Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've never really used any before, and i was just thinking..

If i have a squad with 10 combi weapons, say meltas for example.

If i drop pod in next to a tank, do i then nominate how many are shooting the meltas? What if it dies to the first melta? Are the rest still fired (upto the number that i nominated)?

And if the vehicle doesnt die, can i then fire the rest of the squad of combi melta's, seeing as they didnt fire?

Hasnt happened yet, but i'm not sure what the rules are on this...

You declare all of a unit's shooting before rolling any dice. So yes, you have to decide how many meltas are going to be enough to do the job, and hope that you don't waste any.

Page 12 outlines the order of events for shooting and being a sequence of events you need to follow each to completion before moving onto the next.

This means all firing is done by a unit on unit basis and you resolve all attacks, that will take place, for the whole unit at the same time. Once any model in the unit has resolved their attack to completion, that whole unit can no longer fire any additional weapons simply because they 'held back' at the start of the shooting phase. The chance to fire has gone and you are left having to wait till your next shooting phase before they are allowed to fire once more, not including special situations that might grant additional or out of phase attacks of course.

During step three you roll to hit of all weapons you nominated at the same time. You do not even get to see how many of these hits are successful in damaging your enemy until all the 'to hit' rolls complete. Wounds and penetrations come after this step, and again you need to roll them all simultaneously at this point as well. This does mean any hits above and beyond those needed to destroy a vehicle are wasted, sadly, but that is the risk of combi-weapons.

Firing is done UNIT by UNIT.

Once a unit has fired (even if only some models use their weapons) weapons, that ENTIRE unit has fired its weapons and may not fire again.

In your example - you nominate these 5 to fire their meltas and then roll dice. THAT unit has now fired weapons and may not do so again. Even if some of them have weapons unfired. The UNIT has fired.

So no, you can't fire some of them, and if they don't kill something, nominate the rest to fire at it.