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so I've always played that when the challenge is issued, you then & there see whether the character models in the other unit are either in base contact or within 2" of someone who is - eligible to fight, can accept or deny a challenge. if they are too far back, they can't accept, decline or be put to the back, but after pile-in moves they may still be able to swing.

the fact that I use this as a tactic to keep my powerklaw nobs alive & swinging for a single round of combat has annoyed the local eldar player (here called Hettar) and he has trawled through the rules, and come to a different interpretation of them.

on page 64, it states that models that are engaged in the combat (not just locked in the combat) are eligible to challenges.

on page 23 under 'who can fight?' it says a model is engaged in combat if, at his initiative step, he is in base contact or within 2" of someone who is in base contact.

he therefore claims that you have to figure out whether or not, after the initiative step pile in, the models will then be eligible to fight, and from that decide whether they can accept challenges before they even do so.

I have supplied him with a scenario in which this becomes nonsense:

a single eldar character charges a large group of orks, with 4 "ranks" of orks between the character and the Nob. if the nob piles in at this stage, he still won't be within 2" of a model in base contact, as there will still be 3 ranks of boys between him and the boy in base contact, so he cannot accept the challenge, right?
but wait, if the eldar character then fights the boys and kills some, he will be able to pile in behind the boys that move forward and attack - meaning he is eligible to attack and should have accepted the challenge, but if he had he couldn't have - reducing Hettars interpretation of the rules to a nonsensical paradox.

furthermore I could tun the situation around to further emphasise the failures in this ruleset:

an ork nob is charged by a unit of eldar wraithblades with a warlock. the warlock decides to challenge, to try and keep himself locked in combat through the ork turn and not get shot - a standard tactic. I then state that, by the nobs initiative step, he will not be eligible to fight as he will have already been killed by the wraithblades and so cannot accept the challenge. again, the rules have proven incorrect - the nob clearly can accept the challenge, and by all rights must - but by the time it gets to his initiative, he'll not be able to fight - and as he cannot fight, he cannot be challenged.


so i was hoping you all can back up whoever you think is correct here - Hettar is free to make his case (I'll alert him to this thread forthwith) below.

The model issuing or accepting the challenge must be engaged at the time the challenge is issued or accepted, This is before Initiative 10.

The wording is terrible because it seems like you are not engaged until your I step, but this interpretation would never have anyone fighting a challenge.

RAW, if a character would not be engaged after his pile in move then he cannot be part of a challenge.

This of course means that he will also not be able to attack at his initiative cause he is too far back.

You cannot say he is too far to be challenged and then also make attacks with him later in that assault.

We actually house rule at my store that challenges go off whether your out of range or not, just to make things simple.

page 64 is quite specific: Characters that cannot fight or strike blow(including those that are not engaged with an enemy model) cannot accept challenges.

The focus is cannot "strike blows" and because character most certainly will strike blows at initiative 1 with the unwieldy weapon when the combat has moved about so you could definitely can accept the challenge, I'm saying you cant have it both ways, either you weren't in range to be challenged and hence will not fight at any initiative step or you will be able to "Strike blows" and can accept the a challenge..

my example to back this up is a monstrous creature(ch) charges a any blob quad that contains a character and issues a challenge if any characters will be able "strike blows" at there initiative they are able to accept/decline........if you rule that the character cannot accept the challenge that means he cant strike blows at his initiative, which he can and will and so he must. other wise you have it both ways, first hes not able to strike blows during the combat and then suddenly he is.....AKA the Harry Houdini technique.

 DeathReaper wrote:
The model issuing or accepting the challenge must be engaged at the time the challenge is issued or accepted, This is before Initiative 10.

The wording is terrible because it seems like you are not engaged until your I step, but this interpretation would never have anyone fighting a challenge.

that's what I thought it was.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eihnlazer wrote:
RAW, if a character would not be engaged after his pile in move then he cannot be part of a challenge.

This of course means that he will also not be able to attack at his initiative cause he is too far back.

You cannot say he is too far to be challenged and then also make attacks with him later in that assault.

