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Hey Dakka

I was wondering if you may fire pistols into close combat rather than bolt guns for example,

a squad of 5 marines armed with boltguns led by a sargent armed with whatever and a pistol are in their shooting phase and are able to assault the same unit may they fire into combat, the sargent with his pistol can, but is it fair to say that each marine carries a side arm pistol? I feel like I've seen it somewhere in some battle report(?) but yeah still kinda learning the details of 40k. Thanks for the replies

also guardsmen with las guns and such...

Each unit has wargear, the wargear they carry is listen in their codex.

Some marines have bolt pistols as well as bolters.

Check the codex to see their gear.

If they have Pistols and bolters you can shoot the pistols and then assault, If you fire the bolters you can not assault (Unless they are relentless).

Look under "wargear" at each unit in the army list of your codex. It will say specifically what weapons your models are armed with. You can't 'assume' anything.

Unless you have a special rule allowing it, you cannot assault after firing rapid fire weapons. If 1 model out of 6 has an assault weapon (e.g. pistol), that 1 model can fire with the rest not shooting, and still assault.

Are you asking if you can fire into close combat with pistols? No. No you cannot. Nothing can fire into close combat, except for one Inquisitor with his orbital bombardments.

Given that the Bolt Pistol has the same stats as the Bolter until you get to the range beyond which you cannot assault anyway and they are assault weapons you are better off to use the pistols.

1. The tac-squads of codex space marines do not include bolt pistols & ccw, they only possess bolt pistols. CSM actually have both, part of why I ended up choosing them. It gives them +1 attack in CC.

2. A unit which fires in the shooting phase may only assault the same unit upon which it fired, with two exceptions
2a. it has a special rule allowing it to do otherwise
2b. it is assaulting the contents of a transport vehicle

3. You may not typically fire into a Close Combat, meaning that you cannot voluntarily target an enemy unit which is currently engaged in combat.

4. You may shoot an unengaged enemy unit and then launch an assault in the following assault phase, provided you are close enough. HOWEVER, you may not shoot with rapid fire weapons and then assault in this way.

Hope that helps. =)

If you didn't move and fire a rapid fire weapon can you still assault?

Boneblade wrote:2b. it is assaulting the contents of a transport vehicle

Only so long as your squad's shooting destroyed the vehicle. If your squad fired at the vehicle and did not destroy it you can't charge the squad if another of your units destroys the transport.

Magpie wrote:Given that the Bolt Pistol has the same stats as the Bolter until you get to the range beyond which you cannot assault anyway and they are assault weapons you are better off to use the pistols.

They have the same stats, but the bolter gets an extra shot... but stops you from assaulting.

Magpie wrote:If you didn't move and fire a rapid fire weapon can you still assault?

No. If you fire a rapid fire weapon, you can't assault.