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Its sad how the quotation marks always begin at "considered to be" and never at the "are". "Are" is the word that butchered the overflow argument and discarded the surplus wounds.

If they "are" considered to be in base contact, the rule can't be followed at any stage when they "are not" considered to be in base contact, which would have to be the case if wounds were allocated to others in the combat outside the challenge.

Im just thinking of it outside of a game, lets say there are a group of people fighting, you challenge someone to a fight you throw a punch and follow up with another but your first punch knocks him out, your other punch does nothing as you already beat your opponent, in 40k when two xenos or w.e are fighting theres a thing called overkill...

hisdudeness wrote:Cowmonaut

You missed one very big issue. Since we can choose when to resolve challenges, what happens when a high Init character resolves after the squad? The challenge overflow wounds would have a large effect on the squad combat that would be near impossible to backtrack and account for.

Actually I touched on that here.

cowmonaut wrote:3) When do the Challenge combatants strike? Page 65 very clearly says that they strike during their normal Initiative steps, and then gives you an option to resolve it after the normal fight. This seems odd in of itself. In the context of this argument I must confess this leads circumstantial evidence towards there being no overflow. If we have overflow then there are problems introduced with this, as models could conceivably be killed before they striked. If you had resolved the general combat first, this complicates things as you likely already had those models land some wounds.

Mind you, Forging the Narrative might not actually be "rules" per se. Most of the time it isn't it seems...

Lobukia wrote:If I have time, I do want to address your large post up above. It might take me awhile (grad student with full time job) so it might be moved a page or two down.

I hear you, and would love to hear what you have to say. I myself work full time and am working to join the Air National Guard, helping plan a wedding, and find time for this hobby! Sometimes I wish I didn't need sleep.

If I could live healthy without sleeping I would never sleep. Ever.

I know its been awhile since Ive posted in here, but I do have one more thing to add up here. And luckily, it supports my previous argument that the wounds still go to the dead model;

Outside Forces. The bolded section is the rules for allocating wounds during the challenge.

Captain Antivas wrote:If I could live healthy without sleeping I would never sleep. Ever.

Sleep replacement pill.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/01/darpa-develops.html

Old news but it was on the FDA's radar in 2010.

cowmonaut wrote:

hisdudeness wrote:Cowmonaut

You missed one very big issue. Since we can choose when to resolve challenges, what happens when a high Init character resolves after the squad? The challenge overflow wounds would have a large effect on the squad combat that would be near impossible to backtrack and account for.

Actually I touched on that here.

How did I miss that? But the question is still there with no response that I could find. In fact, I believe you are the first person on the "for" camp to even acknowledge this issue. This is the sole reason I need, there are no rules telling us how to resolve this issue. More so when one simple sentence would make overflow (and this entire thread) a moot point. GW can be bad at leaving holes in the rule but they are normally completely separate rules interacting with each other. This is a very simple find during playtesting in what are effectively interactions between sub rules of the same phase.

cowmonaut wrote:

It would seem that moving our discussion in this direction may yet yield some useful dialogue or consensus.

So at last, assume both sides of the argument are correct: What does this mean for how we play the game and what are advantages and disadvantages for each?
Not a bad idea. I have serious doubts anyone will be swayed from their preferred camps so it can't hurt to give this a try. Where to begin?

No Wound Overflow
1) Hammer of Wrath: As brought up by MJThurston, you can potentially kill an enemy Character at the onset of the Challenge. Should that happen, your Character would not be able to make any further attacks that turn which means that there would be no additional wounds to go towards combat resolution.

Agreed... but I'm fine with that

2) Which brings us to my next concern: If you have 7 attacks on a 1 Wound model and 3 of them succeed, does that mean you only get the 1 Wound towards combat resolution? Or do the excess successes go towards the total? It seems the excess should count given it says any Unsaved Wounds, but is that true? If the model is just a generic Sergeant in Power Armor and gets hit by an AP3 Melee weapon, he dies once you allocate one unsaved Wound. Are the rest lost? Page 26 seems to make it so. If this is indeed the case then cheap Characters (such as IG Blob Sergeants) are going to be able to easily nullify any expensive close combat character.

Agreed again, but if this is the rule (and everyone knows it), you take care of the problem before its realized. You can precision strike, have a light character of your own, paired with your heavy hitters, or deal with the horrible inconvenience of an extra turn of combat (in a game where there's two of those before you go again, that's actually a good thing... really good thing).

3) Precision Strikes oddly enough still seem to work as you will. They do not require you be in base contact with whomever you allocate the wound to. So even with no overflow, you already have a case where a Challenger or Challengee is affecting models outside the Challenge. This inconsistency is strange. If we are to believe the Challengers exist in a vacuum, why is it the rules do not prohibit Precision Strikes in a Challenge?

IF we are right about overflow not existing and challenges being a combat set aside, I disagree on this one. Challenges, if separate, will be completely separate. The only way I can see GW letting PS jump out of challenges, is if they feel like they need to make a concession to the overflow crowd.

4) Model placement. Without Wound Overflow, why ever have your mighty Character lead the squad from the front? Far more intelligent to keep your Characters in the rear. This means more of your models are likely to be in base contact with the enemy, your opponent is less likely to have models "cheering on" his character, and keeps your Character safe once the Challenge is over. This seems directly counter to most every other change regarding Characters.

I must be misreading/understanding what you are saying here. If you have a unit and so does he, there's no cheering. Character replace models to get into the challenge... they don't swap back after the challenge is over. I really am lost where you are going with this.

With Wound Overflow
1) A counter point to Hammer of Wrath's issues above. With Wound Overflow you would then be able to allocate attacks as normal to the squad. This will likely mean more Wounds for combat resolution. Oddly enough, this sort of makes sense from a "fluff" or "narrative" perspective (which seems to be GW's goal in 6th edition, to add more story to each game). A squad is far more likely to break quickly and badly if their fearless leader is cut down instantly in a duel. Unfortunately this argument isn't very persuasive on its own from a RAW perspective.

Agreed again. This makes challenges pretty pointless, and means the intent of GW making sergeants and such characters was a waste of ink (should have gone just the IC route).

