How Does Nightfighting Work?

The only reference to the Night Fighting Mission Special Rule in the 7th edition BRB  is a slim paragraph of pg. 135.

I understood how it worked in 6th but just realized I was less sure given the changes made in 7th.

The operative sentence in the rule is:

"...roll a D6 before deployment; on a role of 4+, the Night Fighting special rule is in effect during game turn 1."

Is the common interpretation of this to mean that it begins on turn 1 and then continues for the rest of the game OR is it that it begins on turn 1 and only lasts for the first turn only?

The 6th edition version was a more involved multi turn effect but just reading the text above is a bit ambiguous. I assumed it to mean ONLY turn 1 but there is text within the DE codex (i.e. Hunt from the Shadows) that implies Night Fighting can be in effect after turn 1. I am not sure if this was just to allow for the possibility of Night Fight generating warmer/USRs or if my interpretation of the base Night Fighting rule was incorrect.

Thanks for weighing in.

UM

It's generally assumed and accepted to be ONLY turn 1, though I've always been right there with you in that it's unclear, at best.

Seems odd to have so many faction and USR rules tied to a 50% chance of a single turn worth of effect. Might as well change the name to dusk or dawn fighting to better reflect the duration of this rule.

I agree. Honestly, I think night fighting should last the entire game. But who knows what it's meant to do.

Any chance we can get an FAQ question in on this one? It would be rather hysterical if we had been playing it wrong. No wonder GW can't figure out why we are complaining. "They get stealth all game, why are they saying they are a glass cannon"?

That's entirely possible. Didn't even think about that question when the FAQs came up. They didn't give us much notice that they'd be doing FAQs to formulate our questions, and they did it on an older version of the game that people had already developed their own house rules and such for, so forgot about a lot of the things like this.

You should go to the GW facebook page and ask about it. Maybe they'll add the answer in the final draft of the FAQ.

I don't have the BRB on me right now, but I believe in the "fluff" description of Night Fighting it mentions that some armies will strike before dawn. So I think the implication is that "Night Fighting" is supposed to represent a pre-dawn strike. I agree that it's silly to have entire rules surrounding something that has a 50% change of affecting one turn though...

While I think it is ridiculous to have it be only one turn this appears to be the correct way to play according to GW staff working at Forgeworld otherwise I don't think this rule would be worded like this:

Horus Heresy book 4 Conquest page 219:

Ultra Magnus wrote:

The operative sentence in the rule is:

"...roll a D6 before deployment; on a role of 4+, the Night Fighting special rule is in effect during game turn 1." UM

It does specificaly say 'during game turn 1', not the rest of the game?

We have ways to guarantee Night Fighting turn 1, RSR etc. which then guarantees your stealth.

Units with Night Vision, ie us, then ignore that Stealth when shooting, or a Vehicle with a Search Light, can remove the stealth, but has it's own removed too.

I find this to be one of the clearer rules!

Fluff wise, I agree it should be called something more like 'Dawn Assault' or something.

For DE, I feel it more tries to give us an 'ambushing' feel during the 1st turn, with the enemy not being able to properly shoot back till turn 2.

It can a brave call to start 2nd, deploy everything & not jink, relying on the stealth saves.....

Night Fighting is one of the rules that actualy drew me to DE in the 1st place

A minimum troop RSR & any CAD can be a fun way to play? Especially if you don't have the models or cash for CTC & Grotesqueries etc.

It's kinda our (almost) free trick, nothing in the RSR would be tax excpet losing Ob. Sec.

'During' is also functional saying 'for the duration of'.
So, during Turn 1 is for the duration of Turn 1.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

While I think it is ridiculous to have it be only one turn this appears to be the correct way to play according to GW staff working at Forgeworld otherwise I don't think this rule would be worded like this:

Horus Heresy book 4 Conquest page 219:

Unfortunately this isn't really that compelling proof, as GW and Forgeworld are notoriously bad at communicating with one another. Even worse than individual departments within GW. Forgeworld is basically a third party company that does their best to interpret GW's rulebooks, but doesn't really get directly told any clearer rules than you or I are told. GW just happens to own this third party company, so they can get away with making 40k branded stuff.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Unfortunately this isn't really that compelling proof, as GW and Forgeworld are notoriously bad at communicating with one another. Even worse than individual departments within GW. Forgeworld is basically a third party company that does their best to interpret GW's rulebooks, but doesn't really get directly told any clearer rules than you or I are told. GW just happens to own this third party company, so they can get away with making 40k branded stuff.

Forge World is a department within GW. It's not a separate company and certainly not third party.

Indeed. ArmourCast was the first and last 3rd party partner for GW. Forge World is a seperate department of GW that was started as a kind of higher end specialty line for the company.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Forge World is a department within GW. It's not a separate company and certainly not third party.

Hmm, having looked up their addresses, you appear to be correct. That's even more surprising, that they're so inept at communication with one another even though they're in the same building. It's also sort of interesting that forgeworld practices such absurd pricing and shipping policies compared to GW, even though they're the same company. It seems like they probably hurt their own sales by doing so.