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Had a situation tonight where my scarab swarm attempted to charge a LR; my opponent referenced the rule that states that you can't charge a unit that you can't at least glance, to which I replied my entropic strike fulfills that requirement. We couldn't agree, so we rolled off and I lost.

Just wondering for the future what the consensus is on this. To me it's pretty clear, but I'm willing to accept it if I'm missing something.

It does appear to be a nerf to the scarabs.

At the time they could charge, the cannot hurt the vehicle.

Can't remember which way the FAQ gos though.

Entropic Strike does indeed allow them to hurt vehicles they normally wouldn't, thus they can charge anything you want.

Because it is resolved before any hits roll for damage, it is definitly possable for Str3 scarabs to hurt a Landraider on the first turn they charge it.

Thus they are allowed to charge anything they want to.



The order of operations for Scarabs is as follows.

1) Roll to Hit as normal for a vehicle.

2) Before rolling to penetrate the vehicle, roll a dice per hit the Scarabs managed. For each 4+ that is rolled, you reduce the vehicles armor value as per the Entropic Strike rule.

3) Now you roll to damage the vehicle, assuming you manage to reduce it enough to make it a possability.

The entropic strike does not fulfill that requirement as entropic strike can never cause a glance, as it only reduced the AV of the vehicle.

However: The rule states "a unit cannot charge a vehicle that it cannot hurt - it must have some possibility, no matter how small, of being able to inflict at least a glancing hit." P. 76 BRB

Can the scarabs Glance the vehicle?

Well lets check it out.

1 scarab base has 4 base attacks and 1 bonus attack for charging. IIRC. (If a single base does not have 5 attacks on the charge then a single base can not charge, but multiple bases could).

So 5 attacks. If they all hit, and all entropic strikes are a 4+ that brings the AV down to 9. The scarabs have a Str of 3, so on a 6 they can glance the LR.

So they can charge any AV 14 vehicle as long as nothing changes (I.E. if something reduces their attacks by 1 then a single scarab base would not be able to charge a AV 14 vehicle).

Sounds like the LR player reallllly wants to win. Hope the game was at least fun, if not a learning experience.

I'm confused. Wouldn't that mean scarabs couldn't charge at all since they have S3 and all vehicles are A10? It sounds like this guy was really trying to screw you over.

So long as there are enough scarabs for Entropic Strike to have a chance of lowering the armour enough for them to hurt it, they're fine.

If there are not enough scarabs for that to happen, then yes, they would be unable to charge the LR.

Looks like I had misremembered the rule ...

My bad, thought it was a simple str/glance/pen thing.

Sums it up nicely than.

Thanks all; it made sense to me that it worked that way; I had 5 Scarab bases that I wanted to pop the LR with and try to tie up the Terminators inside. I'll know for next time.

Q: Can I charge an enemy unit that I can’t hurt? (p20)
A: Yes.

- 40 Rulebook FAQ 1.0a

 XT-1984 wrote:
Q: Can I charge an enemy unit that I can’t hurt? (p20)
A: Yes.

- 40 Rulebook FAQ 1.0a

Except there is a more specific rule that states:

"a unit cannot charge a vehicle that it cannot hurt - it must have some possibility, no matter how small, of being able to inflict at least a glancing hit." P. 76 BRB

So if you have no way of inflicting at least a glancing hit on a vehicle, you can not charge said vehicle.

For example a Space Marine assault terminator Squad all with LC's can never charge a vehicle with AV 12+ in the rear (Unless they had access to something that gave them +2 Strength).

 XT-1984 wrote:
Q: Can I charge an enemy unit that I can’t hurt? (p20)
A: Yes.

- 40 Rulebook FAQ 1.0a

That's a unit in general, there's then a further rule that you can't charge a vehicle you can't hurt.

 insaniak wrote:
So long as there are enough scarabs for Entropic Strike to have a chance of lowering the armour enough for them to hurt it, they're fine.

