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I was at a tournament a few weeks ago (played Daemons) and was playing against a CSM army. I shot a Rhino (at rear armor) with a Soul Grinder's Tongue weapon (S:10 AP:1). I hit, and then just rolled on the damage chart instead of rolling to pen and got a 6 so the vehicle should have been destroyed. But my opponent insisted that I had to roll to pen even though it was an auto pen.

At this point in the game he had already lost and was just trying to deny me some bonus points for controlling all three objectives. I didn't feel like fighting it so I just kept shooting other units at it and eventually killed it.

So, do you need to roll to penetrate at all if your weapon str + 1 is greater than their AV?

Well by the rules once you have rolled to hit, you then roll to see if you glance or pen.

Next time, try saying to your opponent, "S10 plus a roll of 1 is the minimum I can roll and that penetrates your armor. Do you want me to roll for this?".

Then there's no doubt.

If you were playing against me, I would have just told you that the hit automatically penetrates my armor so just roll for damage, but that's me.

Your opponent was technically within his rights to make you roll for penetration, but after you rolled for damage and he told you you didn't roll for a glance or pen, you would have been within your rights to pick up you dice and say, "Sorry, I'll roll for glance/pen again and then roll for damage."

I don't think there's actually any rule covering this, so it'd be up to the tournament organizers, or you and your opponent to make sure how it could be handled before the game starts.

Honestly, I see no reason to roll pen since there's no way a dice roll can affect an auto penetration, so it's fine to move straight on to damage.

I think since the rules say you roll a dice and add the total to work out if you pen or not then yes I would say you have to but you are that guy the second you bring it up.

I would say clearly in those situations with people I don't know "I am rolling on the damage chart as..." and see what they say, if they are dicks about it then I do the roll to find out the pen or glance thing.
YMMV with how people play it with their house rules.

As a rule, you should always announce what you are doing when you roll a die.

I usually roll the die, even in auto-pen situations, but never even look at it.

Very technically, you add the result of the die roll, so if you don't roll, you don't pen.

You didn't really do anything wrong, but as a rule of thumb, I'd say what you are rolling for

Unless you clearly state you will auto pen, and that you are rolling for the damage table rather than pen attempt, you need to roll for everything.

I've seen this before, a guy would auto pen and rolls for pen, gets a high number and then says it's his damage table roll.

Yes, as RAW you can't penetrate anything without rolling for pen (unless it has special rules) and you should say clearly what you are rolling for, I've seen many people do what you did and then if they rolled low (e.g. a 1) they claim they were rolling for pen. Not saying that you did this but I would have asked to re-roll if you didn't tell me what you were doing.

I see the point about being clear as to what you are rolling before throwing the dice. I probably wasn't as clear as I could have been.

Thanks for the replies.

In a situation like this, it is unfortunately necessary for the TO to penalize the player that did not make his intentions explicit. Where potential for abuse exists, it is the responsibility of all parties to make their intentions clear. When they do not, the only course of action is to penalize them.

I'm sorry this came out unfavorably for you, but hopefully it's a lesson you'll remember!

For the record, I will agree with everyone here that you must make sure your opponent is ok with you skipping a step (even if it is completely moot)

My friends and I here in the local of montana, play how you did OP. If the str of the weapon is equal to or greater than the armor value which is already penetrating at that point as if you roll a one you still are higher str than armor value. Its a complete waste of time to roll to pen the armor when you have already penned it

And daemons are AWESOME!!! I cannot wait to get my 1750-2000 pt list painted

Yeah, I dont see the point in rolling to pen in this sort of situation, BUT your opponent was right, you didn't announce what the die roll was for. As per the rules, the next die roll after the to hit roll is the armor penetration roll, just because its an autopen and you rolled a 6 doesn't mean you get to say "herp derp it explodes" without first saying "herp derp I autopen so I'm going to go straight to rolling damage result".

This comes up a lot more in Warmachine than it does in Warhammer. I don't think it's actually covered in the rules of each game.

