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So I think a lot of people are misunderstanding how these mechanics work and are making this into a bigger issue than it actually is.

Here is what I’m thinking as I’m pretty sure I understand the mechanics behind how Lookout Sir and wound allocation work. And from what I can tell it’s no slower and might be faster than wound allocation in 5th. Now this is just an idea and if I’ve got a mechanic wrong or it doesn’t make sense let me know

We’ll start with the example units and then go through it step by step, the initial number of wounds is just a number, and this will work for close combat and shooting:

Unit 1 – 10 Warpspiders

Unit 2 – 10 Nob Bikerz

Step 1 – Warp Spiders fire on the Nob Bikers, causing 11 wounds.

Step 2 – If they all have the same save (and they should) then roll your saves and FnP’s. Let’s say 5 wounds go thru

Now in a normal unit you would just allocate from closest to farthest. But since this is a unit of characters with 2 wounds each to increase your survivability this is how you would do it quickly and easily. Those 5 shots would kill 2 nobz if left unallocated and wound a third. So instead what you do is:

Step 3 – Place the wounds from front to back (i.e. 2 on the closest, 2 on the next closest, and 1 on the third closest). Then, provided all models are within 6” of the “wounded” models, take those models wounded twice. Take their dice and place 1 dice next to each undamaged and unallocated nob. This should leav you with 4 nobz with a single dice and no dice next to your initially wounded nobs.

Step 4 – Roll the two for each of the re-allocating nobz. If they both come up 3 or less then remove the initially wounded model as no Lookout Sir was successful. If one is passed mark the one model that was wounded and place a wound on the original model. Repeat with the second set of 2 wounds.

Honestly this is a hell of a lot faster than placing dice next to each model and rolling both of their possible saves individually and then marking it down. This would work the same for paladins.

You can do this more efficiently with an IC in the front of the unit. Especially if they all have the same save. If they have a different save you have to allocate before rolling any saves but if he’s got the same save as the members of his squad you still get to take the saves first and then get to allocate on a 2+.

I’m 99% sure I’m reading and interpreting this correctly and if I am it’s not going to make wound allocation to complicated outside of a single 2+ save 1 wound model being the squad leader and being the closest model which will cause you to roll one dice at a time.

Is this correct and if not why? Give me your opinions. Thanks!

I believe this part is incorrect.

Hulksmash wrote:Step 3 – Place the wounds from front to back (i.e. 2 on the closest, 2 on the next closest, and 1 on the third closest). Then, provided all models are within 6” of the “wounded” models, take those models wounded twice. Take their dice and place 1 dice next to each undamaged and unallocated nob. This should leav you with 4 nobz with a single dice and no dice next to your initially wounded nobs.

You don't do 2, 2, and 1. All 5 are on the front guy. Once he takes two wounds he is removed and the rest of the dice (whether its 3 or 1) move to the next guy. So you make saves and FNP, then put 5 dice beside this guy.

Without LOS you would pick him up, slide the three dice to the next guy, pick him up, slide the 5th die to another and he would have a wound. At that point your pool would be empty.

With LOS you have 5 (in wound pool) on the front guy. You nominate one of those 5, and declare you are taking LOS (because it is optional). If failed, that model has a permanent wound. If passed, you allocate it to another model in the unit.

You now have 4 (in wound pool) on the front guy, and one permanent wound on a mob. You nominate one of those 4, and declare you are taking LOS (because it is optional). If failed, that model has a permanent wound. If passed, you allocate it to another model in the unit.

You repeat until the wound pool is empty, but after saves and FNP, all 5 go on front guy until LOS is resolved.


If you do it like the way I quoted, you have a scenario where you allocate him only 2 wounds, he makes both LOS, and he takes no wounds while the next guys back conceivably do. That's incorrect (as I read it).

I don't think so though.

The way I read it is allocation takes place first. Since they are unsaved wounds you can't allocate more unsaved wounds to the model than it has. Hence the reason for the splitting at this stage. Lookout Sir then enables you to attempt to reallocate these wounds.

I'd also point out that even in your scenario the original model could wind up unwounded even though you state that is incorrect. It's in fact a reason for having a special character in the front in the first place.

I suppose though that since you don't need to declare which model is taking the Lookout Sir until after the roll is successful the model could roll two dice to start and taper it from there depending on the results...

