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I have been trying to follow the discussions elsewhere about wound overflow vs no wound overflow as a ruling. I for one would rather there be an answer, and I don't really care which the answer is - this is a game and it has rules (most of the time). Most TO's have decided there is no wound overflow including the TO at my local store.
Members in the other thread half-way requested someone start this thread:

Mark_Autarch wrote:[[[I'm not trying to argue either way. I'm now more itnerested in the discussion of situations that arise from either interpretation. I have an example below.
I'd also like to point out that this whole topic came up within my first 2 games of playing this edition... how many times did GW playtest this and not realize it was ambiguous?

Anyway,a real-life situation with no overflow:

I have a deamon prince(actually fate-weaver to make the cost differential worse) get assaulted by a unit of 4 necron lords (all of them are characters). He challenges me one at a time with 4 models. none of them can really hurt me, and I dont have a tough time killing each one individually. but because there are no wound overflows I have to kill 1 model a turn despite causing many times more wounds to the unit than would be necessary(2-3 wounds each round). even worse I roll poorly one round and dont kill the lord thus stretching this assault out over 3 game turns. That's 1/2 of the game! It was just plain annoying; not cinematic at all.

1) My local store has declared no overflow. Thus I have learned to keep my strongest close combat characters out of close combat.
2) I'm also probably not going to take any power fists or other upgrades for my sarges, because I need them to "cancel" opposing challenges should my close combat monsters accidently get into close combat.
3) Finally, I highly doubt any of my really valuable characters will ever issue challenges as this is just asking for them to be trapped (obviously my opponent will see the same benefits of taking naked seargents).
4) Instead, I have learned that the weakest seargent is the best choice for issuing challenges. In a cinematic way, challenges will be similar to chihuahuas barking at strangers.

Here was a response:

Anon wrote:[[[1) Have a sarge in there to accept challenges
1b) Precision strike still works - you realise that, yes?
2) surely you mean "get into a challenge" by accident. Well thats a tactical consideration: tool up with a powerfist to do damage, or a powersword to help in a challenge. The pfist sarge is no longer the most obvious choice, its called tactics. In 3rd a pfist sarge wasnt always a good idea because an IC could just punk them directly, at least now its either a challenge, and not causing wounds to anyone else OR precision strikes, at best
3) You will know what your opponent is armed with, so issuing can make sense. Page 111 may also educate you into why issuing a challenge is a good thing, situationally
4) Again, not always.

Knee done jerking yet? Very first order analysis.

WITH overflow you have a character be entirely safe from being attacked by a unit while still able to kill 3 - 4 of them a turn.

good job wounds dont over flow.]]]

Mark_Autarch wrote:1) but a sergeant wont help my monstrous creature unless I decide to tie-up 2 squads in combat against one opponent squad. I would probably still opt to stay out of close combat in that situation. not saying everyone would, I'm just reporting what I would do.
1a) yes, but at ~16% chance to put a wound somewhere else... eh, I'm still gonna avoid the combat if I can, that's just not great odds.
2) i agree with you. but until I know the tactics of the situation (as in, while I'm building my list, before I even know my opponent) it would seem that against any opponent across the board, I would generally do better to keep the sarge as cheap as possible so I can throw him at big characters. in fact, specifically for the reason you point out in #1 above, (paraphrased) he is there to prevent your real fighters from getting trapped [in a challenge].
Now where it gets interesting is when 2 weakling sergeants end up challenging each other- a situation which I see as more and more likely to occur based on the debate going on in the original thread. If I tool up my sarge a little, He may win the challenge, and can then go on to trap my opponent's other characters. But this situation only becomes really advantageous if I expect to have the close combat drawn out for more than one game turn. I don't know if I want that or not, I guess that is too situational to say.
3) I have already been so educated, but I appreciate the reference for clarity. since I was already speaking in terms of a specific situation - I dont want my monstrous creature getting tied up doing meaningless extra wounds to an otherwise insignificant model. so here is where tactics comes into play, and I think my tactic would be to avoid the fight so my creature can go elsewhere. If my opponent can trap me, than he has out-maneuvered me and I lose the battle.
4) very few things are "always." however, when the probability is high, I will probably treat it as more likely to occur than to not occur.

I don't completely understand the rest of your response. However, you are right about the inequality of having the character safe from reciprocity. I also think this part of the rule would be foolish. Again, I'm not trying to argue about the rule, I was merely point out how it would affect my play.

How is this even an issue when you can only initiate one challenge per close combat? And you have intervention to unstick your IC if you need to

I really don't understand what the big fuss is, except trying to stretch the definitions in order to break the system. This isn't a legal system, it's a framework of rules to facilitate fun. It is pretty clear about Whilst the Chs are locked in a challenge they are insulated from the outside world (except when one of the Chs are lone).

