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Let me set up a scenario.

Say my squad of 10 get charged by a unit with a power weapon. Say by the end of the rolling, I am looking at a total of 30 wounds, 3 of which are from the power weapon. I can allocate the 3 PW wounds to one model, and then the rest of the wounds to the rest of the squad so long as I have 3 wounds per model.

That accurate?

To briefly answer your question, you can allocate them to one model, but if all the models in the squad are equiped the same and have the same stats, then you will end up removing 3 models due to the PW. The only time you can avoid removing 3 models in your scenario is if one or more of the models are equipped differently or have different stats. You then can place those 3 PW wounds on the differently equipped model, then make your saving rolls for the rest of the identically equipped models.

Remember "model groups" roll together, so say your squad is a squad of 10 space marines with a vet sgt as well as a tactical marine with a flamer. You could allocate all the PW wounds on the flamer, only pick him up (initially) then roll 3 normal saves on the sgt, then roll 24 on the normal squad (removing any failed saves)

That's what I thought. Thank you.

And don't forget saves are done after each initiative step, not after the whole unit finished attacks.

If you have had the forsight to equip a model to be the fall guy then yes.

Lets for the sake of the argument say that your unit is a unit of SM's.

9 marines and a sarge.
One has a heavy bolter and one has a flamer.

If you choose to allocate the powerweapon hits on the flamer model, the heavy bolter model or the sarge then that model wil die die die, the 3 power weapon wounds allocated will only count for 1 for combat resolution purpouses and only one model will be removed from them.

In CC its not all that common however as you play through each init step separately however I expect it will be alot more common in the shooting phase with good AP weapons magically converging on a single sucker.

In my gaming group I have thus put forth a house rule sugestion that you have to allocate the best AP weapons first and then weaker AP weapons untill all the hard hitting ones are dished out before allocating any hits that allow a save.

Its being mulled over atm, Im not 100% sure its a good rule myself but its worth mulling over.

I thought for mixed armor/weapon units, each model has to take 1 wound before a model can have a second wound. So I don't see how anyone is putting 3 powerweapon wounds on a flamer and not giving it a chance to spill over onto the squad.

If your armor and toughness is all the same, piling up wounds on a heavy weapon to prevent it from flowing onto the unit doesn't seem legit.

nkelsch wrote:I thought for mixed armor/weapon units, each model has to take 1 wound before a model can have a second wound. So I don't see how anyone is putting 3 powerweapon wounds on a flamer and not giving it a chance to spill over onto the squad.

If your armor and toughness is all the same, piling up wounds on a heavy weapon to prevent it from flowing onto the unit doesn't seem legit.

wounds are assigned and rolled for AFTER each initiative step. So as we were saying 30 wounds were received 3 of which were power weapon or such. So 1 Power wep wound to the space marine with the flamer, then 9 normal to the rest of the squad, then 1 PW to the flamer again then 9 normal to the squad then repeat again. So at this point there are 3 PW on the flamer then 27 to the rest of the squad. (since wound types don't matter for the purpose of wound allocation)

10 man marine squad: 1 Vet Sergeant [S], 1 Flamer [F], 8 Bolter Marines [M]

I'll show both CC and Shooting since they are resolved the same.

The squad received 3 Plasma Weapon/Power Weapon Wounds (PW), and 8 Bolter/standard (B/S) Wounds.

You spread wounds out as evenly as possible to each model. Since there were 11 hits total, one model will have one more than the rest.

[S] (B/S)
[M] (B/S)
[M] (B/S)
[M] (B/S)
[M] (B/S)
[M] (B/S)
[M] (B/S)
[M] (B/S)
[M] (B/S)
[F] (PW)x2

Now you roll for saves.

The [S] makes his save.
The [M]s fail 3 collectively, so you pick 3 up.
The [F] doesn't even get a chance to save from his two wounds, but since wounds are locked into equipment/statline groups you only pick him up.

