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So I just picked up the Dark Vengeance set, which marks my first entrance into tabletop gaming. I've read the basic rulebook that it came with, and there is one matter in particular that I can't wrap my head around.

Suppose you are shooting at an enemy unit where one of the enemy models is in range of all of your unit's models. The rest of the models in the enemy unit are in line of sight, but are:

A. Not in range of any of your unit's weapons. All of your models are allowed to fire according to Which models can fire? (P13). So what happens when it comes to wound allocation? Could the entire enemy unit be wiped out despite only one of its models being in range? Where does it say in the rulebook that you can't allocate wounds to models that aren't in weapon range of the unit that is shooting? (Even Out of range (P16) seems to suggest that wounds may continue to be allocated when the remaining models are not in range of the firing models.)

B. In range of one unit with a longer range weapon than the rest of the unit that is shooting. They are in range of at least one model that is shooting, but does this mean all wounds in the wound pool can be allocated to them? Is the outcome of this shooting phase so dramatically altered because of the presence of one long range unit, even if that unit didn't even hit?

Sorry if I misunderstood anything. This is all new to me. Thank you!

The faq's have stated that a unit must have a weapon in range of the models in a unit as the wounds are being allocated. Ie. you need to have a model that can see and be in weapons range of the model to allocate wounds to it.
If you cannot legally allocate the remaining wounds to a unit from the wound pool they are discarded.

So in your examples.
A. You can shoot at the unit and only the models in range can have wounds allocated to them.
B. You can shoot at the unit and you can wound models up to the range of the long range gun. eg. I shoot a squad of tac marines at some gaunts, there is 9 bolters and 1 heavy bolter.
If the heavy bolter fires I can wound models up to the heavy bolter's maximum range but if it doesn't fire I can only wound models up to the bolter's range.

First off, welcome to the hobby!

I don't have my Dark Vengeance books nor 6e rulebook handy right now but this can be resolved.

If the range of your weapon(s) reaches a model that is part of the targeted unit then all hits and wounds are directed only to the models within range.

A little scenario from your set: I have a squad of 5 regular marines all armed with boltguns (the sergeant with a bolt pistol). Their targeted unit is a squad of 10 cultists. I check the distance between each of my models and all of the cultists. It is determined that only 5 cultist are in range of 2 boltgun marines. So only the 2 boltgun marines may fire and only those 5 cultists are affected.

The end results of the dice roll say that there is only one wound. This wound will be resolved with the armor save of one of the affected cultists (your choice on how to allocate the wound amongst them).

In the case where there is more wounds than models (say 5 wounds to one affected cultist who was the only one in range) then the wounds can only be allocated to that one cultist. You would roll all 5 dice and if you fail even one armor save then the cultist is dead, the remainder cannot be allocated to the rest of the cultist squad because they are not in range.

 liturgies of blood wrote:
Under out of range there is a paragraph, out of sight. Page 16 has the answer to A.


I think you need to reword B to make it clear.
If a model in unit A has range to unit B then it can fire. If only one model in A has range to unit B only it can fire.
The faq's have stated that a unit must have a weapon in range of the models in a unit as the wounds are being allocated. Ie. you need to have a model that can see and be in weapons range of the model to allocate wounds to it.

I was describing a situation in which all models involved have line of sight, so the "Out of Sight" clause does not apply here.

Okay, I meant to say that all models in unit A had range on a single model in unit B, allowing them to fire. However, if only one model (with a longer ranged weapon than the other models) in unit A had range on the remaining models in unit B, would all of the models in unit B be vulnerable to wounds in the pool solely because of the presence of that longer ranged model in unit A.

I'm trying to envision this scenario, and I can't grasp why the presence of a single long range model in unit A would enable the hits from many shorter ranged models in unit A to wound the majority of the models in unit B that would have otherwise not been valid for wound allocation according to the FAQ you just mentioned.

I hope I was clear this time.

EDIT: Okay you edited your post, I see you understood me better on a second reading. Thank you for the clarification, although this still seems odd to me that the presence of one long range weapon brings all those other wounds from short range weapons into the fold. But I suppose I can understand this as a practical manner of saving time measuring ranges excessively on a model-to-model basis?

