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I ran into this situation today - a lone termagant charges some crisis suits, and there is a unit with supporting fire nearby (two gun drones iirc). Within supporting fire range there are also 12 fw, and a riptide. Right next to the lone termagant is a brood of 20 termagants

So, single gaunt declares charge against crisis suits. Suits decline overwatch, gun drone decides to overwatch. Gun drones miss - now what? Is the tau player allowed to then fire overwatch using his other units, despite not declaring his intent to fire earlier? Does the nid player roll his charge distance on the solo gaunt, and tie up the suits from overwatch on the larger brood (they had flamers, this could be a very big deal)?

I am of the mind that your overwatches must be declared before you resolve any of them. That is; that in the above case, too bad for the Tau player, he should have had the other units overwatch the solo gaunt as well. I was shown the section on multiple overwatches, but it only gives you permission to resolve overwatch attacks sequentially, not to decide if they will be made after seeing the results of another overwatching unit.

Order of Operations as far as I can tell, is
1) declare charge
2) check who is able to supporting fire, or overwatch in general
3) declare your overwatch(es) simultaneously
4) resolve the overwatch of each unit one at a time per the multiple overwatch rules.
5) Roll distance, resolve charge (if unit has survived)

I have found no language allowing someone to declare another overwatch once their first has failed, but I would like to have some clarification on this situation. It could be a very big deal deal, especially with the very common "throwaway overwatch bait" tactic.

uberjoras wrote:
I ran into this situation today - a lone termagant charges some crisis suits, and there is a unit with supporting fire nearby (two gun drones iirc). Within supporting fire range there are also 12 fw, and a riptide. Right next to the lone termagant is a brood of 20 termagants

So, single gaunt declares charge against crisis suits. Suits decline overwatch, gun drone decides to overwatch. Gun drones miss - now what? Is the tau player allowed to then fire overwatch using his other units, despite not declaring his intent to fire earlier? Does the nid player roll his charge distance on the solo gaunt, and tie up the suits from overwatch on the larger brood (they had flamers, this could be a very big deal)?

I am of the mind that your overwatches must be declared before you resolve any of them. That is; that in the above case, too bad for the Tau player, he should have had the other units overwatch the solo gaunt as well. I was shown the section on multiple overwatches, but it only gives you permission to resolve overwatch attacks sequentially, not to decide if they will be made after seeing the results of another overwatching unit.

Order of Operations as far as I can tell, is
1) declare charge
2) check who is able to supporting fire, or overwatch in general
3) declare your overwatch(es) simultaneously
4) resolve the overwatch of each unit one at a time per the multiple overwatch rules.
5) Roll distance, resolve charge (if unit has survived)

I have found no language allowing someone to declare another overwatch once their first has failed, but I would like to have some clarification on this situation. It could be a very big deal deal, especially with the very common "throwaway overwatch bait" tactic.

The Tau player does not 'decline' to shoot with any of his units.

Overwatch attacks are made like normal shooting attacks (with some additional rules, of course), which means that the firing player gets to choose the order to fire his units, just as he does with normal shooting.

So he picks one of his units eligible to fire overwatch and then he fires it. When he finishes with that one he has the option to pick another valid unit and fire with that, etc. When he's completed firing any of the valid units that he wants to, then you proceed to rolling charge range for the charging unit.

There is no 'hint' of simultaneous declaring being required anywhere in the existing rules.

I fail to see that logic. That's analogous to deciding, in a 3 drop pod list, that at first one melta and one flamer squad are coming down, but because of the bad scatter on your first melta pod, you switch the original flamer squad for your second melta squad. When do you decide to overwatch? "As soon as a charge is declared". Not "after a charge has been declared and your first overwatch failed to do much".

uberjoras wrote:
I fail to see that logic. That's analogous to deciding, in a 3 drop pod list, that at first one melta and one flamer squad are coming down, but because of the bad scatter on your first melta pod, you switch the original flamer squad for your second melta squad. When do you decide to overwatch? "As soon as a charge is declared". Not "after a charge has been declared and your first overwatch failed to do much".

