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I apologize if this has been asked before. I did a search of this forum and couldn't find an answer to this question.

So I was playing against an ork player. He had a unit of orks on Bikes. Each ork had two wounds, but several of them had different weapon loadouts. He claimed because they had different weapons, he could allocate the wounds to single models instead of taking away one ork every time I did two wounds. This made for a very confusing battle, and an almost impossible to kill unit of orks as they rode around the table with half the unit half wounded. Was he correct? Is this really the new way of allocating wounds? If it is, it not only goes against the way they've done it for years in both fantasy and 40k, but it makes for a ridiculously cumbersome game mechanic and opens the door wide open for lots of cheating.

Thanks for your answers...

Wound Alocation makes that situation possible (dont have rulebook on hand so cant give you page numbers). Basically if it counts as a complex unit you can split up the wounds alocation on a individual model basis (if each model is different from all the others).

If you have a unit with different wep you still split the wounds according to the wep but since each model is not unique you still have to remove entire models first and roll all of the saves for that "type" at the same time.

Unfortunately because they are equipped differently he can do that. I hate it as well and still get confused myself.

This has got to be the single worst rules change I've ever seen in 40k and I've been playing the game for almost 20 years.

Basically, wound allocation works like this:

For units of all identical models, you just roll saves and remove however many failed.
For all Identical Multiple Wound models, you must remove whole models wherever possible (For example, a unit with models of 2 wounds each take 5 wounds. You must remove 2 models and place a wound on one, you cannot put 1 wound each on 5 models)

In Complex units (units that have non identical models), the situation gets a bit different. For each "group" of models with Identical profiles (A Model must have the exact same statline, weapons, Wargear, everything to count as Identical) you must assign one wound before putting wounds onto a different "group". You then roll each "groups" saves separately, and only remove wounds/casualties from that pool.

To aid in the explanation, I will just go right ahead and detail how to deal with Complex Single Wound units, Complex Multi wound Units, and Complex Multi wound units who are all uniquely equipped:

Single Wound:
A Unit of 10 Space Marines (Consisting of 7 Marines, one Sergeant, one Plasma Gunner and one Plasma Cannoner) has some horrendous bad luck and suffers a whopping 17 wounds! You first see how many "groups" of models there are, in this case 4 (Marine with Bolter etc, Marine Sergeant, Marine with Plasma Gun etc and Marine with Plasma Cannon etc), so now begin to assign the wounds. You first put 7 in the group of "Marine with Bolter" as there are 7 Models in that group, then one on each of the others, as they all have different stats/weapons etc. That leaves us with 7 wounds left, which you decide to allocate to the Bolter Marines again. You now must take 14 saves for the Bolter marines. Even if you fail all 14, you only remove those 7 models, the wounds cannot spill over to the other groups. You then proceed to take 1 save for each of the others separately.

Multi Wound models:
A Unit of 6 Nobz, 3 With Power Klaw and Slugga, and 3 with Big Choppa and Slugga, take a total of 9 wounds. You first allocate 1 wound to each model, then allocate the 3 spares to whatever group you wish, which will in this example be the ones with the Big Choppas. You then roll your saving throws for each group separately (3 for the PK group and 6 for the Big Choppa Group). I fail all 3 for the PK group and 1 for the Big Choppa Group. As I must remove whole models in a group where possible, I remove 1 PK nob, and one other is wounded. In the Big Choppa group, I only suffered one wound, so One nob with Big Choppa takes a single wound.

Multi Wound Unique models:
A Unit of 6 Nobz, each with a different profile, Take a total of 7 wounds. You first allocate 1 wound to each model, then allocate the spare to whatever group you wish, (which in this case consists of an individual model). You then roll your saving throws for each group separately (1 for each group assigned a wound, and 2 for the group [in this case a single model] assigned 2). Say I then fail all the saves. Each group that failed one save suffers one wound, while only the group that failed 2 saves is removed as a casualty. thereby giving the Appearance that the wounds have been "spread around" (as you now have 5 Wounded nobs, a situyation that could not happen were they all idencially equipped.

I hope that clears up any questions you might have about it, but if you still have any feel free to ask. We wont bite... much

All this clears it up quite well. The few armies that have units that can do this can totally abuse this rule and make units that are way too hard to kill and it's perfectly legal.

Sometimes I get tired of how amateur the gaming industry is. After five editions of a game, there just shouldn't be this kind of gaping loophole in the rules.

I really do appreciate the quick and detailed answers though. They were very helpful... just wish the writers of the game were that helpful...