Check the edited post. It's not what happens in real life that matters, it's the game's rules.

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed recently regarding flamers and adding a longer range weapon to a unit to effectively extend the killing range of the flamers, so please post a link to that if you know it.

"The Wound Pool" p14, says to separate "...Wounds with different Strengths, AP values, or special rules..." into separate groups.

The BRB FAQ gives us:

Q: When making a Shooting attack against a unit, can Wounds
from the Wound Pool be allocated to models that were not within
range any of the shooting models when To Hit rolls were made (i.e.
half the targeted model are in the shooting models’ range, and half
are not)? (p15)
A: No.

So from the p14, I guess we would NOT create a separate Wound Pool for weapons with longer/shorter ranges (even if common sense dictates we should) if their S, AP, and USRs are the same.

The wording of the FAQ is slightly amgibuous, in that it refers to the "range of any of the shooting models", not the "range of the shooting models that caused the creation of THIS Wound Pool", but that's the way I read it (and yes, I will get jumped on for the way I parse it).

So, in your original scenario B, RAW says if the Strength, AP, and special rules of the long and short range weapons are the same, a single Wound Pool is created and the wounds can be allocated to any target model in range of the long range weapon.

If any one of Strength, AP, or special rules are different between the weapons, create a separate wound pool, and the short range Wounds can only be allocated to targets within the range of those weapons.

I don't think there is any support for the wound pools groups being limited to the range restriction. The FAQ says shooting models not similar weapons type and it says wound pool not groups within the wound pool.

Snapshot wrote:

If any one of Strength, AP, or special rules are different between the weapons, create a separate wound pool, and the short range Wounds can only be allocated to targets within the range of those weapons.

There is only ever one wound pool. weapons with different Strength, AP, etc... only create different groups within that wound pool. (Page 14).

Good point. So does that mean it is perfectly OK to extend the killing range of (say) flamers by shoving a sniper rifle into a unit?

Yes.

Snapshot wrote:
Good point. So does that mean it is perfectly OK to extend the killing range of (say) flamers by shoving a sniper rifle into a unit?

This covers it pretty good.
http://www.3plusplus.net/2013/01/kill-zones-40k-shooting-post-faq/

And this is still more "realistic" and less weird than it was pre-Faq were 10 marines with bolt pistols could all 10 orcs in a 29" long line by just shooting the first guy.

Just think of it this way:

There are many elements of the game that are based upon the concept of a unit as a whole.

For example, it would be impractical to roll for each firing model separately so that you could check range and LOS for that particular firing model to the target he's shooting at. So as an ABSTRACTION the rules simply tell you to check LOS and range for the unit as a whole (with of course any firing model that is completely out of range to the firing unit or has absolutely no LOS to the firing unit being generally not allowed to fire).

Therefore, any model in the target unit that is within LOS of at least one model in the firing unit and within range of at least one model in the firing unit, then that model in the target unit is valid to become a casualty.

Its really just that simple. While it may not make any 'real life' sense that a longer range weapon can somehow increase the potential damage range for a flamer (for example), in this case you just have to think of it as the firing UNIT's overall range, not the individual firing models within that unit.

Yeah I'm comfortable with abstractions. I'd just misread the Wound Pool rules and how the FAQ ruling for range and wound allocation applied to it.

sorry i just see this as broken.

so the is one more reason i do not like 6th . it has some good ideas but just fail in pulling it off.

 madfjohn wrote:
sorry i just see this as broken.

so the is one more reason i do not like 6th . it has some good ideas but just fail in pulling it off.

It was like this in 5th. Well sort of, 5th was less restrictive, because if you had 10 dudes shooting at a unit, but they only had range to 1 of the enemy model, then you could kill the whole unit regardless of Line of Sight or range to the rest of the unit.

More restrictive than last edition is broken?

Interesting take.

Wow, looks like I hit on a sensitive subject! Thanks for the replies guys. I really appreciate it. I just wanted to make sure I grasped how the game is played.

