to apply all the captains hits on the new assaulters, and I tell him he cannot for this phase, he has to continue on the remaining sternguard.

As Old Paladin said, you played it wrong.

The game has three phases, movement, shooting and assault.

'At the start of combat' has nothing to do with 'At the start of the Assault Phase'. If it were, it would have been worded that way.

How can you decide who is attacking who at the start of a phase when combat has not even begun for that round for all units? I have never, ever seen anyone allocate attackers and defenders BEFORE the player whos turn its moves his Charging units!

The assault phase begins. All Chargers are made. Then all Defenders react if need be. Then combat starts and you allocate who can attack who for the entire round.

[DarkLink]

I'm with Buffo and Old Paladin on this.

I had thought, because my gaming group had pointed it out, that you were correct. But now that I actually read the rule, it doesn't have anything to do with the "beginning of the assault phase", only the "beginning of combat", as Buffo said.

[ForsakenImp]

Several rules, such as the Nightbringer's Etheral Tempest, happen at the beginning of the Assault phase. Such wording as "Beginning of Combat" clarifies that this rule does indeed apply after such rules.

Also, it keeps models that are removed/killed before the unit strikes from being unable to be hit by the unit in question.

Also, and I think we are overlooking this, it may just be another example of poor GW quality checking. Many of their rules could use a fairly simple re-write to be very clear and unambigous. Sometimes it seems as if a rule simply missed being changed when they edited another. This could very well be another of GW's standard misleading/useless rules.

[Ming]

Thanks for the discussion thus far. I was being pilloried for it by the guy who lost his captain as if I had made it all up. Crazy.

I posted the Adepticon INAT addendum to our store's site for consideration as a clarifyier for questions like this...looks like it may be accepted there as a standard.

[DarkLink]

Also, it keeps models that are removed/killed before the unit strikes from being unable to be hit by the unit in question.
.

Strategic casualty removal doesn't work anymore. Every unit still gets its full attacks, unless their only viable targets have been killed (as in, if they could only allocate attacks to an IC, and the IC gets killed, there isn't anything for them to hit anymore). Pulling model to get out of base to base won't prevent a unit from hitting you anymore.

[Culven]

As others have pointed out, those argueing that the unit charging into an on-going combat cannot be attacked are incorrect. I understand their point that the bulletpoint seems pointless, but I had someon in another thread point out that those bulletpoints are needed to address attack allocation in a multiple combat since it isn't mentioned elsewhere in the multiple combat rules. It only seems redundant because most players have already read the normal combat rules, and it seems like they would just apply as normal.

[Xas]

if you are puzzled about such low redundancy you shouldn not read the newer (IG/wolf) dexes...

there are many sentenzes like "... one (1) modell may buy XY for +Z Points..."

like "one" and "(1)" are not redundant

gw likes to over-clarify with the new takes. this imho is a good way to help clear rules.