Topic At Hand :
Combining these three clipped passages, the first about when the Flechettes are discharged and against whom, the second about general assault attacks against a vehicle, and the third about assaults against a vehicle, it looks to me that Flechette Dischargers within a squadron of Piranha will be discharged against all of the charging models. This does not mean, however, that there are multiple chances to wound, as each model is only hit once by Flechettes, depending on the vehicle it is attacking, because of the actual wording of the upgrade entry and what close combat against vehicles is.

The Flechette entry stating "attacking ... in close combat" has to be combined with how infantry assault and attack vehicles, that being an engaged model attacks the vehicle that they are engaged with. The allocation of hits and armour penetration rolls comes after the attacks are successful, meaning after the Flechettes have discharged. The squadron close combat entry stating "the squadron as a whole" refers to the fact that a vehicle within the squadron that is not engaged may be destroyed by the attackers' weapons.

So, if all members of the attacking unit get hit just once by the FD, there is no reason to buy a FD for more than one vehicle in the squadron, except for as redundant backups in case the FD carrier dies. However, having said that, if the FD carrier dies, then the squadron is probably already toasted anyway.

Not to ressurect a dead thread, but this is an interesting problem.
As per Xeones' formulated options, I have always gone with option 2 - that each attacker only gets one Flechette hit regardless of how many vehicles are engaged or destroyed - even arguing against fellow Tau players who want to get multiple FD shots on each attacker.

However, with the squadron rules this is made strange by the fact that vehicles can be wounded even if they are not being attacked. One interpretation for this could be that the attacker's hit on one vehicle can cause disruptions in the formation such that it might even accidentally crash into another vehicle in the squadron, sending it down, even if the engaged vehicle escapes without significant harm. The vehicle that suffered the damage did not get to launch its flechettes because it wasn't an attack by an enemy so much that sent it down, but damage to the unit as a whole.

Regardless of how we explain this effect in fluff, it seems pretty clear to me that if each vehicle in the squadron were to launch its Flechettes, this would be really crazy rules abuse. But on the flipside, requiring all the vehicles in the squadron to take the 10 pt upgrade when only one at a time can use it also seems like an unfair interpretation.

And despite Eiglepulper's argument that we shouldn't be getting fast vehicles in combat, I often find that my fast vehisles get stuck, especially since I use them to shield my troops as Xeones suggested, and Flechettes are a great help against Genestealers, Raveners, Daemonettes and Bloodletters, all units that often try to attack my vehicles.

So, in the end I came to the same conclusion that you did Hereticus, why not only take 1 Piranha with the FD and use it for the whole unit. The problem with this is that the attacker can easily just manouever around the dangerous vehicle to charge only the ones without the FD, negating its ability to be used since it is not itself being attacked.
The wound allocation and casualty removal rules apply as normal as well which makes this doubly frustrating. If there are less wounds caused than the number of vehicles, we can allocate the wounds to the non FD equipped vehicle and keep it alive until the end, but if there are more wounds caused than vehicles than we have to allocate them specifically and the Piranha with the FD can get picked off by an unlucky roll.
This makes me think that the vehicle squadron rules need some careful revisiting as they games designers go over codices. One thought would be to have certain wargear apply to squadrons as a whole. If you took 1 Piranha, it could get its FD at the regular cost of 10 pts, but if there was 2 or more, maybe FD's could be taken for the squad as a whole for something like 20 pts? This would balance out the fact that when taken in squadrons you pay through the nose for redundant wargear options.

I think that similar options should be allowed for Disruption Pods and Decoy Launchers since they too operate in strange ways when used in vehicle squads. If some but not all of the vehicles are given these upgrades, can you allocate the wound to the model with the right wargear and then use it to try to save it? That seems kind of strange to me, having point vehicles in a squad taking hits and dealing out flechettes while the rest benefit without the upgrades, though conversely if that one went down the whole squad would lose the ability...

Anyways, this is only speculative but to solve these weird problems I'd like to see more well thought out rules for squadron wargear. When you buy Photons or EMP, you don't only get them for the leader, you get them for the whole squad. I gues things like the bonding knife are the exception to this but regardless I think this could be streamlined significantly in the case of vehicle squads.

If they were to redo it, I think they should do it just like the grenades you mentioned. Lower the cost and say it costs +3 or +4 per vehicle in the squadron. However, we are stuck with the rules as written and the existing Codex, so the question remains.

I know this is only opinion - but given the conflict between Codex and BRB, I'd be tempted to tell my opponent before the game starts that my Piranha had the dischargers on them, and then offer a compromise; if the squadron is engaged in close combat, the first set of dischargers go off - if the attacking unit kills the first Piranha and has wounds left over to inflict, then they can apply those wounds to the next Piranha in the squadron - but that Piranha gets to discharge launchers, and so on. That way, you have a balance between the amount of damage being inflicted by the assaulting unit, and the number of vehicles in the squadron. The attacking unit has a chance of destroying more than one Piranha, but equally it also has a greater chance of taking damage with the increasing size of the squadron.