We actually house rule at my store that challenges go off whether your out of range or not, just to make things simple.

so how would you apply that (bar the house rule, that's obvious) to the scenario I said?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hettar wrote:
page 64 is quite specific: Characters that cannot fight or strike blow(including those that are not engaged with an enemy model) cannot accept challenges.

The focus is cannot "strike blows" and because character most certainly will strike blows at initiative 1 with the unwieldy weapon when the combat has moved about so you could definitely can accept the challenge, I'm saying you cant have it both ways, either you weren't in range to be challenged and hence will not fight at any initiative step or you will be able to "Strike blows" and can accept the a challenge..

my example to back this up is a monstrous creature(ch) charges a any blob quad that contains a character and issues a challenge if any characters will be able "strike blows" at there initiative they are able to accept/decline........if you rule that the character cannot accept the challenge that means he cant strike blows at his initiative, which he can and will and so he must. other wise you have it both ways, first hes not able to strike blows during the combat and then suddenly he is.....AKA the Harry Houdini technique.

what you're basically saying is if you cannot accept it you automatically decline it - which I'm sure they would have said if it really was that simple.

your example is just describing how you'd do it, not how the rules are working - if the character is out of range to fight until you kill some, what happens? if you kill some he can fight, but if he can fight you must have fought as challenge instead, if you fought a challenge instead he couldn't have fought, if he couldn't have fought you would have killed some instead... it's a vicious loop.

if you want the real world example type thing of 'what's really going on', your character yelled out a challenge and the other character was too far away to hear it - he doesn't sulk at the back because he didn't hear what you said!

and again, if your monster charges into base contact with only the nob, i'd say I can't accept challenges as by my initiative order the nob will have died, so can't fight. exactly the same principle.

Eihnlazer,
Even house ruling it so you can work out whom is 'engaged' prior to their actual initiative step, the main problem with how Challenges are worded, still creates issues. It is possible to be in a situation where the character in question starts 4 inches away from the 'combat' itself, and then uses the 3 inch pile in move to end up within that 2 inch 'engaged' bubble. Given that you would be measuring from their current position, before any initiative rounds occur as there is no way to know where the opponents models will be positioned when the initiative round begins, it still leaves situations where the character can be 'safe from challenges' but still take part in the combat that round. Given how people tend to refrain from shoving their leaders to the front of the squad, this happens more times then not.

Best, as it has to be House Ruled to have purpose, to simply replaced 'engaged' with 'locked' as that is also worked out prior to any initiative steps occurring.

please wait for more response's, as so far no one has come to your side.........but I say again, if you "strike blows" at any initiative during the combat you could accept/decline a challenge during the fight sub phase, if that wasn't the case you don't fight in the combat at any initiative and because in practise you do I'm proved right because you "struck blows" and hence do not fill the requirements in pg64 for who cant accept a challenge

I completely agree with you if you don't get to fight at any initiative step

Hettar wrote:
please wait for more response's, as so far no one has come to your side.........but I say again, if you "strike blows" at any initiative during the combat you could accept/decline a challenge during the fight sub phase, if that wasn't the case you don't fight in the combat at any initiative and because in practise you do I'm proved right because you "struck blows" and hence do not fill the requirements in pg64 for who cant accept a challenge

I completely agree with you if you don't get to fight at any initiative step

Except that it's impossible to be sure a model could or could not strike blows until their initiative actually rolls around. Casualty removal and other pile in moves can have a drastic effect on how things play out. So either you determine solely at the time the challenge is declared or you have to play out the whole combat to find out if he could accept, then rewind back to the beginning and re-do it. Only one of these approaches is actually practical.

Chrysis wrote:

Hettar wrote:
please wait for more response's, as so far no one has come to your side.........but I say again, if you "strike blows" at any initiative during the combat you could accept/decline a challenge during the fight sub phase, if that wasn't the case you don't fight in the combat at any initiative and because in practise you do I'm proved right because you "struck blows" and hence do not fill the requirements in pg64 for who cant accept a challenge

I completely agree with you if you don't get to fight at any initiative step

Except that it's impossible to be sure a model could or could not strike blows until their initiative actually rolls around. Casualty removal and other pile in moves can have a drastic effect on how things play out. So either you determine solely at the time the challenge is declared or you have to play out the whole combat to find out if he could accept, then rewind back to the beginning and re-do it. Only one of these approaches is actually practical.

that summarises it quite nicely.

