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I was reading some article/battle report that someone posted on dakkadakka about a tourney they played in. At one point the player wrote that something along the lines of: "I voluntarily failing my leadership test", presumably in order to avoid having his squad tied up in combat where they would have been finished off in the next CC phase. I couldn't tell if he was serious or not. Can you actually do this? Just decide that you fail a leadership test instead of taking it?

I believe the Space Marine special rule Combat Tactics grants non-fearless units with the ability to voluntarily fail a morale check.

His battle report indicated he was sisters of battle, so wasn't that.
Interesting though.

Then sounds like he cheated.

In a sisters army the inquisitor has the Iron Will special rule which grants him the ability to choose to pass or fail any moral checks\pinning tests. Its also passed onto units he joins. That would be the only way for that to be possible as far as im aware.

Blackeagle wrote:In a sisters army the inquisitor has the Iron Will special rule which grants him the ability to choose to pass or fail any moral checks\pinning tests. Its also passed onto units he joins. That would be the only way for that to be possible as far as im aware.

Actually, it's just Inquisitor Lords, so he would have to have his retinue killed off before he could even join the squad. That seems unlikely.


What probably happened was he decided not to use his Book of St. Lucius, and thus not use the unmodified leadership granted by the book. It's not the same as automatically failing, but it greatly increases your chances of failing if you've lost combat by a large amount.

As far as I know, only the squads that can do that are the Inquisitor Lords (as Ork has stated) and the Space Marines. My question is why the player would want to do this? Assuming that it was an assault, he would be subject to sweeping advance for falling back.

I played a Grey Knights player who did this. He's a veteran GT player and all around swell guy so I suspect it is legal but I don't know the rule.

s2ua7 wrote:My question is why the player would want to do this? Assuming that it was an assault, he would be subject to sweeping advance for falling back.

Sometimes it's simply better to have a squad wiped out. An enemy that charges your SoB but doesn't quite wipe them out will be safe from your shooting, then finish the fight in the next assault phase and be ready for more carnage in it's own turn. Some CC armies live and die by their ability to not wipe out enemies immediately.

olympia wrote:I played a Grey Knights player who did this. He's a veteran GT player and all around swell guy so I suspect it is legal but I don't know the rule.

Hrm. I can't find anything about voluntarily failing a ld test in the rulebook though.

SuperCow wrote:Hrm. I can't find anything about voluntarily failing a ld test in the rulebook though.

Mainly because there's no main rule that allows such things. Space Marines with the basic Combat Tactics can auto-fail, and Inquisitor Lords can choose to pass or fail. Everyone else must roll if called for. Page 44 of the BRB - the conditions for Morale Checks all say MUST, not "if you please".

But really, the language used in those battle reports isn't always representative of the rules used. Someone may "decide to fail" but that's perhaps just him declining to use anything that would raise his chances of succeeding.

I only read you post. This is not legal. Only MARINES I belive have this ability to voluntarily fail. It is a very nice tactical advantage especially now that squads cannot consolidate into another unit.