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Can you use Markerlight for a Death or Glory attack?

If so, what happens to the Markerlight counter? Can you, say, expend it to call a Seeker missile...?

You can fire the Markerlight as a DoG attack, and you'll get a Markerlight counter on the vehicle, but DoG is performed in the movement phase, and Seekers can't be launched until the shooting phase, at which point it is too late to save the unfortunate guy with the Markerlight.

Valkyrie wrote:You can fire the Markerlight as a DoG attack, and you'll get a Markerlight counter on the vehicle, but DoG is performed in the movement phase, and Seekers can't be launched until the shooting phase, at which point it is too late to save the unfortunate guy with the Markerlight.

But what if it's a Networked Markerlight, which can be used right away? DoG rules allow only one attack by a model, but one could argue that expending a counter isn't an "attack" per se...

Well like I said, you can't fire the Seeker until the shooting phase, when it is too late. All a Networked Markerlight lets you do is that the same unit which fired it can use it's counter.

I'd say no.
DoG allows one model to make one attack.
With the Markerlight, you have two models making two attacks.

marv335 wrote:I'd say no.
DoG allows one model to make one attack.
With the Markerlight, you have two models making two attacks.

Actually no you have one model making an attack. You get a markerlight counter on the vehicle that you end up being able to do absolutely nothing with. AKA you lose a guy and get a worthless counter since you cannot fire a seeker missile in the enemies shooting phase.

rogueeyes wrote:
Actually no you have one model making an attack. You get a markerlight counter on the vehicle that you end up being able to do absolutely nothing with. AKA you lose a guy and get a worthless counter since you cannot fire a seeker missile in the enemies shooting phase.

Fair enough, but I'm not quite done. As you can tank shock multiple units, you can end up with a situation where you first DoG with a Markerlight, putting a counter on a vehicle. As that obviously won't stop the vehicle, then second unit behind that is also Tank Shocked and they can also attempt DoG. As I see it, they CAN expend that Markerlight counter, right? It's quite contrived, but possible, scenario.

Another question is, what happens to the Markerlight counter if it's not used? Rules say that it remains until "..end of current Tau shooting phase". Common sense would say that it fizzles right away (Markerlight is supposed to be a sort of target designator, but you can't designate anything if you have been squashed). However, rules do not really deal with that...

That's a very interesting question: what happens to a markerlight the explicitly expires at the end of the current Tau shooting phase that is fired outside of the Tau shooting phase?

I'd say it stays until the end of a Tau shooting phase.

So if you Death or Glory! with a markerlight, you get to use that markerlight counter during your next shooting phase.

m pretty sure the rules state one CC attack... not a shooting attack...

nirvana69 wrote:m pretty sure the rules state one CC attack... not a shooting attack...

Might want to re-read that section, it specifically allows one CC attack against the front armor or one shot from a weapon (it even auto-hits).

nirvana69 wrote:m pretty sure the rules state one CC attack... not a shooting attack...

That's not right. According to DoG rule on pg 69 you can fire 1 shot from a carried weapon or you can make 1 CC attack (this can be a grenade).

As for using seeker missile during DoG you can't have 2 models perform the DoG. Although I do see your side of the issue. I think you'd have a hard time proving it.

Firing the marker light is clearly allowed - there are no prohibtions on that. The tank will get a marker which will remain until the end of the next tau shooting phase (or until it's used).

Tau codex: "Counters may be expended by subsequently firing tau firing at the marked unit."

So, the seeker firing is independent of the markerlight. The vehicle with the missiles has no permission to fire at this time so the guy with the marker get's squished.

It is obvious that Seeker missile attack can never be considered "Death or Glory" attack, as expending a counter is not an "attack with a weapon carried by model". On top of everything else, it would bring a new rules conflict as DoG is always resolved against frontal armour, and Seeker may come from anywhere.

However it's not necessarily that simple if there is another unit attempting DoG against a tank which already has a Markerlight Counter. Most people would probably agree that they can expend the counter: increasing BS is useless as DoG is auto-hit. Reducing cover save is useful if the vehicle has permanent cover save (for example, KFF).

So if they can do all of those things, why can't they use it to call a Seeker Missile too? Why allow one and disallow other? Underlying idea here is that Seeker Missile attack is not a DoG attack, but a separate action made possible by a DoG attempt. (This would probably open up sort of can of worms, as other armies may also have similar "Shoot at X, Y happens" rules.)

Best argument against this is probably that DoG rule permits one model to shoot during enemy movement phase under special conditions, no others. So the counter could be used to call a Seeker Missile, it would just never arrive, as the vehicle carrying it does not have a permit to fire during Movement phase.

Anyways, by now it is pretty contrived stuff, and unlikely to come up in real game...

Yes, that would be possible. Counters are expended by "subsequently firing Tau firing at the same unit". A model firing it's weapon during DoG would meet this criteria. However, since markerlight counters expire at the end of the Tau player's movement phase it would be very difficult to do.

A tank would need to tank shock two units in the same movement. In the first unit there would need to be a model with a markerlight in the tank's path, he would put a marker on the tank and then be squished. Then the tank would hit the second unit and when they DoG the model firing would call the missile.

Pretty unlikely....

What does the marker light say exactly?

Does is it the original example given expire at the end of the current tau shooting phase?

Or does it say the end of next tau shooting phase?

The distinction there is the major part. If you lose the marker light at the end of the current shooting phase you would lose the marker light after you fired it, since it is no longer in tau a shooting phase.

Yes, it expires at the end of the current tau shooting phase (page 29).

If this were not the case, I could see an argument for allowing a seeker missile shot as the DoG model could be calling in the seeker missile (like calling in artillery on your own position). Sadly, there's no way for a markerlight token to pre-exist on the vehicle since it would have expired the previous turn.

Agnosta - As I said, the tank would have to tank shock two units, get a token from a marker light in the first unit and then have the missile called by the DoGing model in the second.

Kapitalist - "The counters remain until the end of the current Tau shooting phase" does not mean "must be instantly removed if one is placed outside of a shooting phase".

I don't know a ton about Tau and their crazy, crazy wargear.

What Tau units can man-carry a Seeker missile? DoG only allows attacks by weapons carried by the DoG participant.

TheRhino wrote:I don't know a ton about Tau and their crazy, crazy wargear.

What Tau units can man-carry a Seeker missile? DoG only allows attacks by weapons carried by the DoG participant.

The seeker is on a vehicle but is fired by the model calling in the strike, not the vehicle. I vehicle with seekers could be shaken, on the ground, with all the crew plastered against the windshield and the seeker could still fire.

After reading all of this I think two things.

1) Marker light hits and stays until end of next shooting phase, also no seeker can be fired unless two units are DOG'd, but game would break since seeker is coming from different direction and DOG only hit front.

2) If only 1 markerlight was on it. it would leave a whole Tau movement phase to get a seeker into that rear firing arc in order to have a better shot at penetration. While having a priana capable of such abilities would be cool, however it would be quite pricy points wise to be prepared for such contigancy.

@ Acardia

Rulebook says specific rules from the codex supercede general rules in the rulebook so the game wouldn't break in the extremely unlikely (impossible?) event this happened.

It'd be much easier to just use a grenade...