Rules Questions

[Marching10]

This problem has been discussed before, but I haven’t been able to find a consistent answer yet.

Is the cover modifier always applied to the entire firing unit or do you look at the line of sight of each individual model of a firing unit and see whether it gets the cover modifier or not? I very often see players give the cover modifier to some models within one of their units and not to others.

P. 57 calls the attackers “shooters”, does this only mean the models of the shooting unit that actually shoot (as if they are in range and have LOS) or all models of the shooting unit? This is important because you should consider 50% or more of the “shooters” for cover.

This has already been discussed here but the penultimate post has an example that contradicts the previous answers.

Shooting and Cover

[Stuart Harrison]

‘Shooters’ is models that can actually fire.  To shoot a model needs to be able to draw a line of fire (declare targets step) and within range (measure range and open fire step).

Cover is given for the entire unit or not at all.  That is the entire reason for having to reach the 50% threshold.  You need to read the actual definitions of the cover modifiers on p54, not just the text box on p57. – “Target is in soft cover: this applies if the majority of the target unit is in soft cover from the point of view of the majority of models firing against it.” and “Target is in hard cover: this applies if the majority of the target unit is in hard cover from the point of view of the majority of models firing against it.”  In both cases, it is the target unit, not the target model.

[Marching10]

Thank you. I actually missed the cover description on page 54.

[Marshall Anderson Grunwell]

Ok so I have a question that came up both in a 2e and 3e game that we played earlier in the week.  Does a medic with attendants (i.e., the option to take extra soldiers) get multiple uses of the medic rule?  So if my medic unit has 3 soldiers in it (the medic and 2 others) does that mean that I can use the medic’s rules 3x?  I apologize if this has been asked before but I don’t recall seeing it, and this came from a guy in a tournament that we went to (and verified by the tournament organizer)  I didn’t really agree as that seems kind of game breaking, especially in 2e where the “to hit” numbers are higher.

[Stuart Harrison]

The medic rule is only from the medic model itself, not any attendants – “If the medic’s own unit, or any friendly infantry or artillery unit that has a model within 6″ of the medic model itself, suffers damage from small arms fire…”.

[Josiah]

Two jointed questions:

The PDF says that Partisans can take “Any vehicle”, does this mean that we have access to armored transports (of corse with the unreliable trait)?

And if for some reason we do not are we able to so is there the option to take a kubblewagon and upgrade it with a mmg?

[Nat]

Short answer – by RAW (rules as Written… NO!)

Long answer – If you can justify it any then any non heavy tank can be taken, however the way the PDF is written transports & Tows are a subsection of Vehicles and the specific – only common vehicles can be taken – overrides the generic ..anything not 9+ or worse can be taken.

there’s pictures of Yugoslovian partisans using hannomags in ’44… so like I said if you can justify it – use it … BUT check with a TO first if going to a tournament.

[Wolfy]

Multiple launchers:

Stationary firing platform: You can fire from ambush

Indirect fire: You cannot fire from ambush

Which one is it?

[Stuart Harrison]

@Wolfy,

Looks to be a supplement author goof mentioning Ambush when it’s not applicable.

The same rule in AoUS (Sherman Calliope, p63, and USMC International M2-4 Rocket Truck, p75) has deleted the bit in brackets, and with it any mention of Ambush.

[Orlunu]

Hi, just registered an account to ask people about a rules issue. I can’t find it being discussed before. Basically, the issue we’re running into as a few of us have started picking up BA is that we keep encountering problems where the Transport Vehicles & Tows rule in Force Selection (p.183)… doesn’t seem to work at all.

“If a vehicle listed as a transport/tow picks a weapon option that means the transport loses its transport/towing ability. It no longer counts as a transport/tow for the purposes of force selection, but as […]. On the other hand, such a vehicle is no longer affected by the rule that makes transports subject to destruction for being closer to enemies than friends at the end of the turn.”