You are comparing swapping units coming in from reserve to shooting...

uberjoras wrote:
I fail to see that logic. That's analogous to deciding, in a 3 drop pod list, that at first one melta and one flamer squad are coming down, but because of the bad scatter on your first melta pod, you switch the original flamer squad for your second melta squad. When do you decide to overwatch? "As soon as a charge is declared". Not "after a charge has been declared and your first overwatch failed to do much".

That isn't analogous to that at all. You roll for each unit individually in reserve FIRST and the ones that you roll to arrive will be arriving this turn and the ones that fail to arrive cannot arrive this turn. THEN you move onto actually deploying units arriving from reserve.

What you CAN do, is to DS one Drop Pod, see if it lands where you need it, and then based on that information, decide if you want to DS another one of your Drop Pods that is arriving that turn in the same area or a different place based on what has happened with scattering the first one.

Again, there is nothing in the Overwatch rules that say you have to 'declare' anything. The unit either fires or it doesn't. Overwatch is resolved like normal shooting attacks, and the rules for shooting attacks require that you resolve one shooting unit after the other.

You're attempting to add all sorts of additional complexity to this when there isn't any of that in the actual rules.

In both cases, you must make your opponent aware of who is doing what before you start actually doing any of it. So yes, I am comparing the two situations. Because 'technically' you never have to say which marines are coming in with their pod... except for the fact that you still actually do. The wording on the two situations is nigh unto identical, unfortunately. And with the neckbeards populating Boston, this is who I'm forced to play with.

If as soon as the sun rises I may immediately eat any red apples I have, if I wait to see if someone else eats an entire green apple before I decide to eat my own red apple, I don't think I am following the rules.

uberjoras wrote:
In both cases, you must make your opponent aware of who is doing what before you start actually doing any of it. So yes, I am comparing the two situations. Because 'technically' you never have to say which marines are coming in with their pod... except for the fact that you still actually do. The wording on the two situations is nigh unto identical, unfortunately. And with the neckbeards populating Boston, this is who I'm forced to play with.

If as soon as the sun rises I may immediately eat an apple, if I wait to see if someone else eats an apple before I eat my own, I don't think I am following the rules.

You have to roll for specific units arriving from reserve. If you're not doing that, you're not following the rules.

So let's not confuse being polite and explaining what you're rolling a die for, and making up additional stipulations that don't exist and trying to claim that these two concepts are the same thing.

When, with a drop podding unit, do you roll exactly, again?

Therefore you never 'have to' say who is going where before you start putting things down.

Still, the language itself is fairly straightforward - when do *I* start eating my apple, as the sun rises, or after I see if someone else finished their apple or not? If it takes them 3 hours to eat that apple, is it still "as soon as" the sun has risen, and have I "immediately" eaten my apple?

uberjoras wrote:
When, with a drop podding unit, do you roll exactly, again?

Therefore you never 'have to' say who is going where before you start putting things down.

Still, the language itself is fairly straightforward - when do *I* start eating my apple, as the sun rises, or after I see if someone else finished their apple or not? If it takes them 3 hours to eat that apple, is it still "as soon as" the sun has risen, and have I "immediately" eaten my apple?

You can keep making analogies, but there is still absolutely no proof that you have to make any kind of declaration with Supporting Fire.

That is something you have created completely out of thin air to fulfill your concept of how you think the rule should work.

You declare a charge against one of my Tau units. I fire with overwatch with one of my valid units. Then I fire overwatch with another valid unit. What rule have I broken (and please no analogies or assumptions)?

Page 27 (of the small rulebook) says, under the multiple assault heading, "If a unit declares a charge against two or more target units, all of the target units can fire Overwatch! Resolve each unit's Overwatch shots separately in an order determined by the target units' controlling player."

What this means, is that you must determine the order in which they will fire - before they fire. If I do not determine an order before I start shooting, then only the first unit would be in my "order". So, your second unit, not originally in your "order of overwatch" because you didn't initially think you needed it, would be forbidden from overwatching, because he was not in the order of overwatch you determined prior to the resolution of the first unit's shots. If you had, instead, declared the first, then the second unit to be firing overwatch, gone on to resolve your shooting, yet killed the single termagant with the FIRST squad, the second squad still fires overwatch - at no target, thereby wasting its opportunity to fire any meaningful overwatch that turn.

