Editing Warhammer 40,000 (section)

====Phases====
[[Image:Sighing_Marine.jpg‎ |right|thumb|200px|If I ever find the fucker who nerfed Rhino Rush...]]

'''Be wary of the [[skub]]by tone the following sections are written in, because a dispute reigns about how some in-game mechanics are not realistic, but must be applied anyway.'''

The game is divided into seven phases: the Command Phase, the Movement Phase, the Psychic Phase, the Shooting Phase, the Charge Phase, the Fight Phase, and the Morale Phase - each forming a part of each individual player's turn. Quite simply, the Command Phase is for using abilities, the Movement Phase is for movement only, the Psychic Phase is for casting psychic powers, the Shooting Phase is for shooting (or rarely moving), while the charge phase is for trying to get your dudes into gloriously bloody combat, and the fight phase is for resolving said gloriously bloody combats. The morale phase is for seeing if any of your dudes run away after taking casualties in their unit.

To resolve Shooting, players first check to see if they are in range; '''if''' they are, they roll to hit; '''if''' they hit, they roll to wound; '''if''' they wound, the enemy rolls saves. The same rules apply no matter how close the shooter is to the target, though many units can’t shoot if right next to an enemy, and certain weapons fire twice as many shots at closer range, which on second thought makes even less sense. Seriously, people are bad shots in the 41st millennium. (Imagine news footage of pirate gunmen who are shooting from the hip with AK's even though they're not fast drawing, or holding said AK's in front of them in willful disregard that rifle butts go on shoulders, who can't even hold their guns level to fire aimed shots, let alone look down the gunsights, all the while standing in the middle of the street, which they can do because the guys downrange are doing the exact same thing. I don't know if I should cry or laugh.) Thus, [[derp|while within the maximum range of the weapon, neither range nor cover makes you harder to hit]] (although cover does grant a bonus to the save roll of the target).

It's maybe for this reason that individuals in the 41st millennium like to carry outrageously huge and outlandish shooting and melee weapons and [[Ork|like to get stuck in]] with them. The Fight Phase is resolved about the same as the Shooting Phase (which at least makes more sense, since you can parry a sword, but you can't parry a hypervelocity slug, let alone a high energy plasma ball of death or a coherent, high intensity light beam, examples in other works of fiction notwithstanding), melee combat once begun can be disengaged from (but those who Fall Back forfeit their ability to shoot or charge in their next turn), and units not engaged in melee combat can't fire upon combatants in melee. Also, generally speaking, the fight phase is the only phase which happens for both sides every turn - you get to engage in vigorous melee combat on both your turn '''and''' your enemy's turn.

Hit rolls for soldiers in a squad can be rolled together, as can saving rolls. As yet, the gameplay mechanics genii at Games Workshop have not conceived of some physics-defying method by which more than one die can be rolled simultaneously to represent the myriad possible results to an individual unit, such as a tank, and so tragically gamers are still forced to roll to hit, and to roll for wounding, first one and then the other. (Although it's thought by many this is deliberate to draw out the tension and suspense, since victory can hang on these successive rolls. It's also thought W40k players could instead play back alley craps games for the same effect, and save some money in the process.)

In the 41st millennium, military engineers have not yet devised an effective targeting or guidance system that would enable a tank killer to fire on enemy armor (tank sized targets) with confidence of hitting these targets, at the ranges typical of combat in this futuristic era. As such, infantry are frequently tragically forced to engage in melee combat against such armored monstrosities with chainswords, handfuls of potatomasher grenades, and standard issue steel balls.

Both shooting units (e.g. Space Marine Eradicators) and assault units (e.g. Dark Eldar Wyches) have great but very different roles to play. The 40K rulebook describes the manner in which the many varying unit attributes in 40K interrelate. At the end of the Turn, when casualties on both sides have been resolved from shooting and fighting, Leadership (Ld) tests of all sorts must be made. These test how many models from each unit that has taken casualties turn craven and run away, if any. The number of models that run depend on the amount of casualties taken, the highest Ld characteristic in the unit, and a D6 roll made by the controlling player. In this manner an army can be destroyed without actually killing each individual unit, as units that ''flee'' off the board are not allowed to return in the following turns.