The squad "failed" 5 saves but you only lost 4 models.

If you don't have different armor/toughness I don't see why you should be able to do this. Loading up wounds on a single model seems beardy and reeks of powergaming.

I will have to re-read the new book on this section because I didn't think this type of thing flew in 5th edition unless it was unique character squads. Heavy weapons and upgrade characters in units should be treated equally if they have the same toughness and armor.\

Edit: I guess specialized units for wound allocation is now *EVERY UNIT IN THE GAME* now that every unit basically has weapon options and leader upgrades. This whole cheaty way to avoid powerweapon rules seems like it is going to slow down combat really bad and ruin sportsmanship in tourneys.

nklesch: prehaps merely viewing it as a change in the way the game is played may be a bit more beneficial. If I came up with this on my own (by that I mean without having read it someplace else where it almost certainly was realized by someone else first), then you can bet that someone in your playgroup or FLGS is going to pull this one out of his hip pocket and smack you with it at some point. Yeah, it's coming. Time to establish your own personal guidelines as to who in the squad gets to play Lee Majors under those conditions.

grizgrin wrote:nklesch: prehaps merely viewing it as a change in the way the game is played may be a bit more beneficial. If I came up with this on my own (by that I mean without having read it someplace else where it almost certainly was realized by someone else first), then you can bet that someone in your playgroup or FLGS is going to pull this one out of his hip pocket and smack you with it at some point. Yeah, it's coming. Time to establish your own personal guidelines as to who in the squad gets to play Lee Majors under those conditions.

I play orks, my saves suck so I mist times get none for shooting, and my units are numerous so I won't have the chance to 'wrap wounds' very often. So I can see very little times where I would waste my opponents time to try to get out of a single wound like this. Even if I could do it, it just seems like a waste of time to keep a model on the board for a slight advantage that really shouldn't be there.

On the other side, my units are large so I can easily see when I will be throwing 20+ wounds at a unit only to see them whittled down by this complex wound placement. So I fully expect units that should be wiped of the board still around because they stack wounds up on models and one dude makes some crazy lucky saves.

The only unit I would consider it on would be a nobsquad, but they are a unit of character models who each can have unique wargear. Not simply upgrades and heavy weapons. Those are the types of squad I would expect those rules to actually apply to, But considering a Sm tactical squad 'complex' because they have a flamer seems to defeat the purpose. I would like to see them clarify complex units to not to include special weapons and character upgrades UNLESS there is a different armor/toughness. This would make only a few units truly complex and only upgrades characters with unique armor can be a 'fall guy'. (usually people don't want them to be the fall guy)

nkelsch wrote:If you don't have different armor/toughness I don't see why you should be able to do this. Loading up wounds on a single model seems beardy and reeks of powergaming.

I will have to re-read the new book on this section because I didn't think this type of thing flew in 5th edition unless it was unique character squads. Heavy weapons and upgrade characters in units should be treated equally if they have the same toughness and armor.\

Edit: I guess specialized units for wound allocation is now *EVERY UNIT IN THE GAME* now that every unit basically has weapon options and leader upgrades. This whole cheaty way to avoid powerweapon rules seems like it is going to slow down combat really bad and ruin sportsmanship in tourneys.

Instead of screaming " " you could listen to the designers tell you why they made this change to the rules.

You are also missing the trade-off. To 'save' a normal tac marine, you have to sacrifice your special weapon, the one you paid so much money for. As the attacker, I am okay with that.

Your orks shoot at the marines. Would you rather kill 5 bolter marines, or 3 bolter marines and 1 flamer/plasma/whatever marine?

