Rules questions

[Seahawk]

A couple questions came up as we were going through the paces today.

1. I have two ships (A and B). Ship A launches its as-yet-unlaunched boarding craft over to Ship B to help in a boarding action. A turn passes. May I now send back any/all boarding craft to other ships? In other words, if you launch a boarding craft, is it stuck to whatever ship you launched it at now forever, or can it (in following turns) move off and do whatever it wants?


2. Covenant Defense Arrays. What does it apply to? It says all enemy Attacks. What constitutes an attack? Any attack roll? We thought it was starting to get ridiculous to be able to use Defense Arrays not only against incoming fire, but also basically anything else where a defending dice pool is generated (hell, it even works against asteroids). So, can we build an exhaustive list for all situations it is usable? Correct me if I'm wrong of course, but here's a first draft list:

- Wings Phase
-- Point Defense dice pool for shooting down fighters
-- Defense Dice pool for preventing damage from the attack run
- Battlegroup Phase
-- Defense dice pool for preventing damage from terrain
-- Defense dice pool for preventing damage from attacks
-- Point Defense dice pool for shooting down boarding craft
- Boarding Phase
-- Defense dice pool for determining Boarding Action winner

3. Finally, if Boarding Craft are expelled into space, can it be done in such a manner as that its 4" move lands it on another friendly ship, thereby waiving the Heroic Save requirement?

[Quickdraw]

Note: I do not have access to the rulebook, so take this with a grain of salt (and then maybe landlubber or another forum-ite can step in if I'm wrong).

1. I believe the only way for a boarding craft token to move from a ship is in either aggressive or defensive boarding assault.  So, once a boarding craft is on a ship it can only launch to an enemy ship, or to a friendly ship with enemy boarding craft.

2. From my understanding of Defense Arrays, they are always active anytime there is a defense dice pool generated.

3. For some reason I feel like I recall a small line in the rulebook strictly forbidding this, but I could be wrong. A boarding craft could be expelled directly next to a friendly ship, and then immediately move onto that ship, but due to the phase breakdown it will be required to make the heroic save.

Again, I might be completely wrong. I thought I would give a crack at it anyways. I feel like I want to stay up on my Halo rules knowledge. So for the love of my ego, put me down gently if I am.

[Landlubber]

Hi Seahawk-

I'm by no means an expert, but I have played several games of Halo, so I'll take a crack at answering your questions.

1. If this is a FRIENDLY boarding action, I'm not sure. I haven't ever encountered that issue (and I don't have the rulebook sitting in front of me). You might consider posing that question in the Spartan forums, but when you do make sure you explain (if I'm understanding you correctly) that you're talking about sending boarding craft to a friendly element to assist in defense against an aggressive boarding assault. I think they have an FAQ thread on their forum, you might want to peruse that because this question may have come up already.

In an AGGRESSIVE boarding action, after the boarding fight has been resolved and if the aggressor still has boarding craft on the enemy ship, you can elect to extract those boarding craft. However, if you do so, you have to be able to get to a friendly element that has room to take on the number of craft you're try to extract (so it has to be within 12"), and that friendly element cannot be under an enemy boarding assault. If you do try to extract, the enemy element you are leaving gets a point defense attack against you just like when you were inbound to board.

2. Covenant Defense Arrays (DAs) apply to all incoming fire, whether it is from enemy battlegroups or enemy wing formations. If the incoming fire is missiles (or if you're playing a Covenant-on-Covenant match, plasma torpedoes), then you would roll your DA and your Point Defense (PD) dice together in one combined roll (as opposed to other Spartan Games systems, where you would roll them separately). In the case of defending against enemy wings, you would fire your PD first, then the UNSC player would remove any wing tokens killed by the PD, then he would roll his attack dice against the element, then you would roll your DA. DAs will not help you against boarding craft; you can only use PD against incoming boarding craft. I do not know if DAs will help in a terrain collision, again it's a situation I've not yet encountered. I *think* that is covered in the rulebook. I know colliding with terrain in H:FB carries a pretty hefty penalty. Also, just looking at your list below, PD and DA will not help you once enemy boarding craft are on your ship--at that point, you are relegated to rolling your Security Detail dice.

3. Again I don't have the rulebook in front of me, but I do know the rules for this are laid out in the book. In some cases, an expelled boarding craft will not have to take a Heroic Save check; they can move up to 6" after being expelled the standard 4", if that 6" would allow them to land on a friendly element that can accept them (i.e. is able to carry boarding craft and has space to carry the number of boarding craft expelled). I believe this is why the rules usually say the craft is expelled 4" in a direction determined by the ATTACKER, not the DEFENDER, thereby helping the attacker to possibly recover the craft. However, in some cases they WILL have to take that Heroic Save. But again, I'm pretty sure this is laid out in the book.

I've loaned my rulebook out to a friend, so I'm just answering the above based on my experience and recollection. If I've given you bad information, then please accept my apologies.