Kill Zones: 40K Shooting post-FAQ
Posted in 6th Edition, Analysis, FAQ, Rules
And why my Platoon Command Squad is now 2pts more expensive.
Following some requests from the Chatbox, here’s a quick look at the ‘Kill Zone’ shooting rules, what they do, what Gameworkshop wanted them to do, and why they don’t quite do it.
Q: When making a Shooting attack against a unit, can Wounds from the Wound Pool be allocated to models that were not within range any of the shooting models when To Hit rolls were made (i.e. half the targeted model are in the shooting models’ range, and half are not)? (p15)
A: No.
Simply put, a model that is out of range of all of the firing unit’s weapons cannot be killed by them. A model cannot have a wound allocated to it if it is out of range of each model in the firing unit, but may have any wound allocated to it if it is in range of at least one model in the firing unit.
At first glance this sounds like a very sensible rule; models outside the range of enemy guns being killed by them seems ‘unrealistic’ (and yes, realism isn’t a key sales point of the chainsword-wielding grim-dark future, but rules that allow some suspension of disbelief help gameplay).
What GW appeared to want with this rule was to prevent things like models far out of range dying to bolters just because one plucky fool was on the 24” line, or avoid the mystery of why, when a multiple flamer-armed squad lands at the end of a large ork mob and burns the nearest 5 Boyz, another 25 run into the flames at the first scent of barbeque.
Fortunately though my goal here is helping readers make sense of GW’s rules, not making GW’s rules make sense.
Applying the new rules.
In the below diagram, an ork mob is approaching an Imperial Guard combined squad. On the left, all guardsmen that are within 24” of even one ork are allowed to shoot. With FRFSRF, that’s likely to be a decent amount of shots. The problem is that when applying this FAQ, only one ork is going to be eligible to die, and that’s a lot of AA flashlight batteries wasted.
It’s also exactly what GW would like to happen.
In the image on the right, the Guard squad has added an Autocannon. The Autocannon has a range of 48” and can generally kill an ork a turn by itself, but its real impact is to allow any wounds caused by its unit to be allocated to any ork in the target unit within the AC’s range. In effect, all orks in the target unit are now eligible to be allocated wounds.
The effect is it adds a new reason to take a long range weapon in any shooting squad – even the Ork Shootas themselves would be improved if one took a Big Shoota.
When these rules really matter
Scenarios like the above may come up from time to time (and on the bright side, it’s Grey Knights who are most likely to be annoyed by them), but it is when using short ranged weapons and templates that FAQ really has a major impact.
Any kind of unit armed with multiple templates could suffer from this ruling, so it should be taken into account at the army building stage.
Below is a diagram showing the sort of Platoon Command Squad I love to run; a Platoon Commander with laspistol and a squad with 4 flamers. This is an amazingly efficient unit, at 50 points it is one of the game’s best -even if it rare fires more than once. The problem is that running it as I have been, it now has a much lower damage potential.
The longest range weapon is the laspistol, which is usually at the back to avoid blocking templates. In order to increase the amount of enemy models that can be killed in this sort of scenario requires the counter-intuitive change of dropping a flamer for a lasgun.
While less enemy models are being flamed, more are now eligible to die. The point cost of the unit has dropped, but the amount of orks killed probably increased.
But now we get to how I am actually likely to run the squad. The Platoon Commander has the option to drop his close combat weapon for a bolter, which has suddenly become the best way to run the squad. The bolter itself is probably overpriced at 2pts, but the increase in range for flame template wound allocation is a huge bonus.
And note that I’ve seen some debate about Flamers of Tzeentch being nerfed by this FAQ, but they are almost certainly still ok. They would have been extremely badly affected if it were not for the fact they have a secondary ranged weapon called Warpfire that increases “range of the shooting models when To Hit roles were made” to 18”.
Note at that as far as I know it’s not even necessary that one of the Flamers actually use the longer range weapon; just that they have it.
Conclusion:
If the goal of the rule was to try make wound allocation from shooting more rational, it’s only a partial fix and doesn’t quite do what GW wanted. Since the alternative of allocating each type of wound to the individual weapon range would be time consuming and cause a massive nerf to template weapons, this is probably just as well.
From a practical point of view, consider adding a longer ranged weapon to your ranged units where possible, and keep an eye out for opportunities to minimise your own casualties when your opponent has not done so.