I really don't think the analogy is a poor way to deal with the situation, either. If you think one way about "overwatch" but differently about "apples", what makes the words around them mean different things when one is simply interchanged for the other? I've seen plenty of people swap "10 tactical marines" for "10 MEQ" plenty of times, why can I not exchange "apples" for "overwatch" when we're really discussing the words around them anyways?

uberjoras wrote:
Page 27 (of the small rulebook) says, under the multiple assault heading, "If a unit declares a charge against two or more target units, all of the target units can fire Overwatch! Resolve each unit's Overwatch shots separately in an order determined by the target units' controlling player."

What this means, is that you must determine the order in which they will fire - before they fire.

No, it doesn't mean, that. YOU keep saying it means that. It simply says that they are resolved in the order chosen by the [firing] player. If I choose to have unit A fire before unit B, then I have determined the order, no more no less. There is NOTHING that says the firing player must declare all the units that are going to fire overwatch ahead of time.

The order is literally determined by the process of resolving one unit before the other.

uberjoras wrote:
Page 27 (of the small rulebook) says, under the multiple assault heading, "If a unit declares a charge against two or more target units, all of the target units can fire Overwatch! Resolve each unit's Overwatch shots separately in an order determined by the target units' controlling player."

What this means, is that you must determine the order in which they will fire - before they fire. If I do not determine an order before I start shooting, then only the first unit would be in my "order". So, your second unit, not originally in your "order of overwatch" because you didn't initially think you needed it, would be forbidden from overwatching, because he was not in the order of overwatch you determined prior to the resolution of the first unit's shots. If you had, instead, declared the first, then the second unit to be firing overwatch, gone on to resolve your shooting, yet killed the single termagant with the FIRST squad, the second squad still fires overwatch - at no target, thereby wasting its opportunity to fire any meaningful overwatch that turn.

I really don't think the analogy is a poor way to deal with the situation, either. If you think one way about "overwatch" but differently about "apples", what makes the words around them mean different things when one is simply interchanged for the other? I've seen plenty of people swap "10 tactical marines" for "10 MEQ" plenty of times, why can I not exchange "apples" for "overwatch" when we're really discussing the words around them anyways?

It doesn't say declare, it says determine. If I choose to determine the order by by seeing how much milk I can drink before I vomit, so be it. If I choose to determine the order in terms of necessity in real time, so be it.

It seems kind of clear you came into this discussion with a clear idea of how you want the rule to work, instead of just reading the rule as it exists, and accepting how it stands and play from there.

Because remember, this works both ways. The charging player gets to declare (and resolve) his charges one at a time. So if he has two units standing next to each other that he's planning to charge with, then he gets to declare the charge with the first unit, see what Tau units fire their overwatch and how they do, and then, knowing which Tau units have already fired, he gets to choose the target of the charge with his second (and subsequent) charging units.

There is literally no reason in the rules that the Tau player has to be bound by an unwritten declaration. If GW wanted it to be done that way, it would have been incredibly easy for them to say that the overwatching player declares which units will be firing overwatch and then chooses the order to resolve them in...it is literally just a few more words. But that isn't what they said, and isn't what they meant. You get to literally choose your order by the order you choose to resolve your units' overwatch in. No more, no less.

uberjoras, the way you're reading this, we call in my group "the Fantasy Syndrome"

We're an old group of WHFB players from the mid 90's, that stopped playing a long time ago. Lately, we started playing and building 40k as a sort of throw-back to our childhoods.

With that explained, we often find ourselves making assumptions about the rules based on WHFB rules from "back in the day"

Declaring all shooting before shooting is one such assumption. It's not how 40k works.
As far as I see it, Tau's new fangled Overwatch rules create a gimped, reactionary, shooting phase for Tau in the enemy's assault phase. I will treat it as such. The Tau gets to shoot as if it was his shooting phase, as long as the other criterias are met.

As far as I read it (based on thes upporting fire rule and the other thread reguarding Darkstrider).

1- You Determine which of your units can support fire
2- Declared which ones will support fire
3-Pick on of those units and start rolling dice
4-If the target is alive, pick another unit
5- If target is dead, then none of the other units Shot supporting fire and therefore can provide supporting fire later in the phase. The units that already shot are done for both supporting fire and regular overwatch. (unless your longshot)

The sentance that say you determine the order you fire the units doesn't say anything about having to do it before shooting any units. It effective just say shoot your units in any order, instead of having to shoot the unit being charge (like the normal overwatch rules state).

