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So I have a question that involves assaulting through cover.  Basically a squad of decked out SM jump troops massacred a GM squad I had on his turn and consolidated into another squad of mine that was in cover.  So now they are both locked into combat and I'm pretty sure that they do not count as charging in the next round (correct me if I'm wrong).  My Grey knights attachment then moved into the cover on my movement phase and assaulted through the cover during my assault phase.  How does the initiative work for this?  Does everyone strike at their initiative or what?  I had a mini agrument because I didn't think the jump troops counted as charging in my round but if they did then they stike at init 10 with their frag grenades and my GKs only strike at 4?  Anyway, any light on this situation and others similiar to it would be nice.  Thanks

If everybody was already in difficult terrain when you charged then I think it goes in Intative order. Plus, seeing how your opponent was already locked in combat when you charged with a second squad they don't get the benifit of the bracing for impact being behind cover gives.

Same thing with Banshee masks, actually that was the question that prompted me to join this messege board.

Alright, so they all strike at their respective initiative and the only people who count as charging are my GKs? That's what I thought but I was playing a GW employee and I'm relatively new so I figured he was right even though it sounded wrong. His justification was that because it was a massacre that he moved into my next squad that he was charging. Now, what if my grey knights were charging into cover into a unit that is already locked in combat? Do they strike at 10 or is the cover rule ignored?

Never listen to a red shirt. Well, almost never. If they say something like, "Hey, thief!" or "Listen, you shouldn't be spitting on your opponents", or even "Those are my nads you're grabbing!" maybe you should pay attention. Unless you're into that sort of thing. Then by all means, carry on.

a consolidation is just that you consolidated, there is no charge.

 

the models that consolidated and the unit they consolidated into all go at initiative order. 

 

the unit that charged into cover though is another story.

 

unless i missed a rule somewhere the unit in cover that consolidated  can choose to split its attacks. it can choose to throw some or all or none of its attacks at the unit it consolidted into as long as the base to base requirements are met.

by the same token it can choose to allocate swings on the charging unit that comes into BTB. if it allocated to the charging unit then it gets to swing first as it invokes the "charging into cover" rule unless said charging unit has frag grenades or thier equivalent.

 

 

thats always how we play it.

This one has been debated ad naseum, actually.

The question hinges on the fact that models that "are charged while they are in or behind cover normally fight in close combat with an Initiative value of 10. . . . After the first round of close combat, fighting is assumed to have swept into the cover, so no further advantage is gained by models in it." {BGB, pg 39, heading "Cover"}

Some argue that the models being charged are no longer involved with the "first round of close combat," so no longer gain any "advantage" from the cover.

Others argue that the new unit charging in is now involved with its first round of close combat, so that they should be penalized and go last. The problem with this is that the rule doesn't address models that are doing the charging, it addresses the models being charged (whether or not the charged unit is in cover).

I think the strictest interpretation of the rule would state that neither unit now in cover and involved with an ongoing close combat would gain further "advantage" {as per the rule cited above} from being assaulted by other models until such time as the ongoing close combat ends.

Any other interpretations?

Sal.

Well here is how I see it.......

Models in cover strike at initiative 10 when they are charged.

1 unit (unit A) consolidates by massacre into the unit in cover (unit B). A 2nd unit(unit C) assaults unit B.

Unit B may split it's attacks between unit A and unit C.

Any attacks on unit C are at initiative 10. Any attacks on unit A are at normal initiative order.

Yup, that's a common way that many people address this situation.

I'm curious, though, how do you justify this position considering the unit being charged is no longer in its first round of close combat, as spelled out on page 39 of the BGB as being a pre-requisite for gaining the advantage of cover against an assault?

From a fluff perspective, is the charged unit free enough from distraction from the unit they are currently engaged in to "[shoot] against the enemy as they charge in," as described in the Cover rule on pg 39?

Just trying to unify spirit of the rule with the letter.

Sal.

I don't think the unit being charged that is ALREADY locked in combat gains the benefit of the brace. As said [by me admittedly] they are too busy fighting someone else to be braced for the incoming attack.

