Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

G'Day folks, just here with a quick question for them all.

Now there are a number of Units which do not take up a slot on the FOC for one reason or another, such as Warp Beast Packs or Ministorum Priests, yet they still count as Elites/Troops or HQ respectively.

So the question is, can you use these Units in games which don't allow the FOC categories they come from? For example if playing a Kill Team scenario (which doesn't normally include HQ Units) can you field a Techpriest Enginseer?

Thanks in advance for any ideas, official rulings or past examples.

Cheers
Rowan/LSWSjr

I would say no.

It doesnt take up a HQ slot but it still is a HQ character. No HQ means no HQ.

Walrus is correct. Just because it doesn't take a FoC slot doesn't stop it being that FoC slot.

Gwar! wrote:Walrus is correct. Just because it doesn't take a FoC slot doesn't stop it being that FoC slot.

+1

Gwar! wrote:Walrus is correct. Just because it doesn't take a FoC slot doesn't stop it being that FoC slot.

But my thoughts is, there is a difference between:
1. This Mission's FOC has a 0 HQ Slot allowance; and
2. No HQ Units may be used in this Mission.

In option 1, you merely lack a HQ Slot to purchase a standard HQ Unit and considering that the Unit in my example costs 0 HQ Slots to field, you should still be able to use it normally, just as it is in a normal mission where it would count as a (+1) HQ Unit. Ultimately in this situation there's no difference between 2(+1) HQ Units and 0(+1) HQ Units.

In option 2, it's clearly stated that the Mission prohibits the use of HQ Units altogether, so a Techpriest Enginseer in such a Mission would be an illegal Unit choice.

Cheers
Rowan/LSWSjr

LSWSjr, I think you're asking your question in a very confused manner, and thus getting confused by the answers you're seeing. The last Kill Team scenario that I played in stated that a player could take at most one HQ unit. Because it specified "one unit", it doesn't matter whether or not the particular HQ choices consume slots or not.

If a scenario says "No X units", then it doesn't matter whether your X units take up slots or not, they're not allowed in the scenario.

On the other hand, if the scenario just gives you some bizarre FOC chart, then it's relevant whether or not each choice takes up a slot.

Did you have a particular version of the Kill Team scenario (there are several variants) or a particular wording that you wanted to ask about?

solkan wrote:LSWSjr, I think you're asking your question in a very confused manner, and thus getting confused by the answers you're seeing.

Yeah, I see that now

solkan wrote:Did you have a particular version of the Kill Team scenario (there are several variants) or a particular wording that you wanted to ask about?

Our club may soon be running a Kill Team tournament based on the rules from the Battle Missions book (pages 90-91) and I was trying to work out what people considered legal in regards to additional Units that didn't take up a FOC slot which you've either 'unlocked' (Warp Beast Packs) or could take as a bundle of independent characters (Ministorum Priests).

The rules mention the use of the FOC, but as there are no compulsary choices it only lists the optional Units that you have slots for, 0-1 Elites, 0-2 Troops, 0-1 Fast Attack, but they don't specifically state that you cannot exceed this using Units like I mentioned previously, nor does it state you cannot field HQ or Heavy Support choices, just that you don't have available slots for them.

Cheers
Rowan/LSWSjr

All answers in this thread are correct, but in regards to your planned Kill Teams tournament - tell them to scrap the idea. Kill Teams is horribly unbalanced to begin with... to actually have a Kill Teams tournament sounds... bad.

Has your club played Kill Teams missions yet? If not, play some friendly Kill Teams games to see if you actually like the scenario or not.

Personally, I hate Kill Teams. You wouldn't find me anywhere near a Kill Teams tournament.

Thanks SaintHazard (and everyone else) for your comments, but yours in particular has me thinking...

The originally idea was to have a way to play multiple, small scale games over the course of the session, without the manditory 1 HQ & 2 Troops. What's some of the biggest balance issues in your experience?

Cheers
Rowan/LSWSjr

LSWSjr wrote:Thanks SaintHazard (and everyone else) for your comments, but yours in particular has me thinking...

The originally idea was to have a way to play multiple, small scale games over the course of the session, without the manditory 1 HQ & 2 Troops. What's some of the biggest balance issues in your experience?

Cheers
Rowan/LSWSjr

Essentially, the fact that every single model is a seperate unit changes the rules and creates a totally different game that isn't played the way 40k is designed.

The biggest balance issues, in my opinion, come from a unit's special rules essentially becoming useless, and Ld rarely, if ever, coming into play.

