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So this one came up earlier today. Gargantuan creature got hit with an instant death weapon. How does that all work? Is it a wound, then d3 other wounds.... or is it d3 wounds total?

From what I have seen, it is considered as the D3 replaces the normal Wound lost to the Attack.

GMC have a rule specifically covering this called unstoppable behemoth

 CrownAxe wrote:
GMC have a rule specifically covering this called unstoppable behemoth

The rule is actually simply 'Unstoppable'; Super-heavy vehicles have the 'Invincible Behemoth rule, though.

I think war is aware of the rule though, and is simply unsure whether the rule eliminates both the initial unsaved Wound with the Instant Death special rule and the Instant Death effect of reducing the model's Wounds to 0 (so simply D3 Wounds), or whether the unsaved Wound with the Instant Death special rule remains and the Instant Death effect is replaced with D3 Wounds (so 1+D3 Wounds).

As it is written I'm leaning more towards the latter rather than the former, because the unsaved Wound must be caused before we can consider the Instant Death effect, but I'm not really sure.

I think it's d3 plus the original wound, but that's just the way we play it, I can see it going both ways

Well it says any "attack", so any attack with instant death would replace the one wound with d3.
However, I'm not quite sure how that would interact with special rules like decapitation or whatever it's called that causes instant death only on a to wound roll of 6. Would those still count as attacks with instant death?
Potentially super rules lawyerish, I know, but entertain me anyway lol.

 Charistoph wrote:
From what I have seen, it is considered as the D3 replaces the normal Wound lost to the Attack.

This.

Another interesting question is if the Instant Death special rule on the attack will shut off the Gargantuan creatures Feel No Pain for that attack.

My guess is that it does shut off Feel No Pain since Unstoppable doesn't mention the attack actually losing the Instant Death special rule, only treating Instant Death differently than normal.

col_impact wrote:
Another interesting question is if the Instant Death special rule on the attack will shut off the Gargantuan creatures Feel No Pain for that attack.

My guess is that it does shut off Feel No Pain since Unstoppable doesn't mention the attack actually losing the Instant Death special rule, only treating Instant Death differently than normal.

I don't think it's particularly clear, but I would play it that the Feel No Pain is allowed. 'Unstoppable' says that D3 Wounds are inflicted instead of Instant Death. That's not very clear about whether the unsaved Wound carries the rule any longer, but sensibly I think it should be taken not to.

Giving the original question more consideration I think I feel more confident that it's 1+D3 Wounds. Instant Death is inflicted when a model suffers an unsaved Wound, and reduces the model's Wounds to 0. It's basically an unsaved Wound as usual and then the model's Wounds are reduced to 0 by the inflicting of Instant Death.

In the case of 'Unstoppable' we replace the inflicting of Instant Death with inflicting D3 Wounds instead, so I think the unsaved Wound still stands.

FNP says it can not be used against unsaved wounds with the Instant Death Rule or Destroyer Rule.

No fnp for sure as per the rules for fnp.

Martel732 wrote:
No fnp for sure as per the rules for fnp.

Correct, because while the effect of Instant Death is replaced by D3 wounds, that does not alter the weapon HAVING the ID rule, which is all FNP cares about.

In general, rules that use D3 instead of X, do not count the initial X as doing anything other than triggering the D3.
So when a wound is caused to a GMC, instead of being reduced to 0 wounds (per Instant Death), the GMC suffers D3 wounds instead, not D3+1
But the rules for ID, no single wound is inflicted in the first place, just reduce them to 0.

Explodes resultes for SHV and SHW are an exception. It says D3 additional hull points I believe.

Martel732 wrote:
Explodes resultes for SHV and SHW are an exception. It says D3 additional hull points I believe.

You are right again. I was going to mention it, but I couldn't remember it's wording.
In that particular instance, a Pen is caused (strip a HP) then you roll on the damage chart, which Explodes causes additional D3 HPs to Super Heavies.

I believe it is the "extra roll" that makes it stack. All other rules that do D3 instead of X are rules in which X was done with 1 roll.

Martel732 wrote:
No fnp for sure as per the rules for fnp.

Precisely. GCs change the effect of the rule, they do not remove the fact the weapon has the rule.

 Galef wrote:
In general, rules that use D3 instead of X, do not count the initial X as doing anything other than triggering the D3.
So when a wound is caused to a GMC, instead of being reduced to 0 wounds (per Instant Death), the GMC suffers D3 wounds instead, not D3+1
But the rules for ID, no single wound is inflicted in the first place, just reduce them to 0.

My issue with this is that Instant Death is triggered by suffering an unsaved Wound, then the model's Wounds are reduced to 0. Instant Death doesn't say this is done "instead of reducing the model's Wounds by 1" in reference to the unsaved Wouns, so I believe the unsaved Wound persists.