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Green Bloater> ...to think someone who wants to do this is trying to bend the rules for an unfair advantage

Rhinos? Imagine what happens with waveserpents making straitline 2 foot moves and efffectively landing on enemy models, Thats what I was thinking about for a worst case.  I have been in the habbit of tank shocking multiple units with Eldar for a long time...

Just try and keep an open mind in order that we may all understand what the rules are, not what we'd like them to be, its hard I know.

I do have an open mind. I think we should also be responsible and not go rushing into new situations without lots of careful thought and deliberation.

Moopy:
It seems to me that all the exceptions to the swirl of combat (engagement, divorce, consolidation etc) happen at one time: the assault phase.

And that's a good point, in so far as it goes. But without anything specifically disallowing Tank Shocking a combat, it's also incorrect, since Tank Shock IS an exception that applies in a different phase.

Shooting into a combat is specifically mentioned as not being allowed. The rules for Tank Shock contain no similar prohibition, and so no matter where, or who, the target of your Shock is, the normal Tank Shock rules apply.

I can see a point for the shooting prohibition providing an intent argument for not allowing Tank Shock... but I can't see anything in the actual rules.



Moz:
The tank shocked unit in closecombat fails its LD check -
1 - does it now run?
2 - does the attacker get an attempt to sweep?
3 - does the attacker consolidate?
4 - does the attacker get to move and shoot afterwards?
5 - if there's no fallback corridor thanks to things like pile-in moves and the angle the tank is approaching from, is the squad automatically destroyed?

Without going back to check, I'm fairly sure all of that was discussed earlier in the thread. (If not, it must have been the other thread that mentioned this idea)... but as Flavius pointed out, it's all pretty much covered by the normal rules.

It's also possibly worth mentioning that, as discussed in another thread, the rules don't allow skimmers to move over friendly troops. The only situation I can think of where moving over your own troops would be a potential problem is a skimmer tank shocking into a combat, and being stopped directly above friendly models by a DoG attack. Can anyone think of any other reason that moving over your own troops, while being allowed to move freely over anything else, would be disallowed?

Circumstantial evidence at best, but worth considering...



I'm ignoring Green Bloater's trolling, since he still hasn't provided any actual rules to back up his 'argument'...

Posted by Oaka
This means, RAW, that a unit which fails its morale test due to a tankshock would be automatically destroyed as they cannot move without coming within 1" of an enemy model- they are in base contact with enemy models!

The problem being that the exact same argument would in fact prevent models from ever falling back from a combat, since they can not do so without moving within 1" of an enemy.

I disagree adamantly.

Pg. 48, 40K Rulebook, under the section Trapped! (emphasis mine): 

"Sometimes a unit will find its Fall Back corridor blocked by impassable terrain and/or models (ignoring enemy models that have fought in close combat against the unit this turn but including friends).  A unit falling back may move around any obstruction in such a way as to get back to their base line by the shortest route.

If a unit cannot perform a full Fall Back move in any direction, without doubling back, it is destroyed."

Since the tank shock occurs in the movement phase, before close combat, they do not get to ignore those enemy models.  This means that a unit that fails its morale check due to a tank shock while in close combat is AUTOMATICALLY DESTROYED.  I think that is my best argument against this being a valid game allowance, it's entirely too unreasonable for those of us that still use armies that aren't fearless.

- Oaka

This is a really interesting thread.

I unfortunately do not have the BBB in front of me, but I do know that unless broken specifically by a speical unit or weapon rule, units LOCKED in close combat can not leave that combat unless one of a specific set of events, laid out in the assault phase of the BBB, occur.

Again, I may be remembering these wrong, but the term locked in combat is used for a reason.

The only way a unit can become unlocked from combat is if they lose a combat and fail a moral check and flee.

