The Evils of Snap Fire and a bit of Black Templars

A new mechanic for 6th edition as we all know by know allows weapons to be fired more often thanks to Snap Fire. In the old edition if you moved a heavy weapon you would not be able to fire it, think of it as having to reset the weapons firing platform or changing the complex targeting algorithms to get an accurate shot off. While this aspect of the rule sounds very handy and allows players to get their points worth out of a weapon, even if it is hitting on 6s, there is one part that is just evil and that is being able to snap fire when getting charged.

 

As a player that uses assault based armies there is nothing worse that failing a charge because my closest model or two died to some lucky shots, or if you are playing against Tau a bunch of lucky shots. Don't get me wrong I love this rule, it is very cinematic and keeps you on the edge of your seat when rolling that 2d6 to charge. I do wish that there was some way for assault based units to also deliver some damage on the charge or mitigate the amount of fire thrown at them. 

Someone might argue that it is during the shooting phase that you are supposed to do your damage so that when the charge comes the potential to lose a model is a lot less. My counter to that would be you obviously don't know much about assaulting in the game because it is not uncommon to not want to shoot your opponent for fear of making that charge distance longer. What I would like to help balance this a bit for assault based units is smoke grenades, leadership tests, return snap fire, and removing casualties once models are placed in base to base.

Smoke Grenades: The assaulting unit tosses these babies out in front of them obscuring their advance. The assaulting unit would take dangerous but not difficult terrain tests since they may trip on something, but outside units (Tau) would not be able to fire at them for fear of hitting their own units. It would also offer a 5+ cover save to the advancing unit.

Leadership Tests: Mounting any sort of response to a dedicated charge can be a difficult thing to muster. I like to look at the snap fire rule as a shooting version of the counter charge rule which requires a leadership test. I do not see why one is considered more difficult than the other and should really be treated the same. This puts a little more focus on killing squad leaders since now the possibility to snap fire if one is killed would be one less.

Return Fire: Assaulting units are not just running along singing songs or bellowing curses as they run to chop people up, just like a defending unit is not sitting on its hands waiting for the charge. They are both trying to force the other side to keep their head down and prevent/make a successful charge. 

Removing Casualties After Base to Base:  Just let me complete my damn charge! My guy is all pumped up on adrenaline and he is not going to die until he collapses on top of the guys shooting at him. Sure I can put my sergeant up front and try to look out sir him to complete the charge but if I fail that on a 4+, 50/50 chance for those of us bad at maths, not only do I fail my charge I lose my fancy weapons and leadership. 

If the rumors are true that Black Templars will be able to be close combat beasts and remove models from snap fire after the first round of combat then you may well expect to see the boys in black coming in all sorts of colors, mostly red I would expect. I am very excited to see a foot slogging army on the table besides mine and some poor guys that run Deathwing. Let me give you what footslogging means to me; An army that has no vehicles that marches from one side of the board to the other in an attempt to get to grips with their foe. I do this with my Blood Angels every game and I wouldn't change it for any sort of vehicle. No, jump packs do not count as cheating ;). Along with rumors of cheaper and even more options for Land Raiders Black Templars could be a very powerful force on the field. Super cheap troops which could allow for a tide of black clad marines rushing across the board. I am not very well versed in Black Templar lore but all of the rumors point to their codex remaining fluff based and unique.

The rumors that are coming out currently makes me very excited about the future of assaulting armies and I can't wait to see what Blood Angels will get hopefully next year. (Sanguinary Guard heroic intervention please!!!!) Thanks for reading and have an Emperor Blessed day!