Rush Attack with Disable

[Talarius]

My opponent and I are both new to the game and have enjoyed it so far. Unfortunately we got in a major disagreement over how Rush Attack works: the wording for Disable specifies that attacks made as a Fight Action will Disable the Defensive Strikes of the target immediately. The Rush Attack SA says that it is conducted at the same time as Fight Actions, but isn't specifically described as a Fight Action itself. This resulted in quite a lot of confusion as to whether an Attacker with Rush Attack + Disable would or would not Disable the target.

 

What do you all think?

 

Thanks!

[Shakandara]

Yes, it does Disable the target. Let's look at the full text for the Rush Attack SA (bold is my emphasis):

 

"To use this SA, a model must use both a Move Action and a Charge Action (in that order). If at the end of the Charge Action the model is in B2B with an enemy model, this model makes a single melee attack against any one enemy model it is in B2B with. The defending model may not make more than one Defensive Strike against each Rush Attack model that attacked it with the Rush Attack. All regular melee rules and SAs still apply. This attack is resolved along with any other Fight Actions performed by other models during this Activation, as per usual combat rules."

 

Rush Attack is not an attack itself: it is a SA that allows (requires) you to perform a Move Action, followed by a Charge action, and still partitipate in a limited form of the Fight action. The attack generated from a Rush Attack is no different in its resolution than any other melee attack in a Fight action, except where the description of the SA notes (i.e. that the attacking model suffers at most a single defensive strike). The bolded section of the SA description is actually fairly clear on this point, including that it interacts with other SAs. However...

 

When we take a look at the Disabled model state (as opposed to the Disable SA):

 

"A model that has become Disabled suffers -1 #MA and -1 #RA until the end of its next Activation. A model may go below one melee attack offensively, but never defensively (i.e., Disabled models always get at least one Defensive Strike or Defensive Shot.)"

 

This means that even against a Rush Attacking, Disabling model, the defender always gets at least 1 Defensive Strike. Where the situation becomes slightly more complicated is when you involved multiple models with the Rush Attack and Disable SAs attacking a single model with a #MA of 2 or better. Since a single model can never have the same model state more than once (i.e. you cannot Disable the same model 2 or more times in the same activation), the maximum you can reduce the number of Defensive Strikes by is always 1. Rush Attack provokes no more than a single Defensive Strike against each model that is attacking, but since it also says that all normal melee rules still apply, the defending model gets no more Defensive Strikes than its #MA, regardless of how many models with Rush Attack engage it. Thus, a model with #MA 2 attacked by 2 Rush Attack models with Disable would only get 1 Defensive Strike against 1 of them if it is hit by either model (as the Disable would then reduce the #MA to 1, thus giving it only a single Defensive Strike to allocate). If, in the same situation, the defending model instead had #MA 3, it would still be able to swing at both models performing the Rush Attack, as the Disable would reduce it to #MA 2.

 

Also, remember that even though a Rush Attack model with Disable attacking a model with #MA 1 will still be subject to a Defensive Strike, the defender still becomes Disabled (assuming the attack hit), meaning that on its next activation, the Disabled model has no offensive strike.

 

~v

[Talarius]

Thanks very much for the detailed reply! We appreciate the assist. :)

[Shakandara]

No problems. Let us know if you run in to any other questions about SA interactions and such.

 

~v

[Stubbdog]

Hijacking the thread momentarily just to find out the general location your group is located at. It could be possible that a more experienced player could be near you..