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We all know that the current wound allocation system in 40K occasionally creates situations where players don't want to take units that have a bunch of high AP shooting along with a few low AP weapons as those low AP shots will all get dumped onto a single enemy model during wound allocation.

My previous proposed 'solution' to this issue was:

yakface wrote:The only system that would fix many of the issues without creating new issues is the following (these rules are resolved in order):


1) Any wound that has the potential to inflict instant death on at least one model in the unit must be allocated before other wounds.
2) Any wound that ignores the basic armor save of at least one model in the unit must be allocated before other wounds.


And that's it! What this rule does do is it makes players allocates those 'deadly' wounds first, which makes it much harder to stack all the deadly wounds onto one or two models. This means it is rarely not a good idea to fire your 'lesser' weapons (like bolters or lasguns) along with the heavy weapons.

The owning player still gets to choose where those deadly wounds are allocated so they can still put them on the models where they will do the least amount of damage, but again, the ability to dump all the 'deadly' wounds onto a few models is greatly reduced.

But being someone who really likes very simple elegant rules this 'solution' still irked me as being not very easy for people to 'get' right off the bat. But the other night, a barely modified version that is really, really simple just hit me (and my apologies if anyone else has already posted this):


When allocating wounds to a complex unit, follow all the normal rules in the rulebook for wound allocation, but the player must start by allocating wounds caused by weapons with the lowest AP value first and then work their way up (with AP '-' being the absolute last wounds to be allocated). After all wounds have been allocated then the saving throws are rolled for each model, exactly as the rules currently state.

So in this way, the 'deadly' (low AP) wounds are all allocated first leaving players the ability only to 'dump' the high AP wounds onto a single model...which makes the system much less prone to abuse.

While this is basically the same idea I proposed before, I think by just switching it to AP only, it really makes a simple concept that is easy to explain and grasp.


I know this doesn't solve the whole super-complex unit issue (such as Nob-Bikers), but I really think that is something that needs to be addressed in a unit-by-unit, codex-by-codex basis rather than in the core rules, as I really do think the wound allocation system they have now is brilliant in that it handles any kind of crazy complex unit the same way, which although it has its weird quirks because of this, it still is vastly superior to any other kind of system I personally envisage.


So what do you think?

I like it, but it still doesn't resolve the main issue of allocation abuse. How about this, take your first "draft" and then add the words "and are resolved" at the end of each sentence. Thus each type of damage is resolved at a different time (ID first then, armour negating weapons, then finally bulk wounds). It would move back towards special weapons and squads leaders becoming more resilient (as there would be fewer wounds in each allocation slot) but would largely resolve the wound allocation abuse that is rife in certain armies and feels horrendously gamey.

I like it. As flingitnow said, it doesn't resolve everything, but its simple and is a big improvement on the current rules.

Agreed with flingitnow, add "and are resolved". That should help against nob bikers etc too, as they would at least take their ID wounds on different models, and not just stack them on one or two guys.

I like the change, wound allocation is one of the biggest flaws in 5th ed.

Here is an idea. Let's go back to 4th Ed wound allocation. It fixes the problem of wound allocation abuse because you could not, or say you allocate based on Save Value.

Nah, that is almost more flawed, because it was as good as useless. It is nice to have the posibility to kill of special models, it is the multi-wound all different wargear units that should be fixed.

Allocating in order of AP(lowest to highest) is simpler, quicker and resolves most of the problems. It puts shooting on slightly more even footing with assualt.

It always did seem "unfair" when you double tap 10 marines(8 bolters and 2 MG or PG) and the special weapon gunners ALWAYS aim at the same target. They must be really competitive or something.

Melta Gunner A: "I got that one! Score a kill for me!"
Melta Gunner B: "I clearly smote him first. You need to have your optics examined."
Melta Gunner A: "You always pull this gak! Every time we unleash rightous retribuion on the foes of mankind you always try to claim my kills. It's not just you either. I notice that sometimes Brother Sethius always checks to see who we are aiming at before he fires too.

FlingitNow wrote:I like it, but it still doesn't resolve the main issue of allocation abuse. How about this, take your first "draft" and then add the words "and are resolved" at the end of each sentence. Thus each type of damage is resolved at a different time (ID first then, armour negating weapons, then finally bulk wounds). It would move back towards special weapons and squads leaders becoming more resilient (as there would be fewer wounds in each allocation slot) but would largely resolve the wound allocation abuse that is rife in certain armies and feels horrendously gamey.

Thanks everyone for the feedback, I appreciate it.

As to your point, I think my new rule actually solves the issue perfectly. The thing is, Instant Death hits are almost always a low AP (not always, but most of the time), which means all those hits have to be allocated first. 90% of the time, the way wound allocation is abused is by using the high AP wounds to allow players to dump all the wounds that ignore armor save and/or cause instant death onto single models.

Yes, with my rule you could still throw away a few 'high' AP shots into a guy that you know is taking a low AP shot that is going to kill him, but the fact is, all the really nasty hits are going to be on separate models (unless the squad is really, really small), which means that *most* of the possibilities for abuse are rendered moot.



As I said in my OP, this still doesn't address something like a single wound being caused by an enemy unit always being shopped around to an unwounded model in a squad like Nob Bikers, but I really do believe that the solution for that has to be in the codices rather than in the rules themselves.

The fact is, Nob Bikers shouldn't be able to take a Painboy. It doesn't make much sense that a Painboy could 'heal' Nobs while driving around on a bike and removing him as an option the unit is still nasty, just not ridiculous as it sometimes can be.

And multi-wound units in codexes really have to be examined by the codex authors. If they're going to allow every model to take different equipment then they need to write rules making certain weapons all count as the same weapon for wound allocation purposes. For example, if Nobs had a rule that all their Kustom Shoota variants all counted as a single type of weapon for wound allocation purposes, that right there would eliminate a whole chunk of the way Nob models get differentiated from each other.


But it really is a double-edged sword. You want to have super characterful units like Nobs mobs that have each model equipped with different gear just because that's what 'fits' for a mob of Ork Nobs (Nobs wouldn't run around with uniform equipment).

From a rules perspective, 40K walks a fine line of making the game very squad based but still allowing individual models with individual equipment to affect the game separately (as opposed to just making equipment automatically boost the unit's ability as an upgrade to the squad).

But you have to have a rule in place to allow individual models to be picked out or else you allow models with powerfists, for example, to always be the last model standing, which dramatically increases the effectiveness of these upgrades (as they will always be alive until the squad is wiped out).

The 'torrent of fire' rule in 4th edition was an attempt to have squad based wound allocation but still allow the occasional model to be 'picked out' by firing, but it really was a failure because it was difficult for new players to remember and even when you used it only occasionally resulted in an important model dying (as it was only 1 wound, so you were only every picking out one model in the unit even if they had several models in the unit with special weaponry).


So personally I do think that the current wound allocation rules are a good system in that they handle every type of wacky squad with the same core set of rules. But I do believe with my suggested change the rules are still very simple to understand but a whole bunch of the possibility for abuse is removed.

Yakface brilliant response I agree with you now totally.

I think they are already looking at wound allocation in Codexes as you notice all the Carnifexes have to take the same options (well if you're playing RaW they don't but hey).