And you are only looking at one scenario. Lets say you hit them with normal (AP5) shots, and get 12 wounds. Old way, only tac marines would die. Now, there is a chance that the flamer *and* the sgt will both die.

exactly, now there is a REAL CHANCE that the sgt with the power fist can be the 1st causality instead of the last. (10 wounds and he was the only one who failed his save or w/e)

Red_Lives wrote:exactly, now there is a REAL CHANCE that the sgt with the power fist can be the 1st causality instead of the last. (10 wounds and he was the only one who failed his save or w/e)

I agree that this is the "TRUE" intention of the rule. I think it is valid that if a 10-man unit gets 14 wounds, that the old way of invisible powerfist where the character will *NEVER* take a wound down to the last model is flawed in the other direction.

But being able to place multiple NO SAVE wounds on the same model seems like a bad step in the other direction.

Assigning 1 Ap2 wound, 9 savable wounds then ANOTHER AP2 wound on the SAME MODEL seems to be not in the spirit of the intended goal, which is to force weapons/characters to take a CHANCE at failing a save opposed to being 100% invisible. From listening to the podcast, this is the goal and the doubling wounds on a flamer is an unintended side effect which people clearly have figured out and are going to slow down games to eek out extra wounds.

I mean this situation is going to come up so infrequently that it is just an argument ready to happen which is why they should choose to simplify it opposed to clarify it. This is a situation I guarantee even good tourney judges will rule wrong on once in a while and will be a bear in friendly games. An order of operations of wounds assigned from worst to best would IMHO minimize the '1 model taking multiple instakill/no save wounds' while forcing characters and HW to take wounds and not be invisible.

But it is what it is, when someone does it, I will simply pray to gork and mork to ruin his save rolls! That is the joy of being an ork player is dice mojo.

I really don't know what to say to that.

How about this: Why is it beardy to put all the wounds on a single model when it seems just plain silly that the one guy with a power weapon will always hit a different target with every swing?

nkelsch wrote:Assigning 1 Ap2 wound, 9 savable wounds then ANOTHER AP2 wound on the SAME MODEL seems to be not in the spirit of the intended goal,

It's backed up by the example given in the rulebook, though, which specifically talks about stacking wounds onto single models in order to minimise the damage.

So it's not just an unintended side-effect. It's a part of the way the rules are now designed to work.

RecklesssFable wrote:How about this: Why is it beardy to put all the wounds on a single model when it seems just plain silly that the one guy with a power weapon will always hit a different target with every swing?

Ork Boy: "'ey Boss! What yoo doin krumpin dat 'ooomie over and over? he is already dead, kil sum other 'oomies"
Ork Nob: "Normally I wud, as I like killin 'oomies, but dere somefing bout dis guy wit dis flamer, I just gotta wail on him over and over!!! I can't rezist!"

You don't want to actually try to reconcile realism with rule mechanics do you? Why does it seem not silly that if the opponents are holding bolters, he will cut through them like multiple stalks of corn, but if one of them has a flamer, he will stop everything and wail on his dead corpse with a lethal weapon the owner knows KILLS in a single blow?

Order of operations for assigning wounds by armor save would clarify this and make the rule incontestable as there would be no 'discretion' in where wounds are placed, keeping the intent of the rule intact (stopping invisible weapon options) and removing all possible conflict.

Except that going by armour save would remove most of the point of having the rule in the first place, since your special weapons and upgrade characters suddenly become indestructable again.

The whole point of the wound allocation system was to give the characters and upgrade models a chance of becoming casualties. Bear in mind that in most cases the player is actually going to want to keep his specialists alive rather than using them as wound-bait, and the whole thing suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Keep in mind in a standard space marine squad there are only 3 "special" models:

The Sergent (usually has either a power fist or weapon)
The assault weapon (Flamer,meltagun, plazmagun)
The heavy weapon (Heavy bolter, lazcannon, etc)

These guys cost EXTRA POINTS. And under the new rule system if 10+ wounds are dealt they must roll their saves INDIVIDUALLY! Trust me you complain now but as soon as you deal 10 wounds with lootas and the Sergent and the heavy bolter were the only guys to fail their saves you will be whistling quite a different tune.

insaniak wrote:It's backed up by the example given in the rulebook, though, which specifically talks about stacking wounds onto single models in order to minimise the damage.

