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I read something and i want to clarify, it stated that Grey knights nemesis force weapons could only make one of their attacks instant death or something along these lines, i didn't find any proof just wondering.

So a grey knight begins an assault phase and gets into combat rolls for hammer hand and then rolls for activating his force weapons ( they now automatically cause instant death upon wounding? )

So a Grey knight is in combat with 3 chaos space marines, he manages to hit them all, and then proceeds to wound them with 3 attacks. The 3 marines now have ' Instant death ' applied to them and are removed as a casualty?

Thanks for helping me out my buddy and i haven't played in a while, were very competitive and like second opinions and advice! Plus Grey knights bring heavy cheese

1) The only way to cast hammerhand and activate force weapons in the same phase is to have an IC in the unit that casts Hammerhand and have the unit use the force USR, or to have Justicar Thrawn in the unit to utilize his Mastery Level 2 (Not sure if any other upgrade chrs have Mastery 2 so I list Thrawn)

2) once a wound is scored (All NFW's in normal infantry units are AP3 save for Daemonhammers) then the GK unit can roll a psychic test to make all of that units, current or future, attacks that turn, inflict ID. (The weapons are still AP 3, so anything with a 2+ armor save can still roll to save).

Thanks for the help
Okay so correct me when i'm wrong I faced off against Grey Knights last night.

My opponent had a squad of interceptors, they moved into combat with my CSM (3+5+ Icon of Excess, MoS) His warding stave model would strike first because of its initiative bonus, and then the rest of my squad would strike at I5. Now the AP on the warding stave (counts as force stave rules for ap?) is AP4 in BRB. The rest of his units either had the falchions or swords, they were AP 3, and the Daemon hammer was AP 2.

So my opponent would roll for hammer hand and add 1 to his strength, he then would roll for his NFW and once passed he said that after he caused a wound the model was removed from play right away because it inflicted instant death, ( i assumed the 'Instant death' rule was normal making my 3+5+FNP worthless as usual. So all night i didnt get any armour saves or FNP.

So your saying that the NFW follow the normal rules for force weapons? Meaning that he has to wound my model, i have to fail my armour save and now he has to roll a psychic test and once passed the model has ID applied to it?

Also since the stave is AP4, that would mean i can use FNP, because his NFW aren't ID weapons until its activated, and you roll FNP directly after you fail your armour save. .... I think

Warding Staves don't add to initiative, that would be halberds. Unless otherwise stated, like the daemonhammer referring you to the thunder hammer rules, all NFW are unusual power weapons (S: As user AP: 3), including the stave.

Corrections from others if I'm wrong?

Normal Force Weapons can make one of the attacks made with the weapon cause ID.

NFWs instead make all attacks made with the weapon cause ID. So in that respect they are better.


Now, ID does not ignore armor or invuln saves. NFWs are all AP3 due to being unusual force weapons, except for the ones who have rules that give them a better AP(Doomfists and Daemonhammers)



A squad with BhoP only has one warp charge token, so only one psychic power. They cannot cast both HH and activate their force weapons at the same time.

if a GK character was in the squad he could have cast HH(which would effect every model in the unit) and the squad could activate their NFWs.

You could even have 2 characters in the squad each cast HH for a cumulative +2str and then the squad activate their NFWs(or cast HH again for +3 str total)

you activate ID BEFORE rolling FNP

no FNP against active force weapons


and normal force weapons DO NOT ONLY inflict ID on one wound

force special rule in BRB clearly states "ALL unsaved wounds" have the ID rule when the force weapons is activated

hammer hand has no rules supporting it stacking, but that is another (locked) thread and we should not derail this discussion with it

I figured that it was the same instant death as a double your toughness kind of instant death where i couldn't roll my 3+ . So i could have rolled armour saves the entire game is what your saying.

I was told that it stated wounds cause ID, meaning i didn't even get my armour save, of course i wouldn't if they were AP3 anyways.

Now, ID does not ignore armor or invuln saves. NFWs are all AP3 due to being unusual force weapons, except for the ones who have rules that give them a better AP(Doomfists and Daemonhammers)

ID does ignore armour saves if its double your toughness, but yes never an invulnerable save.

 Frecklesonfire wrote:
ID does ignore armour saves if its double your toughness

This is not true, A wound that causes ID will not ignore armor saves strictly based on it causing ID.

The AP value still needs to meet or exceed your armor save value to deny a save (Exceptions like boneswords etc... apply as usual).

For example, my Grand Master gets hit by a krak missile which is double his toughness he will suffer ID if he does not save the wound. But since its only AP3 he does get hit 2+ armor save against the wound.

Oh in the old rule book it gave an example of a captain being hit by a missile and since it was S8 to his T4, even tho he had 3 wounds, if he failed his 4+ Inv, he died.

Because the captain was only wearing power armor. It would not have been a GK brother captain(who has always had TDA AFAIK)

 Frecklesonfire wrote:
Oh in the old rule book it gave an example of a captain being hit by a missile and since it was S8 to his T4, even tho he had 3 wounds, if he failed his 4+ Inv, he died.

Space marine captain, not a GK Brother Captain

If you read the instant death rules it talks about an *unsaved* wound causing instant death - meaning you follow the normal rules for making saves.

