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Situation:
A Strength D, Heavy 1 weapon hits a Gargantuan Creature that has an Invulnerable Save.

Relevant rules:
Instant Death (Pg. 26, BRB): “If a model suffers an unsaved wound from an attack…it is killed outright and removed as a casualty.”
Destroyer (Pg. 96, Apoc.): “If the target fails to save this wound…the weapon always inflicts Instant Death…If the target is immune to Instant Death, then the destroyer will cause one wound as normal.”
Gargantuan Creatures: Special Rules (Pg. 91, Apoc.): “All gargantuan creatures are immune to the Instant Death rule…Such attacks cause D3 wounds instead.”

Question/Verification:
When the Gargantuan Creature uses its Invulnerable Save against the D weapon shot, it only makes a single save roll and if it fails that roll then it takes 1 to 3 wounds...correct?

My gaming group has been playing that when hit with the D weapon, we first roll the D3 and then the Gargantuan Creature makes 1 to 3 invulnerable saves, but I'm fairly certain that's the wrong 'order of operations'.

The Creature is hit and wounded by a D weapon.

you take your Invuln save,

if the save is failed, the creature suffers D3 wounds instead of 1.

Actually, a Destroyer weapon will only do 1 wound on a Gargantuan Creature if it fails its invulnerable save, not D3. You left out a relevant part of the rules from page 91. The D3 wounds only comes into play when taking a wound from something that would kill it outright, such as a failed characteristic test (like JOTWW). However, if it is a psychic power that forces a characteristic test (like JOTWW), then that power doesn't affect gargantuan creatures anyway.

Lord_Mortis wrote:Actually, a Destroyer weapon will only do 1 wound on a Gargantuan Creature if it fails its invulnerable save, not D3. You left out a relevant part of the rules from page 91. The D3 wounds only comes into play when taking a wound from something that would kill it outright, such as a failed characteristic test (like JOTWW). However, if it is a psychic power that forces a characteristic test (like JOTWW), then that power doesn't affect gargantuan creatures anyway.

I see your perspective but I don't believe that to be correct. Instant Death "in addition" to things such as failed characteristic tests trigger the D3 wounds; not ID take 1 wound and but other 'automatically' suffered wounds take D3. As I see it Instant Death is grouped together with all other special rules that would remove a model instead of dealing wounds as normal. All the effects listed in that "GC and immune to instant death" paragraph cause D3 wounds.

Look at the rules you quoted. Destroyer hits inflict instant death, unless models are immune in which case they only inflict 1 wound.

Gargantuan creatures are immune to ID, thus they take only 1 wound per the Destroyer rules. No conflict with any rules here.

In addition, which now starts a new set of rules, attacks which kill outright (which are a completely different type of attack from Destroyer and other instant death attacks), such as failed characteristic tests, inflict D3 wounds instead of killing the model outright. To say that this also applies to Destroyer hits would put this in conflict with the rules you quoted.

We know how to deal with damage from Destroyer hits because the Destroyer weapon rules tell us (models immune to ID only take one wound). In addition, the rules tell us also how to deal with damage from attacks that kill outright, such as characteristic test attacks. These type of attacks do D3 wounds instead of removing the model outright.

Imperial armor 10 had no rules, 7 was the next one I looked it.

It makes Lord_Mortis correct: D does 1 wound to those immune to ID. Gargantuans are immune to ID. The other rules are about other things.

Actually... I can see why'd think that, because it goes on to talk about force weapons. Thanks to GK's being weird, I know a force weapon does not apply instant death to the wound, because once a wound is done it's done. The wound is a trigger which lets you activate the force weapon as a psychic power, then the model suffers instant death, the wound is still not made to do ID (it was just a wound).

The GK rules for using their weapons is special to them, but being psykers they could also choose to use a force weapon normally (but it's pointless and inferior to do so).

erikwfg wrote:Actually... I can see why'd think that, because it goes on to talk about force weapons. Thanks to GK's being weird, I know a force weapon does not apply instant death to the wound, because once a wound is done it's done. The wound is a trigger which lets you activate the force weapon as a psychic power, then the model suffers instant death, the wound is still not made to do ID (it was just a wound).