Plus the red shirt cheated - that's why I don't play them.

The unit being charged is not in its first round, but the unit doing the charging is. Because the clause "After the first round of close combat..." is in a different sentence, it's not possible to be sure whose first round it is referring to.

If it said "After the first round of close combat for the unit being charged..." then it would be definite. As it is, breaking down the grammar/semantics of the rule doesn't give a 100% certain answer.

There is only one problem with that statement.

The full sentence reads: "After the first round of close combat, fighting is assumed to have swept into the cover, so no further advantage is gained by models in it."

There is no preposition to be confused. The sentence reads "...no further advantage is gained by models in it."

Only the models being charged while in cover gain any "advantage," so they can be the only models to which that sentence refers. If those models are not currently engaged in their first round of close combat, then they recieve not benefit.

Pretty clear cut.

Sal

Maybe not as clear-cut as you think, Sal.

I agree that after the first round of combat, the unit in cover doesn't get any further benefit.

The question is, which first round of close combat?

The sentence can have either of these two meanings:

V1: "After the first round of close combat [for the unit being charged], fighting is assumed to have swept into the cover, so no further advantage is gained by models in it."

V2: "After the first round of close combat [for the charging unit], fighting is assumed to have swept into the cover, so no further advantage is gained by models in it."

Which of these is correct?  In order to pick one of these, you have to assume.  It's not clear which "first round" is referred to.

I'm not saying that one sentence or the other is correct.  I'm saying that either one is potentially correct.  So we don't have any way of knowing which one is correct, and the RAW doesn't answer the question.

I'm sorry, but V2 cannot be correct because it doesn't recognize the antecedents of the sentence and paragraph (warning here, you're talking to a trained English Teacher. )

First of all, it doesn't say whether it is "first round for the attacker" or "first round for the defender" for a simple reason. It isn't talking about the attacker or defender, it's talking about the close combat itself. Though never specifically spelled out in so much language, reading the assault rules in their entirety lets us know that a close combat begins when one (or more) units make a successful assault move into one (or more) of the opponents units, and the close combat doesn't end until there are no longer any models from any associated units still engaged in that close combat (whether through wipe out, or morale failure, or whatever). We know this to be true, in part, because no matter how many units later join the close combat or get wiped out during subsequent turns, that entire combat is resolved as one single event each round, rather than making the determination for assault results on a unit by unit basis (see Multiple Combats on pg 45 of the BGB).

Also, you cannot simply look at the sentence in a vacuum; that is the definition of taking something out of context. If you read the entire rule:

"Models that are charged while they are in or behind cover normally fight in close combat with an Initiative value of 10. This represents the advantage of cover - their improved Initiative accounts for not only close fighting but also shots against the enemy as they charge in. However, the cover does not affect hits or anything else in assault. After the first round of close combat, fighting is assumed to have swept into the cover, so no further advantage is gained by models in it."

Looking at the rule in its entirety:

Q. What is the benefit of being in cover when charged?
A. "...fight[ing] in close combat with an Initiative value of 10."

Q. Who gains this benefit?
A. "Models who are charged while they are in or behind cover..."

Q. When do models who gain the benefit lose it?
A. "After the first round of close combat..."

So, only the charged unit gets the benefit of cover during close combat, and only if it is the first round of the close combat. As I detailed above, the close combat starts as soon as a succesful assault move is made to bring opponents' models into BtB. It is not suddenly a new close combat because a third unit has joined into the fun. It is the same close combat with more folks at the show.

Anyway, the main reason I read it this way is threefold:

1. It seems to match the rules most closely with the least amount of convoluted analysis to interject confusion.
2. It matches the fluff descripion spelled out in the rule itself; if I am busy dodging power axes from a guy right next to me, do I really have the time to lay down some suppressive fire at the new guys who are charging in from the other side?
3. It requires the least amount of thought/bookkeeping during game play. If my Joes are already in a close combat in those woods, then they don't get I10 if their assaulted by someone else. No worrying about which models can and will direct their attacks at the new unit, etc.

