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Imagine I've got a 10 man Sternguard squad. Six of them are armed with a plasma gun (including sergeant), rest with something else. They all overcharge and rapid fire at the same target. Do I:

a) Roll all plasma at once and choose any model I want to die (rolling 1s) including guys not armed with plasma?
b) Roll all plasma at once and choose any model I want to die (rolling 1s) excluding guys not armed with plasma?
c) Roll all non seargeant plasmas at once and sergeant separately? Sergeant can only die if he rolls the 1.
d) Every plasma rolls separately? If a single guy rolls 2 1s (rapid fire), only he dies?
e) Something else?

macexor wrote:
Imagine I've got a 10 man Sternguard squad. Six of them are armed with a plasma gun (including sergeant), rest with something else. They all overcharge and rapid fire at the same target. Do I:

a) Roll all plasma at once and choose any model I want to die (rolling 1s) including guys not armed with plasma?
b) Roll all plasma at once and choose any model I want to die (rolling 1s) excluding guys not armed with plasma?
c) Roll all non seargeant plasmas at once and sergeant separately? Sergeant can only die if he rolls the 1.
d) Every plasma rolls separately? If a single guy rolls 2 1s (rapid fire), only he dies?
e) Something else?

d) is the actual official rule in the rule book. All shots are fired and resolved one at a time. Fast rolling does allow you to roll multiple dice at once. But it's not the actual rule for how your supposed to be rolling dice for attacks. My suggestion is to get a few different colors of dice and then you can explain to your opponent which model is using which color die and then roll 1 die of each color. That way it's clear who rolled the 1 and your rolling multiple dice at once for the sake of speed.

It depends. If firing Rapid Fire roll 2 dice at once for every model that is in Rapid Fire range and the Sergeant separately. If you have 10 Sternguard firing their supercharged Plasmaguns you would roll 9 dice at once and a single die for the Sergeant if all of them are out of Rapid Fire range

 Zeshi wrote:
It depends. If firing Rapid Fire roll 2 dice at once for every model that is in Rapid Fire range and the Sergeant separately. If you have 10 Sternguard firing their supercharged Plasmaguns you would roll 9 dice at once and a single die for the Sergeant if all of them are out of Rapid Fire range

This gives the correct number of casualties, but it's not technically correct. If you do it that way, you don't know which model is supposed to die (you're not supposed to choose which one dies yourself).
You could always randomize afterwards, but then you loose most of the time gained by fast rolling in the first place.

For fast rolling, just resolve the shots to hit 2 at a time without resolving the wound rolls until all shots have been resolved.

for example:

4 veterans rapid firing plasma overcharged and 1 sergeant plasma pistol overcharged.

roll 2 dice and resolve any rerolls (if applicable) before determining if a model is removed due to overheat. resolve next model shooting in same fashion and repeat until all shots have been resolved for overcharge plasma guns. then resolve plasma pistol overcharge shot (and any rerolls or overheats). once all shots have been resolved, then proceed onto wounding.

I guess getting a bunch of differently colored pairs of dice will be the best solution.

Thanks for clarifying that!

Personally, unless you have the dice directly beside you, you're going to be wandering to the dice tray to find however many pairs of coloured dice, working out with your opponent which colour is which model, and then go.

I find it quicker to just roll 2 dice with one hand while hovering my finger over the "firer" - roll all hits (dealing with re-rolls and gets hot as it comes), and rolling wounds after. Technically you're supposed to resolve each shot through to the damage portion, but it's just easier to allow the opponent to "fast roll" his saves.

Takes no time at all.

Larks wrote:
while hovering my finger over the "firer"

Just let your opponent know you are rolling left to right or closest to furthest or something... Then just bang them out.

Larks is right though. This is the best way to do it.

You dont want to roll multiple hit at the same time because you could technically roll two 1's per a single model. This means that if you roll for a unit with 6 plasma guns, you rapid fire 12 shots you could roll 6 1's. If you fast roll... all your plasma guys just died... If you roll the way larks says you would only lost 3-6 depending on when those 1's showed up.

Do you have to take the reroll? Say a 3+ BS unit fires their plasma on overcharge within 6" of a Chapter Master allowing rerolls. First is a 2, second is a 1. Can I use the 2?

Gwarok wrote:
Do you have to take the reroll? Say a 3+ BS unit fires their plasma on overcharge within 6" of a Chapter Master allowing rerolls. First is a 2, second is a 1. Can I use the 2?

Just to clarify: you're talking about a single marine within 6" of the Chapter Master rapid-firing a overcharged plasma gun, you roll 2 hit rolls and end up with a 1 and a 2 - you want to keep the 2 and only re-roll the 1, correct?