The GK rules for using their weapons is special to them, but being psykers they could also choose to use a force weapon normally (but it's pointless and inferior to do so).

You are correct that the mention of Force Weapons is why I put ID in the same type of 'damage' category as other effects that remove models from play.

But okay, I guess we've bee playing it wrong then. I read it as ID and all the other 'special damage' rules fall under the D3 wounds for gargants, not as completely separate entities. But if that's the consensus here then there we have it. Thanks everyone for your input.

the Gargantuan Creature rules were written when the old DH codex was still valid.

at the time, Force Weapons simply removed a model from the table. ID didn't exist.

You's welcomes triplare.

Grey Templar wrote:the Gargantuan Creature rules were written when the old DH codex was still valid.

at the time, Force Weapons simply removed a model from the table. ID didn't exist.

That's because the GC rules were probably in Imperial Armour 1, which was 4th, right?

I checked a DKoK army (then ignored it because an IG army with under 100 guardsman for $6000 is heresy), at the time they were a 4th edition codex, but the game should've been in 5th. This was Siege of Vraks in Imperial Armour 5, and sadly the IG codex coming out made the DKoK armies seem to be using archaic rules. I think 6 could have had the same problem, but never looked in 6. Then I basically did nothing for about 2 years, and look recently to see they have more Vraks for IA 7, where the DKoK match the style of 5.

Maybe some of that was irrelevant, but 2 years ago was still 5th edition, so shouldn't at least some of the books from 5 to 10 be 5th edition? Or am I wrong to assume that they wouldn't update the Gargantuan rules?

erikwfg wrote:
Maybe some of that was irrelevant, but 2 years ago was still 5th edition, so shouldn't at least some of the books from 5 to 10 be 5th edition? Or am I wrong to assume that they wouldn't update the Gargantuan rules?

They've updated a few of the Apoc rules in the back of the more recent Imperial Armor books (like how Fast Super-Heavy vehicles move, for example), but in general they have not updated most of the Apoc rules even though many of them written for 4th edition conflict or don't make sense in 5th edition.


Regardless, a D weapon only inflicts a single wound on a Gargantuan creature as stupid (IMHO) as that is.

erikwfg wrote:That's because the GC rules were probably in Imperial Armour 1, which was 4th, right?

The Apocalypse book was actually the first time the Gargantuan Creatures rules were printed. Before that, even the huge Forgeworld gribblies were just really strong monstrous creatures.

So, to summarise this thread:

Wounds that inflict Instant Death only inflict one wound against Gargantuan Creatures. It's essentially just Eternal Warrior, but before that rule existed as a USR.

Wounds that kill automatically (like Death or Glory, Lukas the Trickster's thing, Daemonbane against the Daemon Lords, etc) inflict D3 wounds. Force weapons are no longer part of this category, since that is a relic of an older edition.

Can anybody explain why a force weapon would hurt more than a D-weapon to an Apocalypse monster then?

Here are a few things that would cause D3 wounds to a gargant:

Failed Death or Glory from a tank shock.

Lukas' Last Laugh.

Dire Avengers' dire sword (that is, if it is able to would the gargant).

Crucible of Malediction.

Witch Hunter force weapon (that is, if it is able to would the gargant. This will change with the release of the new WH's).

Mawloc's burrowing (if there is not enough space to move the gargant out of the ways).


What won't kill it:

Jaws of the World Wolf

Warp Rift

Any other psychic powers that "remove from play".

I'm such a fail, I forgot Apocalypse printed rules for the bigger stuff.

jy2, some of what you say is way off if your talking unless there are other rules that aren't related to the instant death conversation. I'm pretty sure 'removed from play' has nothing to do with instant death, it's actually one of the ways they get around "killing" off models that can't normally be instantly killed.

When you say 'gargant' I kept thinking you were talking about the ork titan, and I was almost tired enough to say something.

Off topic, but I lol at WH becoming an army. I think the appearance of all 3 inquisitors in the GK codex (which doesn't even make sense), no new inquisitorial stormtrooper models, and no way to field inq storms outside of a limited number of lame imposters, means the inquisition are going to be ignored for the next decade. One thing they could do is make adeptus arbites models, that would change everything (the last WH book gave them the same treatment GK's did to inq storms). Another thing that could change it is an all in one inquisition codex, which would be stupid, though an all in one imperial agents book might not be.

