Warhammer 40,000: Vehicle and Support weapons

Questions and Answers

1. In a recent WD 189 tank battle it was mentioned that you guys used the rules that some tanks cause fear/terror. Which tanks cause fear, and which cause terror?
Fear: Land Raider, Leman Russ, Predator, Dreadnoughts.
Terror: Baneblade & Shadowsword, the rules are in Journal 8.
These lists are probably incomplete, and so use them as guidelines only. Also please note that all of the Tankfest rules from Journal 8 are optional.

2. I noticed that in recent datafaxes (e.g. chimera) models riding inside have a far greater chance of survival (when rolling for results of successful penetrating hits) than models riding in the vehicles with older datafaxes (who are more likely to get the "all models on board are killed") Does this mean that the older datafaxes need to be revised?
Maybe at some time in the distant future, but for the time being you'll have to make do with the 'fax as they are! (or change them yourselves, of course!!)

3. Can vehicles who have gunners for their weapons go on overwatch while moving? (obviously if the driver wants to go on overwatch he cant do it whicle the vehicle is moving)
Yes.

4. Are support weapons considered vehicles for the purpose of choosing a target? I.e. can a model with a heavy weapon ignore the closest squad and fire at the closest support weapon?
Yes. The example is correct, as long as no vehicles are closer than the support weapon, of course.

5. The Whirlwind vehicle is said to have a powerful bio-scanner that reveals positions of all enemy troops. Does this mean that if there is a Whirlwind on the table all hidden enemy models are automatically detected?
The Whirlwind rules have been updated in the Angels of Death Codex and the following sentence added: "Note that the scanner cannot spot enemy models that are hiding, as the detail shown on the scanner's screen is not clear enough to pick out stationary enemy models that are near to cover."

6. Do sustained fire weapons (such as heavy bolters) ignore any jams when mounted on vehicles? The storm bolter card says jams are ignored due to better ammo feeds...
This only applies to Storm Bolters.

7. Can a mole mortar spotter do anything (such as shoot) when spotting for the mortar?
No.

8. If you somehow manage to kill the vehicle crew (i.e through psychic powers or shokk attack gun) but the vehicle itself is unharmed: (a) does it count as destroyed for the purpose of victory points? (b) if a techmarine enters the empty vehicle and drives it or fires its weapons, and he is still operating the vehicle at the end of the game, does the vehicle count as destroyed (because the normal crew are slain)? (c) If a techmarine enters an empty vehicle during the movement phase, can he fire its weapons during the shooting phase?
Yes. No it would be damaged. No

9. Can transported crew leave the vehicle that is out of control (assuming they take appropriate damage if the vehicle is moving more than 10")?
Yes.

10. When a vehicle or a dreadnought go on overwatch, does it have to break overwatch at one time and fire all of it's weapons, or can it shoot one, wait, and shoot the rest at other targets later as they present themselves?
All weapons must be fired at the same time (but note that they can be fired at any available targets, not just the one that is moving when the OW shots are taken).

11. Like the Eldar Vyper, can a landspeeder or attack bike gunner make the same initiative roll to replace the dead driver and gain control of the vehicle?
No, they can swap places without a test.

12. If you miss with a vehicle template weapon, and roll "hit" and "misfire" does the weapon explode? If yes, what effect does that have on the vehicle(i.e. do you roll on the damage table)?
We'd play that the weapon is destroyed and roll on the table to see if there is any additional effect.

13. If a vehicle is destroyed and a "Reinforcement" strategy card is played, does the newly arrived vehicle have all of the vehicle cards of the destroyed one?
No.

14. If an attack bike / squat trike (two crew) is charged, does the charger engage the nearest crew member or both in hand to hand?
Nearest.

15. You mentioned in a previous Q&A that if you mount a heavy weapons squad in a vehicle and the vehicle moves, the heavy weapons troopers are considered to have moved and thus cannot fire. This seems to contradict the rulebook (P 36 I think) where it states that you can fire move and fire weapons from vehicles while they are moving. Could you clarify?
GQ. Although it is by no means clear, page 36 is only referring to weapons mounted _on_ a vehicle, not to weapons carried by model _in_ a vehicle. So, for example, the lascannon on a Land Raider can move _and_ fire, while the lascannon carried by a Space Marine inside the Land Raider who is firing through a hatch cannot.

16. Does the assault cannon mounted on the Sentinel use the rules for Space Marine Dreadnought-mounted weapons (i.e ignore first jam)?
No.

