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The rules as they stand now say you cannot, as not even the lowest commander would order his men to fire upon their own.

I ask, wouldn't some? I mean, granted Space Marines wouldn't, but Ork sure as hell would. Hell, its canon tht Burna Boyz do shoot friendly Orks just to laugh at them dancing on fire.

What about Repentia? Or Death Company? Its a flippin' suicide squad which wants to die.

I'm not saying stop the rule entirely. But make exceptions. Even then, it doesn't have to be absolute. For example, Repentia could have a special faith option, "Repentence is Death", heck, if your concered about balancing, make them roll to see if it works, after the command is called.

There may be balancing issues, as id love to tie up a couple high point squads with Grotz and unload ungodly amounts of dakka on the whole lot of both units, but still. It should be somewhat allowed, albeit uncommon.

Who agrees and disagrees and why?

Suicide squads: they still have their feel of honour.
Burna Boyz: get killed if they do.

Make it a 50/50?
4+ you hit targetted enemy, failed rolls hit your models?

ICSP wrote:
There may be balancing issues, as id love to tie up a couple high point squads with Grotz and unload ungodly amounts of dakka on the whole lot of both units, but still.

This.

Even further, you mention Marines not shooting at their own, but Marine players could very safely do that. Toss a couple Marines or Termies into a large unit of something with low armor. Shoot the heck out of that unit with bolters and other non-AP2/3 weaponry. Even if you hit your own guys, you're far more likely to kill the low-armor unit than your own guys. Anyone left standing after the shooting phase will get mopped up during the close combat phase.

Game mechanics. Means a unit engaged in CC isn't a sitting duck.

Balance. Imagine charging a 50pt infantry squad into a 300pt unit of grey knight purifiers....and then dropping a demolisher blast on top of the whole combat? Then to top it off, you still have 9 more infantry squads to rinse and repeat.

Yeah you could do that with "guess" range stuff, just guess wrong and drop it on the cc.

The other thing you can do is pop a transport, go into cc with the guys from it to stop them moving again and repeatedly target the dead transport with artillery.

I get enough stuff like that with "danger close" artillery support for my IG.

Like lobbing a 6" range weapon that can scatter 8".
Brilliant.

It'd be stupidly unfair to trap armies into a turkey shoot from which they can't escape. At least in assault, they get to fight back. If they are in assault, you'd get to kill them with assault and shooting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

rob-or-ross wrote:Yeah you could do that with "guess" range stuff, just guess wrong and drop it on the cc.

Nothing in 40k works that way in this edition; that is one of the reasons why.

I think they got rid of guess and replaced any guess ranges with barrage.

How about this......

Turn Sequence!
Shooting comes before assault.
So, you shoot the target unit, then assault it. Survivors stay to fight.
Now it's his turn and HE fires into the assault, you lose models, then he assaults to clean up the remainder, then consolidates into cover.

See... not quite as brilliant as it first seems.

I meant could as in the past tense of can not in a speculative sense.

I see your point though.

jy2 wrote:Balance. Imagine charging a 50pt infantry squad into a 300pt unit of grey knight purifiers....and then dropping a demolisher blast on top of the whole combat? Then to top it off, you still have 9 more infantry squads to rinse and repeat.

Doesn't Karamazov do something like that?

I know themain reason for the game mechanic is balance.

What I'm suggesting is giving this ability to an otherwise worthless unit, and for balancing purposes, make it highly inaccurate and unreliable.

For example, let's say we make SoB Repentia and Penentence Engines low point units, and nerf the hell out of them. Basically, make them a swarm specifically to tie up.

Make it an act of faith "Ultimate Sacrifice" or something morbid like that. The SoB player calls the shot. Make it highly difficult to hit like only 5 and 6 it works. If he doesn't hit, his SoB's gun line hesitates, and that unit misses the shooting phase. If he hits, wounds are allocated as normal on target unit, and equal wounds are removed from the Repentia or something like that. Is that not balanced?

Draigo wrote:

jy2 wrote:Balance. Imagine charging a 50pt infantry squad into a 300pt unit of grey knight purifiers....and then dropping a demolisher blast on top of the whole combat? Then to top it off, you still have 9 more infantry squads to rinse and repeat.

Doesn't Karamazov do something like that?

he does but he has the added benefit of choosing which strike he wants and no worry about scatter I believe.

The same reason why an SM uses his plasma rifle as an club while fighting an chaos terminator in CC.

Safor wrote:The same reason why an SM uses his plasma rifle as an club while fighting an chaos terminator in CC.

