Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Played a game today, and ran into a situation with melee and movement.

My opponent placed a single model into melee with my 20 Necron warriors as a consolidate move. The warriors weren't a part of that fight phase so didn't pile in.

The next turn was mine. My opponent believed I could move the other 19 warriors provided I didn't leave combat, so that I could get more into combat. I believed I couldn't move them until the pile-in part of the Fight phase.

We looked it up and couldn't find anything on this situation in the Core Rules. We went with my opponent's ruling so that we could keep going. But if I was only able to do a 3" pile-in, most of the warriors would've been out of range for Fighting. (They were spread out a fair bit.)

What say you?

Thanks in advance!

(I won the game, by the way. )

What makes you think those warriors weren't part of the fight phase? After you opponent consolidated into them, you should've activated your warriors to pile-in, fight and consolidate. In your own move phase, the only move the warriors can perform is a fall back move, otherwise you have to wait until you activate them in your turn's fight phase to pile-in, fight and consolidate again.

If your opponent consolidated one model into engagement range of your Necron warriors then those warriors would have become eligible to fight in that fight phase. So they should have been able to pile in 3", fight and then consolidate another 3". "Note that after an enemy unit has fought and finished its Consolidation move, it might be that previously ineligible units now qualify as such – these units can then be selected to fight with" (core rules, page 228).

The reverse is also true, a unit might start the fight phase eligible to fight as it has an enemy unit within engagement range, but things might happen during the fight phase to change that (e.g the enemy unit taking casualties) that means the unit will lose it eligibility to fight. The fight phase is very powerful, there's a lot of tricks you can do during it to drag units into the fight or to remove them from it.

Once your unit is within engagement range of another unit, even if it's just one model in that unit, then the unit cannot make a normal move. "If a unit is within Engagement Range of any enemy models when it is selected to move, it cannot make a Normal Move or Advance; it can either Remain Stationary or it can Fall Back" (core rules, page 206).

As above. You didn't read the fight phase rules correctly - every unit in engagement range must fight.

Ohhhh!

See, we thought the consolidate happened at the end of the fight phase. Huh... Good to know I can fight then! Thanks.

And it seems I was right that the warriors couldn't move other than pile-in. Or fall back.

Thanks all!

Nope, as you see, you follow the fight phase rules for each unit - and pile in then consolidate is each unit in turn.

Hecate wrote:
See, we thought the consolidate happened at the end of the fight phase. Huh... Good to know I can fight then! Thanks.

It's all done on a unit by unit basis. So a unit is selected to fight, it piles in, it makes its attacks, it consolidates and then another unit is selected.

Yeah. That's good to know.

This was my like 6th game of 9th ed so far, so we're still learning things. My friend and I haven't played since 3rd or 4th ed.

Hecate wrote:
Yeah. That's good to know.

This was my like 6th game of 9th ed so far, so we're still learning things. My friend and I haven't played since 3rd or 4th ed.

I think it's harder to learn the game after having played a previous edition than it is to pick it up new. I played 8th after only dabbling with Rogue Trader back when it came it, so so long ago that I'd forgotten it all. I just did what the rules said and it was pretty easy to get into. However adjusting to 9th has been much more difficult, I keep thinking that It works the same way as the edition that I knew well, but it so often doesn't. So keep at it, you'll get there, I've almost got the rules now but I just play badly

I didn't have my own Core rules. My friend had the big book, and they then bought the Elite box for minis. Gave me the Elite rules today.

I'll give it a good read before the next game.

The most important thing to do when reading a new edition rules is to do everything possible to forget the last editions rules. Things that change can be easily overlooked if you allow yourself to skim the rules rather than read them as if you know nothing.

Friendly reminder that the 40K Core Rules are provided at no cost by GW. You can find them at https://warhammer40000.com/rules/ .