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How can you allocate damage to another model in the target unit, when there is only a single model in the unit ? Another model cannot be the same model i just allocated damage to.

Mortal Wounds
Some attacks inflict mortal wounds – these
are so powerful that no armour or force field
can withstand their fury. Each mortal wound
inflicts one point of damage on the target
unit. Do not make a wound roll or saving
throw (including invulnerable saves) against a
mortal wound – just allocate it as you would
any other wound and inflict damage to a
model in the target unit as described above.
Unlike normal attacks, excess damage from
attacks that inflict mortal wounds is not lost.
Instead keep allocating damage to another
model in the target unit until either all the
damage has been allocated or the target unit
is destroyed.

That's specifically in reference to "excess" damage. If it's not excess, you don't allocate it to another model, you allocate it to the same model as normal.

There is no excess damage in mortal wounds. Each mortal wound is 1 point of damage. A weapon that does 3 damage on a 1 wound model has 2 excess damage.

 p5freak wrote:
There is no excess damage in mortal wounds. Each mortal wound is 1 point of damage. A weapon that does 3 damage on a 1 wound model has 2 excess damage.

Mortal Wounds CAN do excess damage. That excess damage is not lost on a per model basis. Doing 3 mortal wounds to a unit with only 1 Mortal wound left will have two excess damage - at that point the wounds are indeed lost. Doing three mortal wounds to a unit with two models each with two wounds, will do three damage, 2 to 1, and 1 to the other.

 p5freak wrote:
There is no excess damage in mortal wounds. Each mortal wound is 1 point of damage. A weapon that does 3 damage on a 1 wound model has 2 excess damage.

Excess is the word GW themselves use in the quote you gave to describe when a model is dealt more mortal wounds than they have wounds remaining. So it is the correct term for this situation.

Breton wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
There is no excess damage in mortal wounds. Each mortal wound is 1 point of damage. A weapon that does 3 damage on a 1 wound model has 2 excess damage.

Mortal Wounds CAN do excess damage. That excess damage is not lost on a per model basis. Doing 3 mortal wounds to a unit with only 1 Mortal wound left will have two excess damage - at that point the wounds are indeed lost. Doing three mortal wounds to a unit with two models each with two wounds, will do three damage, 2 to 1, and 1 to the other.

I disagree, mortal wounds by definition can never do excess damage, because a mortal wound is only 1 point of damage. The interaction of mortal wounds on multi model, multi wound units is not what this thread is about. Its about a single model unit.

 p5freak wrote:

Breton wrote:

 p5freak wrote:
There is no excess damage in mortal wounds. Each mortal wound is 1 point of damage. A weapon that does 3 damage on a 1 wound model has 2 excess damage.

Mortal Wounds CAN do excess damage. That excess damage is not lost on a per model basis. Doing 3 mortal wounds to a unit with only 1 Mortal wound left will have two excess damage - at that point the wounds are indeed lost. Doing three mortal wounds to a unit with two models each with two wounds, will do three damage, 2 to 1, and 1 to the other.

I disagree, mortal wounds by definition can never do excess damage, because a mortal wound is only 1 point of damage. The interaction of mortal wounds on multi model, multi wound units is not what this thread is about. Its about a single model unit.

GW disagrees with you. They use the word excess in this exact situation.

This is not an exploit, p5freak. The rules work just fine as Stux says.

 Stux wrote:

 p5freak wrote:


I disagree, mortal wounds by definition can never do excess damage, because a mortal wound is only 1 point of damage. The interaction of mortal wounds on multi model, multi wound units is not what this thread is about. Its about a single model unit.

GW disagrees with you. They use the word excess in this exact situation.

It is, once again, in the quote provided....

Unlike normal attacks, excess damage from
attacks that inflict mortal wounds is not lost.

Technically acocording to that RAW, 3 Mortal Wounds from a Smite on 1 unit of 2 2-wound Primaris deals 1 excess damage, but it is not lost, instead applied to a second/further model. A smite that does 3 mortal wounds to 1 unit consisting of 1 1-wound tactical marine does 2 excess damage. It's also not lost, but is mooted in a way they don't have a technical term for like "lost".

