Flamers, overwatch, and shooting through your own unit

So, Vect and his merry band of witches have set up a perfect flanking charge on a 20 man guard squad with 4 flamers. Thera are 4 guardsmen between the witches and the nearest framer and no Flamer has clear line of sight without shooting through its own squad.

Should the guard player be allowed d3 hits per Flamer on the charging witches?

As a second question, if the witches are charging from behind an ADL should they get cover saves vs the las guns?

Thoughts please from a RAI and RAW perspective?

Unfortunately, as written, the flamers get their hits as the rule does not specify that they need to be able to fire the flamers without hitting members of their own squad. They can't use them in their turn due to the positioning, but can overwatch you to their hearts content.

As to the ADL, it depends on how much of the wyches are covered by it when the overwatch is declared. If you are very close you most likely will get a cover save, but if the enemy models are closer than you, the odds are against it. Short answer, use TLOS and bend down to see what the models see, and how much of yours is covered by the ADL.

As stated above, the position of the flamer models has no effect on the Wall of Death rule.

Now, a question of my own: How do you get 4 flamers in a 20 man squad?

Aha, that is both disappointing and completely stupid for the RAW. It essentially means that executing the perfect flanking charge - a tactic that has changed history over the ages and has been the goal of countless commanders - is pointless.

That leaves us with RAI: personally I think that shooting flame throwers through your own squad is sufficiently stupid that the intention must be that this does not happen. As a DE player I am of course biased, but that said I still think I have a very valid argument since my way makes the game more tactically challenging and realistic for both players.

Finally, my opponent was very gracious and played it my way. 6 of the 10 witches died to overwatch but Vect and his hekatrix pulled off a multi assault on a 20 man blob including the enemy general and a heavy weapons squad. Vect challenged and won, hekatrix won combat also, and then both units ran and were cut down.

If done again I would have shot a gap through the blob with the venoms and disembarked Vect and the witches into the centre of his lines and assaulted his rear two command squads. That done I believe the result would have been the same, possibly worse for him if one of the squads had held and I had finished them in his turn.

Shame, he was a really gracious opponent.

By 20 man blob do you mean one combined unit? Because if that combined unit contained a Senior Officer (if that's what you mean by general) and a Heavy Weapons squad, and had 4 flamers in it, I believe your gracious opponent needs to have another look at his Codex and which units are able to use the 'Combined Squads' rule.

RAW, the flamer templates do not need to be placed and simply inflict D3 hits per flamer when fired on Overwatch. Overwatch is an abstract concept and there are plenty of other examples that create equally absurd situations. For example, 2 Dark Eldar warriors assaulting and killing 25+ Imperial Guardsmen   

@ Adhemar - that is perhaps the best explanation I've heard so far, fair enough.

Re combined squads, I'll definitly check that out.

And finally, I think I'm gonna take it easy and try to be a bit less competitive for a while. I've had a very good run recently with the dark kin Vect list and the army doesn't really need any extra help from rules changes to win.

I just hope our new codex doesn't come too soon, we are devastating as we are.

So just really quick, going back to the ADL and TLOS. I know you need line of sight to charge but let's say you have one wych around the corner of a wall and the rest of your squad can't be seen by the enemy, does all the overwatch go into that one wych and the rest of your squad is safe because they don't have line of sight?

My understanding is that the sequence of events is the key here:

1 declare charge, you must have at least 1 model with line of sight to the target unit
2 overwatch - the enemy unit shoots, host and wounds are counted. These wounds can only be allocated to the models that are within the line of sight of the shooting unit.
3 roll charge distance. Note that the model that was visible may well be dead by now and hence the charge distance may be a little longer than originally hoped for. If you get a high enough number you are in.

Key point 1- you can only declare a charge against a unit you can see
Key point 2 - they can only kill models they can see
Key point 3 - overwatch occurs BEFORE you charge, but after you declare a charge. Hence if you begin the charge in cover you still get your cover save.

For a lot of players CC is a relatively rare event now and hence thereis quite often a lot of explaining to do.

Finally, CC is not dead, it is just that now it is a bit more specialised but no less useful for that IMHO.

Snakeman wrote:

Finally, CC is not dead

It's just pining for the fjords.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Snakeman wrote:

Finally, CC is not dead

It's just pining for the fjords.

Plus one, two, five internets to you sir!