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This thought just ran through my mind earlier. Say I was playing Guard and was using some Basilisks. Enemy decides to counter deploy a Predator to come and deal with my artillery. Basilisks are only S8 so I'd need a 5 to glance the front AV of the Predator. Could I opt to fire indirectly at the Predator so I could hit its side armor of 11?

Well, barrage rules say that if you have line of sight with a barrage weapon, you "can" fire directly. It doesn't say that you must fire directly, so it looks like you get the option. I guess they figure it's a balance between hitting better armor and possibly missing because you don't get to subtract ballistic skill from scatter.

I think it would hit the side armour anyway wouldn't it? It doesn't say that it only happens when firing indirectly. Technically they would always be firing indirectly anyway, they can just aim better when they have line of sight.

 roflmajog wrote:
I think it would hit the side armour anyway wouldn't it? It doesn't say that it only happens when firing indirectly. Technically they would always be firing indirectly anyway, they can just aim better when they have line of sight.

It only hits side armor if you fire indirectly. It's hitting the top of the tank versus the front.

Can you tell me where it says that? In my rulebook it says "a barrage weapon" not "a barrage weapon that is firing indirectly".

I thought barrage weapons always fired indirectly, but got to subtract BS from scatter if LOS is achieved.

I'll have to check my BRB, but I'm with roflmajog on this one. I thought Barrage always hit side armour, whether firing indirectly or with LoS.

Martel732 wrote:
I thought barrage weapons always fired indirectly, but got to subtract BS from scatter if LOS is achieved.

This. Direct fire is the exact same as indirect fire plus you get to fire within the minimum distance and reduce scatter by your BS. You don't lose anything for being able to see the target

Second bullet point - It talks about how to determine whether a model wounded by a barrage weapon gets a cover save (where they say use the center of the marker), then it puts in the statement about hits against vehicles are always treated as hitting side armor. The whole statement is discussing barrage weapons in general, and never mentions direct or indirect fire in it. The barrage weapon hits side armor no matter how you fire it.

I'm not sure if the book make a distinction between direct/indirect fire. The only difference is that if you can see the target, you subtract your BS from the scatter distance, if you can't, you don't.

Other than that, the rules for barrage are identical - the shots are treated as coming from the center of the blast marker, but you always hit vehicles on their side armor.

So, in the OP's original example, basilisks always hit predator's side armor of 11, regardless of whether or not you see it, or even its armor facing.

Thanks, I was just curious if there was some true difference between electing to fire directly or indirectly at a model within LoS or if it always hit side armor.