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I'm familiar with standard Force Weapons, which can be thought of as leaving a wound on a foe that the wielder can use as a conduit to make the foe drop dead/explode/other graphic interpretation of ID, before they get a chance to power up their Power Fist for a retaliatory swing. I'm not familiar with how NFW's work these days in terms of being wielded by a unit with variable Initiative and being 'activated' by a single member of the unit.

Hypothetical: a unit of six Tyranid Warriors, one carrying a Venom Cannon (=complex multi-wound unit) charges five GK Terminators. For some reason, the GK player forgets that his unit carries Force Weapons and does not try to activate them.

The TW have FC, making them I5 this round. Two Halberdiers (I6) strike first, inflicting three wounds. Then, the surviving TW get to strike; we'll assume they roll constant 1's and do nothing. Three Falchion guys (I4) strike, inflicting three wounds. (No Retreat! will be assumed to have no effect in this melee.)

The exact sequence is as follows:

- Halberds roll to hit; three hits
- Halberds roll to wound; three wounds
- Tyranid player allocates 1W to VC TW and 2W to rest of unit
- Tyrand player wishes TW's had invulnerable saves
- TW's roll to hit; no hits
- Tyranid player cusses
- Falchions toll to hit; three hits
- Falchions roll to wound; three wounds
- Tyranid player allocates 1W to VC TW and 2W to rest of unit
- Tyrand player wishes TW's had invulnerable saves
- One TW is removed as a casualty, leaving 1W on rest of unit and 2W on VC TW
- 6 No Retreat! wounds are inflicted on TW unit
- Tyranid player allocates 1W to VC TW and 5W to rest of unit
- Tyranid player rolls saves; passes all of them
- combat ends for this turn

Now, if the GK player had remembered to make his NFW insta-kill test (and succeeded), how would this sequence be amended? Assume all the wound rolls and armour saves happen as before, and that the Tyranid player allocates wounds in such a way as to minimise the number of casualties where possible.

Not to threadjack, but as it's a very related topic, I think the biggest question here is what happens when the player forgets to activate his Nemesis Force halberds, but remembers to activate his Nemesis Force falchions?

Do the halberd wounds then become instant death as well?

As soon as the first member of the unit manages to score the first unsaved wound, the GK player must choose if he wants to activated their nemesis force weapons. If he succeeds all their wounds cause ID, and any time a model fails a save (including the one that faild the save prior to activation) a from its group model(if possible an unwounded one) has to be removed as casualty.

Sequence:
- Halberds roll to hit; three hits
- Halberds roll to wound; three wounds
- Tyranid player allocates 1W to VC TW and 2W to rest of unit
- Tyrand player wishes TW's had invulnerable saves
- GK Player activates his NFW as he scored the first unsaved wound
- VC and two models of the unit are removed as casualties
- TW's roll to hit; no hits
- Tyranid player cusses
- Falchions toll to hit; three hits
- Falchions roll to wound; three wounds
- Tyranid player allocates 1W to VC TW and 2W to rest of unit VC is dead, has to allocate all three to the unit
- Tyrand player wishes TW's had invulnerable saves
- Three TW are removed as casualty, wiping the unit.
- combat ends

Indeed, and if the NFH's were activated on time, do the NFF's become insta-fraggilicious as well?

I don't have access to a GK Codex to see where the boundary lies between RAW and YMDC in these cases, but I'd like to know in advance and the hypothetical was the most succinct one I could think of to road test the grey areas. Perhaps those in the know could make amended sequences for activation after Halberds and after Falchions?

(Aside: lol @ my spell checker underlining 'insta' but not 'fraggilicious')

You forgot one step in your sequence:

...
- Halberds roll to wound; three wounds
- Tyranid player allocates 1W to VC TW and 2W to rest of unit
- Tyranid player removes allocated wounds.
- VC is left with 2 wounds, 1 other is left with 1 wound.
- Tyrand player wishes TW's had invulnerable saves
...

