Barrage

These weapons can saturate a wide area of the battlefield with intense salvoes or giant explosions.

The more closely packed the units of the target detachment, the more effective Barrage weapons are likely to be against it. This is simply because the barrage will have more target units within its area of effect.

When you make a Barrage shot:

  1. Place a Barrage template in the standard way, but with these additional considerations:

    • Place only a single template, no matter how many Barrage units in your detachment contribute to the attack.

    • Place the template so that it is completely within range and line of fire of all of the Barrage units that contribute to the attack.

      You may opt to exclude some Barrage units from the attack, but you may not make any separate attack with them against the same target detachment.

    • Cover as many units in the target detachment as possible.

  2. Count the number of units of the target detachment that are under the template. This number is the Firepower value that each Barrage unit contributes to the total Firepower that your detachment directs at the target detachment.

When you place Blast markers, Barrage weapons contribute to your detachment’s total Firepower, but not to the number of super-heavy weapons.

It still takes only a single Blast marker to suppress a Barrage weapon though, just like any other super-heavy weapon.
Barrage and intermingled detachments under the template

After you place the template to cover as many units in the target detachment as possible, it may be that the template also covers some units from another detachment.

Make a separate count of the number of units of the other detachment that are under the template. After you have resolved the attack against the target detachment, use the separate count to resolve the attack against the other detachment, as if it were a separate attack.
Example 1. A classic Barrage unit

The Space Marine Whirlwind armoured vehicle is armed with a Whirlwind missile launcher. What this vehicle lacks in range it can make up for in speed and the ability to rain a destructive barrage of missiles down onto an area of the battlefield.

Example 2. Adding up Barrage Firepower

You shoot with three Space Marine Whirlwind units at an Ork Warband detachment. This target detachment is partially intermingled with a Kult of Speed detachment.

One Barrage template that covers Ork Infantry and Vehicle units
Figure 1. Adding up Barrage Firepower. Numbered rectangles are Ork Boyz units; solid circles are Gunwagon units; semi-opaque circles are Barrage templates. Green units are in the Ork Warband detachment; red units are in the Kult of Speed detachment.

You place one Barrage template for all three Whirlwinds.

In total, the template covers three units from the target detachment:

  • The template covers Ork Boyz (1) and (2), and the Gunwagon.

  • Ork Boyz (3) is not covered by the template because their centre is not under the template.

  • Ork Boyz (4) is in a different detachment, the Kult of Speed — so we make a separate count to resolve the attack against that detachment.

So, against the target detachment, each Whirlwind adds 3 Firepower to the total for your detachment’s attack. As the Whirlwinds have no other help, the total is 9 Firepower against the Ork Warband detachment.

After you resolve that, you also resolve the attack against the Kult of Speed detachment. Each Whirlwind contributes 1 Firepower in this case, for a total of 3 Firepower.

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