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This is a question about challenges in which the combatant is slain at an earlier initiative step before the challengers initiative steps.

If a scorpion exarch issues a challenge that is accepted but its mandiblaster kills the opponent at initiative 10 at the exarch's initiative step of 6 the opponent in the challenge is now dead so does it start it's combat against the rest of the squad by piling in?

Also does the stalker special rule still grant bonus attacks?

The rulebook states that after a combatant is slain the challenger's wounds carry over and the challenge is considered to be ongoing until end of turn for the outside forces rule. However the Outside forces rule doesn't actually say that the actual combat round continues in a challenge but instead it only applies to enemy units hitting back

Some people argued in my group that the exarch doesn't make any more attacks because it's killed the target at a different initiative step. No wounds to carry over.

Others argue that the exarch piles in and attacks as normal but stalker doesn't trigger because the challenge is over.

And others say that the exarch piles in makes his full complement of attacks with stalker and the opposing unit wounds cannot be passed to the exarch until all other models in the unit are dead as power challenge rules.

Any one has any insight on this?

In my opinion the codex creates a special rule that is not adequately covered in the rulebook sInce it came after.

I'd play it as the challenge continues until the end of the turn like the rulebook suggests with regards to outside forces. Which means he doesn't get to attack on his normal initiative step. You were lucky enough to kill the enemy on initiative 10 and should consider it a tactical error if that wasn't the desired result (you did issue the challenge afterall).

Thanks for the response.

In this particular case I was the ork player and I accepted the challenge with a lowly mek. This was important because if the exarch continues to attack, piles in and stalker does trigger then he would have had 4 bonus attacks on top of his normal attacks plus he charged. I was trying to rule that he doesn't get the attacks but I can't actually find anything in the rulebook to support this argument or the opposite argument either.

The eldar codex is not older than 7th edition. I've looked at it and it says "in the first round of a challenge" so when the exarch charged and the challenge was accepted it was the first round. Check. He gains extra attacks. Check. He gains actually extra attacks in THREE ways. One from charging. One from the i10 mandiblaster. Four from the stalker special rule. Plus three base (well two base plus a ccw) this makes him have 9 attacks on this combat.

THEN you do the initiative steps. THEN you allocate to the rest of the squad if the exarch is able to kill the opponent on a challenge

But if they die to the mandiblaster how are you attacking? You can't attack someone whose dead and you can't attack the rest of the unit.

He already attacked them. He does not lose his additional attacks because his opponent dies. They would apply to the rest of the enemy unit.

Fragile wrote:
He already attacked them. He does not lose his additional attacks because his opponent dies. They would apply to the rest of the enemy unit.

in a normal combat subphase this is correct. In a challenge this gets confusing because you can only attack your challengee. Excess wounds roll over but its already dead so the question is can you attack?

Also pile in rule says if a model attacks at more than one initiative step it can only pile in at the highest. If you kill your opponent in the challenge at i10 you couldn't then pile in anyway. I'm pretty sure that applies to Hammer of Wrath as well but I might be wrong.

The mandiblaster swings at i10 like a hammer of wrath, no? He wouldn't get to swing at a lower initiative when his opponent in the challenge is already dead

No offense but I refuse to believe that having mandiblaster that works is actually bad for striking scorpions. IE it potentially negates follow up attacks. This is also true for normal striking scorpions too by the way (in multi stat line opposition) so no, it's not meant to be implemented that way. No one pays point for equipment that costs points yet harms the ability of the unit to do its job. IE you can't be expected to be relying on mandiblaster not killing anyone in order to actually perform your job. It's nonsense.

ConanMan wrote:
No one pays point for equipment that costs points yet harms the ability of the unit to do its job.

I don't think you pay extra for mandiblaster but its always gotta be good killing your opponent at i10 and not allowing them to swing back at you. What it seems like you're implying is you can't imagine a situation where it does its job successfully in killing somehing but other rules prevent you from killing more things.

 Nithaniel wrote:

Fragile wrote:
He already attacked them. He does not lose his additional attacks because his opponent dies. They would apply to the rest of the enemy unit.

in a normal combat subphase this is correct. In a challenge this gets confusing because you can only attack your challengee. Excess wounds roll over but its already dead so the question is can you attack?

Also pile in rule says if a model attacks at more than one initiative step it can only pile in at the highest. If you kill your opponent in the challenge at i10 you couldn't then pile in anyway. I'm pretty sure that applies to Hammer of Wrath as well but I might be wrong.

