There are a few weird rules in Epic 40k, either due to abstraction or to attempts to preclude rules abuse (or, sometimes, both). One such oddball is the barrage rule. Essentially, you place the blast template over the densest part of the detachment. A model counts as under the template as long as it coves half (rounded up) of the figures from the stand (e.g.. infantry or cavalry) or any part of a vehicle is. (The "half figures" can be deduced from the FAQ in the Battle Book, page 110-111.) The firepower of the attack is equal to the number of units partially or fully under the template in this way. The Battle Book also clarifies that casualties are taken from the front of the unit, as normal with attacks, and not merely from those under the template.

A weird situation arises when the tightly clustered part of a detachment is further back, resulting in only frontline units being removed as casualty (even though they were not technically under the template). It gets even stranger if the closer units are much more spaced out than the rearward cluster, or if the detachment is partially in cover. According to the normal shooting rules, you have to use the "in cover" column of the firepower chart if you want the ability to assign hits to "in cover" units (Rulebook 19). This means a crafty player could be fairly selective, removing causalties in the open from here or there, while ignoring interceding units in cover (which doesn't seem to imitate the random strikes of artillery very well).

So how does one make sense of these rules? The Battle Book clarification seems to indicate pretty strongly that the template is only a formality to determine the relative strength of the attack and certainly does not indicate the actual target point of the barrage. Perhaps it is helpful, then, to think of the template as a spotting attempt. The thickest cluster of troops in the detachment is a helpful reference point for a forward observer to get a sense of the enemy detachment's overall disposition and deployment, so that forward elements can be registered and bracketed with a couple initial rounds, adjusted with correcting fire and then targeted with a 'fire for effect' request. Historically, of course, artillery did not fire in a circular area. Rather, fire plans would be carefully designed for the intended fire support mission (given the math involved and the danger to friendly troops, such careful planning was always the norm). A single stonk might be wide, deep, concentrated, dispersed or even shaped in a box barrage or creeping gradually ahead of advancing troops. Artillery missions were programmed according to the circumstances on the ground and (certainly after WW2) the needs of the frontline commanders.

In my mind, this seems like a flexible way to understand the sometimes strange targeting rules for barrages in Epic 40,000. What do you think? Do you have house rules that get around such ambiguities?

And just for fun, the cover to my favorite Epic 40k theme music album, featuring both enemy artillery and what appears to be a forward observer:

Personally I always thought of the barrage template as a way to establish how effective the firing units are likely to be versus the target formation, i.e. a rough measure of how clustered the target is. I think that is quite clear in the way the rule works, i.e. you use the template only as an initial step, to determine the firepower of the attack, then you resolve the attack normally. In no way is it related to which units are hit. Therefore I don't think it requires any alternative explanation, only a recognition that it's an abstraction, not a simulation. Yes the part of the detachment that is used to determine "clustering" is not the same part that is actually hit, but a) I can't think of a better way to measure it and b) if the defending player is unhappy with the result, he can spread his units out.

It is the same with the firepower table: it exists as a shortcut to rolling to hit. Rather than rolling 15 dice on a 3+ (in the open) or 4+ (in cover), which is how EA does it, we assume that it would translate to X hits (in the open) or Y hits (in cover).

In the end the barrage rule could be removed entirely if it is problematic enough: just pick an "average" firepower value for template weapons and use that. What you lose is the effect barrage has on the enemy, which is the same in any game and in "real life": it makes the enemy spread out and thus more vulnerable to concentrated assault from the flanks.

_________________
Kyrt's Battle Result Tracker (forum post is here)
Kyrt's trade list

It has been a while, but I think we may have just used a house rule that multiple barrage templates couldn't be overlapped unless all units were covered. This doesn't address strange things from one template, but prevents it being worse from doing it for multiple barrages and multiplying the fp from one template.

andy