@Hulksmash: Your method is correct and will result in the same output. What it does is basically making the same kind of saves at the same time. This assumes that all models have the exact same type of saves and the first several characters can have LOS. This can work with ICs as well like you have noted.

You make the assumption that the player is smart and wants to spread the wounds around as much as possible. If that is not what the player wants, it wouldn't be the same.

Put, in closeness order, on the nobs:

N1 N2 N3 N4 N5
2 2 1 0 0

Then, announce you will LOS N1 to N4, roll that. Announce will LOS N2 to N5, roll that.

Also, if for some reason N1 has wargear you want to keep, it's best that you roll LOS one by one.

@leo

That's mostly what I though except that you choose who takes the Lookout Sir after the roll is made so in theory you if N1 made both he could allocate to N4 and N5 and then N2 could do the same if there was an N6 and N7.

Which is actually even faster....

I need to think a bit on whether it is possible to get a better outcome if one is to roll saves before LOS on the case when all saves of the squad is the same.

Well that part doesn't matter I think (not 100% sure). You would always roll the saves first now if they are all the same. Individual save thing only now comes up with differing saves. That's the only criteria for it. That's why the LOS rule states wounds and unsaved wounds. Because it depends on whether it's being done due to differing armor or if the wounds have already been inflicted.

You roll for saves first if they are all the same? Can I have the page for that please?

Hulksmash wrote:I don't think so though.

The way I read it is allocation takes place first. Since they are unsaved wounds you can't allocate more unsaved wounds to the model than it has. Hence the reason for the splitting at this stage. Lookout Sir then enables you to attempt to reallocate these wounds.

I'd also point out that even in your scenario the original model could wind up unwounded even though you state that is incorrect. It's in fact a reason for having a special character in the front in the first place.

I suppose though that since you don't need to declare which model is taking the Lookout Sir until after the roll is successful the model could roll two dice to start and taper it from there depending on the results...

If you are lucky and succeed at all 5 LOS, yes.

Lets alter the scenario. An IC (Draigo) is at the front of a unit of Terminators. They have the same saves, so you roll all saves together, you fail 5. Now the way you stated they allocate, Draigo is allocated a wound from the pool for each wound he has (4 I believe). The 5th is allocated to the next closest Terminator. Draigo now rolls LOS and conceivably moves some or all of those 4 wounds to other members of the unit.

But the rules say that this is incorrect. All 5 go to the front man, and once he takes wounds to his fill the rest are moved down the line. So you place all 5 on Draigo, and make 5 LOS. For each one that passes, you put it on someone else. For each one that fails, he gains a permanent wound.

Now, extrapolate that on top of current scenario. Just because the rest of the unit are characters too does not overrule the Allocate Unsaved Wounds paragraph on pg. 15. LOS is simply an extra step situated between allocation and removal.

1.) You allocate all wounds to the front man until he is dead (not until he reaches his wound threshold, note the difference).
1.A) Every time you allocate a character an unsaved wound, you are allowed a LOS.
2.) Depending on result, the wound is permanently given to that model, or another model through LOS.

All 5 have to go through that front guy. He has to be the first one to die from failing LOS. You do not allocate him two, then the next two, then the next one, then roll. Because if he passes and the rest fail, you now have casualties (outside of casualties caused by LOS) that must meet the requirement of "closest enemy model" and they have not.

Under fast dice on pg.16

I think I start to understand calsandar.

What about you roll 5 LOS at the same time? Every 2 is one nob die. The ones that pass go 1 on each nob.

You can't really roll them at the same time because you can't allocate them at the same time.

You allocate then roll, allocate then roll, allocate then roll, etc. on the front guy until he dies (in which you move to the next) or you're out of wound pool.

But for time saving sake, I suppose you could roll all 5:

A) The ones that pass go where you want them to;
B) The ones that fail begin to remove casualties from the front.

Ok, actually we've got a perfect blend. Since you do choose the model that takes the LOS after it succeeds you could roll all of them together and then distribute from the initial model without any issues as long as there are enough models within 6" for him to pawn 1 off on each. And unsaved wounds would start at the front of the squad.

Does this sound right? I'm trying to work out a simple way for people to adjust to this as I think Nobs and Pallies are going to be one of the harder things for people to grasp and a simplified way for them to do it would ease that (and the time it takes to do it step by step) enormously.

