The wording means that you'd take a blast marker, make a charge move towards the nearest enemy formation, and if you land up out of Engagement range you just stall there.

So yes, failing activations to go grab objectives on turn 3 would suck.

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The reason for the "closest" and "b2b" bits is because otherwise there is no downside to the rule.

"Oh, I failed, so I have to engage. Well, I'll engage that formation on the other side of the board that I can't reach, and won't move anywhere. Your go."

Given that the upside of the rule is that you'll never fail an engagement order, there needs to be a serious downside. Plus it also fits in with the background of devastators going nuts and charging into close combat etc.

It's not at all easy for the enemy to bait, as it relies on 1+ initiative marines failing their activations. Any gameplan based around hoping marines fail to activate is not a good gameplan.

Yes the Engagement stalls after you complete your move.



A - To stop you moving away and stalling.
B - To make the curse (sometimes) a drawback, by forcing Devastators to CC, or Assault Marines to charge a Tyranid horde, etc. This "insanity" is a huge theme in the background, and it's what's driving the Blood Angels to extinction.


Same as a normal Engagement under those circumstances, you either go around the obstruction or it doesn't matter.

Could you explain what you mean here more clearly?


Treated as normal. The word "eligible" could be added to the "must engage" rule to clarify this.


"Easily" is an overstatement, I think. Terribly risky or wasteful if a "baiting" goes wrongly (As more than likely it will, considering the Initiative Rating of a Blood Angels army).

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So here's another preview version of 2.09 showing what the list would like like with that kind of a "Red Thirst" rule.

Note that Bike formations are back in, but with Scouts and more expensive to show their more elite (but rarer) role in Blood Angels armies.

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Good.

That serves as a drawback to the fact that Blood Angels will never be able to fail to Engage an enemy formation if they want to do so.

And as a drawback to their faster Rhinos.
And as a drawback to their cool new tanks and aircraft.


You cannot just "Give, Give, Give" or you end up with "Really Awesome Marines who happen to wear red".

There must be a drawback to balance all the buffs.

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And the Epic turn sequence being the way it is, "baiting" in the manner you suggest will be damned hard to do.

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Engage actions are rare.. But Engaging is the most effective way to remove an enemy formation, and quite often it's the only way to effectively take out a large War Engine. If you spend a turn setting up an Engagement which could take out there War Engine or BTS (Which normally will be 3 or 4 formations activating to support with FF, put BMs on the enemy etc) failing can effectively put you in a very bad situation next turn, waste a lot of activation and cost you their BTS and a Activation swing in your favour.

Therefore though Engaging might not be as common as Doubling, passing when you do need to engage is much more important.

If there are no enemy on the table you get a single move (presumably in any direction) and you stall, as per the standard rules.
Alternately could have a line that says "If no enemy are on the board you Hold instead"

If you're an aircraft you stand down because you can't engage. As normal. Again, can clarify.


Me. To balance a worse Hold (rare considering they generally don't fire on a retain), now I can drive 105cm to grab objectives in turn 3 instead of 90cm, that's great!


One unit cannot b2b two enemy units without exceptional circumstances.


85pts *IS* a pain I agree.

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And it's also fairly representative of the fact that the BA are crazy.

If their opponents notice and take advantage of that, that's rather appropriate. At least, I'd think so.

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Well looking at the Wh40k rules as written the Red Thirst does the following:
You roll a D6 for every unit with the Red Thirst special ability (only Infantry units have this abillity!) at the start of the game. If you roll a 1 the unit suffers from the Red Thirst.
Units suffering from the Red Thirst loose ATSKNF and gain Fearless (won't run from a lost HtH combat but suffer extra but saveable hits if they loose the HtH combat) and Furious Charge (enables them to hit more early and stronger in HtH combat if they charge).

Taking this into account i would make Red Thirst a special abillity (whoch i would give all Infantry units) and not an army wide specialrule.
This special ability could look something like this:

Red Thirst
If a formation is being assaulted units with the Red Thirst ability have to countercharge into base contact if possible. Also a formation containing units with theRed Thirst ability looses ATSKNF during Assaults but gains a +1 Assault Modifier* due to the ferocity of their assault. Also casualties suffered from the assault resolution roll can be saved as if they where generic hits.

*Variant could be that they only gain the +1 Assault Modifier if they initiate the Assault and/or have units in base contact.

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