Like everyone else is saying: Communicate with your opponent, look him in the eye (wink if you like), tell him that "this automatically does this", if he nods, continue and roll. If he does not nod, roll for the thing that hits / wounds automatically anyway.

edit 500th post, yay me

The guy I was playing was also doing stuff like this:

I moved my Bloodcrushers to exactly an inch from a squad of his Marines, who were in area terrain. He wanted to make me roll for difficult terrain before assaulting even though I was an inch away and would have been in range no matter what I rolled.

He was losing pretty badly and wasn't taking it well. The previous turn I had killed 3 of his obliterators with my Bloodthirster. By the end of the game he was rolling his dice with more force than was necessary.

Then thats EXACTLY why you want to make everything perfectly clear. An opponent who is taking a defeat badly will often react even worse to an action thats unclear in any way at all.

If hes requiring an assault roll when your unit is 1" away from the target then you should stick a pleasant expression on your face and follow every rule fully as required by the BRB...while wiping out the last few vermin he has left. Get into the right mindset, there is probably an even odds chance that he will call the TO over to the table about something and you want to be in a calm reasonable attitude when that happens.



Sliggoth

Did you announce what you were rolling beforehand? If the die had been a 1 would you still be crying about not needing a penetration roll? You are the one who was trying to do something outside of the normal flow of the game. Probably because you saw a 6.

Kevlar wrote:Did you announce what you were rolling beforehand? If the die had been a 1 would you still be crying about not needing a penetration roll? You are the one who was trying to do something outside of the normal flow of the game. Probably because you saw a 6.

I've been thinking about it and I'm pretty sure I said that I auto penned before rolling, I think I just said 'S:10 auto pens' and then rolled, in the future I'll make sure or just roll the pen roll just so there's nothing to complain about.

But thanks for just assuming that I was cheating and that I'm the type of player that would do such things.

No need for hostility, folks. This kind of thread just underscores the importance of communicating clearly with our opponents. One of the play conventions I learned from the experienced guys when I first joined a league thirteen years ago was "you must declare what you are rolling for before you roll it".

I don't see anything wrong with going straight to vehicle damage if the shot is an auto-pen.

Go Big Green! wrote:I don't see anything wrong with going straight to vehicle damage if the shot is an auto-pen.

There isn't, just make sure your openent understands that it has auto-pen'd, and they're ok with you skipping that part. Communication is key.

Mannahnin wrote:No need for hostility, folks. This kind of thread just underscores the importance of communicating clearly with our opponents. One of the play conventions I learned from the experienced guys when I first joined a league thirteen years ago was "you must declare what you are rolling for before you roll it".

This would really be the big one - never make unannounced rolls. I'm fine with not bothering to roll if something is an auto-success, but I'm still going to give a moment's pause if dice start rolling without explanation.

Bookwrack wrote:never make unannounced rolls.

Yeah, this is my takeaway from this thread. Sort of similar to only picking up the failed rolls, leaving the successes untouched on the table so there is no question as to how many there were.

You never know how people take losing. Perhaps he wanted some kind of moral victory and wanted to see how a particular unit did. In any case he was upset and wanted the rest of the game to be exactly by the book. No harm in this.

He knew he was losing, but that doesn't mean he just has let his opponent walk all over him. Perhaps you were getting careless when you were about to win - not saying you were but anything you did could be perceived like this. It can be seen as disrespectful to your opponent if he's already taking the loss badly.

By rights, he can ask you to roll to pen. No big deal. If his goal was to make you lose extra points or not meet all of your victory conditions, then he's being a good opponent.

grendel083 wrote:

Go Big Green! wrote:I don't see anything wrong with going straight to vehicle damage if the shot is an auto-pen.

There isn't, just make sure your openent understands that it has auto-pen'd, and they're ok with you skipping that part. Communication is key.

Indeed. Personally I wouldn't mind you skipping that phase altogether, just as far as I knew it was an auto-pen anyway.

