We ran into a question in a game and I’d like to see other opinions.
I had charged Satixys into melee adjacent to a Exemplar Bastion while going for a light jack. The exemplars have the rule “Defensive Strike” which lets them immediately make an attack against a unit thst ends in melee range.
The question is since charge is a power attack that combines movement and attack would the full charge resolve or would the defensive strike trigger when the units move.
We played it they got the attack but would love the opinions.
So, a Charge attack isn’t actually a Power Attack. It does combine your movement and action, but they both resolve separately still. So you would move in, and then once all members of the unit are in place, Defensive Strike would occur.
Specifically, the charge movement and combat action are still separate actions. See “unit charges” under the charges section. Models complete their movement then must use their combat action to make initial melee attacks or special attacks with melee weapons
Now, there are 2 separate times you can use defensive strike during the unit’s movement. Once, with the initial charging model, and once after all other models in the unit are placed. This is due to how unit movement works
This allows you to attack the initial charging model and kill it. Now, in doing so a second model can be chosen to start the movement anew if the first was killed, but if this was the only model from the unit in range of a charge you have effectively prevented the charge from landing
Correcting a bit what SilentMunk said. This has been ruled that there is no window to use defensive strike between moving the charging model and placing the rest of the unit.
