Here's the thread. I feel like I should do some sort of Hunger Games/Gladiator intro with some sort of Katniss/fire/flame-war reference, but nothing is coming to me.


Please try to keep this as a general discussion. I know the Krieg army list precipitated a lot of this discussion and is viewed as a particular source of problems. However, these situations will apply to Ork Forts, intermingled formations, a WE that is attacked in FF even though there are screening units in front of it, and so on. We need to come up with solid, general answers that treat formations as farily as possible across the board.

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Q: Can units countercharge over friendly units?
A: Countercharging units follow the normal movement rules with respect to that. Armored vehicles can move over friendly infantry, an intermingled Warhound titan could step over friendly AVs and so on.

Q: The countercharge rules say you must countercharge directly towards the nearest enemy unit. What happens if the direct path to that unit is blocked by impassable terrain or friendly units?
A: A countercharging unit may move around impassable terrain and friendly units, as long as it is attempting to take the shortest possible path to an enemy unit. Note, this should be kept in the spirit of the "closest enemy" rule and not applied loosely in an attempt to bypass nearby enemies.

Q: If a war engine can move over friendly units, that means it can move past friendly units to barge the enemy, correct?
A: Yes.

Q: What happens if a war engine can only move part of the way over a friendly unit? Can the friendly unit be "barged" out of the way like an enemy unit?
A: No. The war engine has to move according to the movement rules. If it cannot completely cross the friendly unit for any reason, it is prevented from taking the move.

Q: If, during a countercharge, my war engine barges an enemy unit in base contact with a friendly unit, what happens? Is the enemy unit barged out of base contact? Is the friendly unit dragged along (effectively "barged" as well)?
A: Since countercharge distance is limited, war engine models are quite large and the WE must abide by all the normal countercharge restrictions (countercharge the nearest enemy, base contact if they enter ZoC, must completely cross any allied units, etc.) the chances of this being a legal move is very small. In most cases, there will not be enough distance for the WE to barge the enemy to an extent that would really cause problems (e.g a Warhound titan with a 10cm countercharge and a 40mm base could cross only 6cm of combined distance and unit size, so even if everyone was in base contact, the amount of movement caused would be minimal).

However, if it happens, the units remain in base contact and all units are shifted as little as possible to make that happen.

1) Move the War Engine, ensuring the entire move is legal. Only enemy units count for stopping the WE's ability to barge.
2) Place the enemy unit per the barging rules, as close to its original position as possible and back into base contact if possible.
3) Adjust the friendly unit's position the minimum amount needed to maintain base contact with the enemy unit that was barged.

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Obviously, the last FAQ is going to be the most controversial. I think it will be fine, even though it might jiggle some friendly units around. Any wonkiness should be minimal. For example, the absolute largest shift I can think of is this...

Warhound
Friendly>Enemy (both on 20mm bases)

Touching on corners, the Warhound would have to move about 5cm for its base to cross the Friendly completely (40mm square, on a slight angle), plus 2cm to cross the enemy unit before before the Enemy unit has to move. That's 3cm of "drag", some of which could be absorbed by rotating the stands so the corners touched, leaving about a 2cm shift for the friendly. And, of course, if either of the infantry units were on long bases, simply rotating them would allow them to touch and leave them more or less in place.

If you had a ton of units crammed into the space (like with Krieg), you might end up having to do a bunch of small shifts to maintain base contact, possibly even pushing some of the friendly units backwards to make room for enemy units that were barged behind the WE. As long as the WE move is legal, though, that should remain minimal.

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Edit: Cleaned up last FAQ.
Edit: Added the impassable terrain/countercharge FAQ.

I think they're all fair rulings. The last will come up incredibly rarely - any WE with less than 30cm movement would need to be less than 38mm in length (30mm if using square bases) to allow it to cross over a unit to begin with, let alone allow it to drag combatants along.

Do you have any concern that this provides an incentive to use a different base for Warhounds and the like, Neal? You could probably fit a (FW) Warhound on a 20mm x 40-50mm base, allowing a drag of up to 78mm (with infantry on a strip base) in theory.

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All looks good to me.

War Engine bases can/will be an interesting situation. We do have Warhounds locally that are mounted on 20mmx40mm bases (it was done before all these discussions arose and I don't have a problem with the bases at all). Common sense will prevail in these situations I'm sure.

