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Not seeing anything that keeps me from just moving... wherever? So long as one model gets the unit into engagement range with an enemy unit, the rest of the unit can (while maintaining coherency) move to literally anywhere else with the charge roll distance, right?

I feel like that had to have been FAQd but I'm just not seeing it.

At least one model has to reach engagement range of every unit that was declared as a charge target. But after that, every other model in the charging unit is indeed free to move anywhere they like within the rolled charge distance so long as coherency is maintained.

So yes, you can still move some models in the charging unit further away from the charge target.
The 9th edition coherency rules can make it a bit dangerous if you string them out too far apart though.

What is even the situation where you would want to move models away from the charge target? They will have to get closer to maintain unit coherency and will still be able to take damage during the Fight phase from the charge target as only a single model needs to be in engagement for the entire unit to be an eligible target for melee combat, but if they aren't close enough they won't be able to deal damage themselves.

 SergentSilver wrote:
What is even the situation where you would want to move models away from the charge target? They will have to get closer to maintain unit coherency and will still be able to take damage during the Fight phase from the charge target as only a single model needs to be in engagement for the entire unit to be an eligible target for melee combat, but if they aren't close enough they won't be able to deal damage themselves.

Given a chaff unit, like a large unit of 30 termagants, you don't really care about what small amount of damage they could potentially inflict in melee, but there may be a bunch of nearby shooty units you want them to tie up to stop them from shooting you next turn.

You could choose to declare a charge on all the shooty units, but that would require you to get in range of all of them, and quite possibly fail to charge at all.
However instead you could just declare a charge on the closest one, and use the charge move to string the termagants out so they are just outside of 1" of all the other units. Then when the termagants pile-in, they can be moved into engagement range of the other units.

The downside is the termagants don't get to declare attacks on those units, and can still be hit back by them. But the termagants were never going to do much damage anyway.

Quick and dirty illustration of a similar situation:
Unit A declares a charge against unit B, and uses their charge move to get just outside range of unit C. They then pile in to unit C when they are selected to fight. Assuming unit C is something like a leman russ, it's no longer going to be able to shoot your more important units in the following turn.

Hmm, I guess under very specific situations it could be helpful if you don't care about losing most of the unit on that turn. Since the models can only move up to the charge range and pile in and consolidate moves must be made in the direction of the nearest enemy model, attempting this is likely to cost more than half the unit in the Morale phase, assuming any survive the undoubtedly heavy beating they'd take in the Fight phase, but it could potentially put the remainder of them into engagement with a unit up to 6" beyond the charge target. The closest I come to a chump unit army is my IG, so I would never have come up with this since a single infantry squad would either all die or flee in the Morale phase making it a worthless tactic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There's just two big problems with that strategy.
1.Once you pile in/consolidate your unit into engagement with the actual target, the target becomes eligible to Fight in that phase as normal:

No unit can fight more than once in the Fight phase. If all of one player’s
eligible units have fought, the opposing player can then fight with their
remaining eligible units, one at a time. Note that after an enemy unit has
fought and finished its Consolidation move, it might be that previously
ineligible units now qualify as such — these units can then be selected to
fight with. Once all eligible units have fought, the Fight phase ends and
you progress to the Morale phase.


2. A Vehicle like the Leeman Russ can still target the units you where trying to protect if they can get rid of the units engaging them first as per Big Guns Never Tire:

A VEHICLE or MONSTER model can make attacks with
ranged weapons even when its unit is within Engagement
Range of enemy units, but it can only make such attacks
against enemy units that it is within Engagement Range
of. In such circumstances, VEHICLE and MONSTER models
can target an enemy unit even if other friendly units
are within Engagement Range of the same enemy unit.
Note that if a VEHICLE or MONSTER unit has more than one
ranged weapon, you can still choose to target units that
are not within Engagement Range of the firing model's
unit, but they will only be able to make the attacks with
that weapon if all enemy units within Engagement Range
of the firing model's unit have been destroyed when
you come to resolve those attacks. In addition, when
a VEHICLE or MONSTER model shoots a Heavy weapon,
subtract 1 from the hit rolls when resolving that weapon’s
attacks while any enemy units are within Engagement
Range of that model's unit.

This means that your now barely alive unit of chump Infantry can be attacked in the Fight phase they made the charge and potentially destroyed before the opponents next Shooting phase, but if their target is a Vehicle, they can potentially wipe what's left of them with side guns and still shoot their main guns at any other target.

Arson Fire wrote:

Unit A declares a charge against unit B, and uses their charge move to get just outside range of unit C. They then pile in to unit C when they are selected to fight. Assuming unit C is something like a leman russ, it's no longer going to be able to shoot your more important units in the following turn.

See the 'Big Guns Never Tire' section of the rules on page 219 of the Core Rules why that particular tactic is not a sure thing anyway.

Sure, I'm well aware of those risks.
You have to weigh up how much damage you expect to take in melee, and how much firepower the tank has. If your charging unit isn't capable of absorbing those losses, then it's not worth doing.

You see this quite a lot from tyranids, as they have the sort of fast, cheap, and large sized units that make this tactic viable.

The other consideration of course is that you could replace unit C in the earlier picture with an objective marker. Using a charge move to sling your unit onto an objective is probably more generally applicable across armies.

Arson Fire wrote:
Sure, I'm well aware of those risks.
You have to weigh up how much damage you expect to take in melee, and how much firepower the tank has. If your charging unit isn't capable of absorbing those losses, then it's not worth doing.

You see this quite a lot from tyranids, as they have the sort of fast, cheap, and large sized units that make this tactic viable.

The other consideration of course is that you could replace unit C in the earlier picture with an objective marker. Using a charge move to sling your unit onto an objective is probably more generally applicable across armies.

That's fair. You wouldn't be able to use the Pile-in and Consolidate moves onto an empty objective, but if they've got a unit in front of it to sling off of, they almost certainly have a unit on it to move towards. If the chump unit has ObSec, you might even be able to gain control for the end of turn point before they clear you off on their turn.