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You've got a squad of 5 guys. One of them has a storm shield or similar invuln, when the rest do not. If you take 10 hits that are AP2, how do you resolve this situation?

I've noticed over time that different people do this different ways actually. Some people do just roll the 10 dice at once, and if he makes 8 saves and fails two you only lose him and one other model. The other option, that I personally do, is roll the saves one at a time with the shield model until he dies, then resolve the rest of the wounds using the other model's invuln if it's terminators or lack of one if it's marines.

The stats for this are quite obvious, and rolling them in bulk is hugely different to rolling them separately. Let's say you roll 10 dice.... 9 pass, and one fails your invuln save. How do you know now whether that 1 failure was the first shot to hit the model, or the last one to hit him? Did you lose 1 model, or did the entire squad get wiped out?

Even the rules clearly explain how to work through this situation. To make an armor save, you roll a D6. You don't throw 10 D6, you throw one, then throw one, then throw one..... etc. until you're out of models or out of wounds. There's a separate sections after armor saves though that explains that if you have all the same saves you are then allowed to roll them in bulk. It's possible to play an entire game if you only have a single die.

So why, then, do so many people still just want me to roll my dice in bulk? Does it really save that much time? Do they understand that they're giving me a potentially huge gain by turning my storm shield into a 3++ forcefield of awesome covering the entire squad?

The only legal way is to do it one at a time.

The best you can do is if there is a bunch of people with the same save in front of someone with a different save you can roll a batch equal to the number of models before the different save .

 kingbobbito wrote:
So why, then, do so many people still just want me to roll my dice in bulk?

Because doing them one at a time is a massive pain in the nethers.

Add in Look Out Sir, and it's twice as painful. Particularly when you're getting shot at by, say, a big Ork mob, or massed Guard.

 insaniak wrote:

 kingbobbito wrote:
So why, then, do so many people still just want me to roll my dice in bulk?

Because doing them one at a time is a massive pain in the nethers.

Add in Look Out Sir, and it's twice as painful. Particularly when you're getting shot at by, say, a big Ork mob, or massed Guard.

But see, against orks or guard it's not an issue, for me anyways. 50 lasgun shots is fine, because nothing has AP, where I run into issues is when someone uses massed plasma against my terminator squads. And even then, it's not like I'm going to roll all 10 or 20 dice one at a time. I'll roll one at a time until the shield is dead (so statistically 3), and then roll the rest together. Would you genuinely say that the extra 30 seconds i might take is worth giving a squad of 5 or 10 guys a 3++ when only one or two has it?

Me personally? Or the people who go the 'roll them all together' route?


I roll one at a time. I hate it, but it's how the game currently works.

When dealing with a unit with mixed saves I try and speed it up just a tiny bit. I roll a number of dice equal to the number of wounds remaining on the model the wounds are being allocated to 1st. 99.999% of the time its a one would model so I end up rolling the saves one at a time but not always. Once the unit is not mixed saves any more I roll them in bulk again.

Sometimes, I avoid putting mixed saves together just to avoid it. I mean my games usually start around 7pm or 8pm on a weekday and I do have to work in the morning.

 DJGietzen wrote:
When dealing with a unit with mixed saves I try and speed it up just a tiny bit. I roll a number of dice equal to the number of wounds remaining on the model the wounds are being allocated to 1st. 99.999% of the time its a one would model so I end up rolling the saves one at a time but not always. Once the unit is not mixed saves any more I roll them in bulk again.

Sometimes, I avoid putting mixed saves together just to avoid it. I mean my games usually start around 7pm or 8pm on a weekday and I do have to work in the morning.

I get what you mean, the issue I have to deal with is that DW termie squads are kind of garbage if you don't have at least one shield in there, but I like to have a few guns in there too. Throw in that my librarian terminator will have either a 3++ or 4++ depending on what wargear I want, so throw another wrench in my rolling plans.....

The only other time it's really an issue is with tau shield drones, especially if there's only one left and there's a lot of incoming AP attacks.

As others have said, it will be a "one at a time" situation only.

If you had 2 Storm Shields in the 5-man, you'd throw dice 2 at a time. That's the only "speed rolling" you could do.

On the subject of rolling 1 at a time, i'd recommend taking the pile of 10 dice and throwing them in quick succession. Not picking up and rolling the 1 dice until his save fails....
(So: throw throw throw throw "oh look, a 1". Not: throw, pick-up, throw, pick-up, throw, pick-up...)