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I'm yet to play my first game of 6th but this is something that I've been thinking about as a Guard player.

The rules for challenges state that if the player whose turn it is (attacker) doesn't issue a challenge then the other player (defender) is allowed to issue a challenge of their own.

This makes me think that issuing challenges with Sergeants is a great way to nullify the effectiveness of big scary characters. Potentially you could limit Abaddon to only causing one unsaved wound during a combat (although that would be dependent on there not being an opposing Sarge to eat the challenge on his behalf).

The other element (and I'm not sure if this is a thing or not) is that it prevents precision strikes from that character in combat as the challenge is effectively separate.

So has anybody who has been playing some 6th games been experimenting with using challenges defensively to try and tie up enemy characters? Is it an effective tactic?

I always run my Big Scary Character (Warboss/Terminator Chaos lord or the SC equivalents) with another character to eat up those very same defensive challenges. The one time I haven't so far I had the (mis)fortune of that challenge being the time my Khorne lord with a daemon weapon rolled boxcars on a charge for his attacks. 16 attacks all on a 1 wound model.

Sure, but to what end? If abbadon charges your platoon, the platoon is boned, challenge or not.

I can certainly see doing defensive challenges if you have some other model in the squad that you want to free up (or keep safe) by keeping him out of a challenge, while still accepting a challenge.

I can't imagine doing this all that often, but it's something to remember, certainly, as I'm sure the opportunity will pop up now and again.

It also depends on what the character is with. By pulling the uber killy guy out on the turn he charges, you save against his kills, but now the rest of his squad do their job. But because you pulled him out, you don't take as many casualties, thus you tie in combat or pass your moral check (because it doesn't have such a huge negative) and stick around.

Now on your turn where normally the other guys big bad killy would have just decimated the charged squad leaving them high and dry, now they happily fight on your turn. Kill off your squad anyway and are now free to move about on their own turn.

Sometimes you want to loose combats.

Jayden63 wrote:It also depends on what the character is with. By pulling the uber killy guy out on the turn he charges, you save against his kills, but now the rest of his squad do their job. But because you pulled him out, you don't take as many casualties, thus you tie in combat or pass your moral check (because it doesn't have such a huge negative) and stick around.

Now on your turn where normally the other guys big bad killy would have just decimated the charged squad leaving them high and dry, now they happily fight on your turn. Kill off your squad anyway and are now free to move about on their own turn.

Sometimes you want to loose combats.

What about with an IG blob that has multiple Sergeants? Could you keep challenging with them each turn to bog down the killy monster? Perhaps you could do this to buy time for you to get your own (in the case of IG most likely allied) killy monster over and use Glorious Intervention (if by some miracle a Sarge survives long enough) to intercept.

I'm not saying this would be a great tactic but I can imagine scenarios where you might want to pull it out.

I know the issue of wound overflow from challenges is a hot topic so I kinda want to steer away from which ruling is right or not and look at interesting ways to use Challenges defensively.

For example if a challenge happens at the end of all combat and after Power fists it might be worth me feeding a sarge to a killer to ensure the Lord Commissar attached to the squad can get his Power fist attacks in on the rank and file.

You can only issue a single charge once per close combat, not once per turn. As such, you couldn't cycle a bunch of guys through using challenges.

Ailaros wrote:You can only issue a single charge once per close combat, not once per turn. As such, you couldn't cycle a bunch of guys through using challenges.

Hrm. I interpreted the paragraph that says "Only one challenge can be issued per close combat" to mean per close-combat per turn because it later says "no further challenges can be issued in that combat whilst the previous challenge is ongoing." which I thought meant that if a Challenge is resolved then a new challenge can be issued in the next turn but that you can never have more than one challenge being played out per combat at a time.

Umm... Hmm... This is probably a matter for YMDC.

I would note that not being able to issue a challenge while one is going on still fits as a subset to only being able to issue one challenge at all, whereas the reverse isn't.

Ailaros wrote:Umm... Hmm... This is probably a matter for YMDC.

I would note that not being able to issue a challenge while one is going on still fits as a subset to only being able to issue one challenge at all, whereas the reverse isn't.

I'll gloss over it for now then. I have to admit if somebody tried to bog down one of my characters by throwing Sergeants at them from an IG blob I would be mightily annoyed.

I feel like that the challenge system has meant that if your Squad leaders are optional then you are still pretty much required to take one now either to eat a challenge for somebody important or to bog down one of your opponents more killy characters.