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OK, this is a wierd one, and will probably have a very short answer, but here goes.

I have 10 Howling Banshees charge a 10-man tac squad. The outcome is pretty obvious, especially-so if I'm firing Farseer psychic powers all over the shop.
Whilst wiping them out would be fun, it's not entirely advantageous.

If I score a level ten PW wounds, can I choose to only inflict nine of them, leaving one man (hopefully) locked in combat? The tactical advantage of this situation is (hopefully) obvious.
I don't think there's anything in the rulebook saying I can, but I don't think it explicitly tells me I must inflict the full amount of wounds I cause.

Bit random, but there you are.

Sadly, No. If you inflict 10 wounds with PW, the opponent must take off 10 models.

Nope, no way around it. The casualty removal rules force you to remove a model for each wound. (Page 24, 'Remove Casualties' first paragraph)

Yeah, that's the double-edged sword Khaine makes us wield: Banshees and Harlequins tend to wipe their targets and then get hung out to dry.

Homer

Just to expand on this: You aren't allowed to "hold back" in CC like you are in shooting, right? If a model can attack, it must attack?

Thanks for clearing that up. Like I said, I was 99% certain the answer was black and white, but these things niggle at me.

^A good point above. Can you elect certain models to not assault? Can you choose not to accrue extra attacks?

You have to get as many models as possible into base to base, i'm not sure if they all have to make attacks though.

If the squad assaults, all members must follow the rules for moving into assault. It is possible some will not be able to reach assault, but they can't just sit there.

I think the question is more along the lines of "Does every model in base to base (or within 2" of a model in base to base) have to attack?".

Once you roll the dice for an effect, it happens, you can't decide to only succeed 9 times instead of 10. Models cannot elect not to assault, moving into assault is compulsory, though if there are multiple units you can do a multiple assault to spread your attacks. Models involved in an assault don't have an option not to use their attacks.

Grakmar wrote:Just to expand on this: You aren't allowed to "hold back" in CC like you are in shooting, right? If a model can attack, it must attack?

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Hope this helps

BTW, Nothing prevents you from house ruling this.

In a game for fun, I took necrons against my buddy's (ennkey) IG (It was actually an 8 man 2v2v2v2 but the other players aren't members here) and I told him I wanted to kill (Color seargent) Kell at all costs, so I Viel'd my Immotals and my Necron Lord over to be in range of his guys, shot with only half the squad (as to not kill his entire CCS) and since I did more wounds then I wanted to (7) him and I agreed that if Kell forgoe his cover save, he could soak all the wounds.

Just sayin...

The rules for assaulting, wiping enemies out in one turn, and then the consequences of the next turn is why so few Eldar players use Shining Spears

As noted, all models eligible to attack must attack, and you can't choose not to use special CCWs in 5th edition.

The only way to TRY to accomplish this is to assault a strung-out enemy unit from its end, and to position your assaulting unit to also be strung out at maximum distance prior to the assault move. If you have the Banshees exactly 6" away from the closest enemy model, and the Banshees are strung into a line at maximum coherency (at least the closest Banshee models), then only those first couple/few assaulting models will be close enough to throw attacks. Of course, the defenders are also forced to engage the unengaged attacking models in 5th, so even this doesn't work all that well. Again, the only real chance to reduce your number of attacks is with one strung-out unit against another strung-out unit.

insaniak wrote:Nope, no way around it. The casualty removal rules force you to remove a model for each wound. (Page 24, 'Remove Casualties' first paragraph)

This is only true for models with 1 wound(or 1 wound remaining); So you would also need to reference page 26 on Multiple wound models to see what happens with them.

Kommissar Kel wrote:This is only true for models with 1 wound

Which is what the original question was about.

I klnow; but your answer was a broad one that only applies to a specific set of models(albeit the majority). I was merely expanding on your answer because to a completely new player that hadn't read the entirety of the rulebook(or at least not yet read past removing casualties) it would seem that having multiple wounds has no effect on the game

"The casualty removal rules force you to remove a model for each wound"

This makes it sound like a multi-wound model gets removed after taking 1 wound.

To prevent this from happening, you can take fewer models in your own squads if/when possible. Limit the number of attacks you are forced to make. Basically try and find the number of models that make you killy, but not too killy. I had that problem with DE wyches in the old dex, and will probably continue to have that problem w/ incubi and wyches in the new one. The solution was to take about 6 or 7 models.

Charging 10 Banshees into a doomed 10 man tac squad, will most likely end in the tacs being wiped out.
You have to get into B2B as a priority when moving into assault, failing that, within 2"... then the defenders react, meaning most of the time the entire unit will be engaged and (as said earlier) you cannot hold back any attacks.

Averages would put the marines killed at almost 9 with doom.
However, if you dont use doom... you only kill 5 on average.

Mannahnin wrote:Again, the only real chance to reduce your number of attacks is with one strung-out unit against another strung-out unit.

Or if the other guy has two units, then you can split up your guys between the two so that hopefully one survives. You're required to get into combat, but there's nothing that requires you to get into combat with something you can hurt, so (if positioning works) you could charge a rhino with half of the squad even though S3 won't hurt it.

As stated above you can't

However I would advise against making it a house rule

the reason is it would be detrimental to players who shooting power over assault power such as tau, tau are meant to fail (in general) in CC but excel in shooting.

Basically if a fire warrior squad gets into CC they should hopefully drop in a turn or two leaving whatever squad assaulted them in the open with their thumbs up their unmentionables so that another squad can blaze away at them.

