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This hasn't actually happened yet, but I'm waiting for it.

For whatever reason (run, deep strike, disembarking) a dangerous enemy unit is sitting grouped 1" away from the hull of your tank at the end of your opponent's turn.

Just for argument's sake, your tank was immobilized previously and cannot move, although it operates as normal in every other respect.

In your shooting phase, you line up the shot, botch the scatter roll completely, and land on yourself, the hole centered squarely over the exhaust grills on the rear slope.

Although it seems incredibly unrealistic, rules definitely support that your munition went straight out, and came straight back in. You roll 10 + 2d6, taking the higher roll, to determine whether or not you've penetrated your own model's armor.

But what armor facing do you use? Such things are determined from the line of fire drawn from the originating model, but in this case the target and the origin are the same. Do you take rear armor, since that's where it landed?

Could you possibly devise a situation where you'd get a cover save?

I nearly faced that last game I played with my IG. I'd resolve it agianst the front armor, unless of course, it was a turreted bit of ordinance, then I'd simply draw the sortest line between the gun and the hull. Don't think if it as a scatter. It's a bit of short range fire that caused a chain reaction inside the hull...

So roll against whichever armor facing the gun is currently pointed off of? i.e. if the turret was swiveled 180 degrees, rear, 90 degrees, side, 0 degrees, front?

Interesting idea.

As with firing at an enemy vehicle you'd draw LOS from the weapon mount. So if the weapon was located in the front arc of the vehicle's armor that's the value you'd use.

Take the hit wherever you were firing.

If you fired towards the Front, then the hit is on the Front.

If the enemy was at your rear, and you fired backwards, oops.

Just take it where it lands. With blast weapons cover is determined from the direction of the center of wherever the blast template lands. Seems to me that if the shot scatters on the back deck, that's where you take the hit.

Physics and GW rules do not necc. mesh. It would make much more sense for the shot to hit front armour (unless it's a turreted weapon), but if we get to pick and choose any of our rules then we get to pick and choose all of them. That defeats the whole purpose of a ruleset in common use.

With blast weapons cover is determined from the direction of the center of wherever the blast template lands.

No you don't. That is barrage only.

So it is, core dump. Thanks for snatching my crack pipe.

I still say rear armour, though.

I've done that before, but the roll back only landed on my front taking the assaulting enemy squad with it. At the time I resolved it against my front since thats where the blast hit, but if it had scattered to the rear some how (the shell blew up in the ammo hold) then for a vindicator I would still have done it against the front since that is where the weapon mount is located.

Thanks for the responses.

I thought ordanance that landed on the top went against the side armour?

I would say from the front. This is a stupid case where the rules would make no sense.

Dont think of it as scattering but perhaps a misfire or it explodes in the barrel. Though you would take it sadly on the you fired. You are really taking a chance when you do this and Ive done it many times with demolisher.

Well if you want a "real world" explanation for why the shot lands where it does, imagine the arc required to land a shell mere feet in front of the tank.

Yes you could point it directly at the target, but real world munitions are not live until a certain amount of time (and several hundered feet) has passed after firing. This is to help prevent misfires in the breech.

Taking this into account, yes direct fire would be devastating, but not in the manner desired, therefor an upward arc of fire is required to arm the shell. The extreme angle required would mean that a shell could potentially drift BEHIND the point of fire, and impact rear armor.

This is why, in the real world, the crew of a vehicle or gun emplacement is actually armed, and would use their rifles and/or pistols to attack the target.... another reason why G.W. fails at realistic (logical) combat simulation.

Edit: I agree with Yak, and would roll on the front armor, but I chose the fourth vote, because I don't think the other three adequately express the reason I would do so.

wash-away wrote:I thought ordanance that landed on the top went against the side armour?

Do it doesn't. You are thinking of a barrage.


I have the strangest sense of deja vu.....

I would like to note that, if I recall correctly, the rules state you cannot place a template (in this case the big blast pie-plate) on an enemy if it touches any of your models, so the enemy one inch away wouldn't be possible.
On the main point of ordinance scattering back onto the firer, I've wondered about it myself.
I don't think you can rule it as a lobbed shot that floated back, because the barrels on either russ doesn't aim straight up, most likely to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
If it's a misfire, then if it exploded in the gun then I suppose you could count it as the top (side) armour.
I think this is a case of ridiculousness brought on by the simplicity of the rules.
GW can't make each tank have specific limitations on how close a target it can shoot at in order to make things more realistic.

Personally, if I was in that situation with my russ, I'd just open up with the sponsons instead of the ordinance, just to avoid this problem. Though that doesn't always work, as I recently fired two heavy bolters and a lascannon at three melta-bomb equipped assault marines. The bolters killed one, while the lascannon, which was an eighth of an inch from the squad leader's head, missed.

I'd house rule it as either it failed to fire or it exploded internally, resolving on rear armour maybe.

I agree with Yak. Think of it like this. The shell only arms itself after traveling a minimum distance. The shot is fired, and hits a rock, space marines head, shrubbery, ect and ricochetts back onto the tank.

I understand about rounds arming themselves and such, however I think it is not really relevant. On the fluff hand, you are dealing with a very different, and backslid, tech base in the Imperial scineces and engineering disciplines. I mean come on, their approach to maintenance and repair is Dark Ages. There's no telling WHAT makes the shell from a vindicator or demolisher or anyhting arm itself. Modern arms as a comparison is just not applicable at all.

On the rules hand, THAT is why we have the rules in the first place. To provide an operational framework that we flesh out with unit choice and tactics. Bringing real world operations and mechanics into it is not playing the game, it's making up your own game. Which is fine, there's nothing wrong with it. But unless I am mistaken the rules cover this situation. The shot scatters after firing, the game mechanic (dice) determine where it lands, what's wrong with resolving the shot where it lies? THere is a certain amount of abstraction to any ruleset. I would chalk this result up to an abstract representation of some unfortunate catastrophy (an ordnace shell detonation is pretty catastrophic for those in it's aoe) and roll on.

And for those insisting on the believability option, I hava much easier time believing that a round cooked off inside the hull than I do believing that an ordnace shell bounced off of it's target or some random object, and came directly back a the target, AND exploded on the tank that fired it without having exploded on the target when it hit.

If the 40k universe as these game designers have dreamed it up had rounds that only armed after a certain distance fomr the barrel, wouldn't they have included a minimum range or some other mechanic to cover this? Range: 2"-72" or 6"-72", or SOMEthing.

I hear what you're trying to say, Griz, but if rounds cooking off in the breech was the case then the facing would be irrelevant for what armor value you attempt to penetrate. This, on the other hand, very clearly (by the reasoning of our forum rulesmeisters) takes the armor from the facing which the barrel was pointing from. In game terms, the shell literally plops out of the barrel with so little velocity that it lands on the armor plate and goes 'boom', much like that video of those French guys with the AT missile that was on Youtube about 3 months ago.

Seems like there should have been a rule where tanks can't scatter onto themselves, or if they do it's at a static armor value.

But ah well, if enemies are that close to your Russ it's boned next turn anyhow.

At Games Day: Chicago, I participated in a scenario where that ended up happening. Went against the front armour and took out the weapon.

I always figured with the rules that you can't map out each action until wounds/penetration was resolved. Sure my terminator Sgt. was just killed, but wait!! I get a D6 chance to have him stand back up (Bionics).

All in all it comes down to how you play it in your head. Wait til everything is done, and then if your tank blows up, it could have been that the shell detonated inside the barrel; which would mean that it'd go against the AV it was facing.