7th Ed. A fanatical question

Here is the situation:

I wanted to charge a giant with my cold ones, and such a charge would have brought me within 8" of a night goblin unit which I had a strong feeling bunked 3 fanatics.

In order to avoid having 3 fanatics slam into my cold ones (not a nice sight), I decared a charge with a lone terradon on the night goblins prior to declaring a charge with the cold ones. (note: the distance between the 2 was circa 23" and my opponent went in fits at this point telling me that I can't charge since I 'know' that the distance is greater than 20" - i did have my doubts on the range but I was hopeful that I would reach...)

Anyways, in the move chargers phase I moved the terradon and upon entering close proximity to the night goblins, my opponent released the fanatics. However, he did not release them towards the terradon (which was the whole purpose of the charge) but rather moved them in front of the giant, and therefore in the path of the cold ones.

My question is this... can fanatics, when their night goblin unit is being charged , be released in a direction other than towards the charging unit or first unit to come within 8"?

 

Unfortunately, yes they can. I have tried several times to throw fanatics straight into woods that their unit is next to, but my opponent just sends them out a different way. At least they actually are released.

You probably know this, but it is against the rules to declare a charge that you know is out of range, when it is kinda close and looks like it might be in range you are ok to charge, so unless your opponent or you premeasured there shouldn't have been any trouble with 23" or so. Doing that is no dirtier than sending all his fanatics the way of the giant rather than at least one towards the terradon which set them off in the first place.

 

in the rules of fanatics it says (that they can be released in any direction from any point on the unit and move 2D6") so as long as he rolled big enough to get there then he was completly allowed to do that

sorry tough break

 

Yeah I know that declaring a charge when you know that you are out of range is illegal. However, this rule is rather lame, though I can see its use, since it is practically impossible to determine whether a person 'knows' for sure that he is out of range. The only time you know the range for certain is at the beginning of the battle when the armies have to be 24" apart. Other than that, it is everybody's guess I believe.

As regards to the answer, thanks strewart and lupercal, though it is really strange that they may be sent in any direction since baiting techniques won't work. I hate fanatics!

 

Well if you have Dwarfs I am pretty sure that there are plenty of cases after turn 1 where you are sure they can't charge.

It very rarely even matters since you can just move the unit the same distance as a failed charge anyway, GW brought it in after the last Skaven book where the warp lightning cannon has to flee if a charge is declared on it, anything on turn 1 could say bye bye WLC. It has the odd advantage when you declare a charge to get a unit out of the way for another unit, but mostly it hardly makes a difference anyway.

And yeah fanatics are a pain in the arse... I usually just accept that something is going to die to get them out, and try to release them as early in the game as possible so they are more likely to hit my opponents army than they are to hit mine. And they almost always do decimate the opponent as much as me, quite a pain when they block charges though.

 

I'm really curious how folks deal with these little #$%&#*!.

Stewart gave his usual process:

Anyone else have a way to deal with these? They are destroyed if their unit flees, but the little punks have a leadership 10... which means they give their concealing unit a leadership 10 until they are released, right?

If the above is correct, then trying to clear them out with a Terror Steggy charge wouldnt work. Heck, even a panic test from ranged isnt going to be likely to cause them to flee.

 

On declaring charges: Our stance (our gaming group) is that you are on your honor to not declare a charge that you know you can't complete. However, a 23" charge declaration for flyers doesn't sound unreasonable at all. As we all know, smaller distances are easier to judge because of the close proximity of the models. Longer distances take a bit more guesswork to judge. It's too bad your opponent 'freaked out' on the charge declaration like that.


On hidden leadership of fanatics, I'm not able to site the rules in this particular case, but I will speak from experience (our host is an avid O&G player for 15+ years). I've never seen him cite a rule such as this. He uses fanatics from time to time and never is making a leadership test on 10, wether or not it's panic, terror or anything else.


On how to deal with fanatics: I try and trigger them early so that I can kill them with blowpipes, watch them crash through the enemy line or watch them strangle themselves. They are usually better at killing O&G models than lizardmen if you play carefully, but once again, it's all luck. I've found that running skink skirmishers or a small unit of cohorts will usually do the trick to trigger them. I don't usually declare a charge but will just get my unit into the 8" rule, forcing them out. It seems like the earlier I pop them out, the better I fare against them as their not messing up a charge (like in Aran's example) that I really need to have happen.

 

No the fanatics definitely don't provide Ld10 to the unit, that would be just crazy if they did.. They are actually hidden, so if an opponent sprung up and said 'Ld10!' you would know exactly where the fanatics are. I've never heard of anyone trying to use fanatic leadership.

So shooting or magic is a viable tactic to make them panic, the reason I didn't mention it was because LM don't really have the shooting to do it. Skinks are likely to be in fanatic range if you try to shoot them. A salamander might be a nice choice with his auto-panic though. The problem I find with shooting is you are wasting lots of shooting and possibly magic on this otherwise horrible goblin unit (hell my chariots regularly beat them from the front alone) when the fanatics could just as easily kill enemies as friends. I would much rather use my valuable shooting on more predictably dangerous targets like giants, black orcs and orc boar riders.

Also, there is no way I would try to get a steg to terror them. If it doesn't work, you are going to have 2-3 fanatics going full pelt at your stegadon and probably destroying it. The steg is several hundred points, fanatics are a mere 25 points each remember. Definitely send the cheapest thing possible their way and try to keep your expensive units well clear.

 

My way of dealing with Fanatics is very simple... Ally with an Empire player and let his units take all the pain.
He also takes some small units of millitia armed with pistols to blast the Fanatics later.

Also in my experience when the goblins do some how manage to release Fanatics at my Lizards, their new and improved armour save (Thank you, Robin & Andy) usually means they can shrug off the pain and still have enough numbers to pulverise the unfortunate goblin unit.


Hope this helps, Bez

P.S. I know that in 5th edition we had the better armour save and that they made it worse in 6th, but I'm still grateful that we got the better one back.

 

most O@G players i have played tend to keep their units of gobbos together with that in mind sacrifice a unit of terries send them close let them release their fanantics then let them march through them you can usually get your terries within 8" of the 2 units of gobbos that are holding them and as been seaid before they will usually kill more orcs and gobbos than enemies so i figure let them