March 17, 2012 by darrell
Darrell talks us through the ins and outs of the rage special rule in Warhammer 40K. Must you charge the unit you rage towards or can you assault any unit in range. Is a raged unit just a pack of mindless nutters?
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I agree with your perception of the written rule. It was VERY poorly written, and doesn’t actually represent rage in any way, shape, or form. Since rage only takes effect during movement phase, there is nothing from keeping someone from fleeting and assaulting a different unit after that.
haha looks like me and Darrell love dropping the monolith near vulnerable rage infested units. one time i remember dropping some wounds on a squad of hive guard and tyrant (or was it tyrant guard? i can never remember) so he actually decided to put all the wounds on his tyrant which made the gaurd have rage. well they just bum rushed the monolith and parked there the whole game. i love running into those cheasy blood angel armys with only non-scoring rage infested death company for troops. just brilliant
yeah….no…depends which real life gamer is more big and scary looking.
To assult the unit you have to leave the vehichle, so you’re then break free from the rule that made you move in the first place.
The way I see it is that Rage is blind so you are running at the enemy without a care in the world. Rage is not something you’re meant to be controlling with a calm and collected strategy so I don’t see why you would ignore the main target to pick off the cheap grunts.
Treat it like the animosity tests of fantasy’s greenskins and demons?
oh, I agree completely, in the spirit of the game you are 100% correct and I applaud anyone who plays it that way…..but how many people are actually gonna do that when it comes to tournies or the ever-so-fun guys who HAVE to win at all costs.
It ALL really depends on how you interpret the rule’s repeated emphasis on “always move towards closest visible enemy”. Seems like they just took it for granted that movement would refer to all movement. I mean the rule even applies to consolidation. Yes, this part of the rule is specifically for the “movement phase”..but I can’t imagine how the assault phase would be an exception.
Oh well…Points for Darrell!
Darrell is right on this, but he shouldn’t be. The rule should have been FAQ’d long ago to have Rage units move toward and assault the nearest unit that its possible to do so. The way its written now they have to move toward the closest unit they can see, even if they can’t assault them E.G. foot death company run at someone behind impassable terrain or 2 floors up in a building, often this would take them away from and even out of reach of another unit nearby that they could actually assault.
The real question is when Darrel plays does he bring the wine and crakers or does the club provide them?
I would have to agree the way the rule is written suggests one does not have to assault, but I would guess it’s implied.
hahaha i like my whirlwind =3 never fail’s to make its points back, to a point that people hate it so much, nobody expects it. which is a strength in its self XD
Apparantly, rage means you must move, run, and consolidate towards the nearest enemy unit.
Darrel is right. Darn it.
The German RB states that Raging units have to charge the closest enemy unit as well! This has caused large debates on German WH40K forums on the net, but most agree that this is the correct interpretation of the rule, so technically the English RB is wrong!
Damn the Germans are so efficient! Haha I don’t play 40k but that rule seems broken. Anybody who has been enraged before knows that they are not thinking rationally when they throw their PS3 remote through their Tele! hahaha
No, this does not mean the English rulebook is wrong, but that the German one is translated badly :-))
OR it means that we are so damn effective that we knew this should be otherwise and corrected it, so that at least we over here in Germany could play it the correct way 😛
I would give my left arm to see Darrel and John roll like an ultramarine in a video 😀
Darrell is right on the money with the wording of the rule.
I will disagree that it should require you to assault the nearest enemy unit. It would be far too big a nerf against every unit that has Rage if you couldn’t punish the slightly less canny player who leaves a vulnerable squad within 6″ of whatever they’ve chosen to distract you with.
If it made the units that do have Rage significantly cheaper, such that it wouldn’t ruin your gameplan if they went off on one, then it wouldn’t really be much of a drawback, but if it allowed someone to turn the tide of a battle by parking a Transport in the middle of nowhere and simply creating a dead-zone on the table where nothing happens it would be immensely boring.
I think it should remain as it is, since the ability to remain a threat to enemy units that stray too close provides an opportunity for at least some tactical nuance, and prevents the Rage suffering unit from being taken completed out of the game.
