Apple Crumble

Can you have your pie, and eat it to?

Unbreakable. On the face of it a great rule. The lads wont ever run! 'Whats the catch?' you then ask... Oh yeah when you loose combat you crumble. And not the good stuff. This crumble stinks of vinegar. Or does it?

A question that has been trending recently on many Warhammer forums is 'Do you get an overrun from a unit that is wiped out due to crumbling?' To say the least it has been a hotly debated rule and wildly disputed. From what I can see the conclusions can be separated into two groups. The "I played 7th edition, this is how we did it in 7th edition, therefore I am right! GW just stuffed up the wording" camp, and the "I never played 7th edition, the rules say you don't get it, what the hell are you old crazy codgers talking about" camp

Now up until now, I've played it as you do get an overrun. Not from any hangovers from 7th edition as I never played 'that' game, but more from what people just did to me at the end of combat. I've never bothered to read that part of the rule book that thoroughly, and just assumed people I was playing against knew the rules better. This comes alot from me learning the rules by playing at tourneys (oddly enough Southcon 2011 was my first 'modern era' tourney I attended). However, are we playing this right?

Now the first myth to bust is 7th edition. Anyone who references 7th edition to justify a rule needs their head checked by the closest Nordland amputee specialist. 7th edition rules need not apply!

Now the first part of the rule:
page 53 on wipeout:
If a wipeout occurred, overrun can follow. however, it is in the 'determine combat result' step of combat that it is checked if a wipeout occurred. the exact words are:

'if one side has been completely wiped out in the fight, the other side is automatically the winner. (...) if the unit charged this turn, it can choose to overrun"

Nice and easy. If you wipe out your opponents on the charge, you can overrun. But what is wiping out? Easy you say. Its killing all the baddies in a combat. Well not entirely true....

Wipeout triggers at the 'whos the winner step' however 'crumble' triggers in the next step, 'breaktests'

On page 58:
overrun happens when a charging units enemies are completely destroyed at the end of that round of close combat.
On pages 48 through to 51 GW clearly defines a round of close combat as the first step. Go have a read. Its very different to what a round of close combat was interpreted as in 7th I'm told.

So in summary. Crumbling is a result of a round of close combat, just as break tests are. It is preformed the step after overrun is calculated. Therefore the only conclusion from this is no, you do not get an overrun for wiping out an unbreakable unit from crumbling. These are the rules as written. I have been playing it wrong, and it now makes my little 10 man skittle block all the more annoying! This is more enlightening than when I discovered that you must re-roll leadership tests if you fail then when you have a BSB within 12" (very important with light of death bouncing around...)

Apparently, rules as written > 7th edition hangovers. Go figure!