I dug out my copy of the FAQ for the rulebook I had saved on my computer but there's nothing there to help us with this.

I say again, if your not able to strike blows during the whole combat you cant accept a challenge, if you do strike blows at any point for any reason during that combat you were able to accept/decline challenges and now either you wont fight at all and fill the requirements on pg64 paragraph 4 or you do strike blows and do not meet the requirements of not being able to accept/decline a challenge.

its very specific, 3 condition for not being able to accept decline challenges during a combat that a unit is locked combat

A) cannot fight
B) cannot strike blows
C) not engaged with an enemy modeds

only if you meet all of these conditions during the fight you are safe from challenges, and will not fight that combat full stop.

Not to mention fun times where the eligibility of a model to take part in a challenge is influenced by the other challenge participant under the "if he can swing at his initiative he can accept" set-up.

Take for instance the following set up. A Daemon Prince charges into an Ork mob and issues a challenge. The Nob is >2" away from the closest boy in base to base contact. Unless the Prince kills X Boyz, the Nob will not be able to get close enough with his Pile In move to swing. Can the Nob accept?

If you check only when the challenge, then obviously not. He's not "engaged."

If you have to find out if the Nob would be engaged at his Initiative step then you hit the paradox where the whether he can accept or not is determined by the effectiveness of the attacks the Daemon Prince makes that he would not be able to make if the Nob accepts.

Chrysis put forth a very good question:
How do you determine which models will be removed as casualties before the initiative step is reached?

Chrysis wrote:
Not to mention fun times where the eligibility of a model to take part in a challenge is influenced by the other challenge participant under the "if he can swing at his initiative he can accept" set-up.

Take for instance the following set up. A Daemon Prince charges into an Ork mob and issues a challenge. The Nob is >2" away from the closest boy in base to base contact. Unless the Prince kills X Boyz, the Nob will not be able to get close enough with his Pile In move to swing. Can the Nob accept?

If you check only when the challenge, then obviously not. He's not "engaged."

If you have to find out if the Nob would be engaged at his Initiative step then you hit the paradox where the whether he can accept or not is determined by the effectiveness of the attacks the Daemon Prince makes that he would not be able to make if the Nob accepts.

simply answered if during the combat he's able to strike blows at any point he's able to accept a challenge, he does not have to get to base contact to the other characters because the rule says that they are moved together regardless of whos In the way pg 64 paragraph 8" fighting a challenge"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
a lot of people are debating whether or not a character is engaged or not, but that's only 1 of the 3 conditions that a character has to meet during the combat to be safe from challenges......the two other conditions have to be met aswell, so do not A)fight or B)strike blows during the combat.

Asked again:
How do you determine if the champion can strike a blow in that combat without knowing where the enemy models will be when it comes time for them to strike said blow?

Hettar wrote:

Chrysis wrote:
Not to mention fun times where the eligibility of a model to take part in a challenge is influenced by the other challenge participant under the "if he can swing at his initiative he can accept" set-up.

Take for instance the following set up. A Daemon Prince charges into an Ork mob and issues a challenge. The Nob is >2" away from the closest boy in base to base contact. Unless the Prince kills X Boyz, the Nob will not be able to get close enough with his Pile In move to swing. Can the Nob accept?

If you check only when the challenge, then obviously not. He's not "engaged."

If you have to find out if the Nob would be engaged at his Initiative step then you hit the paradox where the whether he can accept or not is determined by the effectiveness of the attacks the Daemon Prince makes that he would not be able to make if the Nob accepts.

simply answered if during the combat he's able to strike blows at any point he's able to accept a challenge, he does not have to get to base contact to the other characters because the rule says that they are moved together regardless of whos In the way pg 64 paragraph 8" fighting a challenge"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
a lot of people are debating whether or not a character is engaged or not, but that's only 1 of the 3 conditions that a character has to meet during the combat to be safe from challenges......the two other conditions have to be met aswell, so do not A)fight or B)strike blows during the combat.