Kasrkinlegion wrote:All this clears it up quite well. The few armies that have units that can do this can totally abuse this rule and make units that are way too hard to kill and it's perfectly legal.

Sometimes I get tired of how amateur the gaming industry is. After five editions of the rules, there just shouldn't be this kind of gaping loophole in the rules.

Um, its nota loophole at all.

If you look closely, the so called "way too hard to kill" models have a few things going against them.

One is normally the points cost. A Squad of just 6 Ork Nobs + A painboy that is tooled up to be this "unkillable" with an attached warboss is 750 Points. That's 3 land Raiders FFS! And it's not even a Max Sized Squad!

Secondly, each of these "abusive" units have a glaring weakness, and in this case, its Large High Strength Blasts. You wanna kill them orks? Fire off a few Vindicators at them. They wont last very long when they are wounded on 2's, suffer instant death and cannot take FnP.

Battle Cannons, Earthshakers, Blastmaters, Barbed strangler's and Prism Cannons are but a few of the Blast Weapons you can use to instakill Nob Bikers upon a failed Cover Save. And that's not including the multitude of other weapons like Krak Missiles and Lascannons that will tear them apart.

Are they hard to deal with? Sure, as they should be for their points cost.
Unkillable? Far, far from it.

Yes it actually makes it easier to kill them rather than harder. Here is why, first once you start doing wounds the opponent must remove whole models first so the ones that had wounds die first, second in the case of instant death you again have to remove whole models first so you have to remove un-wounded models rather than ones that have a single wound on them. It makes it tougher in the beginning but ones they start getting wounds they die pretty easy. I had to learn this rule inside and out because occasionally I like to run nob armies, it can slow the game down if one or both players dont really know what they re doing but once you get it, the game dosent really slow down at all, you just have to have a way to keep track of wounds ( I use small dice itty bitty ones that fit on the bases)

In your case it sounds like he didnt know what he was doing. As stated earlier you cannot keep allocating wounds to avoid removing models, once one model takes a wound the next time the unit gets wounds as long as its not instant death the wounded model(s) must take the wounds before un-wounded models. Also in order to do it properly with say a unit of 10 nobs it gets a bit more expensive, I would suggest in the future when you see someone running a unit like this ask to see there list just to varify everyone is different.

Typically you will see, if done right something like this.

all with eavy armor,cybork bodies

1:power klaw, shoota skorcha
2:powerklaw, TL shoota
3:powerklaw slugga
4:powerklaw shoota skorcha,waagh banner
5:powerklaw, shoota skorcha, boss pole
6:powerklaw shoota skorcha, ammor runt
7powerklaw slugga ammo runt
8:powerklaw shoota skorcha, ammor runt, boss pole
9:powerklaw TL shoota boss pole
10:pain boy

all in a battlewagon and it costs about 6-850 points. Against inexperienced players it will eat them up and spit them out, against experienced players it is still tough to deal with but not impossible.

da gob smaka wrote:In your case it sounds like he didnt know what he was doing. As stated earlier you cannot keep allocating wounds to avoid removing models, once one model takes a wound the next time the unit gets wounds as long as its not instant death the wounded model(s) must take the wounds before un-wounded models.

This is true but you are portraying it incorrectly, this rule doesn't kick in until AFTER you have failed your saves, whereas, wound allocation occurs BEFORE attempting any saves, the wounds can be allocated to unwounded models when there are wounded models in the squad it does not matter that it says you must remove wounded models first because they are not in the group of identical models that failed the save, this is why when you have every model as a unique individual you can have a multitude of wounded models. Similarly, you apply the instant death wounds before the rule which forces you to remove whole models where possible kicks in, so you can apply all your instant death wounds to the wounded models before attempting any saves.

I would suggest reading it again, wounded models must take saves (wounds) before un wounded models. So if you have a unit of 10 different models and one took a wound and next time you have wounds to allocate (say you have 3 wounds to allocate on the unit with one wounded model none of which are Instan kill) you place one on the wounded model then you place wounds on un-wounded models. In no way can you avoid placing wounds (and again I say wounds before saves are made) on un-wounded models except in the case of instant death. Then after youve assigned wounds you start in with the saves/FNP. If you have a instance where 3 are the same and 4 are the same and one of the three has a wound and one of the 4 has a wound and you take 3 wounds you place one on each unit (because 3 are the same and 4 are the same) and the spare can go on which ever unit you like.

Im afraid you got that wrong, da gob smaka. Only within a subgroup of identical models do you have to remove previously wounded models first.
There is no "you have to assign wounds to preciously wounded sub-units of identically equipped models first".