For example, single-wound models will literally never have to take Ld checks, for anything. You shoot one and wound it, it's dead, no need for Ld. You win a combat against it, it's dead, no Ld. You wound with a pinning weapon, it's dead, no Ld. So Ld on 1-wound models never comes into play.

Fearless is useless, because Fearless models in CC take Fearless wounds if they lose the combat (and only if they have multiple wounds, if they only have one, they're dead, Fearless doesn't come into play), and even multi-wound models take Ld tests on a model bases. Defenders React! basically gives a single model an unlimited number of attacks, since each model assaulting it is a seperate unit - so in regular 40k, if two units of 10 models each assault a single-model unit with 2 attacks, the single-model unit gets 2 attacks against each 10-model unit. However, in Kill Teams, two units of 10 models each are actually 20 units, so the single-model unit with 2 attacks actually gets a total of 40 attacks - two against each model attacking it - whereas the 20 models still get however many attacks they normally get.

I could go on. I could write a thesis on how unbalanced Kill Teams is, but I don't have the desire to.

LSWSjr wrote:Thanks SaintHazard (and everyone else) for your comments, but yours in particular has me thinking...

The originally idea was to have a way to play multiple, small scale games over the course of the session, without the manditory 1 HQ & 2 Troops. What's some of the biggest balance issues in your experience?

Cheers
Rowan/LSWSjr

Just make it a 500pt game and make a special scenario that uses a modified FOC.

Personal recommendation, but YMMV:
0-1 HQ
0-2 Elite
1-4 Troop
0-2 Fast Attack
0-1 Heavy Support

However, in Kill Teams, two units of 10 models each are actually 20 units, so the single-model unit with 2 attacks actually gets a total of 40 attacks - two against each model attacking it - whereas the 20 models still get however many attacks they normally get.

I don't think that's how that works. It would be the same as conducting Multiple Combats, meaning the defender's attacks must be divided among the units that have assaulted him, not applied against each in turn.

Kill Team is inherently flawed, but can also be great fun if allowances are made. One house rule that I was informed helps significantly: models that are in coherency with one another may act as sqauds of that size and take advantage of rules that affect the unit that one squad member provides. This opens the doors for most Eldar aspect warriors which greatly benefit from their exarch's abilities.

Gavin Thorne wrote:

However, in Kill Teams, two units of 10 models each are actually 20 units, so the single-model unit with 2 attacks actually gets a total of 40 attacks - two against each model attacking it - whereas the 20 models still get however many attacks they normally get.

I don't think that's how that works. It would be the same as conducting Multiple Combats, meaning the defender's attacks must be divided among the units that have assaulted him, not applied against each in turn.

Kill Team is inherently flawed, but can also be great fun if allowances are made. One house rule that I was informed helps significantly: models that are in coherency with one another may act as sqauds of that size and take advantage of rules that affect the unit that one squad member provides. This opens the doors for most Eldar aspect warriors which greatly benefit from their exarch's abilities.

That most certainly IS how it works if each of the 20 models is assaulting.

On the turn you charge, you get to turn around and use your full number of attacks against each charger.

Now, in subsequent turns, you have to split your attacks.

But not when you're being charged.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. You always have to split attacks. You don't suddenly get one set of attacks for each unit charging you.
The Multiple Assault Rules only say that if a unit is already fighting another unit, then the 3rd unit charging in cannot be targeted that turn, and if it is fighting multiple units, that attacks are split up.
Pg. 41

How can you possibly split your attacks among units you're not in combat with yet?

From page 41:

"DEFENDERS REACT
If a unit that is already locked in combat from a
previous turn is assaulted by a new enemy unit, it can
react as normal. Its models must be moved into base
contact with models from any of the units that they are
fighting, not just the enemies that just assaulted them."

Emphasis mine.

SaintHazard wrote:Essentially, the fact that every single model is a seperate unit changes the rules and creates a totally different game that isn't played the way 40k is designed.

I didn't think that was the case, the rules and pictures in the book seemed to suggest that they needed to maintain unit coherancy, merely they were similar to Vindicare Assassins in how they allocated their shooting attacks (e.g. each model in the squad can choose his own target, a single specific model, separate from the shooting of the squad as a whole), although this obviously opens up problems for who you can assault, but we figured it was the squad they shot the most.

Cheers
Rowan/LSWSjr

Erm no in the battle mission kill teams each model is his own unit, and yes i do play kill teams when in a hurry and its hella inbalanced, there was a land speeder spam list that compleetly owned, and some other builds are very hard to beat too (triple lictor was nasty when combined with the specialist troopers rule).

