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Ok so this has come up for me and a mate a few times recently:

- i have a 10 man SM vanguard assault squad where 4 units have 3+ invun saves due to their shields - they will be unit A
- my friend has a 10 strong nob squad - unit B with 3/4 AP2 weapons.

1) if Unit B inflicts 5 or more wounds on unit A with their AP2 wounds, can i choose to take all wounds on the guys with 3+ invun saves, even though i only have 4 guys with invun saves?

So say 8 wounds at AP2, and 5 wounds at AP5, can i make 8 invun saves, and 5 normal saves, or 13 invun saves for example? or must i allocate 4 AP2 wounds automatically, then make 4 invun, and 5 normal?

sorry if this has come up before but i couldnt find anything in the forum search.

It's been a while since I read the actual rulebook for clarification, but me and my friends play this as it is what we remember to be right:

your opponent rolls all their attacks and to wound rolls, inflicting the aforementioned wounds at said AP.

You then choose the order that these wounds are applied, and they are applied to the guys immediately in combat, working backwards.

So in your example, if you had the guys with shields up front, you could opt to take the AP2 wounds first to get your invulnerable save and mitigate damage to the rest of the squad, and the AP 5 hits would be resolved afterwards on any surviving shield bearers (If any).

If however, there were 4 guys in front of them without shields, you could opt to take the AP5 wounds first, and resolve those first, you would then however lose X number of marines where X is the number of marines that were still alive after the AP5 hits, with the rest then allocated to the shield bearers to save.

Wounds are allocated one at a time, with saves being taken between each allocation. At each Initiative step, the "closest model" is determined (if you're in assault, you'll generally have several in B2B, so you choose between those), but only models attacking at that step are counted. So it's possible to have all your shields in B2B but have to allocate elsewhere.

So in your example, the AP2 attacks are probably at I1, whilst the others are at I3. So at I3 you pick a model to be 'closest', roll saves (using fast-dice where appropriate). Then at I1 you choose a new 'closest' model (which doesn't have to be the same as previous), and take saves.

If there is a mixture of AP2 and AP- attacks at the same Initiative, then the player making the attacks chooses which 'wound pool' to resolve first (can't mix-and-match, completely resolve one pool first).

 Quanar wrote:
Wounds are allocated one at a time, with saves being taken between each allocation. At each Initiative step, the "closest model" is determined (if you're in assault, you'll generally have several in B2B, so you choose between those), but only models attacking at that step are counted. So it's possible to have all your shields in B2B but have to allocate elsewhere.

So in your example, the AP2 attacks are probably at I1, whilst the others are at I3. So at I3 you pick a model to be 'closest', roll saves (using fast-dice where appropriate). Then at I1 you choose a new 'closest' model (which doesn't have to be the same as previous), and take saves.

If there is a mixture of AP2 and AP- attacks at the same Initiative, then the player making the attacks chooses which 'wound pool' to resolve first (can't mix-and-match, completely resolve one pool first).

You are making it sounds like models that arnt at that initiative step cant take a wound which i would like to see a source of. Im pretty sure you can nominate any model in your unit to take the wounds no matter what initiative THEY strike at. Because if thats the case there would be a lot of bullgak like your HQ has a powerfist and bolt pistol so you can basically pick when he can attack to dodge wounds he does not want to save against. Again this is what it sounds like you mean i could be interpreting it wrong.

But im very positive a model does not need to be at their initiative step to take the save. Bceaue you can run into this scinario

HQ has a power axe and power sword. start attacking, let my opponant go first, he hit with some AP 2 weapon at I4, well i have a TH SS guy that can take that wound, so now im going to say he is striking with his Power axe and I1 so now the SS guy can take the wound for me instead.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 Quanar wrote:
Wounds are allocated one at a time, with saves being taken between each allocation. At each Initiative step, the "closest model" is determined (if you're in assault, you'll generally have several in B2B, so you choose between those), but only models attacking at that step are counted. So it's possible to have all your shields in B2B but have to allocate elsewhere.

So in your example, the AP2 attacks are probably at I1, whilst the others are at I3. So at I3 you pick a model to be 'closest', roll saves (using fast-dice where appropriate). Then at I1 you choose a new 'closest' model (which doesn't have to be the same as previous), and take saves.

If there is a mixture of AP2 and AP- attacks at the same Initiative, then the player making the attacks chooses which 'wound pool' to resolve first (can't mix-and-match, completely resolve one pool first).