Yes a mortal wound can obviously damage a singular model unit more than once. As the rules state. Not sure if this is a real question.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Yes a mortal wound can obviously damage a singular model unit more than once. As the rules state. Not sure if this is a real question.

Each mortal wound is 1 point of damage. How can 1 point of damage damage a singular model unit more than once ? Its only 1 point of damage. Each mortal wound is handled separately. Thats why its impossible that mortal wounds have excess damage.

 p5freak wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Yes a mortal wound can obviously damage a singular model unit more than once. As the rules state. Not sure if this is a real question.

Each mortal wound is 1 point of damage. How can 1 point of damage damage a singular model unit more than once ? Its only 1 point of damage. Each mortal wound is handled separately. Thats why its impossible that mortal wounds have excess damage.

Because the rule is clearly treating mortal wounds dealt at the same time as a pool and referring to that as excess when there is more than the wounds characteristic of the first model.

It really is very simple, it just seems like you are looking for problems here where they don't exist.

Unlike normal attacks, excess damage from attacks that inflict mortal wounds is not lost. Instead keep allocating damage to another model in the target unit until either all the damage has been allocated or the target unit is destroyed.

It helps if we look at the entire line not just cherry pick one phrase out. The excess carries over and continues being allocated until the the unit is destroyed or all the damage is allocated.

So once the unit is destroyed you stop allocating the mortal wounds. Those remaining mortal wound are indeed "wasted" just the same as excess attacks are.

The difference is that the mortal wound allocation always continues rather than stopping when, say, the unit runs out of models in range/sight of attacks.



Asides once you've removed the last model in a unit there is nothing left to allocate any further mortal wounds to. You can argue the RAW however much you like but there's nothing to put the wound onto.

 Stux wrote:


Because the rule is clearly treating mortal wounds dealt at the same time as a pool and referring to that as excess when there is more than the wounds characteristic of the first model.

If two or more rules are to be resolved at the same time sequencing comes into play and the player whose turn it is decides the order how to resolve it. Also, nothing in the mortal wound rule says to treat them as a pool. Quite the opposite, each mortal wound is 1 point of damage, separating them.

 Stux wrote:

It really is very simple, it just seems like you are looking for problems here where they don't exist.

No, you make it look very simple, but it isnt if you take a closer look.

 Overread wrote:
Unlike normal attacks, excess damage from attacks that inflict mortal wounds is not lost. Instead keep allocating damage to another model in the target unit until either all the damage has been allocated or the target unit is destroyed.

It helps if we look at the entire line not just cherry pick one phrase out. The excess carries over and continues being allocated until the the unit is destroyed or all the damage is allocated.

You dont have permission to allocate to the same model, it must be to another model. Which cant be the same model you just allocated damage to.

 p5freak wrote:

 Stux wrote:


Because the rule is clearly treating mortal wounds dealt at the same time as a pool and referring to that as excess when there is more than the wounds characteristic of the first model.

If two or more rules are to be resolved at the same time sequencing comes into play and the player whose turn it is decides the order how to resolve it. Also, nothing in the mortal wound rule says to treat them as a pool. Quite the opposite, each mortal wound is 1 point of damage, separating them.

 Stux wrote:

It really is very simple, it just seems like you are looking for problems here where they don't exist.

No, you make it look very simple, but it isnt if you take a closer look.

 Overread wrote:
Unlike normal attacks, excess damage from attacks that inflict mortal wounds is not lost. Instead keep allocating damage to another model in the target unit until either all the damage has been allocated or the target unit is destroyed.

It helps if we look at the entire line not just cherry pick one phrase out. The excess carries over and continues being allocated until the the unit is destroyed or all the damage is allocated.

You dont have permission to allocate to the same model, it must be to another model. Which cant be the same model you just allocated damage to.

You do have permission. You only don't have permission if it is excess damage, which is clear from context to mean if you have mortal wounds still to allocate and the model you were allocating to is dead.

