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Okay, so the question I had when planning my "fear bomb" Psyker Battle Squad (PBS the right acro?) List was if "Weaken Resolve" could be cast before issuing orders. The reason this is an issue for me is that I'm considering "casting" (never did get the right verb for psykers...) weaken resolve, then using orders (i.e. "Fire On My Target") with pinning weapons to hopefully pin the squad. I know orders are issued at the start of the shooting phase, but since this isn't a psychic shooting attack I was wondering if it's possible to use WR before orders. I'm actually thinking no myself, so my NEXT question, if that is the case, is can a CCS issue FOMT to a PBS and then have them use WR instead of firing their laspistols, or for that matter, in addition to their laspistols? I realize I'm weak on psychic rules, and that stems from years of playing guard... So yeah, thanks in advance guys.

Start of the Shooting Phase means exactly that. If you do something that isn't specifically at the Start of the Shooting Phase, then it is no longer the start and is thus too late to do things that need to be done at the Start.

So no casting Weaken Resolve and then issuing Orders.

You cannot issue orders after having done ANYTHING else in the shooting phase.

However you CAN use it after causing 25% casualties, meaning you have a damn good chance of making them run away

You could order the PBS and use WR later in the phase. However, you would have to do all of your orders first so it is not very useful.

You could order the PBS to use any of the shooting orders and cast Weaken Resolve at that point and then order another squad with pinning weapons to pin the target.

Actually it is said that WR is used in the shooting phase, if you use WR you can't issue order anymore after that because at that point someone has "shoot" and order issuing is already over. As soon as you do something else than something which reads at the begining of the shooting phase.. then its too late.

IMO this make the orders a bit too complicated and very much less useful.

Incorrect. The ordered unit must immediately act - so you can Order the PBS, they use WR!, you then carrying on Ordering which is fine.

Thanks for the help guys, I was pretty sure it was cut and dry on using orders first. Again, it's my general lack on knowledge on using non-shooting psychic attacks that threw that into question... but then again, you can't run before issuing orders either, so orders have to be done at the very start.

So is it the general consensus that Corrode and nosferatu are correct? That is, it's acceptable to order the PBS with FOMT and then have them us WR as a part of that order?

Absolutely. Give the PBS Bring It Down, or Firt Rank Second Rank or Dire on My Target and then they cast Weaken Resolve as part of their 'shooting' action. Then continue with your other orders.

Awesome. Now to test out the usefulness of this newfound knowledge

Also, don't forget that morale happens at the end of the phase, so you can hold your PBS to see if you've even caused enough casualties to force a test. Once you've caused enough casualties, select a new target for your orders, and cast WR after you're done with orders, or just use an order on the PBS as suggested above.

But pinning tests are taken immediately, which is why he wants to cast WR before shooting them with pinning weapons................

don_mondo wrote:But pinning tests are taken immediately, which is why he wants to cast WR before shooting them with pinning weapons................

Exactly! It's not a huge deal, but having the option to pin on WR's modified LD (albiet at the cost of a wasted order), instead of inflicting a regular ld check gives me more tactical flexibility. Even more so against ATSKNF or large, hard to kill squads (such as necron warriors), where 25% might be difficult to get.

And here's something else to ponder. If you have a maxed out PBS and succeed with the WR and cause that pinning wound so that they have to test, well, they automatically fail. Yep. Even at LD 10, a -9 means that they need to roll a ONE on 2d6 to pass, which cannot be done. Snake-eyes (Insane Heroism) won't do it, as that rule specifically says it works for Morale tests!

don_mondo wrote:And here's something else to ponder. If you have a maxed out PBS and succeed with the WR and cause that pinning wound so that they have to test, well, they automatically fail. Yep. Even at LD 10, a -9 means that they need to roll a ONE on 2d6 to pass, which cannot be done. Snake-eyes (Insane Heroism) won't do it, as that rule specifically says it works for Morale tests!

