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I would be more accepting of a hero being able to do it. Like Legolas, or Robin Hood or any heroes really wouldn't bother me.

But we're not just talking heroes. We're talking every unit in the game doing it.

Indeed they did it in Braveheart. And they killed their own guys doing it.

If you could hurt your own guys by choosing to shoot into a combat I'd also be fine with it, because I'd expect that to be a consequence.

I find it grossly immersion breaking when I shoot a regular old mortar into a combat and magically only the other guy is hurt by it. Or a regular old cannonball blasts into a foray but magically only my enemy is ever hurt by it.

That would be the A-team show

20,000 shots fired everywhere and noone dies, BUT look ar a car wrong and it blows up

No, no. People are actually getting hit, it's just that it's only the other side.

Auticus and Herzlos summed up my thoughts on it. If shooting into/from combat without penalty was only for heroic archer types, or the game was entirely about incredibly skilled demigods and daemons battling each other in the service of deities (which, honestly, sounds like a much cooler game - they could have just set it in the Realm of Chaos and arrrgh I'm thinking of another way they could have done their open-ended blank-canvas-setting skirmish game better), then I wouldn't have a problem with it...especially if they took a moment to say "these guys are superhuman archers, they'll always find the chance to get that one shot in" or something like that.

But it's not. You've got Stormcast fighting Skaven, Chaos Warriors fighting Goblins, and so on and so forth. The individual power of warriors runs the gamut from god-like to snotling, and every single one of them can fire while trying to fend off a charging boar-monster just as well as if they were safely on a hill behind a comforting wall of spears, and the reason for that is simply because the rules don't say otherwise. It's less a mechanic or quirk of the setting and more 'the designers didn't have time/want to be bothered', much like a lot of other things about Age of Sigmar.

I should think that sort of thing would be top priority if you're trying to make a cinematic narrative-forming experience (tm), but hey.

 Spinner wrote:
No, no. People are actually getting hit, it's just that it's only the other side.

Auticus and Herzlos summed up my thoughts on it. If shooting into/from combat without penalty was only for heroic archer types, or the game was entirely about incredibly skilled demigods and daemons battling each other in the service of deities (which, honestly, sounds like a much cooler game - they could have just set it in the Realm of Chaos and arrrgh I'm thinking of another way they could have done their open-ended blank-canvas-setting skirmish game better), then I wouldn't have a problem with it...especially if they took a moment to say "these guys are superhuman archers, they'll always find the chance to get that one shot in" or something like that.

But it's not. You've got Stormcast fighting Skaven, Chaos Warriors fighting Goblins, and so on and so forth. The individual power of warriors runs the gamut from god-like to snotling, and every single one of them can fire while trying to fend off a charging boar-monster just as well as if they were safely on a hill behind a comforting wall of spears, and the reason for that is simply because the rules don't say otherwise. It's less a mechanic or quirk of the setting and more 'the designers didn't have time/want to be bothered', much like a lot of other things about Age of Sigmar.

I should think that sort of thing would be top priority if you're trying to make a cinematic narrative-forming experience (tm), but hey.

I agree, but I think its rather a case of "we don't want to bother the players with too many rules" and I'm not sure that's much better. No matter what form of entertainment, be it music, movies, literature or (PC-)games: There is a disturbing trend of making everything less complex and less sophisticated, which for me translates almost always into "less satisfying".

Well I think it's a bit limiting to think there is only one way for a war game to be played.

It absolutely is! Where did anyone say that?

Some of us are actually firmly in the 'sure, shoot into combat without penalty, just make sure it makes sense in the setting and for the guys involved.' camp. Which it doesn't.

I agree, but I think its rather a case of "we don't want to bother the players with too many rules" and I'm not sure that's much better.

That could very well be it too. On the one hand, simplifying rules bloat is a good thing. On the other, they cut the wrong ones and then added five billion rules for shield types immediately after...

I don't actually mind it as a game mechanic.

In terms of immersion, it only really breaks when you drop trebuchet shots onto a character in the middle of a swirling melee. Even when it's my cannon crew shooting out of combat into another unit across the board, I usually imagine a hilarious "Pirates of the Caribbean" style fight scene where my crew duck and jump over sword swipes whilst loading their cannon.

In a game where the ebb and flow of battle is structured into turns of one side moving followed by the other, I think we can abstract that some of the shooting into combat may have come before the charge struck or during a respite in the fighting. Or maybe they're only aiming at the back ranks away from friendlies? In 8th the opposite could be true, as you could never shoot into combat (IIRC) there would be times when a perfect flank manoeuvre on a massive bus unit would give you ample targets to shoot into, but you couldn't.