Only once the wounds are assigned, and saves failed, do the "remove whole models" and "previously wounded models" kick in. If you assign the wounds to another subgroup, they never kick in.

Gob Smaka, you have the rules mixed up.

It does not work that way, and from what I can tell, you have the Instant Death allocation rule wrong too.

Its funny how 5th edition 'dumbed' down the rules a little (and in many cases made them better), but when it comes to how wounds are handled, it can get a little confusing to a new gamer.

GW has really created a single monumental meta game aspect of the game with this rule change from the previous editions. In this aspect I completely agree with Kasrkinlegion as this one rule being one of the most absurd rule changes in the game. I like it from a casual stance because it creates a more in depth game system, and hate it for its 'potential' abuse.

I like the rule change. And aside from some edge case scenarios, it works out pretty well, and pretty quickly.

Yes, Nob bikers can be near impossible to kill, but the problem there isn't the allocation rules...it is the nob biker rules.

It would be a big improvement though coredump if the rules for pre-wounded multi-wound models applied both when applying wounds and when resolving failed saves, that way you have to apply instant death shots to a model with full wounds where possible, and then assuming any instant death shots successfully wound them(i.e. a failed save) remove models with full wounds within the unique group. Do the same for normal wounds only instead of unwounded models going first, it's wounded ones.

It would probably have made the rules harder to explain, but it would have resolved these few units in the game that are able to abuse the rules as they are currently. At the very least it would lessen their impact.

Sorry for this double post... is there a delete post button?

padixon wrote:Its funny how 5th edition 'dumbed' down the rules a little (and in many cases made them better), but when it comes to how wounds are handled, it can get a little confusing to a new gamer.

GW has really created a single monumental meta game aspect of the game with this rule change from the previous editions. In this aspect I completely agree with Kasrkinlegion as this one rule being one of the most absurd rule changes in the game. I like it from a casual stance because it creates a more in depth game system, and hate it for its 'potential' abuse.

One of the things GW has actually done well between 1st Editon 40k (which was a paperwork nightmare) and 4th edition 40k, is streamlined the game. Sometimes this has taken fun nuance out of the game, but most of the time it has made the game a lot more playable. A game of 3rd-5th edition 40k can be played with twice the models in half the time. I think overall this is a good thing and has made the game more fun.

A rule written this poorly turns 20 years of game evolution back around on itself. This is the kind of thing that makes the game go back to where it was at in 2nd edition, which was very slow and ponderous to play. I think, up until now they had done a good job of keeping things like the old 20 man Wolfguard with Cyclone Launcher and assault cannon, out of the game. This rule smacks of that, and it's really kind of inexcusable that they made such a rookie mistake with this one.

If someone used this loophole against me in a tournament, I'd completely butcher their sportsmanship score. I personally think this is a very cheap way to play the game.

Does anyone know if GW has sounded off on this in an FAQ or at a GT? Is this really the way they intended the rule to work, or were they merely thinking about multi-wound characters in a unit and forgot about units like daemons or ork bikers?

coredump wrote:I like the rule change. And aside from some edge case scenarios, it works out pretty well, and pretty quickly.

Yes, Nob bikers can be near impossible to kill, but the problem there isn't the allocation rules...it is the nob biker rules.

yeah, QFT

It works when your dealing with normal squads.
1champion and 1 speacial weapon guy.

It makes CSM squads interesting because the Icon bearer can be unlucky and fail his save and the squad loses the icon.

It falls down when abused by players...
If I ever play a NOB biker army, first thing I'd point out before the game is that the dudes army is a exploit!

Panic...

Kasrkinlegion wrote:Sorry for this double post... is there a delete post button?

Nope. But what you did there is a ok

Kasrkinlegion wrote:If someone used this loophole against me in a tournament, I'd completely butcher their sportsmanship score. I personally think this is a very cheap way to play the game.

Does anyone know if GW has sounded off on this in an FAQ or at a GT? Is this really the way they intended the rule to work, or were they merely thinking about multi-wound characters in a unit and forgot about units like daemons or ork bikers?

Thats a bit unfair. Nob Biker Lists are very expensive and very easy to beat if you know what you are doing (and if you're at a tournament, you should). Don't blame the ork player for having their codex written by Phil Kelly

Gwar! wrote:

Battle Cannons, Earthshakers, Blastmaters, Barbed strangler's and Prism Cannons are but a few of the Blast Weapons you can use to instakill Nob Bikers upon a failed Cover Save. And that's not including the multitude of other weapons like Krak Missiles and Lascannons that will tear them apart.

