Firing a Long range weapon and a flamer

[Commander Sasha]

Here's the scenario: 10 man tac squad camped in terrain on an objective with Missile, Flamer, Combiflamer.

 

Brood of small Tyranids 5" away (they were unlucky with their previous assault into difficult terrain roll)

Tyranid HQ behind them, 14" from my squad, down to his last wound, ready to use his special rules to make his bugs faster, stronger, painless etc.

 

If I decide to target the HQ, which is obviously a second unit, with my Missile and 7 bolters, I should kill him and avoid the buffing rules, but can I point the flamer & Combi at him, and even though they don't reach him, will incidentally toast some bugs?

 

My reading so far:

BRBp29, "place template...as many models in target unit as possible", in this case none.

 

"Any models fully or partially...are hit"

 

And less directly relevant, for blast weapons,

BRBp30 "Note it is possible...even your own troops, or locked in combat"

 

Wrong, Cheesy or good idea?

Thanks, Sasha

[Frosty the Pyro]

Wrong.

 

Remember the order of shooting is as follows

check for LOS

Check Range

Roll hits

roll wounds

etc

 

For templates you check range by placing the template, and you then find that the target (the MC which I will assume is a tervigon) is out of range, thus the whole thing is discarded, because you were not within range. You never even get to the roll for hits section (which for a template is automatic hits for those under the template).

 

And less directly relevant, for blast weapons,

BRBp30 "Note it is possible...even your own troops, or locked in combat"

Also while blast weapons can scatter to do the above, template weapons can never do either

[Commander Sasha]

Thanks, I thought this might be the case, but wanted a second opinion!

[Isiah]

Yes you must allocate a target unit to shoot at. If the template doesn't cover it then tough you've missed. It does seem harsh but has been done in order to stop the very thing you were trying to do to happen – ie the ability to target multiple units with the same unit of firers.

 

Now blast weapons are slightly different (although the effect of hitting a secondary target by scatter might seem similar) because at least you attempted to hit the allocated target unit in the first place – the scatter merely put it off course.

 

Cheers

I

[Hymirl]

If you can touch your target with the flame template anything else that 'happens' to be underneath it is fair game and gets caught in the crossfire.

 

But as the other posters have said you have to be in range of the target to be able to place the template, otherwise you could have a big monster 12" away in front of you and some termagaunts to the left and try to fire the flamer at the termangaunts... which would be a bit silly.

[Wildfire]

A small clairification. If the MC had been, say, 8" away (i.e. within flamer range), yes you could have targeted it with the flamer and caught the termagaunts as well.