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Just a quick question... A vehicle with a Barrage weapon can hide out of LOS and fire its weapons at a target. Then it can choose to illuminate it, just as written in the BRB, letting its entire army target it without any possible retaliation since the enemy can't see it. It's so illogical to be able to illuminate the enemy through blocking terrain, but since the searchlight is not a weapon and there is no statement that it requires LOS, this is valid if considering RAW. So a Basilisk or Manticore can fire at full efficiency, and allow the rest of the army to shoot at its target without any cost or repercussions. I wouldn't do it personally (makes no sense whatsoever). How would you approach this?

RAW it works, I seriously doubt it's intended.

Obviously they use "flares"

However, it only works if the targeted unit is within 36". Otherwise you cannot shoot at that target.

WEll if the target is within 36" than we are probably talking about direct fire.

The issue is targets beyond 36" and targets outside the basilisks' LOS

Rules as written, it seems to work

However the mechanics of light would seem to indicate that a searchlight cant light up what it cannot draw a line to.
This is unless we get into bending the light or bouncing it with mirrors

Targets beyond 36" are not legal targets, so not really an issue. You CANNOT target them

 canadin wrote:


However the mechanics of light would seem to indicate that a searchlight cant light up what it cannot draw a line to.
This is unless we get into bending the light or bouncing it with mirrors

Flares. Fancy spotlights

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Targets beyond 36" are not legal targets, so not really an issue. You CANNOT target them

That is a good point, BRB under Night Fighting p.124, "The shooting unit cannot pick a target more than 36" away - such units are completely hidden in the darkness."

This goes with p.16, "If no models in the firing unit can see a particular model, then Wounds cannot be allocated to it"

This however is being negated by p.34, "Barrage weapons can fire indirectly. This means they can fire at a target they do not have line of sight to"

I do not think we are discussing weather or not Barrage weapons can shoot and ignore Night Fighting themselves. What is up for questions is weather they can spotlight a unit that they cannot see.

As for flares, . There are apocalypse rules for targeting flares, and I am pretty sure flares exist in 40k. Basilisks however are not equipped with them. So even though it makes perfect sense, it is a workaround that is not indicated at all in 'Da Rulz'

Canadin, if Night Fighting said that units over 36"were treated as being out of sight, barrage weapons could fire at them. However, despite whether or not it makes sense, you can illuminate a unit out of sight.

However, the night fighting rules do allow for a blast weapon to scatter past the 36" limit, so what happens then? Does a unit that you hit accidentally become a "target" for a searchlight? What if you actually do have line of sight?

Canadin - that is NOT negated by the barrage rules. Reread shooting, note that PICK A TARGET is one of the first things you do, and has NOTHING to do with LOS. You cannot pick a target over 36" while night fighting is going on, unless you can ignore night fight itself.

The unit you target is the one that is hit by the searchlight, as it is still the target. Scattering has no effect on the declared target

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Canadin - that is NOT negated by the barrage rules. Reread shooting, note that PICK A TARGET is one of the first things you do, and has NOTHING to do with LOS. You cannot pick a target over 36" while night fighting is going on, unless you can ignore night fight itself.

The unit you target is the one that is hit by the searchlight, as it is still the target. Scattering has no effect on the declared target

Actually, I think you're correct.

Shooting on p.12,
Step 1 - Nominate a Unit to Shoot
Step 2 - Pick a Target
Step 3 - Line of Sight
Step 4 - etc...

So, even though barrage skips step 3, you are still limited by step 2, and could only pick a target unit up to 36" away while night fight is on. (This is assuming the target has not been lit up by a different search light already)