17. The whirlwind explanation says it scans all targets on the board and can fire on targets it cannot see, does this include hidden targets?
No. The Angels of Death Codex has an updated version of the Whirlwind rules which makes this clear.

18. Can the genestealer cult army use any Imperial Guard vehicle or are they limited to the explicit list in the Tyranid Codex? I.e. can they use such Chimera variants as the Hellhound or Basilisk or Griffon? The above question also for Imperial Agents / chaos cultists / Ork Blood Axes (i.e are they limited to their or black codex or can they get chimeras, etc?).
They can either draw from the list in the black codex _or_ they can draw from the IG Codex - what they can't do is draw from both sources.

19. When a vehicle is set on fire via a regular or heavy flamer, is the entire vehicle on fire? If so a tactic suggests itself. Set your own vehicle on fire. It wont cause any damage to it (too low penetration) but your opponents cant engage in HtH with it since you cant engage flamed models. Is this correct?
Only the location his is set on fire. For example, if the tracks were hit and set on fire then they couldn't be chosen as a hth target by an enemy model. BTW, you can only target enemy models (2nd sentence, 1^st paragraph, p29 of the WH40K rulebook!).

20. Can a tech / marine / mekaniak start the game in a vehicle acting as a crewman? Can they replace crewmen who were not killed later in the game (Example: a tech priest enters the Leman Russ on turn 2. He says to the turret gunner "move over Fred, your BS is only 3 while mine is 5!" there you have a leman russ with a BS 6 turret.)
No (although there are circumstances where this *might* happen, if we say yes certain players will *always* do it. Nuff said, hopefully...)

21. Can the Basilisk and the Demolisher turn on the spot and still fire their 'move or fire' weapons (the Earthshaker Cannon and the Demolisher Cannon)? Or are they only able to turn if they are in Slow, Combat or Fast Speed and therefore counts as having moved?
No, the vehicle must be completely stationary in order to fire.

22. If a vehicle goes out of control, can its gunners still fire the vehicle weapons? What about transported squads?
Yes to both questions.

23. Concerning the vehicle card, Electro-hull and daemons. If I read the card correctly, a Khorne Bloodthirster can attack a vehicle with electro-hull if it first makes his 3+ basic armor save. However, other greater daemons have a daemonic aura which is not an armor save but a field save.
Electro-Hull has no effect on Daemons.

24. How is charging out of vehicles resolved? a) Since chargers must be moved before vehicles move, do you move the vehicle with the charging troops during the charge phase? b) How do you resolve the "charge the closest model rule" since the vehicle may be positioned or moved to allow chargers to engage far-away targets i.e. by breaking through an enemy's screen) c) Can jump-pack troops charge after leaving the vehicle? I.e. do they get their 18" jump plus the 4" move after leaving?
a) Yes. b) The models inside the vehicle _must_ charge against the closest enemy at the start of the vehicle's move. If they can't charge these enemy for any reason, then they can't charge at all. c)No.

25. How does a graviton gun affect a vehicle with exposed crew? (i.e. are the crew graviton-gunned and must be removed?)
Yes.

26. (This may be an SQ, but..) When you shoot at vehicles, is a squad of vehicles considered a squad for the purposes of shooting at the closest squad or vehicle? (Ex: Can you ignore the dreadnought to fire at a squad of jet bikes behind it? What if your weapons are incapable of harming the dreadnought?
Squads on vehicles are treated as vehicle targets. We recommend that models are allowed to ignore targets they can't possibly harm with regard to the targeting rules.

27. When you shoot template weapons at vehicles do you really get to pick where to place the template as opposed to rolling randomly?
Yes (although many players use house rules that randomly allocate the hit).

28. If a blind grenade template completely covers a vehicle's turret, but the turret weapon is sticking out from the template, can the turret still fire normally?
No (a SQ if ever there was one!)

29. Whan a model charges a vehicle with an exposed crew or a support weapon, he must fight the crew first. Does he get to fight the vehicle after the crew in the same round of combat? (I.e. an ork with a melta bomb charges a bike, after fighting the rider, can he place the melta-bomb on the bike?)
No.

