Ruleshammer - Big Guns Never Tire

Big Guns Never Tire

A Vehicle or Monster model can make attacks with ranged weapons even when its unit is within Engagement Range of enemy units, but it can only make attacks against enemy units that it is within Engagement Range of. In such circumstances, Vehicle and Monster models can target an enemy unit even if other friendly units are within Engagement Range of the same enemy unit.

Note that if a Vehicle or Monster unit has more than one ranged weapon, you can still choose to target units that are not within Engagement Range of the firing model's unit, but they will only be able to make the attacks with that weapon is all enemy units within Engagement Range of the firing model's unit have been destroyed when you come to resolve those attacks.

In addition, when a Vehicle or Monster model shoots a heavy weapon, subtract 1 from the hit rolls when resolving that weapon's attacks while any enemy models are within Engagement Range of that model's unit.

Also worth noting is that Blast weapons have an extra limitation.

Blast weapons can never be used to make attacks against a unit that is within Engagement Range of the firing model's unit even if the weapon has the Pistol type or if the firing model is Vehicle or a Monster, firing high explosive at point blank range if simply unwise.

If i had one critique of Big Guns Never Tire it would be that as written in the book it's one big solid paragraph, when the sections are actually a little more distinct that that formatting would imply. Let's look at some examples.

Practical Examples

Basic Usage

The most simple use of Big Guns never tire will be as shown below.

Freeing Up Other Units to fire

Sometimes you can use Big Guns Never Tire to free up a unit that is within Engagement Range, it's a risk though.

For this to work you have to obviously decide to not Fall Back with the Heavy Weapons Team, potentially opening them up to being attacked in the fight phase by the Genestealers.

Units of Vehicles or Monsters not all in Engagement Range

First let's cover a few nuances of rules for units in this position. First of all, it's only models within Engagement range of enemy units that can fire upon those enemy units.

A Vehicle or Monster model can make attacks with ranged weapons even when its unit is within Engagement Range of enemy units, but it can only make attacks against enemy units that it is within Engagement Range of. In such circumstances

So the rest of the unit can't shoot at them. However those models can still make use of the second part of Big Guns Never Tire to declare targets they are not within Engagement Range of, but then only be able to resolve them if the one that can shoot at the Warriors manages to remove them.

Note that if a Vehicle or Monster unit has more than one ranged weapon, you can still choose to target units that are not within Engagement Range of the firing model's unit,

Here's some more details on that scenario.

Known Issues

Enemy Units With Engagement Range are Destroyed?

So there's a bit of ambiguity here than can make it seem like people are playing this rule wrong but it's not 100% clear. The issue is this section.

all enemy units within Engagement Range of the firing model's unit have been destroyed when you come to resolve those attacks.

This does not say "if all enemy models within Engagement Range" were destroyed, it says units. There's some confusion here on if this means that to fire you must actually destroy the entire unit that was within Engagement Range, not just have none within Engagement Range when resolving the weapons shot outside of the ongoing combat (which could occur if the controlling player removed those models first). My take on it at the minute is a middle ground. For a Vehicle or Monster unit of a single model, it needs to wipe out the unit as per the wording of the rule. However for a Vehicle or Monster unit with several models, just having none within Engagement Range of the unit is sufficient for subsequent models. Here's my reasoning.

A Vehicle or Monster model can make attacks with ranged weapons even when it's unit is within Engagement Range of enemy units,

The rule is per model not per unit. So you for a unit with Vehicle or Monster models you actually loop back to this point each time and recheck if there are any enemy units within Engagement Range of the whole unit then. So for example if you had a unit of Kastellans and only one of them was within Engagement Range of let's say 2 enemy models of a unit of 4. It gets two kills and the enemy removes the 2 models within Engagement Range. Then whilst it can't resolve any attacks outside because that Unit wasn't destroyed, when you come to the other models in the Kastellan unit there are then no enemy units within Engagement Range and they can fire at any targets they declared earlier.

I'm not 100% on that interpretation though, but I think it's consistent with the rules as written. Discuss this in the Pre-game if you think it's likely to come up.