2) is entirely made up as a step. It does not exist in the rules

You determine the order, at no point do yuou have to declare the order in advance of anyone shooting

That is the step you are making up. It flat out does not exist.

Yakface, in general I would agree with you that there's no requirement to declare, except Supporting Fire creates one.

"When an enemy unit declares a charge, all friendly models with this special rule in units within 6" of the charging unit's target can choose to fire overwatch as if they were also targets of the charge."

You are given a specific time (when the charge is declared) and at that point you either choose to fire overwatch with the unit, or you opt out of the ability to make that choice.

Once units have begun to fire, it is too late to make that choice, and the only way to reasonable govern that is by requiring the Tau player to declare his decision.

So while in the OPs example, perhaps the battlesuits who are actually the primary target of the charge could still Overwatch regardless of having been declared or not, any unit using it's Supporting Fire rule to perform an overwatch must make that decision before any firing is done.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
2) is entirely made up as a step. It does not exist in the rules

You determine the order, at no point do yuou have to declare the order in advance of anyone shooting

That is the step you are making up. It flat out does not exist.

I don't have the codex on me, but from what I remember and what was talked about in the other thread, supporting fire says you need to declare what units will provide supporting fire. This matters because if you don't have to declare at the beginning, technically darkstirders unit could overwatch, consolidate d6" back and put other units within 6" to provide support fire. but it doesn't work, since you have to declare at the beginning.

I know the rule book doesn't say you have to but codex>rulebook in this case. so step two is a solid step imo.

Drunk - now find where it state you must declare a units intention to overwatch BEFORE anotehr unit fires overwatch.

Coyote81 wrote:

I don't have the co9dex on me, but from what I remember and what was talked about in the other thread, supporting fire says you need to declare what units will provide supporting fire.

Sorry, but if you aren't familiar with the rule in question or have the codex to familiarize yourself with you don't need to be making statements about those rules that will lead others to have the wrong impression. Supporting fire says absolutely nothing about declaring your intentions. If says that a unit within 6" of a unit being charged can choose to fire overwatch as if it were the target of the charge. That's it. Literally nothing about declaring intentions. Left without other guidance we must take the rule for what it says, not inject what we wish it said. Yakface has the right of it in this case.

 Drunkspleen wrote:
Yakface, in general I would agree with you that there's no requirement to declare, except Supporting Fire creates one.

"When an enemy unit declares a charge, all friendly models with this special rule in units within 6" of the charging unit's target can choose to fire overwatch as if they were also targets of the charge."

You are given a specific time (when the charge is declared) and at that point you either choose to fire overwatch with the unit, or you opt out of the ability to make that choice.

Once units have begun to fire, it is too late to make that choice, and the only way to reasonable govern that is by requiring the Tau player to declare his decision.

So while in the OPs example, perhaps the battlesuits who are actually the primary target of the charge could still Overwatch regardless of having been declared or not, any unit using it's Supporting Fire rule to perform an overwatch must make that decision before any firing is done.

And? As long as we haven't moved onto rolling for charge range, then we are still at the point where an enemy has declared a charge and I'm resolving overwatch.

I mean, if you have the option to cast multiple psychic powers that occur at the 'start of the turn' I assume you play that you can roll for the first power, see if it goes off and then decide if you'd like to use another one of those 'start of the turn' powers, correct?

The FAQs literally give examples of resolving multiple things that occur at the same time in order...but unless the rules actually state that you have to declare something ahead of time, then you don't have to declare. You just have to resolve all the things that occur at that point of the game before moving onto to whatever next step that was interrupted.

So yeah, if I had like 15 different special abilities that were all resolved when 'an enemy unit declares a charge' then without further guidance from the rules, I'd simply get to resolve them in whatever order I choose, but there is literally no basis to suddenly assume this is the one particular case where you have to declare ahead of time (without the rules saying so) exactly which units are going to take an action before they actually take it.

As Yak and Nos pointed out, I don't see anywhere in the rules that you have to declare which units will give supporting overwatch fire. They CAN CHOOSE to but that is not the same as declaring that they will ahead of time. You fire with them if they are eligible and if you want them to. Full stop. Seems to mirror the same process as in the shooting phase...

