Shooting into Combat

oh whoa.  i always thought you could.  I didn't see where the rules ever made mention of it.  All I saw was that if the shooter is in melee he cannot fire.

since its a young game i'll go ahead and post my thoughts.

after reading the rules and coming to the conclusion that firing into melee was not only allowed but that no penalties existed for it, I was actually happy with it.  most games give you a chance to hit your own guy or give you some sort of penalty.  to me it actually made sense that bushido did not do this for a couple of reasons. 1) there are not a lot of ranged attacks 2) it is a 2x2 table 3) models may not make ranged attacks while in melee themselves

the combination of the 3, to me, meant that if you somehow managed to keep your shooter out of combat that you were rewarded by actually getting to use him.  the small table size, reloading, and ammo all curb the abuse of ranged attacks.  we also like to play with a lot of terrain.  not being able to fire into melee essentially means you will get one shot per game.

just my opinion so you can take it for what its worth.  but as more models get added to the game, the first ones i would drop from my list if i were min/maxing are the ones that rely heavily on ranged attacks.

Hey Hithero, I think Master of puppets was outlining the reasons why you should be able to shoot into melee.

Thanks for your thoughts guys, as always we will listen to your ideas and take them into consideration, remember our rules exist as the best way to play Bushido in our opinion. modify where you want when playing with your friends and like this post let us know how you changed it and why it's better.

Obviously when tournaments begin they will have to follow standardised rules.

Well those are all of the fluffy reasons why you should not be able to fire into combat and why most/all other games either do not allow it or have some sort of penalty for it.  However basing rules on fluff is not always the best design in my opinion.

"As far as rules concerned firing into melee is not in the rules, so it's not allowed."

That's not actually true.  The rules permit making a ranged attack if 1) the model is capable of making a ranged attack 2) there is a valid target: an enemy model within the model's Line of Sight 3) the model (not crystal clear antecedent here but I believe it is obviously referring to the model attempting to make the attack) is not in an enemy models (sic) Zone of Control, or in Base to Base contact with an enemy model.  If these requirements are met, follow the Ranged Combat section to resolve the attack.

When the target is in melee, it is still possible to meet all the requirements for making a ranged attack, and therefore the rules do currently allow for it. 

Of course house rules are an option for any game, but I just wanted to point that out because I haven't found where the rules actually do not allow for firing into melee, so if that is the intent (as you guys have stated in the thread) I wanted to point it out before you expend the resources to make a nice, big, colorful rules book.  Every game inevitably requires Errata and FAQ, but if you can catch things before it goes to print it's always better I think.

GCT Master T wrote:

@master; appreciate where your coming from but if a models in BtB then it's in melee and can't be targeted. Not sure I understand your last reasoning mate? From those examples you exclude all models in melee therefore meaning you can't target models in melee.

The rules do not actually prevent shooting into combat though,  there is no criteria preventing it in the rules, only if the shooter is in B2B is shooting prevented.

No, Ki Feats can target models in Melee as long as to can draw LoS.

Hey guys, I'm very new to the game. I've read the rules and are planning on playing my first game tomorrow.

 When I read the rules I didn't interpret them as saying you can't shoot into combat, and personally I like the idea of being able to do so. But I also agree that there should be risk involved to your own miniature or maybe a -2 to your RCP.

 If you don't want people shooting into H2H, it really needs to be made more clear in the QSR. Just my opinion anyway.

I didn't see any errata to this in the pdfs, bumping the ruling so it can be added into the Living Rule Book! Just adding a phrase like "...in LoS and not in B2B contact or the ZoC of a model that is friendly to the attacker,"