Okay, thanks guys must have skipped over that one a little to quickly

Okay guys i just wanted to brush up on my greyknights knowledge and instant death etc rules we got a game tonight with them after a long break and matching up against the Tyranids.

heres the example.

a squad of Raveners is in an assault with a squad of greyknights, lets say the knights assault , their weapons are strength 4, Ap3 except for the hammers etc, so lets say there were no outside characters in the squad and they activated their nemesis force weapons, they roll to hit and then wound, the Tyranid player wouldn't be able to make saves anyways being that the weapons are Ap3, however the Ravener has 3 wounds, since NFW apply ID do these wounded models get removed of play, even though the strength of the GK isnt double the toughness of the Ravener?

Yes, because that is what causing Instant Death means.

 Frecklesonfire wrote:
Okay guys i just wanted to brush up on my greyknights knowledge and instant death etc rules we got a game tonight with them after a long break and matching up against the Tyranids.

heres the example.

a squad of Raveners is in an assault with a squad of greyknights, lets say the knights assault , their weapons are strength 4, Ap3 except for the hammers etc, so lets say there were no outside characters in the squad and they activated their nemesis force weapons, they roll to hit and then wound, the Tyranid player wouldn't be able to make saves anyways being that the weapons are Ap3, however the Ravener has 3 wounds, since NFW apply ID do these wounded models get removed of play, even though the strength of the GK isnt double the toughness of the Ravener?

Yes, because any wound caused by an "activated" FW caused ID and the Raveners do not have EW.

Also - they activate AFTER causing an unsaved wound, not before.

There are 2 ways to cause Instant Death. They are independent of each other.

One is by having the attacks strength be double the models toughness.

The other is to naturally have the Instant Death special rule on the attack. This is what Force Weapons do. They cause ID standard, no need for double the toughness on the attack. A str1 attack with the ID special rule could ID a T10 model, assuming it actually managed to wound it(poison potentially)

Both types of ID are stopped by Eternal Warrior.


Also, when removing a model due to ID, you must remove as many whole models as possible. You can't suffer 2 ID causing wounds and put both on the same multi-wound model if its not the only model in the unit.

Say we have that unit of Raveners. 3 of them. They take 3 unsaved ID causing wounds from a GK squad. You don't put all 3 on one Ravener and make it extra dead. You allocate one wound to Ravener 1, it dies from ID, you then allocate the next wound to Ravener 2, it dies from ID, and so on.

 Frecklesonfire wrote:
I figured that it was the same instant death as a double your toughness kind of instant death where i couldn't roll my 3+ . So i could have rolled armour saves the entire game is what your saying.

I was told that it stated wounds cause ID, meaning i didn't even get my armour save, of course i wouldn't if they were AP3 anyways.

"Unsaved wounds cause ID" .. if you have a save available, you must roll for it in order to determine if your model has been wounded. You can't have an unsaved wound without rolling your save (unless you have no saves available of course) right?

Opponent Rolls to hit
Opponent Rolls to wound for each hit
You Roll to save (if available) for each wound
On any unsaved wounds your GK opponent attempts to activate his NFW (assuming he has a warp charge available)
If his NFW's activated, all unsaved wounds in that combat are ID and will kill your model(s) regardless of # of wounds or toughness

Also, ID does not by itself ignore saves.


A captain wearing Terminator armor still gets his 2+ armor against a wound caused by a Krak Missile(AP3) even though it causes ID. It just means that if he does fail that 2+ save he's toast.

Thanks a ton guys and girls for the advice the game went smoothly, everyone understood and enjoyed the game, we followed the rules perfectly

Just a minor addendum:
If you have a terminator/paladin squad and one of them has the brotherhood banner, they automatically activate Nemesis weapons, w/o using any warp charge (+1 attack is "marginal" ^^)

What implies that they don't use the warp charge?

 Kerrathyr wrote:
Just a minor addendum:
If you have a terminator/paladin squad and one of them has the brotherhood banner, they automatically activate Nemesis weapons, w/o using any warp charge (+1 attack is "marginal" ^^)

No they do not. They just automatically pass the psychic check with out rolling. It still needs a warp charge

Grey Templar - the rules fo rcasualty do not any longer, I believe, require you to remove WHOLE models first. This is because you CANNOT stack wounds on one model - you resolve wounds one at a time in 6th, so the first ID wound applied to the model kills it.

jmswargaming wrote:
What implies that they don't use the warp charge?

The rule only states you automatically pass the psychic test. So you need to use a warp change.

My bad, recalled wrong that part.

Anyhow the banner was still worth mention, (also for the attack bonus, albeit the best use is in full ten-men squads)

(spelling-edited)

With Grey Knight squads, they should be using their Warp Charge for Hammerhand versus single wound models, or activate their Force Weapons versus multiple wound models. The only time they do both is if a unit is attached to them with an extra Warp Charge to use on Hammerhand to free up the squad's Warp Charge for activation.

SJ

@ the op.

When playing tyranid assault units vs GK make sure to keep a synapse creature close to the battle. Most GK units are ld9 so shadow in the warp has a reasonable chance of blocking their force activation (barring termies with the banner).