Assaults and assault procedure
Step-by-step procedure for conducting an assault.Formations that carry out an Engage action are allowed to make a charge move and then fight an assault. An assault represents a situation where all hell breaks loose as troops desperately try to seize a vital objective, or fight a tenacious defence to keep the objective in friendly hands.
Assaults are not necessarily fought hand-to-hand (close combat) — though they may be. Often, enemies simply get close enough to each other for individual infantry to engage with their small arms, grenades and other short ranged weapons (a firefight).
Casualties will often be high on both sides, and at the end of the assault, the losing side will be forced to withdraw with its morale shattered while the victor consolidates its control of the contested area.
AssaultsThe rules for assaults are a crucial part of the Epic rules. It helps to understand what they represent.
In most wargames, assaults only really cover hand-to-hand combat. In Epic, an assault covers everything that happens when a formation is ordered to get close and attack an enemy formation. To put this another way, if you think of an assault as covering everything that happens in a typical 4–6 turn game of Warhammer 40,000, then you won’t go too far wrong!
This means that while hand-to-hand combat (called close combat in Epic) can be a part of what happens in an assault, it is by no means everything that happens. You will often resolve assaults without any units making it into close combat at all, just as you can resolve a whole game of Warhammer 40,000 without any close combat taking place.
Note that an assault only occurs if a formation takes an Engage action. This means it is possible for enemy formations to end up very close to each other (less than 15cm) without having to fight an assault. This reflects your troops’ natural inclination to get under cover when they are close to the enemy unless they are ordered to attack.
To work out the effects of an assault, do the steps in this section in order:
FAQQ. Do assaults occur when neither player takes an Engage action?
A. No, they never occur automatically.