Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

FOR THIS POLL, PLEASE ANSWER HOW YOU CHOOSE TO PLAY THE GAME, NOT NECESSARILY WHAT THE RULES AS WRITTEN (RAW) SAY.



The 'Determine Assault Results' rules (pg 39) say: "To decide who has won the combat, total up the number of unsaved wounds inflicted by each side on their opponents. The side that caused the most is the winner. The losing side must take a Morale check and will fall back if they fail."

and:

"In rare cases certain models can cause wounds on themselves or their friends -- obviously these wounds are added to the other side's total for working out who has won."




QUESTION: If a unit is in a multiple combat with both a vehicle and non-vehicle enemy unit and the vehicle suffers a 'Explodes' result killing models from both sides, are those unsaved wounds included in the combat resolution?



OPTION A. Yes, both sides add the unsaved wounds caused by the exploding vehicle into the tally of how many wounds they suffered.



OPTION B. No, the unsaved wounds caused by the exploding vehicle are not added into the combat resolution totals.



OPTION C. Something else entirely: reply exactly what it is below.

C. If you blow a vehicle up, and each side takes 3 wounds from it...your side just added 3 wounds to combat res....the other guy might suffer a morale check from the added casualties this phase, but that's it.

To make it perfectly clear what I mean:

I take 3 wounds from a vehicle explosion that I caused.
I take 2 wounds from combat resolution.

My opponent takes 1 wound from a vehicle explosion I caused.
My opponent takes 1 wound in combat resolution.

I lose combat by 4.

Note to self: Don't blow up vehicles near squishy guys.

Edit: Fixed bad wording. Thanks for pointing it out.

I've never had this situation come up but I am certain I would go with option A, I can only imagine it's demoralizing watching half of your buddies get blown up by a burning vehicle while the enemy shrugs it off.

My opponent causes 1 wound in combat resolution.

I can only figure out what you are trying to say Stelek if I read this as "takes 1 wound", is that correct? so you are saying effectively, only wounds suffered from an explosion you cause effect combat (putting you at a disadvantage if you blow up a vehicle in CC and take even 1 wound, regardless of what the enemy suffers)

As they are only indirectly causing wounds to themselves, I'm not sure it really holds up by RAW, but A is by far the most fun/amusing way to play this.

Yakface I don't understand why it would be anything other than option A.

onlainari wrote:Yakface I don't understand why it would be anything other than option A.

Some people, as evidenced by the split vote already, may see an exploding vehicle as a miscellaneous effect outside of what is considered a close combat wound.

I'm checking to see what kind of split that schism really is.


Stelek:

Can you please explain why you came to that conclusion?

Must be option 'a'.

I know you said 'how do you play it' (and this is the way I would), but I also think this is pretty much the only viable option from RAW anyway.

You take morale checks after all combat effects are worked out. Therefore any casualties inflicted from any source need to be counted.
After all, casualties from o/d-ing on combat drugs are taken into account and this is a 'miscellaneous' effect not based on the number of times you've been hit by an opponent.

yakface wrote:Stelek:

Can you please explain why you came to that conclusion?

LBB: Page 33:

"The side that inflicted the most wounds overall in the combat is the winner."

LBB: P39:

"...certain models can inflict wounds on themselves or their friends - obviously these wounds are added to the other side's total for working out who has won."

LBB: Page 44:

A) Casualties: "A unit losing 25% or more of it's models during a single phase must pass a Morale check at the end of that phase..."

LBB: Page 61:

Explodes:

"Flaming debris...D6"...S3 AP- hit."

Then "The vehicle is then removed..."

LBB: P39:

"If a model becomes a casualty before it has an opportunity to attack, then it may not strike back."

LBB: Page 40:

Shooting into & out of close combat (the whole section).

===============

My opinion:

How I see things. I will give an example so we all have a baseline to follow my thinking.

A greater demon of Slaanesh and 5 bloodletters charges into a unit of 10 tactical marines and a dreadnought.

The greater demon is on the dread, and everyone else is intermingled.

The letters are entering cover (that the marines are in).

The greater demon does not enter cover, and blows the dreadnought to pieces.

4 letters and 3 marines are wounded by the explosion.

The letters take their cover save, and 2 die.
The marines take their armor saves, and 1 dies.

Note: The 'template' being the D6" range from the edge of the dreadnought and thus expressly allowed in close combat (despite it not 'scattering' into close combat). I believe cover saves are allowed against explosions but with AP1 close combat weapons appearing in close combat marine armies GW has blurred the line between what is a shooting attack and what is a CC attack. Another question for them.

