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I was reading a battle report of Eldar vs Tau. Near the end of the game, the Tau player used a Piranha to physically block an approach to an objective.

The Eldar player used a squad of Eldrad plus some other guys to blow up the Piranha with a psychic shooting attack. Eldrad then in the same player turn assaulted the gun drones who popped loose from the Piranha.

IMO this was incorrect, for the following reasons:

P.67 SRB
"... if a transport is destroyed by a ranged attack, the unit that shot it may assault the now disembarked passengers, if it is allowed to assault according to the assault rules." (My emphasis)

P.33 SRB
"... a unit that fired in the Shooting phase can only assault the unit that it shot at ... (exception for multiple targets)"

P.34 SRB
Assaulting Multiple Enemy Units
"As you move assaulting models, you may find it is possible to reach other enemy units that are close to the one you are assaulting."

This would allow Eldrad to assault the drones, if he first declared an assault against another unit and was able to contact the drones as a secondary target within that assault move. But he wasn't able to do this, since the drones were the only unit in reach. He could assault the Piranha, since that was what he had shot at, but as it had been blown up it was no longer a unit and could not be assaulted.

This issue is not covered by the GW or INAT FAQ documents, as far as I can see.

Your thoughts?

"if it is allowed to assault according to the assault rules" refer to assault range and type of weapons on the models, making sure you dont move a squad of devestators 30" in to assault afte rblowing up a vehicle.
But I see the Issue, and rules as written, its iffy. I would say the first sentence "... if a transport is destroyed by a ranged attack, the unit that shot it may assault the now disembarked passengers" is allowing you to treat the embarked unit and vehicle as the same unit for assault purpose. Also, the unit they could assault cant be reached when they assult the wreck, so they reach the formerly embarked unit instead.

Wouldn't this be covered by the Gun Drone entry in the Tau Codex? The last sentence says the Drones, "...are treated as passengers if the vehicle is damaged."
As such, if you destroyed the vehicle, you could then assault the Gun Drones like any other passengers.

As above.

You are now, in 5th, allowed to assault transported passengers if you blow up their vehicle through shooting.

Drones are treated as disembarked passengers, you blew up their vehicle so you can assault them.

Kilkrazy wrote:
P.67 SRB
"... if a transport is destroyed by a ranged attack, the unit that shot it may assault the now disembarked passengers, if it is allowed to assault according to the assault rules." (My emphasis)

My opinion about this statement is that it allows one exception to the normal assault rules, and that is you can assault a different unit (the disembarked passengers) if and only if they were embarked on the transport that your assaulting unit had just destroyed (with shooting). However, they still need to obey other assault rules (i.e. cannot assault if fired heavy weapons, disembarked from a moving vehicle, out of assault range, any unit is blocking the path, etc.).

Yes, that is correcty - you still have to be allowed to assault through other reasons.

But on the other hand, its strange that we chose what assault rules to obey in this scenario. What is "normal" assault rules? the things the OP brought up should be just as valid as assault range, as an example. I think this is what Kilcrazy is aiming at.

Still, if it was not allowed, the rule on p67 dont make any sence at all. It would read as, "you may assault the unit if you can assault the unit, but the rules prohibit this".
So it only follows that the rule indeed is an exeption to normal rules.

Dont know if Im making any sence here.

You are making sense Fayric.

I beleive that the sentence about assaulting the passengers refers only to the bullet points of dissallowed assaults; the rule on only assaulting who you shot is both an addendum to whether you can assault at all or not.

So the rule really should be: "... if a transport is destroyed by a ranged attack, the unit that shot it may assault the now disembarked passengers, providing you are allowed to assault."

Here's the picture in question:



Here's my interpretation:

Page 30 of the Tau codex: "Gun drones ... are treated as passengers if the vehicle is damaged".

Page 34 of 40k Rule Book: "As you move assaulting models, you may find it is possible to reach other enemy units that are close to the one you are assaulting ... Then remaining models can assault models belonging to other enemy units ... if the assaulting unit shot in the Shooting phase then it must declare its assault against the unit it shot at, but in can engage other enemies as described here".