It seems an amiable compromise to me - particularly as it avoids the issue of a squad of 5 Assault Marines having the exact same chance of losing casualties attacking a single Piranha as attacking a squadron of 5, or of being completely wiped out before even getting a single attack in both of which seem... disproportionate.

I played in the Baltimore GT and my list included a unit of 5 Piranha w/ flechettes. I explained to each of my opponents the weirdness around the rules and that there was the possibility of a crazy number of dice. My opponents all opted to just shoot them down.

The only time they were involved in an assault, they were charged by 6 assault terminators. There were only 2 Piranha left, and my opponent had no problem letting me roll 12 dice. Nobody died.

Conclusion: I paid 50 points to make my Piranha unassaultable.

That TEq save is what undid your Piranhas. Putting them up against MEq saves or GEq saves and you can start to rack up the kills.

I've emailed GW about this topic, as I am the proud owner of 10 Piranhas and 4 Tetras. As each of these tend to get FDs allocated to them, I really want to know the official answer!

E.

Please let us know what answer you get.

Now that's interesting. I know this might sound like an obvious question, but is making your Piranha unassaultable a bad thing?

If you've got mobility and terrain on your side, then protection from close combat assaults means removing one of the threats against our vehicles (indeed, anybody's vehicles) that's actually increased in effectiveness 5th ed. I know that Pirnaha are likely to be hurtling round the board at speeds in excess of 12" to gain the bonuses from moving fast against shooting and against close combat attacks, so they have a reduced chance of being successfully struck in close combat anyway - but I like the idea of directing or influencing my opponents movement and actions.

I suppose it comes down to a balance of probabilities - if you know your opponent will shoot rather than assault when (s)he is facing flechette dischargers, do you embody dischargers, move fast and try and survive shots against the front and side armour with the effectiveness of hits reduced by high movement; or, do you leave the dischargers off, and take the 1 in 6 chance of a close combat hit against the rear armour of the Piranha, per enemy attack?

Hi there

I want to open up this discussion a bit more and add my 2 cents to it!

The codex says:" any model attacking the vehicle in close combat will be ..."

I think this clearly states that you have to attack the specific vehicle with the flechettes. Sorry about all the other interpretations about attacking the squadron as a whole and so on.

The fact that engaging a squadron of vehicles means you can damage all vehicles, even the ones not in base contact, is just another case. This has nothing to do with the rule for flechettes, and should be regarded seperately. Sometimes it's better not to interpret rules too much. Just read the rule and do what it says it does

What about the defenders react rule?
This should come into it somewhere don't people think?

Just as a quick pointer Wiele but by your interpretation flechettes in a squadron would never work. This is because your "solution" requires the vehicle to be SPECIFICALLY targeted by the attacks which is impossible since you assault the squadron as a whole not an individual vehicle in the squadron.



Since in "normal combat" there is no way to specifically target something then there is no way for them to ever trigger in this case.

Also, railhead from the same page you will see that there is no "Defenders React" portion of assault when charging a squadron.


I would also like to point out that I disagree entirely with this interpretation and believe that the rules allow for ALL flechettes in a squadron to fire as all models are being attacked. Otherwise, it would be like saying that SM Sargent over there isn't being attacked by those boyz because there just so happens to not be any models touching him.

As for the argument of fairness for the dice rolls... I don't believe its unfair for our defensive upgrades to work when their offensive upgrades can. I think that if a Powerfist can blow up a vehicle almost 20" away from it then that vehicle's defensive equipment can do the same.

STS17, I'm not sure if you aren't taking the "abstraction" too far.

Granted, the rules tell you how to resolve things, but there are miniatures on the table which physically represent what's going on.

You can't target individual models, but at the same time you need base-to-base contact, you can target units and you can target ICs solely based on physical location of the models on the table.

So while rules resolving attacks do not care who attacks what in the squadron, you can still see which model is attacking which vehicle - this aspect of the game has always been there. That's why it is played with miniatures, not tokens.

I think it is reasonable enough to assume the Flechettes' Discharger wording speak about situation on the table and relation between miniatures rather than the entire attack allocation, hit allocation etc.

The ruling on flechettes is still ambiguous and both sides have valid points, However the #1 rule of 40k isn't about being right or winning, It is to have fun. Say that every piranha gets to use it's flechettes and you have 5 of them. This would mean that for less points than a squad of grots, you would cause on average 25 wounds on a tactical squad charging your pirhanas while 30 ork boyz would take 75 wounds.

