Shooting at Characters - Wish to Clarify "nearest visible"

[SanovichKai]

Hey! 

I have a situation that came up about rules involving shooting at characters.
I understand the basics and read the FAQ, etc. but this was odd coming from 7th.

So I had a squad of GK paladins already in melee with a big blob of ork boyz. Start of my turn, to their right, I moved up a squad of GK marines about midway towards an ork painboy. My squad was about 6 inches away from the blob (in melee) and the painboy was about 8 inches further up. 

Now the issue occurred with shooting. If the painboy was the only viable target for my squad (all other infantry, etc were out of range besides this character), can they shoot at him? The thing is, melee isn't described as "locked in" anymore - with the whole 1" combat scenario. The rules state that a character cannot be shot at unless it is the nearest visible unit. The boyz were in melee with my paladins - but they are closer and visible.

 

Does this mean that characters are protected even if the nearest visible squad is in combat? So in other words, my shooting viable squad just doesn't have any targets this turn since they can't fire into enemies in combat with my friendlies? 

 

Very odd - I find this really influences gameplay vs mass model count armies. 

Thoughts?

[Eddie Orlock]

Does this mean that characters are protected even if the nearest visible squad is in combat?

Yes. The blanket protection for characters from being targeted by shooting is pretty powerful.

 

As an aside, there's no such protection from being singled out and charged.

[Adeptus]

Was this addressed in an FAQ somewhere? Seems a bit off that a unit can't shoot at all just because the closest enemy happens to be engaged in combat.

[Eddie Orlock]

Was this addressed in an FAQ somewhere?

Why yes it was.

 

Page two has this very question and the answer is a flat no.