Defiantly agree with the wording of the rule, I have to admit that this is a massive loophole to extort. However if you were to talk “house rules” I would personally prefer it that the unit would have to assault the unit they rage at, but again this is all to the personal advantage of the player. Once again Darrell you are a genius when it comes to finding loopholes and wonders within the rules.
If the rules state: you must move, run(if you want), and consolidate towards the nearest enemy unit. then Darrell’s scenario is wrong because the closest enemy still the Rhino… the Death Company would have to destroy the vehicle before moving on to the next target
Besides the rule also states: “In the Assault phase they must always consolidate towards the closest enemy”… Consolidate is the key word… the only way to consolidate is to win an assault (close combat attack) even if is a vehicle, the Rhino, in this case, is the closest enemy. To get to the Marines the Death Comp. have to destroy the Rhino so then they can consolidate towards the Marines.
An assault move it not a consolidate move. The assault move therefore doesn’t need to be towards the nearest enemy unit.
Wow! I find myself in full agreement with Darrell. I never thought that would ever happen.
Yeps, I have to agree with this. you have to move towards nearest enemy, but don’t have to assult them. It is a strange rule and I do think you should have to assult the you’re raging at in the end. Wierd to go screaming towards someone as fast as possible, then get close enough to assult and say actually, I’ve calmed down a bit now.
Thing I’ve never been able to understand is how comes Khorne Berzerkers don’t have rage? doesn’t seem very berzerk to me. Maybe they don’t want blood that badly!!!
you can’t rage from one thing to another though, because you’d be moving away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAlNrtcPCLw ooh insane
HAHA, never pegged you as a Cyprus Hill fanboy Darrell. Just goes to show appearances can be deceiving
As if anyone on the planet can bring themselves to not like this song, even if they don’t like Cyprus Hill as a whole…it’s one of those songs like House of Pain’s Jump Around and Top O’ Tha Morning.
Jump around by house of pain was once my favorite song. probably around the same time insane in the membrane came out.
@coolhand “Thing I’ve never been able to understand is how comes Khorne Berzerkers don’t have rage? doesn’t seem very berzerk to me. Maybe they don’t want blood that badly!!!”
They used to in 3rd ed. Back then they even raged out of their transport if I remember right.
“correct me if you can”? is that a new film where leonardo dicaprio plays darrel and tom hanks runs around asking him cheesy 40k rule questions?
I play it exactly like described in the video with my Blood Angels. And you are right Darrell, no one in there right mind takes Jump Packs for Death Company. The cost is far too prohibitive.
I remember back in yee olden days of 3rd edition (gods what does that make 2nd ed and RT) the number of times my Khorne army ended up getting stuck in combat with things that only the champion could hope to touch…and even then only if he had the right gear for it.
Slowly getting butchered by wraithlords, getting stuck on Monoliths while the rest of the Necron army blasted my nutters to pieces.
Thank heavens for Rhino rush back in those days so it didn’t happen TOO often.
Darrell! I still cant find the link to email you are question!
Theres one tiny grey area in assault that keeps comming up in our games. In a nutshell, assaulting a unit that is on the first floor of a ruin. If you give me a link or tell me how to tell you I’ll explain this predicament in more detail.
Better yet, get on youtube, make a video response, and then post it here in the comments.
It is a major flaw in the rule and you are right but we have a house rule for that because obviously fluff wise they are running blindly to destroy the nearest thing caught up in blood lust not even controllable by themselves let alone their Commander
As stated before, Darrell is 100% right here. RAW players will be able to point out that the rule says nothing in the way of having to assault the unit closest to you. It just says you have to move toward the closest enemey.
It’s just another badly written rule and thankfully I play with people who are very relaxed about their games. I can see it causing problems in tournements though.
How it wasn’t spotted by GW by now though is beyond me. Sisters of Battle have units with it, Nids and Blood Angles have it (both very new armies with new FAQs) and I’m sure some other armies have units with it.
Ok, guys & Darrell, here is my cheese on this:
1. Check the rules for moving during an assault, it says:
All of the models […] make their assault move following the same rules as in the Movement phase, […].