GravesDisease wrote:I really don't understand what the big fuss is, except trying to stretch the definitions in order to break the system. This isn't a legal system, it's a framework of rules to facilitate fun. It is pretty clear about Whilst the Chs are locked in a challenge they are insulated from the outside world (except when one of the Chs are lone).

Which is why this rule bending is best kept for FMDC. Even then, most players are bright enough to realise that what the rules technically allow you to do, is not how you ACTUALLY play the game.

GravesDisease wrote:I really don't understand what the big fuss is, except trying to stretch the definitions in order to break the system. This isn't a legal system, it's a framework of rules to facilitate fun. It is pretty clear about Whilst the Chs are locked in a challenge they are insulated from the outside world (except when one of the Chs are lone).

Have a look at Magic: The Gathering for a completely unambiguous rulesset that doesn't consist of just a few hundred different pieces, but ten thousands. It is literally impossible to create a situation in MTG which is not 100% covered by the rules. This shows that it can be done.

If GW had done their job of playtesting and refining rules, a sentence like "Any further wounds are lost" or "Any further wounds carry over to the unit" would have been in place. Every single person I played asked this during their first challenge. If they had done any actual playtesting they would have known. While they did a better job in systematizing 6th than they did in 5th, there are still so many obvious flaws which could easily have been avoided. As for the FAQs, they didn't even bother to go through most of the xenos codices and tried to apply a simple "What would this do to fliers? Can this be snap-fired?" to every single rule and write the answer into the FAQ. Heck, they didn't even care to specify power weapons on most models. The people at GW are doing lazy game design, and for that they deserve every single bit of hate they get. They charge 60 EUR for their rules - yet they act like the famous three monkeys and claim to be a modeling company. No one buys the book for the fluff and the pretty pictures. No one buys a codex for fluff and pretty pictures. Even the most die-hard fluff players don't.

I can accept a less-than-perfect ruleset. It took MTG about seven years to turn from a fun idea straight from a creative persons head into an air-tight rulesset. This was more than ten years ago.
I cannot accept lazy oversights all over the place, which could easily have been caught with a slightest bit of effort. Especially not considering the price tag they put on their rules. If they can't do it, they should hire somebody who can. I would bet my army that there are hundreds of technical writers, programmers or lawyers in the UK playing GW's games who would gladly do the job of a chief rules manager. And probably even some more all over the world who would relocate to the UK to do that job.

On a side note: All this has absolutely nothing to do with balancing. PC games can't have "loopholes" in their rules per definition - otherwise the program crashes. You still get a hell lot of imbalanced PC games.

/rant

lol Mark, seems like people here want to discuss the ambiguity of the ruleset, not the effect of a ruling one way or the other :p can't catch a break.

It's a big question personally I think
No Overflow
will inhibit power characters, especially solo, as lists with lots of characters can really tie them down. I would not want to fight Nob Mobs with big ICs as they can just tie them down to 1 Nob kill per turn.

will encourage mini characters, lots of sarg's, nobs etc to sacrifice themselves to tie up a big bad for a turn, it'll be quite possible for an assault sarg to restrict an uber character to 1 wound for resolution while the rest of the squad out damage the rest of his squad and then overrun him on combat resolution.

Valuable characters will be escorted by less valuable characters to accept challenges on their behalf

High I characters will gain a lot of ground on high damage characters as, if you can kill their character before they strike then you'll be taking as many wounds as you can, no point overkilling into the squad if you can't anyway and with all the little characters around you'll often get a target you can pick off who's reasonably small.

Overflow

Will encourage power characters as they are now protected from either the squad or the biggest character in it and can still apply full force

Will make a character to lead a bigger dilemma as no char makes you lose nothing to challenges while a char might be sitting out or taking the brunt

I think that's like the first level of detail, it can go a lot deeper than that and a lot will depend on the meta but that's a start.

The bloodthirster vs a power blob is the worst example of no overflow.
The bloodthirster sits there and kills 1 sergeant each turn until there are none, which might take 6 combat turns.

If one character kills the other and there are wounds leftover, those extra wounds DO count towards combat resolution, right?

Nope, only in Fantasy.

Combat resolution counts actual wounds lost only.

In many cases, I think that no wound overflow actually benefits single character monsters. If you charge on your turn then you challenge. If your opponent accepts then you murder his hidden fist or whatever and remain locked in combat so your opponent cannot shoot at your Bloodthirster or whatever next turn. The next turn, you wipe the unit in CC and then are free to assault something on your next turn. If your opponent doesn't accept the challenge, then you can wipe the squad without fear of the hidden fist or whatever.

The tables are turned if your opponent charges you because the throwaway unit can now tie up your Bloodthirster during your turn. Careful play can probably avoid this problem, though.

The only time that no wound overflow really hurts is against Vanilla Marines with Combat Tactics and squads with multiple characters. A unit of Nobz will obviously ruin the Bloodthirster's day. Marines can sacrifice their sarge and choose to fall back with minimal casualties.

In the end, I'm just not sure that these situations will come up enough to justify not taking MCs and powerful characters.