He's only able to strike blows, and thus be in a position to accept the challenge, because he didn't accept the challenge. If he accepts the challenge, he would never get into position to strike blows and thus could never have accepted the challenge. This is a paradox. The rules don't, and cannot, rely on accurate prediction of future random events.

JinxDragon wrote:
Asked again:
How do you determine if the champion can strike a blow in that combat without knowing where the enemy models will be when it comes time for them to strike said blow?

it does not matter, if your character fights in the combat or strikes blows at all then you haven't followed the rules for challenges and you have cheated, you can not pick and choose the conditions your going to meet during the combat. its all or nothing.

Hettar wrote:

JinxDragon wrote:
Asked again:
How do you determine if the champion can strike a blow in that combat without knowing where the enemy models will be when it comes time for them to strike said blow?

it does not matter, if your character fights in the combat or strikes blows at all then you haven't followed the rules for challenges and you have cheated, you can not pick and choose the conditions your going to meet during the combat. its all or nothing.

And it's impossible to know with certainty if he could or could not strike blows before he does so, thus no one can ever accept a challenge under your regime.

meet all 3 conditions, we've covered engaged, and striking's blows, now let do fight......if you fight you could of been challenged

Hettar wrote:
meet all 3 conditions, we've covered engaged, and striking's blows, now let do fight......if you fight you could of been challenged

And what? We rewind the whole combat so I can accept? Or you force me to refuse, which would then be you breaking the rules because it's my choice to refuse or not?

Before a model strikes blows, it is impossible to know if he would be able to strike blows because of the random dice involved in casualty removal and the net effect that has on pile in moves and thus ability to make attacks.

and then you add all the conditions up and if you fill all 3 requirements not just 1-2 that you like, but all 3 during the combat then yes, you are safe from a challenge and you concede that during that combat that the character not able to:

A)FIGHT(at all, period. regardless of what the future holds)
B)STRIKE BLOWS(at all, period. regardless of the future holds)

other wise I say again you have not followed rules stated on pg64 paragraph 4 "accepting a challenge"

Hettar wrote:
please wait for more response's, as so far no one has come to your side.........

Uh, the very first response in this thread was on his 'side'.

The character has to be engaged to issue or accept a challenge. This is stated quite clearly in the Challenge rules.

Hettar wrote:
and then you add all the conditions up and if you fill all 3 requirements not just 1-2 that you like, but all 3 during the combat then yes, you are safe from a challenge and you concede that during that combat that the character not able to:

A)FIGHT(at all, period. regardless of what the future holds)
B)STRIKE BLOWS(at all, period. regardless of the future holds)

other wise I say again you have not followed rules stated on pg64 paragraph 4 "accepting a challenge"

Simple question time. In my previous example I am the Ork player. I wish for my Nob to accept the Daemon Princes challenge. He will only be able to, under your interpretation, accept the challenge if he does not accept the challenge. Can he accept the Challenge?

Hettar wrote:
and then you add all the conditions up and if you fill all 3 requirements not just 1-2 that you like, but all 3 during the combat then yes, you are safe from a challenge and you concede that during that combat that the character not able to:

A)FIGHT(at all, period. regardless of what the future holds)
B)STRIKE BLOWS(at all, period. regardless of the future holds)

other wise I say again you have not followed rules stated on pg64 paragraph 4 "accepting a challenge"

This is not making any sense.

If you claim that the character can accept a challenge if he will be able fight at any point in the combat (which seems to be what you are saying) how do you determine this at the start of the combat when challenges are issued, without the use of time travel?


You're essentially saying that I can eat a biscuit for breakfast if at any point during the following day I happen to walk near a blue car. Which is completely unworkable... I have absolutely no way to determine at the time the biscuit is made available if I will go near any cars at all.

Hettar,
I can picture many situations where it will matter, I am curious as to your answer for thus:
It is the opponents Assault Phase and using a Unit of just a single Model, a character, they completes a charge against one of your units consisting of just three Models, one also a character so they issues a challenge. The defending character is armed with an unwieldy weapon, so will pile in on initiative step 1, and is currently 4 inches away from the combat with the other two Models between them. The challenger has 2 Attacks and is using a weapon that by-passes the Armour Save nicely, and has Initiative as well. Without knowing what the dice say, it is impossible to know if he will manage to hit one, both or none of them, and let alone if Wounds will be successful in removing casualties.