Mandiblasters do not grant a pile in, (nor are challenges allowed a Pile In move), nor are they attacks from the character. They are just wounds caused by wargear.

Challenges only really declare the the wounds go to the characters first.

For the duration of the challenge, these two models are considered to be in base contact with each other and, when rolling To Hit and To Wound, they always use the Weapon Skill and Toughness of their opponent. When allocating Wounds caused by either of these two models, they must be allocated to their opponent first.

If a character that is involved in a challenge slays his opponent, each excess Wound inflicted by the victor is then allocated, one at a time, to the next nearest enemy model that is locked in the combat.

Looking at this further, I would be more inclined to say that the challenge is over at I10. Therefore the Exarch would simply make his normal attacks vs the squad and not receive the Stalker bonus.

You do pay for it because it's the base points on the model.

What you're suggesting is that if a mandiblaster is successful then a model at I6/I5 already (but only str 4 mind) would conceivably benefit from theoretically being lower Initiative (such combats simply do not exist, by the way i.e. some imaginary I7 toughness 3 or 4 infantry you speculate they may meet?)

We are talking about an eldar here. They come with high I out of the box they don't need the precaution. What they do need is a boat load of attacks cos they are ALWAYS outnumbered in melee in 40k

Fragile wrote:

For the duration of the challenge, these two models are considered to be in base contact with each other and, when rolling To Hit and To Wound, they always use the Weapon Skill and Toughness of their opponent. When allocating Wounds caused by either of these two models, they must be allocated to their opponent first.

If a character that is involved in a challenge slays his opponent, each excess Wound inflicted by the victor is then allocated, one at a time, to the next nearest enemy model that is locked in the combat.

Looking at this further, I would be more inclined to say that the challenge is over at I10. Therefore the Exarch would simply make his normal attacks vs the squad and not receive the Stalker bonus.

I'd agree if there were something to indicate that the challenge ended as soon as the opponent's character dies. Is there anything that indicates how long a challenge lasts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ConanMan wrote:
You do pay for it because it's the base points on the model.

What you're suggesting is that if a mandiblaster is successful then a model at I6/I5 already (but only str 4 mind) would conceivably benefit from theoretically being lower Initiative (such combats simply do not exist, by the way i.e. some imaginary I7 toughness 3 or 4 infantry you speculate they may meet?)

We are talking about an eldar here. They come with high I out of the box they don't need the precaution. What they do need is a boat load of attacks cos they are ALWAYS outnumbered in melee in 40k

What you're saying makes sense, but we're trying to determine what the RAW are.

Looking at this further, I would be more inclined to say that the challenge is over at I10. Therefore the Exarch would simply make his normal attacks vs the squad and not receive the Stalker bonus.

I'm pretty sure the codex saying "bonus attack for each point it's Initiative is higher" means that inference is not an option. It's just more attacks . Then combat starts.

On p48 brb it says "any model who's initiative is equal to the value of the current initiative step that isn't in base combat with an enemy model must make a Pile In move" so at I6 the with a dead ork at his feet exarch piles in. After Pile In it says "(the exarch) must fight"

Since the special rule stalker is activated it means he does get all his attacks

After further review, I think this might be relevant.

For the duration of the challenge, these two models are considered to be in base contact with each other and, when rolling To Hit and To Wound, they always use the Weapon Skill and Toughness of their opponent.

That 'always' to me means that you ALWAYS use the Weapon Skill and Toughness of the opponent... even if he dies at say I 10 step. So the challenge continues until the end of the phase, and you still get to attack as though you were in a challenge... but the extra wounds spill over into the unit because the challengee is dead.

Also, this prevents piling in.

Furthermore, neither the characters in the challenge nor the models that have made way to allow the characters to get into base contact make a Pile In move when their Initiative step is reached.

But it doesn't prevent him from attacking.

ConanMan wrote:


I'm pretty sure the codex saying "bonus attack for each point it's Initiative is higher" means that inference is not an option. It's just more attacks . Then combat starts.

On p48 brb it says "any model who's initiative is equal to the value of the current initiative step that isn't in base combat with an enemy model must make a Pile In move" so at I6 the with a dead ork at his feet exarch piles in. After Pile In it says "(the exarch) must fight"

Since the special rule stalker is activated it means he does get all his attacks

ConanMan, you are right mandiblaster is probably costed into the model cost.