Taking your full sequence as how it would work if the GK player did activate his NFW:

- Halberds roll to hit; three hits
- Halberds roll to wound; three wounds
- Tyranid player allocates 1W to VC TW and 2W to rest of unit
- GK player takes psychic test to activate NFW, passes.
- TW player has to remove one (unwounded, if available) model for each ID wound suffered
- TW player thus removes the VC TW and 2 normal TW.
- Tyrand player wishes TW's had invulnerable saves
- TW's roll to hit; no hits
- Tyranid player cusses
- Falchions toll to hit; three hits
- Falchions roll to wound; three wounds
- NFW are still activated.
- TW player has to remove one (unwounded, if available) model for each ID wound suffered.
- Remaining TWs all die.
- Tyrand player wishes TW's had invulnerable saves
- combat ends for this turn

sourclams wrote:Not to threadjack, but as it's a very related topic, I think the biggest question here is what happens when the player forgets to activate his Nemesis Force halberds, but remembers to activate his Nemesis Force falchions?

Do the halberd wounds then become instant death as well?

Technicall you have to activate when the first unsaved wounds are caused, but doesn't mention anything about any possibility of activating it later. I guess the moment passed?

This is RAW. If you look around the forum, you'll find a huge thread containing the exact rule you're looking for.

So under RAW the activation roll is made after a wound gets past invulnerables etc but before wound allocation, and immediately upgrades all Nemesis weapons to ID for the remainder of the combat this turn, which is retroactive to the start of the current Initiative step?

IE, I4 Falchions being activated won't retroactively kill stuff with wounds put on them by I6 Halberds, but a Halberd activation will make itself and all subsequent Falchions etc ID?

And to clarify - does RAW state these are actual ID (ie EW protects), or differently-worded insta-kill that ignores EW?

lindsay40k wrote:
And to clarify - does RAW state these are actual ID (ie EW protects), or differently-worded insta-kill that ignores EW?

ID - ID
the ignoring EW is a separate thing attached to psykers and daemons

So with a rules lawyer hat on, an ideal way to handle this situation is to allocate wounds as normal (IE, put 1W on the VC TW and 2W amongst the others) using different coloured dice for wounds that could potentially have ID retroactively applied to them in a subsequent step, and when the NFW activation (or, for that matter, individual FW activations) takes place, re-allocate those wounds now retroactively upgraded to inflicting ID so that each ID wound, where possible, is put onto an unwounded model?

lindsay40k wrote:So under RAW the activation roll is made after a wound gets past invulnerables etc but before wound allocation, and immediately upgrades all Nemesis weapons to ID for the remainder of the combat this turn, which is retroactive to the start of the current Initiative step?

All the different NFW activate together as one, no matter what variant of them causes the first hit. Note that wound allocation happens before rolling saves, and ID is only cared about when removing casualties, after rolling saves. If a wounded TW fails his save against an ID wound and there is an unwounded one with identical gear around, you'll have to remove the unwounded one.

IE, I4 Falchions being activated won't retroactively kill stuff with wounds put on them by I6 Halberds, but a Halberd activation will make itself and all subsequent Falchions etc ID?

As stated above, all NFW (falchions, halbers, hammers etc) activate as one. So if he missed his opportunity to activate when the first halberd hit, he may not go back RAW (you may, off course, still allow him to do it).

And to clarify - does RAW state these are actual ID (ie EW protects), or differently-worded insta-kill that ignores EW?

EW works fine, it says "cause instant death". No funny "you models become pink clouds"-stuff.

lindsay40k wrote:So under RAW the activation roll is made after a wound gets past invulnerables etc but before wound allocation, and immediately upgrades all Nemesis weapons to ID for the remainder of the combat this turn, which is retroactive to the start of the current Initiative step?

Almost, to be exact it's:
- Roll to hit
- Roll to wound
- Allocate wounds
- Take saves
- If there are any unsaved wounds, take psychic test to activate NFW (unless already activated)
- If the NFW are activated, all wounds done inflict Instant Death
- Remove one (unwounded, if available) model as casuality from the allocated group for each unsaved wound that inflicted Instant Death.
- Remove any unsaved wounds that didn't inflict Instant Death, removing wounds from already wounded models first.

So after wound allocation and saves, but before models/wounds are removed.

IE, I4 Falchions being activated won't retroactively kill stuff with wounds put on them by I6 Halberds, but a Halberd activation will make itself and all subsequent Falchions etc ID?