Anyway, we'll just assume for now they get a cover save from it.

The important part is the vehicle is removed IMMEDIATELY, so all the effects from it's removal occur AT THAT INITIATIVE STEP. So those 2 letters who were killed by the explosion would not get to attack in close combat (because the Slaanesh greater demon is faster than they are).

The letters kill 4 marines, the marines kill the rest of the letters.

For the Demon side, that's:

4 marines killed.
2 rolls on the damage table versus the Dreadnought = 2 more wounds.

For the Marine side:

They killed 3 letters.
The greater demon killed 2 letters with an explosion.

No credit:
The marine who died to the explosion is ignored for determining assault results because there is NO rule that says count enemy casualties caused by explosions only friends that die by friendly explosions meet the requirements for the relevant sentence on P39.

Note: If casualties from close combat and explosions added together result in 25% or more of a unit being lost in a single phase, you need to test morale as normal.

So the net result is:

Demons: 4+2.
Marines: 3+2.

Marines lose combat by 1.

Just a question Stelek, how do you identify the "source" of the wound in this case?

Isn't it just as valid to claim that the dreadnought is inflicting the wound on the space marine BY exploding, meaning your justification would go the other way:

DAEMONS
4 marines killed
2 rolls on the damage table
the dreadnought killed 1 space marine by exploding

MARINES
3 letters killed

giving the final result of 7 vs 3, a resounding victory by 4 wounds to the daemons.


Also Pg. 44 of the core rulebook states that "a unit that is locked in close combat does not have to take morale checks for taking 25% casualties" Just wondering if you are factoring this in when you talk about 25% casualties because in your example it may apply because the letters are dead and the greater daemon is not engaged with the tactical marines, but normally it wouldn't apply.

There is also the passage in the vehicle rules "under assaulting vehicles" or "vehicles in assault" that states that assaults against vehicles never have a combat resolution.

whitedragon wrote:There is also the passage in the vehicle rules "under assaulting vehicles" or "vehicles in assault" that states that assaults against vehicles never have a combat resolution.

I actually posted the relevant quote to that position in my other thread. The final sentence in that section does say if you are involved in a multiple combat with a vehicle and a non-vehicle unit then you do resolve combat as normal.

Drunkspleen wrote:Just a question Stelek, how do you identify the "source" of the wound in this case?

Isn't it just as valid to claim that the dreadnought is inflicting the wound on the space marine BY exploding, meaning your justification would go the other way:

DAEMONS
4 marines killed
2 rolls on the damage table
the dreadnought killed 1 space marine by exploding

MARINES
3 letters killed

giving the final result of 7 vs 3, a resounding victory by 4 wounds to the daemons.


Also Pg. 44 of the core rulebook states that "a unit that is locked in close combat does not have to take morale checks for taking 25% casualties" Just wondering if you are factoring this in when you talk about 25% casualties because in your example it may apply because the letters are dead and the greater daemon is not engaged with the tactical marines, but normally it wouldn't apply.

The source is identified by the person who blew up the vehicle.

Sorry, vehicles exploding have never been classed as 'enemy' damage and aren't now.

Until now, they weren't classed as 'friendly' damage either, but they are now. If you blew up a vehicle, then you caused the wounds.

So no, your reasoning isn't valid because there are no rules to support it.

----------------

I know units locked in combat don't have to take morale checks, that's why I quoted that rule--what happens when the combat ends? Exactly when IS 'the end of the phase'?

The way I see it, the tactical marines SHOULD be forced to take a morale check (they did lose 25%) since the combat is over (they effectively won). Assuming of course it's not possible for the tactical marines and the greater demon to get into combat again, which seems highly improbable.

Not being locked with a certain enemy unit has been removed from 5th edition as a tactic, fyi. Last paragraph on P41.

Ok I voted B, but I kinda read the question wrong, so I have caveats.

If the vehicle was blown up by shooting, then the casualties should not be "saved" until the assault phase.

If the vehicle is blown up by assault, but not by the units that are involved in a separate combat which are affected by the explosion, I don't think those casualties should count either.

In the example where a dread is part of a multiple combat though, I would count the casualties.

How do I justify this disparity? Each assault/multiple assault gets figured out separately. Other assaults should have no bearing on them.

In short, I agree with Stelek that the I step of the combat matters. If it happens outside of the I steps of the particular combat, wither in the shooting phase or some other assault, they should not count.

Agreed, Biz.

All casualties should be 'cleared' from each phase unless something tells you to do otherwise (like in Fantasy).

As a Fantasy Player, I went Option A, as it is not specified in the rules that it does not.