The only exception i see to this are those specifially stated, ie: hit and run, teleporting, etc. But these are specifically addressed in special rules. The reason they are specifically spelled out is because they violate two of the basic principals (as i see it, again i dont have the BBB with me) of the game, these being that units locked in combat stay locked, and events take place in a specific order.

also, the argument by precedent works well here, i think. In ALL other conditions, a close combat can not be effected by any other game effect other than another unit joining the assault, or, again, those specifically stated to break the basic rules.

I think that is an interesting idea, however, it overly complicates the game. Because, if you take it as a viable tactic, how do you resolve all of the plethora of new problems that can arise? You would need an entire new section of rules just to handle those possible scenarios and it would interupt the flow of the game too much, IMHO. Plus, as Oaka said, it would be terribly unfair for non fearless assault armies that have to struggle to get into HtH in the first place.

I say stick with the precedent set that close combats occur in a seperate demension (as stated earlier) unless a rule SPECIFICALLY states you can interupt the normal game flow.

my 2 cents.

Posted By insaniak on 08/22/2006 4:13 PM
Moopy:
It seems to me that all the exceptions to the swirl of combat (engagement, divorce, consolidation etc) happen at one time: the assault phase.

And that's a good point, in so far as it goes. But without anything specifically disallowing Tank Shocking a combat, it's also incorrect, since Tank Shock IS an exception that applies in a different phase.

Shooting into a combat is specifically mentioned as not being allowed. The rules for Tank Shock contain no similar prohibition, and so no matter where, or who, the target of your Shock is, the normal Tank Shock rules apply.

I can see a point for the shooting prohibition providing an intent argument for not allowing Tank Shock... but I can't see anything in the actual rules.

Well, my conclusion are pulled from these rules.

All units in HTH are locked together.
All hth is a swirling mass (as stated in the shooting section). True, it's not the best location for this bit of information, but it's there and we can't chose to discard because of it's placing in the book.
Nobody can drive over their own troops.

All of the above are stated in the rules, soooo:

Since hth is swirling your troops can be in any location that's locked, can't tank shock without hitting one of your crazy-go-nuts guys.

Anything more and I think I'll be repeating some of my previous posts.

Okay I have read the rulebook in detail in regard to this issue. Here are my conclusions based on a RAW interpretation:

- If you look in the index at the back Tank Shock is actually listed under the heading Assault, which leads me to believe that Tank Shock is a special type of assault that occurs during the movement phase. This is in no way a guarantee that you can tank shock enemy units locked in close combat.
- Fearless units do not have to take morale checks, so they cannot be tank shocked. A little OT here but that is how the rules read to me.
- Models in close combat are considered Locked and will remain so until the results of the next close combat are decided.

So to me the rules do not provide enough information to decide correctly what would happen as a result of tank shocking an enemy unit locked in close combat that is subject to morale checks. So I would not tank shock said units.

Fearless units do not have to take morale checks, so they cannot be tank shocked. A little OT here but that is how the rules read to me.

you should still be able to technically tank shock them, they would just automatically pass but would still have to move out of the way; right?

No they do not have to fall out of the way. That is why you cannot tank shock them.

I will concede that it is not specifically prohibited by the rules, and that the rules for tank shock do allow you to perform the maneuver wherever it is not specifically prohibited. However, the aftermath is such a wreck that it's hard to ignore the point that the rules seem really ill equipped to handle this specific situation.

At first it's an easy enough sell:"Oh sure they can be tank shocked, no reason in the rules why not."
Then it gets crazier: "Oh I failed, so... wait I can't move because I'm within 1" of enemy models, so they are all dead?"
and crazier: "Ok so they're all dead, and now you're sweeping D6, then taking a full move, then shooting/assaulting?"

If you intend to use this in a game, I hope you explain the full possibility of the situation to your opponent before doing so. Realize that at the beginning he may just be letting you do it to be a nice guy, but by the end of the situation he may be (dare I say rightfully) pretty upset that you've taken advantage of his lenience with a chain of events that is... well, a little crazy.