2) Again, more Wounds would be available towards combat resolution. I'm unsure that Page 65 overrides the rules on Page 26 regarding excess wounds. Yet again, without overflow this makes generic cheap Characters more powerful/useful than powerful Independent Characters and Monstrous Creatures, which makes no sense.

I've never got this. Why are earth would someone run a Chaos Lord with a squad, without a Chaos champion in tow? Your "champ" blocks the opponent's "sarg", and the Lord butchers the unit. Fluffy, smart, and to the point. MC's, being more feral make sense being lured away from the unit, and again, a lone sarg dies in one phase, keeping that MC alive and engaged for your opponents shooting phase. That's, again, a good thing. A DP should be thrilled to have not cut through the platoon in one turn and then get shot by the LR. Instead, he should finish them off in time for his movement phase and will go nom on the next platoon.

3) As mentioned before, Precision Strike seems to happen regardless. The difference is with Wound Overflow it makes more sense as your Character is already able to strike out of the Challenge. It, to me, makes things more consistent.

Agreed, if somehow challenges allow overflow, PS should work

4) Model placement. With Wound Overflow this encourages you to put your Character at the forefront of every charge. You would actually want him to get to grips with the enemy, for if he is able to quickly dispatch the enemy Character he can then join the general melee and try to break the foe.

Again, he's there anyway, no matter how you think overflow works, the Characters are going to be base to base if their units are in combat more times than not.

With or Without Wound Overflow
Some interesting observations regarding the rules regardless who is right:

1) Precision Strike. As I have said ad nauseum, this seems to happen regardless. The rules for Challenges do not explicitly say that the Characters involved are in a vacuum. Best case, you can argue its implied. But there is nothing there stopping Precision Strikes which is just contradictory to the arguments against Wound Overflow. It is more consistent if Wound Overflow exists. Again I just see the image seen in many a fantasy movie of an epic duel between good and evil and there being bystander casualties (Spaceballs comes to mind with the camera crew getting hit by Dark Helmet, for example).

From a playability, help out the CC masters, point of view, I'm fine with PS leaving Challenges... from a wound and page 429 perspective I don't see it as RAW

2) To Hit and To Wound rolls. If the combatants were in a vacuum, why aren't the rules more explicit? As it stands, if you join a Farseer to a squad of Wraithguard he effectively will have Toughness 6 during the Challenge. At the same time, the higher Weapon Skill some models have is largely moot as it affords little protection. For example, a Wolf Lord (WS 6) joins a pack of Blood Claws (WS 3). A Chaos Lord would be hitting him on a 3+ instead of a 4+. None of this would be happening if the Challenge wasn't a part of the general combat.

I brought this up a while back, but it got buried. To me this is a strong point against overflow. If challenges are separate, this is all some much simpler.

3) When do the Challenge combatants strike? Page 65 very clearly says that they strike during their normal Initiative steps, and then gives you an option to resolve it after the normal fight. This seems odd in of itself. In the context of this argument I must confess this leads circumstantial evidence towards there being no overflow. If we have overflow then there are problems introduced with this, as models could conceivably be killed before they striked. If you had resolved the general combat first, this complicates things as you likely already had those models land some wounds.

I also see this merging very well with 429 as written. To me, when I read through the BRB the first time, I got the clear impression that challenges are separate, any doubts or ambiguity was gone when I looked at the summary page.

I hope you are starting to see that from a mechanics, big picture, perspective overflow is a nightmare. Because if you want it to work as part of the unit combat, majority T and WS is suddenly a factor, Forging the Narrative and 429 either need some clever rereading or have to be errors, and the end result really doesn't benefit CC masters. But without overflow we have some rules that, while lacking clarity, all work as written and are actually way more streamlined when thrown into play.

I see way too many people wanting it both ways. In the challenge the characters have just their stat-line, but once one dies, "only" gets redefined and suddenly the victor is getting to keep strikes on a different model, translate them to a unit, but the rules for WS and T in a mixed unit are completely ignored... which is a really tough argument and mechanic to actually use.

No Wound Overflow
1) Hammer of Wrath: As brought up by MJThurston, you can potentially kill an enemy Character at the onset of the Challenge. Should that happen, your Character would not be able to make any further attacks that turn which means that there would be no additional wounds to go towards combat resolution.

There are never any extra wounds to go to combat resolution, even if the character could then strike at the squad. Only unsaved wounds caused within the challenge count towards resolution.

2) Which brings us to my next concern: If you have 7 attacks on a 1 Wound model and 3 of them succeed, does that mean you only get the 1 Wound towards combat resolution? Or do the excess successes go towards the total? It seems the excess should count given it says any Unsaved Wounds, but is that true? If the model is just a generic Sergeant in Power Armor and gets hit by an AP3 Melee weapon, he dies once you allocate one unsaved Wound. Are the rest lost? Page 26 seems to make it so. If this is indeed the case then cheap Characters (such as IG Blob Sergeants) are going to be able to easily nullify any expensive close combat character.

This is quite unfortunate but the blob will only work for one round. The blob dies and the squad still has to pass a leadership test or run away, or next turn he eats the rest of the squad for lunch. Either way it hardly nullifies an expensive character. Lets say a Daemon Prince charges an IG squad and the sergeant issues a challenge. Daemon Prince kills the Sergeant with a sneeze and the squad fails their Leadership test and the Daemon Prince destroys them with a Sweeping Advance. Or, they pass their test and the Daemon Prince kills them the next round.

3) Precision Strikes oddly enough still seem to work as you will. They do not require you be in base contact with whomever you allocate the wound to. So even with no overflow, you already have a case where a Challenger or Challengee is affecting models outside the Challenge. This inconsistency is strange. If we are to believe the Challengers exist in a vacuum, why is it the rules do not prohibit Precision Strikes in a Challenge?

Precision Strikes would not be able to overflow. All or nothing.

4) Model placement. Without Wound Overflow, why ever have your mighty Character lead the squad from the front? Far more intelligent to keep your Characters in the rear. This means more of your models are likely to be in base contact with the enemy, your opponent is less likely to have models "cheering on" his character, and keeps your Character safe once the Challenge is over. This seems directly counter to most every other change regarding Characters.

Actual placement of the character is irrelevant, once you accept a challenge you move the challengers in BTB as close to each other as possible.

