RE: [Epic] 40K/IG infantry Detachments

From: David Lado <lado_at_...>
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 15:20:40 -0400 (EDT)

>> > This is not a flame, but what you said is not entirely correct.
>> > The bike detachment could charge the farther unit as long as the bikes
>> > didn't move past the nearer unit.
>> > Ex: Enemy A
>> > |
>> > Bikes---------------Enemy B
>> > In this case the bikes could assault Enemy B even though it is farther
>>away.
>>
>> But then they're moving past Enemy A. When moving
>> in the assault phase, you must move towards an enemy det.
>> It can be any enemy det., as long as you're not moving away
>> from unengaged dets. In your example the bikes are moving
>> away from det. A.
>
> While this stacks the odds against you, can you send one bike
>out to engage Enemy A, and then send the rest at enemy B?

>OK, it's official I have to bring my books to work if I am going to read
>these
>e-mails. Mark your question depends on the wording of the assualt move.
>Do you declare an assualt against a specific detachment or just declare that
>the unit is assualting and go from there. I don't know because as I said no
>books.
> Scott, I see your point and I am going to go over the sections again,
>but I think the problem is in our different interpretation of "going past"
>the enemy. It seems that you think of it as moving away from the enemy
>while we decided that it was moving toward then away from the enemy. I'll
>reread the rules sections tonight and either agree with you or insult you
>endlessly tomorrow.

I've got the rules on hand, so....

>From page 107 in the battles book (the figure is a crude reproduction)

MOVING *PAST* IN THE ASSAULT PHASE. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Simply put,
it means you can't deliberately move further away from the closest enemy
when you make an Assault move. However, you don't have to move towards
the nearest enemy detachment... OK! OK! Here's a diagram.

                              Kult of Speed
                                    ^
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
Bad Moonz --------------------------+-------------------------
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
                                    |
                      Imperial Fists Space Marines

The Space Marines can move towards the Kult of Speed, even though the
Orks (Bad Moonz) are closer, because the Space Marines are still moving
closer to the enemy. However, once the Space Marines reach the dotted
line they cannot move further towards the Kult because they will be
moving away from the Orks, and assaulting units can't move further
away from (ie, past) the enemy.

The exception to this ('cause there's always exceptions) is when enemy
units have been engaged in close combat already by other units. Then
you can move past them, which is just as well because you could never
move to engage other opponents otherwise.

(end)

So, in the intial example, the bikes could not engage enemy B if A is
unengaged. Some or all of the bikes could move past enemy A provided
that someone engages all the units in detachment A; it might be part
of the bike detachment or or units from a different detachment.

Note also that if detachment A is widely scattered, it might be possible
that some units will be closer to the bikes than detachment B, while
others are farther away. In this case, only the closer units need to be
engaqed, not the whole detachment.

Therefore, in reference to the second question, YES, part of the bike
detachment can engage the units in detachment A (even at poor odds)
while the rest try to overwhelm B. Those who have played other systems
(miniature and board games) commonly call this a "soak-off" or
"pinning" attack (i.e. taking a low odds attack in on spot to get a
high odds attack somewhere else). It is even used in real life.

I would also assume (though it doesn't explicitly say so) that if detachment
A is in terrain which is impassible to the bikes (a building, frex), that
the bikes could effectively ignore them (rather than circling the building
like a bunch of indians in a western). You could however, require to the
bikes to run up and firefight detachment A, but I personally don't think
that is the intent of the rules (of course, I'm just guessing).

David
Received on Wed Apr 30 1997 - 19:20:40 UTC