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I'm gonna lay out exactly what happened even though not all of it pertains to my question, but just to double check I did the other parts right too. I'm a new player so I expect there to be mistakes an would like my game play double checked by more experienced people. If you wanna skip to the main point go to the third to last little paragraph and read from there. Alright here's the situation.

Step #1- I assaulted my friends rhino with 5x TH/SS termies and a Librarian. Librarian used Might of the Ancients before moving to assault. My termies have 2 base attacks, +1 for charging. So 5x Termies, 3 attacks= 15. Then my librarian also has two base attacks, +1 charging= 3. Thats a total of 18 attacks.

Step #2- His rhino was immobile so all attacks auto hit. Attacks are made against rear armor value of 10. TH's count as powerfists (2xStrength) so thats 15 strength 8 attacks, and Librarian roles 2D6 for 3 attacks w/ strength 6 (might)

Step #3- Termies role fourteen 11+ attacks for penetrating hits. one 10 is rolled for a glancing hit. Librarian scores 3 penetrating hits. So thats a total of 17 penetrating, 1 glancing.

Step #4- roll for damage, 2 or 3 Explode results, 2 or 3 Wrecked results, basically two or three results on each of the six categories.

So you take the best result, which was vehicle explodes, that a Str 3 AP - attacks D6" from vehicle hull. My friend roles a 6" explosion so all my termies and libby take 1 hit. All but 1 fail to wound. Armor save 2+ on wound. No casualties.

Here's the part i'm kinda confused about. He had SW Longfangs in his rhino. They all take their Str 4 AP- hits or whatever it is. All of them survive. Then we removed the Rhino and clustered his squad around the center of where it was at. Now at this point he failed his pinning test meaning he gets a 1+ cover save and his unit can't do anything till his next turn. At this point my Terminators are already within 1" of his models because there in the same spot they where when the rhino got blown up and his guys are right in the middle of that.

So here's my main question. Since his guys basically materialize within 1" of me does that mean we are already locked in close combat for the purposes of moving, shooting, charging, ect. or does he need to place his guys more that the 1" away. Obviously it would be nice if we weren't locked in close combat because since there pinned and can't move when it comes around to my Termies again I can charge and get that extra attack. Plus if we are already in combat then on his turn we have to continue it.

So I may have missed something in the book but does anyone know if there is a rule for this or what your interpretation is. It's either he HAS to put his guys 1" away from mine, we are automatically in close combat (that means the pinning test is pointless because you can't be pinned in CC which leads me to believe we can't be in CC after the transport is destroyed or thats a rule typo or oversight). Or is up to the assaulting player or the defending player to decide?

He must place the models that were inside the transport within the footprint of the transport but still not within 1" of any of your models.

It is not possible to destroy a unit's transport in the assault phase and then get into combat with them.

Looks like you did everything right. The only way you can engage them in close combat is to charge them.

As Griever said, the Explodes result requires the models to be placed where the wreck was, AND 1" away from your models. Any models which cannot be placed within those requirements are destroyed. IIRC the Rhino is about 3" across, so he should have had at least a few guys alive in the middle.

Alright I was hoping that was the case. Since there pinned that gives me the advantage of getting to shoot them all I want with my other squads and get my +1 Assaulting attack from my termies next turn.

The Rhino is 3" wide (maybe a hair less) and 4.75" Long

10 Longfangs- 1" Bases

My Terminators and librarian are surrounding the rhino evenly w/ 1 in the front, 2 on each side, 1 in the back. It would be mathematically impossible for the Longfangs to be 1" away from all my guys. The best way they could be oriented would to be in a rectangle shape of 5 men in two rows positioned lengthwise to the rhino footprint. That would mean that they would be 1/2 away from the terminators on each side (two 1" bases in a 3" wide rhino) and basically touching the terminators in the front and back. (They have 1" bases and are in a row of 5 men = 5" of men in a 4.75" long rhino.