Edit- spelling and clarity (hopefully)

As the steps go:

Enemy unit declares charge against unit A
Unit B, C and D is within 6" of Unit A

The charged player choose to overwatch with Unit B first

Enemy unit isnt dead yet, so player chooses Unit C to fire

Enemy unit isnt dead yet, so player chooses Unit A to fire

Enemy unit is dead, Unit D havent overwatched, and thereby can overwatch for another friendly unit if they get declared assault on.

Or in the case if the Enemy unit isnt dead, but only have a small number of models left, You can choose not to use overwatch on Unit D, and save their overwatch for Unit E or for themselves.

Yes^... What Draco said...

Just because the FAQ has wording on 'at the beginning of... you may...' does not mean it has made a decision about 'as soon as... you may immediately... resolve... in an order determined...', which is what you get when you actually join the rules together. If I am doing math, and I need to finish the stuff in parentheses before I add it to 3, and I decide to just ignore the order of operations and add 3 to everything inside the parentheses instead, and maybe I didn't need to multiply those things anyways because I'm satisfied with this, well I've failed my math test. Just because you 'Fail to see' part of the rules, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and I have yet to see any argument other than your RAI interpretation that I am wrong. My IG friend read the whole rulebook several times, but he was still surprised when I told him his russ had to snapshot its sponsons if the battlecannon fired. Maybe you need to read it more clearly, because this is absolutely how the rule works. Seriously, if you really have a problem with it, replace game nouns with fruits and see if it still makes sense to you that way. 'as soon as your car breaks down, you may immediately call your boss to tell him you're late'. Well, if I've waited to see if my boss calls me first, or if someone else calls my boss, I'm probably fired. If I pull out my phone, and dial his number, it doesnt matter when the actual call begins so long as I've started ringing.

So, if I declare a charge, now there are 3 units eligible to overwatch, A, B, and C. As soon as I declare a charge (in other words, starting now), you may immediately overwatch, with the stipulation of the 'multiple overwatch' rule taking place, in which you must determine the order the overwatches happen. In almost all cases both in real life and in game, order is determined before actually doing things, else you're just doing what you feel like and not following an order. Like, if I have the order of moving to Paris, then to Alsace, and I decide to go from Paris to Alsace to Normandy, I've illegally added a step there - in the military, I would be court marshalled for ignoring orders, and in 40k, I would be breaking the rules and being a poor sport if I broke my order and overwatched with other eligible units just because I wasn't happy with the first two overwatches, regardless of their outcomes.

There is no such thing as an 'overwatch shooting phase' for Tau, the rules clearly indicate that besides resolving each unit's shooting sequentially using the normal rules for shooting, this is an absolutely irregular kind of shooting, and must follow specific stipulations. In fact, I 'fail to see' where overwatch must even be specifically made at the charging unit. The lootaz in the ork backfield are would-be attackers too, I should get overwatch versus them if I want - since we're using the normal rules for shooting and everything I see no reason why that would be illegal, save range and LOS restrictions...

Ignoring part of a rule because you want it to work another way is just as bad as 'making things up', but what I've been trying to show is that I am neither fabricating nor ignoring rules - it's actually written black and white, and you're not reading it just because you already think it works one way instead of another. Please provide me with rules quotes that actually specifically permit you to choose to overwatch after you've already started performing overwatch? Because this literally cannot be done, by a single unit or by multiple units, without breaking the rules for overwatch. It's like rolling dice before checking range.

Well if I'm not mistaken you have the option to fire over watch, however the rules do allow you to hold if you have got 2 potential targets that can reach you and you gamble on the first one not making it and shooting the second one.
These decisions are made as you go from unit to unit. But remember if you choose to fire at the first you cannot fire at the second, if you choose not to fire at the first and he doesn't make it then fire away at the second.
You can't force your opponent to fire all of it at the first to save your other unit from casualties. Which is what your trying to do and no amount of apple to oranges is going to sway the system to your favor.

