Hi all, had this scenario come up in a recent tournament. TO ruled it was legal for me to do but I wanted to make sure.
I had an Assimilator engaged in melee. I wanted to activate and use the Ground Pounder special attack and fire at things outside of melee. Would this be legal assuming I met all the LOS restrictions? I’d assume it would be ok since I’m not actually making targeted ranged attacks.
The only restriction is on targetting models with ranged attacks. Because Ground Pounder bypasses this it was ruled correctly.
Normally, an engaged attacker can only target enemy models engaging them:
As an example – although it is not relevant in this case – the Gunfighter advantage allows a model to shoot at other models besides those engaging it.
I actually can present (what I believe are equally valid) interpretations both for and against this working.
I’m going to tentatively err on the side of “Yes, this works because Ground Pounder provides a very specific way to resolve this attack. Because it is a special rule (see Model Special Rules), this overrides the standard rules for ranged attacks,” but I will add that it would be beneficial to have an Infernal or developer explicitly answer regarding intent.
This sounds like the Spriggan’s flares. To my knowledge people play it as the Spriggan being able to place flares 10" away even while engaged.
The notable difference is that Spriggan’s flares are not an attack in Mk4, unlike Ground Pounder that is still a *Attack on a ranged weapon, meaning that it is a ranged attack.
Good point. Although you do have to be able to make a ranged attack to use the flares.
Checking into it now
Ground pounder doesn’t specifically target so I’m assuming it’s legal.
The issue is that there are at least 3 different ways to read the same sentence with very different outcomes.
…can only make ranged attacks targeting enemy models engaging it.
Could read as:
A. The only attacks you can make are ranged attacks targeting enemy models engaging you.
This would mean you cannot make melee attacks when engaged so we can probably dismiss this one without much debate.
B. The only ranged attacks you can make are ones that target enemy models engaging you.
This would prevent ground pounder and any other ranged attacks that do not target. I don’t think is correct because energy pulse on the Storm Raptor seems designed to be used while in melee.
C. The only enemy models you can target with ranged attacks are the ones engaging you.
This would allow ground pounder as it bypasses the targeting restriction. This is also the one I feel is most likely to be the intent of the rule.
So we will have to wait for Chuck to clarify which reading is correct.
I see where the confusion is stemming from. I believe it’s still going to be the case of : You can make ranged attacks while engaged, therefore you can use groundpounder. Groundpounder says place a template instead of targeting a model. Roll on said models. No rules were inherently broken or overridden, because there was no targeting involved.
It’s not as simple. The rules say, verbatim:
can only make ranged attacks targeting enemy models engaging it.
It’s not a restriction to targeting, it says you cannot make ranged attacks except those that target the engaging model. If read literally, you would not be able to make ranged attacks against engaging models if said attacks don’t target those models.
You can all see why I went with a simple “I can make arguments for and against” statement. 
I had all of these points typed up and the whole answer got rather convoluted, which is why I suggested defering to an Infernal. 
It is still being checked into
Following this you also can’t spray out of melee and hit models not engaging you.
And weird ramifications like that are exactly why we need to wait for Chuck to finish checking. 
This should be incorrect. You must target a model you are engaged with, the spray still has you roll against everything the spray would hit. Nothing says you can’t hit models outside your melee, it’s just a targeting restriction.
You would think so but the Spray rules does not contain any strong allowance to ignore the general targeting rules and in this game can not overrides can.
If you spray something you are engaged with, the spray still has potential to hit things outside your melee. You cannot target those models, but you can for sure hit them. Being targeted and being hit are two independent things.
Folks, just wait for Chuck. 
Yea I agree with Michael here folks. I’m not gonna lock the thread or anything but lets get an answer to one question before we speculate on how similar rules might work.
