Falling back in Warhammer takes place at the start of your movement phase when you’re in close combat and you do not want to be there.
Now, there are many reasons why you may want to leave close combat with a unit. Most of them revolve around wanting the rest of your army to shoot at your opponent’s unit.
Falling back in Warhammer does come with some disadvantages. But there are a few nuances that can make a big difference in tournaments. So this is very important.
First of all, any model that falls back cannot advance, charge, or shoot after they fall back. It doesn’t matter the type of weapons such as Heavy. Only Titanic vehicles and monsters can bypass that rule because they have a special rule that lets them do that.
When Falling Back in Warhammer and leave combat – That’s all you’re doing for that turn: walking away.
There’s a rule that says if at the end of my fallback, I have a model that is still within engagement range of one of your models then I am not allowed to fall back.
And if you can completely surround a model, you can actually make it so somebody can’t fall back. This is useful when protecting one of your units in your opponent’s deployment zone. Especially if you’re on an objective. Why? Because now your opponent can’t shoot you, and you’re sitting there on an objective.
This means the only way they can get rid of you is by engaging you in close combat.
And if you’re unit is good in close combat that can be horrible for your opponent.
When falling back you need a clear route to move through. And you can even walk within the engagement range of the enemy as long as you don’t stop there.
There are certain armies that can fall back and attack.
A good example of this are the Ultramarines. They have a special army-wide rule that says they can fall back and shoot with -1 to hit. And if you remember in Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition, the biggest minus you can get is a -1 to hit.
This means actually most of the time, they want to be falling back and firing. Especially with things like heavy weapons, because there’s no real penalty for it.
There’s a lot of little nuances and individual tactics. So if you have any questions that you’d like us to answer for you, leave a comment down below and we’ll be sure to answer them.
That covers the basics of how to fall back in Warhammer 40k 9th Edition.
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