Basically saying you get one overwatch and the controlling overwatch player chooses when and what to shoot that's charging.

uberjoras wrote:
If I am doing math, and I need to finish the stuff in parentheses before I add it to 3, and I decide to just ignore the order of operations and add 3 to everything inside the parentheses instead, and maybe I didn't need to multiply those things anyways because I'm satisfied with this, well I've failed my math test

What?

uberjoras wrote:
replace game nouns with fruits and see if it still makes sense to you that way. 'as soon as your car breaks down, you may immediately call your boss to tell him you're late'. Well, if I've waited to see if my boss calls me first, or if someone else calls my boss, I'm probably fired. If I pull out my phone, and dial his number, it doesnt matter when the actual call begins so long as I've started ringing

What?

uberjoras wrote:
Like, if I have the order of moving to Paris, then to Alsace, and I decide to go from Paris to Alsace to Normandy, I've illegally added a step there - in the military, I would be court marshalled for ignoring orders

What?

uberjoras wrote:
The lootaz in the ork backfield are would-be attackers too, I should get overwatch versus them if I want - since we're using the normal rules for shooting and everything I see no reason why that would be illegal, save range and LOS restrictions...

No, seriously...what?

I truly tried making sense of your disjointed ramblings and tried to find some rules you were using to back up your analogies, but I couldn't.

I don't see where any of what you posted bears resemblence to the discussion at hand. Can you quote some rules or even page/graph numbers to back up whatever it was that mess was saying?

Uber - you have so far done nothing but makeup rules, so yes we ARE ignoring rules - the ones you made up

This has been explained to you a number of times now: you are required to decide if you are making overwatch. At no point, in any rules text you can possibly quote, does it state you must then DECLARE this *before* any unit shoots.

You are, plain and simply, wrong. Please read the tenets of the forum and back up your argument with *rules* if you disagree with the complete dismantling of your argument thus presented

tidalwake wrote:

uberjoras wrote:
If I am doing math, and I need to finish the stuff in parentheses before I add it to 3, and I decide to just ignore the order of operations and add 3 to everything inside the parentheses instead, and maybe I didn't need to multiply those things anyways because I'm satisfied with this, well I've failed my math test

What?

uberjoras wrote:
replace game nouns with fruits and see if it still makes sense to you that way. 'as soon as your car breaks down, you may immediately call your boss to tell him you're late'. Well, if I've waited to see if my boss calls me first, or if someone else calls my boss, I'm probably fired. If I pull out my phone, and dial his number, it doesnt matter when the actual call begins so long as I've started ringing

What?

uberjoras wrote:
Like, if I have the order of moving to Paris, then to Alsace, and I decide to go from Paris to Alsace to Normandy, I've illegally added a step there - in the military, I would be court marshalled for ignoring orders

What?

uberjoras wrote:
The lootaz in the ork backfield are would-be attackers too, I should get overwatch versus them if I want - since we're using the normal rules for shooting and everything I see no reason why that would be illegal, save range and LOS restrictions...

No, seriously...what?

I truly tried making sense of your disjointed ramblings and tried to find some rules you were using to back up your analogies, but I couldn't.

I don't see where any of what you posted bears resemblence to the discussion at hand. Can you quote some rules or even page/graph numbers to back up whatever it was that mess was saying?

lol... I had the exact same reaction... I was totally baffled by everything he said...

uberjoras wrote:
In almost all cases both in real life and in game, order is determined before actually doing things, else you're just doing what you feel like and not following an order.

Except this is entirely untrue, both in the game and real life. In the game, there are absolutely clear instances where effects have to be resolved at the same time and these are resolved in the order picked by a player (one or the other depending on the circumstance), without any indication ever having been given in the FAQs or otherwise that this order has to be declared ahead of time.

In 'real life' if I have a series of tasks to do get done at a specific time in any order I choose, that DOES NOT mean I have to declare ahead of time the order I will resolve those tasks. By actually resolving those tasks, I demonstrate the order I have chosen.

There is no such thing as an 'overwatch shooting phase' for Tau, the rules clearly indicate that besides resolving each unit's shooting sequentially using the normal rules for shooting, this is an absolutely irregular kind of shooting, and must follow specific stipulations. In fact, I 'fail to see' where overwatch must even be specifically made at the charging unit. The lootaz in the ork backfield are would-be attackers too, I should get overwatch versus them if I want - since we're using the normal rules for shooting and everything I see no reason why that would be illegal, save range and LOS restrictions...

Except for the rules for overwatch?