DarknessEternal wrote:
JohnnyHell wrote:
Each unit suffers wounds. How many? D3 each. Unit A suffers D3 wounds. Unit B suffers D3 wounds. Unit C suffers D3 wounds. How many is D3? Oh I roll a dice and halve, it rounding up, for each. D3 is not a fixed value so why should A, B and C suffer the same number of wounds when we're told each suffers D3 wounds?
And where's your citation on that? There's nothing in the rules specifically stating it's d3 each and not d3. There's nothing in the rules indicating either argument.
In this case, the citation would be English grammar and the language the rules are written in itself. Games Workshop unfortunately cannot spell out every thing into preschool terms such that implicit meanings of commonly used words are made explicit for those not understanding them. The rules would be much more than 5 pages if they did, like the bloated book of past editions that only offered more confusion than consensus. In a congress, laws must be passed in this way and that results in fifty pages of subclauses and word definitions for what could have amounted to a few sentences but
GW is not creating a law book nor has shown any attempt at doing so. We had this very argument not long ago with the phrase "single dice", a contentious wording that is not properly defined in the rules but must fall to basic British English understanding.
Often understanding the logic behind the rule helps to color the reasons for it functioning a certain way, such as how Smoke Launchers obscure a tank and thus reduce the likelihood of it being hit. When rolling for advance, charge, canticles, or any number of other effects, a single roll is all that is needed because the effect applies universally to the target. Units advancing would want to stay in formation and not get ahead of each other or leave someone behind resulting in a breach of the coherency rules. The same canticle applies to each unit. Meteors only land on a single spot on the board. Etc. Yet an explosion that damages nearby enemies and allies may do so differently for each model according to pure circumstance. An exploding tank is an exploding tank and it does not explode more fantastically somehow because of a die roll. However, each nearby unit is welcome to take varying levels of damage according to how lucky they were when the debris started flying and how much cover there was in the immediate area from the blast or the reaction time of the unit itself to the detonation.
As for some rule citations, in areas like this we fall to precedent for consistency of language. Pg181 states that "Each time a model makes an attack, roll a dice" confirming the concept of Each receiving unique treatment to the collective when rolling dice. The same page cites that Mortal Wounds operate by "Each mortal would inflicts one point of damage on the target unit" confirming that each represents repetition rather than applying a single point of damage. Pg183 lists the rules for Disembarking when a transport is destroyed and comments that "you must roll one dice for each model you just set up on the battlefield" indicating
GW is familiar with applying individual rolls to multiple models with the effect being that a model dies for every 1 rolled. Saving throws and damage apply to each model wounded and don't require a single roll for the entire unit either, even if the entire unit is using identical weapons (exception being Obliterators). Each lascannon is welcome to roll another
D6 to determine its own damage.
So yeah, English tends to be the dictator of how the rules are read, as previously pointed in the post above me. Lest we resort to a rulebook full of rules that tell us "Do not breathe under water" when that should be readily apparent without saying.
