Charactors, transport, allies and contesting objectives

[Skoby]

I took part in a doubles tournement last weekend, I got through to the final and faced someone with extensive knowledge of the rules who is pretty much a powergamer and he insisted that he was in the right and we should learn the rules better (I am in my 3rd year at uni and haven't had a chance to read through the rules more than once) considering there were 6 of us playing in the game, divided into teams of "experienced and newbies" and he seemed to be the only one who was confident about these rules and so he got the benefit of the doubt, but now I'm curious.

 

1) If there are two allied forces can they a) deploy an independant charactor from one army as part of a unit from the other army? :) If they can, are they still allowed to deploy inside a dedicated transport taken for that squad. In this case it was Lysander joining his allies sternguard squad and they tore right through my allies army.

 

2) I am pretty confident I am in the right here, he assaulted my tactical squad sitting on my home objective, he got in pretty close but was about 5" away from my objective. I understand that my models need to move up to 6", but by moving the closest models first and piling in and getting models within 2" of the enemy but still keeping a model within (my guess of) 3" of the objective, I was trying to keep my objective held. This results in 3 mini questions:

(a)At the time of moving each of my models, I got them within base contact if possible or as close as possible... A little unfair maybe but is it against the rules for me to do this to keep me within 3"?

(b)As it was I got wiped out before the end, but if one of my models is within 3", but is in combat with one of his units not within 3", it counts as being held and not contested right?

 

3) Most simple of them all, can a drop pod aim to land on enemy troops and use the scatter rule even if it is on target? He aimed the drop pod (loaded with lysander + sternguard) right in the centre of my allies Ork Horde and so despite scoring a hit he "scattered" about 5" conveniently blocking a deff dred from assaulting him. The codex says it will scatter the minimum distance should it scatter onto models/terrain, but he insisted that he could target them.

 

4) Finally, a charactor (pedro kantor in this case) has an honour guard, do they specifically count as a retinue? ie Does the charactor have to join them and stay with them or are they a totally unrestricted unit? and if a mission calls for "a single hq choice" since they do not occupy a HQ choice, yet as far as I can see as the codex is written, they aren't a retinue and so it's debatable.

 

I know I sound bitter, but I had a great day (and neither of us won the battle so doesn't really matter) but these all seem to me to be grey areas and I lent my rule book out and my mates got glandular fever so won't be getting it back for about a week =\ Hope this isn't too incoherent lol, thanks in advance :).

[Stormcaller3801]

With regards to 1, I don't believe there's anything that deals with allied forces in the rulebook- it simply addresses 1 v 1 games. To that end this is something that should be agreed upon by all players rather than announced as fair by one while he takes advantage of it.

 

As for 2, so long as you moved all of your models as per the assault rules, being within 3" of the objective is lucky for you. However, if you had models not engage the enemy when they could have, such as by getting within 2" of a model in base contact with one of his models, then you were in the wrong. With regards to the 3" range, if you're within it and he isn't, yes, you hold the objective. He must be within 3" of the objective to hold or contest it.

 

Three raises an interesting question- because your opponent is basically being sneaky and something of a git. So in the spirit of karma, I would point out that the drop pod rule about inertial guidance only functions if it scatters onto a model or impassible terrain. In this case, it hasn't scattered at all- it's right on target. Which means that the rules for Deep Strike Mishaps come into play. Is it picky? Yes. Is it mean? Probably. Do I care, given the way you've described this fellow? No, not really. He won't do it twice.

 

And Four, I'm going to say that no, they are not a retinue and the independent character remains as such. Why? Because otherwise Marneus Calgar's three Honour Guard squads are going to get all pouty about which one he's a part of this game, and who got to be his retinue last time, and whether or not that counted, and it just ruins a nice family dinner, every time.

[SeattleDV8]

1 if it was a tourney there should have been house rules in place for it. Otherwise there are none.

2 Stormies got it.

3 Very sneaky Storm. I like it and by RAW it does say it only works when scattering. loop hole re-looped.

4 Hounor guards are NOT retinue. Sounds like he bought a squad when one IC was called for. If he is the rules master like he claimed then he cheated.

[Stormcaller3801]

I missed that second part of 4, so allow me to address that: Honor Guard are like dedicated transports in that you can purchase them but they don't count against your maximum number of HQ units. So just like you could have six Rhinos to go with your six Tactical Squads without a problem, you could get an Honor Guard if you have a Chapter Master. Or three, if his name's Macragge.

[Skoby]

It was originally meant to be a fun day, they werent expecting to have that many teams and in the end it just got a bit confusing and we let it slide as we weren't fussed about winning.

 

I got all my men within 2", possibly could have got more into base to base, but it was a 10 man tactical squad in ruins so it was a pretty tight squeeze. 1,2,4 are all fairly minor (well 2 was in my favor but it was mainly whether it was contested or not that was the issue) but 3 really did annoy me as it really is an unfair twisting of the rules. Still it was a tournement and there was a good prize (copy of liber chaotica EACH for the winners, which had I known how rare they are I would of tried a lot harder lol) in the end him targetting me putting us on the defensive, let the other team (crons and templars) steal the win. Now if he had tried this in a friendly game I would just refuse to play him in future.

[Mordekiem]

3) Most simple of them all, can a drop pod aim to land on enemy troops and use the scatter rule even if it is on target? He aimed the drop pod (loaded with lysander + sternguard) right in the centre of my allies Ork Horde and so despite scoring a hit he "scattered" about 5" conveniently blocking a deff dred from assaulting him. The codex says it will scatter the minimum distance should it scatter onto models/terrain, but he insisted that he could target them.

No you cannot place your pod on top on any unit. What happens if he rolls a hit? how do you scatter less than nothing? The drop pods rules specifically state that you can only decrease the amount of scatter, not increase it.

 

So when you place the drop pod you have to put it down in a viable place before you roll the scatter dice. If the scatter takes it into a bad area then you reduce the distance of the scatter by whatever is needed to stop this problem.

 

not RAW, but my own opinion: Though I'd let them place it on my troops under the agreement that if it does not scatter or does not scatter far enough away from my troops that it and the squad inside would count as destroyed. ;)

 

I think this was a 'ruling' at one or more GTs a couple of years ago. There were a couple of people around here who said that you can place it on your own guys and then move it as you wish. But if you read it closely it doesn't work like that.

[nighthawks]

drop pod arrives via deep striek and must follow those rules. it cannot be place on impassible terrain OR other models, enemy or otherwise. he wasn't sneaky, he was cheating, quite bluntly.

[Stormcaller3801]

Actually I took at look at the Deep Strike rules, and the only thing I could find about placement was a statement that you could choose any point on the table to have the unit come in at. Did I miss something?

[havok735]

You need to place the first model in the unit deep striking on the table and then scatter. You can't place a model in a position that it normally wouldn't be allowed like within one inch of an enemy or on impassable terrain.