If you don't want your assault troops to be so good in CC then I would advise trying to gimp them via wargear options.

You can always move your models in a manner that makes the smallest amount of units actually fight the first round of combat, forcing mass consolidation and resolution for the next player assault round.

Some players also use their vehicle to shield their exposed troops.

juraigamer wrote:You can always move your models in a manner that makes the smallest amount of units actually fight the first round of combat, forcing mass consolidation and resolution for the next player assault round.

Not quite - you can move wherever you want (in coherency and not within 1" of an enemy) during the movement phase, but during the assault phase you are compelled to move into BtB if possible, and if not possible to engagement range (within 2" so you get attacks), and only if neither of those are possible can you move to somewhere where you don't fight. It's actually pretty hard to set up this kind of thing on a typical tabletop, if you want to try it it's really worth practicing charges to get a feel for how it works.

EDIT: Also, if you put too few models into BtB, it's quite easy to lose the combat, leading to extra wounds or a wiped out assault squad. 3-4 banshees might be likely to beat a marine tac squad, but it's not out of the question for the marines to win. If you have an attached IC, you tend to end up with him either not able to fight or the whole enemy squad able to gang up on him, which is also usually not what you want.

Completely related subject. Are you forced to make the best save? If you had a few terminators lives in the way of you being able to light up a really mean enemy general in your next shooting phase, could you take all the CC saves that turn against your invul, or if they are PW, against your 2+ armor?

axeman1n wrote:Are you forced to make the best save?

Yes. No. Maybe. It's been discussed to death in the past, with no real clear resolution.

The rules for having multiple saves (page 24, Models with more than one save) state that models always have the 'advantage' of always using the best save. Some players take this to mean that you must use the best save available, although opinions are divided as to exactly how the 'best' save is necessarily determined. Other players feel that this is a throwaway comment and not to be taken strictly literally, and that players are free to choose which save to use... although this is usually tempered by the belief that you can't (or at least shouldn't) deliberately try to fail a save in the same way that you can't deliberately shoot your own troops, or hold back from fighting in close combat.

I suppose if you have a good eye you can make some models hang back say nine inches so won't attack in combat, but only if you are almost definite it is worth it.

axeman1n wrote:could you take all the CC saves that turn against your invul, or if they are PW, against your 2+ armor?

The rules are quite clear though, that this is not allowed.

BearersOfSalvation wrote:

juraigamer wrote:You can always move your models in a manner that makes the smallest amount of units actually fight the first round of combat, forcing mass consolidation and resolution for the next player assault round.

Not quite - you can move wherever you want (in coherency and not within 1" of an enemy) during the movement phase, but during the assault phase you are compelled to move into BtB if possible, and if not possible to engagement range (within 2" so you get attacks), and only if neither of those are possible can you move to somewhere where you don't fight. It's actually pretty hard to set up this kind of thing on a typical tabletop, if you want to try it it's really worth practicing charges to get a feel for how it works.

EDIT: Also, if you put too few models into BtB, it's quite easy to lose the combat, leading to extra wounds or a wiped out assault squad. 3-4 banshees might be likely to beat a marine tac squad, but it's not out of the question for the marines to win. If you have an attached IC, you tend to end up with him either not able to fight or the whole enemy squad able to gang up on him, which is also usually not what you want.

You've obviously misunderstood him, as what he said is entirely legal.

In the preceeding movement and running (if fleet) phases you string your 10 banshes out max coherency so that only 3-4 will be able to make it inside base contact or within 2" of a model in base with their 6" assault move, its very easily to accomplish with a bit of firesight and a decent run roll.

Also, 10 tac marines fighting back in combat doesnt really scare anyone .... let alone sweep squads of anything but .... gretchin? mabye?

score 10 PW wounds, remove 10 models. I wouldn't have it any other way. +1 kill point.

Happy Wargaming

Furthermore, you've also got to remember that if a model has a special weapon, they HAVE to use the weapon. Power fist + laspistol = no pistol whipping.

Tek wrote: Can you elect certain models to not assault? Can you choose not to accrue extra attacks?

So, everything here has been answered, but there is SORT OF a way to do this. In the movement phase, if you don't want everything to attack, then just move it in such a way where after its 6" freebie move, the model itself is not within 2" of someone who is in base contact.

I do this with my priests (ICs) all the time. I don't want them to get picked off right away and thus deny the rest of the squad rerolls, thus I always be careful of how I move them.

For example. In the below circumstance the priest and the commissar started out right next to each other. In the movement phase, I moved the commissar 6" closer to the enemy, and the priest 6" further away. Assault was launched, and even with 6" of free movement, the priest was still not in close combat:



So, you can do some shenanigans in the movement phase which will sort of let you control how much damage you do.

Of course, in the above banshees v. tac squads, there would be no reason to do this...

axeman1n wrote:Completely related subject. Are you forced to make the best save? If you had a few terminators lives in the way of you being able to light up a really mean enemy general in your next shooting phase, could you take all the CC saves that turn against your invul, or if they are PW, against your 2+ armor?

You might want to think of it as what can you command your troops to do. It is one thing to tell your space marines not to fire boltguns at a rhino if the only weapon that will work is the las cannon. However, I don't think you will have much luck asking Private Jones to just sit there with his thumb up his rear while da boyz are trying to smash in his skull with a blunt choppa. Likewise I think the Chaplain will tell you to stuff it if you ask him to kindly turn off his rozarius whilst standing in front of a full squad of long fangs. These kind of things are quite suicidal. This is a bit fluffy I know but I thought it worth mentioning.