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Ok, so I am back into 40k after a long departure. The rules are rather confusing to me as I was used to 3rd edition/ start of 4th, and now am thrown into 5th edition. There was a huge arguement the other night on what happens in this instance. Lets see if I can demonstrate it correctly. I have a bad cell phone photo to help.



Hopefully I can get this right as my mind is a bit hazy. Ok, so Dire Avengers with special character that starts with an A, Wraithlord, Guardians and Howling Banshees are in combat with a Daemon Prince, having lost the other one the turn prior. The prince only has like 1 wound left. Our Slaanesh Marines charge in, they are the the darkish blobs in the lower left. They contact only the guardians but nothing else. When all is said and done, the Daemon Prince dies. But the Slaanesh Marines inflict a total of 13 wounds to the guardians with nothing in return. Basically we beat them in combat resolution by 13. I don't remember the exact details. Now, since what is left is the Slaanesh marines, and the guardians they were in combat with are dead, would everyone still be in combat at all? Or since the guardians were touching the prince, is the combat still going on and everyone piles in even though the Banshees, Wraithlord, and Dire Avengers were never contacted by the CSMs?

If the combat is not considered over, then that means combat resolution. Since we beat them by 13 that means they have a huge negative to their morale. The banshees take morale checks as normal and would run. This means we can not take an initiative test to stop them since our marines are still locked with their Fearless units correct?

Secondly, the Dire Avengers are fearless due to being led by the character whose name escapes me. The Wraithlord is also fearless. Does that mean, due to combat resolution that they take 13 armor saves for their side and split them up? Or does that mean the Avengers take 13, and the wraithlord takes 13?

The way I also understand it, if the marines were unable to harm the Wraithlord due to strength vs toughness, he would not take ANY saves, but as the CSM unit has a powerfist, then he DOES have to take his saves.

Sorry for this convoluted mess. I don't know how to describe it any clearer. I hope you guys can sort this out.

Basically what one person thinks happens is, since the marine never touched those other units in the combat, the combat is just over since the guardians were wiped out.
What another person thinks happens is, the Eldar lose the combat, splitting up 13 saves among the Dire Avengers and the Wraithlord.
Another person thinks the Eldar lose the combat taking 13 savesupon the dire avengers but since CSM base strength is only 4, the Wraithlord is unaffected.
What the fourth person thinks is, the Eldar lose the combat, allocating 13 saves to their Dire Avengers/Characters, 13 saves to the Wraithlord.

At the time that the combat was fought out, it was one big multi-combat huddle. So the combat is still 'ongoing' until combat resolution occurs.

So each of the Eldar units involved in the combat has to take a morale test.

As per the No Retreat! rules, each Fearless unit will take a number of wounds equal to the number of wounds they lost the combat by.

This will include the Wraithlord, as there is a model that can hurt it.

If anyone's still alive, and/or the Banshees haven't run away, then everyone piles in.

insaniak has everything covered correctly.

As above - the rules are startlignly clear on this - EACH unit involved int he combat EACH take the total number of wounds difference as No Retreat! saves. Yes, this probably means bye bye Wraithlord....

I have to abstain on voting on this one, since that DP2 up there belongs to me. This was one really screwed up combat to put it mildly. I look forward to doing something similar tonight!

I just want to make sure that everyone realizes that DP1 was not present during this turn. He was killed in the previous turn. Tecnically, I think that all of the guardians should have moved into position around the remaining deamon prince durning the pile-in of the last tun, but for whatever reason, they did not. (Could have been the fact that we were all rather soused by this point...)

That not withstanding, it's a tough call to make. Neither of the eldar players want to believe that the death of 13 of their guys could result in 13 armor saves for 2 other units (each!). It might have helped if they had caused more wounds to close that gap a bit. The dice gods are fickle as ever.

Lanceaction wrote:I just want to make sure that everyone realizes that DP1 was not present during this turn. He was killed in the previous turn. Tecnically, I think that all of the guardians should have moved into position around the remaining deamon prince durning the pile-in of the last tun, but for whatever reason, they did not. (Could have been the fact that we were all rather soused by this point...)

They should have, yes.

This is a situation where the rules break down. I can really see this starting to get mucked up with horde type armies. In this mild example 3 units were sent running or heavily injured because of another one of there units was wiped out. This lone combat cause not only a squad of guardians to get wiped out, but 26 additional automatic wounds on fearless units and an impossible moral save for the banshees, at which case the CSM can just potentially just run the banshees off the board.

No one unit should EVER be able to cause that much carnage. Especially a troop choice.

What I think should happen is that the combat would have ended since the CSM unit was no longer in combat with any units it was in base to base with when attacks were cast.

What the rules say is an ungodly amount of damage has to take place.

However that is exactly how they planned 5th ed to work - combats are BRUTAL now, no longer do you get 8 rounds of protracted combat (usually....) before one side is dead or breaks.

If you wish to houserule it, go ahead, however be aware it is such.

nosferatu1001 wrote:However that is exactly how they planned 5th ed to work - combats are BRUTAL now, no longer do you get 8 rounds of protracted combat (usually....) before one side is dead or breaks.

That is debatable. We do not know what they intended. In this given situation the Eldar still had a clear advantage in troops and units, but because the CSM player took advantage of the weakest unit allowing no other unit to participate in fighting back like the howling banshees which would have destroyed the CSM unit, instead they ran away.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
If you wish to houserule it, go ahead, however be aware it is such.

I don't plan to, since I like playing by the rules. We use the INATFAQ, for the gray areas. There is no need to houserule it, just be aware of what could happen.

Of course it give a good advantage to tougher and better armored units to get into as much CC as possible and then charge in with a really assaulty unit to get this exact type of result.

Now as the OP stated the CSM got some really good rolls, and the Eldar player had some sucky rolls. Losing by 13 is just insane, and probably shouldn't happen all that often. This is just one of those out lying chances that you can get with dice. Just expect people to cry if it happens to them.

5th ed design notes specifically stated that they intended combat to be more brutal and much faster to resolve.

nosferatu1001 wrote:5th ed design notes specifically stated that they intended combat to be more brutal and much faster to resolve.

Don't forget it was supposed to be less exploitative, and this really is an exploit in the rules. Just an area in which the rules for multiple combat break down. Yes, it doesn't happen all that often, in fact I've actually never witnessed it in a game myself. The more brutal was addressed by allowing your powerfist guy to still participate even though he wasn't in base to base with anyone. Not that 1 unit should be able to wipe out a 10 man squad, and cause 26 additional wounds on fearless units and make an impossible moral save on a unit. And somehow doing all that without ever even taking 1 swing at said units that ran away or were fearless. Now granted there was a DP in that combat that got killed as well, which is probably why they one by 13. I find it highly unlikely that they meant CC to be that brutal. I understand why they make multi CC like they did because it is simple, but can definitely be exploited.

And the Eldar player should have realised that this is the way rules worked, and tried to prevent this situation.

Same as tyranid players have known to keep Carnifexes out of combat with termaguants unless they know the gaunts arent going to lose horribly.