This really goes against rule #1 and is not going to win you friends.

So IMHO the best option is the middle ground and only take one flechette launcher. It saves you points and and hassle.

In my local group we found a different compromise. A unit with 3 attacks assaults 5 Piranhas with FDs. Piranhas roll 3 times. When a unit with 1 attack assaults Piranhas roll once. And when a unit with 6 attack assaults Piranhas roll 5 times.

By RAW, FDs doesn't work with squadrons. Always ask your opponent about this rule and always check tournament rules for this, before making you army.

I completely agree with STS17 here. Since they can damage/hurt all units in a squad, the same counts for us. I paid for an amount of wargear that helps me in Close Combat, and it should.

-Yabyahoo

Don't understand me wrong here. I too think that when a unit charges my unit of piranhas, all models will strike one of the piranhas and get a hit. I just don't think that they get a hit from each piranha, which would result in 3 hits per enemy model in the case of 3 piranhas.

Also, I do believe that 1 flechette discharger in a squadron of 5 piranhas cannot dish out hits on every model that assaults. But I see the disturbance here. a squadron of 5, hit by 20 orks, which orks get the hit and which not? I say: just buy flechettes for the whole squadron, so all models in the enemy unit would be hit by the flechettes. In the case of only 1 piranha being equipped with the flechettes, devide the number of attackers by the number of piranhas? And only that result of models get a hit?

I believe my argument still stands. However, I will toss in a couple more examples of "similar" situations. Players are arguing that it is unfair that a squadron of 5 piranha get to roll 5 dice per model if the squadron is assaulted. This results in an absurd amount of dice rolling which will utterly destroy almost any unit that charges the squadron. This is generally accepted as rules abuse.

A unit of 10 Nob Bikers forms 10 different wound allocation groups meaning the unit needs to suffer up to 11 (non-ID) unsaved wounds before losing a single model. This is a clear cut form of rules abuse.

The above two examples are similar in the fact that each unit pays a decent chunk of points to achieve this. We pay to "protect" ourselves from assault while the Nobz pay to "protect" themselves from shooting attacks. Each is generally regarded as unfair because it makes a unit far more powerful then it should be but both have legality in the rules.

I use this example (even though they are almost entirely unrelated) because it shows that the "this shouldn't work because it's unfair" is completely invalid. Almost every army has a unit that can be kited out to be nearly unstoppable in a certain aspect of the game.

The above aside, I can only reasonably see two conclusions from this discussion. Either ALL flechettes in a squadron work or NONE of them work.

The point of contention is how a squadron reacts to being assaulted. The rules for Flechette say that they trigger when the vehicle is attacked. However, the rules for assaulting a squadron states quite clearly that it is the "squadron as a whole" that gets assaulted. It is up to us to decide if "squadron as a whole" means each vehicle is being attacked or if the "squadron" is being attacked.

I suggest we look at it from a different angle. A Devastator squad receives a charge from some outflanking Genestealers. As yourself, is

A) Each individual model being attacked (i.e. is the Devastator sergeant being attacked, and the bolter marines, and the plasma cannon marine)
B) The unit being attacked

If you answered A then flechettes trigger from every model equipped in the squadron. If you answered B then don't bother equipping FDs to a squadron because they don't work.

That is because, as often in such discussion, you try to resolve the argument through rules and rules alone, forgetting the rules are written to be played with miniatures on the table.

How you resolve attacks is abstracted - dictated by the rules and rules say nothing about vehicles in squadron getting attacked, because it is the squadron as a whole which takes the damage.

How you attack is also resolved by how you place the miniatures on the table, which touch the base or the fuselage of which vehicle - that tells you very clearly and without any doubts which vehicle is getting attacked. This is the most basic convention of a miniature based wargame. It wouldn't be miniature based otherwise.

Granted, if you are used to absolute abstraction of computer games where everything is virtual, the concept may be hard to grasp, but it's always been there in table top games - the models matter as much as rules, where their positioning, range, reach or actions matter.


That is to say, the most obvious answer to this issue is to assume that each Piranha which has a model attacking the squadron in the base contact, and which has the Flechette's Discharger equipped, produces one flechette attack against the attacker. Thus, if all your Piranhas are equipped with the dischargers, you will produce as many attacks as there are attackers. If only some of the Piranhas carry the dischargers, then only the attacking models in base contact with these Piranhas will be hit, potentially producing less attacks from Flechette's than there are attackers.

A very obvious solution which brings with it no threat of any kind of accusation of rule-lawyering & works very obviously and clearly on the table

I fail to see how you can call your conclusion "obvious" Q'iq'el as this debate is nearing it's third page and it is far from the only debate on this specific topic. If your conclusion were as obvious as you make it seem then this discussion would not exist.