Can you give an example with the nobs wherein if you roll all 5 at the same time and you roll them one by one that the results will be different?

I believe your method is right--for shooting into a unit with non-mixed saves.


Where allocation hurts or grinds the game down is in HTH though. Because in HTH, you allocate wounds, not unsaved wounds--which means you end up;

5 wounds on a unit in HTH
First Nob rolls a LOS, picks the Nob he wants
That Nob then makes a 4+, 5+ FNP
Next wound, same deal


So if you do 24 wounds to a Nob unit, you will potentially watch them roll;
4+
4+
5++
24 times. That's 72 rolls, one at a time, after you wound.

@AgeOfEgos: for the cases of Nobs and Paladins which I believe is what the OP is trying to solve, you can roll the 4+ then 5+ first to convert wounds to unsaved wounds. Then apply the method he suggested.

leohart wrote:Can you give an example with the nobs wherein if you roll all 5 at the same time and you roll them one by one that the results will be different?

Mathhammer says no, they are the same.

I believe it works.

@Agesofegos

Pretty much what Leo said. The only difference for what you would need to do for CC is have the player that is taking the wounds nominate the order in which he would want the models to die starting with the base to base models. Then you could simply roll them and allocate them as you fail.

To take your example Ageofegos say there are 10 nobz and 24 wounds have been taken. 6 of those nobs are in base to base. Your opponent would select, starting with the 6 b2b guys, the order they will die. You then take 24 saving throws. Let's say you make 12 of them. You would then take 12 FnP. You would be left with 8 wounds. You roll 8 dice for LOS. You make 4. The first 2 models you selected in order would die. The last 4 wounds would be chosen starting likely with the models not in CC so that each takes one. Does that make sense? Then you're only rolling 3 times and getting the exact same effect.

This would be easier to describe with a vassal photo....

Granted this would only work with all armor saves being the same. As soon as they aren't you're back to a slower method.

Nevermind, that was wrong--will need to think more! Something is itching in the back of my mind that due to Pile In moves (Possible los of BTB with individual saves) and PK/PF low initiative--something will break. That could very well be wrong though.

I haven't looked this up yet but what constitutes a mixed armor save? Say for example, someone takes a Warboss with 5++ but doesn't give his Bikers the 5++.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, I'll just type this out so I can think about it;

X = Nob
T = PK Nob
R = Enemy

XXX
XT
RR

Let's say the enemy causes 8 wounds.

Method 1(mass roll)
I roll 8 saves, fail 4. (assume no FNP for a moment)
I make 2 LOS. 2 wounds got through.
So in this scenario, I would remove a whole Nob, leaving (Likely) a lone PK in front



Method 2 (individual roll)
Wound 1: I make a LOS on my regular Nob, allocate to a back Nob--he fails his save
Wound 2: I make a LOS on my regular Nob, allocate to a different back Nob--he fails his save
Wound 3: I fail a LOS on a regular nob, he fails his save
Wound 4: I fail a LOS on a PK nob, he fails his save
Wound 5: I fail a LOS on a PK nob, he makes his save
Wound 6: I fail a LOS on a PK nob, he makes his save
Wound 7: I fail a LOS on a PK nob, he makes his save
Wound 8: I fail a LOS on a PK nob, he makes his save

Total, 8 saves--4 fail--2 LOS. You end up with no dead Nobz


I think the difference is, once you see you've failed a LOS you can pick another Nob midstream that's still in BTB. Or am I missing something?

You still have to allocate until something is dead. Those are the rules for allocating wounds. You have to take wounds, front to back (or in combat in the order you select) until that model is dead.

Pg. 25 states:

"Once a model has a wound allocated to it, you must continue to allocate wouns on it until it is either removed as a casualty or the wound pool is empty."

So your second scenario wouldn't work. And which is why the mass rolling actually would.

Ahh, I was reading that as stepped process "Allocate, save, allocate again, save" with no restriction on how you could allocate! Nice Hulk, that speeds things up tremendously--Exalt!


/So back to my mixed armor question--if a Warboss is in the unit (or a Big Mek let's say) with a 5++ when no one else in the unit has it--would that break this?

If it's a mixed armor it gets slightly more complicated. Let's work it out this way:

X=Nobz - 6+
W=Warboss - 5+
E=Enemy

XXXX
XXWXX
EEEE

So the front 5 models are in b2b in a nob squad. The E's inflict 20 wounds (all at the same initiative). This is how I would proceed.

