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I've often pondered this, because I don't have amazing luck with opponents. Those games i've had where auto-penetration has occured are few, but they were decided by me stating a S10 railgun will penetrate regardless of strength, and so the decision was made not to roll for penetration and skip straight to the damage table.

However, is there a rule that lets you do this or ones that specifically disallows it? I don't want to end up running into someone who knows my railgun vs his AV10 will penetrate regardless, but after I roll a 3 to hit and a 6 to blow it up, he'll suddenly start demanding that I re-roll the 6 to decide the strength first, or that the 6 was the strength, and I end up rolling a 1 on the damage table afterwards.

I guess it's generally accepted that you can skip the penetration roll if you're going to auto-penetrate, but I just want to be clear if someone tries to call me out on it in order to save a vehicle or deny a late kill point etc.

There is no rule such as "1s always fail" for armour penetration

I'd say just always state "rolling for damage since it auto penetrates", as opposed to just rolling a die. As long as you're clear there should be no problem. If you say nothing, you could just as easily roll a 1 and decide that you ARE rolling to pen, and then roll again for damage. Not that you personally would do that, but that would be my concern as an opponent, so just make it clear what the roll is for beforehand.

Someone used a S10 daemonhammer on one of my rhinos, and I told him "It's an auto-penetrate because a 1 will still be 11, so just roll on the damage table."

He blinked, nodded, then rolled. He rolled a 1, only shaking it, then said "Well, in my group, we always roll it, even if it auto-pens, just because that's the order of things in the rules. So that's a pen, and I'm going to roll damage now."

I was a bit annoyed - if I'd sprung it on him that's one thing, but I explained it beforehand and said why too.

Gotta check with you group, then. Some people play it differently. Just come to an agreement.

I agree with everyone else, it's a matter of what you agree with your opponent beforehand. Armor pen rolls are one of the few cases where 1's don't fail, thereby removing the neccesity of rolling dice on the armor pen chart.

Well, the guy rolling a 1 and then rolling another dice seems a bit shady.

I wonder if he'd have done the same thing had it been a 5.

Spellbound wrote:Someone used a S10 daemonhammer on one of my rhinos, and I told him "It's an auto-penetrate because a 1 will still be 11, so just roll on the damage table."

He blinked, nodded, then rolled. He rolled a 1, only shaking it, then said "Well, in my group, we always roll it, even if it auto-pens, just because that's the order of things in the rules. So that's a pen, and I'm going to roll damage now."

I was a bit annoyed - if I'd sprung it on him that's one thing, but I explained it beforehand and said why too.

Gotta check with you group, then. Some people play it differently. Just come to an agreement.

Oo I can smell that BS all the way over in Virginia.

But yea it's an agreement thing, or state what your doing before you do it. Sometimes getting an opponents attention is a hard thing to do -_-

With any shortcut in rolling (see also, a roll where you re-roll successes and also re-roll failures), you need to be incredibly clear that you're making the shortcut.

If you say nothing, then you go with the default of performing the unnecessary roll.

Against veteran players, all you really need to say is "Hit, auto-penetrate, damage is...".

Against newbie players, it's usually best not to skip the roll at all. Explaining why you can skip it lasts longer than just rolling the meaningless die. They're struggling to grasp all the game concepts and don't need to get confused by additional complexities.

Nope. by RAW you have to roll to pen even if it's automatic. I would ask your opponent before you bypass it. He is within the rules to demand you roll it.

VoxDei wrote:Nope. by RAW you have to roll to pen even if it's automatic. I would ask your opponent before you bypass it. He is within the rules to demand you roll it.

There are no rules that allow you to skip.

Though any opponent that has you roll a meaningless roll is, well I am not going to call anyone names, but senseless roll is senseless.

As long as you tell your opponent whats going on there are no problems any reasonable player would have with skipping the armor pen roll.

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Grakmar wrote:With any shortcut in rolling (see also, a roll where you re-roll successes and also re-roll failures), you need to be incredibly clear that you're making the shortcut.

If you say nothing, then you go with the default of performing the unnecessary roll.

Against veteran players, all you really need to say is "Hit, auto-penetrate, damage is...".

Against newbie players, it's usually best not to skip the roll at all. Explaining why you can skip it lasts longer than just rolling the meaningless die. They're struggling to grasp all the game concepts and don't need to get confused by additional complexities.

This.

If you opponent ever doesn't know what you are rolling for then you are doing it wrong.

nosferatu1001 wrote:There is no rule such as "1s always fail" for armour penetration

I think I could've worded it better, assuming you're calling my "1 for penetration" part; I actually meant 1 on the damage table, turning my would-be 'Wrecked - Explodes' result into 'Crew Shaken' (well, stunned with railguns, but you get the point).

By the responses, I guess i'd be best off asking after hitting with the shot, but it's always worth asking for any unseen rules that allow you to defend your descision should you get caught in the heat of a critical shot and forget to ask.

Cheers.

Personally, I just roll the penetration dice anyway, regardless of whether it's an auto penetrate or not, and say "X hit, now I just need a 1 to penetrate..."

Saves any arguments.

Same here - it's always easy to bypass arguments by rolling the die, regardless of necessity. S10 hits your landspeeder...roll a 1 to penetrate....damage roll is a 4, immobilized. Simple. And much quicker than the explanation/argument that could ensue by 'skipping' a roll.

I was originally thinking that there shouldn't be a need to have players decide at the beginning of the game, but now I do. Defender calling for a reroll was the example, but the attacker can 'cheat' on this one just as easy. If not addressed the default of "rolling though it may be pointless" should be used.

You just roll a die and say "Thats for pen", and 1 SECOND later you can roll on the table withot even caring for the pen result. I thing this actually saves time, because you dont have to argue or explain.

DeathReaper wrote:

VoxDei wrote:Nope. by RAW you have to roll to pen even if it's automatic. I would ask your opponent before you bypass it. He is within the rules to demand you roll it.

There are no rules that allow you to skip.

Though any opponent that has you roll a meaningless roll is, well I am not going to call anyone names, but senseless roll is senseless.

As long as you tell your opponent whats going on there are no problems any reasonable player would have with skipping the armor pen roll.

It's like the people who want to re-roll the dice when there is a re-roll fail and re roll succeed effect at the same time.

If you say it out loud and the person argues with you then they are a dink.

If they want to roll the die let them.

In my group we go for speed rolling, and will actually pick models up if statistically there is practically no way for them to survive.

ie... a single ork being assaulted by 10 Berzerkers

Just roll the die. Like you said, it's infrequent enough that you're not going to save a lot of time and you'll invariably have to explain it to your opponent.

"Lets see, railgun hits the Rhino's back armor, S10 vs. your 10 Armor"

*rolls dice, comes up 1*

"Oh, look, a pen!"

I'm still going to ask, if only because someone who believes in skipping the roll could argue that the 1 you rolled for penetration was actually 1 on the damage chart because you auto-penetrate.

Whilst the chances of it happening are really quite low, and they may be wrong, it could easily turn that time-saving decision into an unnecessary argument that a few seconds of discussion at the start of the game could have solved.