characters on the 2nd rank

I have been running a unit of ironguts with bellower and standard.  In that unit, I usually also place my BSB and my Slaughtermaster - who goes into the 2nd rank b/c there is no room for him on the front rank.  This is explicitly covered in the BRB. 

Question 1 (which I think is a freebie): Can that SM legally cast any gut magic spell from the second rank?  My buddy had real problems with this the other day and I could not come up with a way to justify him using spells from the second rank from anywhere in the BRB.  I've played 8 other games using this setup and noone else has ever questioned it, but I still would like to have a way to justify it, because, let's face it, that is a nasty, nasty setup.

Question 2 (a little more interesting):  My Irongut unit got whittled down to just the muso, SB, BSB, and SM on the second rank.  If I then took more wounds, would the wounds now come off of the SM since he is on the second rank?  This didn't make much sense to me either since the attacks were directed toward the unit, but this guy really wanted my SM to die.  But he kept pressing the issue and once again I could find nothing in the BRB that would satisfy him.  I would assume that the next wounds the unit took would come off of the muso, then the SM would be forced to move to the front rank and make himself a viable target if the muso also fell.

so what should i do?
A) keep on killing fools and stop worrying about desperate attempts to twist the rules
B) succumb to these questions and start doing whatever my opponent says for me to do
C) make a friendlier list so I don't have to listen to whining
D) just dont ever play this one dude again

The Butcher can cast at any model that he can see. This literally means that if you have a laser pointer, and you stick it directly over/next to the SM's head in the second rank, any model in his front arc that you can shine that laser onto is a valid target. It's "True Line of Sight".

And that's just for the spells that specificly require LoS to cast. Gut Magic buffs do not require LoS. So yeah, your SM is rock solid in the second rank. I take a very similar tactic.

As for the unit, unit wounds never carry over to characters. If all the rank and file are dead, then wounds go to the Musician, once he's dead the Banner, and once he's dead the Champion. Even if your opponent puts 9000 wounds on the champion, the characters remain uninjured.

-Rick

I ran into the same question with LOS, but in a different way.  The person who I was playing was much more experienced in WFB, so I did not argue at the time, since I could not find it in the book..  He stated under 8th ed a character in second rank can use all spells, that they always have LOS.  Basically he applied the rule for second rank archers as proof.  I understand the rule of ranged units as being possible because the first rank drops to a knee to fire, essentially.  In a infantry unit, such as ironguts, the first rank would not be dropping to a knee for any reason outside of close combat.  So a SM in the second rank should only be able to shoot a magic missle if he has true line of sight, imhp.  Is there any valid argument to the contrary?  A SM telling an irongut to duck, or something? 

It may be silly arguing against a ruling in my favor, however I want a squeeky clean win that I feel good about.


~crowbait~

The second rank of archers firing is covered under the Volley rule. Casting has no such rule.

-Rick

The second rank of archers firing is covered under the Volley rule. Casting has no such rule.

-Rick

volley rule covers shooting from ranks behind the second rank - all units can fire in 2 ranks.

anyone shooting from the second rank uses the LoS of the model in front of it - and magic missiles are stated to behave exactly like shooting attacks for this purpose.

a slaughtermaster in the second rank can fire magic missiles as long as a LoS can be drawn from the model in front of him to teh target.  range is still measured from the caster.

Perfect, thanks.

Nice catch!

-Rick

Even better a Butcher can take the Bloodcleaver and heal all his wounds from Gut Magic with supporting attacks from the safety of the second rank!

Bloodcleaver is looking good although many other new toys to tool our characters with.

what i also do is have the BSB with a Brace of Handguns in the second rank so he shoots with impunity and cannot get hit until the mass of bulls are dead.

It also makes Bretonnian Damsels in lance formation useful again.