With Wound Overflow
1) A counter point to Hammer of Wrath's issues above. With Wound Overflow you would then be able to allocate attacks as normal to the squad. This will likely mean more Wounds for combat resolution. Oddly enough, this sort of makes sense from a "fluff" or "narrative" perspective (which seems to be GW's goal in 6th edition, to add more story to each game). A squad is far more likely to break quickly and badly if their fearless leader is cut down instantly in a duel. Unfortunately this argument isn't very persuasive on its own from a RAW perspective.

Again, the actual wording of the rules says that even if wounds overflowed they would not count for the combat resolution. This is a major problem for me. How can wounds overflow but not count for the combat resolution?

2) Again, more Wounds would be available towards combat resolution. I'm unsure that Page 65 overrides the rules on Page 26 regarding excess wounds. Yet again, without overflow this makes generic cheap Characters more powerful/useful than powerful Independent Characters and Monstrous Creatures, which makes no sense.

A powerful IC will be more likely to survive a combat so he is still more powerful than a generic Character.

3) As mentioned before, Precision Strike seems to happen regardless. The difference is with Wound Overflow it makes more sense as your Character is already able to strike out of the Challenge. It, to me, makes things more consistent.

With wound overflow Precision Strikes will work perfectly. Without, not so much.

4) Model placement. With Wound Overflow this encourages you to put your Character at the forefront of every charge. You would actually want him to get to grips with the enemy, for if he is able to quickly dispatch the enemy Character he can then join the general melee and try to break the foe.

Again, this is going to happen either way.

@Captain Antivas (posts are getting big don't want to quote it all)

Outside forces cannot allocate wounds to characters in a challenge. - This does not restrict the characters in the challenge at all so has no bearing on overflow

But it restricts wounds being allocated to the outside forces.

No, no it doesn't, it ONLY restricts wounds being allocated to characters in a challenge by outside forces. There is no restriction here to wounds done by characters in a challenge or wounds done to the outside forces, it's VERY specific

You can't have it both ways. Either that phrase refers only to the outside forces and the challengers can still hit each other only, or it refers to them too and wounds don't overflow. That and if it applies to the wounds they cause it must also refer to the wounds applied to them since the Wound Allocation phase includes everyone, including the challengers according to your own argument

.

Not trying to have it both ways, I thought I was clear, this only applies to outside forces as, if it did apply to characters in a challenge, they would not be able to wound each other as they would have to treat each other as not being there. It definately does not say that characters in a challenge treat the unit as not being there.

But that's not what it says. It says specifically that only wounds caused within the challenge count towards the combat results. That is why it is important. If wounds overflow all wounds caused by the winner outside the challenge don't count for the assault result.

That's not the same as wounds caused to the challenge participants, it's the same as wounds caused by the challenge participants as they are within a challenge and causing wounds.

But it is not clearly marked as optional. Until it is RAW you can't claim it is optional. The only thing that says it is optional is the FaN which is not rules.

Except the FaN makes it entirely clear what is rules and what is optional - Although the characters strike at their initiative - which is clear that RAW is for characters to strike at their initiative - many players like to resolve these crucial battles after ... - suggesting that players may WANT to break the RAW for dramatic effect, it's completely clear what is RAW and what is added drama - that the summary includes this seperate challenge step shows that the summary is showing the optional FaN rules not the RAW as that distinction is clearly made in the FaN



Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Lobukia

Without Wound Overflow section

Ignoring points 1, 2 & 4 plus responses as they are about the consequences of overflow/no overflow or tangent points and do not reflect the rules either way

3 -

IF we are right about overflow not existing and challenges being a combat set aside, I disagree on this one. Challenges, if separate, will be completely separate. The only way I can see GW letting PS jump out of challenges, is if they feel like they need to make a concession to the overflow crowd.

Where is the argument that challenges are seperate? At best you're trying to assign wounds to a slain model to stop overflow, this does not make the challenge seperate and there are no rules to make the challenge seperate. So I have not seen any argument that would suggest PS is not allowed to jump out of challenges freely.

With Wound Overflow section

1)

Agreed again. This makes challenges pretty pointless, and means the intent of GW making sergeants and such characters was a waste of ink (should have gone just the IC route).

A thousand times no. Just because overflow would make them less obnoxious speed bumps for power characters does not make them pointless. I can give a dozen examples (I won't as this will just fill up pages) of useful minor characters with overflow - such as a cheap choppa Nob accepting the Alpha nids challenge and getting a boneswording along with some nearby boyz but leaving the warboss free to pk 3 or 4 nid warriors to death giving them an easy win..

2 & 4) effects on strategy, meaningless to interpretting RAW only for good implementation once you know what RAW is

3)

Agreed, if somehow challenges allow overflow, PS should work

And why wouldn't they, it's explicit that characters can PS and nothing in the challenge rules do anything to prevent them

With or Without section
1)

From a playability, help out the CC masters, point of view, I'm fine with PS leaving Challenges... from a wound and page 429 perspective I don't see it as RAW

You've seen the bit where it says characters can precision strike I take it? I have not seen anything that forbids them from doing so in a challenge

2)

I brought this up a while back, but it got buried. To me this is a strong point against overflow. If challenges are separate, this is all some much simpler.

Still simple, uses exactly the same rules as if there was no challenge because it doesn't seperate them. Isn't that simpler? Rather than having 1 rule for characters in a unit and another for characters in a unit in a challenge. Majority toughness and Majority WS for defence, it's the RAW. It doesn't say treat them differently so why are you trying to do so?

3)

I also see this merging very well with 429 as written. To me, when I read through the BRB the first time, I got the clear impression that challenges are separate, any doubts or ambiguity was gone when I looked at the summary page.

But this is clarified in the pg 65 FaN - the RAW is they strike on initiative but many players LIKE to hold the challenges to the end for dramatic effect - the summary just reflects that OPTIONAL dramatic pause, there is absolutely nothing in RAW to make the combats "seperate" and nothing to stop PS or overflow (now that the "only with" debacle has been solved)

I see way too many people wanting it both ways. In the challenge the characters have just their stat-line, but once one dies, "only" gets redefined and suddenly the victor is getting to keep strikes on a different model, translate them to a unit, but the rules for WS and T in a mixed unit are completely ignored... which is a really tough argument and mechanic to actually use.

