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I was playing csm vs an ork oarmy and he did something I have never seen:

He took a squad of 30 sluggas and interspersed them into another squad of 30 sluggas and claimed a 4+ cover save for both units.
I protested and he showed me the rules on cover. I spent 20 minutes pouring over the rules and could find nothing to contradict his move, so I had to let it go.
(Didn't end up mattering, I lashed one unit out of the other and pie plated it.)

Is this legal?

Yes, it's legal. It's largely considered poor form, but as you yourself demonstrated, it also makes you total template bait.

INIT FAQ disallows it and states that you have to declare one unit as the 'screener' and one as the 'screenee'. Only the 'screenee' gets the cover save.

It appears legal, but it's pretty shaky (imho). The arguement against is, "how can both units be 'in the way' of each other?" The arguement for is, "more than half the unit is screened by part of another unit."

Bring flamers in rhinos.

It didn't really concerm me tactically, I just like to follow the rules and it seemed like an obvious deviation.

I smashed him pretty easily, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

I could take 2 demon princes with lash, but instead I take a lash prince and a warptime prince. It isn't as spammy but it is still effective. I don't want people to play me and leave thinking I am a dick. I left thinking he was a dick...

Like people already said, its ok by RAW but rather abusive and requires some trixy reading.

Heh. By the RAW its legal, don't worry about INAT.

However, in implementation it isn't actually really possible. =p


This method of screening is called "Checkerboarding" where you Checkerboard your unit such that units fit between each other. The have to retain coherency (2") while doing this, and two units merge something like this:

X X X X X X X X X X
O O O O O O O O O O
X X X X X X X X X X
O O O O O O O O O O

Here's the problem: Friendly units are treated as impassable terrain. For one unit to move through the other unit, it must be able to pass through the gaps. When such is the case, as in the formation I drew above....neither unit is actually screening each other. You have to actually obstruct line of sight to give a cover save; true line of sight applies to 5th edition. But in the checkerboard pattern here, the only way cover saves are granted are if you're firing diagonally at the unit.

If you're firing at it straight on, neither unit is obstructing your ability to see the other unit. Also, if you're firing at it from the side, neither unit is granting cover to the other unit.

So while people "can" checkerboard, let them do it, and then enforce the rules on them for having done so. =p True line of sight. The MUST leave enough room between bases for the other unit to pass through, and if they do, there is no cover save granted. If they don't, then they must treat their units as impassable terrain, and they won't be able to move.

Not only that, you're perfectly within your rights to request that your opponent move models model by model, squad by squad. They must move, one-by-one- each model in a squad before moving onto the models in the next squad. They must maintain coherency while moving (to a model that's already moved), and each model model cannot move through another model.

Force them to do that for a game, and they'll quickly stop interweaving units.

I lost in the 'ard boyz tournament on the second day to an ork player doing this(it was my only loss too), and he had over 220 orks in his army. I never even considered this a possibility before, but looking back he totally cheated me. While it does leave him exposed to templates, getting the 4+ cover save ALL the time really more than makes up for it. The issue with the guy I played against was that his models were unpainted and I could hardly tell which model was in which unit. (He had a small colored dot on the base of each that was very hard to see from the other side of the board.) The fact that the judges saw nothing wrong with this is preposterous especially because the guy won a 2500 point army for doing this. It's one of the main reasons I'll never play in 'ard boyz again.

Though you would also get a 4+ from his units shooting through his own units. Not that the slugga boys are going to shoot much anyhow.
but if anyone else pulls that move on you just smile and know hes giving you the same cover save he's being a dick to get

and to pull that off that group would have to be pretty densely packed and heavy flamers would just turn it into a greenskin BBQ

never knew about this, but to be honest it seems annoying, and pretty pointless.
just take a KFF mek and save yourself the headache caused by movement phase


also, that formation is just begging to get hit by a pie plate.

Dashofpepper wrote:Heh. By the RAW its legal, don't worry about INAT.

However, in implementation it isn't actually really possible. =p


This method of screening is called "Checkerboarding" where you Checkerboard your unit such that units fit between each other. The have to retain coherency (2") while doing this, and two units merge something like this:

X X X X X X X X X X
O O O O O O O O O O
X X X X X X X X X X
O O O O O O O O O O

Here's the problem: Friendly units are treated as impassable terrain. For one unit to move through the other unit, it must be able to pass through the gaps. When such is the case, as in the formation I drew above....neither unit is actually screening each other. You have to actually obstruct line of sight to give a cover save; true line of sight applies to 5th edition. But in the checkerboard pattern here, the only way cover saves are granted are if you're firing diagonally at the unit.

