Must fire all weapons, "unless otherwise stated"

[Diagramdude]

In the first paragraph of the shooting rules it says "Unless otherwise stated, a model must fire all of its weapons."

 

Does that mean the model has to fire all of its weapons, including hunter-killers and other one use only weapons, unless a RULE states otherwise, or unless the PLAYER states otherwise?

 

Basic example: Predator has 4 lascannons and a hunter killer. Is the player required to fire all four lascannons and the hunter killer, or can the PLAYER otherwise state that he only wants to fire one of the sponson lascannons for whatever reason, and therefore only resolve one of the lascannons.

 

Does "unless otherwise stated" refer to the rules of the weapon profile, like a Manticore can only fire one rocket per turn, or does it refer to the controlling player verbally stating which weapons he wants to fire?

 

This is especially important for hunter killer missiles. Depending on how this is ruled, Hunter Killers may be REQUIRED to shoot the first time the vehicle shoots.

[BluejayJunior]

That statement is under the "Choose a unit to shoot with" section. So it may only pertain to having to finish shooting with the whole unit before choosing another unit. But the way it is written, I can see how it would apply both ways. 

I'm pretty sure the "unless otherwise stated" is referring to rules that prevent a model from firing all it's weapons. Such as shooting with a pistol preventing you from firing with non pistol weapons, or tau units that shoot markerlights being unable to shoot other weapons. 

Looking at that rule and the rule for "choose a ranged weapon" it seems to imply that a model must shoot all its weapons (although it doesn't outright say that). There is nothing in the rules that says a model may choose to not shoot one of its weapons. It could definitely use some clarity, especially in regards to one shot weapons like the Hunter Killer missile. 

[Diagramdude]

Grammatically it seems that it could be interpreted that the player can state otherwise.

 

"I hereby state that I am only going to fire one of my four lascannons."

[BluejayJunior]

I would never read it like that. I think it is quite a leap to reach that meaning. There are much easier and more clear ways to word it if that was the intention. Especially given that it says "a model MUST fire all its weapons." That "must" implies that it is required. Unless there is something that supersedes that rule. Nothing implies that you can state otherwise. If it said, "Unless you/the player state otherwise" then you could choose not to fire all the weapons. 

[Diagramdude]

Please point out where it says "a model MUST fire all its weapons"

 

1. Choose Unit to Shoot With

In your Shooting phase you can shoot with models armed with ranged weapons. First, you must pick one of your units to shoot with. You may not pick a unit that Advanced or Fell Back this turn, or a unit that is within 1" of an enemy unit. Unless otherwise stated, each model in the unit attacks with all of the ranged weapons it is armed with. After all of the unit’s models have fired, you can choose another unit to shoot with, until all eligible units that you want to shoot with have done so.

 

EDIT: I now realize I am the one who claimed it said "MUST" in my initial post... I believe I was mistaken. Now that I am reading the rule verbatim there is no "MUST" and that makes me lean even further toward the conclusion that the PLAYER may otherwise state what weapons his model fires.

[Mr. Shine]

You get into trouble if you start claiming, "unless otherwise stated" allows a player to make those statements. It's obvious the statement otherwise must come from the rules and not a player.

 

For example, the 'Re-rolls' sidebar on page 178 tells us that when re-rolling a result made from several dice combined, unless otherwise stated we must re-roll all of those dice. This statement is meaningless if a player can just state otherwise.

 

Or the rules for controlling objective markers; unless otherwise stated a player does so if they have more models within range of the objective marker than their opponent. Again meaningless if we consider a player able to simply state otherwise to override it.

 

The rule is clear that firing models fire all their weapons when doing so. Yes, nobody plays it that way for one use only weapons, but it should be abundantly clear otherwise.

[Diagramdude]

Your last paragraph is precisely the issue. I understand your logic perfectly, however, if that is so, then hunter killers must be fired the first time the vehicle shoots, same for tau smart missiles, and a lot of other one use weapons.

[BlackTriton]

yes, rules as written you must shoot all one shot weapon the first time you fire.

 

this is obviously not the intention of the rules and nobody should enforce it that way.

 

its a good idea to bring this up to GW, getting such a basic rule sorted sbould be a priority.

[TheWolfLord]

yes, rules as written you must shoot all one shot weapon the first time you fire.

this is obviously not the intention of the rules and nobody should enforce it that way.

its a good idea to bring this up to GW, getting such a basic rule sorted sbould be a priority.