I think it's important to think about AoS missile units too. There are hardly any war machines left in the game, they were one of the keywords to be most heavily dropped and since AoS we have not seen a single new war machine. We haven't really seen much traditional missile units either, the only real example being the Judicators and the Knight Venator (which are super human demi-gods), otherwise the ranged attack comes from things like Fyreslayer throwing axes and such, which seem perfectly reasonable to have being thrown into combat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just to add a little bit more. I don't think I've ever had someone complain about 40k where pistols and other small firearms can be used in combat, yes you are not shooting out of your combat into another, but in reality you would still have bullets flying all over the place hitting friendlies left right and centre. It's a mechanic we're used to. And for WHFB veterans, not being able to shoot into combats is also a mechanic people are used to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Too add a little bit more:

You can think about it narratively like this;

I am playing a game where in a single turn my opponent moves forward with a caster, which summons up a unit of nasties about 9" away from me and then they charge into my ranks of archers and start wreaking havoc.

If they couldn't shoot into that combat, I guess I have to imagine my archers where just staring at the flowers and butterflies whilst the nasties charged them. Although a 6' by 4' table realistically represents the size of a car park, from the way we set up terrain (with 3 trees being a "wood" and two buildings being a "village" - that 9" could represent quite the distance).

If we're allowed to shoot into the combat, you could instead imagine that all those shots come from the units reacting to the charge by the nasties before they reached the enemy lines or something.

"Just to add a little bit more. I don't think I've ever had someone complain about 40k where pistols and other small firearms can be used in combat"

Its the concept of the unit in combat turning around and using their small firearms at another unit outside of the combat that they are in. That is to my knowledge not represented in any media I have ever written or watched.

We're also talking about a unit of goblin archers firing blindly into combat and only hitting the enemy.

I can deal with a hero doing it. They are heroic. I can't meld my mind into a unit of goblins doing it.

From a gamist standpoint...who cares. Immersion doesn't really matter if the game is the most important factor.

For someone like me that uses the game as a vehicle to write stories, I find the stories to be very outlandish in some instances. Its hard to write about how a warmachine explosion only hurts the enemy all the time because it doesn't operate like any representation of a warmachine would operate save for one that is magically geared to only target the enemy... which is how all warmachines are now.

The giant rock you flung into combat spreads somehow to only hit the enemy.

It is silly.

If immersion isn't really a goal of enjoyment, then it is not a problem.

I don't mind shooting into combat. I mind that there are no consequences of doing so because shooting into a swirling melee should mean your buddies can also get hit. For things like heroes I can forgive that, as the media produced legolas shooting into combats, and I'm fine with that... but non heroes shouldn't be able to do that with impunity IMO.

For me that was a big problem and likely will be throughout my lifecycle of playing AOS.

I see the point people are making, and although I offered a few explanations (like the shots were fired when the unit was still charging and yet to have arrived) I can see there are some instances that would seem silly not matter what way you looked at it (for example rocks landing only on a character in a giant combat that has been going on for turn after turn).

It's an interesting point on how willing people would be to house rule against it. In a competitive setting I wouldn't want to, as I think it is there mechanically to prevent units taking cover in combat like they could in, say, 3rd edition 40k with "sweeping advance". It is especially needed in my opinion as AoS allows for double turns (letting you charge and destroy a unit, with the chance to charge again).

In a narrative setting I would be fine to ban shooting into combats, but where do you draw the line? A troll vomiting into combat, archers shooting into combat and rock lobbers lobbing rocks into combat are all covered by the same rules.

And they all fall foul of the same issue; there are no consequences.

I think maybe it's a perspective thing. I like my fantasy low (grubby humans fighting large but believable monsters) and have experience in dozens of games where shooting into combat is handled sensibly (it's either forbidden or there's some risk of friendly fire). If you've got the other perspective (elite armies of heroes fighting other elite armies of heroes) then superhuman abilities suddenly start to seem more reasonable and statements like "that'll never happen" become less likely.

I probably find the (lack of) rules here a lot more jarring because they could have fixed it in 22 words

If you shoot into a combat involving a friendly unit, any misses count as a hit the friendly unit. Resolve as appropriate

Or even less (10 words)

When shooting into combat, randomize the target before resolving hits

But apparently this never came up once during either play test.

Herzlos wrote:
Or even less (10 words)

When shooting into combat, randomize the target before resolving hits

But apparently this never came up once during either play test.

If it only said this then units shooting into a combat they were part of would have to randomise to see if they had hit themselves. (e.g. A unit of Judicators in combat with some Bloodbound Would have a 50/50 chance of shooting themselves?)

Combats with more than 7 units would be a pain to randomise too and you might have a very "big" combat that resulted in something like an 8" range throwing axe hitting the battlesmith in the face 20 inches away.