I don't see how it's mathematically possible for the Longfangs to all be 1" away from my terminators in this situation. Obviously i'm over thinking this and for my purpose I'll just tell my friend they can't be in combat and scoot my termies back an inch or so. Still it's interesting because I don't see how you could get your guys all 1" away if you were evenly surrounded by enemy models. Is this ever a problem in tournaments. I'm not sure how seriously they take the measurements?


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Explodes result requires the models to be placed where the wreck was, AND 1" away from your models. Any models which cannot be placed within those requirements are destroyed. IIRC the Rhino is about 3" across, so he should have had at least a few guys alive in the middle.

Ohhhh.... that kind of addresses my math rambling in the previous reply. That makes perfect sense. I'll make sure to bring that up to him because from the math of it I would imagine he would have to remove at least 3 and maybe ever 4 or 5 guys to fit them in.

Yup. It's obviously easier to place them with a smaller squad, bigger vehicle, or when the enemy unit isn't so close and well-placed before the assault that they are actually able to surround the vehicle. You had kind of a perfect setup.

Yeah I mean actually since the rhino is only 3" wide and the guys have a 1" base that means they can't be next to each other widthwise. Meaning only one row of guys can fit in the exact middle of the rhino. Then since the rhinos only 4.75" Long the single line of guys could be no more than 4 people. That would give him exactly 1 inch on each side and 1.1875 inches on either end. So your saying that based on this that his ten man unit will be forced to suffer 6 casualties. That's totally awesome. I'll have to remember that from now on... my friends not gonna be happy. He's the guy who argues the models aren't to scale when were trying to determine line of site. He doesn't like when we have to interpret rules ourselves and it doesn't go in his favor. I can't wait to tell him!

The only thing I saw that might have been wrong: Even when assaulting vehicles without a WS, you still roll attacks in initiative order. Unless Might of the Ancients reduces the Librarian's initiave to 1, he should have rolled all his attacks before the terminators. This matters because if he had managed to wreck the vehicle without exploding it, you then could not swing with the termies to try for the explosion.

Good catch, Lordhat. Except that he apparently had the Rhino surrounded anyway, which would have meant they had nowhere to disembark on a Wrecked result.


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dspur15 wrote:Yeah I mean actually since the rhino is only 3" wide and the guys have a 1" base that means they can't be next to each other widthwise. Meaning only one row of guys can fit in the exact middle of the rhino. Then since the rhinos only 4.75" Long the single line of guys could be no more than 4 people. That would give him exactly 1 inch on each side and 1.1875 inches on either end. So your saying that based on this that his ten man unit will be forced to suffer 6 casualties. That's totally awesome. I'll have to remember that from now on... my friends not gonna be happy. He's the guy who argues the models aren't to scale when were trying to determine line of site. He doesn't like when we have to interpret rules ourselves and it doesn't go in his favor. I can't wait to tell him!

Shouldn't be all that bad, anyway. In the future, when there's an entire unit of Terminators RIGHT next to a Rhino of his full of guys, he'll probably think to get those guys the heck out of there (either drive away, or if it's immobilized, get out and run away) and not let the Rhino get surrounded.

dspur15 wrote:... my friends not gonna be happy. He's the guy who argues the models aren't to scale when were trying to determine line of site.

Not to scale? Tell them the little models are not only exactly to scale they are exactly the size of the little models they are supposed to represent . He's not trying to tell you the little model of a space ork is not to scale with the 'real life' space ork is he?

I'm more concerned as to why his long fangs were in a rhino and not posted up in a terrain piece somewhere, more a tactics issue than a rules one though.

Thanks everyone for the input. I just realized they weren't Longfangs in the Rhino they were Grey Hunters. I don't really know my SW stuff very well.

Thanks for catching the initiative thing Lordhat, I'll make sure to remember that from now on. For some reason it didn't even occur to me. If my Libby had gotten a 5 that would have meant that all his guys could have emergency disembarked but even then they would still have ALL been within 1" of my termies so does that mean they would be automatically destroyed? Plus I wouldn't have had to take the explosions hits on my termies with a wrecked result.

