We had a Tyranid vs Marines game where the question arose: Can War Engines that are in base contact with less than DCx2 stands counter-barge? We felt it to be "gamey" if a lone stand could stop a hierophant from counter-charging, so we allowed it. The Marines won the assault, but the Tyranid tied it with good dice, leading to a new round of assault and this time around, the hierophant could countercharge into a lot of Tactical marines. It still got its death wound, but inflicted serious damage on the Marines, breaking two formations in its rampage.

We considered it to be a "fine" moment in Epic gaming, but wonder if we played it correctly?

Our decision was based on the inclusion of counter-charge movement into "When a war machine charges... " (3.3.1 Charge moves)

although it does break the normal rule (1.12.4): "Defending units that are not already in base contact..."

If I have missed the obvious reference, please tell me.

/Fredmans

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I'm pretty sure that I've played it that the WE is allowed to barge in that case, because it has fewer than the max number of stands in BtB contact.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

As long as it has fewer than 2xDC in base contact, a WE can barge on a charge or countercharge.  You did it correctly.

There are, however, a few restrictions.  The other rules for charge and countercharge apply to countercharges and those rules keep WEs from using barges to do a lot of weird "gamey" stuff.

Charge moves still follow the ZoC "must move to base contact" rule, so once the WE enters a ZoC it has to move to base contact with that model.  That can oftentimes restrict where and how it can barge.  If the ZoCs are overlapping it can even force a WE to continue barging farther into the formation than it might otherwise want to go.

Countercharges still follow the "directly towards the nearest opponent" rule.  They are forced into a sort of "connect the dots" path where they have to charge the closest opponent, then continue to the closest from that new position, and so on.  Also, all the normal charge rules apply to countercharges unless noted otherwise, so the ZoC "must move to base contact" rule from charge moves applies.  Normally, the countercharge distance is small enough that it won't matter much, but in a few rare cases it might.

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Neal

Glad to hear we played it right, even with the connect-the-stands move. I agree that most of the time, the 5 cm move will not have a large effect, but in the case of consecutive rounds of assaults it suddenly can.

/Fredmans

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Follow my Epic painting projects: Tyranids vs Steel Legion and Inquisition vs Lost and the Damned @
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The other weirdness associated with War Engines is that it can't move out of base-to-base, so enemy units already in base contact will be "dragged along" for for the ride.

I just realized that a situation where you had a barging WE and the assault tied and went to another round, it could result in a formation that was previously just fire supporting now being drawn into the assault itself (if one of those units happened to be the closest unit to the WE).  That would be very odd.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

If they didn't want to splattered, they shouldn't have been standing so close!  

And it can happen in non-war engine situations as well, especially in clipping assault ties.

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

Yes, but it just struck me as funny, this image of a Great Gargant dragging units from three different formations across the board, like its stepped in poo and is scraping it along the sidewalk.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

:-).  The image is worth a funny rule.

Of course presumably the units 'dragged' by the war engine won't survive that long...