Skirmishing rules in WHFantasy

[MaximumTaco]

Hey everyone, just a quick question.

From the RAW in Warhammer Fantasy, it looks like any time you have two units of skirmishers fighting each other, you are obligated to spread them both out to the maximum distance possible (i.e. might end up with a fight fifteen models wide) as the fight begins.

Situation is similar to this:


XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX
XXXXX

YYYYY
YYYYY
YYYYY


X being Beastmen skirmishers, and Y being a unit of wardancers.

From the RAW, it looks like we have to create this:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

for our fight. This seems really at odds with how the rest of the system works, and we're looking for some clarification. Any help?

It sucks for the beastmen being charged since they lose their rank bonus, but it's awkward for everyone because the units end up in a huge line. Is this how skirmishers vs skirmishers is intended to work? I should add that I know the length of the line is limited by their charge move, but they started about 2 inches apart (due to an overrun on the previous turn) and the assaulting Wardancers had ten inches of move to use up. Help!

-MaximumTaco

[LordVader]

Raiders got nerfed anyways, as ranks are five wide, but you have a valid point. I'm not sure.:smallconfused:

[Erloas]

The beastmen skirmishers have a special rule that has them rank up, so they would rank up in accordance with that rule.

I know the FAQ about the 7th edition rule change from 4 wide to 5 wide for a rank said it doesn't allow the beastmen raiders to rank up in 5 wide, but personally so long as you are playing with friends and not a tournement then I would change their rules to be 5 wide. The reason (I believe) that they didn't change the 4 wide to 5 wide for the beastmen rule is that they have said on many occasions that the army rulebook rules override the core rule book rules and they don't like making backwards changes in that reguard. There are also a lot of little things that should be changed in many of the army books with the new expansion but they don't want to go through and fix and rebalance every army via FAQ/Errata when they are going to be completely redoing every army book anyway in the near future. It is a stupid ruling in the FAQ in terms of gameplay, but it is based on precidence rather then gameplay. I can 100% guarentee that if the raider rule still works the same way when BoC gets updated that the updated rule will also have them 5 wide.


To answer your question though, if you have 2 skirmisher units fighting (with the exception of ones like raiders with special rules) then they line up with the most models in combat that could reach in the charge. If they are very close like in your example then yes, they would line up a single rank deep so that every model got to fight.