TomWilton wrote:Found this particularly painful when fighting Emperor's Children this weekend with my Necrons.
... If your army is Battle-forged, all Daemon Prince, INFANTRY, BIKERS and HELBRUTE units in an EMPERORS CHILDREN Detachment gain the following ability: Units with this trait always fight first in the Fight phase, even if they didn't charge. ...
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
Start off the assault subphase 1/2" from the enemy and Piling-In 3" to a combat distance of 1/4" from them [ the only caveat being that the distance between each individual model and the nearest enemy model must be less than before]. Now, Fight First. Always, Then, Consolidation Move a further 3" [ with the same caveat ] to end the subphase in Base-To-Base contact with the enemy [ who can not perform the same shenanigans because there is nowhere to Pile-In Move nor Consolidation Move during their attack that is closer to the nearest figure if you are already in
BTB contact with it. ].
Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
Whenever I do kill an enemy model, it always shoots back first before dying. He kills first in melee every round. He revolves around my models to worm his way closer to Objectives during his Assault Phase on his turn. And then does the same worming again during my Assault Phase of my turn because he always fights first.
Is this what everyone faces? Am I reading the rules wrong?
Thank you in advance for making me officially less ignorant by learning [ hopefully ] from your answer.
As mentioned, this is perfectly legal. There are some ways to deal with this. Positioning as already mentioned, but don’t forget that “always fights first” only means they are in the same category as chargers, so in turns where they charge it makes no difference, and turns where they don’t charge, they activate alternately with your own charging units, and one of your charging units goes first. On top of that, you can use the interrupt strategem to disrupt this too.
I don’t know what army you have, but do you have anything that forces enemies to “fight last”? If so, this will neutralise the “fight first” ability.
Edit:
Also, remember that models can’t pass through other models, so again, careful positioning can mitigate the movement options for consolidation and pile in moves.