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My friend and I played our 2nd ever battle yesterday, and it gave rise to some uncertainty about rules for units with mixed stats (taking as an example my Ork Warboss in a unit of 5 Nobz).

The rulebook states that in such a unit the majority stat takes precedence (e.g. WB = T5, Nobz = T4, the unit is considered to be T4, if I'm reading it right).

What we weren't sure about was resolving combats, both shooting and CC.

We interpreted that in the shooting phase they'd all shoot using the Nobz BS, and incoming wounds decided against T4. In the assault phase we rolled all ahits/wounds againt the Nobs stats also, at least for the 1st round. At this point we were becomming concerned that the bonus conferred by adding an IC to a unit was effectively negated by the way we were playing.

What I hope you can clarify for me is how to manage a unit such as I use for my example both in shooting and assault phases. We were especially confused by the assault phase, since the WB fights at the end (since he's got a PK) and the Nobz went 1st... Do we use their individual stats for attacking and shared stats for resolving wounds sustained?

Also, I'm not sure if we played the CC order correctly when I charged my friend's unit (Necron warriors). I thought I remembered reading that the assaulting unit automatically gets the initiative on the round that it charges, but on looking at the rules couldn't find it written anywhere. If I charge my opponent, is combat resolved in initiave order as normal?

I hope I've put things clearly! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

You roll to wound against the whole, but take saves for single guys - this should stand you in good stead for most things - like an Int test, is the whole unit taking it? Yes, then use majority, if a model is taking it however you use it's int.
Page 19 of the BRB for more detail. Page 40 for the Sweeping Advance example.

For the assault question re-read "Who strikes first?" and the rest of page 36.

Assuming i've got this right, here's my two cents!

As far as the shooting goes, you dont need to pick the most common gun/BS. In the shooting phase, everyone fires their guns individually, at their own Ballistic Skill. The whole squad has to shoot the same target, but say for example you had a BIG Mek with kustom mega blasta in the unit instead of a warboss (bad example but its just to explain). You'd shoot the sluggas for the Nobz on their BS, and the Mega Blasta for the Big Mek on his as well. This maximises your advantage, as often (say in a Marine Army), you may have an IC with a plasma pistol, who is on 2+ to hit compared to the rest of the squad who are on 3+ to hit.

Combat is where it gets a bit more hazy. Basically combat can vary enormously depending on the participants. Say your Nob Squad + Warboss assault some terminators plus a Marine IC. For your Nobz, you first of all have to declare your target. For example, say you have 10, 7 are in contact with Termies, and 3 with IC. Normally you'd allocate that many models to attack each "unit". In both cases you'd be hitting on 4+ (normally), and wounding on the appropriate toughness. Obviously this all goes on inititive order, but thats the general gist of it. The replying player is under no obligation to split his attacks in the same way you have. He may be able declare 4 or 5 terminators will attack your warboss, depending on where they are in the Melee.

Thats probably confused you a bit more, as it's one of those rules that I kind of understand as the game goes on, and find diffcult to put into words. Any help Dakkites?!?

I think I have more of a handle on things now -

Shooting - to hit, use individual BS, when sustaining wounds roll against the majority toughness, allocate wounds, save individually?

CC - Go by Int value (charging only confers +1 attack, & doesn't change the order that models batter each other in); in a mixed unit roll hit/wound/save model by model resolving targets and wound allocation by which models are in B2B contact?

Does that sound basically the way forward?

Liam is correct about what BS to use. Each individual uses his own BS/Gun profile to determine how they shoot.

When being shot, you use the majority Toughness, or in the case of no majority, the highest.

Close combat is a bit different depending upon the scenario. In your particular case, the Warboss is an Independant Character, as such, he is treated as a completely seperate unit in CC. This means that he can only attack units that are in base to base with him and you use his profile seperately from the Nobz. This also means that he needs to be targetted seperately and wounds being allocated to the Nob squad cannot be given to the Warboss, nor can wounds allocated to the Warboss be given to the Nobz.

Occasionally you'll run into an upgrade character with upgraded stats, like a Broodlord with a pack of Genestealers. In the case of an upgrade character, the majority rule kicks in. You determine what you need to roll to hit by the majority WS, or in the case of no majority the highest. The same thing also happens with Toughness, when determining what needs to be rolled to cause a wound. However, since the BL is an upgrade character, he can't be targetted seperately in CC.

Archroy wrote:I think I have more of a handle on things now -

Shooting - to hit, use individual BS, when sustaining wounds roll against the majority toughness, allocate wounds, save individually?

CC - Go by Int value (charging only confers +1 attack, & doesn't change the order that models batter each other in); in a mixed unit roll hit/wound/save model by model resolving targets and wound allocation by which models are in B2B contact?

Does that sound basically the way forward?

