Short Version: Can a trooper that does not have Dual Attack or any other similar ability ever make ranged initial attacks, ranged special attacks, or arcane special attacks/actions, after being placed as a result of a charge?
Long Version: There have already been other threads related to this topic, but invariably they either veer off topic and start discussing other variables/abilities/nuances or devolve into bickering about how grammar works and thrusting the same screenshots into each others’ faces.
I don’t need anyone to rehash their arguments from before, and I don’t need anyone to tag @elswickchuck for me (look, I already did it). I’m really only interested in an answer from the Infernals’/developers’ perspective as to how this works and, if it doesn’t seem to align with how it’s written, maybe clarified wording in the rules at a later date. Lord knows the question keeps getting asked, so…here we go.
The two highlighted clauses above appear to be checked at the same time. Another thread indicates that they are checked after all troopers in the unit are placed, but prior to any other “when a model ends its movement” or “when a model is placed” triggers, such as Admonition, Defensive Strike, etc.
If a trooper is placed and at that moment there are no enemies in its melee range, it seems straightforward that it must forfeit its Combat Action that activation.
If a trooper is placed and at that moment there are enemies in its melee range, it seems that it’s then obligated, once it makes its Combat Action, to choose either initial melee attacks or a special attack with a melee weapon.
What happens, then, if a trooper is placed and at that moment there are enemies in its melee range, but when the time comes to make that trooper’s Combat Action, it no longer has enemies in its melee range? They could have been destroyed, moved via some effect, or whatever.
Reading the clause in yellow, it seems the trooper is obligated to make a Combat Action choice that it cannot follow through with, and so it makes no attacks - including no ranged or arcane attacks, or other special actions. For models that lack an ability to make both melee and ranged attacks, or both melee and arcane, being compelled to make initial melee attacks (which it has no valid targets for) is not technically the same as forfeiting its Combat Action, but has the same basic outcome.
So, thoughts from the official source?