Yet when it was raised on the 40k Facebook page the Community team agreed to send the query to the rules team but said they were surprised at the query as the rule was very clear.

 

While not the rules team they are aware of the how the HQ staff play the game so it suggests they play it as written.

[TheWolfLord]

Your last paragraph is precisely the issue. I understand your logic perfectly, however, if that is so, then hunter killers must be fired the first time the vehicle shoots, same for tau smart missiles, and a lot of other one use weapons.

I’ve been involved in many of the FB discussions regarding this and the notion that ‘unless otherwise stated’ is a players choices seems very strange to me.

 

As said above there are many rules that stated you MUST do something unless otherwise stated, the player then being able to state the opposite makes a mockery of those rules.

 

Also if it is down to a player stating otherwise, it never actually says which player so if my opponent says they are not shooting all of their weapons I can then say they are. Therefore it can only be resolved with a dice roll, it’s a crazy situation if you go down that route.

[Claws and Effect]

So, rules as written you MUST fire both parts of a combi-weapon every time you shoot?

 

Yay. 50% chance of your combi-plasma guy dying when you shoot at Alaitoc Rangers, because as written you have no choice.

[Mr. Shine]

So, rules as written you MUST fire both parts of a combi-weapon every time you shoot?

 

Yay. 50% chance of your combi-plasma guy dying when you shoot at Alaitoc Rangers, because as written you have no choice.

 

No. RAW you must attack with the weapon, but that does not equate to choosing both profiles. Simply choosing one profile to attack with will suffice for fulfilling the statement in 'Choose Unit to Shoot With'.

 

More importantly though, RAW does not have to be games as played. Like, this is an internet discussion about the rules of a game of toy soldiers, the rules for which we know are entirely fallible. Almost nobody plays it this way and it just happens to be the latest flavour of the month Facebook/B&C/Dakka discussion for the odd edgelord to get overly excited about.

 

EDIT: And for the avoidance of doubt, I'm certainly not calling anyone here an edgelord; rather it's a criticism of those who would actually be militantly insistent on this kind of ridiculousness for actual games.

[Lysere]

 

So, rules as written you MUST fire both parts of a combi-weapon every time you shoot?

 

Yay. 50% chance of your combi-plasma guy dying when you shoot at Alaitoc Rangers, because as written you have no choice.

 

No. RAW you must attack with the weapon, but that does not equate to choosing both profiles. Simply choosing one profile to attack with will suffice for fulfilling the statement in 'Choose Unit to Shoot With'.

 

More importantly though, RAW does not have to be games as played. Like, this is an internet discussion about the rules of a game of toy soldiers, the rules for which we know are entirely fallible. Almost nobody plays it this way and it just happens to be the latest flavour of the month Facebook/B&C/Dakka discussion for the odd edgelord to get overly excited about.

 

EDIT: And for the avoidance of doubt, I'm certainly not calling anyone here an edgelord; rather it's a criticism of those who would actually be militantly insistent on this kind of ridiculousness for actual games.

 

 

In all rule discussions it is important to remember that if you played strict RAW then you can't actually fire assault weapons after advancing, and yet no one actually plays it that way. RAW is still a good basis for discussion but it's no longer the ironclad way to play as GW has made clear this edition.

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

 

 

So, rules as written you MUST fire both parts of a combi-weapon every time you shoot?

 

Yay. 50% chance of your combi-plasma guy dying when you shoot at Alaitoc Rangers, because as written you have no choice.

 

No. RAW you must attack with the weapon, but that does not equate to choosing both profiles. Simply choosing one profile to attack with will suffice for fulfilling the statement in 'Choose Unit to Shoot With'.

 

More importantly though, RAW does not have to be games as played. Like, this is an internet discussion about the rules of a game of toy soldiers, the rules for which we know are entirely fallible. Almost nobody plays it this way and it just happens to be the latest flavour of the month Facebook/B&C/Dakka discussion for the odd edgelord to get overly excited about.

 

EDIT: And for the avoidance of doubt, I'm certainly not calling anyone here an edgelord; rather it's a criticism of those who would actually be militantly insistent on this kind of ridiculousness for actual games.

 

 

In all rule discussions it is important to remember that if you played strict RAW then you can't actually fire assault weapons after advancing, and yet no one actually plays it that way. RAW is still a good basis for discussion but it's no longer the ironclad way to play as GW has made clear this edition.

 

You mean besides the fact that Assault weapons specify that you can?