If you're firing at it straight on, neither unit is obstructing your ability to see the other unit. Also, if you're firing at it from the side, neither unit is granting cover to the other unit.

So while people "can" checkerboard, let them do it, and then enforce the rules on them for having done so. =p True line of sight. The MUST leave enough room between bases for the other unit to pass through, and if they do, there is no cover save granted. If they don't, then they must treat their units as impassable terrain, and they won't be able to move.

I've bolded your misconception. While TLOS is part of 5e, it's not the only relevant factor. Specifically, shots which pass between models in a squad confer a cover save.

If you come across an orc player doing it, remember to insist that each unit move separately. He can't move two units 6" in one block. He has to move each unit 6" - and each model of that unit cannot cross the base of a model in a different unit when they move. They are required to go around.

An orc player that interlocks too closely should be giving up movement inches to keep everything in formation.

all i can say is if someone is foolish enough to try this in an apoc game, doom waits for them, its a nice tatic, but i have enough template tanks to make such a tactic null, and the truth is, a baneblade throws down a 10" plate, so even if its scatters 6-9 inches your going to hit something with its main cannon, not to mention i have three bassies, 2 battle cannon russ, a vindcator and a hammerhead all waiting to eat up units clustered together, in therory and from what i have seen its a good tactic, but it my hammerhead skirts around and gets a LOS where no one is blocking, the shot will hit, and not scatter eating a lot of foolish orks, have to love running a heavy hover tank as a light skimmer ^^

Centurian99 wrote:Not only that, you're perfectly within your rights to request that your opponent move models model by model, squad by squad. They must move, one-by-one- each model in a squad before moving onto the models in the next squad. They must maintain coherency while moving (to a model that's already moved), and each model model cannot move through another model.

Force them to do that for a game, and they'll quickly stop interweaving units.

Ask any horde player to do that (even one that doesn't go for mutual coversaves) and they'll quickly stop playing you.

We are well beyond checkerboarding. the double-banana-formation has the same rules effect, but none of the corresponding problems with movement.

Is it legal? Yes.
Does it require any fancy reading and fuzzy logic? No, merely a literal (RAW) interpretation of the rules.
Will it indear you to your opponent and let you gain new friends? Most certainly not!
Will I do it? No.

Inigo Montoya wrote:I was playing csm vs an ork oarmy and he did something I have never seen:
He took a squad of 30 sluggas and interspersed them into another squad of 30 sluggas and claimed a 4+ cover save for both units.
I protested and he showed me the rules on cover. I spent 20 minutes pouring over the rules and could find nothing to contradict his move, so I had to let it go.
(Didn't end up mattering, I lashed one unit out of the other and pie plated it.)
Is this legal?

It's annoying and pointless, and as pointed out, nearly impossible to do in the first place. I've disallowed it in my stores, and in tournaments I run. It's a huge waste of time, guaranteed to make a game not go past turn 3, and suck the fun out of it.

Steelmage99 wrote:

Centurian99 wrote:Not only that, you're perfectly within your rights to request that your opponent move models model by model, squad by squad. They must move, one-by-one- each model in a squad before moving onto the models in the next squad. They must maintain coherency while moving (to a model that's already moved), and each model model cannot move through another model.

Force them to do that for a game, and they'll quickly stop interweaving units.

Ask any horde player to do that (even one that doesn't go for mutual coversaves) and they'll quickly stop playing you.

Anytime they interweave, I don't have a problem with that.

Steelmage99 wrote:
We are well beyond checkerboarding. the double-banana-formation has the same rules effect, but none of the corresponding problems with movement.

Well, not exactly. If two squads alternate columns, they end up in a situation where they have problems moving in certain directions. So I just work to take advantage of that (Scott S and I did that at the Baltimore Doubles tourney against Ork players who were interweaving models).

It's pretty easy to do if you have any sort of area terrain. I've seen it done in two S shapes interweaving through terrain. It's really only worth it on boards that have very sparse terrain.

This is why GW suffers, they wrote ambiguous rules and will probably lose players to this tactic.

If you have 4+ cover save, who cares about a template that will cause 5-6 wounds? Before someone wastes time posting you are supposed to space these models so that you can actually move one squad at a time.

It would be priceless to have someone set up two squads and never be able to move the bulk of the unit without spending most of the game unraveling them. If anyone sees this about to happen please film it and post it up.

There are other ways to do it instead of just interweaving. For example:




The black and red squads give cover to each other from both the blue and the green squads firing. No interleaving required. I don't remember where I saw this originally, probably some early thread about this when 5e started, but this works and is a lot easier than interleaving, but gives you less cover from more maneuverable opponents.

