Rules musings

Played my third game of Warhammer 40k with my 1500p Imperial Fists army today. We never did finish (2on2 with a total of 3000 points a side) but I'm pretty sure by now that the two razorbacks I have are not even remotely paying for themselves. That and assault marines are pretty tame against Genestealers (auch!).

One thing that struck me though was a rule interpretation that I found a bit odd. I've read about others running into this, but I didn't really have the opportunity (or will) to discuss it at the time. On top of that it was to our opponents disadvantage to interpret the rules that way.

To break it down. The Genestealers charge my Assault Squad and funny enough three of the marines survive and make their leadership test (Stubborn!). In our turn a Tau squad (Farsight and friends) charges into the fray. Looking over the situation I comment that only one Genestealer is situated so it can only attack my Marines, the rest can attack the Tau. To my surprise everyone around the table then agreed that the Genestealers could only attack the Marines!

Obviously they can attack anyone they want, as long as that squad has at least one model in base to base with it. To support my interpretation I steer my eyes towards the FAQ:


Page 41 – Multiple Combats, Attacking. A third bullet point should be added, as follows:
• Models that at the beginning of the combat (before any model attacked) were engaged with more than one enemy unit, but were in base contact with just one of the enemy units, must attack that unit.
Page 41 – Multiple Combats, Attacking. In all three bullet points, the word ʻcombatʼ will be changed
to ʻround of combatʼ.

Q: For multiple combats there are two extra rules under the heading ʻAttackingʼ. For these rules, at what point is “at the beginning of the combat”? (p41) A: It is after defenders react when you pick the combat but before any attacks have been rolled.

Ta ta! At the beginning of combat (i.e. after defenders react) the Genestealers can choose to attack anyone they want, as long as they are close enough (with one only within 2" of a model in B2B with the Marines but not the Tau). So Matt if you are reading this, three things. Bring all the Dark Angel veterans on Sunday and I'll put them together and paint them, Friday I will work on the Vespid (including basing this time:)), and let me know if you agree/disagree with my interpretation.