What? Characters use their stat-line in combat just as if they were fighting with the squad as nothing tells us to do so otherwise, same unit based T and defensive WS. "only" gets no redefinition, it prevents outsiders striking challengers or from being considered in b2b with challengers but offers them no protection at all as explained very thoroughly in the last couple of pages, The victor gets to keep on striking as that's what the rules say (and maybe it's because it's so sudden that the outside forces take till the next combat round to react - speculation on reasoning feel free to ignore, but expect me to ignore your speculation on reasoning)

How many people want it one way or another is meaningless, there is what is in the book and that says PS is in, Overflow is in, T and defensive WS are unit majority, characters strike at initiative but can be resolved later to make the game more exciting. Challenges are part of the combat with multiple restrictions, especially on outside forces interfering, but overflow and PS are not among those restrictions

No such thing as wound overflow.

Challenger and Challengee are considered to be in base to base until the END OF PHASE.

So Character can't sweeping advance or consolidate.

Lobukia wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:3) Precision Strikes oddly enough still seem to work as you will. They do not require you be in base contact with whomever you allocate the wound to. So even with no overflow, you already have a case where a Challenger or Challengee is affecting models outside the Challenge. This inconsistency is strange. If we are to believe the Challengers exist in a vacuum, why is it the rules do not prohibit Precision Strikes in a Challenge?

IF we are right about overflow not existing and challenges being a combat set aside, I disagree on this one. Challenges, if separate, will be completely separate. The only way I can see GW letting PS jump out of challenges, is if they feel like they need to make a concession to the overflow crowd.

Well, you can't really disagree. Precision Strike lets you allocate wounds how you want rather than normally. There are no new rules in the Challenges section for wound allocation. The closest we get is that models outside the Challenge can't allocate to those inside (but not vice versa, per RAW) and that the models in a Challenge are only in base contact with one another (again, in my opinion, this does not mean they are always in base contact with one another).

Lobukia wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:4) Model placement. Without Wound Overflow, why ever have your mighty Character lead the squad from the front? Far more intelligent to keep your Characters in the rear. This means more of your models are likely to be in base contact with the enemy, your opponent is less likely to have models "cheering on" his character, and keeps your Character safe once the Challenge is over. This seems directly counter to most every other change regarding Characters.

I must be misreading/understanding what you are saying here. If you have a unit and so does he, there's no cheering. Character replace models to get into the challenge... they don't swap back after the challenge is over. I really am lost where you are going with this.

Perhaps this will be less of a problem now, but in 5th Edition multi unit combats (on both sides) were not a rarity. Particularly with Orks or Tyranids. So let me set up the fight for you:

Player 1 has units A and B. Player 2 has units C and D. Unit A is in base contact with units C and D. Unit B is in base contact with unit D. Player 2 issues a Challenge with the Character leading unit C. Player 1 accepts the Challenge with a Character from unit B. The problem? Player 1 cannot, in this case, maintain coherency with unit B and get into actual base contact with a model in unit C. This could be because of different base sizes, or how far apart models are.

It is conceivable to set up combats purposely so your preferred Challenger is unable to actually get into base contact with a model.

Better still, larger units charging into bottle necks leave you several models unable to engage the enemy. If they are surrounding your Character, even if he is only "counting" as in base contact versus actually in base contact, he can get re-rolls. This is next to impossible for a 10 man squad to do, but 30+ man squads (Blobs, Mobs, and other Hordes) can do this easily enough.

It just comes down to careful model placement and maneuvering.

Lobukia wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:2) Again, more Wounds would be available towards combat resolution. I'm unsure that Page 65 overrides the rules on Page 26 regarding excess wounds. Yet again, without overflow this makes generic cheap Characters more powerful/useful than powerful Independent Characters and Monstrous Creatures, which makes no sense.

I've never got this. Why are earth would someone run a Chaos Lord with a squad, without a Chaos champion in tow? Your "champ" blocks the opponent's "sarg", and the Lord butchers the unit. Fluffy, smart, and to the point. MC's, being more feral make sense being lured away from the unit, and again, a lone sarg dies in one phase, keeping that MC alive and engaged for your opponents shooting phase. That's, again, a good thing. A DP should be thrilled to have not cut through the platoon in one turn and then get shot by the LR. Instead, he should finish them off in time for his movement phase and will go nom on the next platoon.

To keep point costs down I would often not pay for Wolf Guard to lead my Grey Hunters. Many times I'd take the full 10 man squad and rely on Independent Characters and Lone Wolves to do what you normally use Sergeants for. As the rules have changed I may not be doing this anymore... Only having one Character in a combat seems to put you at a disadvantage a lot more now than it used to.

Lobukia wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:2) To Hit and To Wound rolls. If the combatants were in a vacuum, why aren't the rules more explicit? As it stands, if you join a Farseer to a squad of Wraithguard he effectively will have Toughness 6 during the Challenge. At the same time, the higher Weapon Skill some models have is largely moot as it affords little protection. For example, a Wolf Lord (WS 6) joins a pack of Blood Claws (WS 3). A Chaos Lord would be hitting him on a 3+ instead of a 4+. None of this would be happening if the Challenge wasn't a part of the general combat.

I brought this up a while back, but it got buried. To me this is a strong point against overflow. If challenges are separate, this is all some much simpler.

Agreed, but even with Challenges there is no rule explicitly calling them out as a separate combat. Point in fact, the rules support that they are part of the combat. I do not know why GW chose not to put a simple line stating the Characters strike each other and consider only their own WS and Toughness.

Lobukia wrote:I hope you are starting to see that from a mechanics, big picture, perspective overflow is a nightmare. Because if you want it to work as part of the unit combat, majority T and WS is suddenly a factor, Forging the Narrative and 429 either need some clever rereading or have to be errors, and the end result really doesn't benefit CC masters. But without overflow we have some rules that, while lacking clarity, all work as written and are actually way more streamlined when thrown into play.

I see way too many people wanting it both ways. In the challenge the characters have just their stat-line, but once one dies, "only" gets redefined and suddenly the victor is getting to keep strikes on a different model, translate them to a unit, but the rules for WS and T in a mixed unit are completely ignored... which is a really tough argument and mechanic to actually use.

