Close Combat Targeting

[radens]

Let me draw a picture of a battle (of sort:)

 

xxx XxxOxxx

xxx O xxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxx

blue - Ultramarines ftw!

green - Orks ;/

 

x-tactical/boy

X-fist

O-independent character

 

1. Lets say that in this particular situation my tacticals killed in higher initiative orcish independent character and now my fist, which was supposed to fight with IC, is not in base contact with any of the boyz. Does that mean he cannot attack this turn, or is he simply moved into base contact, or maybe considered as being in 2" of other fighting units?

 

2. Lets say that the boyz slaughtered my entire tactical squad and only my IC survived. Orcish IC has a powerclaw (lower initiative), but is not in base contact with my IC. Can he attack? Lets remember that he is treated as separate unit.

[greatcrusade08]

that in this particular situation my tacticals killed in higher initiative orcish independent character and now my fist, which was supposed to fight with IC, is not in base contact with any of the boyz. Does that mean he cannot attack this turn, or is he simply moved into base contact, or maybe considered as being in 2" of other fighting units?

No he can only attack the Ic..

models that were engaged with just one of the enemy units at the beginning of combat (before any model attacked) must attack that unit

 

2. Lets say that the boyz slaughtered my entire tactical squad and only my IC survived. Orcish IC has a powerclaw (lower initiative), but is not in base contact with my IC. Can he attack? Lets remember that he is treated as separate unit.

same as above

[DarkGuard]

But GC08, he wasn't engaged with just one of the enemy units, he was engaged with two. The key lies with the definition of "engaged", which reads as follows:

 

Units that have one or more models in base contact with enemies are said to 'locked in combat'. Within such units, the following models are said to be 'engaged' and must fight:

- Models in base contact with any enemy models.

- Models within 2" of at least one model in their unit that is in base contact with any enemy models.

 

Now you are right to say that models engaged with just one enemy unit in a multi assault has to attack that unit, but the power fist is engaged with two. He's engaged with the Ork IC because he's in base contact with him, but he's also engaged with the Ork Boyz unit because he's within 2" of a model in his unit that is in base contact with them. Therefore, under the rules in the rulebook he gets to choose which unit to attack.

 

Then we get to errata, which adds a third bullet point to the multi-combat rules, which reads as follows:

 

-Models that at the beginning of the combat (before any model attacked) were engaged with more than one enemy unit, but were in base contact with just one of the enemy units, must attack that unit.

 

As the power fist was in base contact with the Ork IC, he must attack that model, and can't attack the Boyz even if he were engaged. So in the case of the power fist, you're still right, but for a different reason.

 

You're completely 100% right for the Ork IC though, he was only engaged with one enemy unit. The power fist was engaged with two enemy units, but had to strike the one in base contact with him. If, for example, he hadn't been in base contact with any of the units, but engaged with both (so sitting behind a normal guy in base contact), then he could have switched targets. As for the Ork IC, the only way he's getting a choice is if he's in base contact with both the Tactical squad and the SM IC. Confusing stuff eh? :)