Is a unit of bikers with a warboss really 750 points? The game I played with someone had one of these units and the table was also covered with orks. It wasn't super easy to kill them with my tanks since they had at least a 4+ cover save the whole game and could very easily stay out of LoS from my tanks with their 24" of movment. They were basically on top of me by turn two and sucked up half the heavy weapons fire/special weapons fire of my army without dying.

Kasrkinlegion wrote:

Gwar! wrote:

Battle Cannons, Earthshakers, Blastmaters, Barbed strangler's and Prism Cannons are but a few of the Blast Weapons you can use to instakill Nob Bikers upon a failed Cover Save. And that's not including the multitude of other weapons like Krak Missiles and Lascannons that will tear them apart.

Is a unit of bikers with a warboss really 750 points? The game I played with someone had one of these units and the table was also covered with orks. It wasn't super easy to kill them with my tanks since they had at least a 4+ cover save the whole game and could very easily stay out of LoS from my tanks with their 24" of movment. They were basically on top of me by turn two and sucked up half the heavy weapons fire/special weapons fire of my army without dying.

Yes, they are. and thats not even a full unit. A Full unit of 9 Nobs and 1 Painboy with attached Warboss with enough McGuffins to abuse the wound allocation rules and all with Power Klaws is 1000 points of not more.

But no self respecting Ork player is stupid enough to go all-Klaws.

A full Nob-biker squad with 3 Klaws, 2 Big Choppas and gear to make them unique + a kitted out Warboss on bike is 760 points.

In comparison 10 Assault Terminators and a Land Raider Crusader (not that they'll all fit) is 650 points.
(Im not saying that the Terminators are better or worse. Just a plain points-comparison)

Steelmage99 wrote:But no self respecting Ork player is stupid enough to go all-Klaws.

Until they realise that against Meqs at least, the ability to ignore armour is a godsend. Both Weapons Wound on 2's and will hit after marines, but with Big Choppas the save is not negated.

To throw a bit of mathhammer into the works.
A Unit of 6 Bikers + Painboy assault a Tactical Marine Squad (Flamer/Missile launcher Sarge is just CCW + BP). The Bike Squad has one or two Waaagh! banners in it (for wound allocation)

Space Marines:
11 Attacks, WS4 vs WS5, 4+ to hit = 5.5 Hits.
5.5 hits, S4 vs. T5, 5+ to wound = 1.833... Wounds.
1.833... wounds, 4+ save = 0.9166... Unsaved wounds.
Feel no Pain, 4+ needed = 0.458333333... Unsaved wounds.

So, On average, charging a tactical marine squad = 0 wounds taken, maybe 1.

Now, for the reply
6 Nobz with Claws:
(4*6 = 24) 24 Attacks, WS5 vs WS4, 3+ to hit = 16 hits
16 hits, S9 vs T4, 2+ to wound, no armour = 13.3333333 Wounds inflicted.

Painboy:
4 Attacks, 3+ to hit = 2.66... Hits
2.66.. Hits, wounding on 4's with a reroll = 2 Wounds.
2 Wounds, 3+ Armour Saves = 0.66... Unsaved Wounds.

So a Squad of 6 with Power Klaws and painboy inflict 14 Unsaved wounds ON AVERAGE. And thats without a Warboss

Now, for 6 bikes with 3 Klaws and 3 Choppaz:
Klaws:
3 Nobz with Claws:
(4*3 = 12) 12 Attacks, WS5 vs WS4, 3+ to hit = 8 hits
8 hits, S9 vs T4, 2+ to wound, no armour = 6.66... Wounds inflicted.

3 with Big Choppaz
(4*3 = 12) 12 Attacks, WS5 vs WS4, 3+ to hit = 8 hits
8 hits, S7 vs T4, 2+ to wound = 6.66... Wounds inflicted.
6.66... Wounds, 3+ Armour Save = 2.22.. Unsaved wounds

Painboy:
4 Attacks, 3+ to hit = 2.66... Hits
2.66.. Hits, wounding on 4's with a reroll = 2 Wounds.
2 Wounds, 3+ Armour Saves = 0.66... Unsaved Wounds.

So in Total: 9.55.. Unsaved wound on Average.

That's a Pretty significant loss of killing power in my book, Especially if you're daisy chaining for a Multiple assault.

NO...no good ork player goes all Claws, because even normal nobs are S5 on the charge, as well as being I4. This means that by keeping alot of basic slugga/choppas, you get a ton of attacks at the same time as the SMs (before GEQ and other low I armies), and before the PF gets to go and instagib a Nob or two.