As these two models may not even be be alive at initiative step 1, and without them there is no 2 inch bubble granting the Defender an attack that turn, how would you determine if he can strike a blow or not?

Jinx in this situation he would be able to challenge and the opponent would have to accept or decline as per the norm.


This is because, assuming the challenge was never issued, the opponents character would with his 3" pile in move be able to reach combat.

If a character cannot with his 3" pile in move get close enough to reach combat, he also cannot accept challenges.


You do not have to determine whether at the point in a later initiative if there was no challenge that enough models would have been killed as to keep him from being able to swing blows. This is because if you are in a challenge you cannot hurt any other models in the unit anyway.

I do apologize that I didn't make it clear I was responding to Hettar, whom stated it 'doesn't matter' in their interpretation, using a situation where random occurrences would completely change the results.

If both attacks Wound and remove the two Models, the closest the Defender can get to the Challenger would 1 inch away and that fails to meet Base to Base requirements to be 'engaged' so they will be unable to strike a blow that turn
If one or both Attacks fail to Wound, then a Model that would move into Base to Base during their Initiative step to create that 2 inch bubble allowing the defender to be 'engaged' to 'strike blows' that turn
Hell, in the right situations the Challenger might even die before Initiative 1, making it so there is no Model to be engaged with so the Defender can never 'strike blows' against that target

How can we know which three will happen before we roll the Dice?

Eihnlazer wrote:
This is because, assuming the challenge was never issued, the opponents character would with his 3" pile in move be able to reach combat.

Unless those two intervening models are already dead by the time he tries to pile in.

 insaniak wrote:

Hettar wrote:
please wait for more response's, as so far no one has come to your side.........

Uh, the very first response in this thread was on his 'side'.

The character has to be engaged to issue or accept a challenge. This is stated quite clearly in the Challenge rules.

I'm going to write out the whole thing now because obviously I must because we clearly cant be reading from the same book.

Issuing a challenge
To issue a challenge, nominate a character in one of your units locked in the combat to be the challenger. We can then assume he's issued a suitably insulting challenge to the foe........etc......Characters that cannot A)Fight OR B) strike blows(including those that are not those that are engaged with an enemy model)cannot issue challenges.


[b]I can fight and strike blows in the combat so I can issue a challenge to ]foe at large

Accepting a challenge.
if your opponent has issued a challenge, you can now accept it - nominate one character in your unit to be the challenge. [b] Your opponent has probably already decided which of your characters he wants to fight,.......etc...but the final choice is yours- he cant challenge a specific enemy he just issues a challenge to the foe at large and sees who steps forwards. Characters that cannot A) fight OR B) Strikes blows(including those that are not engaged in with an enemy model)cannot accept challenges.

[b]I can fight and I "can" strike blows in the combat so I can accept a challenge

Hettar wrote:
I can fight and I "can" strike blows in the combat so I can accept a challenge

You can only fight and strike blows if you are engaged. If the model is not engaged, there is simply no way for you to determine at that particular point in time that they will be able to strike any blows in the combat.


It even specifies right there in the section you just quoted that models not engaged are included in this assessment.

Fighting a challenge

if a challenge has been accepted, it is time to move the two combatants into base contact with each other. Note that these moves cannot be used to move a character out of squad coherency. If possible, swap the challenger with for a friendly model in base contact with the challengee. If this cannot be done, swap the challengee for a friendly models with the challenger. If neither of these two moves would result in the two models beings in base contact, swap the challenger to as close as possible to the challengee and assume the pair to be in base contact for the purposes of the ensuing fight.[/color] In case you were wondering, models who are moved to satisfy a challenge are not subject to difficult or dangerous terrain tests. Wounds allocated to a character in a challenge cannot be re-allocated by the look out sir rule, For the duration of the challenge the two models are assumed to be in base contact with each other

and so you see it does not matter where the character is for accepting a challenge, if you are a character and you have a close combat weapon and a initiative then it assumed by all that your caperble of fighting and strike blows in close combat.