It's clearly spelled out in the rule. There's nothing more to talk about here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The only problem I can see here is that this doesn't match YOUR personal definition of excess. But that's ok, because your personal definition is irrelevant when it's clear what GW meant by it.

 p5freak wrote:


You dont have permission to allocate to the same model, it must be to another model. Which cant be the same model you just allocated damage to.

You have to allocate "excess" to another model (if possible). You still have to allocate mortal wounds to the SAME model until it be dead. The "another model" is only part of the Excess wounds section. You really need to quit reading more to the rule than is there.

Let's look at this in context, shall we?

I've got a Tau Commander with 6 wounds. He took some damage last shooting phase and is down to 4 wounds remaining.

You smite him and manage to roll so that you are doing d6 mortal wounds instead of d3.

You roll a 6.

Your attack has now dealt 6 mortal wounds to me, which must be applied 1 at a time to the commander model. So I allocate 1 at a time, until the commander is down to 0 wounds, and then the remaining 2 mortal wounds are gone forever as there are no models left to allocate.

The benefit to the whole "6 mortal wounds" rather than "1 wound worth 6 damage" is that at any point in taking those 6 mortal wounds I could activate a stratagem that triggers from losing wounds.

If this same situation played out against a team of crisis suits with 2 models left and 1d already on the model. Then I would apply 1 mortal wound to the first crisis suit, a second mortal wound to the first crisis suit and killing him. then the last 3 would go to the 2nd suit, and the last mortal wound would be gone.

The point of the "excess wound" text in Mortal Wounds is to point out that X Mortal Wounds are X - 1 Damage Wounds and not 1 - X Damage Wound that would have excess damage lost. Read the whole section for context rather than concentrating on one word.

I'm not sure what you're asking here, OP. You don't need to allocate excess damage in a one model unit, because there's nothing to allocate the damage to if that single model is slain. Damage only becomes "excess" once it exceeds the model's Wound characteristic, so until that point you allocate damage as normal. After that point, normal Wounds from a single attack are lost, whole any additional Mortal Wounds are allocated to a new model. Unless all models in the unit have been slain, in which case they are also lost. Pretty simple stuff here.

 p5freak wrote:
You dont have permission to allocate to the same model, it must be to another model. Which cant be the same model you just allocated damage to.

This is of course false. You need to "allocate it as you would any other wound" it meaning a mortal wound.

So you can do more than 1 MW to a single model unit. If that single model dies, then the excess is lost since you can not allocate the rest since the unit is destroyed.

Mortal Wounds
... against a mortal wound – just allocate it as you would any other wound....

I deal 3 mortal wounds

I sequence to

Mortal wound a then mortal wound b then mortal wound c

I allocate mortal wound a - follow through till damage or model slain

I then allocate mortal wound b and follow through till damage or model slain

Etc etc if no models remain in unit damage is excess and lost

Its not complicated

Yeah, and the other way of handling it - as an attack with 3 damage - works out to the same result. Remove 1 wound from the "attack", then move the excess two wounds to the next model.

I think that's what they were trying to say.

The entire thread feels like a bad attempt to bacon it up.

 p5freak wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Yes a mortal wound can obviously damage a singular model unit more than once. As the rules state. Not sure if this is a real question.

Each mortal wound is 1 point of damage. How can 1 point of damage damage a singular model unit more than once ? Its only 1 point of damage. Each mortal wound is handled separately. Thats why its impossible that mortal wounds have excess damage.

You have excess damage from having excess mortal wounds. Each mortal wound does one point of damage, but if you have a grouping of mortal wounds being inflicted that exceeds the wounds left on a model, you have excess damage from mortal wounds. For normal wounds, the excess damage is discarded, but for mortal wounds the excess mortal wounds would be applied to a different model in the unit. In the case of a one model unit there are no other models to apply it to, so it doesn't really matter if there's excess wounds, whether normal or mortal.

If the single model has more than one wound, you can certainly do more than one MW damage to it, but it comes from inflicting multiple mortal wounds with each one doing 1 damage to the model.

A model isn't destroyed until it is removed and each mortal wound is considered to be a single 1 damage source you keep applying until all models in a unit are destroyed.