Page 67 of the 40k rule book: "However, if a transport is destroyed (either result) by ranged attack, the unit that shot it may assault the now disembarked passengers, if it is allowed to assault according to the assault rules."

It's implied in the shooting phase that the disembarked passengers replaces the destroyed transport and can be assaulted by the unit that shot at the transport. Thus you can declare an assault on the disembarked passengers because permission is granted on page 67. Yeah the rulings appear contradictory and GW should have clarified it better, but the disembarked passengers are very close to the destroyed transport. There's a special relation between passengers and transports.Play it as GW intended.

If the intention is for the shooter to be allowed to assault the passengers, the p.67 rule need only read "... if a transport is destroyed by a ranged attack, the unit that shot it may assault the now disembarked passengers." For total clarity, they could add that this is an exception to the normal assault rules.

But it specifically includes the next bit, which refers you to the assault rules. This only makes sense if the assault rules are to be taken into consideration.

These of course prevent you from assaulting, in most circumstances. The assault rules cover weapon type and range, and a restriction on assaulting units you didn't shoot at, and they give an exception to that restriction, as I mentioned in my first post. This exception provides a way that a shooter can assault the passengers out of his target vehicle.

So as read, the p.67 rule seems to make perfect sense, and prevent Eldrad from assaulting in the circumstances described.

As I mentioned, this doesn't seem to have been covered in either main FAQ, and I don't know how most people are playing it.

If I'm a minority, I'm not really interested in swimming against the tide. The same rule applies to both sides, however it is interpreted, and doesn't obviously benefit any particular faction.

I suppose it is a bit unfair on Tau.

My thought is simply that whatever Killkrazy does as a day job is making him think too much.

Either the statement in question allows the firing unit to declare an assault against the passengers, or it means absolutely nothing because the firing unit would only be able to declare an assault against the now destroyed vehicle. In Killkrazy's example, "according to the assault rules" the only thing Eldrad could declare his assault against would be the now destroyed vehicle. There's no multiple assault even permitted, let alone some strange implied requirement for one.

Like many other rules, it would have been nicer for everyone if the wording on that quote was different. Perhaps something pleasant like "... if a transport is destroyed by a ranged attack, the units that targeted it count as having shot at the passengers when making (declaring?) assaults in the assault phase."

Assaulting is always against one unit, shooting restricts that option (to 'only' have one option).

Multiple assaults will/can engage extra targets beyond this single target.

There is one option for a target of an assault, but other units/options may be legally assaulted given a subtset of assault rules.

Am I missing it or is it a matter of breaking things down differently?

You have it correctly.

The sticking point is that there is no way in the situation described for Eldrad to assault a hypothetical third unit and wrap on to the drones, because he would have had to shoot at the third unit as well as the Piranha, and he can't do that.

Thus people assume that the last clause of the rule on p.67 is redundant and meaningless.

While it is impossible for Eldrad to shoot two separate units , however, there are units that can. This satisfies the condition of the rules, so they make complete sense as written.

The core question, therefore, is what GW were thinking of when they wrote the rules. Did they want everyone to be able to assault passengers, or only units that have the capacity to split their fire?

The only purpose of the paragraph on page 67 is to allow a unit to assault the passengers of a transport which they shot & killed in the shooting phase. It creates a specific, limited exception to the normal prohibition on shooting one unit and assaulting another.

All other normal rules & restrictions on assaulting remain in effect.

Kilkrazy wrote:You have it correctly.

The sticking point is that there is no way in the situation described for Eldrad to assault a hypothetical third unit and wrap on to the drones, because he would have had to shoot at the third unit as well as the Piranha, and he can't do that.

Thus people assume that the last clause of the rule on p.67 is redundant and meaningless.

While it is impossible for Eldrad to shoot two separate units , however, there are units that can. This satisfies the condition of the rules, so they make complete sense as written.

The core question, therefore, is what GW were thinking of when they wrote the rules. Did they want everyone to be able to assault passengers, or only units that have the capacity to split their fire?

