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Example:

10 Honour Guards charge a unit of 5 Beasts of Nurggle (4 wounds each).
Let's say for the sake of argument that all models are in base contact with each other.

1)Would you have to separate each HG's attacks to figure out which beast takes wound? And if the HG model is in base with let's say 2 beasts the controlling player picks which beast takes the wound?

2)Or do you roll them all together and then the controlling player allocates the wounds on the Beasts as he pleases because they're all in base contact?

While I think the option 2 would keep the game flowing a lot easier (specially in this example with upwards of 40 attacks), option 1 seems more "by the book" and prevents the controlling player from "spreading the wounds" (but it would take A LONG TIME to resolve...) But still not exactly sure which answer is correct.

If you guys can help me clarify, it'd be great.

Thanks

In assault you wounds are allocated to the closest model. If numerous models are tied for closest (such as being in base contact), the owning player chooses which one is closest. That model remains the "closest" until it dies or the Wound pool empties.

Unfortunately I am not at my Library, so I can not give you the exact page number. My advice would be to flick through the Assault section of the rule book once more. Within this section is a sub-section outlining how wounds are generated and resolved. You may alternatively look through the index at the back of the book to locate which page close combat wound allocation is on, as that might speed up the research.

Not sure why option 1 takes longer to resolve.

Honour guard gets so many wounds, Beasts fail so many saves, start removing models as required.

Edit: Might be a tad more book-keeping if someone has a force weapon (such as a Libby with a Force Maul, take that Beasts of Nurgle, how do you like them apples!)

It is neither of those. You roll all attacks at a given initiative stepat the same time. Those wounds go on to the nearest model first. If there are multiple models in B2B then the controlling player chooses who is "nearest" first all wounds go on that model until it dies then the controlling player chooses the next "nearest" model from those in B2B and so on.

So in practice you roll all your attacks, he rolls all his saves. Then he divides the number of wounds by 4 removes that number of models of his choice and then chooses who takes the remainder wounds. If there are multiple initiative steps he can pick a different model to start with at the next step for instance:

10 Honourguard 6 have power mauls, 4 have power axes:

Mauls go first and do 7 unsaved wounds. He kills beast "A" and puts 3 wounds onto beast "B". Then the axes swing and do another 5 wounds. He kills Beast "C" has another wound left applies it to beast "D". That way beast "B" and beast "D" have both suffered wounds without dying.

Hope this helps.

@ FlingitNow: thanks so much! That actually makes a lot of sense explained that way.

 FlingitNow wrote:
It is neither of those. You roll all attacks at a given initiative stepat the same time. Those wounds go on to the nearest model first. If there are multiple models in B2B then the controlling player chooses who is "nearest" first all wounds go on that model until it dies then the controlling player chooses the next "nearest" model from those in B2B and so on.

So in practice you roll all your attacks, he rolls all his saves. Then he divides the number of wounds by 4 removes that number of models of his choice and then chooses who takes the remainder wounds. If there are multiple initiative steps he can pick a different model to start with at the next step for instance:

10 Honourguard 6 have power mauls, 4 have power axes:

Mauls go first and do 7 unsaved wounds. He kills beast "A" and puts 3 wounds onto beast "B". Then the axes swing and do another 5 wounds. He kills Beast "C" has another wound left applies it to beast "D". That way beast "B" and beast "D" have both suffered wounds without dying.

Hope this helps.

Good explanation FlingitNow.

Thanks guys glad I could help

 Happyjew wrote:
In assault you wounds are allocated to the closest model. If numerous models are tied for closest (such as being in base contact), the owning player chooses which one is closest. That model remains the "closest" until it dies or the Wound pool empties.

This is how I always understood it as well.

Technically FlingitNow's explination is wrong.

Example

Beast A base contact with 2 power mauls & 1 power axe
Beast B base contact with 2 power mauls & 1 power axe
Beast C base contact with 1 power maul & 1 power axe
Beast D base contact with 1 power maul & 1 power axe

You roll 7 wounds with mauls & 5 wounds with axe

Opponent could allocate 2 wounds with mauls against Beast D
Opponent could allocate 2 wounds with mauls against Beast C
Opponent could allocate 3 wounds with mauls against Beast B

Opponent could allocate 2 wounds with axes against Beast A
Opponent could allocate 1 wounds with axes against Beast B (killing it) - this model them passes 1 extra wound on to the next closest which in my example is A
Opponent could allocate 1 wound with axes against Beast C

Leaving A with 1 wounds
Leaving B with 0 wounds
Leaving C with 1 wounds
Leaving D with 2 wounds

Base contact means a lot in CC you must allocate the wounds to the model in base contact before passing them to the next model, if the model in base contact doesn't cause enough wounds to kill the enemy the next model has to kill what it has in base contact before you can transfer wounds across.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also if your opponent is doing this he is not your friend...

Example

Beast A base contact with 2 power mauls & 1 power axe
Beast B base contact with 2 power mauls & 1 power axe
Beast C base contact with 1 power maul & 1 power axe
Beast D base contact with 1 power maul & 1 power axe

You roll 7 wounds with mauls & 5 wounds with axe

Opponent could allocate 2 wounds with mauls against Beast D
Opponent could allocate 2 wounds with mauls against Beast C
Opponent could allocate 3 wounds with mauls against Beast B

The opponent could not do this. If he starts allocating wounds to beast D he has to keep allocating wounds to beast D until either Beast D dies (in which case he then selects a different beast) or the wound pool runs out (which in this case it would not until he started allocating wounds the the second beast).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It is models in base contact with attackers at a given initiative step. So as your example had Mauls in base contact with all 4 Beasts he could have chosen any model as all Power Mauls would go into the same wound group (due to same AP and initiative).

