Tau supporting fire?????

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

okay so in the assault phase you declare a charege and resolve overwatch and then declare another charge ect ect. if a unit is being multi charged when does the tau supporting fire rule come into effect? are they able to only fire at the first unit? or are they able to choose to forgo shooting and fire at the 2nd charge? because the way i read the assault rules you deal with each charge individually. so if the first unit engaged in assault but the tau player choose not to overwatch when that unit is charged again is supporting fire allowed to kick in even though that unit is no longer able to overwatch?

the break down went like this.

berserker unit declared charge on drone controller and unit of drones. units with in 6 did not fire at the unit of berserkers only the drone controler unit did.

2nd charge is declared by a full strength legionaire squad. taue unit with drones could not overwath as they were already engaged in combat but tau used supporting fire to butcher the unit as the other units with in 6inches decided to overwatch on the 2nd charge.


Was this done right? was this the way things should have been done? to me the whole using a smaller squad or a throw away unit to eat overwatch fails if that is the case and suddenly tau supporting fire can work when ever it feels like working?

[Nabterayl]

Sounds like that was done right. Supporting Fire is not contingent upon being the charge target being able to fire Overwatch. As page 32 of the Tau codex says:


When an enemy unit declares a charge, all friendly models with this special rule in units within 6" of the charging unit'
target can choose to fire Overwatch as if they were also targets of the charge.

Thus, the question to ask is not, "Can the charge target fire Overwatch?" but rather, "If the Supporting Fire unit were the target of the charge, could it fire Overwatch?" Assuming the units that declared Supporting Fire against the second charge were otherwise allowed to Overwatch - they hadn't fired Overwatch previously that phase, they weren't locked in close combat themselves - then they were absolutely allowed to Overwatch against the second charge, even though the charge target itself could not.

[chicop76]

I am away from my book and haven't played in like 3 weeks but this is what I remember.

First you have to declare all assaualts. Declare assault 1, 2, 3, 4

Next if you decides to multi assault with unit one you have to declare primary and secondary targets. If 2 and 3 decide to assault the same target, and four decide to assault another target.

First you go to unit one. Since one is assaulting two units they both can fire overwatch at it, also any other units within 6" of those two units can overwatch as well. When squad two and three assault you have to move two or three first. Let's say two goes first which means the unit it's assaulting and any unit within 6" can overwatch it. Now if they choose not to overwatc they can't shoot at three since two have the unit tied in combat, but other units within 6" can overwatch and shoot at three.

What's important to remember you can only overwatch once per unit.

But to answer your question is yes they can do that. If fact I do that a lot. The reason being is due to you still assaulting which will trigger overwatch. I pulled it off in 3 tournaments so far with 2 opponents questioning this and the ruling went to me ding this.

[daboarder]

No chico!

You declare, overwatch then chwrge move each assualting unit one at a time. Only once the unit has declared and then moved do you continue to the next unit

Furthermore the tau rule DOES NOT lift the restriction on o ly being able to overwatch once.

If tau units support fire against one unit they are then unable to support fire at another unit. Nor are they able to overwatch if they themselves are then charged.

[dirkspair]

that is correct, a charging unit may save its over watch fire to shoot at a more dangerous unit about to charge them, but if the first unit manages to make it into CC then that chance is gone because a unit may not fire over watch while engaged in HTH combat.

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

it comes down to one of those stupid order of event answer's. Just trying to find ways to mitigate the impact of overwatch to make it so that i actually have bodies left on the table after overwatch. watching a unit get annhilated from overwatch kinds leaves you with the feeling of well bs. So Attempting to find ways to mitigate overwatch and the randomness that assault has become and struggling with it. Just makes me more inclined to put chaos in a box leave all my forgeworld berserkers in a dark room and play gunline guard :/

[Daemonette666]

I am away from my book and haven't played in like 3 weeks but this is what I remember.

First you have to declare all assaualts. Declare assault 1, 2, 3, 4



The rest of what you said, Dasboarder covered, but this part is also wrong.