 Byte wrote:

Snapshot wrote:
Good point. So does that mean it is perfectly OK to extend the killing range of (say) flamers by shoving a sniper rifle into a unit?

This covers it pretty good.
http://www.3plusplus.net/2013/01/kill-zones-40k-shooting-post-faq/

That's a really good explanation with great diagrams. As he says, the rule make little sense, but at least it helps to make sense of it.

aye it is and thanks for that link on it.

here is the next broken i have found i assault a 5 man wolf unit that has a termy as a Sargent . my opponent pops his wolf standard . i get all 30 boys in and wound about 30 times he then rolls all the wounds on the termy first and makes all the saves . at least i could hurt the unit for 5th in 6th i do not seem to hurt much in that way .

yes i felt that part was broken in 5th to but i never had it abused like it is in 6th for me at least. i have always made list that wood be fun to play in tournaments for ether side.
But i have found 6th has taken more out of the fun list as so many scramble to make the so called power list.

with my friends we play it how they entened . It really not hard to do and still just as fast as the normal rules witch i feal is way to slow still. just set the dice poll for the rang in as part of the separating of the wound pool. also makes you more selective on witch ones you have your opponent roll for the order.

but this is my perspective on how 6th is doing . All my games have increase in time to play thanks to how all game mechaniks work so to try to have a faster play orc army not simple. This was my biggest concern for the game and it is why i never played in any 2ed tournaments it just took to dam long.

I had assumed everybody who played 40k just ignored that FAQ.

It's so silly I won't even get into it.

Just follow the rulebooks version.

As long as you are in range when you rolled to hit then you can wound the unit.

Problem is that the lots of people like to follow the rules regardless of their silliness.

Jacob29 wrote:
I had assumed everybody who played 40k just ignored that FAQ.

It's so silly I won't even get into it.

 liturgies of blood wrote:
Problem is that the lots of people like to follow the rules regardless of their silliness.

I'm sympathetic to both perspectives.

On one hand, it's a lot easier for me to side with the rulebook without the FAQ, because then I can just imagine that the shots fired didn't necessarily hit the model that was in range but incidentally hit other models further back in the unit - which is entirely reasonable - as I would think of weapon range as an optimal range for all practical purposes and not a true maximum potential distance. Throw the FAQ in, and the immersion is pretty much ruined in that scenario.

On the other hand, I love rules and playing by them, so I probably wouldn't argue with anyone who wanted to apply them in full.

DrGamut wrote:

On one hand, it's a lot easier for me to side with the rulebook without the FAQ, because then I can just imagine that the shots fired didn't necessarily hit the model that was in range but incidentally hit other models further back in the unit - which is entirely reasonable - as I would think of weapon range as an optimal range for all practical purposes and not a true maximum potential distance. Throw the FAQ in, and the immersion is pretty much ruined in that scenario.

So you are okay with a unit having only 24 inch guns and those guns being utterly useless if all the firing models are 24.1 inches away from the target, but if all the firing models are 24 inches away from the lead guy in the unit then everyone in the unit, even those that are 29 inches away, are eligible to die?

The rules are an abstraction.

They need to have a certain amount of abstractness to make the game playable.

The rules were not written to be "Modern day real world" logical.

The rules are an abstract system used to simulate a battle in the year 40,000.

What would happen in the modern day real world has nothing to do with the RAW, or the simulation of a battle fought 38,000 years from now.

 DeathReaper wrote:

DrGamut wrote:

On one hand, it's a lot easier for me to side with the rulebook without the FAQ, because then I can just imagine that the shots fired didn't necessarily hit the model that was in range but incidentally hit other models further back in the unit - which is entirely reasonable - as I would think of weapon range as an optimal range for all practical purposes and not a true maximum potential distance. Throw the FAQ in, and the immersion is pretty much ruined in that scenario.

So you are okay with a unit having only 24 inch guns and those guns being utterly useless if all the firing models are 24.1 inches away from the target, but if all the firing models are 24 inches away from the lead guy in the unit then everyone in the unit, even those that are 29 inches away, are eligible to die?

I'm just slightly more okay with it than the idea that those guys from 24.1 to 29 inches away are safe unless my unit has a single 36 inch gun that fired and missed or what have you.

