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When a unit falls back, it crushes the morale of all nearby friendly units and improves that of the enemy. When any unit falls back after losing an assault, any friendly units within 18' and line of sight take -1 to leadership and must take a morale test. If the test is failed, the unit automatically falls back 1D6, breaking from close combat if necessary to do so. All enemy units within 18' gain +1 to morale for 1 turn but are not required to take a morale test. Any circumstances caused by units retreating because of this situation are dealt with as normal.

An ally breaking would affect Necrons, Space Marines, Chaos Daemons and similar exactly why?

Necrons are affected if there is no revival orb thing 9not familiar with necrons) daemons are immune since they're pretty much mindless, tyranids as well. Guard are immune if a commisar is within 12'. marines can auto pass tests so N/A. Tau use the rule. any rogue chaos guard use it.

This is way to complicated for the fact that it effects different races differently, completely weakens shooty armies like Tau. Besides, with more than half the armies in 40k having either an extremely brutal leadership keeping them working, are extremely heroic, or have no understanding of emotion at all, this rule doesn't make any sense. That's part of the reason why this rule is in Fantasy and NOT 40k.

Ah yes, more morale rules that only affect 2 or 3 armies. Just what the game needs.

It would make sense, if the leadership scores were readjusted to reflect the capability of the unit to act autonomously and, honestly, what is so bad if it were to disrupt shooty armies? The Tau and the Eldar, at least in the fluff, tend to fight and act on the assumption that their leaders, the Ethereal and the Farseers, have a plan and may even know what is going to happen, so if something unforseen and awful happens, it makes sense they could be crushed. Just as it may make sense for Chaos Space Marines, Demons, and Orks to be crushed with being mauled in the crossfire of those Fire Warriors or bladestormed Eldar, as Orks may lose a lot of their spirit when the Waagh is broken and, let's face it, demons and traitor marines are caricatures of evil and,thus, prone to looking out for number one. The fluff can make it work, but the leadership scores do need to be readjusted, or, maybe, the panic rule can be altered so if you hit your leadership or higher on a 2D6, you panic, and, for every unit that fails its panic test, add another D6 to the panic roll of the next unit testing for that disastrous failure, within, let's say, three inches, to reflect a line or advance caving in. For units with low leadership like Gretchin, the I.G., and Tyranid, this could be the beginning of a genuine rout, and for those of you out there who want to cry and defiantly ask, "why are my ... affected" just take it as a redeployment, given that most Space Marines, the Necron, and the like will reform the next turn, or that whatever unit that broke was just a cowardly exception to your band of hardasses.

Edit: And, of course, the opposite could apply where units may become impetuous and gain furious charge if they see an enemy unit is destroyed or panics and routs within six inches of them, through the next assault phase, and testing with the same rules. For some units, that may inevitably lead to "getting their dander up" and trying to crush the rest of the enemy, as with an SM, Ork, Chaos, Demon, or Tyranid force, or be ignored by the Tau and Eldar, who would probably know that they will still get crushed if any close combat enemies are still able to fight, and stay in a line.

I agree with these ideas. Routs are very real in combat, even among those we may consider beyond fear.

The thing is that almost everything in the 40k universe is either fearless or mindless. Really, who would this rule effect other than the imperial guard?

Really, I think that the units' Ld characteristic already takes into account things like this.

Unless the whole point is to make 40k more like WHFB.

Ailaros wrote:The thing is that almost everything in the 40k universe is either fearless or mindless. Really, who would this rule effect other than the imperial guard?

Eldar of either color. They don't even get Stubborn Commisars in their 50 man squads.

I have no objection to adding panic and other morale rules back into 40k, but it really needs to be done in a whole systematic overhaul (just like when they took them out, moving to third edition).

Jack

The rules for multiple combats almost cover this situation as all units on the same side of the combat suffer from the results...