Warhammer 40k Tactics: Assault Revisited, Assaulting Multiple Units

Today I will answer a request to open up a discussion on assaulting multiple units with a single unit. My single unit is going to be a 10 Blood Angels Veteran Assault Squad equipped with 2 power swords, a Power Fist, and a guy with Melta Bombs. My VAS will be assaulting some pesky Guardsmen. They are assaulting a squad of guardsmen hiding in cover with a Lascannon, the cover being ruins. They are also going to assault a Chimera that was immobilized previously by Lascannon fire, and a squad of 10 Veteran Guardsmen with a Power Sword, and 3 meltaguns. I do not have the IG codex so we will set the Guardsmen leaderships at 8 for this discussion, and the VAS at 10 since Dante is on the table elsewhere.

To set the stage, our VAS has managed to get very close to the Guard due to lots of terrain blocking LoS. They are able to jump right into their midst and assault away! Let us begin. It is top of turn 3 shooting. Oh, and the Chimera did NOT move the previous turn.

Turn 3:
BA VAS shoots at the squad in cover. Why? Because by shooting 10 bolt pistols at the other squad, they will probably kill over half of them in the shooting phase, and you really dont want that to happen. Your opponent can pull off enough guys to render you not close enough to assault, or they can break and run! You don't want them to break until you assault them. The guys in cover will at least get a 4+ save. You want to thin them a bit, not slaughter them.

10 shots, 8 hit, 4 wound. 2 Fail save. Perfect. It is not enough to force a leadership, but you have 2 less to slaughter in the assault.

Now time for assault. We have to roll Difficult Terrain since we are assaulting a squad in terrain. We will say a 6 was he result.

The first step is to move the closest model of mine, in to Base to Base (B2B) with the closest model of his. The cool part here is that you can ignore any thing you are not attacking. You MAY MOVE within 1" of enemy models. Absolutely. Don't let dudes bully you. The rule is on page 34 in the second paragraph. You just cannot move THROUGH models, so you have to allow extra movement space around them. In this case, it was the S BA attacking the Closest model. This choice should be well planned before you finish moving. You have to make sure you can keep the rest of your models in coherency as you move them.

Now, the rest of your models can move and assault whomever they choose. There are some restrictions though. Some guys are loose on them, some can be dicks. The way I do it is that so long as all models are in coherency at the end of my assault move, then they are fine. BUT, the rule says in the first rule bullet:

"The most important one is that each model must end it's assault move in coherency with another model in it's own unit that has already moved."

Be prepared to deal with dudes that will measure 2" between each and every model you move as you take your fingers off them. In that case, smile nicely and curse him under your breath, then nail him on his next measurement.

We will do this by the rules though, for rules sake!

Next two models are going to attack the Chimera. There was a good amount of space between the two squads, so I decided to send two models at the Chimera to bridge the gap. The next two models will move so that they end their assault move exactlly 2" away from the previous model moved. Now My power fist and melta bomb are in B2B with the transport. Now the last crucial move is for the guys getting into the 2nd squad. I have ensured that I can assault both squads and I can pretty much place these guys where I want... almost.

The next bullet stats that:

If Possible, the model must move into base contact with any enemy model within reach that is not already in base contact with an assaulting model. Just to be safe and protect yourself from your opponent's meddling, move the rest of the guys who will be assaulting the squad in cover, into B2B. This will stop him from saying you have to move the other guys into B2B with unengaged models in range... Now you cannot run through engaged models... So you are free to assault the guys on the left. You will see that one model was left and he cannot reach an unengaged model, but there is a nice space for him next to the S guy. I will move him there.

So, I have successfully, and by the rules, engaged 3 units with 1 squad. I first moved my closest model to the squad I shot at. I second moved two guys creating an "Assault Bridge" to the next model. I third moved the rest of the right side models into B2B with all models in their range, to engage any models my other guys may be forced to assault. I fourth moved the rest of my models into engage models if possible, then double engaged what was left. At the end of each models assault move, they were in coherency with another model that moved previously.

Lets move on!

Now it is time for Defenders to React!

Now that I have moved my models into B2B contact, the defender must move all of his in to B2B as well, up to 6" away. If not they can get within 2" of an engaged friend.

