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Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy back in 2nd ed. there was a mechanic for shooting into a close combat. You ran the risk of hitting your own troops of course, but it allowed some interesting tactics. For example, one of my favorite maneuvers with my old Ork army was to take a huge mob of Gretchin, and charge them into a squad of Space Marines. That caused the Marines to be pinned down so they couldn't hide from my Ork dreadnaught or my Boys. Of course I usually lost most of the Grot mob, but the trade off in points for what I killed in marines was always worth it. So I was just wondering if anyone out there would like to see that mechanic brought back. I think that as a special rule for certain armies or units it actually makes a lot of sense. For example, I couldn't see Space Marines using it, but I could certainly see a squad of Storm Troopers firing into a close combat involving a Penal Legion squad, or Chaos Marines firing into a combat involving lowly cultists. So anyway, what do you guys think?

Also, I didn't put this in "Proposed Rules" because I'm not actually proposing a rule here. I'm just curious to see what everyone thinks of the concept.

I think they should at least experiment with some kind of "cannon fodder" rule for certain expendable units. 50% of the shots (roll off the odd ones) land on your own unit, 50% on the other one. Guard conscripts, flayed ones, chaos cultists and grots are a great place to put this rule.

Additionally, I think there should be an equippable upgrade 'suicide homing beacon' for guard penal legions and grots that allows blast weapons to center on that model even in cc.

Additionally, I think there should be an equippable upgrade 'suicide homing beacon' for guard penal legions and grots that allows blast weapons to center on that model even in cc.

That's actually a really good idea!

All the time. I'd play IG again running alot of 20 man squads

I think it would be interesting if certain models had a special rule that allowed the unit to be shot into, but with drawbacks. For example, -1 BS (to a minimum of BS2) and any 1 or 2 (even if it would normally hit on a 2+) hits your own models instead. Eg. Chaos Cultists have the cannon fodder rule and is in a fistfight against a squad of Terminators, so a squad of Traitor Marines opens fire on the melee because they view the Cultists as expendable and the Terminators as a threat worth sacrificing their own for. As CSM are BS4, they get reduced to BS3 so they must roll at least a 4 to hit. Ten Marines fire bolters at rapid fire range, getting 9 4+, 7 misses, and the remaining 4 shots is allocated to the Cultists.

The game Zombicide has a similar mechanic in it, where if one survivor is on a tile with zombies in it and a second person fires into that tile, any roll of 1 hits the survivor (You only have two wounds, so that's really dangerous). It turns into a major moral struggle because sometimes the other person really needs help, but you run the chance of blowing them away or causing them to lose one of their weapons.

i have played with a similar rule in the past - randomising casulties (depending on unit sizes) and making the friendly unit automatically take a LD test when fired on whether or not they suffer wounds. Fearless units would ignore this of course..........

I think it would be interesting if certain models had a special rule that allowed the unit to be shot into, but with drawbacks. For example, -1 BS (to a minimum of BS2) and any 1 or 2 (even if it would normally hit on a 2+) hits your own models instead. Eg. Chaos Cultists have the cannon fodder rule and is in a fistfight against a squad of Terminators, so a squad of Traitor Marines opens fire on the melee because they view the Cultists as expendable and the Terminators as a threat worth sacrificing their own for. As CSM are BS4, they get reduced to BS3 so they must roll at least a 4 to hit. Ten Marines fire bolters at rapid fire range, getting 9 4+, 7 misses, and the remaining 4 shots is allocated to the Cultists.

That's exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of. I need to dig out my 2nd ed rule book to see how they handled it back then, but I think it might have been similar to what you describe with the exception that anyone could fire into any cc at any time.

Shooting at CC would be opposite of my tactics. I run sloggin' Orks so it's an advantage in CC because they're not as good at shooting. I like getting them stuck in to fight..

Interestingly enough, we talked about this on a recent episode of our podcast...either 10 or 11, I can't remember which. It definitely fits the fluff of some of the armies out there, but it adds a dynamic to the game that most of us weren't fond of.

I think I read a mechanic one time that said any hits rolled shoot the enemy like normal and any misses hit friendly units.

But im Guard, so this would be really really fun...

Guard would become...very difficult to deal with, as any decent IG commander will have no issues sacrificing a 65pt unit of guardsmen to drop a battlecannon on a 180pt marine unit or to hitting a unit of genestealers locked in guardsmen with a clutch of flamers from a command squad.

Back when I was getting into the hobby, I got involved in my first big participation game at gw Edinburgh. It was around the time that the great unclean one was released. This battle was elder vs chaos and I, as the most nervous youngster in the room was entrusted to control the avatar and a lascannon platform team. I tried to give the avatar back but they insisted. If I recall correctly, the objective of the battle involved the chaos players getting one model to a certain point on thettable where said model would turn into the great unclean one. If the guo was on the table at the end, chaos one. If not, elder.

Anyways, long story short. Last turn, the guo and avatar in combat. I can't remember exactly the situation but I think there was perhaps no way for the avatar to take 10 wounds off the guo in one round of combat so I was forced to shoot the lascannon into the combat. I think the rule was to roll a d6, 1-3 it hit one guy, 4-6 it hit the other. Either way, fired the lascannon, hit the guo, took 6 or 7 wounds and the avatar finished him off in cc.

It was a great day. My first big game and I got a cheer.

I play chaos, it always makes sense for me to be able to shoot into my own combat.

"Oh look cultists, dont care fire away."

"Oh look our lord is in combat. Fire anyway if he dies maybe the gods will smile upon me."