2. Check back the rage rule, how raging units actually move in the Movement phase:
In the Movement phase, units subject to rage must always move as fast as possible towards the closest visible enemy.
So, a raging unit can declare a charge against a more distant unit, but they couldn’t actually charge it, since they have to move like in the Movement phase, in which they would have to charge the cloesest unit.
The rage rule does’t extra state, that you have to charge the closest unit, because that would lead to an automated charge. This is not intented, because sometimes your unit would assault f.e. a Dreadnought, that it cannot hurt at all.
So the rules allow you to chose wether you declare a charge or not, but if you do, you only can charge the closest unit.
Check the other rage-ruled movement types like run or consolidate. These are special movements, that don’t refer to the Movement phase and f.e. ignore difficult terrain. Because of this, the rage rule had to adress them seperately unlike the assault move.
For me, it’s easy as that. What do you think guys?
The problem I see with this is that the Assault move references the Movement Phase as set out in the BRB, the rest of the paragraph elaborates on what that means by describing the restrictions on movement. Rage isn’t a part of the rules for the Movement Phase, it’s a USR that determines which direction you must move in during the Movement Phase, and isn’t referenced either in the Movement Phase rules, or in the Assault Phase rules.
Rage becomes a very part of the movement rules, as soon as a unit has this special rule. It’s the same, like special movement rules of different unit types. All these additional rules somehow modify you movement.
I think you’re getting some of the 40k and fantasy rules mixed up.
You don’t declare a charge on anything, you don’t declare charges at all in 40k.
I don’t mix up anything. Check your rulebook pp. 33. You first declare charges, then move your assaulting units stepwise, starting with the model closest to any model of the charged unit and so on. Really, read your rulebook and the assault rules.
Wow, I’d have to agree, as well. Pretty cut and dry, chase the nearest unit, charge anyone you want (assuming you didn’t shoot at someone else).
Color me cheesy, but I’ll be trying this on Friday 😉
Where is the link for Darrels E-mail? Is it hidden, I can’t find it anywhere.
I want to send him a question.
I do not agry. It is not because it is not written that you can do it. You must keep the spirit of the rule. When you are in rage, you move, and assault if you want, the nearest target.
This remember me a friend that, in an old version of W40K, equiped his special character with 2 swords and other closed weapons because it was not written that you can use only two close combat weapons in a round. So he had 2 sword to parry 2 attacks, and power gloves to attack.
Please keep the game a little bit realistic.
How about you shoot the unit that is not closest by first? Than you’d only be allowed to charge that unit as per the rule: “…a unit that fired during the Shooting phase can only assault the unit that it shot at…”.
I think that rule is made that way because otherwise Rage would be a completely useless rule to add as any raging unit would just be teased by some cheap unit and dragged around the table for the whole of a game or you would just move up with something they couldn’t possible destroy and that would be it ( i know technically thats possible already, but it gives the chance of at least not get stuck in some situation completely) so at least they can manoeuvre a little.
At least as long as you don’t live in Germany 😛
In other systems they explain “moving toward” as “ending your movement in closer range than on the start of your movement”. That could explain a lot, but in WH you can only fight cheese with… other cheese:)
But if I’m not mistaken, you’d still have to consolidate towards the Über-suefull Wirlwind, so you’d still be stuck there. You can kill units arround “the closest unit” but most likely you’ll go back to “the closest unit” since you love it so much ( and the rule says so).
I think it makes sense. if you have a tank and an infantry beside it, and only chainswords… you’d go for the infantry, no matter how enraged you are, softer dies easier. But even then: If you really have to assaut the closest unit, one of the guys asaults the whirlwind, the rest asault the space marines… so yeah, you are “assaulting the closest unit”, and the ones beside it 😀
Actually, you do have one thing wrong as far as RAW rage rule.
You don’t have to move all the individual models closer to the nearest enemy…
The rule states you have to move the UNIT toward the nearest enemy.
This would mean you would move the closest to closest, then could move the rest of the unit in coherency as normal (which would allow you to move past the whirlwind)