Debate in gameplay right now

Can someone please explain focus fire. The rules aren't quite clear, if I have 4 reavers in cover granting a 2 plus due to skilled rider, and 2 reavers out, and he wants to fire at all of them, how do we determine the cover save for the whole unit?

The unit gets the higher cover save, unless he focusses fire at the the two models out of cover.

doomseer11b wrote:

Can someone please explain focus fire. The rules aren't quite clear, if I have 4 reavers in cover granting a 2 plus due to skilled rider, and 2 reavers out, and he wants to fire at all of them, how do we determine the cover save for the whole unit?

Skilled rider only gives +1 to Jink saves, not to cover saves.

Focus fire lets you target a specific group of models. Say there is a squad of guardsmen some of them are in the open, some of them are in a forest and some of them are in a ruin. If you declare you are focus firing the guardsmen in the open, then you can only allocate wounds to the guardsmen who don't have a cover save (the ones in the open). If you declare that you are focus firing the guardsmen in the forest, you can only allocate wounds to the guardsmen who have a 5+ or worse cover save (so the guardsmen in the forest and the guardsmen in the open).

Mush explained it well. What part of the rules exactly wasn't clear to you about focus fire? Maybe we can help...

I've struggled with this too, and the above helps; continuing the above example, if I choose to focus on the 5+ save guys, which models do I remove first, closest in open, closest in cover, or closest whichever?

If I elect to focus fire 5+, do the models in the open now get a 5+, or is each model treated differently?

If I do enough wounds to kill all the open and forest guys, I can't remove the ruins guys, right, even if I can partially see them?

If a character is in the open, and takes a wound, can a guy in the ruin do a Look Out, Sir, and if it is successful, does he take a wound with no cover (because the IC was in the open), 5+ (because that's what I elected to target), 4+ (because our tragic hero is in a ruin), or auto-passes (because he can't be targetted

commandersasha wrote:

I've struggled with this too, and the above helps; continuing the above example, if I choose to focus on the 5+ save guys, which models do I remove first, closest in open, closest in cover, or closest whichever?

Closest model that you are allowed to allocate wounds to, basically revolve shooting as normal but ignore the models you are not allowed to allocate wounds to (pretend they don't exist).

commandersasha wrote:

If I elect to focus fire 5+, do the models in the open now get a 5+, or is each model treated differently?

Resolve cover as normal (so treat each model differently), so the ones in the open won't get a cover save.

commandersasha wrote:

If I do enough wounds to kill all the open and forest guys, I can't remove the ruins guys, right, even if I can partially see them?

No you can't remove models with a cover save greater than the group you decided to focus fire. If I decide to focus fire all models with 5+ cover, then no matter how many wounds I inflict I can't allocate wounds to models with a better cover save than 5+.

commandersasha wrote:

If a character is in the open, and takes a wound, can a guy in the ruin do a Look Out, Sir, and if it is successful, does he take a wound with no cover (because the IC was in the open), 5+ (because that's what I elected to target), 4+ (because our tragic hero is in a ruin), or auto-passes (because he can't be targetted

I believe he would just have whatever cover save the terrain he is in grants, so if he is in a ruin that would be a 4+. Not 100% sure though.

Hope that helps.

Okok...

Focus Fire, pages 18/19.

Question #1: "if I choose to focus on the 5+ save guys, which models do I remove first, closest in open, closest in cover, or closest whichever?"

Page 19, "Wounds caused by Focus Fire must still follow the normal allocation order." This means, "closest whichever", like normal, ignoring the ones you are not allowed to allocate wounds to as per the focus fire rule.

Q #2: "If I elect to focus fire 5+, do the models in the open now get a 5+, or is each model treated differently?"

Because Focus Fire is ONLY about which unit you are allowed to allocate a wound to, it does nothing to actually effect the coversave the model gets. This means, "each model treated differently".

Q #3: "If I do enough wounds to kill all the open and forest guys, I can't remove the ruins guys, right, even if I can partially see them?"

Correct. That's what Focus Fire is all about.

Q #4: "If a character is in the open, and takes a wound, can a guy in the ruin do a Look Out, Sir, and if it is successful, does he take a wound with no cover (because the IC was in the open), 5+ (because that's what I elected to target), 4+ (because our tragic hero is in a ruin), or auto-passes (because he can't be targetted"

When doing a 'Look out, sir' you allocate a wound to another model within 6" from the model that is attempting to save his hide (page 16). The guy is in a ruine, so he get's his coversave from the ruine against the wound allocated as per the rules of the Shooting Phase (Focus Fire has again no effect on the coversave again)

It's all explained on the pages I mentioned. Hope this helps.

Edit: And I know Mush ninja'd me, but I was writing this already and post it i shall!

tlronin wrote:

When doing a 'Look out, sir' you allocate a wound to another model within 6" from the model that is attempting to save his hide (page 16).

It's worth remembering they changed that in the FAQ to:

Quote :

“Determine which model in the unit is closest to the character,
and resolve the Wound against that model instead.”

One of the reasons beast are not as good as they were, the 6" look out sir was awesome with them.

Mushkilla wrote:

tlronin wrote:

When doing a 'Look out, sir' you allocate a wound to another model within 6" from the model that is attempting to save his hide (page 16).

It's worth remembering they changed that in the FAQ to:

Quote :

“Determine which model in the unit is closest to the character,
and resolve the Wound against that model instead.”

One of the reasons beast are not as good as they were, the 6" look out sir was awesome with them.

Yup. So true...

Ok, I was the other player in this game. The confusion wasnt really over focus fire, but choosing to not focus fire. In hind sight our misunderstanding of skilled rider makes this really a non issue since the whole unit would have had a 4+ any way. In trying to understand the rules more clearly here is what transpired. In our game the two reavers out of cover were closest to me. The two out of cover we were giving a 4+ and the four in cover we were granting a 2+. My thinking was that if i decided to fire at the unit and not use focus fire than wounds would be allocated to the closest models first only geting a 4+ and then any extra wounds would spill over to the rest getting a 2+. It doesnt say (or i havent been able to find) in the rules that a unit benefits from a majority cover save.

leapfrog wrote:

In our game the two reavers out of cover were closest to me. The two out of cover we were giving a 4+ and the four in cover we were granting a 2+.

In that situation you wouldn't focus fire as it would limit your maximum kills to the two 4+ cover save reavers. You would be better off just shooting them normally.

leapfrog wrote:

It doesnt say (or i havent been able to find) in the rules that a unit benefits from a majority cover save.

Correct.

it does state in the rule that you say to your opponent how much cover save the whole shooting attack will give, EG a unit of 10 wychs, trying to move up the field using as much cover as possible may have 3 girls in a forest, 4 in ruins, 1 in the open and 2 in a crater. for closest model purposes they are in the same order, forests girls closest and crater girls furthest away. lets say a GH squad rolls up and wants to shoot up our girls, we wont get armour save from that pesky bolt gun, and the GH player decides on 5+ cover, at this point he rolls 6 wounds, we roll our 3 dice for the girls in forest and they all die(my dice always fail a 5+) we ignore the 4+ in ruins (4 girls) the 1 in the open dies from the ap5 bolter, leaving 2 dice to roll for the girls in the crater (both die again i hate 5+ lol).

now if he had said 4+ you roll for each specific model with its relevant cover save. if he had said no cover save only the 1 in the open would have died.

hope that puts it into perspective

@baster: I'm very confused by your contribution to this thread. Are you disagreeing with someone? Are you just adding info? 'Cause the questions have basically been resolved, so...