I think this one answers itself but if someone could confirm that would be grand...

If a unit finds itself out of formation at the beginning of an engagement must it use it's counter charge to try to get back into formation? If so, and it is unable to do so is it therefore destroyed?

I'm guessing that the answer to this is no because units only have to get back into formation when they take an action but there was a little confusion in my last game due to the coherency rules applying to counter charges and consolidation moves.

The situation was that a large formation of Tyranids took a 12 BP barrage in the guts leaving a unit stranded out in front of the rest of the formation. It was then engaged on a retain so it had no opportunity to move back into coherency. In our case a counter charge wouldn't have helped due to that having to be taken directly towards the enemy, so we left everything as it was and sorted it out when the formation consolidated, which it did due to winning the engagement. The alternative would have led to the slightly gamey situation of leaving the lone unit out on a limb, letting it be destroyed and the attackers subsequently out of range which didn't seem right at all...

That's how I play it

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Since it's not its action it's not destroyed. However:

"All the normal charge move rules apply" and that includes being in coherency after a moving. Given that:

1) the counter-charge can happen as it's already out of coherency (but you couldn't counter-charge out of coherency if you already were)
2) the counter-charge can't happen

Definitely not destroyed though.

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Squats 2019-10-17