I would nominate my regular nobs in the order I'll choose them to die. So there are 8 possible wounds there. I would roll 8 saves and then 8 fnp and then 8 Lookout Sir's. I would distribute as noted earlier, count how many wounds were left before wounds would get to the IC, and roll that number as a group. Repeat until the wound pool is empty or you have to roll for the warboss because the other 4 guys are completely dead.

Alternatively you cauld nominate the warboss 1st. Take 16 LOS's at one time (since that's the number of wounds outside of your boss that he could shuck). And then repeat with the remaining dice if any other nobz are still alive after the first 16 (again up to the number of wounds that are left before the boss would have to take wounds). Remember in this case you are taking the LOS before the armor save due to the difference in armor saves on the models it would be transferring too.

Does that make sense? In theory you should be able to at least cut then number of actual rolls by a significant amount even in this instance. And since I find it unlikely that many wounds would be done against squads like this it'll normally be much simpler than this.

Yep! When I rereard that section on allocating wounds (until dead), I finally made the wrinkle.

So, this reduces Nobz ability to shrug wounds (albeit a very small amount). Initiative step still breaks if I'm reading correctly, other than that I think this will speed up the game significantly.

Initiative step doesn't really break it, just cuts it up smaller since you basically start over.

Now at the next initiative step I would assume you have to start with the nob (using our example) that survived being allocated against in the last intiative step (i.e. he managed to have 1-2 wounds left after all the LOS shenanigans).

My question after that would be though what if that model is still not in B2B? What if he's no longer the closest at the next initiative step? Would he not be elegible to receive wounds until other models still engaged were dead?

Yeah, that's what I was wondering if it would break---as the allocation starts at the specific initiative step, which would initially mean to me--you could choose an unwounded Nob to allocate to. I think that will need clarification.

I'm also curious if the Mixed Armor saves really meant---any armor save difference (Or just what matters to the attack). For example, a Warboss in a unit of Nobz with a 5++ suffers bolter round shots. While RAW it is a mixed armor group...the 5++ really doesn't apply.

Hulksmash wrote:
Alternatively you cauld nominate the warboss 1st. Take 16 LOS's at one time (since that's the number of wounds outside of your boss that he could shuck). And then repeat with the remaining dice if any other nobz are still alive after the first 16 (again up to the number of wounds that are left before the boss would have to take wounds). Remember in this case you are taking the LOS before the armor save due to the difference in armor saves on the models it would be transferring too..

Slight problem I see with this method is that if the Warlord fails at least three LOS's and his save, he would be dead and unable to allocate wounds. If you roll 16 LOS's, you can't know the order in which the rolls were failed. Maybe it was the last three, maybe the first three. Since a Warlord passes LOS's on 2+ and a Nob passes on 4+ (iirc), you could not roll over any passed LOS's from the Warlord to the Nobs.

There's still a way to speed it up. Just roll in LOS's in sets of the IC's wound stat (3 at a time for the Warlord). Every time he fails and takes a wound, just reduce the the dice your rolling down to his remaining wounds. You still can end up rolling 1 die at a time, but at least it's a little faster.

That's if I'm understanding the rules correctly. I find the new allocation system degrades horribly when characters are thrown into the mix.

Just a quick question, but am I reading the rules right that you may roll for LOS before or after rolling for saves?

@Ageofegos

I think it only breaks if the wounded model is no longer in contact at the new intiative step. Then I'm not sure how it works.

As for the same thing I'd assume it only refers to if there are different saves being used. As the rulebook states on page 19 that "a model only ever gets to make one saving throw, but it has the advantage of always using the best available save."

I take that to mean that this is what would determine different saving throws. Basically if a model is going to use a different saving throw than the squad (and remember it always has to be the best one) then you follow the mixed armor save rule.

@fafnir

Yup, mixed it up. You would roll in batches of 3 (or however many wounds you have) to LOS on the allocated wounds until you passed them all, saved the ones you didn't pass, or died. That's why my main example is better. It's faster if you do the unit and you'll generally want to keep the character alive to swing since he does the most damage normally.

As for the saving throw on LOS it depends. You take the save first if all the models engaged have the same armor save. You allocate first if the armor save on the model attempting LOS is different than the models he is LOS'ing to.