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Tau crisis suits can take target locks; how does it affect who I assault? Here's a couple of scenarios.

Scenario 1: Commander Farsight has a retinue of 1 suit. They fire at different units. Who can/must they assault?

Scenario 2: Commander Farsight has a retinue of 2 suits. He fires at one unit, the other two suits fire at a different unit. Who can/must they assault?

Scenario 3: Commander Farsight has a retinue of 3 suits. Each suit retinue has a target lock. All 4 suits fire at different units. Who can/must they assault?

The following answer of mine to all 3 points is going to based on my opinion, and not rules as I onyl have the BRB on me at work and am going from that and memory alone.

With that disclaimer..

The Tau Wargear in question allows the model to fire at a seperate target from the rest of the unit. I dont recall any additional wording (for rules consideration that is) to the rule then that, though its only memory and could be incorrect.

There are 2 ways to handle this, in my opinion, with your example given.

1.) Would be to allow the person to assault any of the units shot at. Codex Deamons allows this when one of the creatures is allowed to shoot at several targets, but this shooting comes from one model, and not seperate models in the unit like Tau.

2.) Would be to determine what the "Original unit" as I will call it is. Since Commander Farsight is required for the Retinue to even exsist (in terms of buying it etc) you can simply say that Commander Farsight is the "Original Unit" and while everyone can shoot at sperate targets from him, his shooting is what determines who they can assault.

The only problem with this is while it may work for any Tau Commander, including Farsight, to make this distinction it wont work for just a regular Crisis team where no IC was bought seperatly.

Marius Xerxes wrote:The following answer of mine to all 3 points is going to based on my opinion, and not rules as I onyl have the BRB on me at work and am going from that and memory alone.

With that disclaimer..

The Tau Wargear in question allows the model to fire at a seperate target from the rest of the unit. I dont recall any additional wording (for rules consideration that is) to the rule then that, though its only memory and could be incorrect.

There are 2 ways to handle this, in my opinion, with your example given.

1.) Would be to allow the person to assault any of the units shot at. Codex Deamons allows this when one of the creatures is allowed to shoot at several targets, but this shooting comes from one model, and not seperate models in the unit like Tau.

2.) Would be to determine what the "Original unit" as I will call it is. Since Commander Farsight is required for the Retinue to even exsist (in terms of buying it etc) you can simply say that Commander Farsight is the "Original Unit" and while everyone can shoot at sperate targets from him, his shooting is what determines who they can assault.

The only problem with this is while it may work for any Tau Commander, including Farsight, to make this distinction it wont work for just a regular Crisis team where no IC was bought seperatly.

I would add a third choice.

3.) When shooting, you declare the main target of the unit and then afterwards declare any models who are using thier Target Locks to target a seperate unit, Only the main target unit can be assaulted.

It does open up some strange possibilities (such as declaring one thing as the main target unit then using a target lock on every suit to fire at a different unit) but I personally feel it's the closest to the RAW interaction of the core shooting rules and the target lock.

Thats a good idea as well. Though I think you could add in to option 3 that one of the models has to shoot at the Main Target Unit, or not shoot at all. At least then you cut down on the strange possibilities you mentioned.

The exact wording for target locks:

This specialized target acquisition system enables the model to target a separate enemy unit to that engaged by the rest of its own unit. All firing in the unit must be declared before any rolls to hit are made. One target priority test is made for the unit- if passed, all separate shots are taken; if failed, all shooting must be at the nearest target as specified by the Target Priority rule.

Hope this helps.

Drunkspleen wrote: I would add a third choice.

3.) When shooting, you declare the main target of the unit and then afterwards declare any models who are using thier Target Locks to target a seperate unit, Only the main target unit can be assaulted.

It does open up some strange possibilities (such as declaring one thing as the main target unit then using a target lock on every suit to fire at a different unit) but I personally feel it's the closest to the RAW interaction of the core shooting rules and the target lock.

I'm not going to disagree with you about Target Lock per se, but I think that we have a few units that behave in a very similar way: Space Wolf Long Fangs, Tau with Target Locks, Daemons with we are legion, Titans and Gargantuan Creatures. While some have more explicit rules regarding charging (like we are legion) others do not.

I think unless you go with the blanket concept that a unit which is able to fire at multiple targets must declare an assault against at least one of those targets you run into a situation where you just don't know what to do when these units want to charge. The core rules are obviously written with the basic 'one target' mentality and I think its a reasonable jump to assume that if a unit can target multiple units in the shooting phase then it is able to declare an assault against any of these targets as well.

I'd be willing to bet that if we took a poll I think a pretty sizable majority would say they play the same way.

Very interesting question indead. The way I understand it is you choose your first target as your "primary target" any suit with a target lock can opt not shoot at a different target or at the "primary target". With this inturpretation that would mean I would have to assult the "pirmary target" not a target a suit with the target lock shot at.

Hope this helps.

Actually with the Tau it's pretty simple who you have to declare a charge against. It's the unit that the model without the target lock fired at, since that's what the "unit" fired at. Even if all models in a unit have target locks, you would still be forced to nominate one enemy being fired on as the "unit's" target (however it could in effect be any of the targets that you fired on, so it doesn't make a lot of difference).

It could make a difference if you must declare it before you shoot. (but likely not a big one)

The rule is that you must assault the target you shot at.

So, you shoot your 4 targets, then assault one of them (you choose when declaring assaults).

In that case, did you meet the qualifications of the rules?

Yes.

Eric

Ghaz wrote:Actually with the Tau it's pretty simple who you have to declare a charge against. It's the unit that the model without the target lock fired at, since that's what the "unit" fired at. Even if all models in a unit have target locks, you would still be forced to nominate one enemy being fired on as the "unit's" target (however it could in effect be any of the targets that you fired on, so it doesn't make a lot of difference).

ah but we get another option that way. Say i nominate to shoot 5 rangers in front of the unit and then use the target locks to aim at other targets ... now i can charge the rangers even though they weren't shot at

MagickalMemories wrote:The rule is that you must assault the target you shot at.

So, you shoot your 4 targets, then assault one of them (you choose when declaring assaults).

In that case, did you meet the qualifications of the rules?

Yes.

Eric

No. From page 33 of the Warhammer 40,000 5th edition rulebook:

... a unit that fired in the Shooting phase can only assault the unit that it shot at...

The target lock allows the equipped model to fire at a different target than the one that the unit fired upon. It does not make it the "unit's target" and thus does not meet the requirements listed above.

Tri wrote:ah but we get another option that way. Say i nominate to shoot 5 rangers in front of the unit and then use the target locks to aim at other targets ... now i can charge the rangers even though they weren't shot at

No. The "unit" didn't fire at anything, thus you can't fire at a different target than the unit.

Why are you assaulting with your HQ again? :-p

Anyway, it's been said before in this thread, but the rule was quoted from the Codex.

You MUST Assault the unit that you have declared your unit to be shooting at(obviously within the 6" of assault).

So after you declare the unit you're shooting at with the Target Lock unit, THEN you can declare to shoot at separate units with the TL models.

So Summary:

1. Declare unit you're shooting at.
2. Shoot at said unit.
3. Shoot at other units with TL.
4. Assault declared unit.