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'k, so casualty removal from assault can only come from engaged models.  What about the wounds caused by No Retreat?  The wording of No Retreat simply mentions that wounds are assigned to 'the unit'.

Example:  I charged a line of 3 Termagaunts into a unit of Assault Marines, carefully positioning my Termagaunts during movement such that only two of them were engaged during combat.  Those two died of course, leaving only the one unengaged Termagaunt (5" away from the assault marines).  The Marines had won combat, but since the one remaining Termagaunt was  in Synapse from a nearby Zoanthrope, it was Fearless.  Therefore the No Retreat rule kicked in.

Now, as there were 8 Assault Marines, they outnumbered my Termagaunt by 8:1, which caused the losing unit to take 3 wounds.  The 6+ save was unhelpful, and the Termagaunt died, therefore NOT holding up the Assault Marines as they were supposed to have done.

I was under the impression that only engaged models could be affected by assault - ie can only remove casualties caused by assault from engaged models, can't do a sweeping advance if all engaged models were removed as casualties, etc.  But it seems like the No Retreat rule is an exception to this.

Am I missing something?  Does the 'remove casualties' part of the assault rules apply to wounds caused by No Retreat as well? 

This really sucks for Fearless units that tend to lose combat and have poor armour saves (ie gaunts).

As an addendum to this question, do multiwound models count their wounds for the purposes of outnumbering, when calculating wounds from No Retreat?  Twice in this game, a multiwound Marine Character wiped out a single remaining Gaunt because the Character had 3 wounds to the Gaunts 1, and so caused 2 wounds via No Retreat.

Formally:
A)
P1: Casualty removal rules in the assault section apply only to the assault portion of the rules
P2: No Retreat is in the Morale section of the rules
C: Casualty Removal rules in the assault section do not apply to wounds caused by No Retreat.

or B)
P3: Casualty removal rules in the assault section apply to all stages of the Assault phase
P4: No Retreat occurs during the Assault phase
C2: Wounds caused by No Retreat are subject to the casualty removal rules in the assault section.


The addendum would seem to hinge on whether argument A or B is true.  If A, then the 'multiwound models counting as their number of wounds' would not apply outside of the Assault section, for purposes of No Retreat (which is in the Morale section).  It may seem like nitpicking, but I can't see how one could have one's No Retreat and eat it too...

It's A.
No Retreat has its own way of working out casualties so it overides the general assault rules.

As an addendum to this question, do multiwound models count their wounds for the purposes of outnumbering, when calculating wounds from No Retreat?

Yes. Look just to the left of the No Retreat paragraph on page 48.

I would argue for applying the rules for casulaty removal from the assault section to any casualties that happen in the assault phase. If enemy models are taking armor saves, they should be from those models who can be actually reached by an attacker.

Im trying to figure out how you had a gaunt move its full distance to get into combat and have it end up 5" away from an enemy model.

also,   No Retreat will still kill you even if you are unengaged.

-Legacy40k

Posted By Legacy40k on 05/19/2006 11:22 PM
Im trying to figure out how you had a gaunt move its full distance to get into combat and have it end up 5" away from an enemy model.
-Legacy40k

Easy...during the movement phase, I moved the 3 remaining gaunts such that they were at maximum coherency: one at ~5" from the enemy, the next at (1" base size + 2" coherency) 8" away, and the third at 11" away.  I shot the fleshborers instead of fleeting, and then assaulted 6". 

The first one ended up in base to base contact, the second was 2" away (therefore engaged), and the third was 5" away (>2" from the base-to-base model, therefore unengaged). 

Unfortunately, I hadn't realized that the No Retreat rule could cause wounds on unengaged models...I had expected that last gaunt to tie up the enemy for one more round, but he died instead due to outnumbering and a 6+ save