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This doubling of wounds nonsense.
When and how does it happen? Can anybody give me a quick breakdown?

1. You get flamed, it hits three times.
2. Roll to wound. Three wounds.


How does it go from here? Let's say we have a unit of 6 Scarab bases at 3W per base that just got flamed, taking 3 template hits. How is this resolved? I know today they updated the FAQ in regards to this...

Q: If a base of models with the Swarms special rule suffers a Wound
from a Blast, Large Blast or Template weapon that would cause it to
suffer Instant Death, does the fact that Wound is doubled to two
Wounds mean that two bases should be removed instead of one?
(p43)
A: No

... but I'm still confused. Do the wounds double BEFORE I make my armor/cover save? Do they double after I make my saves and allocate them to the unit? Do they double after I make my saves but before I allocate them to the unit?

I also get the feeling I've mucked up my wound allocation rule to boot. Halp

I think they're saying that you apply instant death instead of the doubling of wounds.

That's how I always thought it should have been as the double and then apply ID is far too punishing to swarms.

Allocate a wound. Double it.

Yes, as rigeld2 said. Allocate a wound from the pool, and it immediately turns into 2 wounds. If the ID is called for, the model is dead and dead again, if not, it has 2 wounds.

I don't think your supposed to double the wounds in the wound pool, which potentially allows you to take out twice as many models.

Also, if a Swarm has one wound left the second wound doesn't roll over to the next one, as it's already been allocated to the now-dead base.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Also, if a Swarm has one wound left the second wound doesn't roll over to the next one, as it's already been allocated to the now-dead base.

This is what I was looking for. People have been trying to tell me it spills over. Psh.

It is silly though, doubling after it has been assigned to a base, you will be putting two wounds onto a base to kill it with say a flamer or frag missile as they only have 3 wounds, it needs 2 wounds to kill it off. Rippers and scarabs both have 3 wounds, nurglings have 4 so that makes sense, what other swarm units are there?

You are still only putting a single wound from the pool onto each base, but lowering it's wounds by two instead of one. Imagine it like an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Most people have the same reaction but some people have a severe reaction and swell up or react more violently. Same idea with the swarms rule. It's there to make them susceptible to blast/template wounds not to draw more wounds into the pool which can have other effects such as spilling over onto non-swarm models. In the 3 wound swarm model comparison it would normally take 3 wounds to kill the model if it's blast/template then it takes 2. You are still killing the swarm faster then normal shots but you are not making it so that a single blast/flame template can possibly kill more models then it is above.

This intrigued me, having no experience with Swarm (the Rule and associated unit) in sixth edition, I decided to have a look at the rules.

First, I looked up Swarm.

Page 43, BRB wrote:
If a swarm suffers an unsaved wound from a blast, large blast or template weapon, each unsaved wound is multiplied to two unsaved wounds.

This is very clear.

1. This is invoked IFF the weapon fired is a template or a blast weapon
2. IF a Swarm Suffers an unsaved wound, then he takes a second wound. Calculate before moving onto the next wound.
3. You are NOT required to make 2 saves for every wound caused.

Only wounds from the wound pool can carry over. If a swarm fails a save and loses 2 wounds as a result, he is the only model that may lost a wound - If he fails to saves, but only has 3 wounds, he loses 3 wounds and is removed, the extra swarm wound is discarded.

This is how I understand the rule:

Example 1 using a weapon that would cause Instant Death
You have 6 Bases, each base has 3 wounds and the swarm is Toughness 3.

Your opponent uses a S6 flamer and covers 3 bases with the flamer. He rolls to wound and does 3 wounds.

You lose 3 bases due to Instant Death from S6 vs T3.

Example 2 using a weapon that would NOT cause Instant Death
You have 6 Bases, each base has 3 wounds and the swarm is Toughness 3.

Your opponent uses a S5 flamer and covers 3 bases with the flamer. He rolls to wound and does 3 wounds.

You lose 6 wounds due to vulnerable to blast/template so lose 2 bases as you allocate the wounds normally.

No, the wounds don't spill over. The enemy only caused 3 wounds total, not 6. The wound doubling doesn't change the fact that that model in particular was the one that received the wound. That's like saying that if an IC joined a swarm unit, the doubled wound from a 3W base would carry over to the IC. Doesn't work that way, that's more wounds than the enemy scored on the unit.

I believe MadCow's scenario is correct. Sigh, no more scarab-roasting shenanigans with my incinerators.

Madcow and Xyrael are correct, in the situation where you fire a s5 template weapon and cause 3 wounds you assign the first wound to a base, it doubles (assuming the bases are at full wounds) you have to assign another wound to that base to finish it off (in total it has now suffered 4 wounds but the last wound doesnt carry over) the next base takes the last remaining wound in the wound pool and suffers 2 wounds, leaving it with 1

Say I have a swarm with 3 wounds.

An S5 blast does 2 wounds to the swarm (we'll assume it has no save for this example).

The next closest model is a non-swam IC attached to the unit.

The swarm is allocated the first wound, which doubles, so it loses 2 and has 1 left. Then the swarm takes the next wound, which doubles and kills the swarm. What happens to the extra wound?

1) Does the extra wound spill over to the IC with no save allowed (since the swarm had no save for the initial wound that was doubled)?
2) Can the IC LoS the wound?
3) If the IC -does- LoS it onto another swarm, does it get doubled again?

 RobPro wrote:
What happens to the extra wound?

As that wound has already been allocated to a model, and that model is dead, the extra wound is lost. It doesn't get to be re-allocated.

That is a very accurate reading of the rules that I would never have arrived at. Maybe I can actually use my scarabs against a Gknight buddy of mine (Dreadknight with the torrent weapon....). I just know he's going to call cheese on me when I bring it up...

For clarification's sake: how do we know for certain the extra wounds are discarded? Does it have to do more with the lack of permission to transfer the wound then any rule stating it gets discarded?

There is a very lengthy thread if you search for it. What the side the seems to have been backed by this FAQ has stated is that swarms is a model based USR and as such you have to allocate a wound to a model for the Swarms USR to trigger. Since the first wound has been allocated then doubling it must place the second wound onto the same model. There are no permissions just as you have stated to take the new wound off the model and apply it to a new model. This also prevents a non-swarm from taking a wound created by this USR even though it does not have the Swarms USR.

Nice summary Gravmyr

Thank you. I think a better wording for swarms would be "If a Swarm suffers an unsaved Wound from a Blast, Large Blast or Template weapon, each unsaved wound reduces the model's wounds by two instead of one as normal." They could have easily prevented this issue.