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After pages and pages of argument I really expected a flurry of activity on this one.

Are there any suggestions for other questions? I would expect some of the people with more WE transport experience would have other wonky situations to address.

Barging issues never came up for me.

Bear with me if I am missing a previous answer or misinterpreting - why would it be necessary to be crossing an friendly unit in order for the "dragging along" issue to come up? The friendly unit could be to the side of the enemy unit, no? If so it would never be in the WE's path. Likewise if it was behind the enemy, it is never based by the WE even if the WE ends up moving over the space it previously occupied. Likewise, does it even have to be a countercharge? It seems like the FAQ is therefore overly specific and complicated. What's wrong with:

Q: If I barge an enemy unit that is already in base contact with a friendly unit, is the friendly unit moved too?
A: Yes. Provided the normal movement rules are followed (i.e. the war engine may not move through friendly units unless it is able to step over them entirely), friendly units are moved the smallest distance possible whilst still remaining in base contact with the enemy unit.

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Re-reading my post back, I think maybe it is not the same as what you intended. By moving the WE over the models first and then re-positioning them (rather than literally moving the WE forwards through the models) friendly units behind the enemy unit would block the movement, right? [You said enemy units are the only thing preventing barging but think you meant friendly units]?

So yeah, I guess it does help to explain exactly how to move the models. In fact this clarification could apply to barging in general.

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It only comes up in countercharges because it's only relevant after some of the allied units are pinned.

If charging, nothing is pinned and the controlling player decides which units are moved first. You just move them into contact in the desired order.


But your point on the question being too specific is well-taken. I'll think on it and see if I can generalize it a bit.
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Edit: Better?

Looks good Neal. Here are a couple of thouhgts from the thread as far as I remember it.

IIRC this specifically arose around a formation of mixed infantry and WE transports being assaulted, and the WE transports being moved forward into contact with the attackers in order to soak up any hits on much better armour.

While your examples refer to Warhounds 'passing over' the friendly infantry (which could happen where they have become intermingled), I wondered whether the WE transports in question could actually move over friends - so for example, can Ork Battlefortress move over Ork infantry?

And the other example was where the WE transport moved around the end of the friendly infantry to get into contact. The countercharge rule requires units to move directly towards the nearest enemy; so what deviation is permissible?
(Some time ago, I seem to recollect a FAQ that this requirement was ignored where the enemy unit had 2x units in B-B)

Yes, a WE can move over friendly infantry units just like an AV. That's in the first FAQ.


Good point. The answer we've been giving is that a unit can make deviations around impassable terrain and friendly units as long as they are proceeding as directly as possible. I'll add that.

The fifth FAQ on the list is obviously the key one, and raises some thoughts:-

1. Is there any restriction in the order that units are countercharged?
2. Can you reposition / rotate units that are already in B-B with the enemy (eg to allow further units to countercharge into B-B).
3. What are the constraints imposed by the number of units or DC in contact?
For example consider the following, where the units are all based on 15x40bases except for the WE:-

After the charge, units A-A and B-B are in contact with enemy infantry 1-1 and 2-2 that have a WE behind them.

A---AB---B
1---12---2
. . W--E

The WE contercharges over its friends, barging the enemy out of the way

A---AB---B
. . W--E

1---12---2

At this point, each of the attackers is now in contact with a DC3 WE, so moving the defenders back into B-B breaks the rule doesn't it, as it would if the WE only contacted one of the attackers leaving the other in B-B with the side of the WE

A---A
W---EB---B
1---12---2

1) No. There's no restriction on the order of moving units in any move.
2) No. No movement is allowed.
3) The enemy aren't pulled out of base contact.

There's a necessary interim point of "after the WE moves, but before the friendly units are repositioned" because we are moving toy army men around model train boards and can't physically move dozens of models simultaneously around each other, not because that's actually something that's supposed to be actually happening in the "reality" of the game.

Thanks Neal. As I said, they were just some thoughts.

However I do find your answer to #2 interesting. Why are units in B-B not allowed to rotate as a form of 'countercharge'?

1.12.4, second paragraph: Defending units that are not already in base contact with an enemy unit are allowed to counter charge.

They are in contact so no countercharge, including shifting around to accommodate friendly unit moves.

Thanks again.

I had always assumed that the charge and counter charge were somewhat simultaneous thus allowing 'shuffling', but it seems I was mistaken