Question about stand and shoot

[Meister.Petz]

Today I fought a battle with my Skaven against Dark Elves.

There was one difficult situation for us:
A unit of DE spearmen charged a unit of rat swarms (flank) which stood in a brigade together with a warplightning cannon. The cannon made "stand and shoot" and did make casualties in the DE spearmen.

So now my question:
Can the DE spearmen unit get confused as the rules of taking casualties from a warp lightning cannon say?
If they can get confused, does the DE spearmen unit get the +1 bonus for charge in the open?
The rules of the warplightning cannon says that every unit, touching the unit which was shot at, have to rool a d6 for confusion. So when I choose "stand and shoot", do my ratties have to make this roll to (bec. in the end the DE spearmen touched my units as a result of the charge)?

Hope, I can find good answeres here (although I think we played it right in the end).
Greetings from Austria
Peter

[Lex]

Today I fought a battle with my Skaven against Dark Elves.

There was one difficult situation for us:
A unit of DE spearmen charged a unit of rat swarms (flank) which stood in a brigade together with a warplightning cannon. The cannon made "stand and shoot" and did make casualties in the DE spearmen.

So now my question:
Can the DE spearmen unit get confused as the rules of taking casualties from a warp lightning cannon say?

Is there ANYTHING in the WLC rules that say they can not shoot >> if not, then follow normal procedure

If they can get confused, does the DE spearmen unit get the +1 bonus for charge in the open?

IF the unit got confused then follow the normal rules for Confused Units, -1 att bonus in that case negated +1 att bonus from charging in open

The rules of the warplightning cannon says that every unit, touching the unit which was shot at, have to rool a d6 for confusion. So when I choose "stand and shoot", do my ratties have to make this roll to (bec. in the end the DE spearmen touched my units as a result of the charge)?

Shooting occurs at "any point during the charge", which is not pers over open sights at point blank range  8-)   
Personaly I would "prefer" to shoot at he start of their move (if I would have the distance), while they might still be in contact with more DE units 

Hope, I can find good answeres here (although I think we played it right in the end).
Greetings from Austria
Peter

[Meister.Petz]

Ah great
Thanks for answering my questions and for giving the hint, when to shoot best

[Getlord]

Just one more clarification. Did you finally come into contact with WLC?

[Guthwine]

Shooting occurs at "any point during the charge", which is not pers over open sights at point blank range  8-)   
Personaly I would "prefer" to shoot at he start of their move (if I would have the distance), while they might still be in contact with more DE units 

Shooting is worked out, when the charging units finishes its move, so you can only shoot when they come into base contact and not at the start of their move, cant you!?

[Lex]

Shooting occurs at "any point during the charge", which is not pers over open sights at point blank range  8-)   
Personaly I would "prefer" to shoot at he start of their move (if I would have the distance), while they might still be in contact with more DE units 

Shooting is worked out, when the charging units finishes its move, so you can only shoot when they come into base contact and not at the start of their move, cant you!?

Actualy it is worked out when the first STAND is moved into position (because THAT is when you know it IS a charge move  ), but nowhere it is defined to be at the moment of contact.

Some points to remember:

- shooting CAN take of a stand of the charging unit, which MIGHT result into a different configuration of your overall attack (by clearing up a "slot", eg allowing an additional unit to have LOS for a charge
- shooting is possible at ANY charger that DURING THE CHARGE MOVE, was (partly) in the field of fire (LOS zone) of the unit attacked

[Claus]

Yep this nice Stand & Shoot rule leads sometimes also to impossible situation.

If you charge 2 units of bowmen (you contact the 2nd one at corner) and therefore get 6 Stand & Shoot shots where you encounter 3 wounds and losing 1 stand you are finally in a situation where that seems to be impossilbe.

You get shots from 2 units but you don´t touch anymore 2 units because 1 stand got´s killed ....etc.

Sometimes it´s really complex.

[wmchaos2000]

The second shooter helps the first to pin down the charger and thus the charger loses a stand and is down 3 in combat res before starting to swing. Perfectly sound.
I do not know if the second shooter is allowed to Pursue though? Meaning, is it part of the combat since it did stand&shoot or not?
Or maybe, you must move the remaining charging stands so they engage both shooter units. Correct?

[Lex]

As Claus points out, this becomes messy easy, depending on how people interpret "maximising frontage against an enemy", and on how strict they measure distances moved.