RAW, if two Characters are in base contact and not in a Challenge they would strike at the "unit" the Character is attached to. There doesn't seem to be anything that changes that. There are only two rules for Challenges that have any impact on allocation:

1) Characters are considered in base contact
2) Models outside the Challenge can't strike those inside the Challenge

None of that changes how the rules for rolling to hit and to wound work.

Captain Antivas wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:No Wound Overflow
1) Hammer of Wrath: As brought up by MJThurston, you can potentially kill an enemy Character at the onset of the Challenge. Should that happen, your Character would not be able to make any further attacks that turn which means that there would be no additional wounds to go towards combat resolution.

There are never any extra wounds to go to combat resolution, even if the character could then strike at the squad. Only unsaved wounds caused within the challenge count towards resolution.

Except that those extra wounds going at the squad are likely extra casualties, which would affect resolution.

Captain Antivas wrote:This is quite unfortunate but the blob will only work for one round. The blob dies and the squad still has to pass a leadership test or run away, or next turn he eats the rest of the squad for lunch. Either way it hardly nullifies an expensive character. Lets say a Daemon Prince charges an IG squad and the sergeant issues a challenge. Daemon Prince kills the Sergeant with a sneeze and the squad fails their Leadership test and the Daemon Prince destroys them with a Sweeping Advance. Or, they pass their test and the Daemon Prince kills them the next round.

Are you forgetting Stubborn courtesy of the Commissar, which you can keep safely unengaged at the rear of the Blob? Just need to pass the normal Leadership.

Captain Antivas wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:3) Precision Strikes oddly enough still seem to work as you will. They do not require you be in base contact with whomever you allocate the wound to. So even with no overflow, you already have a case where a Challenger or Challengee is affecting models outside the Challenge. This inconsistency is strange. If we are to believe the Challengers exist in a vacuum, why is it the rules do not prohibit Precision Strikes in a Challenge?

Precision Strikes would not be able to overflow. All or nothing.

Prove it. The rules for Precision Strike are very clear and not in doubt: You ignore the normal rules for allocation and can allocate Precision Strikes to any model engaged in the combat. There is not a single rule that contradicts or counters this in the Challenges section. Only two rules have an impact on wuond allocation in Challenges:

1) Models in a Challenge are in base contact, which only means you have to allocate to them "first" (disregard the current debate for this comment; one side arguing if a model is in base contact while dead is moot for this reply)
2) Models outside of a Challenge cannot strike those inside a Challenge. The rules are very specific about this. They do not restrict the Challenge combatants.

Captain Antivas wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:4) Model placement. Without Wound Overflow, why ever have your mighty Character lead the squad from the front? Far more intelligent to keep your Characters in the rear. This means more of your models are likely to be in base contact with the enemy, your opponent is less likely to have models "cheering on" his character, and keeps your Character safe once the Challenge is over. This seems directly counter to most every other change regarding Characters.

Actual placement of the character is irrelevant, once you accept a challenge you move the challengers in BTB as close to each other as possible.

See my reply to Lobukia earlier in this post.

Captain Antivas wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:With Wound Overflow
1) A counter point to Hammer of Wrath's issues above. With Wound Overflow you would then be able to allocate attacks as normal to the squad. This will likely mean more Wounds for combat resolution. Oddly enough, this sort of makes sense from a "fluff" or "narrative" perspective (which seems to be GW's goal in 6th edition, to add more story to each game). A squad is far more likely to break quickly and badly if their fearless leader is cut down instantly in a duel. Unfortunately this argument isn't very persuasive on its own from a RAW perspective.

Again, the actual wording of the rules says that even if wounds overflowed they would not count for the combat resolution. This is a major problem for me. How can wounds overflow but not count for the combat resolution?

Assault Results on Page 65 seems to disagree with you unless I'm misunderstanding what you are saying.

Captain Antivas wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:3) As mentioned before, Precision Strike seems to happen regardless. The difference is with Wound Overflow it makes more sense as your Character is already able to strike out of the Challenge. It, to me, makes things more consistent.

With wound overflow Precision Strikes will work perfectly. Without, not so much.

Yet it works regardless of overflow from a RAW perspective.

Can't respond to my post because you know it's true.

MJThurston wrote:No such thing as wound overflow.

Challenger and Challengee are considered to be in base to base until the END OF PHASE.

So Character can't sweeping advance or consolidate.

We've spent the last 24 pages covering this, it's been covered pretty well

"are considered to be in base to base contact only with each other"

Is not the same as

"are considered to be in base to base contact with each other and only each other"

Certainly is not the same as

"are considered to be in base to base contact"

I would say one accurate rewording would be

"Can only be considered in base to base contact with each other"
i.e.
"Cannot be considered to be in base to base contact with any other model"

Much in the same way that
"until proven otherwise, husbands are considered to be having intimate relations only with their wives"
does not mean
"all husbands are considered to be having intimate relations with their wives"
some may be having no intimate relations at all and will still be covered by this statement.

Of course there is also a statement earlier on that if the models cannot get into b2b contact they should be considered in b2b contact but that is not covered in the "for the duration of the challenge" rider so is moot.

Yes, it's not the clearest possible phrase but it is actually what it means and forcing it to mean something else breaks like 5 different rules including sweeping advances as pointed out and allocating wounds to slain models and all sorts of other sillyness.

And after pages and pages of careful explanations and dissections I'd hope for a little more than "no it's not" next time.

I'm not trying to argue either way. I'm now more itnerested in the discussion of situations that arise from either interpretation. I have an example below.
I'd also like to point out that this whole topic came up within my first 2 games of playing this edition... how many times did GW playtest this and not realize it was ambiguous?

Anyway,a real-life situation with no overflow:

I have a deamon prince(actually fate-weaver to make the cost differential worse) get assaulted by a unit of 4 necron lords (all of them are characters). He challenges me one at a time with 4 models. none of them can really hurt me, and I dont have a tough time killing each one individually. but because there are no wound overflows I have to kill 1 model a turn despite causing many times more wounds to the unit than would be necessary(2-3 wounds each round). even worse I roll poorly one round and dont kill the lord thus stretching this assault out over 3 game turns. That's 1/2 of the game! It was just plain annoying; not cinematic at all.