If you're even allowed to take the test after you've already done wounds on a higher Initiative attack, it definetely says the effects apply for any further wounds, so it doesn't work retroactively for sure.

And to clarify - does RAW state these are actual ID (ie EW protects), or differently-worded insta-kill that ignores EW?

Just like regular Force Weapon, so EW does indeed protect.

Redemption wrote:If you're even allowed to take the test after you've already done wounds on a higher Initiative attack, it definetely says the effects apply for any further wounds, so it doesn't work retroactively for sure.

You are not. Rule quote:

"If a unit is striking at different initative orders, take the test to 'activate' the force weapons immideately after the first unsaved wounds are caused"

Right, this is a bit clearer now. So NFW's work differently to FW's, the wounds inflicted by which are allocated as a normal PW, and are not 'wounds that inflict ID' (BRB pg26), which have to be allocated to unwounded models where possible (ibid), but rather wounds that can subsequently raise the opportunity to make 'any one... enemy model suffer ID' (BRB pg50); instead, NFW are PW's which inflict wounds that can be retroactively upgraded to being wounds that inflict ID? That being the case, the 'coloured dice' approach in my last post is definitely how I'll be asking GK opponents to work it, especially when non-NFW wielders get stuck in.



Gawd, but I wish they'd just made it so you can upgrade Force Weapons to inflict ID by passing a test at the start of combat. It'd make this sort of thing a lot easier to figure out, and with Librarians being down-graded in melee and NFW throwing ID around left right and centre it'd hardly unbalance things. (Though I admit that the roll to retroactively ID an MC/IC is always a bit of dramatic fun.)

That is also how it works for regular Force Weapons (and for NFW wielded by units without the Brotherhood of Psykers special rule, such as Independent Characters), the mayor differnce being that it only works for 1 model.

Say you have 2 equally equipped Tyranid Warriors, one which still has all his wounds left, and the other already took 1 wound earlier from something. A Librarian assaults these two, and manages to inflict one unsaved wound.

He can now take the psychic test to activate his force weapon. If he passes, the unwounded Warrior is removed as a casualty. If he fails, the already wounded warrior takes another wound.

No, you're just misunderstanding the wound allocation rules. It's fairly straightforward...

You allocate wound(ing hits, to differentiate the step!) to individual models evenly
You then group allocated wounding hits into groups of identical models
You then take saves
*NFW kicks in, making all wounding hits cause ID if unsaved*
Remove whole models from within the Group for each unsaved wound.

So to example:

4 Identikit Warriors, 1 Different

6 wounding hits inflicted
warrior1 gets two wounds, the rest get one each
Group them together, 5 allocated to the warriors, 1 to the different one

Take saves - you cant, so you now have 6 unsaved wounds across the two groups

NFW kicks in - all unsaved wounds cause ID

Remove 4 warriors from group 1, the Different 1 from gruop 2, as each wound removes a warrior.

Actually "wounds that inflict" ID are handled almost the same, you just know that they inflict instant death before allocating. As the whole unit activates their weapons at once, and all GK have NFW, so no mixed units of ID and non-ID weapons.

It also seems that you have your wound till death order a bit mixed up, maybe check the BRB on that.

The only difference to "activating at the start of combat" is, that they don't waste their psychic power when the don't hit anything. Just don't put the first wounds from NFW on special guys, and you'll be set.

Basicly what happens against any GK unit:
1. Either side charges
2. First Geyknight wound(s) not saved, all weapons may activate, before you remove any models.
3a. If successful remove models by following ID rules. anything wounded by anyone in the GK unit afterwards dies.
3b. If not successful, remove wounds from you units according to "multiple wound models". regular (energy) wounds from every model in the GK unit wounding something this turn.

Jidmah wrote:Actually "wounds that inflict" ID are handled almost the same, you just know that they inflict instant death before allocating. As the whole unit activates their weapons at once, and all GK have NFW, so no mixed units of ID and non-ID weapons.

Power armoured GK can switch their NFW and Stormbolter for heavy weapons. Terminator armoured models can switch their NFW weapons for Brotherhoods banners. Both reduce the models to non-power weapon attacks.

