Had a game where models where on opposite sides of a wall and had no line of sight. My opposition called a charge and I disputed, saying he should have had line of sight. He said he just need to be within range. We solved it with a one handed knife fight. What’s a better way to resolve this next time?
N18 Can you charge a target you can’t see?
- Thread starter Waddeesay
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I hope your opposition won the knife fight because you can absolutely charge a model that isn't in LOS. The only gamble is whether or not the charging model will have enough move with the charge roll to make it into engaged or versatile range.
I keep thinking of another movie but Band of Brothers works. 
I don't mean to make light of your question; its just that I started seeing movie scenes in my head related to it.
I don't mean to make light of your question; its just that I started seeing movie scenes in my head related to it.
It's not directly explained, but it does result from the wording of the movement and charge rules. When declaring a charge, RAW, there is no requirement for declaring a target. Charge is just a special type of move, which has to end in base contact with enemy fighter to succeed. It is not very clear, but that is generally true about most necromunda rules.
AFAIK, it’s more by omission than inclusion. It doesn’t say you have to have LOS, just that you need to be able to move within 1”. Shooting and ranged attacks (eg psychic powers) explicitly state you need LOS.
Regarding justifications, our group sees it as the fighters know roughly where their enemies are in a battle, whether through sound, guesswork, smell(?!), or whatever, even if they can’t see each other all the time. The only time fighters don’t know there’s enemies around is when you use the sentry rules.
You need to be able to charge someone you can’t see or it would be physically impossible to engage someone who just circled around a single pillar while shooting you every turn.
Yeah no need to inventing new ways of nerfing charges. To say that it isn't known that an enemy is there is an assumption. An equal assumption would be that it is known that the fighter is there. In either case this game (and most others I've played) doesn't take this level of detail into account. Would be some heavy book-keeping to keep track of which fighters know where any other fighter is at all times.
What other games require LOS to charge? I'm sure older games like 2nd edition 40k or original Necromunda could have something like it, but haven't seen it in any modern games for ages.
What other games require LOS to charge? I'm sure older games like 2nd edition 40k or original Necromunda could have something like it, but haven't seen it in any modern games for ages.
You could argue that the "balancing" for not requiring LoS is that you can't measure before you declare that you're charging, and the distance is random.
IIRC Mordheim required an Initiative test in order to charge someone you cannot see, so it wasn't automatic but was possible.
That's right, the old systems relied on Initiative. Either as a test or as range. This lived on until Shadow War Armageddon I think, that game was basically the old way. Haven't seen it since. Not in Kill Team, Underworlds, Cursed City or several other games (including some non-GW games).
I should clarify, the model had never been in line of sight, had never been in the open, always behind cover.
If you need to see the target of a charge then they can see you, so you'll always get shot and pinned and will not be able to charge without some fancy agility skill. That would be a pretty terrible game mechanic for anyone playing CC gangs like corpse grinders etc. I think the shooty gangs are already a little OP without adding an extra hurdle.
And how should the rules should handle that differently from the example given circling around a single pillar?
I don't know. I might be asking the wrong question and looking for too much reality in the game play. I was a little frustrated at the time because I'd moved my guy in to a spot, thinking with some mish mash of old rules floating around in my head, that no model had line of sight to him at any stage. He only moved. How could they know he was there to charge him?
I'm wondering now if it was some old house rules or something, but it was how we played where I was living... around 20 years ago...?
I understand your frustration here, when my group play we’re always engaged in fairly healthy dialogue with stuff like this. The charging thing hasn’t come up, but we definitely talk things over like ‘I’m moving this guy here where he’s out of LOS from your guy with heavy Bolter (or whatever) there, right?’ Then we can both agree that ‘yes they’re out of LOS’ or ‘actually i reckon it’s only hard cover.’
Edit: the charging thing actually hasn’t come up because we have it in our house rules that ‘you can charge a fighter out of LOS,’ just so everyone is clear.
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The NCE rules specify that you don't need LoS. That's an addition to the original rules, but I think just a clarification rather than a change (you don't need LoS because nothing ever said that you do). But you can't charge a hidden target.
I think the assumption is that you know roughly where enemies are (from fleeting glimpses, noises, even infra-red scanners), even if you can't see them at a given moment.
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