Moving in melee

[Rowland]

Folks,

i’m trying to understand the rules of melee. I’ve seen a lot about charging and piling in. My understanding is that you try to get everything in base to base contact and you can fight two rows deep. 
What if I want to break my line and have a character wade into the melee. Can I at some point split my front lines and make a gap or do I have to wait until figures are killed?

falling back seems to say you have to move out of engagement. 

Edited April 17 by Rowland

[DemonGSides]

56 minutes ago, Rowland said:

Folks,

i’m trying to understand the rules of melee. I’ve seen a lot about charging and piling in. My understanding is that you try to get everything in base to base contact and you can fight two rows deep. 
What if I want to break my line and have a character wade into the melee. Can I at some point split my front lines and make a gap or do I have to wait until figures are killed?

falling back seems to say you have to move out of engagement. 

 

In 10th, when you charge, you need to be able to get at least one model within 1" of the target of the charge (Base to base is for the upcoming 11th).  Then you move whatever your roll was all models so that they are within coherency.

When you say "Break my line", what does that mean?  When you finish a round of combat, models are removed and you consolidate if you fully killed the unit.  Otherwise, you don't get to move again until the Pile-in phase, unless, like you said, you Fall Back.  If you look at the rules for "Move Units" in the rulebook, the first square says "Unless that UNIT is within Engagement Range of any enemy models, it can make a Normal Move, or Advance, or Remain Stationary." I capitalized Units because that basically means that as long as any single model in a unit qualifies, the full unit counts.  Which means that since you're in engagement range, you can't make normal moves and go on to the second dot, that describes your choices of staying still or falling back.  Falling back is usually a bad thing in most cases, unless you've got mitigating characters or strategems, as it prevents you from shooting or advancing/charging.

So the engaged unit's next chance to move would be during the next Fight phase, where you get to Pile In again and move all your non-based models closer to the closest enemy models.  There's some chicanery that can go on here if you've got a lot of enemies nearby or if you charged weird, but those are less of a concern as you're learning the basics.  I think this pile-in move is where you would get the idea of "Break my line"; as each player removes their own models as they are killed, and since coherency is brutal if you fall out of it, there's very few situations where an opponent is going to pull the middle of their unit which would allow you to split the enemy line like in a more historical style of breaking a formation.  Precision killing a leader might cause something like that tho, if they're keeping them centered in a unit.

 

Hope that answers your question! If not, happy to follow-up.

[Rowland]

Thanks DgS,

I had just been reading comments about the base to base two deep thing and wondered if another unit could make the 2nd rank but with 28mm bases the second unit isn’t within engagement range.

So I’m thinking of a move where I would want to send a weaker unit in to hold and fight another unit with the intention of bringing up an HQ or character unit.  
I forgot about unit coherence and it seems that new units have to join beside the currently engaged unit or make moves to the flanks or rear.
Of course if I ensured I broke my 20 strong unit into 2x10 at the start I could still move them as one but consolidate them leaving a gap, perhaps.

So lets say I attack a 10 strong unit with a swarm of 20 nids how does a strong smaller unit join the fray?  I’m imagining my Swarm Lord behind a swarm of hermagaunts.
 

[DemonGSides]

6 hours ago, Rowland said:

Thanks DgS,

I had just been reading comments about the base to base two deep thing and wondered if another unit could make the 2nd rank but with 28mm bases the second unit isn’t within engagement range.

So I’m thinking of a move where I would want to send a weaker unit in to hold and fight another unit with the intention of bringing up an HQ or character unit.  
I forgot about unit coherence and it seems that new units have to join beside the currently engaged unit or make moves to the flanks or rear.
Of course if I ensured I broke my 20 strong unit into 2x10 at the start I could still move them as one but consolidate them leaving a gap, perhaps.

So lets say I attack a 10 strong unit with a swarm of 20 nids how does a strong smaller unit join the fray?  I’m imagining my Swarm Lord behind a swarm of hermagaunts.

 

Basically when you initially charge with the small swarm, you don't want to fully wrap around the unit; and if you do, making sure you take casualties from whatever direction the oncoming elite unit is coming from would give them a gap.  You'll want to leave a little space, so that you can follow up with your next charge.  Pile ins could change this though, but thats part of the game.

Once your models touch base to base, they are basically locked to where they are unless you fall back.  So the other option is to make the charge, hold for the turn, take some losses on both turns, and then your next turn fallback with whatever remains of the Gaunt squad, and then charge in with the Swarm lord if there's not enough room for him to get in.  If there is room, then just charge as normal, and your Swarmlord will swing first (Unless the opposing unit has Fight's First), and hopefully do enough damage to either wipe the squad or let your remaining gaunts (If you stayed in combat) to finish the fight after their response.

 

If both units are charging at the same time, just be smart about how you order the charges/end the movement and you should be fine.

Edited April 17 by DemonGSides