If there are not enough scarabs for that to happen, then yes, they would be unable to charge the LR.

Hmmm... Makes sense but there's no time restraint placed in the rule. A single scarab swarm could reduce the armour sufficiently given enough time, if you get my meaning.

A swarm of Scarabs can charge whatever they want, then eat it.

DR has calculated it in a previous post. 1 scarab base on the charge has the potential to glance a Land Raider. So there isn't any vehicle scarabs cannot charge.

Cannot charge what they cannot hurt... Right? So lowering the armor of a vehicle is hurting it. So charge away.

Lungpickle wrote:
Cannot charge what they cannot hurt... Right? So lowering the armor of a vehicle is hurting it. So charge away.

The underlined is false.

The rule defines hurting a vehicle as scoring at least a glancing hit.

This has nothing to do with lowering the AV of a Vehicle.

The scarabs can charge because there is a possibility of them inflicting a glancing hit, because they have a chance to lower the AV of a LR to 9 and then roll a 6 to score a glancing hit.

 DeathReaper wrote:

Lungpickle wrote:
Cannot charge what they cannot hurt... Right? So lowering the armor of a vehicle is hurting it. So charge away.

The underlined is false.

The rule defines hurting a vehicle as scoring at least a glancing hit.

This has nothing to do with lowering the AV of a Vehicle.

The scarabs can charge because there is a possibility of them inflicting a glancing hit, because they have a chance to lower the AV of a LR to 9 and then roll a 6 to score a glancing hit.

Is lowering a vehicles armor more than a glancing hit?
What if the unit cannot glance?
Is it impossible for dreadnought to charge Ork Trukks? After all, the S10 dreadnought cannot glance.

The only way I see this coming up is a combined charged, can a lone scarab go into the raider? He'd only have 4 attacks and couldn't reduce armor enough to glance.

-Matt

I believe its at least glance.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Is lowering a vehicles armor more than a glancing hit?

Lowering a vehicles armor has nothing to do with glancing/Penetrating hits.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
What if the unit cannot glance?
Is it impossible for dreadnought to charge Ork Trukks? After all, the S10 dreadnought cannot glance.

The only way I see this coming up is a combined charged, can a lone scarab go into the raider? He'd only have 4 attacks and couldn't reduce armor enough to glance.

-Matt

You must have missed the "At least" part of the rule:

"a unit cannot charge a vehicle that it cannot hurt - it must have some possibility, no matter how small, of being able to inflict at least a glancing hit." P. 76 BRB

If they can at least inflicting hit, then they can charge. This means if they can inflict a glance or a pen they can charge.

But Scrabs usually come in groups of ten bases, and last time I chucked them at a land raider, it escaped on AV2. (TO was being a bit of a dick saying that the scarabs lowered armnour and that was their attack)

 IHateNids wrote:
But Scrabs usually come in groups of ten bases, and last time I chucked them at a land raider, it escaped on AV2. (TO was being a bit of a dick saying that the scarabs lowered armnour and that was their attack)

It varies, and they usually never cross the field fully intact.

Thats why I love Spyders now...

Scarabs make their normal attacks after they lower the vehicle's AV. So the AV2 LR shouldn't have a chance of surving...

i know that, but it was a caser of bad TO ruling. I beleive that one of my mate did tell him he was a t fault, but my game had already ended at that point.

Or lowering the AV to zero which wrecks it. HMM quandry here since entropic strike cant HURT it right deathreaper.

You still can charge it.

I myself have charges a Land raider with enough scarabs t lower the AV to minus 2, 16 entropic strike hit but I failed to hurt it ? Sometimes the logic here baffles me.

Though you are cvorrect in the fact hurting is described as a glancing hit. BOGGLE pg 76

Lungpickle wrote:
Though you are cvorrect in the fact hurting is described as a glancing hit. BOGGLE pg 76

Hurting it is described as being able to inflict at least a glancing hit.

Lowering the armour doesn't count... but lowering the armour enough to be able to inflict at least a glancing hit does.