1) My local store has declared no overflow. Thus I have learned to keep my strongest close combat characters out of close combat.
2) I'm also probably not going to take any power fists or other upgrades for my sarges, because I need them to "cancel" opposing challenges should my close combat monsters accidently get into close combat.
3) Finally, I highly doubt any of my really valuable characters will ever issue challenges as this is just asking for them to be trapped (obviously my opponent will see the same benefits of taking naked seargents).
4) Instead, I have learned that the weakest seargent is the best choice for issuing challenges. In a cinematic way, challenges will be similar to chihuahuas barking at strangers.

1) Have a sarge in there to accept challenges
1b) Precision strike still works - you realise that, yes?
2) surely you mean "get into a challenge" by accident. Well thats a tactical consideration: tool up with a powerfist to do damage, or a powersword to help in a challenge. The pfist sarge is no longer the most obvious choice, its called tactics. In 3rd a pfist sarge wasnt always a good idea because an IC could just punk them directly, at least now its either a challenge, and not causing wounds to anyone else OR precision strikes, at best
3) You will know what your opponent is armed with, so issuing can make sense. Page 111 may also educate you into why issuing a challenge is a good thing, situationally
4) Again, not always.

Knee done jerking yet? Very first order analysis.

WITH overflow you have a character be entirely safe from being attacked by a unit while still able to kill 3 - 4 of them a turn.

good job wounds dont over flow.

Mark_Autarch wrote:I'm not trying to argue either way. I'm now more itnerested in the discussion of situations that arise from either interpretation. I have an example below.
I'd also like to point out that this whole topic came up within my first 2 games of playing this edition... how many times did GW playtest this and not realize it was ambiguous?

Anyway,a real-life situation with no overflow:

I have a deamon prince(actually fate-weaver to make the cost differential worse) get assaulted by a unit of 4 necron lords (all of them are characters). He challenges me one at a time with 4 models. none of them can really hurt me, and I dont have a tough time killing each one individually. but because there are no wound overflows I have to kill 1 model a turn despite causing many times more wounds to the unit than would be necessary(2-3 wounds each round). even worse I roll poorly one round and dont kill the lord thus stretching this assault out over 3 game turns. That's 1/2 of the game! It was just plain annoying; not cinematic at all.

1) My local store has declared no overflow. Thus I have learned to keep my strongest close combat characters out of close combat.
2) I'm also probably not going to take any power fists or other upgrades for my sarges, because I need them to "cancel" opposing challenges should my close combat monsters accidently get into close combat.
3) Finally, I highly doubt any of my really valuable characters will ever issue challenges as this is just asking for them to be trapped (obviously my opponent will see the same benefits of taking naked seargents).
4) Instead, I have learned that the weakest seargent is the best choice for issuing challenges. In a cinematic way, challenges will be similar to chihuahuas barking at strangers.

Not to be rude but this is a very extensive discussion of the RAW and whether overflow exists or not, could we please take implications of what would happen elsewhere, such as the tactics forum, try starting a thread called "How to play when my flgs house rules overflow away" and I'll happily come and comment on it but it is irrelevant to this thread which is already mucky enough with directly relevant discussion.

Problem being maxcarrion, implications of the rules do matter. In fact, Lt.soundwave and cowmonaut have suggested we change focus to this area as we are getting nowhere in the pure RAW area.

And the thread could just as easily be called, “How to play when my flgs house rules wound overflow.” Nothing has been solved and there is no consensus as to how to play. Making comments as to lead people to think there is one does not help this community in any way.

Implications of the rule matter when applying the rule makes the game much more complicated and does not address how the rule interacts with the rest of the game. As Mark_Autarch and others pointed out, this entire issue would be moot with the addition of a single sentence and clarification on conflicts. I find it hard to believe GW could miss something that would come up during the very first challenge resolution.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/461785.page

A discussion that didn't get very far, but is certainly relevant to where this thread is now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/460870.page

This one is on challenges and precision strikes. The conclusion is the same as the Golden Throne GT FAQ.

Lt.Soundwave wrote:

Captain Antivas wrote:If I could live healthy without sleeping I would never sleep. Ever.

Sleep replacement pill.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/01/darpa-develops.html

Old news but it was on the FDA's radar in 2010.

The NAZI's developed something like that for their soldiers. It's is now a popular (yet HIGHLY illegal and REALLY bad for you) recreational drug called methamphetamine.

cowmonaut wrote:

Lobukia wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:3) Precision Strikes oddly enough still seem to work as you will. They do not require you be in base contact with whomever you allocate the wound to. So even with no overflow, you already have a case where a Challenger or Challengee is affecting models outside the Challenge. This inconsistency is strange. If we are to believe the Challengers exist in a vacuum, why is it the rules do not prohibit Precision Strikes in a Challenge?

IF we are right about overflow not existing and challenges being a combat set aside, I disagree on this one. Challenges, if separate, will be completely separate. The only way I can see GW letting PS jump out of challenges, is if they feel like they need to make a concession to the overflow crowd.

Well, you can't really disagree. Precision Strike lets you allocate wounds how you want rather than normally. There are no new rules in the Challenges section for wound allocation. The closest we get is that models outside the Challenge can't allocate to those inside (but not vice versa, per RAW) and that the models in a Challenge are only in base contact with one another (again, in my opinion, this does not mean they are always in base contact with one another).

We sure can disagree with how you interpret an unclear rule. You keep saying RAW but the RAW are not clear. I have a perfectly logical argument that the limitation applies to both wounds caused by and applied to the outside forces being covered by the same sentence. If it applies to one it has to apply to the other.

Lobukia wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:4) Model placement. Without Wound Overflow, why ever have your mighty Character lead the squad from the front? Far more intelligent to keep your Characters in the rear. This means more of your models are likely to be in base contact with the enemy, your opponent is less likely to have models "cheering on" his character, and keeps your Character safe once the Challenge is over. This seems directly counter to most every other change regarding Characters.

I must be misreading/understanding what you are saying here. If you have a unit and so does he, there's no cheering. Character replace models to get into the challenge... they don't swap back after the challenge is over. I really am lost where you are going with this.