But a model with 2 attacks cannot wound an enemy 3 times and since the next nearest maul was in combat with another model his wounds must first be allocated to that model. None of the power maul attacks in my example killed their opposing enemy so wounds could not be allocated to next nearest Beast.

If there were only 4 honour guard and four beasts one in contact with each beast would you not allocate the wounds on a 1v1 basis.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I never said the honour guard were in contact with multiple bases, only the beasts. If the mauls were in contact with 2 or more beasts the out come would be different.

I think this is where you are having the problem:
Each model does not generate it's own wound pool.

When you resolve the close combat attacks any wounds generated go into a single collective pool. While wounds in this pool can be kept separate for a range of reasons, these reasons do not include 'generated by a different model.' This is because knowing exactly which wound came from which model is not needed for the rest of the sequence which simply has you look at whom is closest to any of the attacking models. Given that the usual combat situation involves having multiple models in base contact with many other models, unique rules telling us how to allocate wounds to models equal distance have been provided. None of which requires us to know exactly which models generated which wounds.

Kranki - there is a single wound pool at each initiative. So your are technically wrong.

kranki wrote:
Technically FlingitNow's explination is wrong.

No, its 100% correct.

The 'closest' enemy is a model closest to one or more models attacking at a given initiative step. If two or more models are closest then the controlling player picks one and it remains the closest until the wound pool is empty or it dies. Lets look at your example.

kranki wrote:

Example

Beast A base contact with 2 power mauls & 1 power axe
Beast B base contact with 2 power mauls & 1 power axe
Beast C base contact with 1 power maul & 1 power axe
Beast D base contact with 1 power maul & 1 power axe

You roll 7 wounds with mauls & 5 wounds with axe

You don't roll the maul and axe hits/wounds at the same time. So lets just focus on the 7 maul wounds 1st.
The models that attacked with the mauls are all in base contact with A,B,C and D so all 4 beasts could be closest. It does not matter what models made what attack, they all attacked at the same initiative step. The Opponent will need to pick one of those models to be closest. He will have to allocate wounds to that beast until it takes 4 and dies, or the wound pool is empty. If he picks D it will have to take 4 before he can pick something else. If he picks A next it will have to take 3. The models that attacked and survived need to pile in now.
Assuming the the pile in moves leaves enough models close enough to attack with power axes and generate 5 wounds and all the beasts are once again tied for closest the opponent will need to pick one to be closest. He does not need to pick A becouse this is a new iniative step, so he picks B. He needs to allocate the 1st 4 wounds to B before he can pick something. He picks C for the last un-allocated wound.

Leaving A with 1 wounds remaining
Leaving B with 0 wounds remaining
Leaving C with 3 wounds remaining
Leaving D with 0 wounds remaining

PG25 big rule book - A wound must be allocated to an enemy model in base contact with a model attacking at that initiative step, If there is more than one candidate, the player controlling the models being attacked chooses which model it is allocated to.......(text about saving throws)

This part of the rules above threw me a little but I guess the initiative wound pool rule would override my example

though to me it seems the logic of this is totally wrong but then again common sense and GW rules have never been friends.

And then you add in Precision Strikes and screw it all up

The logic of this is fine firstly each HG will have either 4 or 5 attacks on the charge dependant on if it has a Chapter Banner in the unit.

Mainly it is because GW don't want multi-wound units to be able to spread the wounds around models. In the past it has just been a case of every time you do that 4th wound to a unit of beasts you remove a beast. However in 5th they introduced the idea of the heavy weapon and special weapon guys in a squad not being immortal until all their mates died. They want you to have some control so the sprcialists don't die right at the beginning hence wound allocation in 5th. Then Crisis teams and Nob squad armed everyone differently and all hell broke loose. This edition has tried to fix that loop hole for multi-wound units whilst maintaining the ability for specialists to die hence nearest allocation. Then "Look out Sir' made the problem even worse and they had to rectify that via FAQ.

I think they've got the balance about right. Personally I think they should add in that if multiple models are nearest that you have to pick models that have already suffered wounds first in multi wound units. But hey I'm not on the design team.

Also Precision strikes do not cause a massive problem they just create a new wound pool.

 FlingitNow wrote:
The logic of this is fine firstly each HG will have either 4 or 5 attacks on the charge dependant on if it has a Chapter Banner in the unit.

Mainly it is because GW don't want multi-wound units to be able to spread the wounds around models. In the past it has just been a case of every time you do that 4th wound to a unit of beasts you remove a beast. However in 5th they introduced the idea of the heavy weapon and special weapon guys in a squad not being immortal until all their mates died. They want you to have some control so the sprcialists don't die right at the beginning hence wound allocation in 5th. Then Crisis teams and Nob squad armed everyone differently and all hell broke loose. This edition has tried to fix that loop hole for multi-wound units whilst maintaining the ability for specialists to die hence nearest allocation. Then "Look out Sir' made the problem even worse and they had to rectify that via FAQ.

I think they've got the balance about right. Personally I think they should add in that if multiple models are nearest that you have to pick models that have already suffered wounds first in multi wound units. But hey I'm not on the design team.

Also Precision strikes do not cause a massive problem they just create a new wound pool.

Agreed! I think perhaps it's one of the few things GW has got close to right with combat in 6th!

I also second the notion that your description on how combat works is perfect.

Well played old boy.

I've found this thread incredibly informative, some great descriptions of wound allocation!

The "enemy model in base contact with a model attacking at that initiative step" is something often overlooked. But it can make a big difference in what models you lose.

I believe another important factor in this is when you have a specific model in the scrum that you want to take wounds. They need to be in BtB with opponents models.