Consolidating after shots from a 3rd party kills one side in combat?

[Morg]

In a 4 way 1k king of the hill style game tonight we came up against a few interesting problems. To set the scene, a Haemonculi and his band of wracks jump from their crashed raider and charge into Vulcans command squad to fight them for the objective. Combat is a draw, it then follows the the Blood Angels turn; who have advanced a Baal & Dred up to the objective, a fallen Valkyrie. He moves the Baal around the side of the Valk to shoot into the melee and we randomise.

By this time combat is as stands: Dark Eldar: 1 Acothyst left (Wrack sarge equivelant)
Salamanders: Vulkan, wounded MM attack bike, 5 marines from a devestator team.

As you can see it was fighting tooth and nail by the last of the Salamanders to claim the valk, the Baal then unloads it assault cannon/heavy bolter and units are randomised - the last Wrack is blown apart and a Devestator goes down.

The problem is this: Do the Salamanders roll their consolidation the moment the Baal is done shooting, since the DE are now wiped out; or do the rolls happen at the end of the assault phase?

This mattered because the Dread wanted to put a melta shot into the attack bike, which would have consolidated out of sight around the Valk's side.

What say you BoLS? We d6'd it and the dice gods told us to roll the consolidation at the end of the assault phase as per usual. Sorry for the long post, bit of an unusual problem.

[FastEd]

Consolidation happens at the end of the assault phase, keeps it simpler. Screwing with the order of operations usually just causes more problems in the end.


Also, I dig the house rule for firing into combats your not involved in using randomization, but maybe that's because I also play WM.

[DarkLink]

Keep in mind that there are no rules whatsoever for anything other than one side vs one side battles in the BRB. If you run into any rules issues in games with more than two sides, then houserule it.

[Rapture]

I am pretty sure the OP is asking for opinion, not rules.

I favor the consolidation. When the combat ends, they try to scramble for cover. That makes more sense than just standing around.

[Mr.Pickelz]

i agree with rapture on this one, let them consolidate, they see the other forces shooting at them so they run for cover.

[ElCheezus]

I kind of see the units in combat being stunned by the fact that the opponent they were grappling with just got his head blowed off.

Is there a description of the consolidation move in the BRB? There are often small explanations of why a rule makes sense to them, and it might shed light on how to resolve it in larger games.

Of course, ultimately DarkLink is right. You're not strictly playing 40k anymore, so it's up to your group to fill the gaps.

[mstingray]

In my opinion I would let them consolidate D6" as soon as they're not engaged in combat anymore for they're probably thinking either they stole my kill!! (especially space wolves) or they're surprised in the swarm that is melee to find their opponents blown to pieces.

[Culven]

My opinion would be to finish the shooting and make any necessary Morale tests as normal. It doesn't make sense that the Blood Angels' shooting phase should be interrupted so that the targetted unit can run and hide.

[mathhammer]

Short answer is they don't consolidate.

1) You can only consolidate in the close combat phase and you were in the shooting phase.
2) In close combat phase you can only consolidate at the end of your combat, and there was no combat.

reread pg 40 - Consolidation

[SonicPara]

Since the fluff setting is 3rd party fire cutting down the Salamanders' enemies in the heat of close combat, why not an initiative test to decide if the now unengaged models are agile enough in both mind and body to react immediately by diving for cover? Here is how I would try and play it:

Baal cuts down the last Wrack and one Devastator. The engaged Salamanders, seeing their enemy cut down moments before exhanging blows, can only rely on their natural agility in processing what they are experiencing and what they should do next.

If you want to keep things simple and quick:

Baal kills last Wrack
Now unengaged Salamanders make an Initiative test in the same manner as a sweeping advance (use highest I in the unit)
If pass, they consolidate D6 inches. If fail, they don't consolidate at all.

If you want to get slightly more detailed (and IMO more fluffy) with the outcome then you could perhaps try this:

Baal kills last Wrack
Now unengaged Salamanders make Initiative tests as individual units (meaning ICs test separately from joined unit). Units that pass their Initiative test can not be engaged at their current position by the next unit to fire, while units that fail their test can be.
Next unit fires as it desires.
As long as one of the units in the freshly unengaged Salamanders (anchor unit or ICs) passed their preiously taken Initiative test, the entire unit can now consolidate D6 inches.

I know that is incredibly clumsy in text and would slow things down in the game but if you want to get extremely detailed then I think it would work. The idea behind it is that the higher initiative ICs will likely pass their test and therefore are fast enough to dive for safety while the lower initiative anchor unit may fail and be subject to that next unit's shooting. The reason why the entire unit can then consolidate after that next unit's shooting is both to maintain coherency and to illustrate that while slower then ICs, anchor units are still able to react in time to dive behind cover before other units in the enemy army shoot at them. Notice that this also allows for the opportunity of an anchor unit passing and an IC failing and being singled out for Instant Death. I would expect many to oppose such an idea but I think it works because the Salamanders are being surprised by a volley of fire and I feel that it is believable that an anchor unit and IC that have been surprised in such a manner aren't in the expected "meat-shield" formation that allows for such survivability in ICs. Also, such a process as what I have described would only ever been seen in games that involve three or more independent forces and the process would only be used in friendly games where everyone has decided on how they want to run it.

Like I said before, its clumsy and slow but I don't think its too complicated for us wargamers to grasp and it would really amp up the narrative part of such a game.

[Daemonette666]

In real life, the dreadnought would be shooting at the same time as trhe Baal Predator. I would let the dreadnought get its shot/s off first before the Salamanders consolidated.