If there is 100 goblins in combat with a single hero, do I have a 50/50 chance of hitting either unit? Seems silly

If there is 100 goblins in combat with 2 heroes, am I 2/3rds more likely to hit the heroes than the goblins? Even sillier.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Do you randomise targets, hits, wounds or damage? If you randomise before damage you get odd happenings like cannon shots either hitting all of one side or all of the other side (as each cannon ball is one shot but D6 damage) if you randomise before damage, how do you calculate save rolls?

Is it always 50/50 to shoot? Here is a recent photo of one of my games. A battle wizard in combat with Nagash:


Should it be 50/50 to hit if I shot into this combat? Or do you want to add in extra rules about units with certain keywords like 'Monster' being able to be targeted?

I don't think there can be an eloquently written rule. Instead you would need pages to go over everything and for what real worth?

How we did it before my community said no more houserules ever was that a 1 to hit hits a friendly model.

Was real quick and easy and gave *some* consequence to doing so.

If a model was by itself, this would not apply (meaning a troll by itself in combat vomiting) but if a cannon on the troll's side fired into the troll's combat, a 1 to hit would hit the troll instead.

IMO this worked great and lowered the "jarring shock value of immersion breaking" for me, but my community are largely competitive and don't want any house rules involved so they were all for the most part nixed with the exception of whatever SCGT uses since SCGT is to the community the same as "official GW" now.

I think it was considered, and binned.
AoS is far more fluid and wandering than WFB was. Units typically move farther, cover a wider area, and most importantly spend a lot more time in combat. It's not WFB or KoW where a gun line can pretty much sit back and wait, so you need to think about ranged troops differently.

You either ban shooting into combat, allow it, or have to figure out the complicated middle ground. As Bottle's example shows, even a simple attempt at making melee shooting 'believable' can still be ridiculous.
The middle ground is too complicated for a rule set as simple as AoS, and banning it doesn't exactly chime with the overall permissive tone of the game, especially as combat will come up *a lot*.

Played a 3-way game Saturday and they play with no shooting into/out of combat and it wasn't really a big diff. but it was interesting to play again with no shooting that way. I thought it would be more impactful to step out of that play style again but it was really meh. No pelting the foe with slightly annoying nerf axes, though no chance to bleed magma on the enemy in shooting as well as combat phase. But we were discussing how little it actually mattered for our immersion in playing.

 Bottle wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
Or even less (10 words)

When shooting into combat, randomize the target before resolving hits

But apparently this never came up once during either play test.

If it only said this then units shooting into a combat they were part of would have to randomise to see if they had hit themselves. (e.g. A unit of Judicators in combat with some Bloodbound Would have a 50/50 chance of shooting themselves?)

Combats with more than 7 units would be a pain to randomise too and you might have a very "big" combat that resulted in something like an 8" range throwing axe hitting the battlesmith in the face 20 inches away.

If there is 100 goblins in combat with a single hero, do I have a 50/50 chance of hitting either unit? Seems silly

If there is 100 goblins in combat with 2 heroes, am I 2/3rds more likely to hit the heroes than the goblins? Even sillier.

I thought this game was all about using a framework to discuss the best way to do stuff with an opponent?

Fair enough then, how about "When shooting into combat, resolve any misses as hits against a friendly unit of your opponents choosing". 17 words.

I genuinely don't think it was considered at all. I'm convinced the game was built around Sigmarines with everything else tacked on afterwards.

Herzlos wrote:

Fair enough then, how about "When shooting into combat, resolve any misses as hits against a friendly unit of your opponents choosing". 17 words.

So now I shoot into combat and any misses can be resolved against one of my units not even in the combat?!

Hmm, this rule writing is hard isn't it

TonyL707 wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

Fair enough then, how about "When shooting into combat, resolve any misses as hits against a friendly unit of your opponents choosing". 17 words.

So now I shoot into combat and any misses can be resolved against one of my units not even in the combat?!

Hmm, this rule writing is hard isn't it

That's why games companies have professional writers and play testing

Bear in mind, I've spent a total of a couple of minutes on this with no testing, editing or reviewing, whilst waiting on stuff to compile at my real job.

"When shooting into combat, resolve any misses as hits against a friendly unit in that combat of your opponents choosing"

Where it'll probably break down if it's a 3+ way battle and there are no friendly units.

...but that then means that shooting at a combat is 100% accurate...

RoperPG wrote:
...but that then means that shooting at a combat is 100% accurate...

Well if you fire an arrow into a large mass of people, you're going to hit *something*, you just can't decide who. The shots that miss entirely are going to be statistical outliers?

RoperPG wrote:
...but that then means that shooting at a combat is 100% accurate...

No. That is why you roll to hit first. Once you have a "hit" then you resolve who is it against. 50/50 just like how LotR did it. And only the bad guys could do that.

