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My Tau had a fun time stomping my Ork opponent last night, but a small rules question came up.

We had a mixed WS unit defending in assault, and the question of what the 'Majority' WS was arose.

In this particular case we had one unit at 4 WS, one at 3 WS and two at 2 WS.

We came up with three possible interpretations of the word 'majority':

1. The most-prevalent model. In this case the unit would have a 2 WS. Under this interpretation, if there was a fifth model at another WS (say we had one at 5, one at 4, one at 3, and two at 2) the 'majority' would still be a WS of 2. (Although if this is right the proper term would be 'plurality' not 'majority')

2. Majority is 50% or more. So in this case the WS would be 2.

3. Majority is more than 50%. So in this case the WS would be 4 (since if there is no majority you take the highest WS).

In the 'five model' case mentioned in option 1 the WS would be '5' in both options 2 and 3, since the two 2 WS models are 40% of the unit.

I could see arguments for any of these options, and couldn't find a definition of 'majority' in the 5E rules -- so what is 'usual and customary'?

Geoff

as far as I can tell. The rules for 5th ed give your opponent the best in cases where it is exactly 50%. soooo if its half WS 2 and half WS 3 use WS 3 by default

I am using the "cover saves" majority ruling to make the call here so I could be wrong... the rule book is on the other side of the room... and I am lazy today.

Thanks - I agree that if you had two models at WS 2 and two at WS 3 then the unit would have WS 3 as a whole. But to clarify, the situation was that there were two models at WS 2, one at WS 3, and one at WS 4.

Geoff

I'm working on instinct, but I'd suggest it's WS2, I don't think GW are quite as subtle with semantics to differentiate between plurality and majority.

If there is no majority Weapon Skill, use the highest Weapon Skill of the models engaged.

Majority means more than half, so for that unit the defensive WS would be 4.

Generally most people around my area take the rule to mean whatever subset of WS the unit has more of. So in this case since we have WS subsets of 1, 1, and 2 the answer is whatever the WS of the subset of 2 models is. So again in your case it is WS 2.

You could have 10 firgures all having a different number for their WS and one more model that has the same as any one of them and that would cause you to use the WS of the two models that have the same number because that sub-set is the largest in the complete set.

What Strimen is describing, however, is technically called a "plurality", ie, the largest number among three or more items.

A majority is a distinctly different thing than a plurality. The rule is based upon a majority- not a plurality.

Majority is the one that has the MOST models of that particular aspect in the unit.

You're looking at a WS 2.

Eric

Eric, you are mistaken. As stated above you, a majority means more than half. You are referring to a plurality.

You had models with mixed WS and the same I? Very odd and probably rare case.

**EDIT**
The word 'majority' could be taken to mean both, especially if there are 3 types.... even more rare and odd.

I lean more towards 50%+ of the entire group, rather than most in a group.

Side note**

Isn't it ironic that they 'intend' on making combat faster by putting all this majority 'bull' in there... when in fact it takes more time simply deciding what majority means...

From what I gather here at my local groups we play literal WS and simply use different color dice (we are more than likely breaking the rules, but hey... I just play for fun)

Harkainos wrote:You had models with mixed WS and the same I? Very odd and probably rare case.

**EDIT**
The word 'majority' could be taken to mean both, especially if there are 3 types.... even more rare and odd.

I lean more towards 50%+ of the entire group, rather than most in a group.

We were defending, so initiative didn't come into play. All models defend at the same time (which also eliminates the 'different colored dice' idea). For attacking it's clear what you're supposed to do -- apply each attack at it's WS.

FWIW, the group was a a Crisis Shas'O (WS 4), a bodyguard (WS 3) and two shield drones (WS 2)

Glad to see from the varied responses that we were not alone in our confusion. In the end, since the Tau were winning, we decided to treat it as WS 2 and move on. But I was curious if this was something that others had faced...

Geoff

In such a small group of figures, I personally would roll the dice individually.

Kilkrazy wrote:In such a small group of figures, I personally would roll the dice individually.

How do you roll the dice individually? I was defending, and the attacker can't predesignate attacks. Unless I'm missing something here, the attacker needs to roll against a single WS.

Geoff

I would let them predesignate.

If you have four attackers, they can each attack one model. Or eight attackers can attack two each.

All the stuff about averaging is to allow fights between 30 Boyz and 20 IG happen quickly. It is a different situation with only four target models, having three different stat lines.

I'm not saying this it tournament legal, it's just the way I would play it.

If you 'defend' at the same time and have diff WS I would have used diff colored dice to clarify what hit not who was hit.

Or you could play by the rules.

When you have four models engaged, one with WS4, one with WS3, and two with WS2 there is no majority, since a majority is:

i. the number larger than half the total,

ii. a number of voters or votes, jurors, or others in agreement, constituting more than half of the total number,

iii. the amount by which the greater number, as of votes, surpasses the remainder (distinguished from plurality)

The rules clearly indicate what is to be done in the absence of a majority: use the highest WS of the unit's engaged models. In this case, WS4.

Given that it hasn't been mentioned, I think it's important to note that the WS of defending units is determined by the relative number of engaged models, not the total number of models in the unit.

amazing it took 12 posts to get someone to go to dictionary.com to actually look up majority.

Now we all know how it must be played.

Actually, the correct reading was in the first post; the poster just didn't want to believe that "majority" meant "majority." Also, the correct reading was listed in the 5th post, so it didn't take 12 posts to arrive at the answer.

JCarter wrote:Actually, the correct reading was in the first post; the poster just didn't want to believe that "majority" meant "majority." Also, the correct reading was listed in the 5th post, so it didn't take 12 posts to arrive at the answer.

I appreciate everyone's input. FWIW, my interpretation was that majority needed to be more than 50% (which seems to be the consensus). So I thought that 'majority' meant 'majority'. But I've played lots of games and have seen the word 'majority' not used or interpreted by the strict definition (as can be seen above). So I figured it was worth asking, since I'm relatively new to 40K and how specific words may be defined.

Geoff

I agree that "majority" means exactly that - more than 50%. In the example situation, there's no majority so the highest is used.

Otherwise there would be some rather strange situations: a unit with two WS2 models, one WS7 model, one WS8 model, one WS9 model and one WS10 model would be hit on WS2 if "plurality" was intended.

Strange can happen both ways

4 WS2 4 WS3 1WS6

No majority, so they use WS6.

It is a rule meant to speed things up, and that will 'make sense' most of the time. Occasionally you get weirdness....