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I am reading the rule book to catch up on the Lore of metal but I read Searing doom and it has confused me.

"Searing doom is a magic missile with a range of 24" and can cause D6 hits."

What strength are they supposed to be resolves at? - I have a feeling I'm missing something fundamental here.

I'm not sure exactly but at the top of the page doesn't the book say something about the strength of the hits is relative to the armour save that model would receive?

Jake Bake A Cake wrote:I'm not sure exactly but at the top of the page doesn't the book say something about the strength of the hits is relative to the armour save that model would receive?

See I always thought that bit was fluff or just filler story so never read it.
Yeah you are right. there to wound score is equal to their unmodified armour save. So that explains why it is so good against heavy units.

Nope, they are all special traits to do with each lore. Can make the choice of which Lore to take much easier.

Ya, searing doom is deadly against heavily armored foes. No armour save, and the to wound roll is equal to the armour save value of the target.

Sorry to piggyback on your post, but this seems a good as place as any to ask a question in relation to searing doom...

It causes D6 hits, or 2D6 if you cast at the higher value. I was trying to determine how you would work out hits from Searing Doom against a unit of 5 knights and 1 lord.

I looked up the shooting rules, and it says you cannot hit a character in a unit if there are 5 RNF models. This applies to shooting that uses the BS of the attacker.
Clearly this does not use the BS of the attacker as it is a spell.

The following paragraph says "The only exceptions to this are shooting attacks that do not use the normal shooting rules, specifically, shooting attacks that use some form of template." Clearly this does not use a template.

So I am left with looking up how to determine what gets hit by a magic missile (as that is what the spell is). There are no rules that I see for determining how a magic missile interacts with a unit with a character in it. Does that mean then that the magic missile functions much like a regular shooting attack?

If that is the case, then a unit of 5 knights (regular RNF) and a Lord are hit by the 2D6 version of the spell, there is a likely chance you will kill every knight, and have leftover wounds which cannot hit the character?

The other way I see the spell working is that you evenly distribute the number of hits caused across the unit, then roll to wound? The only problem with this is I do not see any ruling which would indicate that the spell works in this manner.

Lehnsherr wrote:
The other way I see the spell working is that you evenly distribute the number of hits caused across the unit, then roll to wound? The only problem with this is I do not see any ruling which would indicate that the spell works in this manner.

There is a rule about that somewhere. I'm pretty sure I read it. But seeing though as there would only be 6 models in the unit (assuming it'd be only 1 rank) this is the way I'd play until told otherwise. Specially if you roll 6+ hits. I mean it's just silly if you roll and can only kill 5 knights and the lord gets untouched..

I agree Jake, it does seem a bit off, thats why I was looking for the rule in the book. Maybe I'm just tired, and read too much text and I just can't see it.

I would like to see the rule though so that way I can put my mind at ease.

I haven't got a copy on me at the moment but when I get my hands on one I'll have a good re read over magic and shooting to see what's up.

Am almost certain I read something about allocation of wounds somewhere.

After the shooting hits are made the owner of the hit unit must allocate them to models in the unit, and he can't allocate a second hit on a model unless all the models already have one hit on them, he also cant allocate a third hit on a model unless all the models already have two hits each and so on. So in the gicen example with 5 knights+lord, if the spell produced 5 or less hits he could dump them al on the knights, if it produced 6+ hits he would have to throw one on the lord as well, if the hits where 12+ the lord would get two hits and so on.

Yes that's it. On page 99 (Combined Units - Shooting) it mentions that but with the restriction of fewer than 5 rank-and-file models or the if the character is a different troop type.

But because we have 5 knights plus the lord (assuming he is the same troop type) he would get ignored. Though the rule also states that though the musician and standard bearer counts as RAF troops, the champion doesn't.

Unless I'm missing another rule somewhere?

No Hoverboy, that only applies if you have less than 5 rank and file.

If you have 5 rank and file models and you shoot into that unit with normal firing, you will never be able to hurt a character. It doesn't matter if you shot 200 bowshots at once.

Similarly here you wouldn't be able to hurt the character. Kill one of those 5 knights though (or if one of those knights is a champion!) and then you have to allocate the shooting hits.

It will be very likely that one of those 5 knights are a champion. Or even Musician or standard so will not be 5 RnF.

Musician and standard count as Rank and file, its just not characters or champions.

Jake Bake A Cake wrote:Musician and standard count as Rank and file, its just not characters or champions.

bahhh i actually knew that as well cos i was re reading the rules as i was typing.
Why do you appear when i make myself look like an idiot?

Well maybe if my assignment was a little more interesting I wouldn't be stalking dakka making others look silly =P haha

I'm here to keep you on your toes

So to summarise: magic damage is treated as normal shooting, unless it states otherwise. Normal shooting at a unit means that you can NOT damage a character if there are at least 5 RnF, with Champions NOT counting as RnF, alive in the unit. So you can wipe the 5 knights leaving the Lord to take a panic test...

Got it my bad.

nosferatu1001 wrote:So to summarise: magic damage is treated as normal shooting, unless it states otherwise. Normal shooting at a unit means that you can NOT damage a character if there are at least 5 RnF, with Champions NOT counting as RnF, alive in the unit. So you can wipe the 5 knights leaving the Lord to take a panic test...

Yep. Agree with this

Ok so it was as I had expected with the first ruling. Really no point in tossing the big version of Searing Doom at a unit of Knights 5 RNF with a Lord on horse. Better off killing what you can first, then hitting it with the bigger version the 2nd time.

Thanks Jake and Nos.