On page 21 and 22 (specifically 22) of the core rule book, it says that you resolve charges and overwatch in the following manner.

1. pick a unit to declare a charge, whether it be against a single unit or a multiple unit charge.

2. Units being charged, and those with the support fire rule that are not locked in close combat, or have not fired overwatch this turn can then elect to overwatch fire - this need not be declared, but can be done one at a time until the enemy unit is killed off, or you want to hold supporting fire for the next possible unit about to declare a charge.

3. Charge distance is rolled - charging through cover, dangerous terrain, and charging through other enemy models is covered on pages 21 and 22 in more detail about this sub phase.

4. Measure distance move models (covered on page 21, or else if not in range, the charge fails.

5. Declare the next unit to charge (page 22), and what is the target unit/s they are charging repeat steps 2 - 5 until you have finished declaring charges, then go on to the fight sub-phase.

Being a Chaos Player, if you had any Rhinos, Landraiders, Defilers, or other CSM tanks with Dirge Casters within 6" of the unit being charged, or any units that normally could support fire, these would have been great to reduce the tau overwatch. CSM codex is the only one so far that can stop enemy from overwatch firing and support firing (to a degree). If you have it, and it is not wrecked/blown up, then use it to your best advantage. But you know the Tau will just target the tanks to stop just such a thing from occurring.

[Nabterayl]

I think you had a good strategy there, and your opponent apparently was smart enough not to fall for it.

The key thing to remember about Supporting Fire, in my opinion, is that it does not increase the total amount of Overwatch the enemy can potentially make. If he has three units all within 6" of each other, he gets three rounds of Overwatch. You can mitigate the impact of that in much the same way as you mitigate any Overwatch. You could send in a sacrificial unit first - which it sounds like you did, and your opponent was canny enough to guess you were going to be sending another one, and therefore held some of his Supporting Fire Overwatch back. To mitigate that, you could charge more than one unit in the supporting matrix, since any unit locked in combat can't fire Overwatch anymore. It takes more units to do, but it's a more foolproof way of making sure the unit you really want to get through doesn't bear the brunt of multiple units' worth of Overwatch. Tau, as you know, are designed to be resistant to single-thrust charges. Against multiple incoming charges at once, they're not much better off than anybody else.

[daboarder]

D666 basically said what I was trying to. But typing on a phone at the snow aint easy

[chicop76]

.

What's important to remember you can only overwatch once per unit

.

I just quoted myself. Like I said earlier you can overwatch only once. Well each individual unit can only overwatch once.

Hmmmm. You still basicaly said what I said. The only real differance is I didn't mention the assault roll. Still it's the same thing.

Cow cros the road and go to the barn.
The cow walked across the road and entered the barn.

One is a bit more clearer, but it is still saying the same thing.

If you decide not to overwatch a unit and it contacts the unit you can't over watch the other unit, unless you are tau which another unit can over watch a unit with 6".

[chicop76]

Page. 20 has the assault phase summary, declare charge than resolve overwatch.

Pg.27 cover multiple combats
Declare charge
You must declare primary and secondary targets first

Disordered Chargea: - attack charge bonus, - furious charge

Resolve Multiple Overwatch

It's the same thing I said earlier. This is more to the point. I think the confusion may have come from me stating you have to declare all charges before you roll charge range, while in the summary you do them one at a time as per step 5. That is the only differance to what I said.

I have the habit doing it all at once for several reasons, quicker game for one. It doesn't change anything. All it does is hurt you really since unit a can die to overwatch, which unit b could had helped assaulted unit a's target. In a tournament I do it one at a time, in general play I do it all at once, if facing a non tau army or a weak overwatch army I also do it all at once in tournaments. It hurt the assulting player so not to many people will complain you did so to speed up the game.

As a side note when I am saying I am declaring all at once, I am just declaring all at once, basically all my other units is skipping step one and following 2-5. I use tokens which help me keep track.