[Mr. Shine]

You mean besides the fact that Assault weapons specify that you can?

The RAW argument is that step 1 of the Shooting Sequence tells us you may not pick a unit that Advanced or Fell Back that turn, so you can't even pick the unit to get to the point where the Assault weapon rules tells us a model so armed can fire it even if it Advanced that turn.

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

 

You mean besides the fact that Assault weapons specify that you can?

The RAW argument is that step 1 of the Shooting Sequence tells us you may not pick a unit that Advanced or Fell Back that turn, so you can't even pick the unit to get to the point where the Assault weapon rules tells us a model so armed can fire it even if it Advanced that turn.

 

Which falls over when you consider the section of weapon types (and I mean the entire section, not just the specific weapon types).

[Mr. Shine]

Not really following your point for lack of reference to what specifically supports it, buuut it's entirely beside the point of this topic, so...

[Diagramdude]

So can I "otherwise state" that I am holding off on my hunter killers turn 1 or am I required to fire them? That is the crux of the debate for me.

[Eddie Orlock]

In all rule discussions it is important to remember that if you played strict RAW then you can't actually fire assault weapons after advancing, and yet no one actually plays it that way.

There's a qualitative difference between that and this.

 

 

Assault weapons have rules passages that fairly clearly imply design intent to work in the manner we're accustomed to, and would otherwise be non-functional.

 

 

One Shot weapons, however, could still function in the game even if they we're always required to be unleashed in the opening salvo.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

So can I "otherwise state" that I am holding off on my hunter killers turn 1 or am I required to fire them? That is the crux of the debate for me.

 

As discussed by Mr. Shine above, there are considerable rules implications (see http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/348181-must-fire-all-weapons-unless-otherwise-stated/?p=5105717) for interpreting the rules "otherwise state" as being a choice of the player, rather than a countervailing rule.  As such, I prefer the latter interpretation to the former.  If they had intended it to be the player who stated, one would expect the writers to state such, rather than use words which elsewhere in the rules indicate that something is mandatory unless another rule specifies otherwise.

 

Now, why GW decided to put in a (as far as I know, new to this edition) rule that requires models to shoot with all or none of their weapons is unclear.  Certainly its doing so has implications in regard to 1 shot weapons, which might not have been considered when drafting the shooting rules.

[Eddie Orlock]

Now, why GW decided to put in a (as far as I know, new to this edition) rule that requires models to shoot with all or none of their weapons is unclear.

GW has for some time now had a trend in rule implementation to attempt to prevent players from 'pulling their punches'.

 

Way, way, back, circa third, or so, there was specific rules that allowed, amongst other things, for terminators to 'turn off' their power fists for a round. The case in favour was that it would let them get the drop on things like guard lieutenants with powerfists. What it defacto allowed was a variety of of choppy, yet fragile, troops to carefully gauge just how much to blenderise the guardian squad they were engaged with such that there'd be one pitiful guardian left to punch back whose presence would prevent the assault unit from being exposed to retributive fire. This was decried as a mixture of anti-thematic and rather cheesy. We know this to be true as the studio itself has admitted as much in various White Dwarf articles in the period and shortly there after. So, for over a decade now we've seen various incarnations of rules intended to prevent this kind of abuse.

 

So, it could be a measure of blind future proofing against the possible case where it would be to a player's disadvantage to finish off an enemy unit during their shooting phase. Perhaps they intend to charge the remnant to get additional movement on a unit? Not that splitting fire couldn't usually achieve that end anyway.

 

 

So, while all this recollection of design drift is all very tangential, it is suggestive that the notion that you can't restrain fire other than to not pick the unit in the first place is deliberate design intent.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yeah, I'm aware that there have been rules for quite a while requiring parties to go "all in" in melee - it was first in a FAQ that models had to use all their attacks in melee and couldn't "hold back", then in the rules themselves.

 

This is the first time such a rules has existed for firing, though. And I'm not sure the same kind of potential "abuse" exists for shooting as with melee, especially since you can split fire and morale tests are no longer at the end of the phase.

 

Now, GW has every right to create such a requirement, but it is unclear of whether they turned their mind to how it would effect 1 shot weapons.  As is evidenced by this thread, many feel that the intent was not to have such weapons covered by the "all weapons" restrictions.  Myself, I'm not so certain, and would likely play it RAW unless my opponent indicated a preference to ignore the rule.  I will admit that the fact that one shot weapons appear to be a lot less common this edition does play into my thinking.