Stalker says exactly what you said above but it starts off by qualifying that this happens only in the first round of a challenge. Part of what we're trying to work out is what exactly is a 'round' of a challenge and when does a challenge end. A challenge cannot end in a round of combat since it continues until one is dead in subsequent rounds.

Also in the brb regarding initiative it also states that any model that attacks at more than one initiative step can only pile in at the highest initiative step. Which is why if a model kills another in hammer of wrath it cant pile in further.

Here's another thread with similar issue.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/606634.page

Zimko wrote:
Here's another thread with similar issue.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/606634.page

Thanks thats a useful thread although they came to the conclusion that the rulebook doesn't cover this so we need to come up with a logical solution. it helps to clarify one part of this issue but it fails to answer two issues that I can think of,

1. Does stalker still trigger?
2. Can the scorpion exarch pile in because there is an argument that mandiblasters are not attacks? If they are not considered attacks then it basically means that the scorpion exarch can do everything while in other similar situations eg hammer of wrath the similar models cannot.
Both of these issues are probably unique to eldar

ConanMan wrote:

Looking at this further, I would be more inclined to say that the challenge is over at I10. Therefore the Exarch would simply make his normal attacks vs the squad and not receive the Stalker bonus.

I'm pretty sure the codex saying "bonus attack for each point it's Initiative is higher" means that inference is not an option. It's just more attacks . Then combat starts.

On p48 brb it says "any model who's initiative is equal to the value of the current initiative step that isn't in base combat with an enemy model must make a Pile In move" so at I6 the with a dead ork at his feet exarch piles in. After Pile In it says "(the exarch) must fight"

Since the special rule stalker is activated it means he does get all his attacks

You cannot Pile In since you are in a challenge. You were already moved to be in BtB with the challenger.

Furthermore, neither the characters in the challenge nor the models that have made way to allow the characters to get into base contact make a Pile In move when their Initiative step is reached

Also Stalker states

[In the first round of a challenge, this model makes 1 bonus attack for each point that its Initiative is higher than its Opponent's Initiative characteristic. ]

When the Exarch goes to make its attacks there is no Initiative value to compare to. Its Opponent is already dead. If you are comparing to the unit, then you are no longer considering yourself in that challenge.

I still want to go back to stalker being a significant " perk " scorpions have. Similarly with "mandiblasters" they are meant as a perk.. What would be the point of it if you lost your attacks cos you killed something without using them... just seems so completely counter intuitive that perk1 + perk2 = "trololol muppet should have had neither cos perk1 worked"

I know it's drifting out of brb codex but it's just unconscionable on any other army except eldar.. except this is eldar and you WANT players taking striking scorpions and not scat bikes I assure you.

But thats the way challenges work. You issue a challenge specifically to try and destroy your opponents biggest threat in the combat. In this case it succeeded just a lot easier than you would have thought. From a narrative position stalker is the exarch focussing so intently on the target that he raises his game to meet it. Stalker is an amazing ability for a combat. In almost every conceivable situation as orks or similarly weak armoured armies its almost aways better to decline a challenge against stalker exarchs with claws.

The problem here is that the eldar codex words things in a way that is completely non standard. If stalker was worded as "for the duration of the turn" or "for the first turn of a challenge" instead it says "round of combat" which is a term that I've found no other precedent for. It leaves the implcation that its for the target of the challenge specifically. anything else that happens is purely a beneficial coincidence of the wound allocation rules for challenges.

I think from this conversation I draw the conclusion that if the exarch is still engaged after the target dies then it attacks with its normal compliment of attacks without stalker but canot pile in.

Rulebook:

1.For the duration of the challenge, these two models are considered to be in base contact with each other and, when rolling To Hit and To Wound, they always use the Weapon Skill and Toughness of their opponent.

2.When one of the combatants in a challenge is slain,regardless of which Initiative Step it is, the challenge is still considered to be ongoing until the end of the phase for the purposes of Outside Forces (see below).

This is really simple. He is still considered to be in a challenge with his opponent until the end of the entire combat phase(whether his opponent is dead or not), so you would continue making to hit and to wound rolls against the WS and Toughness of your dead opponent till the end of the entire phase. Wounds in excess of what it took to kill him would be allocated to other models as per the outside forces rules.

Outside forces rule only applies to models not in the challenge not to models in the challenge.