Situation:
Crisis Cadre on OW behind a Stealth formation which gets air assaulted by TH and 2 Marine Assault formations.

Questions:
1/Who can the Crisis suits OW? Do Crisis OW fire only the first Assault marine fm or can they OW all Marines involved as they count as one formation for air assault? If so, they can target the TH as a war engine?

We played it that I could target any of the individual formations but not the whole lot as one. Was this correct?

2/If OW fire wipes out 1st assault fm do the second formation take BMs from the OW fire into assault or are they treated separately as we played it? If so, and the 2nd fm lose the engagement, the TH gets destroyed, correct?

Cheers all

You treat the whole lot as one formation, and all OW hits are applied front to back across the whole formation. The THawk would take the AT hits, being the only AV in the formation.

The difficult question is how the BMs are applied.

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http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

I'm thinking that it had to shoot at 1of the 3 formations involved in the air assault on re-reading the overwatch rules right now- as overwatch fire happens immediatetely after the formation unloads troops (can't fire at the flyer moving because that would require AA fire) but before the assault has begun. Then I think, if that formation is wiped out, it isn't involved in the combined air assault (as it's wiped out before the point that the combined assault is engaged). However if you had shot at one of the assault marine squads and clipped off only two of the assault marines, then that formation would go into the assault with 3 blast markers, giving the combined assaulting army those 3 blast markers in the assault resolution. If you fired at and broke one of the assault marine units, they would break off and make their break move, then the thunderhawk and the other assault marine unit would then launch the assault.

So in summary I think overwatch shooting and the results of the shooting happen after the transport unloads, and before the assault happens, so at that point there are still multiple formations to hit? Then the results of the fire are applied to the target formation before the assault begins, so if they are destroyed or break they no longer are participants of the assault, but if they survive and take blast markers they participate in the assault and carry their blast markers into it?

Also on a related note, in my marine on marine game versus Gr00v3r, the T.O ruled that I wasn't allowed to scoop up my assault marines that had finished their action with my empty landing thunderhawk because he said they needed to contact the transport with an action- however that wasn't right, the units all just needed to be within 5cm of the lander to embark :-)

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[b][color=#FF00BF]Chief DreadKnight Apologist[/color][/b]

Zombocom is on the money: they're treated as a single formation until the assault is complete, so the overwatch firing when they debus (move) is firing on the three formations as a single formation.

Just clarifying that the OWing Crisis formation wasn't the formation being assaulted. The Stealth suits were. Not sure if I made that clear.  

Doesn't matter. The OWing formation can shoot at any formation that performs a move action within its range--in this case, the formation that performs the move is the air assaulting formation.

Hope that helps. And thanks again for helping clarify those questions for me that I had on the day at CANCON--kicking myself that I managed to leave my own rulebook at home.  

I only disagree because overwatch fires when units move or disembark. As written, air assault units may land and disembark into enemy zones of control as if they were assaulting, and after they have disembarked they carry out the actual ground attack/assault. It is after landing and disembarking (because they follow the same procedure as the Landing paragraph under4.2.5) during the ground attack/assault that the formations are considered to be assaulting as one formation. Considering that they make a disembarking move that may move as if they were assaulting, is a seperate part of the procedure to the actual ground attack and assault where they are considered one formation, it would not be a legal procedure to overwatch fire at them whilst they are carrying out the actual ground attacking assault as you may not overwatch fire at a formation that is taking an action where it is not moving, and the units only moved whilst disembarking.

tl;dr it seems that overwatch fire may only fire during the landing because it is during the landing that any formations move (when landing to launch an air assault you may move into zones of control), and overwatch cannot fire during the actual assault (which is the point at which the seperate formations are considered to operate as one formation for resolution of the assault), because they are not moving during the assault.

That's my $0.02

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[b][color=#FF00BF]Chief DreadKnight Apologist[/color][/b]

Your interpretation of the rule differs significantly from mine, fattdex, and so I must strongly disagree.

My understanding is that the group of formations is treated as one from the moment you declare the air assault order; if follows, then, that upon disembarking from the transport (moving), overwatch fire may be triggered and fire upon the group of formations as a whole.

I'll re-read the rule text, but, even if it could be interpreted as you've indicated, I would suggest that is not the intent of the ruleâ€â€

As Hena, Gr00v3r and Zombocom say, the THawk and its contents are considered a single formation from the time that the THawk activates to the end of the ground assault (see 4.2.5, quoted by Hena).

OW takes place after the air transport has landed and the troops disembarked (see 1.10) and normal shooting rules apply, so AT shots go against the THawk etc. Hits are allocated front-to-back and the single BM for shooting is applied to the formation nearest to the shooters.