Perhaps this will be less of a problem now, but in 5th Edition multi unit combats (on both sides) were not a rarity. Particularly with Orks or Tyranids. So let me set up the fight for you:

Player 1 has units A and B. Player 2 has units C and D. Unit A is in base contact with units C and D. Unit B is in base contact with unit D. Player 2 issues a Challenge with the Character leading unit C. Player 1 accepts the Challenge with a Character from unit B. The problem? Player 1 cannot, in this case, maintain coherency with unit B and get into actual base contact with a model in unit C. This could be because of different base sizes, or how far apart models are.

It is conceivable to set up combats purposely so your preferred Challenger is unable to actually get into base contact with a model.

Better still, larger units charging into bottle necks leave you several models unable to engage the enemy. If they are surrounding your Character, even if he is only "counting" as in base contact versus actually in base contact, he can get re-rolls. This is next to impossible for a 10 man squad to do, but 30+ man squads (Blobs, Mobs, and other Hordes) can do this easily enough.

It just comes down to careful model placement and maneuvering.

Page 64:
"If a challenge has been accepted, it is time to move the two combatants into base contact with each other. Note that these moves cannot be used to move a character out of unit coherency. If possible, swap the challenger for a friendly model in base contact with the challengee. If this cannot be done, swap the challengee for a friendly model in base contact with the challenger. If neither of these moves would result in the two models being in base contact, 'swap' the challenger to as close as possible to the challengee and assume the two to be in base contact for the purposes of the ensuing fight."

Even if it is not possible to move into actual BTB you assume that they are in BTB anyway.

Captain Antivas wrote:This is quite unfortunate but the blob will only work for one round. The blob dies and the squad still has to pass a leadership test or run away, or next turn he eats the rest of the squad for lunch. Either way it hardly nullifies an expensive character. Lets say a Daemon Prince charges an IG squad and the sergeant issues a challenge. Daemon Prince kills the Sergeant with a sneeze and the squad fails their Leadership test and the Daemon Prince destroys them with a Sweeping Advance. Or, they pass their test and the Daemon Prince kills them the next round.

Are you forgetting Stubborn courtesy of the Commissar, which you can keep safely unengaged at the rear of the Blob? Just need to pass the normal Leadership.

"The enemy has something to counter my otherwise completely OP ability/model" is not a valid argument against a rule. "The rule can't be that way because it provides a semblance of balance to an otherwise completely overwhelmingly unbalanced situation" is the worst argument I have heard since "The rules could have been written that way, and they should have been, and since it should have been it is."

Captain Antivas wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:With Wound Overflow
1) A counter point to Hammer of Wrath's issues above. With Wound Overflow you would then be able to allocate attacks as normal to the squad. This will likely mean more Wounds for combat resolution. Oddly enough, this sort of makes sense from a "fluff" or "narrative" perspective (which seems to be GW's goal in 6th edition, to add more story to each game). A squad is far more likely to break quickly and badly if their fearless leader is cut down instantly in a duel. Unfortunately this argument isn't very persuasive on its own from a RAW perspective.

Again, the actual wording of the rules says that even if wounds overflowed they would not count for the combat resolution. This is a major problem for me. How can wounds overflow but not count for the combat resolution?

Assault Results on Page 65 seems to disagree with you unless I'm misunderstanding what you are saying.

Page 65 says that the only wounds that go towards combat resolution are the wounds caused in a challenge, which overflow wounds are specifically not part of the challenge anymore by your own logic and interpretation, and wounds caused by the rest of the characters' units, which the characters cannot be a part of the rest of their unit. It does not say wounds caused by the characters, but wounds caused in the challenge. Outside units are not part of the challenge.

Captain Antivas wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:3) As mentioned before, Precision Strike seems to happen regardless. The difference is with Wound Overflow it makes more sense as your Character is already able to strike out of the Challenge. It, to me, makes things more consistent.

With wound overflow Precision Strikes will work perfectly. Without, not so much.

Yet it works regardless of overflow from a RAW perspective.

Precision strikes are allocated during Wound Allocation. If the combatants are not even there, as I see the rules being, then you cannot use Precision Strikes either. They are either separate combats or they are not. There is no "they are separate combats until my character rolls a 6."

Rule is very clear. People are just trying to make up their own rules.

Blows can only be struck against the Challenger/Challengee. If they are the only ones in B2B then they can only wound each other.

Outside Forces
Can not send wounds into challenges.

It is clear the Challenges and Squads fight their own fight BUT add their outcome to who won the full combat.

People who want to slaughter squads with their uber IC are the ones that want this so called over flow wounds.

Still waiting for anyone to show me where in the rule book it says "OVER FLOW WOUNDS". They can't and it's not a rule.

Okay so at this point

Battle bunker's say no wound overflow.
Golden Throne GT say no wound overflow.
Rules say no wound overflow.

Why cant people let this go

Perhaps you ought to read the entire thread?

Lt.Soundwave wrote:Perhaps you ought to read the entire thread?

I am the one that pointed out that they are in base to base tell end of combat on like page 3 no one has ended that just made up rules saying no they are removed from the board. Paid attetion to a lot of it but its getting to be pointless.

maxcarrion wrote:

Mark_Autarch wrote:I'm not trying to argue either way. I'm now more itnerested in the discussion of situations that arise from either interpretation. I have an example below.
I'd also like to point out that this whole topic came up within my first 2 games of playing this edition... how many times did GW playtest this and not realize it was ambiguous?

Anyway,a real-life situation with no overflow:

I have a deamon prince(actually fate-weaver to make the cost differential worse) get assaulted by a unit of 4 necron lords (all of them are characters). He challenges me one at a time with 4 models. none of them can really hurt me, and I dont have a tough time killing each one individually. but because there are no wound overflows I have to kill 1 model a turn despite causing many times more wounds to the unit than would be necessary(2-3 wounds each round). even worse I roll poorly one round and dont kill the lord thus stretching this assault out over 3 game turns. That's 1/2 of the game! It was just plain annoying; not cinematic at all.

