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we all like the idea of shooting at your own guys and popping off some of your enemies. most armies see at as 'the end justifies the means' and that it is sometimes necesary to kill your own guys for the sake of the mission.

I'll break it down for you:
Orks will, for the fun of it.
Guardsmen will, for the sake of the objective
CSM and chaos would do it, because they can and to cause carnage.
Eldar would, if it meant the greater population could be saved.
Tau would, if it was necesary for their mission.
Space marines would, for the same reason as above.
Tyranids would, because they're just gonna re-harvest the dead anyway.
Necrons would, they don't care as long as they cause carnage.

So, if all these races are willing to kill each other in crossfire for these or other reasons, why the hell can't they?

I personally see the chance that my marines shooting and killing three guardsmen is worth the one space marine I'll loose.

So, I propose this:

When shooting into combat, and before rolling to wound, roll your hit 'to hit'dice at the same chance as your BS, attmept to hit your oponent.

If you get a hit, you hit your target
if you get a miss, you hit one of your own guys.

Then, seperate these rolls adn deal with them seperately.

Example:
A space marine shoots his boltgun
hits twice, a 3, and a 4.
He hits his fellow scout on a 2, and will hit an enemy ork on a 3+.

However, you can never have less then a 50% chance of hitting your own troops.

Orks, in this case on a 3- wound their own boys, whereas a 4 is disregarded, and a 5+ is hit to the target.

there are some modifiers:
if your opponent is...
Large, this includes... bikes, jet bikes, jump packs, jet packs, and miscellaneous large models, such as terminators or nobz. in the case of large models, if they are signifigantly larger [.5" or taller] then they're considered large. add 1 to this roll.
Small If your oponent is tiny, such as a swarm monster or a gretchin, they get -2 to this roll. [meaning you can only hit them on a 5+ as a marine, and not at all as an ork.], if the model is 1" or more smaller then the oponent, then they qualify for this.
Massive: Monsterous creatures, dreandoughts, walkers and vehicles all come under this category. this is a +2.

SO:
Small: -2
Large +1
Massive +2

Of course, the oposite applies if these are your own troops.

An example:
A massive carnifex model is fighting against a squad of space marines. so, the space marine model has a 2+ to his 3+ roll to hit the carnifex. this means that the carnifex is automatically hit.
if those marines were bikers, however, [notice terminators couldn't be considered large in this situation.] the roll would be a 2+ [3+ + 2 - 1 = 2+.]

Captain Solon wrote:as for Shooting into combat: even eldar would shoot into their own guys, if they felt it would aide the cause.
But, make it more simplistic, once more.

infantry, jump infantry and their equivalents:
BS to hit:
4+ to hit target, 3- hit your own guys
Wounds and so forth.
Count-as two models, bikes
Things like terminators are a bit bigger/easier targets.

therefore:
BS to hit
3+ to hit target
2- to hit your own guys

Dreadnought/Walker, Monsterous creatures EQ.
are so massive that they're hard to miss. so:
BS to hit
2+ to hit target
1- to hit your own guys.

HOWEVER:
When facing larger troops, this gets difficult, like a carnifex vs. a dreadnought, is obviously a 4+ - you're just as liekly to hit either.
and in the case of, say bikers vs. carni fex [bike eq vs mc] it could be a 3+ to hit carni, rather then a 2+. this would be rather difficult.

OK, you posted this on another thread, it died, so you rehash it and post again?
Lets take your new suggestions and mathhammer again!
So my IG squad is sitting a little away from an IG blob squad of 50 in combat with a single grot.
The firing squad triggers its lascannon... 4+ to hit the grot... wait, what?
On the other hand... A single grot is in combat with 50 IG, the ork burna squad rolls up next to the combat... i wonder how many tightly packed IG i can fit under 1 template?

If you want firing into combat it has to be something complicated, no other way around it...
I'd ignore the following, it hurts my brain.