Oh and by the way my friend is well... not very good (putting it nicely). The rhino was immobilized but thats not really an excuse because for some reason he just let his guys sit in it the entire game. He also left a Longfang squad on his back objective and they're not a scoring unit. As it stands I've blown up his predator, dreadnought, an entire squad of grey hunters, two rhinos, and his Rune Priest isn't attached to a squad anymore so he's about to take all the fire from a Predator and two tactical squads, and his last unit of grey hunters is gonna get shot up by tacs and cut apart by TH/SH termies. So basically in the end I control 3 objectives, and he's contesting 1 w/ a non scoring unit. He ends the game with one squad of longfangs and thats it (unless I can blow up the building they're in next turn). I've lost 4 tac squad marines (2 out of each of my melta combat squads) and lost a weapon off a dreadnought and thats it. Like I said I don't think he really has any idea what he's doing even though it's only my second game and it's his 5 or 6th probably. Last game I killed like 42 guys or something like that and blew up 2 vehicles and he killed 2 of my guys. It was pretty sad



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He's not trying to tell you the little model of a space ork is not to scale with the 'real life' space ork is he?

No he just doesn't think the models are to scale with each other... I firmly believe that in the far future we will all be tiny 1" tall midgets. I mean you never know. That's 38,000 years of evolution right there

dspur15 wrote:
If my Libby had gotten a 5 that would have meant that all his guys could have emergency disembarked but even then they would still have ALL been within 1" of my termies so does that mean they would be automatically destroyed?

Yes, they would automatically be destroyed.

Dsur- Wow. That is terrible. It must feel kind of like beating up a little person. I hope you play narrative-style games, to make the tactics less a focus, if he's that awful.

It's true that 40k vehicle and infantry models aren't really to scale with one another. But that doesn't have any bearing on the rules of the game.

Mannahnin wrote:It's true that 40k vehicle and infantry models aren't really to scale with one another. But that doesn't have any bearing on the rules of the game.

Well, if a squad can't fit inside the vehicle that carries it, but you need to place the squad in the vehicle's (former) footprint, and you can't....that looks like it has some bearing.

Ogiwan wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:It's true that 40k vehicle and infantry models aren't really to scale with one another. But that doesn't have any bearing on the rules of the game.

Well, if a squad can't fit inside the vehicle that carries it, but you need to place the squad in the vehicle's (former) footprint, and you can't....that looks like it has some bearing.

It should have some bearing, but RAW it doesn't. Welcome to GW's world.

Ogiwan wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:It's true that 40k vehicle and infantry models aren't really to scale with one another. But that doesn't have any bearing on the rules of the game.

Well, if a squad can't fit inside the vehicle that carries it, but you need to place the squad in the vehicle's (former) footprint, and you can't....that looks like it has some bearing.

Most units would probably fit into their transports if they weren't surfing on huge round pieces of landscape all the time.

If they sat in the wheel wells and stuff and there was no engine, transmission, ammo, controls or fuel tank then sure 10 guys in power armor could flintstones around in a rhino.

Wouldn't any models unable to be placed at least 1" away from his termies be destroyed???? Matbe I am missing something, but if I surround a vehicle, and it's not wide enough for him to place all the models in unit coherency and within the footprint of the exploded vehicle, wouldn't the models unable to be placed be destroyed??

You can't move to within 1" of an enemy unit unless assaulting (pg 11) and you can only assault in your assault phase, unless you have a special rule otherwise, and I know that disembarking units cannot disembark within 1" of an enemy unit, but not sure if this applies to this situation.... I very rarely surround a transport, and most of the time they are empty Razorbacks just brought for the guns anyway.

You are correct. They who cannot fit in the footprint and stay 1" or more are just dead.