Because he's afraid he's going to expload?

But, srsly, there is a justifiable reason in the fluff for that. In CC, any weapon bigger than a pistol and not designed for melee, is hard to handle at point plank.

ICSP wrote:

Safor wrote:The same reason why an SM uses his plasma rifle as an club while fighting an chaos terminator in CC.

Because he's afraid he's going to expload?

But, srsly, there is a justifiable reason in the fluff for that. In CC, any weapon bigger than a pistol and not designed for melee, is hard to handle at point plank.

I'm not trying to challenge the fluff here, and by no means challeng you, but...
I am an avid milsim-er, I carry a full-size m60 and have been engaded in close-combat, no doubt point-blank (given point-blank=within 4 feet), guns in close combat still make better guns than they do clubs. I, personally don't feel it worth it to smack somebody in the head when you could, just as easily, pull the trigger. Again, just-saying...

Squidmanlolz wrote:I'm not trying to challenge the fluff here, and by no means challeng you, but...
I am an avid milsim-er, I carry a full-size m60 and have been engaded in close-combat, no doubt point-blank (given point-blank=within 4 feet), guns in close combat still make better guns than they do clubs. I, personally don't feel it worth it to smack somebody in the head when you could, just as easily, pull the trigger. Again, just-saying...

You know what... Good point... That undoes the fluff reasoning...

I must offer a different reasoning then which I never previously thought of... Bolters have highly explosive shells. Plasma cannons are explosives. A majority of weapons in the 40k universe are (by modern standards) High Explosives. As such, it may be reasonable that, much like modern explosive weapons (Grenade launchers and RPGs), they have minimum ranges in order to ensure that accidental discharges do not explode. When your dealing with something with Space Marine Armor, or something like an Ork which can theoretically survive decapitated, that chainsaw looks a hell of a lot more appealing than a grenade launcher which your inside the safety buffer of.

I know that contradicts Bolt Pistols being useable in CC, Lasguns not being useable, and a lot of other exceptions... but still... fluff is fluff. Warhammer is basically just a giant excuse to have people with weapons beyond our technological grasp beat each other to death with the butt end of said weapon.

Space Marines can't use their plasma guns in CC because there's a pretty decent chance they'd either A. Explode, or B. Miss their intended target and whang one of their comrades in the back of the head, in the "swirling melee". When it's 1-on-1 obviously it may be a different story, but 90% of the time it isn't. There's also a big difference between shooting a single guy with your M60 when there's nothing else to hit, and trying to shoot a 10ft baroque giant with a cannon the size of you and a chainsaw lashed to his fist, with pure corruption leaking from the rents in his armour, and symbols covering his armour that hurt your eyes to look at, you wipe your eyes and your hands come away red...sorry, lost the point there. Harriers for the cup!

Better yet, may as well just have every squad individually do their shooting and assaulting. That way you can weaken and assault a squad and if that fails then you can move another squad into help.

The topic does say CERTAIN units, personally I think this would only really apply to three armies.
Tyrannids: they have no fear of death and should be able to fire small-arms into a combat, and apply some buffer to consider the chance of hitting friendlies.

Tau/ Eldar: the two most advanced civilizations, both make use of advanced targeting systems and may be able to avoid hitting friendlies when things get hot, this would help to balance the Tau's piss-poor CC stats.

Benn Bloodmane wrote:Make it a 50/50?
4+ you hit targetted enemy, failed rolls hit your models?

That's more or less how it worked in 2nd Edition.

Squidmanlolz wrote:The topic does say CERTAIN units, personally I think this would only really apply to three armies.
Tyrannids: they have no fear of death and should be able to fire small-arms into a combat, and apply some buffer to consider the chance of hitting friendlies.

Tau/ Eldar: the two most advanced civilizations, both make use of advanced targeting systems and may be able to avoid hitting friendlies when things get hot, this would help to balance the Tau's piss-poor CC stats.

Ork... they don't give a damn... and SoB Repentia and Death Company should be able to tie someone up s well.

Fluff wise, it'd work. For balancing purposes, I say Sisters need more help... so meat shields are a good idea. Repentia matches the fluff.

Would work really well (badly) in a 3 way fight.

Your 2 opponents get into cc and you hit the combat with an LRBT or such.

I have a house rule at my place for 3 way fights, you can fire into CC as long as your units are not involved in the combat., thank God I play explosives-heavy IG.

I've always thought Chaos should be allowed fire into combats involving Cultists (and that Cultists should still be an option). It's not as if they're highly valued.