Firing into Combat
In times of great need or sheer desperation (or cunning strategical sacrifices) A commander of a force may order his own men to fire at a combat. To do this follow these steps.
1) When nominating a target for shooting, declare that your unit will fire into combat, and indicate which combat you wish to fire at. Normal LoS and range rules apply.
2) When firing into combat, due to the closely packed formation of the combatants all shots are at +1 to hit. Roll your dice as you normally would.
3) Take the unit strength of the targets, and work out a percentage for each unit compared to the total unit strength in the combat...
To work out unit strength count up the number of wounds on the starting profile of each model (more wounds usualy means a) bigger or b) more shiny things)
Anything that counts as a bike/jetbike, has a 2+ save or is on a base larger than 25mm adds 1 to its unit strength.
Montrous creatures count as double.
Walkers count as their front armour -4. (war walker =6, kan =7, normal dread =8)
Example 1: Chapter master on a bike, 6 marines and 4 terminators V's Ork warboss, 5 nobs and 2 killa kanz.
Unit strength of CM on bike = (wounds)3(bike, large base)+1 = 4
Unit strength of 6 marines = (wounds)6
Unit strength of 4 terminators = (wounds)4(large base, 2+ save)+4 = 8
Unit strength of Ork warboss = (wounds)3(large base)+1 = 4
Unit strength of 5 nobs = (wounds)10
Unit strength of 2 Killa kans = 14
Total unit strength = 4+6+8+4+10+14 = 46
To work out %, simply multiply each unit strength by (100/46) and round to nearest whole %
So... Unit strength of...
CM on bike = 9%
6 marines = 13%
4 termies = 17%
warboss = 9%
5 nobs = 22%
2 kans = 30%
Now roll a D100... to determine who you hit.
4) Roll to wound as normal
5) Allocate wounds and make saving throws, to represent the confusion of melee, every model recieves a 4+ cover save.
Important note. With regards to blast weapons and templates, simply count the number of models hit, then half that number and allocate as you would with normal hits in step 3.

ARRRRRRRRRRGH!
I'm not doing that every time i want to fire into combat... and there is no simple, but fair way of doing it.
Which is most likely why you can't do it in the first place!
A simple 5+/4+/3+ to hit certain targets just wont work most of the time as combats are never really even sided anyway, and it brings up the unfortunate situation described above before my post of death.

I'd agree with dayve. If you attempt to make a simplified rule for firing into CC, you'll end up with just as many situations that don't make any more sense than the current "your army doesn't want to shoot allies".

The fact that you could have 1 model charge a massive horde and then flame (or large blast) the out of them would break the game. To allow shooting into CC, you'd have to also modify the assault rules so that units don't have to pile in, which would make CC way more complicated.

And, ultimately, if you really want to shoot into CC, just take some guess range weapons and "accidentally" end up hitting the CC.

Captain Solon wrote:

I'll break it down for you:
Orks will, for the fun of it.
Guardsmen will, for the sake of the objective
CSM and chaos would do it, because they can and to cause carnage.
Eldar would, if it meant the greater population could be saved.
Tau would, if it was necesary for their mission.
Space marines would, for the same reason as above.
Tyranids would, because they're just gonna re-harvest the dead anyway.
Necrons would, they don't care as long as they cause carnage.

And with most of those races, you are speaking of extraordinary circumstances to motivate them to do so.

AKA, shouldn't happen in a normal game of 40k.

I believe my wall of math would work, ignoring the complexity and time consuming nature of it.
If all units were as following example it could be alot quicker and simpler...

Unit: Assault terminators
Stats----
Points: 200
Models: 5 (unit strength 10) Upto 5 additional model may be purchased at +40 points each (+2 unit strength each)
Other bits:...

Given that information from the off and simply putting the US (unit strength) onto your list could save alot of commotion. Once the unit takes casualties it wouldn't be too hard to figure out either if everyone knew the starting US of each unit in that particular game. Considering most models would be US:1 it could be rather easy to do!

But theres the whole issue of weather you should, not if you could...
I could set fire to my TV... but should i actually do it?

dayve110 wrote:I believe my wall of math would work, ignoring the complexity and time consuming nature of it.

But theres the whole issue of weather you should, not if you could...
I could set fire to my TV... but should i actually do it?

Yeah, it would work. But, 40k doesn't currently require everyone having calculators and d100s to determine who gets hit.

Plus, by rounding off the %, you could end up with situations where the total is <101% or >99%, so you'd need additional rules governing those situations.

For the less math inclined:
Squad 1: 45.4%, rounds to 45%
Squad 2: 45.4%, rounds to 45%
Squad 3: 9.2%, rounds to 9%
Total Raw: 100%, Total Rounded: 99%
And, then you roll a 100...