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We had a situation come up in our gaming club last night. An Empire player deployed a wizard with his cannon crew, to offer him some protection. During the course of the game the cannon crew gets killed, leaving only the wizard left alive.

My question is, would the wizard still then benefit from missile shots being randomized between the cannon and the lone wizard?

I would say yes as he is still in the unit, although I would rule that he cannot fire the cannon as he is not in fact the crew(unless he is an engineer, which counts towards a crew member slot per the rules for that character choice).

I don't have access to my rulebook right now, and I am probably being nit-picky, but being a part of the unit is not the same as being a part of the crew. Once, the crew is gone, my gut tells me that the character is then on his own. But, like I said, I don't have the book with me at the moment.

Only engineers count as crew for the sake of shooting a weapon.

The rules don't specify what happens if only a character lives.

It does say that the character joins the war machine the same way he joins a unit, and as long as 1 model remains, the unit remains, so as long as the war machine is up you would still randomize hits.

I don’t have it handy, but in the empire book in the entry on master engineers, I’m pretty sure it says that he’s smart enough to stay away unless he was acting as crew for purposes of reloading and firing the weapon (i.e. if only one regular crewman was left, which a wizard can't do anyway). If he’s just lending it his ballistic skill, or if he’s merely part of the unit (as when he fires his personal weapon, if any) he survives the destruction of the machine and becomes a lone model.

However, he’s still part of the crew for purposes of shooting, magic missiles, unit-hitting spells like Chill Wind, etc. That’s the only precedent I can come up with.

So, I have told a vile, despicable lie about empire engineers. They are destroyed in misfire-fueled explosions.

Having been so spectacularly wrong, I shall now withdraw from this thread and go cry in a corner.

In your own defense you did state that you did not have the Empire book handy, and thus no one can hold you accountable for a simple error.

The only use of an engineer is using his BS on war machines(or his reroll whatnot for scatters I think) and the fact that he can take special weapons.

That said, point for point outriders are better and don't take up a hero slot, and for Empire a hero slot is worth more than a special slot in most cases(using conventional Empire tactics of course, gunlines notwithstanding).

If a wizard is in the warmachine crew they are still only US 4, i'm guessing that any shooting should have been randomized into them.

From my opinion, if you join a warmachine crew, and you've elected to gain the shooting protect if that warmachine explodes the wizard goes with it. Similarly, if the shooting removes the crew, the wizard does not remain being able to utilize the cannon, so he forms his own unit and does not benefit from randomizing with the cannon.

And while opinion is great, there is no rule( to my knowledge) that states the character is out on his ass.

The rules DO state that he cannot fire the weapon.

And I'll have to double check on him exploding or not.

He won't explode if explode if the war machine does, that is clear enough, but ultimately I would say he does. He is a part of the crew, period. He just can't fire the darn war machine.

I dunno, crew come with the warmachine and are needed to maintain full rate of fire. A character doesn't increase the rate of fire (ie when they are down to 1 guy, he doesn't make it shoot every turn) so he's not a part of the crew. So when it misfires and says 'remove all crew' he doesn't die as he's not crew. I think the 6th ed Empire book covered this for the Engineer, saying if he joined as crew, he died, but if not, he lived.

We're not saying he is part of the "crew". We're saying he is part of the "unit" and thus qualifies for randomizing shots.

Ignore engineers for this qualification as they have very specialized rules that allow them to count as crew, which no other characters can do.

Crew =/= unit. If it were against any rules I'm sure war machine rules would specify that characters may not join them, as so many special units do.

I agree, I was addressing Mouse's point.