Dead Model Removal

[AbeSapien]

A tactical squad with attached captain charged my Grey Hunters. No problem.

Tactical squad and Grey Hunters fought with the Grey Hunters just getting the advantage. 3 dead marines to 2 dead space wolves.

The Captain had thunderhammer and storm shield. So attacked last.

I removed the two wolves in base contact with the captain. Now there is a problem.

My friend swears he saw a rule which says his captain can still make attacks because he was engaged with someone at the start of the assault and so can always attack that many people. Even if I had tactically removed models so he was no longer in base contact with anyone.

Now who is right? We looked and couldn't find the rule. I don't mind but we looked for ages and it was an important point in the game.

Has anybody seen this rule? Can you give me a page number because I certainly couldn't find one.

Thanks in advance

[Lord Azaghul]

Pretty sure you should have removed casualties from the rear (farest from combat) and your friend should stll be able to attack back. After all he's attacking your squad, not those two specific members of the tact squad.

[AbeSapien]

Page 39: removing casualties (assault)
"All of the rules for removing shooting casualties apply in close combat."

Page 24: Remove casualties (shooting)
"any model in the target unit can be hit, wounded and taken off as a casualty, even models that are completely out of sight"

From the rule book itself. Seems to back the wolves, can any body prove me wrong?

[Nabterayl]

It was absolutely fine for you to remove those two specific models (see page 39) rather than, say, two models from the back of the same squad. It doesn't have any impact on things, though.

Your friend is right that his captain was allowed to attack your grey hunters even though he was no longer in base to base contact with anybody. Read page 37, particularly the sentence, "It does not matter if all the enemies that they were engaged with have been killed - if a model was engaged at the start the [sic] fight (and is still alive when its turn to attack comes) it can still attack."

This is a change from 4th edition. The sequence now goes like this:
Each attacking unit makes its assault move.
Each defending unit makes its reaction move.
Determine which units are engaged with which units, following the rules on page 35. If a model is in base to base contact with one or more enemy models, it is engaged with those enemy models' units.
So here's what happened. After all assault moves and reaction moves were made, the captain (counting as his own unit for CC, per page 49) was in base-to-base contact with two of your grey hunters. That made him engaged with the entire grey hunters squad, not just the two models he was in contact with. In 5th edition, this is the only time you check who is engaged with who.

Thus, when the captain's turn came around, he was still engaged with your grey hunters, even though he was no longer in base-to-base with anybody. Because he was engaged with that unit, he was allowed to attack it, per page 37.

In 4th edition you checked who was engaged with who at every Initiative step. If this were 4th edition, by killing the two models in base-to-base with the captain, you would have left the captain unable to attack. In 5th edition that doesn't work because you only check who is engaged with who once, before any attacks are made.

[AbeSapien]

Excellent thanks for that. Not the answer I wanted but oh, well :rolleyes:

Thanks for the page number, some rules are hard to find and others hidden in blocks of text or in strange places.

[Old_Paladin]

Yup, like people have pointed out, Mr. Hammer can still attack that unit.
It's easy to think of him stepping up into the fight (infact, in warhammer fantasy; that's how they describe it).

[Duke]

In general Ilike that rules change from 4th ed. It was so irritating to have that happen all the time! but now we get to deal with new issues like wound allocation... does it ever end?

Duke

[MarshalAdamar]

I hated having all the models around my power fist removed so he couldn't attack every freakin time.

I'm happy that they changed it. I think it makes sooooooo much more sense than the Thunder hammer wielding space marine flailing wildly while is opponents dance just outside the ark with their fingers in their ears and their tongues out; as if the captain couldn’t just step forward and hit someone.

[RocketRollRebel]

Yeah I figured you still would be able to attack since strategic model removing was a thing of 4th edition that had been done away with in 5th edition I just didn't know where to find it in the 5th edition rules.