Charge what you can see

I've seen another small change from 5th and I wondered if you guys saw it too.

I've had many discussions about wether I could charge units I couldn't see. 5th edition didn't prohibit this. 6th explicitly mentions you can't now. Another nerf to assault IMHO.

I don't really consider that a nerf...it fits the essence of the game. Even in 5th, everything was to be played from the perspective of the model on the battlefield, not our view as the player.

This follows the progression to a more realistic battlefield interaction.

Lol. Yeah, had this exact same discussion back then.

Look, we're playing a game with models. Everything is simulating combat and combat is not static (as opposed to our models which are).

In that respect you can imagine your squad of Wyches seeing a unit flee into the building infront of your nose (or you hear and smell them in case they are orks) and you charge blindly in the building, trusting your plasma grenades to do their job.

That's how I imagine it anyway. Hows that for cinematic.

It's a nerf to assault, albeit small... i'll give you that.

Even the most fortified buildings have fire points where you could see a model. The new rules allow for more of the model to be seen (to include arms and weapons) rather than just the body.

The way I'd see this play out is a unit of wyches that 'could' see the unit, hiding behind blocking terrain for a turn in anticipation of the assault. That could hurt since we are unable to run AND assault now - should the opponents unit also choose to duck behind cover. "where'd they go?" LOL

you charge in a building blindly and a lascannon shoots all the wyches through with one shot, or you dont know what rooms to search etc.
Sadly lascannon can only take out one model, but this would be realistic, since it is a LAHZOR, or the other unite is NINJAHing in the rubble, so you cant see them.

I think a better rule would have been one that allows but penalizes a charge against an unseen opponent. In Mordheim, for instance, you needed an Initiative check to charge someone you can't see. A simpler option would be to say you strike at I=1, like attacking through cover. That would reflect the fact that you know your enemy is vaguely 'over there' (e.g. behind a wall, in a building, etc), but because you don't know exactly where they are they are likely to surprise you.

There's nothing to stop you house-ruling something like that (or the 5th edition version) in friendly games (if all players agree) but, otherwise, the rules are the rules. I suspect part of the reason is to stop people declaring 12" charges against unseen opponents just to advance quickly across the table without sustaining overwatch fire.

Overwatch may in fact be the rule for that, so if a house rule to pass initiative, for instance, may have to accompany a rule that overwatch happens at the distance from which the unit can first be seen, affecting the range of rapid fire against the charging unit.

Ben_S wrote:

There's nothing to stop you house-ruling something like that (or the 5th edition version) in friendly games (if all players agree) but, otherwise, the rules are the rules. I suspect part of the reason is to stop people declaring 12" charges against unseen opponents just to advance quickly across the table without sustaining overwatch fire.

I'm not really sure what you mean by this as if the charge range is too short for at least one model in the unit to make it then the charge fails and no one moves anywhere. So there would be no point in doing that as you couldn't make it.