Banzai! How does it work with terrain?

[Mike]

In a confusing game over the weekend between myself and another Japanese player(army vs SNLF) a number of issues involving terrain came up.

Due to the horribly goofy way buildings work involving people in and out of them and their interactions. To do a banzai charge you have to give a run order. How far can you move? Ignore the building rule that you can run since you are technically Banzaing(is that a word?) and not running?

What about hard cover area terrain? We had a situation where a squad was on one side of terrain and wanted to Banzai through it. One player said they could Advance as a banzai since it had a ton of pins but the terrain kept him from putting a run order on the unit. But the rule specifically says you must use a Run order. The other player said it still had to be a Run order but he could move 6″ but an advance order would require a Pin Check.

[Greg S]

Banzai is either a run or an assault towards the closest enemy.

If the move is a run, it cannot enter rough terrain.

If the move is an assault it can move 6″ if it enters rough terrain at any point. (see page 79 of the rulebook). If you do reach the target, the combat is simultaneous. If you fail to reach the target, you suffer no ill effects, but you must move the full 6″ (ie no stopping short for cover).

But remember dense area terrain blocks line of sight and you can’t declare a charge against something you can’t see.

I wouldn’t have thought you could Banzai into a building, unless the closest enemy was in the building. You could certainly Banzai out.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by Greg S.

[Richard]

There is no real difference between an assault and run in this case… I say this because you cannot measure before hand. So there is nothing (other than common decency) stopping you from declaring an assault at a unit 6ft away and this would allow you to ‘Run’/’Assualt’ 6″ into terrian.

The difference is one of destination. A normal run can be in any direction but an assualt has to be directly towards the chosen enemy. In the case of Banzai the run/assault is always towards the closest enemy anyway. But as noted above if LOS is blocked then you can’t go that way as you can’t see your banzai target.

TL;DR – you can ‘run/assualt’ 6″ into terrain using banzai towards the nearest visible enemy.

Buldings… you could only banzai into a building if that was the route to the nearest visible enemy… now seeing as the building blocks LOS (and assuming the enemy isn’t in the building) you can’t see through the building so the nearest visible enemy isn’t in that direction.

TL;DR – you can’t banzai into a building.

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