1) My local store has declared no overflow. Thus I have learned to keep my strongest close combat characters out of close combat.
2) I'm also probably not going to take any power fists or other upgrades for my sarges, because I need them to "cancel" opposing challenges should my close combat monsters accidently get into close combat.
3) Finally, I highly doubt any of my really valuable characters will ever issue challenges as this is just asking for them to be trapped (obviously my opponent will see the same benefits of taking naked seargents).
4) Instead, I have learned that the weakest seargent is the best choice for issuing challenges. In a cinematic way, challenges will be similar to chihuahuas barking at strangers.

Not to be rude but this is a very extensive discussion of the RAW and whether overflow exists or not, could we please take implications of what would happen elsewhere, such as the tactics forum, try starting a thread called "How to play when my flgs house rules overflow away" and I'll happily come and comment on it but it is irrelevant to this thread which is already mucky enough with directly relevant discussion.

He could start the thread and call it "How to play when my flgs house rules overflow correctly!" Depending on how he feels it should work, and 25 pages of "I'm right and you're wrong" is hardly an extensive discussion of RAW. Why don't you you go down to your FLGS and ask the TO how they are going to rule on this and prepare to play according to that. It makes sense seeing as how that's how you'll have to play in any tournies that they run. If they allow overflow good for you. If not, tough luck and if it bothers you that bad quit playing. It's plastic toy soldiers! By the way, prefacing your comment with "Not to be rude" doesn't stop it from being so. Last I checked this thread wasn't exclusively yours and was open to all comments from everyone.

I kept up with thread until page 8 then had to get off the merry-go-round as I was getting dizzy and ran out of tickets. Is there anything new between page 9 and 25 that would warrant reading or just the same circular arguments from both sides?

Boss GreenNutz wrote:I kept up with thread until page 8 then had to get off the merry-go-round as I was getting dizzy and ran out of tickets. Is there anything new between page 9 and 25 that would warrant reading or just the same circular arguments from both sides?

Not really. I'm done as well. I talked to the local TO and he said "No wound overflow." Good enough for me. Ya'll play nice though and good luck at the tables.

bigbaboonass wrote:
He could start the thread and call it "How to play when my flgs house rules overflow correctly!" Depending on how he feels it should work, and 25 pages of "I'm right and you're wrong" is hardly an extensive discussion of RAW. Why don't you you go down to your FLGS and ask the TO how they are going to rule on this and prepare to play according to that. It makes sense seeing as how that's how you'll have to play in any tournies that they run. If they allow overflow good for you. If not, tough luck and if it bothers you that bad quit playing. It's plastic toy soldiers! By the way, prefacing your comment with "Not to be rude" doesn't stop it from being so. Last I checked this thread wasn't exclusively yours and was open to all comments from everyone.

OK, so if someone comes into the thread and says I've just made this great ork list "posts list" can I have some feedback on it? Oh and we're playing with overflow so will this work? That's fine? I have no problem at all discussing the what ifs of how these things will be effected by the various possible outcome of a YMDC but this thread is massive and unclear and half the people coming along aren't reading most of it and if they come along and the last page is all about how to build a list with a no overflow environment in mind they might, understandabley, think they're in a completely different thread. I'd quite like to stick to topic and I've never been in a forum where people aren't allowed to ask others to stick to topic when they post a vaguely related tangent that completely changes the topic. I have no problem with the question, only where the question is and if this wasn't already a massive discussion that I'm actually trying to read all the points in then I wouldn't even care but I am so I do. He can start the thread called "how to breed howler monkeys using cookies and marmite" for all I care but I'd appreciate it if he didn't do it in a fairly serious existing mega thread :p

Rereading it maybe the tone was a little harsher than it could of been, if I have offended Mark_Autarch then he has my apologies, I did not mean to get nasty with you in any way, however I'd still really appreciate it if people kept to the topic and if they want to go off on a tangent then start a new thread, even link to it in this thread saying "I've started a thread on what difference it makes to your tactics if you've decided RAW is no overflow compared to overflow, see it here [link[" (is that thread title more to your liking?) but if we've got one discussion going I think starting a different one over the top is inappropriate and I think saying so isn't - I will hold my hands up to not considering the wording as well as I might and using it to sneak a crafty jab at the no overflow camp though, my bad.

edit - Oh and for the purposes of this thread I don't care how a local TO or anyone else rules it - sure, if your TO rules against overflow you want to be in the thread I just suggested discussing how it affects your tactics, not wading through this 25 pages of gloop on what the RAW says and doesn't say and how that might be interrpretted, this is the thread the TO's should read before they decide how to rule it not the players who need to abide by that decision and plan accordingly and for people like me who like to look at the rulebook and consider the meaning of the things that have been written just for the fun of it.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

captain-crud wrote:Okay so at this point

Battle bunker's say no wound overflow.
Golden Throne GT say no wound overflow.
Rules say no wound overflow.

Why cant people let this go

Because the 3rd point you've mentioned we've spent 25 pages discussing with arguments on both sides and while I'm now pretty well sold on RAW supporting overflow (see my many arguments) there are others who seem pretty convinced that RAW denies overflow (see their many arguments) - so we discuss it as that is, as I understand it, what this forum, in fact this very thread is for. While I am quite interested that BB and GT both ruled that way I would be much more interested if they came on this forum and posted their reasoning as I think they have ruled incorrectly (which I have backed up with arguments, not just said "Wounds overflow, the end") but I'm open to having people convince me with a cogent argument. In fact I had no opinion on it till I started reading this thread and the people arguing for overflow I thought had much more compelling and substantial arguments,

hisdudeness wrote:Cowmonaut,

You missed one very big issue. Since we can choose when to resolve challenges, what happens when a high Init character resolves after the squad? The challenge overflow wounds would have a large effect on the squad combat that would be near impossible to backtrack and account for.

With Wound Overflow

If challenge is resolved before or after squad combat the squad combat would have to be recorded by Init step so challenge overflow wounds can be applied at the correct Init step in relation to the squad combat. Then each squad Init steps would have to be checked to account for the possible change in squad members available to attack at each subsequent step.

Without Wound Overflow

No such record keeping required as wounds of each (challenge and squads) combat are not applied to each other.


This issue alone pushes me to no overflow as the backtracking of a resolved combat will just add so much room for disputes.

Since you have it worked out; maxcarrion, explain this please? Or for that matter, anyone that says that overflow is RAW. Tell us how to handle this issue, please?