Time to roll dice! All models are engaged. The way assault works is that all models who start the assault engaged will get to attack, UNLESS they are killed by a model who gets to attack before them based on a better initiative. What this means is that, unlike in 4th edition, if your opponent removes casualties from models engaged with your power fist guy, leaving him "Out of Combat" he will still get his attacks when his turn finally comes up... no matter what. Remember that for when guys try to claim that some of your models cannot attack since they are not B2B any more.

Now to figure out who goes first. My Assault Marines are initiative 4, higher then the Guardsmen 3. So the space marines will go first. All except for the Fist, who goes last. Since my marines have Frag Grenades, they may go at initiative value. Other models who do not have frag grenades, like Terminators, do not get this benefit and will go after the defenders. So the order is 9 marines first, then all surviving Guard, then the Power Fist.

We will resolve the Meltabomb first... this is actually very interesting.

The meltabomb will auto hit because the Chimera has not moved. It is Str 8 plus 2d6. I roll a 1 and 2 as customary, but that is still enough to penetrate the Chimeras back armor. (when assaulting vehicles, you use the back armor value) Remember, Melta Bombs are NOT Ap 1. So you do not get a bonus to the damage chart... BUT I just rolled a 6! The chimera explodes out, and crap, 6"... I am actually rolling these dice by the way... Some damage is about to happen... Actually, to make this easier, we will say I rolled a 5, and destroyed it... no need to get into messy explosion casualties.

The reason why I said this was interesting was that the chimera is now destroyed, and the power fist, who was initially B2B with it, has not gone yet... Well sadly, on page 35 it says that workign out which models are engaged in combat is done at the start of the fight and cannot change. Since the Fist was engaged with the tank at the start of the fight, he cannot attack any thing else.

Now to resolve the rest of the models. We will start with the 4 marines assaulting on the right. Assault Veterans get 2 attacks base, 1 for charging, and 1 for two weapons. That will be 16 attacks, 4 of which are power weapons.

The marines need a 3 to hit and a 3 to wound since they are stronger and better fighters then the guard. 3 Power Weapon shots hit, and 7 chain sword shots hit. Now to wound, 2 power weapon hits wound, and 3 chainsword hits wound. The guard player allocates these wounds... he has to place one on each model that he can before stacking them, so he will place the 5 wounds on 5 normal guardsmen. 2 die from the power shots, and 3 fail to save. The guard player removes 5 men. He takes off the Lascannon tea and 3 others, leaving the Sgt and two more.

ON the other side, 6 chainsword wounds are dealt, and 2 power sword. Like the right side, he has to place each wound on a different model. He places the 2 power sword shots and 4 of the chain swords on the 6 normal guardsmen, and the remaining two chainsword shots on two of the melta guns. Five of the normal Guardsmen die, and 2 of the melta gunners die. Leaving 1 Guardsman, 1 meltagunner, and 1 sgt.

Now for the Guard to hit back! First squad. Sgt has a power sword and gets 2 attacks. The guard get 1 each. They will hit on 4 and wound on 5. Sadly, none of them wound. On the other side, none of them even hit!

Getting towards the end!

Now both of the squads must make a leadership test. On page 63 it says to ignore the vehicles in a multiple combat for determining attack results. So we need to total up the number of Guard killed, which was substantial! 13 total! Egads. They need snake eyes... snakes always mean a success. (Page 43)

Neither makes it.

They will both now fall back, and the marines must do a sweeping advance. Squad 1 rolls a d6 vs the marines. Then add their initiative. Guard 1 rolls a 4, marines roll a 3... this result is a tie, which means the marines catch the guard in a Sweeping Advance and slaughter them all. On the other side, guard roll a 3 and marines roll a 2, another tie... dead marines.

Now all the guard are dead, and the marines get to make a consolidate check... (a six is the result...) and they can now move into the cover that was once being occupied by the guard... having successfully assaulted and killed 3 units. :)

If one of the guard squads had made their leadership test, then the marines would not have been able to sweeping advance the other since they would have been locked in combat. The guard would have rolled 2d6 and run away.

So there you go Sabb! I hope that makes sense. I will now illustrate this and pop in the pics!




FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! The guard in my illustrations turn up as white and you cannot see them. I need to remake them. I will do it later and add them to the post. Enjoy!