Topic: Another Lance and FBIGO discussion

[PowerSeries]

Q: When can a model use a lance?
A: During any turn in which it charged or counts as having charged.

I've prepared a diagram from the FAQ 1.1 answer.  Perhaps it will help.

[Mike Stockin]

 

[Skyros]

The switching weapon rules don't even come into it.

For the most part yes, since we switch weapons only at the beginning of a round of combat. If a lance armed cavalry unit continually breaks or FBIGO's its opponent on the charge, it will never switch away from the lances, and can just keep using them.

But you aren't allowed to switch weapons in between rounds of combat, so there is a very unlikely edge case where not being able to switch weapons could come up.
So, if a cavalry unit wielding lances charged an enemy and they held, in the next player turn, since the cavalry unit did not charge, it must switch to hand weapons. Let's say in this turn somehow it did break the enemy unit (very unlikely to break them with hand weapons, if you didn't break them with lances) and the enemy fell back in good order, the knights pursued, and caught them. Normally they could use their lances, as it's a charge, but they have already switched to hand weapons and so cannot switch back. But if they still had their lances equipped they could use those.

[Skyros]

Q: When can a model use a lance?
A: During any turn in which it charged or counts as having charged.

I've prepared a diagram from the FAQ 1.1 answer.  Perhaps it will help.

Yep, that's all there is to it.

[PowerSeries]

The switching weapon rules don't even come into it.

For the most part yes, since we switch weapons only at the beginning of a round of combat. If a lance armed cavalry unit continually breaks or FBIGO's its opponent on the charge, it will never switch away from the lances, and can just keep using them.

But you aren't allowed to switch weapons in between rounds of combat, so there is a very unlikely edge case where not being able to switch weapons could come up.
So, if a cavalry unit wielding lances charged an enemy and they held, in the next player turn, since the cavalry unit did not charge, it must switch to hand weapons. Let's say in this turn somehow it did break the enemy unit (very unlikely to break them with hand weapons, if you didn't break them with lances) and the enemy fell back in good order, the knights pursued, and caught them. Normally they could use their lances, as it's a charge, but they have already switched to hand weapons and so cannot switch back. But if they still had their lances equipped they could use those.

I like the reasoning.  I think it is correct.  However, I do think the FAQ is very clear,  and overrides the mechanical rules in this special case of lances.  I suppose they could have spelled it out with some special rules allowing you to switch from lances to hand weapons if you get a charge in an ongoing combat, and let that dictate the outcome, but instaed they chose to just tell us straight the entire condition.

[Skyros]

I'm fine with that reasoning too. Lances already kind of have a built in 'exception' to the normal rules about weapon switching, and if the FAQ answer is to be read as 'There's always time to change back to lances if you have time to charge', I'm fine with that as well. It's not explicitly spelled out, but it can be inferred.

After all, they didn't say "You can use lances if you count as charging *and already have lances equipped*"

[commandant]

It is an interesting FAQ for this argument as it confirms that

A: counts-as-X =/= X (i.e. counts-as-armour does not equal armour and counts-as-charging =/= charging.)

And also;

B: you can use a lance when you count as charging.

Thereby making everyone happy