Ordinance vs. Power of the Machine Spirit

Leman Russ Tanks are Heavy, so they can move 6" and fire everything.

However, if they have a Battle Cannon (Ordinance), all their other guns can only Snap Shot.

Enginseers can grant PotMS to a vehicle within 12" instead of shooting their gun.

PotMS allows you to fire a weapon at full BS that you would not normally be able to fire.


The Question is:

Can I use PotMS on the battle cannon (or demolisher cannon for that matter) to fire at a target and then fire the other weapons at full BS at another target?

i would fire everything else first, leaving the ordnance weapon alone.  then use the enginseer to cast PotMS and fire it afterwards.

Is there a faq or other rules i'm not seeing for ordinance ? far as i can see most of the ordinance rules affect non- vehicles.

brb wrote:POWER OF THE MACHINE SPIRIT
The interface between this vehicle's
advanced machine spirit and its fire control
mechanisms allows the crew to target foes
with incredible accuracy.

In a turn in which the vehicle neither
moves Flat Out nor uses smoke
launchers, the vehicle can fire one more
weapon at its full Ballistic Skill than
normally permitted. In addition, this
weapon can be fired at a different target
unit to any other weapons, subject to the
normal rules for shooting.

BRB wrote:When shooting, a model with an Ordnance weapon fires the
number of times indicated in its profile after its type. A non-vehicle
model carrying an Ordnance weapon cannot fire it in
the Shooting phase if he moved in the preceding Movement
phase and cannot fire it as Snap Shots. Furthermore, if a non-vehicle
model fires an Ordnance weapon, then the massive
recoil from the Ordnance weapon means that the model cannot
fire other weapons that phase, nor will it be able to charge in the
ensuing Assault phase.

Maybe I mis-read the ordinance rules last night....I will have to look at them again.

My "devices" are at home, but there's a section under vehicles firing that details it.

If you fire your lascannons at full BS, you can't go back an PotMS your Ordinance. (I don't think...???)

On the plus side, we're getting completely new FAQ's soon!

page 71

Vehicles  &  Ordnance Weapons
Unlike  other  units, vehicles  can move and fire  with  Ordnance
weapons. However,  a  vehicle  that  fires an Ordnance  weapon
can only  make Snap Shots with  its other  weapons that  turn.

dusktiger wrote:page 71

Vehicles  &  Ordnance Weapons
Unlike  other  units, vehicles  can move and fire  with  Ordnance
weapons. However,  a  vehicle  that  fires an Ordnance  weapon
can only  make Snap Shots with  its other  weapons that  turn.

Ya....this is the one I read.

Basically, if you fire the Ordnance with PotMS, does is still cause the other guns on a Russ to Snap shot?? Or do I have to fire one of the other weapons at full BS with PotMS?

I would say that you can use POTMS to fire a second weapon at Full BS.

The ordinance rules are blanket rules, and POTMS is a targeted specific rule that would override it.

GW has a history of doing stupid things though.


What mike said wouldn't work as all weapons are fired at the same time and there is no rule making the ordinance weapon fire at less than full BS. so you would have to go the other way, fire the main ordinance weapon and then fire one additional weapon at full BS due to potms.

Seems very straightforward to me.

well that depends; its stating if you fire an ordnance weapon, the rest will snap shot.  what if under normal circumstances (lets say you dont have an enginseer with PotMS), you would rather fire all the secondary weapons instead of the battle cannon?  you do have that choice to do so.   

my idea is that you've made that choice and fired everything else, being that a Russ is a Heavy-type vehicle.  then, later on, after firing other weapons on other models, you come to your enginseer and decide to have him use PotMS on the Russ to make the battle cannon fire on a different target that you feel needs the punishment the battle cannon delivers.

that should be a viable tactic, unless someone can find hard proof in the BRB that this isn't possible.

A lot depends on how the rules for the enginseer's granting of PotMS works. Do we have a quote for that?

Since as Rhaevyn points out you still have to shoot all of your weapons at the same time.

The POTMS isn't an order that requires the tank to do something, its just an if/then ability that when doing X, then you can do Y in spite of Z.

I understand what your saying Mike, but it doesn't work how your saying because of the rules for ordinance and the fact that all those guns fire at the same time. I know your used to fireing at a bunch of different things, especially when you use a fellblade or something, because it has special rules for firing at different targets. but all of those shots are resolved simultaneously, not in the way that makes sense:
IE: I shoot this gun at that, resolve, that gun at those guys, resolve, and this other gun at those other guys, resolve.
Its more like: I shoot that, that that that and That, and then pick up a bag of dice and resolve.

When you do that the ordinance rules makes all the other guns snapshot, or not fire at all if they are blast weapons. The POTMS lets you fire one additional weapon at full BS in spite of the ordinance rules. Also, it doesn't say that it isn't still a snapshot, it just says that it gets to use full BS and choose a new target, so rules as written, you still couldn't use POTMS to shoot a blast weapon if you're also firing an ordinance weapon....

I don't have my codex right now, i purchased an actual book from darren for this one, and my bootleg digital copy is on my hard drive at home and not in my dropbox yet, so i can't check on the enginseers rules right now, but i believe it just confers POTMS on one tank within 12 of the enginseer at the start of the shooting phase, there may or may not be a ld test involved.

That makes sense.

Firing the cannon make everything else snap shots whether it is fired as normal or part of the PotMS.  

Therefore, it makes more sense to fire one of the non-Ord weapons at full BS using PotMS.

I guess the only modification would be....

Could I accept that everything will be Snap shots at one target and use PotMS to fire the cannon at something else?  I am primarily thinking of Flyers in this case.  You cannot fire the Ord at the Flyer and the other weapons can only Snap shot anyways.  Therefore, you would get the "best use" out of everything by firing the Cannon at something on the ground and unleashing everything else into a Flyer as Snap Shots.

Honestly I dunno if it will work at all. Before these FAQ's were taken down GW explicitly stated that nothing ignores snap shots unless it is written into the rules (tau markerlights for example). So even if you could PotMS I don't know if it will override the ordinance rules.