If so, that depends on the wording of Chapter Master,

Chapter Master Stratagem wrote:Use this Stratagem before the battle. Select an ADEPTUS
ASTARTES Captain in your army. Replace this model’s
CAPTAIN keyword with Chapter Master and replace his
Rites of Battle ability with the following ability: ‘CHAPTER
MASTER: You can re-roll any failed hit rolls for friendly
<CHAPTER> units within 6" of this model.’ You can only
use this Stratagem once and your army cannot include two
CHAPTER MASTERS from the same Chapter.

It says, "You can re-roll...", which means that yes, you can keep the 2 and re-roll the 1.

That is, of course, assuming I understood your question.

Larks wrote:


Just to clarify: you're talking about a single marine within 6" of the Chapter Master rapid-firing a overcharged plasma gun, you roll 2 hit rolls and end up with a 1 and a 2 - you want to keep the 2 and only re-roll the 1, correct?

Not exactly. Even if only firing one shot, hits on a 3+, I roll a 2 on the first try, have the option to reroll, the reroll is a 1, do I have to take the reroll if it's a 1 or can I use the original roll?

Yes, you have to accept the result of the reroll even if worse.

fresus wrote:

 Zeshi wrote:
It depends. If firing Rapid Fire roll 2 dice at once for every model that is in Rapid Fire range and the Sergeant separately. If you have 10 Sternguard firing their supercharged Plasmaguns you would roll 9 dice at once and a single die for the Sergeant if all of them are out of Rapid Fire range

This gives the correct number of casualties, but it's not technically correct. If you do it that way, you don't know which model is supposed to die (you're not supposed to choose which one dies yourself).
You could always randomize afterwards, but then you loose most of the time gained by fast rolling in the first place.

I don't think this does always give the correct amount of casualties. If one soldier rolls a 1 for both their palms shots, only that soldier would be slain. But with the method above you might remove two soldiers.
So the correct way (unfortunately the slowest unless you have different coloured dice) is option d above, to have each soldier assigned to its particular dice rolls.

Agreed, you can't just "randomise" who gets killed since the positioning of the models matter. If the dude at the front gets blown up, making the distance between you and the enemy 9" instead of 8", you might fail a subsequent charge, thus making sure the "correct" models die is important.

 Kapitan Montag wrote:

fresus wrote:

 Zeshi wrote:
It depends. If firing Rapid Fire roll 2 dice at once for every model that is in Rapid Fire range and the Sergeant separately. If you have 10 Sternguard firing their supercharged Plasmaguns you would roll 9 dice at once and a single die for the Sergeant if all of them are out of Rapid Fire range

This gives the correct number of casualties, but it's not technically correct. If you do it that way, you don't know which model is supposed to die (you're not supposed to choose which one dies yourself).
You could always randomize afterwards, but then you loose most of the time gained by fast rolling in the first place.

I don't think this does always give the correct amount of casualties. If one soldier rolls a 1 for both their palms shots, only that soldier would be slain. But with the method above you might remove two soldiers.
So the correct way (unfortunately the slowest unless you have different coloured dice) is option d above, to have each soldier assigned to its particular dice rolls.

For one shot each (which Zechi did more) it is correct. Multiple shots requires slow rolling.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Agreed, you can't just "randomise" who gets killed since the positioning of the models matter. If the dude at the front gets blown up, making the distance between you and the enemy 9" instead of 8", you might fail a subsequent charge, thus making sure the "correct" models die is important.

That's why you have to randomize which models die, and not just pick which ones should die.
Rolling one die at a time, pointing at the firing model (so you know which one to remove when you roll a one), or rolling all the dice and then, for each 1 rolled, determine randomly which model in the squad dies, are two statistically equivalent methods. They do not involve the same die-rolling sequence, which is why some people don't like it (because they believe in luck, consider that the outcome will be different even if it's statistically the same thing etc.).
The second method is, however, faster in some cases (especially if you have a D10 for 10-member squads).

fresus wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Rolling one die at a time, pointing at the firing model (so you know which one to remove when you roll a one), or rolling all the dice and then, for each 1 rolled, determine randomly which model in the squad dies, are two statistically equivalent methods.

It doesn't matter of they are "statistically equivalent", they are not identical. One is following the rules, the other is not.

By far, the best way to roll for multiple rapid firing plasma gunners is to use different colour dice for each firer and roll them all at the same time. That way, if one guy rolls 2 1s, you only lose that one guy instead of the 2 guys you would lose if you rolled them all at the same time with the same colour dice.

 edbradders wrote:
By far, the best way to roll for multiple rapid firing plasma gunners is to use different colour dice for each firer and roll them all at the same time. That way, if one guy rolls 2 1s, you only lose that one guy instead of the 2 guys you would lose if you rolled them all at the same time with the same colour dice.

But imagine 10 plasma guy shooting. That's 10 different colours AND time to go through which colour is which. Maybe easier to just roll 2 dice per guy in quick order...

Yep, I’d roll one (or two) at a time. Best way to avoid any confusion.