Hello Everyone,

This is probably an obvious answer. I just could not fine a reference to it in the rules. Last night we were playing a game and collectively as a group we asked the question if you do not use your full move allocation before firing a weapon are you able to then spend the remaining amount to move afterwards as long as the total distance does not exceed your action allocated amount.

For example: Dark Eldar trooper spends a Half Action to move 4 m out of his 7 m maximum move. Could the Dark Eldar theoretically Move 4 m, fire a single shot of his weapon, then move 3 m back behind cover. Or once you have changed to a different action are you unable to finish a previous action?

I looked through the rules for a while to see if this was defined anywhere. If you could point me to page numbers that would be great!

Hmm their doesn't seem to be anything about it in the book, but I would say no. I would categorise it as two separate move-actions, so it has to be done either over two rounds or if you have the hip shooting ( DWcore p. 110).

Hip Shooting poses a similar problem though right? It just lets you move up to a full move and fire once. Something that would normally be impossible. With Hip Shooting would you be able to move part of that movement, fire, then finish the move? I guess so because it would be part of one Full Action correct?

Each action is independent of the others. If you move, you move, then you're movement is done whether you used it all or not. Then you fire.

A better illustration is ready actions vs knock down. Say you have a devastator with concussion missiles. He hits a carnifix and knocks it down. He then readies delays an action to shoot again. It stands up, declares a forward move. The devastator interupts with the ready action and knocks it back down. The carn is now out of actions. It can't now declare it's crawling or standing up again since it didn't move anywhere.

The whole point of hip shooting is that you shoot while you move.

Each action is independent of the others. If you move, you move, then you're movement is done whether you used it all or not. Then you fire.

A better illustration is ready actions vs knock down. Say you have a devastator with concussion missiles. He hits a carnifix and knocks it down. He then readies an action to shoot again. It stands up, declares a forward move. The devastator interupts with the ready action and knocks it back down. The carn is now out of actions. It can't now declare it's crawling or standing up again since it didn't move anywhere.

I agree with you about the moving, but your example is not correct, the ready action is for drawing a weapon or other object, or using a stimm or something similar, see p. 242 of the core-book.

The action you are thinking of is the delay-action, where you use your first half-action to reserve your last half-action for later use, before your next turn (p. 238).

So noted. Stupid term changing between systems.

Each action is independent of the others. If you move, you move, then you're movement is done whether you used it all or not. Then you fire.

A better illustration is ready actions vs knock down. Say you have a devastator with concussion missiles. He hits a carnifix and knocks it down. He then readies delays an action to shoot again. It stands up, declares a forward move. The devastator interupts with the ready action and knocks it back down. The carn is now out of actions. It can't now declare it's crawling or standing up again since it didn't move anywhere.

This example, while appropriate for demonstrational purposes in this discussion, is illegal. You may NOT use two actions with the attack subtype, or the same action (in this example 2 Standard Attacks), more than once a turn.

Delay action is a full round action so the first shot would have to be either from the previous turn or an out of turn shot like Fire for effect.

edit: I stand corrected. I really shouldn't type while deliriously sick. I stand by my fire for effect situation.

Just chiming in that it never even occurred to me that you'd be able to split up your Move Actions like that. While it is never explicitly stated - that I know of - I always just thought it was implied that each Action counts as an Action, even if you don't take full advantage of it. Assuming a basic Movement Rate of 5, This means that if you only walk 3 metres of your Half-Action Move Action, you don't have 2 metres left that you can use later.

You took a Half-Action to move, that Half-Action is spent.

As mentioned earlier, Hip Shooting is a different beast, and specifically allows you to take a Full-Action to both move and shoot. While not stated precisely or how that is supposed to work, the text (I'm only reading the Black Crusade version, though) implies that it becomes it's own, special, action. Thus you can shoot at any point during your Full Move Action.

Single Shot only, though. I'm feeling a homebrewed Talent with Hip Shot as a prereq. coming up, to be able to do a Charge-speed Action and shoot Full-Auto at the same time, at a penalty.. But I digress.

Delay action is a full round action so the first shot would have to be either from the previous turn or an out of turn shot like Fire for effect.

Also, note that even though Delay Action is a Full Action, the way I always understood it, it reserves a Half-Action either way. So while the Action itself is a Full Action in Deathwatch, you still have an Half-Action to spend before your next Turn.

Either way, the example given earlier is illegal, because as mentioned, bar special circumstance, you can only take one Combat Action with the Attack Subtype each Round.

But in later systems (where Delay is a Half-Action), you could conceivably take a Half-Action to move, use Delay as a Half-Action, and then take a Half-Action attack.

I don't really know what book you are looking at, but in the Deathwatch Core Rulebook on page 237 and 238 it is clearly stated that delay is a half action.

It gives you the opportunity to save a half action for later use, before your next turn.

But if you have already used one half action, before you used delay, you have no half action left to save and use later.