A selection of random questions.

[Yamacon]

These have all come up recently in my local group. After coming to the impasse and a good 5 minutes of discussion, we quickly solutioned/4+ed it out when the BRB didn't have definitive answers (as far as we could tell). So hopefully, some clarification would be very helpful.

On to the questions.

1) Balthasar Gelt in the new empire book. Has a 2+ ward save vs shooting attacks. When hit with a Magic Missile, the hits are distributed as shooting, does this mean the 2+ stands against the shot? Or does he have to rely on his usual 6++ ward?

2) Steadfast. What counts as a rank for the purposes of being steadfast? A chariot charged into a unit of archers. At the end of the round there were 7 archers left, with 5 in the front and 2 in the back. The player with the archers argued that they were steadfast as they had 1 rank of 5 while the chariot had none. But the chariot player thought only the rank after the first counted. Which one is right?

3) Breath Weapons. Normally, you are only allowed to fire 1 breath weapon a turn. The chaos dragon allows you to fire both breath weapons in the same turn. You can have a chaos lord with streaming corruption riding the dragon allowing the model to have up to 3 breath weapons. Since the chaos lord and the dragon are two entities, does that allow all 3 breath weapons to be fired at once?

I am sure I have forgotten one. Regardless, thank you in advance!
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[Mr_Rose]

1. Unfortunately there's an ongoing debate about what exactly is meant by the trms "shooting attack" and "ranged attack" and of they are different or not, as neither is clearly defined in the rules.

2. Ranks are ranks, including the first one. Tell the chariot player to re-read the "extra ranks" combat bonus, noting that you get it for ranks "behind the fighting (ie first) rank" while steadfast is for simply having more ranks, nowhere qualified as "behind the first" so a unit with any number of ranks will automatically be steadfast against a lone chariot which will have none.

3. No. The Breath Weapon rules specify that models with multiple weapons can oly use one/turn and a mounted character is still only one model; the Chaos Dragon's special rule applies only to it.

[theunwantedbeing]

1. Magic Missiles are shooting attacks, attacks that are distributed as shooting are not.
2. The first rank counts, so a single line of at least 5 models(3 in the case of MI and MC) has a rank.
3. Not a clue to be honest, the FAQ doesn't seem to cover it.

[hamsterwheel]

1. Magic Missiles are shooting attacks, attacks that are distributed as shooting are not.

Just for curiosity's sake, what text in the rule book indicates that Magic Missiles are shooting attacks?

[Dirty Mac]

I would class attacks made during the shooting phase to be shooting attacks.

[Mercules]

1. Magic Missiles are shooting attacks, attacks that are distributed as shooting are not.

'Ranged Attacks' = yes
'Shooting Attacks' = not clear, most likely not.