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.

Greetings fellow gamers.

A rules disagreement recently came up (shock!) regarding the mechanics of Tau equipped with Target locks resolving overwatch.

'An overwatch attack is resolved like a normal shooting attack (albeit one resolved in the enemy's assault phase) and uses all the normal rules for range, line of sight, cover saves and so on....'
BRB pg 21

'A model with a target lock can shoot at a different target to the rest of his unit'
Codex Tau empire pg 69

Since the BRB says that overwatch is resolved like a normal shooting attack (albeit at BS1) can units equiped with target locks decide to split their fire and shoot a unit other then the one that is assaulting (at BS1)??

RAW it seems they can, am i missing anything?

nope, RAW you can shoot an alternative target.

some people will not like it though, even more so when you do it with the Hammer head character and pop a vehicle during thier assualt phase.

No - the Overwatch rules select your target for you; you skip the target selection portion of the shooting attack process.

yes they select the primary target for you to resolve, however a target lock allows you to select an alternative target for another weapon if you can fire it and/or in the case of battle suits, allows the equipped suit to shoot at an alternative target, specific permission of the equipment in this instance will trump the blanket target of overwatch, the original target is still the target unit, the target lock simply allows the unit to shoot something else at the same time.

its sneaky, and naughty but its perfectly legal

No I'm with rigeld32 on this. The opportunity for your models to select a target, including models equipped with a target lock to select a different target, is skipped by the over-watch process.

 DJGietzen wrote:
No I'm with rigeld32 on this. The opportunity for your models to select a target, including models equipped with a target lock to select a different target, is skipped by the over-watch process.

Agreed