Let us assume that the two assault formations are placed either side of the THawk, while the Crisis are behind and to one side of the Stealths; then all the AP hits would apply to the first assault formation (and could potentially wipe it out). However, the assault would still continue unless there were sufficient casualties and BMs to break the remaining marines and THawk (7 marine casualties because of ATSKNF).

Note #1
The THawk is a WE which blocks Line of Sight. Provided it did not land in the Crisis ZoC, if it landed between the Stealths and the Crisis (on OW) it could be used to shield the assault troops from some or possibly all the OW fire and also some / all support fire (both need LoS to be applied)

Note #2
The assault marines can disembark 10cms from the THawk and still remain in coherency (see 3.1.1), so can all be put on one side of the THawk and potentially out of range of support fire.

Note #3
Putting the THawk into B-B with the Stealths would allow the initial hits to be allocated to it with the remainder spilling over onto the assault marines.

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

The only comparison I'd like to make is that the disembarking procedure for landing and shooting is exactly the same as for air assaulting except that when air assaulting, the units are allowed to enter zones of contol. It then states under air assault that the units are considered as one formation for the purpose of resolving the assault. It's the same thing for shooting, they all shoot at the same target as if they were the same formation- but you can't overwatch shoot when the units are shooting only when moving (disembarking), and it doesn't say that they are considered to have to disembark as one formation when shooting, only that they have to stay within 5cm of the transport. So the thing thats a fiddly bit for me is that it only states that they are considered to operate as one formation for the purpose of assault resolution, not disembarking (case in point assault marines being allowed to disembark move 15cm away from the thunderhawk which does not make them a legal formation if they were considered to be one whole formation at the point of moving).

I guess the way I'm reading it is:

"Transport aircraft may choose to land as
described above, and then it and any units that disembark are
allowed to fight an assault instead of shooting."

Aircraft May land and troops disembark (movement, overwatch goes here); and THEN the thunderhawk and units may make an assault (Then they fight the assault, here is where they are considered a combined unit. Also if you were shooting this is when they are considered a combined unit. Overwatch doesnt go here because they arent moving right now at the point it says that they are combined.)

If that's not correct I'm happy with the general consensus then!

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[b][color=#FF00BF]Chief DreadKnight Apologist[/color][/b]

Effectively the assault definitions in 4.2.5 are an extension of the WE transport rules in 3.1.3. In both cases, the transport and the disembarking contents are considered a single formation until the end of the (transport's) activation irrespective of whether the formation is shooting or assaulting.

One subtle point to note is that OW fire on ground formations may occur before or after the troops disembark, while OW fire on air transport and planetfalling troops only occurs after disembarkation.

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

Fattdex:  All of the "combine action" rules are intended to work the same.  They are written with slightly different wording for stylistic reasons, to keep the rules from sounding like a technical manual, not because they are intended to actually function differently.

Combined assaults (Commanders, War Engine Tranports and Air Assaults) are considered a single formation from the time they successfully activate until after assault resolution.

===

The overwatching Crisis suits would fire at the assault formations and aircraft as if they were a single formation.  AP hits would be assigned front to back on the assault marines.  AT hits would all go onto the Thawk as the only vehicle.  MW hits could be declared as targeting the THawk or the troops because the Thawk is a war engine.

Kills would generate 1 BM each.  For the purpose of tracking which formation would retain which BMs after the assault was over, they would be assigned to the formation which too the casualty.

It's one formation, so it only gets one BM for coming under fire, even if all three of the formations were hit at some point.  The majority opinion last time it was discussed was the "under fire" BM should go on the closest formation to the OW shooters.  However, it could reasonably be assigned to the defending formation that took the most casualties.  Personally, I would go for the closest formation just for simplicity's sake.

All those BMs would count before the assault and all of them would be carried into the assault.  It's still one formation, even if all the units belonging to one of the contributing formations was wiped out.

On the plus side for the Engaging formation, it is only broken if there are enough BMs to break the entire, combined formation.  The defender can't break just part of the assaulting force.  Once they are combined, they have momentum that will carry them through even if some would otherwise break and run.

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Neal

Sorry to bring this thread up, but I was asked this again recently, and am trying to find the appropriate rules for this. I think things have been mixed up a bit.

Where does it disallow the firing of Overwatch before the troops disembark? the only reference I found was in the official errata, where it says “Landing does not count as movement for the purposes of triggering enemy overwatch fire. Disembarking triggers overwatch fire as normal.â€Â