For example. In Warhammer, additional, non combat wounds can be cause in a few ways, from exploding Gobbos, toppling Giants, and Shadowblade having the last laugh. These all state explicitly whether they do or do not count toward resolution.

In 40k, the combat is ongoing until the end of the phase. Thus, now then, how best to do an example sans diagrams.

Right, I have Landraider as a Heavy Support Choice, and a unit of Assault Marines near it. My enemy assaults both units with one of his own. Now, he takes out the Landraider. As this behemoth was involved in the same combat with the same units, any deaths caused by it's own demise count.

The only grey area I can see is when two seperate combats are going on nearby, one against a vehicle, one against Troops. In this case, I would say no, as each combat is worked out and resolved seperately. Thus, at the time of the explosion, the Troop V Troop combat had not yet begun.

Stelek wrote:The source is identified by the person who blew up the vehicle.

Sorry, vehicles exploding have never been classed as 'enemy' damage and aren't now.

Until now, they weren't classed as 'friendly' damage either, but they are now. If you blew up a vehicle, then you caused the wounds.

So no, your reasoning isn't valid because there are no rules to support it.

I'm willing to accept this but can you provide support for this reasoning other than the phrase "In rare cases certain models can cause wounds on themselves or their friends..." because I really don't feel that is enough to identify it. I personally can't see any rules basis for "whoever blows a vehicle up is responsible for the wounds it inflicts on surrounding people.

Also, you say "If you blew up a vehicle, then you caused the wounds", then doesn't that mean in your example combat the daemon prince caused the wound suffered by the 1 marine in the explosion? There is no mentioned that the unsaved wounds have to be from attacks, just caused "total up the number of unsaved wounds inflicted by each side on their opponents"

I know units locked in combat don't have to take morale checks, that's why I quoted that rule--what happens when the combat ends? Exactly when IS 'the end of the phase'?

The way I see it, the tactical marines SHOULD be forced to take a morale check (they did lose 25%) since the combat is over (they effectively won). Assuming of course it's not possible for the tactical marines and the greater demon to get into combat again, which seems highly improbable.

Not being locked with a certain enemy unit has been removed from 5th edition as a tactic, fyi. Last paragraph on P41.

I was aware that unlocking has been removed in the old sense, but if the prince was engaged only against the dreadnought and the marines only against the letters I thought they would be unlocked if all letters died.

I also noticed something when reviewing the rules regarding this, under the section that explains that you take a morale test for 25% casualties in a phase it also explains that you do not count wounds from close combat attacks, I overlooked this before but it means when you said "If casualties from close combat and explosions added together result in 25% or more of a unit being lost in a single phase, you need to test morale as normal." they would actually have to come from the explosion alone.

it seems the majority of you are going for option A. i went with B for the reason that Yak stated - the wounds caused by an exploding vehicle are not caused by attacks; they are seemingly unrelated to the combat and simply an external effect.

anyhow, for those of you that think it's A, i would say that you should read up on things that inflict abnormal casualties in close combat, but are specifically noted as counting towards combat resolution.

isn't kharn like that?

I chose option A.

G

I went for option B...

I had something very similar happen in another game.

My chaos lord was using a deamon weapon, well when i rolled to see how many attacks i got, I rolled a 1 and took a wound
(it actually happened two turns in a row if you want to know how bad that went for me)

then the question came up: Did that wound count towards combat resolution?

(not having the rules book with me) i do remember reading a line in the combat resolution section that was essentially "Wounds inflicted by your opponent"

in this case the wound was not DIRECTLY inflicted by my opponent (yes, because we were in combat, i had to roll for the deamon weapon and i took a wound) but we interpreted the rule to mean directly inflicted by the opponent.

This example with the vehicle is somewhat similar. Its not a direct attack causing the wounds but an effect outside of a direct CC attack.

Delduwath wrote:I went for option B...

I had something very similar happen in another game.

My chaos lord was using a deamon weapon, well when i rolled to see how many attacks i got, I rolled a 1 and took a wound
(it actually happened two turns in a row if you want to know how bad that went for me)

then the question came up: Did that wound count towards combat resolution?

(not having the rules book with me) i do remember reading a line in the combat resolution section that was essentially "Wounds inflicted by your opponent"

in this case the wound was not DIRECTLY inflicted by my opponent (yes, because we were in combat, i had to roll for the deamon weapon and i took a wound) but we interpreted the rule to mean directly inflicted by the opponent.

This example with the vehicle is somewhat similar. Its not a direct attack causing the wounds but an effect outside of a direct CC attack.

You did read this part, right?