SaintHazard wrote:

Gavin Thorne wrote:

However, in Kill Teams, two units of 10 models each are actually 20 units, so the single-model unit with 2 attacks actually gets a total of 40 attacks - two against each model attacking it - whereas the 20 models still get however many attacks they normally get.

I don't think that's how that works. It would be the same as conducting Multiple Combats, meaning the defender's attacks must be divided among the units that have assaulted him, not applied against each in turn.

Kill Team is inherently flawed, but can also be great fun if allowances are made. One house rule that I was informed helps significantly: models that are in coherency with one another may act as sqauds of that size and take advantage of rules that affect the unit that one squad member provides. This opens the doors for most Eldar aspect warriors which greatly benefit from their exarch's abilities.

That most certainly IS how it works if each of the 20 models is assaulting.

On the turn you charge, you get to turn around and use your full number of attacks against each charger.

Now, in subsequent turns, you have to split your attacks.

But not when you're being charged.

If that is true then that completely changes the way that I and many others have been playing the game. I have never read the assault rules in such a way. Does anyone else play and/or interpret the rules like SaintHazard does?

SaintHazard wrote:How can you possibly split your attacks among units you're not in combat with yet?

From page 41:

"DEFENDERS REACT
If a unit that is already locked in combat from a
previous turn is assaulted by a new enemy unit, it can
react as normal. Its models must be moved into base
contact with models from any of the units that they are
fighting, not just the enemies that just assaulted them."

Emphasis mine.

Reacting as normal refers to the defenders react section, which allows you to move the model up to 6", not attack each squad separately.

Not quite sure what exactly you mean by your first line? What I was trying to explain was the first bullet point under attacking in Multiple combats, which looks to be very relevant here.
ie: You have Unit Friendly A fighting Unit Enemy B. Unit Enemy C charges Friendly A. The first bullet point suggests to me that Friendly A must direct its attacks at Enemy B, while both Enemy B and C can attack Friendly A.

I like how SaintHazard's interpretation allows single model units in regular 40K to multiply their attacks by the number of units charging them.

Mephisto just became able to single-handedly kill an entire ork horde . . .

SaintHazard wrote:How can you possibly split your attacks among units you're not in combat with yet?

From page 41:

"DEFENDERS REACT
If a unit that is already locked in combat from a
previous turn is assaulted by a new enemy unit, it can
react as normal. Its models must be moved into base
contact with models from any of the units that they are
fighting, not just the enemies that just assaulted them."

Emphasis mine.

All assault moves are made simultaneously (at least to the eyes of the defender). At the end of assault moves you are now in combat with 20 units. You then have to split your attacks on some of the 20 units. Look at page 33. All Assaulting models are moved before defenders react. Not only that, you don't exchange blows in defenders react, you only move to be in B2b contact if you are not already. Combat resolution happens at step 3.

SaintHazard wrote:

Gavin Thorne wrote:

However, in Kill Teams, two units of 10 models each are actually 20 units, so the single-model unit with 2 attacks actually gets a total of 40 attacks - two against each model attacking it - whereas the 20 models still get however many attacks they normally get.

I don't think that's how that works. It would be the same as conducting Multiple Combats, meaning the defender's attacks must be divided among the units that have assaulted him, not applied against each in turn.

Kill Team is inherently flawed, but can also be great fun if allowances are made. One house rule that I was informed helps significantly: models that are in coherency with one another may act as sqauds of that size and take advantage of rules that affect the unit that one squad member provides. This opens the doors for most Eldar aspect warriors which greatly benefit from their exarch's abilities.

That most certainly IS how it works if each of the 20 models is assaulting.

On the turn you charge, you get to turn around and use your full number of attacks against each charger.

Now, in subsequent turns, you have to split your attacks.

But not when you're being charged.

Eh?

Never played it this way. I understand "defenders react" to mean this: I have a unit in CC with an enemy unit. If some of my unit are not touching an enemy model (as often happens in the latest rules) and they are charged by another, I can move them exactly as for a normal defenders reaction, to maximise the number of my models fighting, and to give me some control over how many fight each unit. There's nothing in the rules to say that react = attacks.

Kill team is great for a quick game, but it's unbalanced. It does lend itself to house rules and narrative scenarios.

I would recommend Killzone for small skirmish games check out http://galaxyinflames.blogspot.com/ for a link to the rules. It's under development but it's gunna be big IMO

Maybe a combat patrol tourney would work better? I'm not familiar with the rules myself, but IIRC the whole point is 40k in 1 hour or less.

Some good points. I concede, I appear to have been playing it wrong.