Canadian 5th wrote:Can anybody explain why a force weapon would hurt more than a D-weapon to an Apocalypse monster then?

Because 1 just causes damage, and they're huge. The other takes their life, to be honest I don't know why they'd not die if they are a single creature.

erikwfg wrote:Another thing that could change it is an all in one inquisition codex, which would be stupid, though an all in one imperial agents book might not be.

We already have an all-in-one Inquisition book. It's called Codex: Grey Knights.

WH won't get their own book again. Sisters will go back to working for the Ecclesiarchy, where they started.

Canadian 5th wrote:Can anybody explain why a force weapon would hurt more than a D-weapon to an Apocalypse monster then?

It doesn't? It did in 4th edition when the Force Weapon example was still relevant, but not any more.

As for why it did in the first place, I would assume it's because GW wanted to create a blanket rule for the various different types of wounds that caused a model to die automatically ("instant death" vs "removed from play", etc) rather than having specific rules for different weapons.

Cheexsta wrote:

Canadian 5th wrote:Can anybody explain why a force weapon would hurt more than a D-weapon to an Apocalypse monster then?

It doesn't? It did in 4th edition when the Force Weapon example was still relevant, but not any more.

As for why it did in the first place, I would assume it's because GW wanted to create a blanket rule for the various different types of wounds that caused a model to die automatically ("instant death" vs "removed from play", etc) rather than having specific rules for different weapons.

That makes a huge mess and shows clearly why GW needs to write tighter rules and put out actual updates out for out of date products. Instead we get near decade old codex choices and armies an edition or two behind along with rules that are full of holes... I wish they would get some real competition already.

Actually Gargantuan Creatures existed before Apocalypse - they were creatures with Mass points. Insanely difficult to kill them.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Actually Gargantuan Creatures existed before Apocalypse - they were creatures with Mass points. Insanely difficult to kill them.

Who's this even responding to?

Cheexsta

With the quoted rule, I'd say that against a gargantuan creature it's D3 wounds due to the fact that it specificially says in the gargantuan rules instant death=d3. But I dont' know apocalypse at all...

nosferatu1001 wrote:Actually Gargantuan Creatures existed before Apocalypse - they were creatures with Mass points. Insanely difficult to kill them.

Damnit, I knew I'd be proven wrong I never did keep up-to-date with all the Chapter Approved books back in the day.

CoI wrote:With the quoted rule, I'd say that against a gargantuan creature it's D3 wounds due to the fact that it specificially says in the gargantuan rules instant death=d3. But I dont' know apocalypse at all...

With the quoted rule you'd be right, but his quote leaves out the middle sentence which changes the meaning. The sentence he skipped in his quote talks about weapons that "kill outright" or "remove from play". In summary, the weapons that kill immediately without inflicting Instant Death the rule cause d3 wounds. The "Such" in "Such weapons.." isn't talking about weapons causing Instant Death, it's talking about weapons that remove from play regardless of remaining wounds. At the time Apocalypse was written Force Weapons removed outright rather than inflicting Instant Death, which is why they're used as an example.

Thanks to the previous, I don't have to say anything.

insaniak wrote:

erikwfg wrote:Another thing that could change it is an all in one inquisition codex, which would be stupid, though an all in one imperial agents book might not be.

We already have an all-in-one Inquisition book. It's called Codex: Grey Knights.

WH won't get their own book again. Sisters will go back to working for the Ecclesiarchy, where they started.

Off topic, and this almost makes it obvious you don't play the inquisition armies. If you did, and weren't focused on GK's only, would you be happy with how it is now?

A lazy (and anti-fluff) melding of 3 undetailed inquisitor entries and some henchmen does not count. Not to mention henchmen are missing scribes and flying babies don't exist, and skull tokens are now markers. Or that many of the abilities and stats don't match what they used to, some not even close.

Sisters never stopped working for the Ecclesiarchy, it's just the Ordo Hereticus has authority over their use. Same as GK not being part of the Ordo Malleus, they just might as well be.

The WH book was pretty pointless, and it's not surprising if it never gets out again by itself. I'd expect sister models to disappear completely along with it though.