The way you've diagrammed the black and the red they wouldn't give each other mutual cover saves. If I had a unit in the cup of the parabola, I can see more than half of the black unit and more than half of the red. I could shoot them down to the point where they'd give each other a cover save if you removed casualties from the longer line, but then I could switch fire to the other and do the same.

They give each other cover saves from the red unit and the green unit. It's a very directional defense - hence why maneuverable opponents were listed as a problem.

sourclams wrote:The way you've diagrammed the black and the red they wouldn't give each other mutual cover saves. If I had a unit in the cup of the parabola, I can see more than half of the black unit and more than half of the red. I could shoot them down to the point where they'd give each other a cover save if you removed casualties from the longer line, but then I could switch fire to the other and do the same.

lambadomy wrote:The black and red squads give cover to each other from both the blue and the green squads firing. No interleaving required. I don't remember where I saw this originally, probably some early thread about this when 5e started, but this works and is a lot easier than interleaving, but gives you less cover from more maneuverable opponents.

Please read all of his words, and don't just look at the pretty picture.

Most of the time, you don't need mutual cover from every direction. In those cases, "crossed banana" formations are a hell of a lot more tactically flexible, but achieve the same effect from the direction where it matters.

7 of the black guys are behind 5 of the red guys from the perspective of the green squad

7 of the red guys are behind 5 of the black guys from the perspective of the green squad.

I only need a couple members of one squad to screen an entire other squad.

if you drew lines from the green squad to each red model...you'd find that you have to draw lines through the black squad for at least half of them. That is what gives you a cover save.

If you did the same from the green squad to each black model, you'd find the same thing.

If the green squad moved over to the right a bit...the red squad would lose its save.

If the blue squad moved over to the left and maybe a little back, it could make the black squad lose its save.

But as drawn, both squads definitely get cover from both firers. The only requirement is that half the squad is behind some part of another squad from the firer's perspective, which I think i've achieved. If I'm off by a few pixels here or there the idea still stands as legal and true (and obnoxious, imo)

Obviously there are places you could fire from and not give them any cover saves. This is only about the green and blue squads firing, not some magical squad that appears in the cupola.

You can also simply leave space between the models in the checkerboard formation, allowing each row to move between the others.

X X X X X X -O O O O O O X X X X X X -O O O O O O X X X X X X -O O O O O O

This also has the benefit of giving saves from every direction.

But the best use I've seen of these formations if from Blood Angels players with jump troops. They don't care at all about crowding since they can simply move over each other.

We're sort of moving beyond rules into tactics.

But, anyway, the banana-line squad is the perfect target for a Vindicare assassin or some other ability that targets a single model. Shoot one, and that unit is out of coherency, and essentially loses a turn. Maybe both are, if the cover save is that important to the player.

The checkboard pattern has problems moving towards targets at diagonals. If the two units are assaulty (and there's no reason to use this tactic if they're shooty), move your units to the angle, backing away and shooting if possible. Also, that position is vulnerable to assault. Not all units of 'X' or 'O' models will be able to counter-assault because the other units in the way, if you're the one that initiates the assault against them - that's better than getting assaulted by one of them, or assaulting a whole unit by itself.

If you're a shooty-only army it's true that this is an additional complication to consider. If if you're one of those, what are you doing without blast templates?

To the notion that a horde player would stop playing you if you requested they move units individually:

40k can be played in many different ways. From free-for-all Apoc games, to casual games between friends, to large-scale and smaller-scale tournaments where the rules are law.

I didn't make the choice for you, to put together a horde army with a high model count. That was your choice, and you know the rules of the game (at least you SHOULD). If you have a problem with an opponent requesting that you play by the rules, and move each unit one by one, then you have no business playing 40k in a competitive environment.

The rules for unit movement are quite clear, and if you don't like abiding by those rules, then hopefully the door hits you square in the ass on your way out the door. I play by the rules, and I expect my opponent to do the same. Bitching and whining about the inconvenience of rules that interact with your chosen Army List is not my concern and not something I'll tolerate at the gaming table.

Seriously, i feel pity.. why would anyone play like this?
Its slowed.

Too many beetches abusing the rules... Smh

gaylord500 wrote:. Shoot one, and that unit is out of coherency, and essentially loses a turn.

Being out of coherency has almost no effect on the unit. They just move back into it next turn.

Centurian99 hit the nail on the head. It becomes a fairly difficult, time consuming and plain aggravating when one has to move all the models individually. And you are perfectly within your rights to ask your opponent to essentially follow the rules. Taking advantage of the rules can work both ways.

The real question is:

Why are we discussing this YET AGAIN?


It has all been said before. Here are just a few of the threads on the subject (and there are more):

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/213879.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/214182.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/214208.page