So it's not just an unintended side-effect. It's a part of the way the rules are now designed to work.

... Yes and No...
Yes, the example is stacking up additional wounds to the already ... well dead model but...

As usual they have created an example that leaves alot to ask for.

The example uses 5 marines and only one of them is unique (sarge).
The unit suffers 11 wounds only one of witch ignores the models saves (melta).

The example then allocates the melta to a standard bolter armed SM, in the example it does not matter if that model dies from the wound as the 4 remaining wounds that have been allocated to the two bolter armed marines as with one bolter gone the remaining will have to suffer the 4 remaining.

Its a common thing, the designers know how they want the rules to work and set up an example that they feel is very good but they forget that they know the rules well and how they are intended to work, we on the other hand are plauged by #1 not knowing the intent and #2 have many people who vocally WANT the intent to be this or that.

I would have wanted the example to be similar to my above lineup, worst case scenareo (ie 3 plasma wounds and 21 wounds in total).
This would give us the intent of the rule.

If the example then placed 3 plasma(powerweapon...) wounds on the flamer armed SM and killed him dead dead dead denying the additional kills those wounds should have otherwise caused then there would be no question, sadly the example is just a general example and does not cover the extremes.

As for the rule as a whole...
I like the fact that there is a chance that special models die early, this is a better solution than the "choose a specific model to suffer 1 wound" from 4th, I do however not like the fact that the 3+ armies will start building their squads with the damage magnet in mind.

fester wrote:
Its a common thing, the designers know how they want the rules to work and set up an example that they feel is very good but they forget that they know the rules well and how they are intended to work, we on the other hand are plauged by #1 not knowing the intent and #2 have many people who vocally WANT the intent to be this or that.

I would have wanted the example to be similar to my above lineup, worst case scenareo (ie 3 plasma wounds and 21 wounds in total).
This would give us the intent of the rule.

If the example then placed 3 plasma(powerweapon...) wounds on the flamer armed SM and killed him dead dead dead denying the additional kills those wounds should have otherwise caused then there would be no question, sadly the example is just a general example and does not cover the extremes.

As for the rule as a whole...
I like the fact that there is a chance that special models die early, this is a better solution than the "choose a specific model to suffer 1 wound" from 4th, I do however not like the fact that the 3+ armies will start building their squads with the damage magnet in mind.

I completely disagree. The example is very clear and they even include an 'intent' sentence just to make sure everyone understands how the rule works:

"He allocates one normal wound, the meltagun one (the grey dice) and the spare wound on a Space Marine with a bolter, and then two normal wounds on every other model. He is trying to minimize the damage by allocating both the worst wound (the meltagun's) and the spare wound on the same model."


As indicated in the example, the player is allowed to allocate the wounds in order to minimize casualties. This lets you know that it is 'okay' to allocate wounds in a way that benefits you the most.


The fact is, 3 plasma gun wounds and 21 wounds overall almost never happens in a normal 40K game and therefore would be a strange example to include as a diagram. If you approach the rules and the diagram without any preconceived notions (which can be a challenge for any of us who have played the game for years) they are perfectly clear IMHO.

The way the rules are now written removes a lot of the ambiguity about how multiple wounds and no-save wounds used to be resolved.

It also prevents the survival of the powerfist sergeant to the last man.

Finally it discourages overkill and will reward players who distribute their fire very tactically.

yakface wrote: If you approach the rules and the diagram without any preconceived notions (which can be a challenge for any of us who have played the game for years) they are perfectly clear IMHO.

I guess this is true... And overall, this is a lot better than the Invisible powerfists and those god-awful assault test rules for 3.5rd edition with 'kill zones'. I am going to do my first 5th tourney next weekend, so I will see if this rule even comes up.