Take a look at the GW rules and try and tell me they had the foresight to consider units that could split fire. I will laugh. They lack that kind of foresight in every other instance, so this would be an exceptionally rare instance.

The rules on page 67 function perfectly to let you assault a once-embarked unit, but only "the" unit that destroyed the vehicle through shooting (or didnt shoot the vehicle) can do so.

nosferatu1001 wrote:The rules on page 67 function perfectly to let you assault a once-embarked unit, but only "the" unit that destroyed the vehicle through shooting (or didnt shoot the vehicle) can do so.

heh... funny to see this topic so close to the top. Its the reason for my visit to this thread today.

We had a situation in a game today Raven wing vs marines where a squad of bikers with a melta gun was within 3" of a landraider. shot there melta and failed to do anything. A speeder from 24" away shoots said landraider and wrecks it. Passangers get out within charging range of the bikers. Discussion was wether or not the bikers could now charge the unit that was inside. Looking at the rule on pg67 it was clear that if you shot vehical and then wrecked or destroyed it the passengers could be assaulted by that unit. However we could not make a determination as to wether the bikers could now charge them since they didnt wreck the transport. We went with not being allowed to charge. However not everyone was in agreement.

Zedsdead you were right on.

If 10 units shot at the transport and the last and final unit popped the transport, only the last unit can assault the passengers.
If it was popped earlier, the remaining units would be shooting at the passengers, and subsequently be able to assault the passengers.

zedsdead wrote:We had a situation in a game today Raven wing vs marines where a squad of bikers with a melta gun was within 3" of a landraider. shot there melta and failed to do anything. A speeder from 24" away shoots said landraider and wrecks it. Passangers get out within charging range of the bikers. Discussion was wether or not the bikers could now charge the unit that was inside. Looking at the rule on pg67 it was clear that if you shot vehical and then wrecked or destroyed it the passengers could be assaulted by that unit. However we could not make a determination as to wether the bikers could now charge them since they didnt wreck the transport. We went with not being allowed to charge. However not everyone was in agreement.

<--- This is worth bringing up to the local TO, although I'm pretty sure I've already come across it once or twice, with the result being the assault is still a 'go'.

@Kilkrazy
At my FLGS and other GameStores, we've been doing this since 5e came out. Eldrad and the DAs would be perfectly fine in assaulting the GDs.
1. Eldrad brought the piranha down.
2. GDs are the passengers.
3. Assault is a go according to page 67, as you cited.

The *only* caveat would be if Eldrad and crew rolled *eyeballs picture* less than a 3 for assaulting in Difficult/Dangerous Terrain. ... Hmm. One wonders why the GDs aren't on their stands, smartly placed behind the fallen piranha making a DT roll even larger.

The assault is NOT a go. The rule is clear as it uses "THE" unit that destroyed it may now assault the passengers.

There is only one "the" unit that destroyed that vehicle; only THEY have permission to assault.

nosferatu1001 wrote:The assault is NOT a go. The rule is clear as it uses "THE" unit that destroyed it may now assault the passengers.

There is only one "the" unit that destroyed that vehicle; only THEY have permission to assault.

You've misunderstood me, Nos1001. I agree with you ... I just posted that at the time, we ruled that it was a go, but now I think it should have been disallowed, thanks to Kilkrazy bringing it up and the reasoning posted here.

Ah ok, no worries - my bad!

Kilkrazy wrote:The core question, therefore, is what GW were thinking of when they wrote the rules. Did they want everyone to be able to assault passengers, or only units that have the capacity to split their fire?

What does splitting fire have to do with it? Even with the ability to split fire you could not have shot the transport and the passengers.

Personally, I interpret "if it is allowed to assault according to the assault rules" as meaning "unless disallowed by some other factor." Given the way that some 40K players read rules simply putting "the unit that shot it may assault the now disembarked passenger" would have people arguing that all the usual assault restrictions are ignored and trying to assault from 36" away.

