Can you intentionally split up a unit to cover more area?

[Lord_Skrolk]

For example, say I have a line of 20 Clanrats screening in front of my army within 1" of each other. In my move phase, could I intentionally move the ones at the end of the line further apart to screen off more area, so they have 2" between them or something?

There is the rule that the end of the round, you have to slay any models that aren't in coherency. But if it's a screening unit that will probably die that round anyway, could be a great tradeoff. I plan as if none of my 3x20 Clanrats will survive the first turn anyway, like any Skaven general should

I'm surprised more people don't intentionally break coherency to screen, am I missing something? 

[TheMuphinMan]

Its turn not round. So if you could split in your movement phase, during your battle shock phase you would lose half your rats, before your opponents can move/charge unless they have something to let them charge during your turn. Although its moot point because the core rules under movement phase says you must end with everything as one group.

[Kevlar1972]

I have done it to get more models into combat on a charge.  Charge two separate enemy units knowing that you are going to suffer some casualties on the back end.  Just pull your casuaties from the smaller detachment that charged out of coherency.  There is no rule against it, though it is odd that you can choose to remove models from an entirely different combat. 

[King Taloren]

The core rules  are explicit that you must stay in coherency when you move they must all end their move within an 1” of another model in the same unit or 6” vertically if they are climbing something. But you cannot attemp to move purposefully to split or the move fails

[Kevlar1972]

18 minutes ago, King Taloren said:

The core rules  are explicit that you must stay in coherency when you move they must all end their move within an 1” of another model in the same unit or 6” vertically if they are climbing something. But you cannot attemp to move purposefully to split or the move fails

I didn't realize that applied to charges and pile ins.

 

Guess that leaves you in a strange position where you can't even pile in if you are out of coherence since you have to move towards the closest enemy model and then you couldn't move back into coherency.  That makes attacks that target individual models pretty overpowered.  Break coherency on an engaged unit and they can't even pile in to fight back.  All they can do is retreat or die.

[Choombatta]

You can only lose coherency due to casualty removal. You cannot willingly end any movement without coherency, and if you start a phase not in coherency, you cannot move at all unless such movement will bring you back into coherency.

So in short, this tactic cannot be employed at all in game.

[King Taloren]

9 minutes ago, Choombatta said:

You can only lose coherency due to casualty removal. You cannot willingly end any movement without coherency, and if you start a phase not in coherency, you cannot move at all unless such movement will bring you back into coherency.

So in short, this tactic cannot be employed at all in game.

Yups if you lose coherency during combat or shooting because of your own casualty removals and then do not try to move back into such or can’t you then lose those models but there is no way to purposefully end any moves out of coherency. 

 

There is a way to pile in back to coherency potentially because GW has been very forgiving about move toward closest enemy units unless you are base locked. Just use ones further on your backlin unless you spread out all the way across the engagement 

[Lord_Skrolk]

Thanks for the feedback! Seems like the answer is clearly no. 

As a Skaven player, I couldn't resist my cheating instincts I guess haha