Boy, it's late, I sure hope I am making some semblance of sense on this....

Sal.

Ah, good, a fellow English teacher So I can use technical language with no problem, then.

First, as an English Teacher, you will recognize that your argument is inductive. It's a very nice and well-reasoned inductive argument, my compliments, but still inductive.

Secondly, you'll understand already that it's in the nature of ordinals like "first" that they are relative to their antecedents. Something that is the "first" for one agent isn't necessarily the case for other participating agents. In this case, the "first round of close combat" for one agent may be the second or subsequent round for other participant. To say that V2 doesn't recognize antecedents isn't a sufficient refutation. I'll have to have more backup before I agree with this one.

Finally, you'll understand what I mean when I say that the antecedent modified by the clause "after the first round" can't be determined for certain. It would be just as easy (and I won't bother unless you insist) to make an equally-strong inductive argument based on the assumption that the ordinal "first" applies to any first round of combat, using context and "common sense" and all those other non-literal interpretation tools.

Inductive arguments are fun, but they don't give the same kind of concrete arguments that deductive arguments do, as you know. All I'm arguing is that, in this case, no deductively sound conclusion is possible based on the language here.

Oh, and I would probably tend to agree with you, Sal, if the rule said "after the first round of *the* close combat," since the use of the determiner would denote the ongoing "close combat" as defined in the BGB as the specific antecedent of "first." I might not be 100% sure, but I'd be more inclined to agree.

But since it just says "first round of close combat," without the definite article "the," that leaves the antecedent up in the air semantically. It could denote the ongoing close combat, the combat just begun by the charging unit, the first close combat of the battle, or the first close combat ever of all time. There's no way to be sure.

That's all understood and works well when analyzing the sentence in a vacuum. The sentence doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists in the context of the rest of the paragraph and the two paragraphs of the rule in its entirety.

Everything in that paragraph is speaking in terms of the unit being charged. Why would it suddenly be referring to something else? Since the rest of the paragraph speaks from the perspective of the unit being charged (it never even mentions the fact that there is a unit that is charging, one must infer that a unit is charging since we know one is being charged), what would give us any indication that we should use V2 rather than V1? Using V2 would require us to ignore the contextual cues that we use every day in reading everything from our favorite fantasy novel to the daily news paper.

Granted, it is poor rule writing to make someone depend on contextual clues to make determination as to what the rules intend, but it is an accepted and common usage in standard written English. Everyone does it every day in publications at all levels of academia (excluding legal writing where nothing can be left to interpretation).

I will concede that there is "no way to be sure" about this, because, frankly GW rules writers are so mediocre-at-best in their writing abilities that they may have meant for it to be V2. I just like to apply the old "Occham's Razor" test....the simplest possible interpretation is most likely correct. I've itemized in my last post why I play this way; it fits the rule in its simplest interpretation, fits all aspects of the fluff liberally spread out amongst the rule, and is the easiest to use in game play.

I simply cannot think of a single reason to play it the other way (though I wouldn't argue much against the opposing view in a tourney; I play DE w/plasma grenades, so I'd get to go first, anyway).

So, I guess I have to say that my rules interpretation tries to take the most user-friendly and simple way to apply a borderline vague rule. I do not think my interpretation is incontravertable; like you said, there is room for confusion. However, I do think that my interpretation is the most elegant.

Sal.

Cool, we're agreed then.

One of the big conventions of the YMDC forum is that we try to sort out right away which rules can be interpreted literally/deductively and which ones can't. In the case of rules that are (deductively) clear cut, it settles the argument without any need for agreement on assumptions. In the case of ambiguous rules, it moves the conversation appropriately into the realm of inductive reasoning where everybody understands that it's all a matter of opinion and nobody has an exclusive monopoly on the 'correct' reading of the rule.

I impressed by the smartness!

Seriously, though, that had to be one of the most well-reasoned, mature, intelligent debates ever seen on the internets. x2++ for a wargames forum!

My (figurative) hat's off to both of you, sirs!

This one thread has rekindled my hope for the internetz. Go dakka!