If the RAI meant that the embarked unit replace the vehicle (that would make sense with the exeption to general assault rules), any unit could assault.
But here is little to support this, and the rules as written is clear, in this atleast, that its only THE unit that destroyed it that may assault.

nosferatu1001 wrote:The assault is NOT a go. The rule is clear as it uses "THE" unit that destroyed it may now assault the passengers.

There is only one "the" unit that destroyed that vehicle; only THEY have permission to assault.

That's not what the rule says. It says the unit that shot it. To me they are clearly avoiding the wording that would imply the unit that destroyed it. No were does it say anything about the unit that destroyed it. Just that the vehicle was destroyed by ranged fire (again clearly vague wording).

VoxDei wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:The assault is NOT a go. The rule is clear as it uses "THE" unit that destroyed it may now assault the passengers.

There is only one "the" unit that destroyed that vehicle; only THEY have permission to assault.

That's not what the rule says. It says the unit that shot it. To me they are clearly avoiding the wording that would imply the unit that destroyed it. No were does it say anything about the unit that destroyed it. Just that the vehicle was destroyed by ranged fire (again clearly vague wording).

Nope, it says the unit that shot it and destroyed it. That means only the unit that destroyed it has permission to assault the now disembarked passengers.

Kilkrazy wrote:You have it correctly.

The sticking point is that there is no way in the situation described for Eldrad to assault a hypothetical third unit and wrap on to the drones, because he would have had to shoot at the third unit as well as the Piranha, and he can't do that.

Thus people assume that the last clause of the rule on p.67 is redundant and meaningless.

While it is impossible for Eldrad to shoot two separate units , however, there are units that can. This satisfies the condition of the rules, so they make complete sense as written.

The core question, therefore, is what GW were thinking of when they wrote the rules. Did they want everyone to be able to assault passengers, or only units that have the capacity to split their fire?

The only unit that I can think of that is allowed to shoot 2 separate units outside of Apocalypse and can assault in the same phase is tau battlesuits and maybe a prior edition codex that allows a walker to take potms. Both of those are only allowed with wargear, so no regular unit in the game can shoot 2 different targets. It also specifically states that you could no shoot the 2 units, because you would have to declare you shooting with a unit, then fire all weapons at the same time.

I would find it hard pressed to believe that they made an exception in the BRB for wargear in an outdated codex when they couldn't shoot the two units to begin with. Being that the rules for vehicles "differ from other models in a number of ways, detailed here" p.56 BRB, we can take the example as an exception to the normal assault rules.

Acidwraine wrote:The only unit that I can think of that is allowed to shoot 2 separate units outside of Apocalypse and can assault in the same phase is tau battlesuits and maybe a prior edition codex that allows a walker to take potms.

.... Long fangs (relentless thank you Logan) (that or they got very lucky with their bolt pistols) ... I'm sure there are more but they spring to mind ...

(only reason I can think of is its the last turn and some AV10 is just out of LOS but within assault range Krak grendas may do it but hell shoot the bolt-pistols for luck at the far one)

Many Tau units can take wargear that allows them to split fire. The point of splitting fire is that it would allow a unit to shoot the transport A and unit C, then assault unit C and the passengers B who spilled out of the transport.

Of course it is unlikely that Tau would want to assault anyone.

I take your point about the intention of the rules. I don't agree that wargear (or special rules) should be the arbiter about whether a rule means what it says or not. There are plenty of special rules and wargears that create exceptions to core rules, that is the point of them.

It is clear to me that the rule as written would have prevented Eldrad from assaulting. I don't think anyone has refuted the argument, so much as rebutted it.

However, it is clear that the general interpretation is different, and, TBH, that is pretty reasonable on the basis that GW are such dingos when it comes to writing clearly.

What is preventing him from assaulting? He is the unit that destroyed the vehicle, the gun drons count as passangers that are now out of the destroyed vehicle, passengers that were in a vehicle he destroyed now become a legal target for him to assault, he did not fire a heavy weapon, the dones are within 6". however he would be considered to be charging a unit in cover so at least the drones will hit first. I see nothing in this scenario that would keep him from charging the drones........