 Xenomancers wrote:
A model isn't destroyed until it is removed and each mortal wound is considered to be a single 1 damage source you keep applying until all models in a unit are destroyed.

Lets have some fun. Lets say you kill Guilliman with 4 out of 6 Mortal Wounds on a Super Smite. His dead/not dead Armour of Fate ability kicks in, and he stands back up with 2 Wounds from his D6 roll. Do the two mortal wounds that were more than he had left get applied now? Or did they disappear (Yet not get discarded)?

Let's say you SuperSmite Calgar, and get those same 6 Mortal Wounds. Does he take 6, or does he take 3? Since people are trying to turn mortal wounds from one attack into 6 groups of 1 instead of 1 group of 6.

Breton wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
A model isn't destroyed until it is removed and each mortal wound is considered to be a single 1 damage source you keep applying until all models in a unit are destroyed.

Lets have some fun. Lets say you kill Guilliman with 4 out of 6 Mortal Wounds on a Super Smite. His dead/not dead Armour of Fate ability kicks in, and he stands back up with 2 Wounds from his D6 roll. Do the two mortal wounds that were more than he had left get applied now? Or did they disappear (Yet not get discarded)?

Let's say you SuperSmite Calgar, and get those same 6 Mortal Wounds. Does he take 6, or does he take 3? Since people are trying to turn mortal wounds from one attack into 6 groups of 1 instead of 1 group of 6.

Since mortal wounds are all applied one wound at a time the half damage does not apply. The gman ability when you are reduced to 0 wounds you are destroyed. The new Gman is actually a new unit.

Breton wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
A model isn't destroyed until it is removed and each mortal wound is considered to be a single 1 damage source you keep applying until all models in a unit are destroyed.

Lets have some fun. Lets say you kill Guilliman with 4 out of 6 Mortal Wounds on a Super Smite. His dead/not dead Armour of Fate ability kicks in, and he stands back up with 2 Wounds from his D6 roll. Do the two mortal wounds that were more than he had left get applied now? Or did they disappear (Yet not get discarded)?

Let's say you SuperSmite Calgar, and get those same 6 Mortal Wounds. Does he take 6, or does he take 3? Since people are trying to turn mortal wounds from one attack into 6 groups of 1 instead of 1 group of 6.

You remove him and resolve just the damage until he is slain so he would suffer 4 and 3 MW in your examples. Then At the end of the Phase (unless his rule has changed) he is set up again.

As comparison the Eldar Phoenix gem has a similar effect (but the models is not slain) and the FAQ clearly states you must resolve remaining saving throws even from normal attacks that wounded the model before the relic effect kicked in.

 Xenomancers wrote:





Since mortal wounds are all applied one wound at a time the half damage does not apply.

Where does it say that? It says they're allocated just like regular wounds on on 256. Where you're right is that each mortal wound does one damage, and the damage not the wounds is halved rounding up. Smite was probably a bad example. It doesn't work "right" on characters. Mortal Wounds in general don't. I guess we can only hope they improve it with 9th.

The gman ability when you are reduced to 0 wounds you are destroyed. The new Gman is actually a new unit.

I'm shaking my head at that one. I had assumed you left the G-Man on his side on the table and then rolled - either right away or at the end of the phase what have you - instead of removing him from the table, then rolling, and potentially fighting over which quarter inch is closer to where he was before.

Since when are D3 and D6 Mortal Wounds considered as single mortal wounds? (Other than when you roll a 1)

Sounds to me like GW wrote the rules with those in mind, but neglected to factor in the 1 wound sources.

Fictional wrote:
Since when are D3 and D6 Mortal Wounds considered as single mortal wounds? (Other than when you roll a 1)

Sounds to me like GW wrote the rules with those in mind, but neglected to factor in the 1 wound sources.

The Wound Allocation rules work in allocating one wound at a time. The Mortal Wounds sidebar states "Each mortal wound inflicts one point of damage on the target unit." Therefore, if you are doing D3 or D6 mortal wounds the number you roll is the number of wounds you inflict, each doing 1 damage.