The simple thing to remember in the 5th edition rules that will carry you through most situations like this is that individual MODELS *do* things *to* UNITS. This is the general theme of the 5th ed rules, and seems to be GW's compromise between each miniature representing a soldier or vehicle and streamlining play by abstracting things. There are lots of examples of this. For instance, you determine which models can see to shoot individually, but to hit an entire unit you only need to see one member of that unit. In CC you cannot pick out models in a unit to hit, but each attacking model can allocate attacks on different targets if they're engaged with multiple UNITS.

Just like you mentioned in CC, you strike in initiative order, but your opponent can allocate wounds through the entire unit, thus he could sacrifice his initiative order weapons so the power fists can hit.


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hamsterwheel wrote:
When being shot, you use the majority Toughness, or in the case of no majority, the highest.

And something that I've had argued with because it was different in fourth is that if I have a unit ( to give an extreme example) that has four models, one with T2, one with T3, one with T5, and one with T6, if you wound it the toughness is indeed 6

hamsterwheel wrote:Occasionally you'll run into an upgrade character with upgraded stats, like a Broodlord with a pack of Genestealers. In the case of an upgrade character, the majority rule kicks in. You determine what you need to roll to hit by the majority WS, or in the case of no majority the highest. The same thing also happens with Toughness, when determining what needs to be rolled to cause a wound. However, since the BL is an upgrade character, he can't be targetted seperately in CC.

Forgive me if I'm missing something, but if, as you say, with upgrade characters the majority rule comes into effect, where is the advantage of their having better stats? As I see it, the Broodlord having a higher Int would attack before the Genestealers and use its own stats for the purposes of milling into the foe... And if an IC is attached to a unit, that model also cannot be targetted seperately...

Read pg 49 in the BRB explaining ICs and Assaults. ICs can be singled out in CC because they're treated like a single model in CC. As far as upgrade characters with higher stats. The only stats that are negatively affected by having a weaker squad is Toughness and Weapon Skill.

Archroy - as others have said, UCs and ICs behave differently.

INitiative does NOT use majority, only sweeping advance explicitly does as it is the unit taking actions. So a broodlord would strike before genestealers - whcih is fine!

Independent Characters behave as if they were a seperate unit once you start to resolve combat. So only enemy models in base contact OR within 2" of a model in base contact with the IC can fight the IC, and conversely the IC can ONLY fight if it is in base contact with an enemy model - simply being within 2" of the unit is not enough, as they count as 2 units during combat.

So if you attach a warboss to a unit, with T5, when enemies resolve CLOSE COMBAT attacks against him it is resolved using his weapon skill and toughness.

Finally there are some ICs that can take retinues - for example Grey Knight grandmasters - at which point they are NOT an IC but count as a UC in all respects; meaning they cannot be picked out in close combat but also cannot leave the unit. However there are NO retinues in the modern codexes, only older ones (such as Daemon Hunters) have them.

Archroy wrote:

hamsterwheel wrote:Occasionally you'll run into an upgrade character with upgraded stats, like a Broodlord with a pack of Genestealers. In the case of an upgrade character, the majority rule kicks in. You determine what you need to roll to hit by the majority WS, or in the case of no majority the highest. The same thing also happens with Toughness, when determining what needs to be rolled to cause a wound. However, since the BL is an upgrade character, he can't be targetted seperately in CC.

Forgive me if I'm missing something, but if, as you say, with upgrade characters the majority rule comes into effect, where is the advantage of their having better stats? As I see it, the Broodlord having a higher Int would attack before the Genestealers and use its own stats for the purposes of milling into the foe... And if an IC is attached to a unit, that model also cannot be targetted seperately...

Another thing to keep in mind is that while UC use the majority toughness when being wounded ( in other words you're wounding the UNIT), when it comes to stiking in Initiative order, you still use an upgrade character's OWN initiative. For instance, my Dire Avenger exarch is an upgrade character, not independent. His initiative is one higher than the rest of the squad, so he will strike before the rest of his squad. However, because he is NOT independent he does not have to be in base to get his attacks ( just within 2 inches of an engaged model, just like any other model in the squad, nor can the opponent allocate attacks to the exarch.

This is why marine sergeants are so cool, because you can give them a power fist but allocate wounds to the squad how you want. Therefore, unless the enemy has a ton of wounds on you, you can avoid risking the sergeant so that power fist can still have a go.

True, a higher T doesn't come into play as often on UCs as a higher I, but it does come in to play if there is no majority toughness, which can happen a suprising amount of the time with certain units. Also, some powers or abilities require enemy MODELS to take a statistic test, like toughness or whatever, which would be done on a model by model basis ( usually ) and can't be distributed.

This is another thing that gets back to the theme of MODELS doing things to UNITS.

Thank you for explaining things, I think I have a much better understanding now. These days it takes a bit of work to get through to my aged brain!