OI!!! I dun talked ta da big boss over at da gamesworkshop ead'quarters, e' says dat da way dem roolz is written dat you's can allycate multiple ap2 woundz or multple powerweapon attackz to one model az long as every model is allycated az even a number of woundz az possible

e' also said dat dis wuz not da way da roolz was meant ta werk so's e's gonna talk ta iz boss an' dey'z mebey gunna putz out an FAQ ta dis...dis...ta talkz about dis in da next FAQ release

mebey dey fix it, mebey dey don't

Da Red Gobbo wrote:OI!!! I dun talked ta da big boss over at da gamesworkshop ead'quarters, e' says dat da way dem roolz is written dat you's can allycate multiple ap2 woundz or multple powerweapon attackz to one model az long as every model is allycated az even a number of woundz az possible

e' also said dat dis wuz not da way da roolz was meant ta werk so's e's gonna talk ta iz boss an' dey'z mebey gunna putz out an FAQ ta dis...dis...ta talkz about dis in da next FAQ release

mebey dey fix it, mebey dey don't

yea... how about you not talk like that anymore...

Da Red Gobbo wrote:OI!!! I dun talked ta da big boss over at da gamesworkshop ead'quarters, e' says dat da way dem roolz is written dat you's can allycate multiple ap2 woundz or multple powerweapon attackz to one model az long as every model is allycated az even a number of woundz az possible

e' also said dat dis wuz not da way da roolz was meant ta werk so's e's gonna talk ta iz boss an' dey'z mebey gunna putz out an FAQ ta dis...dis...ta talkz about dis in da next FAQ release

mebey dey fix it, mebey dey don't

1) Stop. For the love of Gork. Stop. A few sentences can be fun for flavor. A whole post? Not so much.

2) Rulesboys don't know JACK. If you (or they) read the rulebook you'll see that, in fact, it IS the way "da roolz" were meant to work. It says it plain and clear in the BGB.

3) Rulesboys don't know JACK. Yes. I said it twice. It deserves repeating. Check out Yak's guidelines for discussion.

Eric

yakface wrote:I completely disagree. The example is very clear and they even include an 'intent' sentence just to make sure everyone understands how the rule works:

I think you miss my point.

I agree that the intent seems to indicate that you can micromanage your way out of quite alot of damage under the 5th rules and I do agree that 3 plasma hits and in total 21 wounds is a rare thing however...

The example would be alot clearer if
A) there were multiple AP1/powerweapon attacks involved.
B) said attacks were allocated to a unique model putting further emphasis that this is the intent.

I have been perfectly candid in my opinion about the issue wich is that I feel you should not be able to do this as well as completelly in agreement that my opinion is not what the rules state.

The rules actually do not mention how to deal with wounds that ignore armour as oposed to wounds that do not leaving the only conclution that there is no diffrence.

As for the 21 wounds situation, ok that will rarelly happen but lets use a different example:
A few turns into the game 3 SM terminators suffer a harsh punishment and the oponent scores in total 10 wounds on them, 4 of wich ignore the termie 2+ save.
Luckilly for the SM player he upgraded one termie to a chainfist termie.
He now allocates the 4 attacks that ignore the save to the chainfist termie and the 6 remaining "safe" (3 to each) wounds to the remaining two termies.

This is not a very unlikelly situation, especially not in CC and it will cause some grumbles at games, legal ruleswize however ... people will feel cheated.

Like I said earlier, I like some parts of this rule however it will cause some serious problem as in this case those 4 save ignoring wounds will at best even if all 4 inv saves are failed will only cause 1 casualty...

All I am really saying here is that the example could have been alot better, sadly this (like I also stated) is a common problem with examples not only in games but in text books of all kinds.

And to be perfectly clear as I know some people seem to forget what is written in the first part of a post...

You are allowed to group together wounds that do not allow saves on single unique models as long as you allocate one wound to each model before allocating a second save denying wound to the unique model.