It's true that 40k vehicle and infantry models aren't really to scale with one another. But that doesn't have any bearing on the rules of the game

I didn't even know that. I just made the assumption that all the models were correctly scaled to each other (28mm right?) I mean now that I think about it and have done a side-by-side comparison it's kind of obvious that they're not. Especially the Rhinos compared to the guys who have to cram into them, the rhino is basically the size of a large SUV and it has 10, 7.5 ft tall, 800 lb guys smashed in it. That does seem like it's a major problem for the whole situation I was dealing with since it directly deals with the size of the vehicles footprint. Otherwise it wouldn't really matter but for that it really does. Then again I don't want every rhino to be the price of a landraider because GW made it bigger. Oh well you can't expect everything to be perfect. I'll just have to live on with the persistent annoyance that when my guys are in their rhinos they're quite uncomfortable

If you really think about the scale of 40k, it doesn't make a lot of sense, unlike a lot of traditional wargames which put hard thought into exactly what ranges and distances and time periods are being simulated/represented.

The effective range of a futuristic infantry rifle/submachine gun is the same distance that a soldier can cover on foot in a couple of turns with good Run rolls, for example. Or a fast vehicle can cover in one.

Someone put some hard thought into this issue on this forum a few years back and concluded that 40k isn't actually 28mm scale, rules-wise. It's not really scaled, but if you think of it as being much smaller, it makes more sense. And the figures are just blown up 4 or 5 times their size for aesthetic value. Battlefleet: Gothic actually said that explicitly regarding its own rules; the ships were actually considered to be just a point where the flying stem was; the ship model itself was just for looks.

It's not really scaled, but if you think of it as being much smaller, it makes more sense. And the figures are just blown up 4 or 5 times their size for aesthetic value.

I guess this is kind of just semantics now, but even if that were the case if you consider what you just said about a fast vehicle that would just compound the issue to think of it this way. If everything is smaller sure that would mean that in "actuality" the weapon ranges are much further than the actual inch value represented on the table, but that would also mean that all the movements would be much further as well. Fast vehicles would be moving at hundreds of miles per hour and infantry models would be running half the distance of their effective range in one turn still. If you use a realistic effective range value of a rifle like lets say 500 yards that would mean all the models would be running 250 yards in a single turn.

It's kind of a toss up of thinking everyone is a really bad shot or everyone can move really quick. I guess I just think of it more in terms of being a bad shot because there's combat stress, fog of war (dust, smoke, rain or fog) and all the pressure of combat and it's hard to shoot well in that environment (that wouldn't really apply to SM, or Eldar, or any other races that aren't normal human or human-like). Like I said though it's kind of like arguing semantics at this point. What your saying makes sense too. I can be satisfied that the game rules works and it's fun to play. Honestly the game might suck if everything was realistic. That kind of applies to lots of things. I would hate to play a video game where I start the mission and am immediately killed by an air-strike or shot by a tank from 6 or 7 miles away. I guess war inherently isn't fun so it wouldn't be a very good game if it completely and realistically presented warfare. Sorry if I sound like i'm trying to argue with you too. This is just an interesting idea and what you said made me think of some other explanations. Plus i'm a new player and all of this is kind of just dawning on me

Now that I thought about it more if you cut down every models movement speed and greatly increased their range it would be more accurate thinking they're actually 4 to 5 times smaller. Like I was saying about sucking though that would put a much heavier emphasis on ranged fire and not close combat and it would limit everyones mobility because you'd be afraid to move around much once you were in cover if you didn't have the movement speed to advance before you got chewed up

Well, the speeds and distances involved also depend on what time scale you think the game is using.

Overall, though, I agree with you. 40k gives us a fun, quick, and dynamic game. I've played a "realistic" sci-fin wargame with armored battlesuits, and the players/units were represented by little pins stuck in the terrain map, and blasted each other from (scale) miles away. Not so exciting, and very time consuming for the small amount of fun.