Indirect fire question

[brother Vorn_GarDos]

Q. I played a game against astra and all their indirect units were rolling to hit 4+ (indirect fire). Is this possible ?

 

Q. A mortar team has BS of 5+. It decides to use indirect fire on a non visible target. Does it hit in a 4+ or 5+ or 6+?

[Lord_Ikka]

1. If the unit(s) have some way of getting a +2 modifier on their to Hit roll, then yes, they will be hitting on a 4+ (if the base to Hit would be a 5+). I know that the Take Aim order gives Ballistic Skill modifier of +1, so there would have to be another +1 modifier of either the Hit roll or Ballistic Skill. I'm not an IG player, so I don't know off-hand if there is any further way to boost either of those.

2. 6+, unless there are other modifiers present. The Indirect Fire keyword makes all rolls of 1-3 automatically miss, gives the target unit the Benefit of Cover, and gives the shooting unit a -1 to Hit. This is per page 7, Core Rules Updates version 1.7

[Dr_Ruminahui]

This is basically just what Lord_Ikka said, but in my own words - I hadn't noticed his post before doing mine (otherwise I wouldn't have bothered, as he covers everything I had to say).

 

A.  Yes, its possible, but I'm not familiar with Millitarum units, so can't say if they can do it.  Under the core rules, indirect fire gives a -1 to hit.  This, however, can be counteracted by gaining a bonus to hit from elsewhere.  So, if the indirectly firing unit had BS 3+ or BS 4+ and a plus to hit from somewhere (say a stratagem or the heavy key word) then it could be hitting on a 4+

 

A.  Normally, that mortar team would hit on a 6+ if it were firing out of line of sight.  That said, the mortar likely has the heavy keyword, giving it +1 to hit if it didn't move, which would cancel out the -1 and let it hit on a 5+.  If it had another +1 from somewhere (say, a stratagem or a special rule) that would let it hit on a 4+ - your total to hit modifier can't be greater than +1/-1, but that still allows you to benefit from all to hit modifiers below that cap (so, the first +1 would cancel out the -1, then the model could benefit from the next +1).

Edited 9 hours ago by Dr_Ruminahui

[DemonGSides]

All the above are true in the general sense, but as an IG player, let me get a little more specific;

 

Cadian Heavy Weapons Teams have this as their statlines;

 

Mortar has Heavy, so it gets +1 to hit from not moving, and they most likely buffed it with a nearby Officer, so 4+ is not crazy.

Since it's indirect, it could never get BETTER than the 4+.   But IG have plenty of ways to get +1 to hit, so having multiple stacks of that is also relatively easy.