Almost all good nob units are 3 PKs, 2 Big Choppas, 1 Painboy. and 4 slugga/choppas. Then you throw in some combis, ammo runts, and poles and you get a great unit, with wound allocation, at a decent price...as well as keeping most of your initiative. This is very important when facing units like TH+SS termies, as you will kill a few before they get to go thanks to speed and number of attacks. A pure PK squad of Nobs is just stupid, both for cost and playability.

Remember, you also have a bos with them with his 6 PK attacks on the charge. That means you still have 18 PK attacks on the charge (6 from the boss and 12 from the 3 PK nobs..all hiting on a 3+, thanks to the Waaagh! banner.) There is no need to pay for more than that. It is better to save the points and get some S5 and S7 attacks at I4.

Okay now I'm confused I think you guys have your math . Snce I don't know what your setup contains I'll do mine.


Warboss, Warbike, Power Klaw, Attack Squig-150pts

Nob#1- Warbike, Cybork Body, Power Klaw-75

Nob#2- Warbike, Cybork Body, Power Klaw, Ammo Runt-78

Nob#3- Warbike, Cybork Body, Power Klaw, Kombi-Skorcha-80

Nob#4- Warbike, Cybork Body, Painboy-80

Nob#5- Warbike, Cybork Body, Big Choppa-55

Nob#6- Warbike, Cybork Body, Big Choppa, Ammo Runt-58

Nob#7- Warbike, Cybork Body, Big Choppa, Waagh Banner- 70

Nob#8- Warbike, Cybork Body, Big Choppa, Bosspole-60

Nob#9- Warbike, Cybork Body, Big Choppa, Kombi-Skorcha-60

Nob#10- Warbike, Cybork Body-50

That is 666 for the squad and 150 for the boss, 816 total. I have to say though from this thread I'm thinking of dropping some of the big choppas to bring the points down a bit.

7 Nob Bikers, without Claws, charging MEQ:

5 attacks x 7 models x 2/3 hit rate x 2/3 wound rate / 3 armor saves = 5.19 dead Marines

Add in 3 'Klaws:

4x3x2/3x5/6 = 6.67 dead Marines

So the ten Nob Bikers killed almost 12 Marines, and with only 3 Klaws.

Nobody plays 10/10 Nobs equipped with Klaws. It's just crazily points inefficient. It's also asking to get instantly beat down by assault terminators, who Nob Bikers have a lot of trouble against anyways. Playing a few guys with no Klaws at least lets you thing their numbers a little bit before they start insta-deathing your unit.

arinnoor wrote:Okay now I'm confused I think you guys have your math . Snce I don't know what your setup contains I'll do mine.

...

That is 666 for the squad and 150 for the boss, 816 total. I have to say though from this thread I'm thinking of dropping some of the big choppas to bring the points down a bit.

personally I think the big choppas are pretty bad for anything other than creating extra variety in the squad for wound allocation. The way I see it, the powerklaw is decidedly better for fighting big super tough things and vehicles so the big choppa is really competing in the GEQ/MEQ areas, against the power klaw and the standard choppa + slugga.

Against MEQ the big choppa does allow you to wound easier than a normal choppa, but so does the klaw, the big choppa and klaw will statistically wound the same number of things and since we are dealing with MEQs that means that the big choppa will kill 1/3 of the stuff the klaw would have, but a standard choppa/slugga will do 4/5 of the wounding and killing of the choppa before factoring in the extra attack it gets which is an increase of (assuming on the charge) 25% to volume of attacks which we can think of as being 5/4 of the number of attacks the big choppa gets, 4/5 the wounds x 5/4 the hits is a net result of breaking perfectly even.

Against GEQ the big choppa makes no difference, on the charge because you are already wounding on a 2+ from St5, so you are far better off with the extra attack from a normal choppa/slugga

In drawn out combats where your Str drops back down to 4 the choppa becomes more valuable but is a full nob squad with 3-4 power klaws really getting in drawn out combats? The other place where the Big Choppa shines is T5 stuff, where it gets a larger advantage over the normal choppa for wounding. I'm not saying don't take them, they certainly can help round out the squad, my point is merely that priority should be given to klaw nobs and choppa/slugga nobs before Big Choppas in my opinion.

The big choppas fill the gab between expensive PKs and cheap upgrades (to make models unique).
They change the model but still retains some effectiveness. Also they help immensely against walkers with DCCW.

And it is because of units like this that i always always take 2 vindicators with my spacemarines (and at 115 points each there is no reason why i wouldn't) And your super exploit Nob bikers are not lasting long against 2 Str 10 AP2 Vindicators.

And all I hear is; buuuhuuuhuuu.