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Did I miss something, or does the new Empire FAQ NOT put to rest the whole "Spike the Steam Tank" issue?

Just checking...

Of course not. Well, not directly. It does reinforce that the STank is a warmachine.

My suggestion is treat STanks as 0-1 and don't always combine with popemobile and people probably won't spike it :-)

if you really want to get technical about it, the steam tank DOES have crew, the master engineer inside it. Since you can't target him or kill him in any way the tank is always crewed and immune to spiking.

Dakkaladd, I'm with you in that interpretation (as far as you're unable to kill off/force to flee the "crew"), but not everyone is.

It would have been nice if the FAQ finally cleared it up...

I think that if someone if going to suggest (quite unreasonably by all rights) that they can spike a tank because it is not crewed, I don't think it's any more nitpicky to tell them that the crew are inside and as such the tank is immune to spiking. The idiot logic there actually works.

I think that if someone if going to suggest (quite unreasonably by all rights) that they can spike a tank because it is not crewed, I don't think it's any more nitpicky to tell them that the crew are inside and as such the tank is immune to spiking. The idiot logic there actually works.

While I don't agree with the spiking of steam tanks, this logic offers no protection. The rules are quite explicit on how warmachine crew act, and you don't want your opponent insisting that your engineer line up in front of the steam tank.

If you read the steam tank entry it details how the engineer does not participate in the combat except as a stand and shoot reaction. Otherwise he ducks inside. As long as the steam tank is alive the engineer is alive and he can make multiple stand and shoot reactions as situations warrant. My point was that if someone wants to stretch at a rule to try and circumvent a 300 point model, it is easy to make enough of a counterpoint to stall the arguement in it's tracks.

Oh, I'm definitely in the "you can't make the 'crew' die or flee, so it can't be spiked" camp.

But there are (obviously) those who are not, and the "no 1/2 victory points for you if brought to 1/2 wounds because it is a warmachine" ruling is going to really annoy those who like to push this...