Allowing tankshocking into close combat is giving every army the potential to get out of assault like Necrons can, and I think we all know how much fun that is to fight against. I have to rely on a lot of strategy in deploying, moving, and assualting, as well as a great deal of luck to get my Kroot units (leadership 8) into an assault with enough numbers to make a difference. Letting an opponent make tankshocks into that assault, forcing me to fallback and have the unit I was just in assault with be able to shoot me would be a kick in the groin. I really don't want to give up on my Kroot and play a fearless, MEQ army, but in a world with monoliths, droppods, and fear of the darkness, allowing close combat tankshocks would really be the thing that tips the scales for me to do that.

As a note Oaka, it really isn't as powerful as you are thinking, if you play kroot you probably have an evicerator in every squad and LD8. I have now done a few times with 'fish and hammerheads and lost 2 of them to a melta gun & a lascannon, because it will generally not move more than 6" to do the tank shock it doesn't get the auto-glance.

At the end of the day, you are better off letting your FCW's die in a lot of cases, or hope they run and don't get caught.

I don't think that's terribly valid for downplaying the power of the action. For one, the kroot have to pass a LD check on an 8 before the single evisc in the squad can even ponder committing suicide on the front of the tank. Then the tank has to actually move through the eviscerator carrying model. Then it's arguable that a skimmer could downgrade all hits to glancing since the last movement phase is the one that decides wether the hits are auto-glance or not.

Further. regarding the power of the strategy, I suggest you consider Chaos vehicles dedicated to Slaanesh. Consider also that even space marines are subject to being wiped out from 'Trapped' fallback rules, and...well this really bones space marines so you'll never see it actually played this way.

It's dirty bad wrong, let your imagination wander further than a tiny scenario where a Tau play goes 'Durrr' and drives his Armor 12 less than 6" directly into a S8 weapon.

The new UKGT rules FAQ says if you tank shock a unit and it can't move out of the way the tank bounces.

It is obviously a good tactic, but it is not the be-all and end-all of a game vs. tank toting tau.

For the record, I personally don't think it's a good idea for the rules to allow tank-shocking units in close combat.

But I don't make the rules, I just read em. Possible abuses, lack of balance, and complexity of application are not factors that change the RAW.

If the designers want the rules to work a particular way, it's their responsibility to write them that way. It's not my responsibility to try to figure out what they probably should have written.

As Moz stated, if only one model in a unit has a weapon capable of hurting the tank, then only a fool would tankshock in such a way that the vehicle touches that model, rather they could skim a single model in the back to force the morale test.

I like the discovery that this 'good tactic', as happypants calls it, affects space marines, effectively killing them instantly regardless of ATSKNF.  I've learned from the past that anything which hurts space marines is quickly banished from gameplay, whether that be unofficially or in an FAQ.  I can rest easier now.

- Oaka

Flavius what you say is a cop out. Try being a good sport. If you want to push the rules don't blame GW.

I can't see how it is that it is possible in almost any situation where one model has a weapon that can harm the tank is in CC and you can figure out how to tank shock the unit and not have to come in to contact with that model.

As for units being swept if they fail morale due to tank shock, no one has proven that this happens with any decent shred of evidence.

You only need to touch a single model in order to tank shock a unit. So eyeball a the closest model to your tank, or pick an angle that bypasses a dangerous weapon, and only declare your tank shock for the distance required to reach that single model.

You either follow the rules for assault in this case, and the defending unit is treated as fleeing from combat (subject to sweep) or you follow the normal rules for morale and retreat and they are instantly destroyed (can't move within 1" of enemy units).

Moopy:
Well, my conclusion are pulled from these rules.
All units in HTH are locked together.

Yup, no problem so far.


All hth is a swirling mass (as stated in the shooting section). True, it's not the best location for this bit of information, but it's there and we can't chose to discard because of it's placing in the book.

It's not just that it's in the shooting section... it's also written very specifically to apply to shooting into and out of the combat. While it's a good (possible) indiciation of intent, there is simply no way that you can read a rule that says 'You can't shoot into combat' to mean 'You can't Tank Shock into a combat'


Nobody can drive over their own troops.

