overwatch = stand and shoot

as a fantasy player, I'm quite used to the stand and shoot as a charge reaction, so overwatch is nothing new to me, but since I'm relatively new to 40k, I'm not familiar with typical squad sizes, weapon load outs, etc...

I see alot of people hand-wringing about the overwatch and our units assaulting. Can someone give me an example of a unit that you would typically assault with a unit of wyches, it's weapons load out, and what kind of damage you might be looking at.

BS of 1, then rolling to wound doesn't sound all that much to me, but like I said, I'm new to 40K. If anything, I might add 2 wyches to my units to make up for the wounds.

I'll give it a shot and give you an example.

Firstly, the most common thing you will be charging is equipped with bolters probably.

Bolters are AP5 so no armor save at all(not that it would help that much, with armor save being a 6)

Lets say you charge a squad of 6 tac marines(chose 6 to represent a thinned down squad and makes math easier) and lets also say you managed to kill the special weapons with your shooting for simplicities sake. That's 12 shots.

On the charge they overwatch you and statistically 2 will hit, that is 2 dead wyches if you don't have fnp, with a 66% chance to die even if you do have it.

The reason this is kind of a problem with wyches is their lack of any armor save since their safe haven is CC, however with this shooting before CC you have to eat what you have been trying to avoid the whole game.

So before you had 10 wyches vs 6 marines, and now you have 8 vs 6. Now those 2 wyches might not have even done much but you lose them from the front, depending on the situation you could even fail the charge now.

Now this is purely a hypothetical situation and things can go better or worse as people imagine scenarios but I wrote this as to explain how I and others may be thinking about overwatch and wyches. We have to evolve our tactics in this edition and after a few games with the ladies I may post my observations.

Probably the biggest nono with wyches in this edition is charging em into guardsman or orc blobs, weight of fire = bad lol

Rapid fire weapons only get one shot with overwatch right? Or am I wrong with that? My thinking on this that the numer of wyches most people said was optimum was 7-8. Now there is more of a reason to take a full squad of ten since you'll lose some to overwatch.

Charge them without LoS... you dont have to charge in a straight line. If you can arrange that, you dont have to worry about overwatch. Problem solved. Easiest way to accomplish this would be to take a something that can take a rhino and let your wyches off on the far side of the rhino.

Bibitybopitybacon wrote:

Rapid fire weapons only get one shot with overwatch right? Or am I wrong with that? My thinking on this that the numer of wyches most people said was optimum was 7-8. Now there is more of a reason to take a full squad of ten since you'll lose some to overwatch.

I'm looking at the book on pg 21 (Resolve Overwatch heading)

"An overwatch atttack is resolved like a normal shooting attack(alibiet in the assault phase) and uses all normal rules for range,LOS,cover saves and so on."

"Overwatch cannont cause Morale Checks or Pinning Tests. Any shots fired as Overwatch can only be fired as snap shots" Emphasis rulebook

Edit
ruke is correct about LOS, it is explicitly mentioned above as a requirement.

Page 20, BRB - "A unit can never declare a charge against a unit it cannot reach, nor can it declare a charge against a unit that it cannot see." So you must both be able to see each other for the charge to even be declared, so you can't be out of LOS against Overwatch. Maybe if you position them in such a way that only one wych can be seen, so the rest are ok, you could get away with it, but then if that takes the rest of them out of LOS, I'm not sure if the charge is still permitted.

Sendreavus wrote:

On the charge they overwatch you and statistically 2 will hit, that is 2 dead wyches if you don't have fnp, with a 66% chance to die even if you do have it.

Aren't you forgetting the roll to wound? Ok it's a 3+, but statistically 3 hits is only 2 wounds. Also you may be able to claim cover saves as well as FNP. (Though, of course, things would be worse than you say if, e.g., the squad has a flamer.)

Sendreavus wrote:

I'll give it a shot and give you an example.

Firstly, the most common thing you will be charging is equipped with bolters probably.

Bolters are AP5 so no armor save at all(not that it would help that much, with armor save being a 6)

Lets say you charge a squad of 6 tac marines(chose 6 to represent a thinned down squad and makes math easier) and lets also say you managed to kill the special weapons with your shooting for simplicities sake. That's 12 shots.

On the charge they overwatch you and statistically 2 will hit, that is 2 dead wyches if you don't have fnp, with a 66% chance to die even if you do have it.

It's not quite as bad as that. Yes, they fire 12 shots, scoring 2 hits but don't forget they need to roll to wound (3+) and with FNP that cuts the expected losses down to 12*1/6*2/3*2/3=0.88 wounds. If they start off within 8" and have a PGL they would also get a 6+ cover save I believe, which cuts it down to 0.73 wounds.

Mr Believer wrote:

Page 20, BRB - "A unit can never declare a charge against a unit it cannot reach, nor can it declare a charge against a unit that it cannot see." So you must both be able to see each other for the charge to even be declared, so you can't be out of LOS against Overwatch. Maybe if you position them in such a way that only one wych can be seen, so the rest are ok, you could get away with it, but then if that takes the rest of them out of LOS, I'm not sure if the charge is still permitted.

It is still permitted, because you check LOS/distance when you declare the charge. Once the charge is declared, you can still make the charge, as long as the unit is still within distance or didn't choose to go to ground as a result of the overwatch shooting.

I can imagine a squad of wyches tossing one out into the open to make the enemy empty their clips before running it. makes me chuckle a bit.

The opportunity for cinematic moments in 6th is something I'm really loving. One squad member poking their head round a corner to spot the enemy and getting it blown off is pretty cool!

overwatch a panic for you? dont forget we have a plasma nade in shooting phase!