You are making it sounds like models that arnt at that initiative step cant take a wound which i would like to see a source of. Im pretty sure you can nominate any model in your unit to take the wounds no matter what initiative THEY strike at. Because if thats the case there would be a lot of bullgak like your HQ has a powerfist and bolt pistol so you can basically pick when he can attack to dodge wounds he does not want to save against. Again this is what it sounds like you mean i could be interpreting it wrong.

But im very positive a model does not need to be at their initiative step to take the save. Bceaue you can run into this scinario

HQ has a power axe and power sword. start attacking, let my opponant go first, he hit with some AP 2 weapon at I4, well i have a TH SS guy that can take that wound, so now im going to say he is striking with his Power axe and I1 so now the SS guy can take the wound for me instead.

1) No, he's not saying a model can't take a save if it's not his initiiative. What he's saying is that at each initiative step, you look at the models that are attacking, you see which models are in base contact with them, and from that you choose which ones will make saves first. You don't get to choose any model, you have to choose a model in base contact to be the first (as per the rules on page52). Different models are fighting on different initiative steps, so could have different models in base contact with them; that's why it's important to evaluate who's in base contact at each initiative step an attack is made at.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tristanleo wrote:
It's been a while since I read the actual rulebook for clarification, but me and my friends play this as it is what we remember to be right:

your opponent rolls all their attacks and to wound rolls, inflicting the aforementioned wounds at said AP.

You then choose the order that these wounds are applied, and they are applied to the guys immediately in combat, working backwards.

So in your example, if you had the guys with shields up front, you could opt to take the AP2 wounds first to get your invulnerable save and mitigate damage to the rest of the squad, and the AP 5 hits would be resolved afterwards on any surviving shield bearers (If any).

If however, there were 4 guys in front of them without shields, you could opt to take the AP5 wounds first, and resolve those first, you would then however lose X number of marines where X is the number of marines that were still alive after the AP5 hits, with the rest then allocated to the shield bearers to save.

Attacking player gets to choose which wound pool to apply first, not the person having to make the saves. The person making the saves in an assault, though, gets to choose which model if there's multiple models in base contact. You wouldn't get a choice to opt for which wound pool first, but if you have a guy with a shield and one without a shield both in base contact you can choose which one gets to save first.

 doctortom wrote:
1) No, he's not saying a model can't take a save if it's not his initiiative. What he's saying is that at each initiative step, you look at the models that are attacking, you see which models are in base contact with them, and from that you choose which ones will make saves first. You don't get to choose any model, you have to choose a model in base contact to be the first (as per the rules on page52). Different models are fighting on different initiative steps, so could have different models in base contact with them; that's why it's important to evaluate who's in base contact at each initiative step an attack is made at.

Yes, thank you. Typing on a phone didn't leave much leeway for nuance. Once the models in B2B with models attacking at that Initiative are dead, any remaining wounds are allocated to the next nearest model until that model dies, and so on and so forth.

Note that you don't have to worry about working out which attacks came from where in the same Initiative step, so if there were some normal attacks and some AP2 attacks in the same step, any model in B2B with a model that attacked at that step could have the AP2 attacks allocated to them even if they weren't in B2B with the model causing the AP2 wounds.

I feel like I'm just getting the OP more confused now. Have a read of p51-52, and see if that makes sense.

Ok yeah that's how I always knew it worked.

When he said at initive, I thought me was referring to when you can take saves :p

I'm not sure if melee works the same way, but shooting works where the firing player picks a weapon type. [say the bolters in a tactical squad] you then fully resolve all the attacks with those weapons. So you hit/wound with those. Then the target player rolls saves for those wounds one at a time. To speed this up you can roll as many saves as you have models until the save changes.
By this I mean if all models in the target unit will be getting a 3+ save, but the sergeant is the 5th man deep, you can roll 4 saves at a time because if all those 4 die, you get Look Out Sir! on top of those saves.
For further speed you can roll different guns with the same results into the same attack. For example including the sergeants bolt pistol in with the boltguns, because it hits the same, wounds the same, and saves the same.
Failed saves are always allocated to the nearest model to the firing unit.
Then, exactly as above the firing player then fires the plasma gun, followed by the heavy bolter.

Your opponent can use this to say fire the boltguns first if your stormshields are at the front, with the hope of killing them off and allowing the plasmagun to fire at unshielded models.