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So, I've read how destroyer weapons now work for Apocalypse several times, and I'm still confused. We're trying to get an Apoc game together locally, and want to have the kinks worked out before we play. I know they no longer auto-wound, and instead use the table, but the process how wounds are generated is sort of vague.

Say I hit a large unit of 10 multi-wound models (let's just say they all have at least 4 wounds for argument's sake). From reading how the table works, I can see 3 different ways to play destroyer weapons:

1. You roll a single D6 for the effect of every hit on all the models in the unit, on a 1 nothing happens. This seems like the least likely way to play it because it's quite easy for destroyer weapons to just fail outright 1/6 of the time.

2. You roll 10 D6, remove all the 1's (since they don't wound), then roll either a D3 for the 2-5 results, and a D6 for the 6 result, total up all the wounds, then distribute them to the unit like regular (closest to furthest, look out sir's, etc). This seems like the easiest method, but I'm not sure that's what GW was getting at.

3. You roll an individual D6 for each of the 10 models hit, then apply the specific result to that model only. With this method some models could be completely unwounded, some would have some wounds, and some would be completely killed, and it wouldn't matter who was closest or furthest from the shooter. I kind of think this is what GW was intending, but it seems like an absolute nightmare to do since many destroyer templates can hit huge amounts of models per turn.

So, how do you think it was meant to be played?

Yeah, GW completely dropped the ball with Destroyer weapons hitting multiple models in a unit - they really only worded it to work as a single shot aimed at a single-model unit like vehicles etc.

HIWPI - treat hits from Destroyer weapons as if they Wound automatically, so allocate these as normal. When a model has a "wound" allocated, don't roll for saves; instead, roll on the Destroyer chart to see what happens to that model. You can use the speed rolling rules for single-wound models. Any excess wounds a model suffers are ignored.

Not that it is conclusive, but for apoc games at the GW store its played as #3(roll per model). They don't spell it out very well but since the wounding talks about wounds per model it implies that method, but I fully expect a faq soon which will read something like:

Q. Do you allocate wounds from a destroyer weapon to the models under the template or to the closest models in a squad.
A. No

Yeah, I kind of thought #3 is what they were getting at, but it sounds like an absolute nightmare to use in an actual game. Even if the models aren't multi-wound you'd have to go model by model to see if they get a 1 on their D6 or not, which would take forever!

They really need to clarify destroyer weapons, it's a pretty big part of playing Apoc games and I can't believe they left it as vague as it is now.

How is the table worded? Is it anything along the lines of "when the weapon hits", or "instead of rolling to wound", or anything like that? This might give us a timing to work from.

I played it like result #3, and it seemed to work okay. The other two just seem imbalanced or don't work properly in comparison.

Roll on the table instead of rolling to wound or roll armour pen. So for each hit the unit would suffer from 0 to 12 wounds. A single pie plate could wipe a full unit out fairly easily. Reads like option 2.

If that's how it's worded, then yes it would be option 2. You don't usually allocate wounds until you know how many wounds you have in the pool - swapping this roll out for the wound roll still allows you to follow this.