"In rare cases certain models can cause wounds on themselves or their friends -- obviously these wounds are added to the other side's total for working out who has won."

I went with B as it seems that the rule was written for things like Chaos daemon weapons. I don't really see anything to support that the vehicle exploding adds to the combat resolution. Something like that I would expect to see it expressly stated.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

yakface wrote:


You did read this part, right?

"In rare cases certain models can cause wounds on themselves or their friends -- obviously these wounds are added to the other side's total for working out who has won."

Obviously not... (one of the first 5th edition games we played, under time constraints, i have a learning disability, i was drunk... that's about all the excuses i can think of right now)

but this quote would lead me to believe that you would indeed add the wounds from a vehicle explosion to the appropriate side (option A)

In the (somewhat) rare case of a vehicle explosion

1. A model (the vehicle) has caused wounds on themselves or friends (by exploding)
2. It (the vehicle) also caused wounds on the enemy. (again by exploding)

so it seems like the wounds from a vehicle explosion would be factored into the total combat resolution

I've always played it B out of simplicities sake. There was never meant to be combat res against vehicles without a WS, so when you start trying to apply it, things become a new level of screwiness.

What happens when a Mob of 30 or so boys and a killa kan, assault a tau fire warrior unit, farsight's battlesuit unit AND a devilfish with Flash Discharges. (this actually came up for me) Between the Flash Discharges and 2 vehicle explodes results we had about 20 models killed that we didn't know what to do with, and couldn't find a clear answer on if they counted or not.
The Flash D killed 8 Boys before anyone swung, then Farsight Blew up the can, killed 4 boys with that explosion and wounded himself and 1 of his guards, between the boy swings and the boys blowing up the fish all the firewarriors were killed (8) as well as a couple more boys.

It was an epic fiasco and in the interest of time we didn't count the wounds caused by the explosions.

I went with A, though I need to remember the daemon weapon bit, since we never played that those wounds counted. Poor Salvage is going to murder himself next time his Lord rolls a 1 for attacks, then has to roll another save for losing combat by 1 :-D

Back on topic though, we always played that you just totalled up the unsaved wounds/damage rolls for each side and figured from there. It didn't matter how they died, just that they did.

I'm going to jump in and give my opinion on how I play it. I voted 'A' for the following reason:


There are all sorts of wacky rules that occur in close combat, from Yriel's blast to the Grey Knight's Shrouding, etc, etc, etc. If you try to start drawing lines about what counts as wounds caused in combat and what doesn't things get really murky and confusing really quickly.

To me, when you pick a combat and resolve it (step 3 of the assault phase). Everything that happens from the point where you start rolling attacks for that combat to the point where you total up wounds is part of that combat.

Sure a vehicle exploded and caused damage, but that explosion was a direct result of close combat and happened within the period of the game where we were 'resolving [a particular] combat'.

So IMO, the enemy deaths caused by one of my models destroying their vehicle most certainly counts as casualties that were inflicted in combat and conversely the models killed by the explosion fall under the 'friendly' casualty rule because, again, my models attacking the vehicle were ultimately the cause of their deaths.


Ultimately who wins a combat is about which side suffers more casualties and I don't think, given the open nature of the resolution wording, that it matters how those wounds are actually inflicted.

I think the ruinous powers (Kharn, Demon weapons) are what was RAI here. Sadly, hastily written one-liner "rules" often have far-reaching consequences.

Stelek wrote:I think the ruinous powers (Kharn, Demon weapons) are what was RAI here. Sadly, hastily written one-liner "rules" often have far-reaching consequences.

The thing is, I think my perspective on the rules applies with or without that one line about models hurting themselves and their friends.


My point is, when you pick a combat and resolve it (make attacks, assign wounds, make saves, etc) Any casualties that occur from that combat are factored into the combat resolution. Exactly how those wounds end up occuring is immaterial. In that way, things like Yriel's blast, Holocaust, etc. all naturally fall under the same umbrella:

If the wounds were caused during the process of resolving that combat, then those wounds are factored in when determining who won the combat.

While I can see the reasoning behind trying to limit what counts as an 'acceptable' close combat casualty, I don't see that distinction actually present in the rules.

regardless of how little it matters at this point, i have to say that the only things that are supposed to affect each side's totals for close combat are 1) wounds inflicted by close combat attacks and 2) wounds inflicted by things that rules say affect wounds totals.

...at least that is how i would interpret the intent because things such as vehicle explosion casualties can happen in the shooting phase and have no affect upon close combat then.

is there another example of something causing wounds in close combat that could ALSO cause wounds in a similar fashion outside of close combat?