 Vaktathi wrote:
Guard would become...very difficult to deal with, as any decent IG commander will have no issues sacrificing a 65pt unit of guardsmen to drop a battlecannon on a 180pt marine unit or to hitting a unit of genestealers locked in guardsmen with a clutch of flamers from a command squad.

Actually, my favourite apocalypse asset allows you to do something very similar. The "Imperial Shield Infantry Company" formation has the asset "Fire on my coordinates!", letting you call down orbital bombardments centred on a vox caster. All you need to do is pass a leadership check. I have had a lot of fun doing this on a sacrificial platoon, that has been overrun by something or other.

IIRC, RT and 2nd edition made 50%, rounding up, of all hits go to friendly forces. I've never understood Lootas holding fire to spare 1 grot while 15 Khornate Berserkers charge their line.

Guard would become...very difficult to deal with, as any decent IG commander will have no issues sacrificing a 65pt unit of guardsmen to drop a battlecannon on a 180pt marine unit or to hitting a unit of genestealers locked in guardsmen with a clutch of flamers from a command squad.

That's actually exactly the kind of thing that happened and it forced you to really think a little more tactically about where you were moving your troops and why. It also forced you to think very hard about what load-outs to take. Since second edition space marine armies could be as small as 10-15 men, you had to be VERY careful about what you did. I think it would add a certain tactical element we are currently missing.

EDIT:
I should add here that I am on the side of allowing it only for certain units. I agree that with the rule-set we have in 6th ed., that allowing everyone to do it all the time is probably not a great idea in terms of balance and game play.

I've never understood Lootas holding fire to spare 1 grot while 15 Khornate Berserkers charge their line.

Exactly! lol

Yup, hence why I gave my customer officer a special order to enable his units to shoot at people locked in CC, missed shots are dealt on allies, roll to wound and saves apply as normal.

Tycho wrote:

Additionally, I think there should be an equippable upgrade 'suicide homing beacon' for guard penal legions and grots that allows blast weapons to center on that model even in cc.

That's actually a really good idea!

Except for the issue that it's skewed towards armies for which 'expendable troops' are in-character. Tau, Space Marines, and Eldar at least don't really work that way, it'd make IG/Chaos/whatever else blast weapons significantly better than other armies' blast weapons.

Making it a special rule on certain models, such as cultists, grots, conscripts, ect would be fine. As a general rule? Then we have issues.

Except for the issue that it's skewed towards armies for which 'expendable troops' are in-character. Tau, Space Marines, and Eldar at least don't really work that way, it'd make IG/Chaos/whatever else blast weapons significantly better than other armies' blast weapons.

That's why it would only be available on certain units. I know that when you could do it with every unit in 2nd ed it actually didn't unbalance the game anywhere near as bad as people think it would so that's why I'm thinking that it might work *if limited* to certain circumstances. Especially since the effect is random (as I recall it was random even when you fired a template weapon) so you would have to be very careful about how and when you did it. I could very easily be wrong, but I really don't think it would be detrimental to the game as long as it was handled right. I do agree that if everyone could always fire at all times into cc with no restrictions it could get a little crazy though.

I would say it would work better as a USR, like preferred enemy. Maybe you could call it uncaring. Then you could have a model like Chenkov give an order, granting a unit "uncaring:conscripts", or you could have all chaos marines having "uncaring:cultists".

Maybe you could chuck in a rule like you need to pass a leadership check to fire.

Maybe you could chuck in a rule like you need to pass a leadership check to fire.

That would actually be an interesting mechanic. Especially for the IG. It adds an element of realism imo.

Depends on the regiment, I fail to see soldiers from the Death Korps hesitate to shoot if there's a chance to kill the enemy (Dead Men Walking springs to mind).

I'd say the ''uncaring'' rule would be great.

My thoughts are it would be rather interesting to see this rule come up for specific armies ( which it wont ).

I did it all the time in 2nd Edition. Especially with my Marines, lol.

It's incredibly grimdark too. Fits right into the setting.

Yes. I play IG and Tau, which means that close combat = my unit is killed. If it fails to die properly in my opponent's assault phase I would have no problem shooting into the combat.

This would only further increase the game's bias to shooting v.s. assaulting. So no.

Yeh, I think it's definitely something that should be looked at. It was a fun thing to do. You had to really think about whether it was worthwhile. It was a total gamble. Amazing when it worked out, devastating when it didn't. It led to some really great moments,

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
I did it all the time in 2nd Edition. Especially with my Marines, lol.

It's incredibly grimdark too. Fits right into the setting.

Well you could afford to do it with marines because they were so tough, especially terminators, it was fairly safe. There's something not quite right about loyalist marines shooting into a crowd of their brothers even if it is to kill those they are in combat with. But not being able to shoot at all into close combat is another thing that shouldn't have been removed from the game.

This would only further increase the game's bias to shooting v.s. assaulting. So no.

Actually, it wouldn't. Not exactly anyway. Right now I don't see many people even attempting to get into CC unless they have no choice (like nids), or have taken the odd dedicated cc unit (which seems to be increasingly rare). Because this rule would work in concert with shooting and could help you pin down dangerous units I think it would actually add some incentive to get units up and into assault quicker. Especially because of the overwatch mechanic. If you're going to be shooting into the combat anyway, you may as well go ahead and charge now instead of waiting. Charge your cheap cultists into that massive mob of Boyz. Hope they bring down one or two Orks in cc and then whittle them down with fire. Next turn your quality cc unit hits a severely depleted mob only capable of marginalized overwatch fire (unless some cultists survived in which case you hit a softened mob with no OW capability). I think it would just add a different element to the equation. One more thing for your opponent to think about.