Oh I was so hoping that AoS would have been based of LotR rules, game would have been oh so much better in the beginning.

Davor wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
...but that then means that shooting at a combat is 100% accurate...

No. That is why you roll to hit first. Once you have a "hit" then you resolve who is it against. 50/50 just like how LotR did it. And only the bad guys could do that.

Oh I was so hoping that AoS would have been based of LotR rules, game would have been oh so much better in the beginning.

Uh, no. The roll to hit means you hit someone regardless of result. There's no room for "total miss" in Herzios' system.
You can't argue that ranged troops never hit their own side through training or whatever isn't realistic, then claim that they'll never miss a big target is.

Add +1 to hit rolls when firing on a unit that is currently engaged in melee. Roll another die for every hit. If the result is 1-3, resolve the damage on the other unit instead. If there are more than two units engaged in the same melee, throw a die to determine which unit is hit instead of the original target.

This way, shooting into melee becomes a tactical decision. Do you want to risk peppering your own troops for a better chance of hitting in the first place? Are your units more expendable? Are your troops more resistant to missile fire than the enemy?

BertBert wrote:
Add +1 to hit rolls when firing on a unit that is currently engaged in melee. Roll another die for every hit. If the result is 1-3, resolve the damage on the other unit instead. If there are more than two units engaged in the same melee, throw a die to determine which unit is hit instead of the original target.

This way, shooting into melee becomes a tactical decision. Do you want to risk peppering your own troops for a better chance of hitting in the first place? Are your units more expendable? Are your troops more resistant to missile fire than the enemy?

So there's 3 River trolls within vomit range of 100 zombies in combat with a goblin hero. There's now a 50/50 chance of the Trolls vomiting on the Goblin Hero rather than the Zombies. Seems more ridiculous than shooting into combat risk free in my opinion.

You could just give a -1 to hit when shooting into melee, showing that the shot is trickier because they are actively trying to avoid hitting an ally.

 Bottle wrote:

BertBert wrote:
Add +1 to hit rolls when firing on a unit that is currently engaged in melee. Roll another die for every hit. If the result is 1-3, resolve the damage on the other unit instead. If there are more than two units engaged in the same melee, throw a die to determine which unit is hit instead of the original target.

This way, shooting into melee becomes a tactical decision. Do you want to risk peppering your own troops for a better chance of hitting in the first place? Are your units more expendable? Are your troops more resistant to missile fire than the enemy?

So there's 3 River trolls within vomit range of 100 zombies in combat with a goblin hero. There's now a 50/50 chance of the Trolls vomiting on the Goblin Hero rather than the Zombies. Seems more ridiculous than shooting into combat risk free in my opinion.

Vomit is not very accurate and can splatter all over the place
Jokes aside, the rule needs tweaking, in order to account for all eventualities. Many of those could be covered by adding a unit treshold, enabling only units within shooting distance to be affected in the first place, and so on.

Anything is better than nothing.

BertBert wrote:

Anything is better than nothing.

No. No it isn't. As has already ably been shown, trying to get the situation to 'model' produces results that are just as unrealistic in their own way.
Murder your darlings, as they say.

Nah, we're suddenly at a lot more realistic, even if the wording needs a bit of work.

Of course, it's suddenly a lot less cinematic as well.

I like Malifaux's way of doing it (it's a low model count skirmish game): for each model in combat, you use the cards to randomly select a target (highest drawn card gets hit) and then resolve shooting as normal. There are a couple of special rules that manipulate it, but that's the jist of it.

So in AoS you could have something like: "When shooting into a combat, randomly select one of the engaged units and resolve attacks against them." I think it's fair to leave the randomly part up to the user, because it's irrelevant. You can either go for a Dx where x is the number of units, or roll for each unit and the highest/lowest gets hit.

That covers you for 3+ units being engaged, but it does mean that a single hero is as likely to get hit as a 60 goblin horde. I think that's a fair compromise for the sake of simplicity (because you don't want to go down the route of randomizing models or factoring in size or dexterity).

Sure, not everyone will be happy, but it's better than nowt.

I'd go with something like roll to hit, then again for any hits - any misses on the 2nd roll are treated as hits but assigned to another unit in the combat by the owner of the original target unit. Hits on the second roll are assigned to the target unit.
Still not ideal though.

Herzlos wrote:

Sure, not everyone will be happy, but it's better than nowt.

You can't make everyone happy. Some one some where will complain and cry real loudly.

I feel shooting into combat, and shooting in general, would be less of an issue if people used more terrain and added LoS blocking walls and such...I never played WHFB but it seems to me like terrain wasnt a very big part of the game and AoS rules for placement only enforces playing with few pieces. If everything can hit anything whenever, it makes shooting that much stronger. My two cents.