Warmachine: Rules You Get Wrong
Even the most seasoned Warmachine veteran will tell you they are always learning new things about the game. Lets take a look at a few rules you might not be playing correctly.
Gunfighter Charging Uses All Your Initial Attacks
In this hypothetical situation you are playing Caine2. Caine has 2 pistols, each with ROF 1 and Reload[Infinity]. You want to go for an assassination but in order to get into range you need to charge an enemy model for the extra 3″ movement. There are a few important things to remember when charging using Gunfighter.
When making a Gunfighter charge all of your initial attacks must be at models in your melee range. If Caine kills the model he charged and has no other models in his melee ranged he loses his 2nd initial attack. Extra attacks granted through his reload ability aren’t limited to this Gunfighter restriction because they aren’t initial attacks! Keep this in mind when calculating how many shots you’ll have left to kill the enemy caster.
Don’t forget you’ll need to kill all the models you’re in melee with if you want to take the reloaded shots at another target! Caine doesn’t have an ability that allows him to shoot other models while in melee. So make sure you charge something you can kill with one or two POW 12 shots.
Sacrificial Pawn and Sprays
Morvahna1 doesn’t have great stats, but luckily she has Sacrificial Pawn. This means that if Morvahna is hit by a ranged attacked, she can choose a friendly faction warrior model within 3″ to be hit instead. But what happens when Morvahna and her Sac Pawn target are hit by the same spray?
Attacks from the spray are simultaneous attacks, this means that you resolve all hit rolls before moving on to damage rolls. In this case both Morvahna and her Sac Pawn target have been hit. It’s at this point Morvahna chooses if she would like to trigger Sac Pawn. If she does, the poor friendly faction warrior model would take 2 damage rolls. Even if the first damage roll kills the model it has still taken both attacks and served it’s job as a Sac Pawn target.
Shifting Stones make great Sac Pawn targets
Disabled, Boxed, Destroyed
We’ll end this article with a classic Warmachine mantra. Whenever a model is killed they go through the 3 stages of Warmachine death; Disabled, Boxed and Destroyed. There are a ton of rules based around models being removed from the table and if you simply remember this order you’ll be able to resolve almost all of them with ease.
What happens when a Tharn Ravager kills an Exemplar Errant? When do they get to corpse token? When does the Exemplar Errant trigger Self-Sacrifice? Just remember ‘Disabled, Boxed, Destroyed’ and it’s easy to see that Self Sacrifice triggers on disabled and therefore the Errant never reaches the destroyed state where the Ravager would collect it’s corpse.
When a unit of Cephalyx Drudges attacks a Fennblade does the Fennblade get to make a Tough check before it’s removed from play and becomes a Drudge? Once again we can remember this mantra to see that Tough triggers on disabled and the Drudge ability triggers on boxed. So yes, the Fennblade gets to try and Tough it out before the Drudges add him the their ranks.
Tough happens at disabled, so those Trolls will almost always get to make their Tough checks
Wrap Up
Did you know all these rules interactions already? If so, congratulations! If not, then hopefully these rule breakdowns will help in your future games.
Do you have any confusing rules or timing issues you would like to see broken down? Let us know!
