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I hope this is the correct forum for posting a question about the rules and how we interpreted them--I didn't see a "newbie question" forum.

While playing orks vs space marines last weekend, the situation arose where there was a squad of boyz (B), nobz (N), a warboss (W), and two squads of Marines (1 & 2) engaged in an assault roughly like this:

NNW 11 22 21 B11 BB

1) When the nobz attacked, they killed two marines from squad 1. The question was if I removed the two 1s the warboss was in B2B with, does he still get his attacks at I1? We ruled that he does still get to make his attacks, as he was engaged with models from squad 1 at the start of the fight, and an engaged model is determined at the start of the round, not at their initiative.

2) We also made a mental note that if there were no more 1s alive at I1, the warboss would NOT have gotten to attack, because the unit he was engaged with no longer exists.

So did we rule this correctly?

You ruled that absolutely correctly.

BGB p35 tells us that models being engaged or not is determined at the start of combat, before attacks are made. BGB p41 tells us that engaged models are only engaged with just 1 unit are restricted to only attacking that 1 unit.

So, your Warboss was engaged with unit 1. He's able to attack unit 1 no matter what happens to those models. He cannot attack unit 2, even if unit 1 is totally destroyed.

Great! Thanks for the fast response! I think I'm going to be spending a lot of time in this forum...

Your thinking is perfectly correct on point 1 - where you may be getting mixed up is if you ever played 4th, where it was worked out at each i step.

Eugee wrote: 1) When the nobz attacked, they killed two marines from squad 1. The question was if I removed the two 1s the warboss was in B2B with, does he still get his attacks at I1? We ruled that he does still get to make his attacks, as he was engaged with models from squad 1 at the start of the fight, and an engaged model is determined at the start of the round, not at their initiative.

You were correct that engaged models are determined at the start of the round of combat, before any blows are struck. However, you didn't take into account that the Warboss is an independent character. You now have to follow the additonal rules for independent characters in assault on page 49. When you resolve the attacks, an independent character must be in base contact with the enemy to be able to attack. So if the 2 marines '1' that were in base contact with the Warboss were removed before the Warboss was able to attack, then he could not attack any models because he is not in base conatact with any models.
This is actually a good tactic that can be use to deny an IC a round of attacks.

Eugee wrote:2) We also made a mental note that if there were no more 1s alive at I1, the warboss would NOT have gotten to attack, because the unit he was engaged with no longer exists.

That is partially true, but the key is that he can only attack models he is in base contact with.

time wizard wrote:

Eugee wrote: 1) When the nobz attacked, they killed two marines from squad 1. The question was if I removed the two 1s the warboss was in B2B with, does he still get his attacks at I1? We ruled that he does still get to make his attacks, as he was engaged with models from squad 1 at the start of the fight, and an engaged model is determined at the start of the round, not at their initiative.

You were correct that engaged models are determined at the start of the round of combat, before any blows are struck. However, you didn't take into account that the Warboss is an independent character. You now have to follow the additonal rules for independent characters in assault on page 49. When you resolve the attacks, an independent character must be in base contact with the enemy to be able to attack. So if the 2 marines '1' that were in base contact with the Warboss were removed before the Warboss was able to attack, then he could not attack any models because he is not in base conatact with any models.
This is actually a good tactic that can be use to deny an IC a round of attacks.

Eugee wrote:2) We also made a mental note that if there were no more 1s alive at I1, the warboss would NOT have gotten to attack, because the unit he was engaged with no longer exists.

That is partially true, but the key is that he can only attack models he is in base contact with.

Time Wizard, your spell seems to have gone awry! You've ended up in 2011, not 2007 as you seem to think!

In 2008, 40k released a 5th edition, and we've all been playing that ever since.

In 5th, one of the major changes is that you determine who is engaged with what unit at the start of combat. This means that the 4th edition shenanigans in denying ICs their attacks no longer works.

Time Wizard - PLEASE reread 5th edition,a nd not 4th edition!

Engagement zone clearance is dead and buried.

Holy Mea Culpa Guys!! Okay!
I simply had it confused with being engaged with 1 of 2 units in cc, and the one you are engaged with is wiped out.
You then cannot make any attacks.

@Eugee - Grakmar and nosferatu are correct in their answer, I hope my post didn't confuse you as much as it confused me!

No harm, no foul, time wizard.

It's the 4E shenanigans that had my buddy and I questioning our ruling to begin with! Bad 4E, bad!