Ordnance Barrage

[stovrose]

I feel as though this rule type has been overlooked. There are some ambiguities on how tanks fire ordnance barrage. Rules can be found on pgs:
51 - Ordnance Weapons
34 - Barrage
71 - Vehicles firing Ordnance
124 - Night fighting

If you read all of these you conclude:
1. May move and shoot indirect
2. No rules are stated ANYWHERE that they can direct fire.
3. Are they still barrage if they direct? IE, hit top floor only, cover from center dot and they get to use BS?
4. May indirect shoot a target WITHIN their minimum range
5. All barrage in a squadron fire in multiple barrage. IE no more, can you barrage with one, direct with another (of course we can't direct now anyway)
6. Can not pick a target outside 36" in night fighting

ALL of these instances came up in a game. Happened to be our first for 6th Ed. So, I'm feeling frustrated b/c it makes me feel GW overlooked these weapons all together. Being able to move and fire is definitely a plus, but I liked that rule before. It gave a flavor of awesomeness to them. WITHIN minimum range? That's just sloppy that no one caught that...

[Deathkorpsman]

Jul 11, 2012 5:40:55 GMT -5 stovrose said:

I feel as though this rule type has been overlooked. There are some ambiguities on how tanks fire ordnance barrage. Rules can be found on pgs:
51 - Ordnance Weapons
34 - Barrage
71 - Vehicles firing Ordnance
124 - Night fighting

If you read all of these you conclude:
1. May move and shoot indirect
2. No rules are stated ANYWHERE that they can direct fire.
3. Are they still barrage if they direct? IE, hit top floor only, cover from center dot and they get to use BS?
4. May indirect shoot a target WITHIN their minimum range
5. All barrage in a squadron fire in multiple barrage. IE no more, can you barrage with one, direct with another (of course we can't direct now anyway)
6. Can not pick a target outside 36" in night fighting

ALL of these instances came up in a game. Happened to be our first for 6th Ed. So, I'm feeling frustrated b/c it makes me feel GW overlooked these weapons all together. Being able to move and fire is definitely a plus, but I liked that rule before. It gave a flavor of awesomeness to them. WITHIN minimum range? That's just sloppy that no one caught that...

I think the new artillery rules need some work as well. They really didn't put the thought into it that they did other sections. Here are my thoughts on your points:

1. I concur, it appears that the rules left out a restriction on moving for indirect fire. This might get FAQ'd, might not. GW might have decided that artillery was vulnerable already and so are allowing mechanized artillery a bit of mobility. Pure conjecture on my part.

2. The Barrage special rule says Indirect Fire weapons work just like Blast weapons and 'can' fire Indirectly. The 'can' is important there, since it allows them to use the rules for Blast/Large Blast weapons if they choose.

3. If they direct, they use all the rules for Blast/Large Blast as stated at the beginning of the Barrage rule description.

4. You are specifically allowed to fire indirectly inside your minimum range now, which means that minimum range is only a restriction on direct fire in 6th. This is according to the Barrage special rule.

5. We can still direct fire, as I noted. But yes, otherwise that is less cool. I never really did that anyway.

6. Yeah, also a bummer.

[stovrose]

So if we fire directly, it's still a barrage weapon, does wound allocation and saves get determined from the center dot? Just b/c you fired directly doesn't mean you lost your weapon type... Would this also mean top floor only?

[Deathkorpsman]

Weird as it looks, the RAW supports those points as I'm reading it. The rulebook is using the term Barrage and Indirect Fire interchangeably, which is really an awful mess since they aren't precisely the same thing. So until they come out with Errata, it appears that wound allocation/saves are from the center dot whether fired directly or indirectly and top floor is always hit first. Really silly. Hopefully someone finds some references that contradict what I came up with, because I'd like that not to be true for the sake of my sanity.

[stovrose]

Agreed. The simple phrase, "When firing directly, barrage weapons lose the barrage special rule for the remainder of the shooting phase" would fix it. They would retain everything else in their profile, IE, if it's ordnance, rending Blast/Large Blast etc

[iggy666]

Barrage weapons are always barrage. What barrage does is gives you the pinning special rule, allows you to fire indirectly, and allows you to fire under your minimum range indirectly.

I looked through the codex, all of our barrage weapons have minimum ranges that we can now ignore for the most part (assuming you're shooting indirectly anyway).

It says we can choose to fire indirectly, which means we already have the choice to fire directly. There are some vehicles that can never fire directly.

While firing indirectly or directly, they are still barrage weapons and follow the same rules as before.

I don't know if you can choose to multiple barrage 2 weapons and direct fire the 3rd. Either way, our scattering seems to be an all or nothing thing now, which is fine by me.

No one can fire passed 36" during night fighting.... I suppose if anyone should be allowed to, indirect barrage should be the ones. Barrage is relatively unaffected by nightfighting due to the difficulty of getting cover from our attacks.

[WestRider]

Try your best to delete the 5th Ed Barrage Rules from your mind. The 6th Ed ones are better, but they're completely different. Trying to learn them as an adaptation will just cause confusion.

Barrage Weapons work exactly like direct-fire Blast Weapons, except for the following differences:
- Cover and Wound Allocation are resolved from the center of the Blast Marker instead of the firing Model.
- Vehicles are always hit on Side Armour.
- They cause Pinning.

Those three are easy. The big difference is the first one listed in the book, but I've left it for last because it's where things get confusing.
- Barrage Weapons can fire at Units that are out of LoS or within any Minimum Range they have Listed. If they do so, they don't subtract their BS from the Scatter. This is "shooting Indirectly". That term now means something entirely different to what it meant in 5th.

There no longer exists any option to fire Barrages as normal Blasts. There no longer exists any restriction on moving and firing Barrages, beyond the usual restrictions on moving and firing.

If you're firing a single Barrage, and your question wasn't covered by one of those points, it's worked out exactly like a regular Blast Weapon.

You do not get to "choose" to fire Indirectly as such. That choice is made when you pick your Target Unit. If that Unit is out of LoS or within the Minimum Range of the closest firing Barrage Weapon, you're firing Indirectly. End of story, no further choices to be made.

[magot]

I do need to read the book Westrider, I only skimmed this part briefly, but you put it very clear. indeed this is better than 5th. You can shoot at anything on the table, and sometimes you are a little bit less accurate and can't use the BS. And you can move the boys.

multiple barrages from the same unit are still worked out as in the 5th (connect the next blast template to the first one in the direction of the arrow on the scatter dice) ?

and the night fight rule is applied to them the same as to all weapons I presume

.

[WestRider]

Multiple Barrages are the same as 5th, but they've cleared up how you can place later Blasts on a "Hit". They can overlap part or all of a previously placed Marker, or just barely touch.

Wound Allocation from Multiple Barrages is kind of a pain, because each Blast Marker creates its own Wound Pool, allocated from the center of that Blast. Makes it very hard to hide Models inside Units from Multiple Barrage Units, but kind of bogs down working out all the dice.

Barrage Weapons are awesome in Night Fight. They still suffer the 36" maximum, but they ignore the Stealth and Shrouding that Night Fight provide to closer Units, because you work out Cover Saves as tho the shot were coming from the center of the Blast, which is obviously going to be well within 12" of the Target Unit.