Yeah, as long as you both understand that's what your doing before the roll is made, it's fine. If you didn't explicitly state it (and receive aknowledgment) before rolling, then your opponent can legitimately object. Especially as an unscrupulous player could manipulate such a communications lapse to functionally get two chances to roll a destroyed result.

The guy I was playing was also doing stuff like this:

I moved my Bloodcrushers to exactly an inch from a squad of his Marines, who were in area terrain. He wanted to make me roll for difficult terrain before assaulting even though I was an inch away and would have been in range no matter what I rolled.

Actually I would do this too. But doing this I would clearly signalize, that I know, you will get the charge.

2 reasons:

1.
The thing is: The DT-Test is the trigger for the Crushers to have ini 1 against my Marines. And I want them at Ini 1 actually...

2.
If not every single Bloodcrusher is in exactly 1" to a respective Marine then the move will be different if you roll a 1 from rolling a 6.

But as always: The way you say it is the important part. If you say: "Here! page XY, look you *****, follow the **** rules at least a single ***** time! (insert as many "!"s as you wish at the end...)" you would have a problem with me...

If you say "Just pro forma please roll the DT, it is just cleaner and easier. No worries, you have range anyways. " I would say "Alright of course, sorry, I forgot about that." and just roll the dice.

@ autopen:

same thing. Although I wouldn't need that roll, because it is indeed pointless. But then I want a statement about it, like that:

"I have S10, vs armour 10, thats an autopen. (<- required)" + either "Do you mind If I just roll the damage result? (<- friendly) " or "now for damage result?" (<- rather formal) and then (important! ) wait for the opponent's reaction. If he has issues with that, he will signalize them now.

-Nazdreg- wrote:
The DT-Test is the trigger for the Crushers to have ini 1 against my Marines. And I want them at Ini 1 actually...

Assaulting into cover you always have I1 unless you have some special rules or wargear, eg frag grenades. I don't know what you are getting at here.

If not every single Bloodcrusher is in exactly 1" to a respective Marine then the move will be different if you roll a 1 from rolling a 6.

Since you always move closest to closest then it doesn't matter, if the nearest guy is 1" away then an assault happens no matter the roll. You should still roll it or offer to to placate the opponent but that's it. Plus since 1 will make it into b2b contact then all the models in the unit 2" away from it get to make their attacks. And then the opponents pile in should draw a few more into that cc.

liturgies of blood wrote:[
If not every single Bloodcrusher is in exactly 1" to a respective Marine then the move will be different if you roll a 1 from rolling a 6.

Since you always move closest to closest then it doesn't matter, if the nearest guy is 1" away then an assault happens no matter the roll. You should still roll it or offer to to placate the opponent but that's it.

Why do people ask questions like this? Either it will degenerate into flame bait or people forget the origonal question.


Here's a real simple question to ask before you assume tjat automatically getting to do something is ok: would you mind it if people did this to you.?

-Nazdreg- wrote:

I moved my Bloodcrushers to exactly an inch from a squad of his Marines, who were in area terrain. He wanted to make me roll for difficult terrain before assaulting even though I was an inch away and would have been in range no matter what I rolled.

Actually I would do this too. But doing this I would clearly signalize, that I know, you will get the charge.

2 reasons:
1. The thing is: The DT-Test is the trigger for the Crushers to have ini 1 against my Marines. And I want them at Ini 1 actually...
2. If not every single Bloodcrusher is in exactly 1" to a respective Marine then the move will be different if you roll a 1 from rolling a 6.

#2 is an excellent point. While obviously the crushers cannot fail the charge, exactly how many inches they can move determines where the models move in terms of maximizing contact, whether they wrap around the unit getting more models in base contact, or clump up 1" in and then the defending models have to move to them.

This can be extremely important in terms of which unit winds up within 3" to control or contest an objective, where any attached ICs wind up moving and how many models are eligible to attack them, whether any nearby units will be in range to charge into the assault in the next turn, etc, etc. It's important to move the assaulting models properly because it can have a lot of important effects afterward.