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Some friends and I decided to build new armies for fun over winter break (our first time playing since 5th ed came out). We have stated small (500 points). One of my buddies built a Tau army. He has a HQ crisis suit with an additional crisis suit as part of the retinue. HQ has 4 wounds, retinue has 2 wounds. Because the HQ and the retinue are NOT identical (p.26 of rule book) they take wounds independently..so essentially if I can deal the 'squad' 2 wounds depending on how the hits were allocated (1 to the HQ and 1 to the retinue for example) and no one in the squad will die? But if the two units were identical and the squad took 2 wounds one of the squad members would die because wounds "cannot be spread around to avoid removing models".

Does this seem weird or potentially exploitable to anyone else?

So for example, there is a HQ and a drone. I have a squad of 3 devastators (2 have lascannons). I fire at the HQ/drone unit. I WANT my bolter to miss and the 2 lascannons to hit. The results are so much better if the the devastator with the bolter misses. Why? If I hit with both lascannons and the bolter the drone can take both lascannon hits and the HQ will take the bolter (probably surviving). However, if the bolter misses and I hit with both lascannons then both the HQ and the drone take a lascannon hit because 1 hit has to be allocated to each (probably both die). So, it is BEST that my bolter misses. This seems weird and counterintuitive.

Have I read these rules correctly? Does anyone else think this is odd?

You're right, and there are lists already that make use of this rule. They are Nob Biker armies.

Aye, you can have a squad of i think 7-10 different equiped bikers, therefor making every shot definable.

That's madness!
So now I see why people are doing so well with the biker nobz armies.
Just doesn't make all that much sense and seems to make multi-wound units that are made of of 'distinct' squad members (like 1 has a grenade and 1 doesn't or whatever) WAY more powerful than multi-wound units that are all identical.

It certainly encourages units to be diverse.

Wait I don't get it. I've read about this sort of thing and how people abuse it but I don't know how it works exactly.
So if you have a group of the same models and one with different stuff then you can stack on the one dude?

Sgt. Salt wrote:Wait I don't get it.

You equip Ork Nobs all different. With the options available I could have a Painboy and nine Nobs that all have some different piece of wargear or weaponry. Thus I follow the wound allocation for complex multi-wound units, making it much harder to destroy the unit. You don't stack on one guy but you avoid having to remove one Nob per two unsaved wounds since they're in effect all separate groups when applying wounds.

Oh okay that makes sense

indeed.