30. Can a techmarine take over a vehicle from another army which is without a crew? (I.e. can he drive an ork bike w/auto-cannons whose rider was killed?)
No (though as a special rule for a scenario it could be fun)

31. Why is the Dark Angels Raven Wing land speeder so expensive? It has cheaper weapons than the standard land speeder (RW landspeeder: Assault Cannon 45pts + Heavy Bolter 15pts, Codex landspeeder: Multi-Melta 65pts +Heavy Flamer 25pts, the Codex Landspeeder has 30pts more weapons). It should cost 115pts + the extra cost for being a raven wing vehicle (in the case of Attack Bikes thats 10pts) = 125pts. Now it costs 195pts,which is 70 points too much - WHY?
Because it is worth it (same as it was in the other Q&A)

32. When firing on a vehicle squadron the rule states in DM p.29 "When as squadron is fired upon the attacker must fire at the vehicle nearest to them." In the above quote is the word "attacker" meaning each individual model in a unit or the entire squad? Do you treat the vehicle squadron as a squad therefore allocating hits among the squad or do you treat them as a vehicle where all shots hit the closest vehicle?
GQ. We suggest you treat the squadron as a squad (for the purposes of hit allocation), and allocate the hits across the unit as a whole.

33. What happens when several models charge a dreadnought and only one of them has a chance of harming it? Does the last model get the ganging-up bonus? (Ex: 5 chaos cultists with laspistols and a chaos commander charge Bjorn. Event though the cultists have no chance of harming Bjorn, does the Chaos commander get the +5 WS and +5 attack if he goes last?)
Yes.

34. If a dreadnought has no HtH weapons does it still get its normal number of attacks?
Yes.

35. Weapons on Eldar Dreadnought shoulder mount can't be hit. It has no hit location on the datafax. Should the weapon be counted to the left arm (rolld6, 1-3 shoulder, 4-6 arm?), or can you hit it at all?
The weapons can't be hit. Players that want to make up house rules to allow for the weapon to be hit should feel free to do so, but we didn't think it was worth the bother!

36. Can a flyer attack a skimmer in HTH-combat, and in that case, does a swooping hawk count as a flyer?
No to both questions.

37. When firing dreadnought and warwalker weapons, do they all have to be targeted at the same thing like a squad or can they target different things like different weapons can on a vehicle?
Treat them like a vehicle.

38. It says in Dark Millennium that "vehicles may fire a separate targets for each of their weapons. However, they are still subject to Choosing a Target restrictions." This is a little confusing. Does it mean squadrons of vehicles (ie Ravenwing landspeeders) all have to shoot a the same troop squad but can divert some weapons at vehicle targets (basically they act like a squad of troops)? Or does it mean that the vehicle squad ignores the "my squad fires at your squad" rule, and so after the first vehicle fires and kills all the models in a front squad, a second vehicle may fire at the troops behind (therefore the vehicles are a squad but act independently)?
The former (i.e., they shoot like a squad of troops).

39. When a model engages a vehicle that is unable to fight back (i.e. has no weapons skill) in close combat, he is entitled to one strike for each attack in his profile. Is he allowed extra attacks for situations that increase the number of dice he rolls? I'm thinking specifically of having a second close combat weapon, but this would also include frenzy and the "Bionic Leg" and "Servo Arm" wargear card.
Yes.

40. Does it matter which way the turret is facing on a vehicle when the rules say that the closest squad or vehicle must be targeted? For example, a Chimera turns its turret to the rear of the tank so that its multi-laser can fire at a squad of 4 Warp Spiders 15 inches away, while its hull mounted heavy bolter fires at a squad of 7 Howling Banshees 10 inches away and neither squad can claim cover. Some of our gamers believe that the turret has to face forward to the Banshees because they are the closest squad within the turret's 360 field of fire; while others believe that a tank's turret is like a model with a heavy weapon and should be able to fire in the direction to which its turned up to a 90 degree fire arc.
The latter (i.e. fire in the direction to which its turned up to a 90 degree fire arc). (Ed -- you can turn a turret on overwatch, but you don't have to)

41. Can the lone driver of a vehicle (biker or jet biker; squat trike driver) throw a grenade from the saddle?
Yes.

42. Can a vehicle get shot at in a forest? From how far away?
There are no hard and fast rules for this; You'll have to decide for yourself based on the density of woods being used.

43. Does a Hunter-Killer missile require LOS to fire?
Yes.

44. When a Land Speeder or Jet Bike makes a pop up attack does it get -1 for moving over 10"(12" move up) or a -2 for moving over20"(24" total movement up and down) or no bonus at all? And if making pop-up attacks does get a bonus do Ravenwing get their additional -1 to hit bonus?
No bonus's apply at all, not even for the Ravenwing.