[Guthwine]

Actualy it is worked out when the first STAND is moved into position (because THAT is when you know it IS a charge move  ), but nowhere it is defined to be at the moment of contact.

It says in the rulebook. ""Shots are worked out as soon as the charging unit has finished his move..."

shooting occurs at "any point during the charge", which is not pers over open sights at point blank range  8-)   

At any point during the charge you have to have a line of sight but shooting according to the rules takes place after the charging unit finished its move. Please correct me if I am wrong but thats what I read in the RB.

[Lex]

You confuse rule vs procedure

Rule - units with a missile attack can shoot at chargers (under specific circumstances), possibily causing wounds and removing stands on attacking units
Procedure -
    roll command,
    move first stand,
    move additional stand (cf. the Movement distance, Charge and Extending Frontage rules)
    all stands from contacted unit(s) that are not engaged in HtH already get missile attack IF the attacking unit was in their LOS at any time during the move
    roll missle attacks, applicable save, remove stand where appropriate
IF any other unit can charge an enemy based on the same order, go back to "move first stand"

There is no "rule" that says you can only shoot at attackers when they are in contact with your stands, it is a practicality of the procedure to roll them at that time, and before moving the next unit, because in those cases where stands ARE taken casualty, this may influence the next unit moving.

Note that sometimes stands get to shoot at attackers that actualy end-up outside LOS, which could be interpreted as "the shooting takes place at any point where the shooting unit can acutaly SEE the attacker.

Skaven WLC rule says adjacent units may be confused it the target unit gets hit, but it also EXPICITLY states "Skaven units can be affected when adjacent to a WLC that misfires and hits itself".

Note that the "point blank" interpretation (shooting after the contact), would also imply that attacking units "adjacent" (which does include the attackers in contact with it as well) could be confused on a misfire. But that the Skaven rules EXPLICITLY states that that applies to Skaven units.
Just make sure you and your opponent interpret the rule the same way before the situation actualy occurs.

[Guthwine]

You confuse rule vs procedure

Not really I just dont think its possible within the rules to confuse more than the attacking elf infantry unit with the WLC with stand and shoot by shooting at the start of their movement.

[jchaos79]

Ok!, really interesting this threat.

We were playing slighting different, makeing all the charges, and then resolving the reaction fire, then go to hand to hand combat.

But now we have a doubt, I am will try to explain with an example:

A unit (chaos marauders) charge  to another missle unit (empire crossbowmen) front to front.

The missle unit (crossbowmen) makes the reaction fire while the marauders are charging inflicting 3 hits, and one stand of marauders  is eliminated (not the central one). This makes a "gap" in the battle line.

We still being in the phase of orders of the chaos player. A unit of chaos knights have LOS to the crossbowmen because one stand has been remove. Then the chaos knights charge against the crossbowmen.

¿should the crossbowmen have another missle reaction (1 dice) to shoot agains the chaos knights?

(my impression: this mean that the stand of crossbowmen have shoot twice in the chaos player turn, is little wierd, but ... who knows, I am learning a lot with this forum).

waiting for your feedback,

cheers

[Lex]

The question and example are clear.

Resolve the shooting on a per (Attacking) unit base, as you concluded, placement of stands could allow other units to charge as well, with LOS and room to place against the Shooters.
(Remember to keep track of the inflicted wounds BTW, as they DO carry over into combat resolution !!)
When placing the NEXT unit that charges, only those STANDS of the shooters that are not in ANY kind of base-2-base (and thus HtH) contact, are allowed to shoot again. Which indeed means that a unit could conceivably shoot with 3 stands on 1st attacker, then with 2 on second and with one on 3th attacking unit.

Dicing with dragons...  a pratical application that is within the rules.

A unit of [shooters] is joined by a character on a dragon. The unit is charged from LOS by a unit of horseman that allign on one of the outside stands, effectivly creating frontage against 2 stands.
A second unit of horsemen then charges in and allignes adjacent to the first attackers.

How many Stand&Shoot attacks are fired on the attackers in total ?

[Guthwine]

¿should the crossbowmen have another missle reaction (1 dice) to shoot agains the chaos knights?

Not in this example because all 3 crossbow stands are in contact with the chaos marauders.

As Lex said its very important to do s&s per every attack, because it could change the battle line.
For example A and B charge X, A charges and looses a stand in S&S, so B cannot attack the flanks anymore because there is room in the front now.

AAA BBB

XXX

So you would end up like that, instead of having B attacking the flank.

AABBB
XXX