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Example - a MM/HF land speeder is 11" away from a LRBT and is facing its front AV14. Inbetween is a squad of guardsmen.

You can only pick one target to fire at (in this case the LRBT as you want to use your MM against it) and you know in advance that your HF can neither reach it, nor do any damage if it did. Can it fire anyway as long as it is directly at the LRBT so as to catch the guard squad?

Nope, target out of range means it automatically misses, so it never shoots.

You really have two questions here. The first is can you fire at something out of range on purpose. Yes, you can if you want to waste a shooting phase.

The second question is what happens when a weapon is out of range? The answer to that is it automatically misses, which means you cannot roast guard with that HF while shooting at a LR with MM.

You also mention "can't hurt the target" in your title. That is OK. If the HF can reach the vehicle, it can be fired even if it can't hurt the vehicle. And toast all those soft targets in-between.

This issue came up in the Tyranid codex w/ the Tyrannofex and Tyrant's thorax swarm (flame template) weapon. The ruling was then, as is now, that if the flame template does not hit the intended target then it does not hit whatever is underneath it either. It's an all-or-nothing proposition.

You can shoot at something that a weapon cannot hurt/is out of range just fine. This is a good way to gauge the range for your other units.

However, if you fire a Template Weapon, if it doesn't hit the unit declared as the target, it still automatically misses, it won't hit any units in-between.

As shown in the handy diagram below, the Heavy Flamer at the top will miss the guardsmen, since it is not hitting the unit declared as the Target (the Leman Russ), while the Bottom one WILL hit the Guardsmen, as it is hitting the unit declared as the Target.

The flame template rules do not cover what happens if you declare a target and then it ends up that you're too far away and miss, however, the precedence of "out of range always means a miss" dictates that the measuring portion of a flame template is placing the template at the barrel of the flamer (or in position for those variable flamers) and then if it is out of range of your target (which you have to declare before you place the template) then you just remove the template and nothing happens. You can fill in whatever fluff you'd like to figure out why that happens, but I'd suggest you stick with this precedence of out of range always dictates a miss.

Again, the RAW does not cover this explicitly but the flamer does have a maximum range and weapons can only shoot their maximum range (the template's length in this case).

Template weapons have Range: Template.

If you are not under the template, you are out of range.

That's a nice diagram.

Can you do the same, but hit a squad that is in assault? For example, if there was a LRBT and a squad of guard, like in the picture, but they were in assault. What if you shot a template so that it hit the enemy (not your) models and the declared target (LRBT). Would it harm the infantry?

You cannot place templates over an assault.

Markers can scatter into assaults, however.

Gwar! wrote:You can shoot at something that a weapon cannot hurt/is out of range just fine. This is a good way to gauge the range for your other units.

However, if you fire a Template Weapon, if it doesn't hit the unit declared as the target, it still automatically misses, it won't hit any units in-between.

As shown in the handy diagram below, the Heavy Flamer at the top will miss the guardsmen, since it is not hitting the unit declared as the Target (the Leman Russ), while the Bottom one WILL hit the Guardsmen, as it is hitting the unit declared as the Target.

That diagram rocks!

Nicely done!

I'll add to the diagram praise. How did you do it?

UltraPrime wrote:I'll add to the diagram praise. How did you do it?

I used the Vassal engine, GIMP, Linux Mint 9 and Google (for the x and tick).

OK, just to throw something else into the mix, then - if you fire a plasma gun at a target that is more than 24" away then you automatically miss - but you still have to see if your guy gets toasted by the 'gets hot!' rule.

i.e. its written into the rules that whilst your shot has no effect on the intended target, its other in-game effects still apply because the weapon has actually fired.

In the case above, the flamer is (technically) shooting at the tank - because the landspeeder has nominated the tank as its target. The flamer automatically misses and has no effect on the target, fine - but does that mean that any other in-game effect is automatically lost?

Whilst it would make sense that the flamer would cause hits, I believe it doesn't for the very reason the question was first asked - to do so would add a shadeyness to the maneuver.

sometimes I miss the 'shoot at closest target' rule.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:OK, just to throw something else into the mix, then - if you fire a plasma gun at a target that is more than 24" away then you automatically miss - but you still have to see if your guy gets toasted by the 'gets hot!' rule.

i.e. its written into the rules that whilst your shot has no effect on the intended target, its other in-game effects still apply because the weapon has actually fired.

Yes, you still have to test for the gets hot shot even if the target is out of range.

RB pag 31 - "Roll to hit as normal, except that you must roll to hit even if the target is found to be out of range"

(yay, my first post! )

No, you do not get to make any hits as the flamer automatically misses - with no caveat it misses *everything*

The ONLY reason you still rol for Gets Hot! on plasma is because the rule specifically requires you to do so - otherwise, as no roll to "hit" has been made, you would not roll for gets hot.

You cannot use a change to a basic rule (shots auto miss, dont roll to hit! -> overidden by "gets hot!" special rule) to say all weapons *without* that change should follow the gets hot! stadnard.

In short: no, when it states it misses, it does exactly that - nothing can be hit.