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Greetings,
My group has been a little squirrely lately with the fight phase. We've checked rules, but are probably missing things. I'm turning to you guys for clarification.

1. Pile In, Heroic Intervention, Consolidate

When do the above activate? My understanding is the following order of operations:

A. Player declares charge targets, opponent overmatched, player rolls for charge.
B. If charge succeeds, unit moves. Unit may immediately Pile In 3" to ward/around opponent models.
C. Player repeats A+B for all charging units.
D. Opponent piles in (or doesn't) with units in combat. Heroic Interventions activate.
E. Charging units fight (barring separate unit abilities).
F. Players take turns fighting any other units in close combat (after a charge, it's usually only opponent units).
G. After close combat concludes, the Player may Consolidate 3" to ward additional units.

Step G is a point of contention. Do all charging units Consolidate, or do all Player units? Do they have to have killed a unit to Consolidate? A model? Can they move more than 1" from a unit they were previously engaged with via this method?

2. You can put me into combat, but you can't make me fight.

I tied up an opponent's Dreadnought via a consolidate st the end of my turn. During his turn, his Dreadnought elected not to fight, as killing my models might have opened him up to lascannon shots. Is this legal?

Worse, same opponent later charged a unit of mine and then tried not to fight so he could similarly hide from shooting. Is a unit executing a charge compelled to fight?

First problem here:

Charge phase and Fight phase are totally separate.

You do ALL charges, THEN move to Fight phase.

When you activate a unit in the Fight phase, the first thing you do is Pile In. Then that unit fights. Then that unit consolidates.

ONLY units that fight can pile in or consolidate, and they do them immediately before and after (respectively) they fight.

You don't need to have caused any wounds to consolidate, you can always do it after fighting.

All units that are within 1" of an enemy unit in the Fight phase MUST fight, it is not optional.

#2 - The designers commentary comments on this.

If you are eligible to fight, you must fight and you must fight 'when you are eligible' no waiting. (So chargers can't 'pass' until the 'fights normal' phase.)


For #1 - as Stux says, you smerged the rules for two phases into one and aren't doing it right. Take a look through the rules again.

Heroic Interventions occur at the end of the charge phase. (Even if your opponent declares no charges, you can HI).

Pile in occurs when a unit is selected to fight. In the fight phase.

Consolidate occurs after a unit resolves attacks, in the fight phase.

Just to add to the above, remember you must follow the normal phase sequence, despite the status of your units (locked in combat as example)

1: move, declare charges and resolve such charge movements etc..
2: psy phase
3: shooting phase with normal restrictions units locked in combat can't be target of enemy shots...
4: fight phase.

 Lord Perversor wrote:
Just to add to the above, remember you must follow the normal phase sequence, despite the status of your units (locked in combat as example)

1: move, declare charges and resolve such charge movements etc..
2: psy phase
3: shooting phase with normal restrictions units locked in combat can't be target of enemy shots...
4: fight phase.

This is incorrect. Charge phase is after shooting phase, not a part of the movement phase.

 Lord Perversor wrote:
Just to add to the above, remember you must follow the normal phase sequence, despite the status of your units (locked in combat as example)

1: move, declare charges and resolve such charge movements etc..
2: psy phase
3: shooting phase with normal restrictions units locked in combat can't be target of enemy shots...
4: fight phase.

You're about 6 editions out with how charging works. You charge in the Charge phase, which is just before the Fight phase.

OP: other posters are right in clarifying when the Pile In and Consolidate move happens. You shoudl note, however, that both moves are optional. If you don't want to get more models involved int he fight via Pile In you don't have to. You do have to fight with any models that are eligible after Pile In/Consolidate moves though.

As with almost any move in the game, 0" is a valid option for distance too.

Looks like people are mixing up Kill Team and 40k.

And yes, 0 is a valid amount to "move" for pile in and consolidate. If people get annoyed, just move 0.0000000000001" instead.

Hey guys, thanks for the help. Follow-on question:

A unit charges successfully against a declared unit A. In the fight phase, it comes within 1" of unit B after pile in. After consolidating after fighting, it comes within 1" of unit C.

My understanding is that B can fight. Can C?

Yes.

Doesn't that potentially create an endless wave of fighting? So if I consolidated into a vehicle that wasn't with 1" of any units at beginning of fight phase, it could fight back?

A unit only gets to Consolidate once (with a few exceptions for units that can fight multiple times in one phase) and all Pile In and Consolidate moves have to be towards the closest model so in reality you don't get a cascade of combats.

 Red Acolyte wrote:
Doesn't that potentially create an endless wave of fighting? So if I consolidated into a vehicle that wasn't with 1" of any units at beginning of fight phase, it could fight back?

Not endless. Units can only fight once each, so it will end.

(Technically some units can fight more than once, but these special rules are rare and have strict limits)

 Red Acolyte wrote:
Doesn't that potentially create an endless wave of fighting? So if I consolidated into a vehicle that wasn't with 1" of any units at beginning of fight phase, it could fight back?

Yes, it can fight back, but the unit that consolidated won't get to fight again without another special rule allowing them to. And in any case, if you charged that turn you can't attack units you didn't charge.

Thanks everyone for responses. It clarified a lot of things and really changed how chargers will perform in our group.

Slipspace wrote:

 Lord Perversor wrote:
Just to add to the above, remember you must follow the normal phase sequence, despite the status of your units (locked in combat as example)

1: move, declare charges and resolve such charge movements etc..
2: psy phase
3: shooting phase with normal restrictions units locked in combat can't be target of enemy shots...
4: fight phase.

You're about 6 editions out with how charging works. You charge in the Charge phase, which is just before the Fight phase.

OP: other posters are right in clarifying when the Pile In and Consolidate move happens. You shoudl note, however, that both moves are optional. If you don't want to get more models involved int he fight via Pile In you don't have to. You do have to fight with any models that are eligible after Pile In/Consolidate moves though.

Oh dear you are so right too much KT lately just messed the order on my head