I understand the need for abstraction, and I agree with it, my brain just wrestles less with it before you add the stipulation from the FAQ.

Jacob29 wrote:
I had assumed everybody who played 40k just ignored that FAQ.

It's so silly I won't even get into it.

Just follow the rulebooks version.

As long as you are in range when you rolled to hit then you can wound the unit.

Well if you play tournaments or like to play RAW(which is best when playing vs relative strangers at a LGS) knowing and playing by the rules is paramount. Not everyone gets to play with a tight playing group with house rules.

 madfjohn wrote:
aye it is and thanks for that link on it.

here is the next broken i have found i assault a 5 man wolf unit that has a termy as a Sargent . my opponent pops his wolf standard . i get all 30 boys in and wound about 30 times he then rolls all the wounds on the termy first and makes all the saves . at least i could hurt the unit for 5th in 6th i do not seem to hurt much in that way .

yes i felt that part was broken in 5th to but i never had it abused like it is in 6th for me at least. i have always made list that wood be fun to play in tournaments for ether side.
But i have found 6th has taken more out of the fun list as so many scramble to make the so called power list.

with my friends we play it how they entened . It really not hard to do and still just as fast as the normal rules witch i feal is way to slow still. just set the dice poll for the rang in as part of the separating of the wound pool. also makes you more selective on witch ones you have your opponent roll for the order.

but this is my perspective on how 6th is doing . All my games have increase in time to play thanks to how all game mechaniks work so to try to have a faster play orc army not simple. This was my biggest concern for the game and it is why i never played in any 2ed tournaments it just took to dam long.

I think this is one was played wrong. the wounds should have been randomized across the whole front line of enemy models. Still slow but the wounds are more spread out.

barnowl wrote:

 madfjohn wrote:
stuff.

I think this is one was played wrong. the wounds should have been randomized across the whole front line of enemy models. Still slow but the wounds are more spread out.

In assault, the player getting wounded gets to choose which model takes the wounds first. However it must be a model in base contact. Until they are all dead. Then it goes to the next closest model (owning player choice if there are multiple equidistanct).

 madfjohn wrote:
aye it is and thanks for that link on it.

here is the next broken i have found i assault a 5 man wolf unit that has a termy as a Sargent . my opponent pops his wolf standard . i get all 30 boys in and wound about 30 times he then rolls all the wounds on the termy first and makes all the saves . at least i could hurt the unit for 5th in 6th i do not seem to hurt much in that way .

I was thinking that a challenge would be an easy way to stop the termy from tanking the attacks from your boys, but there are some problems with this. First, you'd have to have a nob (or other character) to challenge him, and second, if he refused the challenge, you could nominate the sargeant as the "skulker", but this just stops him from attacking and using his Leadership - it doesn't stop him from tanking Wounds. I'm not sure if there is a way to get at the other SW marines until the terminator is dead. Precision Strikes would do it, but you can usually only do those with characters.

yep some parts i find relay bad like that . one for assalt and now the faq on weapons wounds bit to name the top ones atm.

was just thinking of my loota unit of 15 with three mech boyz in it the meck boyz have a rang of 24 with the kustom mega blasta and are considered a character for the unit. so lets put the this to the faq to this bit . they can now hit any thing in the unit if the lootas are in rang ( 48" ) and just one modile for the mech boy is in rang with a S 8 ap 2 weapon. wounder how this wood work with precision shot?

 madfjohn wrote:
yep some parts i find relay bad like that . one for assalt and now the faq on weapons wounds bit to name the top ones atm.

was just thinking of my loota unit of 15 with three mech boyz in it the meck boyz have a rang of 24 with the kustom mega blasta and are considered a character for the unit. so lets put the this to the faq to this bit . they can now hit any thing in the unit if the lootas are in rang ( 48" ) and just one modile for the mech boy is in rang with a S 8 ap 2 weapon. wounder how this wood work with precision shot?

If only one mech boy is in range then only that mech boy can shoot.

a model that is out of range of any models in the enemy unit can not fire. (P. 12)