Now, some of the obvious problems we’ve run into –
First obvious one, German halftracks with the rear-mg option taken would lose transport capacity, but are portrayed in the rulebook as transporting. Is the error here just with the pictures and expectation? Well, probably no because…
Some of their options are entirely useless if the above rule applies, such as when my opponent decided to bring the Sd.Kfz 250/4 option, which can only legally be used when a unit is being transported, while it seemingly legally can’t transport a unit…
But it’s not just that implicit failure, as we also have weapon options which change transport capacities, such as the Sd.Kfz 251/1 command variant, which gives them a new unusable capacity…
Or, worse, the Sd.Kfz 251/1 Panzerbüchse, which can only be taken if it’s a transport for engineers, and also can’t be taken as a transport for engineers, so just isn’t legal to field…
Sooo, is it just that this rule only applies when a transport only takes an optional weapon, but not when it already comes pre-armed? Well, no, because the Fiat 665NM Protetto is just the same and doesn’t come with any weapon to start with either…
And several of the obvious vehicles, jeeps and kübels and whatever, explicitly have the loss of transport status listed in the actual weapon option entry, which is weird as that’s a universal rule…
(etc)

So, yeah, unless we’ve been reading it completely wrong we can’t even see some caveat to add in to make this rule actually work. Currently we’re just pretending that it doesn’t exist and was an accidental leftover from v2 or something, and that seems to work just fine, but it seems odd that we can’t see this having been addressed at all if we’re reading it right and it’s fundamentally broken. People have been running tournaments and everything for a while now, so presumably there is a way this is being addressed, but none of us know what it is, or even whether everyone’s playing it differently from each other, was hoping you could let us know what everyone else is doing about it. Sorry if I’m being dense or this has already been addressed, but none of us could find it on a quick search.

[Stuart Harrison]

“First obvious one, German halftracks with the rear-mg option taken would lose transport capacity, but are portrayed in the rulebook as transporting. Is the error here just with the pictures and expectation? Well, probably no because…”

You’ve misread the rule (at least in part due to an editing cock-up between editions replacing a comma with a full stop, but we’ve had this mis-read in previous editions too, so not your fault).  It doesn’t mean all vehicles lose transport capacity because they take an option.

There are vehicles where taking an option removes the transport capacity as part of that option – ie: MRB, p230, M3 White Scout Car, you have an option to remove the transport capacity and replace it with the recce rule.  Same page, Jeep entry, you have the option to add an MMG, losing all transport capacity.  These are the vehicles being discussed in that rule.

The part where it goes on to discuss vehicles with transport capacity taken in non transport slots applies to vehicles such as the German SdKfz 251/9 Stummel, MRB p214 – a half-tracked SPG with transport capacity.

[Orlunu]

Oh, if that’s all one sentence then it’s a different matter entirely! Thanks for the help, I’ll excuse myself by saying that’s probably something that was much more obvious to someone familiar with the second edition rules.

[Stuart Harrison]

Second edition “If a vehicle listed as a transport/tow picks a weapon option that means the transport loses it’s transport/towing ability, it no longer counts as a transport/tow for the purposes of force selection, but …” – the criteria is being a transport or tow that takes a weapon option that removes it’s transport capacity, and the consequence of meeting that criteria is  being moved to a different slot. (note, Errata expanded it to any option that removes transport capacity, covering the White taking recce)

Third edition “If a vehicle listed as a transport/tow picks a weapon option that means the transport loses it’s transport/towing ability. It no longer counts as a transport/tow for the purposes of force selection, but …” – the only change is that full stop.  The criteria is orphaned from the consequence of meeting it by poor punctuation.

[Wolfy]

A multiple laucher targets a unit and a building with another unit is within 6″ of the original template. Will the building be hit?

[Stuart Harrison]

@ Wolfy, units in buildings are eligible targets, as are empty buildings.  Note that only one rocket can hit each building (p157, Buildings, Shooting Against Units in Buildings, Indirect Fire Weapons Against Buildings, last para).

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