Tank Shocking and Unit Coherency

[Logos]

Hey guys,

 

I ran into an interesting rules question during a game this evening. It was a doubles match, and my teammate opted to tank shock a group of enemy infantry along the edge of the board. The infantry models were in a narrow space between impassable terrain and the board edge. My teammate tank shocked such that his vehicle ended up over several models in the middle of the squad, so obviously the opposing player had to move his troops out of the way. However, the rule for tank shock states that enemy models that are under the vehicle at the end of the tank shock need to move out of the way while staying in coherency. Does this mean that the whole unit can move, or only the models that would be under the tank?

 

The reason I ask is because, if only the models under the tank can move, the opposing player would not have been able to get them out of the way while maintaining coherency. Since models can't move through other models, even those in the same unit, he would have had to move the affected models in the other direction. This would put them on the other side of the tank and out of coherency. The tank shock rule says models must stay in coherency, but it doesn't say that they are destroyed if they cannot get out of the way.

 

Can anyone clarify this for me?

[DevianID]

The short answer is that there is no answer.

 

The long answer is a bit more convoluted. First, you are not allowed to destroy models with a tank shock; the rules provide no such provision outside of death or glory, so to claim they are destroyed would essentially be making up a new rule. Second, ignoring the coherency requirement you can always move the models in the direction the tank came from, meaning there will always be a place for the model under the tank to go.

 

So, you have to make a decision to either move the models under the tank out of coherency with the squad, or move the squad that is NOT under the tank so that the squad is still in coherency with the tank shocked models--potentially moving through the tankshocking tank if there is impassable terrain otherwise preventing the movement, or finally moving the tank shocking models through impassable terrain to rejoin there squad by the shortest distance.

 

All three solutions are technically against the rules, but at the same time they dont unfairly destroy a unit that under normal circumstances is simply supposed to move out of the way. In my opinion, the best solution is to move the models by whatever means is necessary to keep the squad in coherency... even if you have to let your opponent dictate where the models scatter to.

[Ntin]

More or less what DevianID said. Any answer we could give would be speculative.