You, sir, are a genius. I hadn't considered that, and looking in the BRB confirms what you say; Insane Heroism only affects morale checks, where pinning is not a morale check, but a leadership check. I have to wonder why I haven't heard of this before? This makes my hairbrained idea even more appealing...

don_mondo wrote:And here's something else to ponder. If you have a maxed out PBS and succeed with the WR and cause that pinning wound so that they have to test, well, they automatically fail. Yep. Even at LD 10, a -9 means that they need to roll a ONE on 2d6 to pass, which cannot be done. Snake-eyes (Insane Heroism) won't do it, as that rule specifically says it works for Morale tests!

No. Weaken resolve says it can never reduce leadership below a 2. Snake eyes will still save the unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

You, sir, are a genius. I hadn't considered that, and looking in the BRB confirms what you say; Insane Heroism only affects morale checks, where pinning is not a morale check, but a leadership check. I have to wonder why I haven't heard of this before? This makes my hairbrained idea even more appealing...

You responded too soon

Out of curiosity, what pinning weapon/squad etc are you wanting to issue orders to?

D'oh... yeah, forgot to check the actual ability for that. Still, snake eyes be tough to come by. Unless you're rolling GW dice where it's apparently at 29% chance to get a 1.

Eh, right now it's a CCS with a MOO and 4 snipers... I could try the ratlings with my last order issued, but it's gonna fail at ld6.
As you can see, still working on making a good list to incorperate this idea. I suppose the main thing going through my head is having the ability to re-roll covers on the MOO, assuming he hits someone.

Hmm I see what you are trying to do, but I think that trying to rely on the horrible scatter of the MOO for a pin is far to impractical for you make good use of it.

You could probably make better use of your orders by giving them to other heavy/special weapons to take out vehicles, mc's, deathstars etc, then use the pysker squad to weaken a pesky infantry unit for the pinning weapons of your snipers; removing that unit as a threat so your army can focus its remaining power on other targets. Your pinning weapons may have a harder time without the orders, but this is really the only way you can do it.

Or, you could always go with some type of pinning artillery like a manticore, baslisk etc and rely on the multiple hits from their blasts to score you that 1 pinning wound you need. I've seen people use mortars this way before, but statistically, I think the snipers would still fill this role better. Something to look at though

Yup, it was like 5 minutes after I originally posted (and that was right before I went to sleep) that I realized the impracticality of this situation. FOMT isn't really going to affect snipers (I mean how often do they rend anyway?), and I can't order artillery, so most my pinning will be done outside of the order sequence anyway. The only luck I've had with the MOO is using BID so I can re-roll and get it to (hopefully) scatter onto something. I'm actually planning on bringing a (proxied) collossus to my next game to see how well it works in conjuction with this.

Mortar squads - remember as Barrage they cause pinning checks at -1, making it a LD1 check...

omerakk wrote:

don_mondo wrote:And here's something else to ponder. If you have a maxed out PBS and succeed with the WR and cause that pinning wound so that they have to test, well, they automatically fail. Yep. Even at LD 10, a -9 means that they need to roll a ONE on 2d6 to pass, which cannot be done. Snake-eyes (Insane Heroism) won't do it, as that rule specifically says it works for Morale tests!

No. Weaken resolve says it can never reduce leadership below a 2. Snake eyes will still save the unit.

Good catch. Course, since my pinning weapons are Ordnance Barrage, they're LD 2 with a -1 due to Ordnance Barrage...................................

Something you should have mentioned earlier

Except a double 1 always Passes a morale check so even if it the LD is a 1 because of modifiers. This is due to the Insane Heroism rule on P.43

Edit: it seems Pinning is not a morale check, that is odd.

Exactly. I think this is a loophole. Albiet one that will only occur in this case, that is with a PBS lowering the ld to 2 via WR then using ordnance barrage to lower the ld to 1 for a pinning check.

Automatic Failure.

yeah, but there are drawbacks. Given that 9 out of 10 opponents are Marines of some sort and have ATSKNF, if you inflict too many casualties, they just fail their Morale on a 3 or higher, fall back, and auto-rally at the beginning of their turn and are no longer pinned due to the fallback move. So is it useful? Nope.

Of course, it's just fun to know that it's possible to do something like that under a very unique set of circumstances.