That's never been in any doubt. The debate was to do with hitting enemy troops who are locked, without going near your own models.


Green Bloater:
No they do not have to fall out of the way. That is why you cannot tank shock them.

Uh, no. They can still be Tank Shocked, The only difference that Fearless makes is that they automatically pass their moralle check when they move aside. It's still a Tank Shock, regardless of whether the unit being shocked Falls Back or not.


Moz:
Then it gets crazier: "Oh I failed, so... wait I can't move because I'm within 1" of enemy models, so they are all dead?"

While I'll concede that the 1" rule is a potential problem with the idea, that partly comes down to interpetation of "...may not move within 1"..."

In true English language style, that can either mean 'May not move at all while within 1"...' or can mean 'May not move TO within 1"...'

The first would back up your argument. The second would make it perfectly acceptable for a model to move from beside an enemy model to anywhere further away.


And I still don't think the other unit would get a Sweeping Advance or Consolidation. They haven't won an assault, their opponent just left.

Remember that a tank must move in a straight line towards the unit it is tank shocking as soon as it begins to move.

And I do not necessarily agree with what insaniak said about fearless units, but he could be right on that one.

@ Bloater: Thanks, I'll have to try to remember to be a good sport when I'm playing 40K and not hold the authors of a document responsible for the content of that document.

@ Insaniak: are we sure that a model that can't move within 1" of an enemy model is destroyed? Maybe it's an assumption that they are destroyed. Maybe they just aren't allowed to move, which might create a contradiction (they're required to move by one rule, but they're not allowed to move by another rule).

Bloater:
Remember that a tank must move in a straight line towards the unit it is tank shocking as soon as it begins to move.

Uh... ok. Just felt like quoting random rules?


And I do not necessarily agree with what insaniak said about fearless units, but he could be right on that one.

Well, it's a long shot, but reading the rules for Tank Shock would probably confirm it...



Flavius:
are we sure that a model that can't move within 1" of an enemy model is destroyed?

I believe people are taking the combination of the movement rules (can't move within 1" ) with the Trapped rule (if can't move is destroyed) to mean that the models trying to fall back would be destroyed.

As I said, it comes down to the interpretation of '...move within 1"...'

 

@Insaniak

You are most likely correct about tank shocking fearless units. What you say does make sense, but then again sense does not mean much in these discussions. Just kidding there. I do think you are correct about tank shocking fearless units.

The rule I brought about moving the tank in a straight line was intended to show it is not always going to be easy picking off that one enemy model in close combat that you want to run over.

Posted By burnthexenos on 08/23/2006 7:01 PM


If you wouldn't risk shooting into combat, out of fear of hitting your own troops, you wouldn't drive into it either, for fear of running your own troops over.

The first argument in the post above, class, is a great example of the argumentem ad baculum or appeal to force.  This type of attempt at bullying has mostly vanished from YMDC, but still occasionally crops up.  The "you disagree with me so you will burn in hell" argument is actually much more prevelant on fundie religious forums.

The second argument above is, of course, our old friend the false analogy.

Overall an excellent example of how to jump in at the end of a thread and contribute nothing that advances any argument in any material way.

Indeed, seconded.

Man, there are a LOT of reasons I should burn in hell... but tank shocking a CC probably isn't one of them. (Although who knows, maybe god/gods/godess is/are avid 40k players)

Aaand burnthexenos loses, as the first in the thread to use Nazis, Hitler, and/or Nazism as part of an argument.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Ah! So you can't tank shock into combat, because burnthexenos says so?

Excellent! Here we were, foolishly discussing what the rulebook says, when all we had to do was ask burnthexenos how he thought it should be played!

Rules be damned... my opponent can hardly argue with 'No, you can't do that, because some angry guy on a forum said so...' now can they?

Wow... deep man, deep.