Ah, well. Collored dice are a great idea anyways

Redemption wrote:That is also how it works for regular Force Weapons (and for NFW wielded by units without the Brotherhood of Psykers special rule, such as Independent Characters), the mayor differnce being that it only works for 1 model.

Say you have 2 equally equipped Tyranid Warriors, one which still has all his wounds left, and the other already took 1 wound earlier from something. A Librarian assaults these two, and manages to inflict one unsaved wound.

He can now take the psychic test to activate his force weapon. If he passes, the unwounded Warrior is removed as a casualty. If he fails, the already wounded warrior takes another wound.

Erm, FW's do not cause wounds that inflict ID. And units of identical multi-wound models do not have previously inflicted wounds allocated between them - it's a unit of TW's that's taken 1W. Reading up on that particular point opened an even worse Pandora's Box.

Lindsay - you keep mixing up allocation and casualty removal.

Allocation is what you do before you group things together and then take saves. GK NFW do absolutely nothing awkward in this sequence - nothing at all.

I'm clear on the difference between allocation and casualty removal, and I'm clear on how NFW's work in regard ot these rules.

I was pointing out to Redemption that ordinary FW's do not work like NFWs - ie do not retroactively become wounds that inflict instant death.

lindsay40k wrote:I'm clear on the difference between allocation and casualty removal, and I'm clear on how NFW's work in regard ot these rules.

I was pointing out to Redemption that ordinary FW's do not work like NFWs - ie do not retroactively become wounds that inflict instant death.

Why would they need to work retroactively? It doesn't matter if a would would inflict Instant Death or not until you start to remove models. Activating Force Weapons (regular or Nemesis) is done after unsaved wounds are scored, which is before you remove any models in that Initiative step.

Redemption wrote:

lindsay40k wrote:I'm clear on the difference between allocation and casualty removal, and I'm clear on how NFW's work in regard ot these rules.

I was pointing out to Redemption that ordinary FW's do not work like NFWs - ie do not retroactively become wounds that inflict instant death.

Why would they need to work retroactively? It doesn't matter if a would would inflict Instant Death or not until you start to remove models. Activating Force Weapons (regular or Nemesis) is done after unsaved wounds are scored, which is before you remove any models in that Initiative step.

I'm not saying anything 'needs' to work retroactively. I'm saying that this is how NFW's work; they gain a special rule they didn't have when the attack was declared. Hence, they retroactively gain ID.

You seemed to be saying that they work just like FW's, which is not the case; assuming that when people are saying that NFWs gain the ID rule, this is an accurate account of NFW RAW, this is not how FWs work. FWs are similar to NFWs but do not inflict wounds that inflict ID, retroactively or otherwise; they're not relevant to this thread, hence my starting a separate YMDC on FW's.

NFW work almost exactly the same way as regular force weapons: Unsaved wound = psychic test, Passed Psychic test = that wound is now ID causing and the model that took that wound Dies(unless it has EW). The only difference with NFW is that with the first unsaved wound the test is taken(should that choice be made, it is not required) and if it passes all unsaved wounds caused, by the same squad, for the rest of the combat cause ID(this includes other unsaved wounds caused during the same I step).

One thing people have to keep in mind here is that everything is done in Initiative order. Where you activate is where it begins. It is not retroactive.

For example, a mixed GK unit with halberd, falchions and hammers hit and wound. Halberd forgets to activate and wounds are allocated as normal. Moving on. Falchions hit and wound. He then activates. Now, all falchion and daemonhammer wounds have their force ability "turned on". Any attacks happening before that (i.e. halberds) is already done, with their force ability not activated.

Remember, force weapon is not automatic. It is a voluntary action. You can decide not to use it at first and then use it later. However, those later attacks do not affect the earlier attacks where you chose not to use it (whether you did it on purpose or simply "forgot").

Actually the rules require you to activate at the highest initiaitve step a wound is caused, you dont get the chance to activate after that.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Actually the rules require you to activate at the highest initiaitve step a wound is caused, you dont get the chance to activate after that.

In that case, if you forget to do it with the first unsaved wounds, then you don't get to use your force weapons at all. You missed your chance, unless you opponent is kind enough to grant you permission to go back and take a psychic test for the very first unsaved wound you've caused.