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For the look out sir rule I have two questions which I was discussing with a friend recently and we were wondering how these resolve.

First one:
The rule only applies to chars with wounds of 9 or less. If we take the silent king for example, who starts with 16 wounds, I assume the look out sir rule does not apply to him. Here is the bit I am unsure of: when he takes enough damage that his current wounds drop to 9 or below, does the rule now kick in?

Second one:
Let's say a char is currently protected by the above rule and it is in effect. The protecting unit is almost destroyed though and in my shooting phase with one particular unit I am confident I can wipe out the entire unit and still have "attacks" to spare. When I declare my attacks, can I specify that I want to use half my attacks against the protecting unit and the other half at the char? Now the risk here is that I don't kill the protecting unit (get bad rolls) and therefore the attacks I had ready for the char essentially gets wasted. I would have thought that this wouldn't be allowed, but, I have seen on goonhammer a very similar situation where they talk about a monster and use the big guns never tire rule (when in engagement range) to effectively do the same as what I am asking. More info on that one here https://www.goonhammer.com/ruleshammer-big-guns-never-tire/, if this rule is allowed in the monster scenario but not look out sir, then can someone please explain what I missed here?

The last rule is in terms of allocating wounds. I am well aware that once a wound has been allocated to a model (even if the save was successful), all subsequent wounds also be assigned to the model. However, the rule states "in this phase". Let's say in the (their) shooting phase I allocated wounds to a model and now it moves into their charge and fight phase, imo I can now allocate wounds to a new model because we're in a new phase. Correct or no? Strange thing about this one is that I've even soon goonhammer and others who are very knowledgeable on WH get this wrong also. If my interpretation is wrong here then so is the description...


Thanks all

First one: No, he has 16 wounds, he will never be able to use the look out sir rule.

Second one: No, you can not target a character, if he is not a legal target.

Last, the Allocate attacks rule says "If a model in the target unit has already lost any wounds or has already had attacks allocated to it this phase, the attack must be allocated to that model."

So the has already had attacks allocated to it bit only applies to the phase you are in. any subsequent phases you are free to pick a different model if there are no wounded models in the unit.

Thanks.
What prompted me to write this post is because I came the conclusion of what you stated for rule re Silient King. But if that is true then what is the point of this, which is assigned to models in his unit?
If look out sir has no effect anyway, then the below rule is pointless right?

Triarchal Menhir
While this unit contains any Triarchal Menhirs models, it does not count as a CHARACTER for the purposes of the Look Out, Sir rule and each time an attack successfully wounds this unit, that attack must be allocated to one of those models. The destruction of Triarchal Menhirs is ignored for the purposes of Morale tests. If Szarekh is ever destroyed, any remaining Triarchal Menhirs in this unit are also destroyed.

1. It's wound characteristic, not remaining wounds, so he never gets protected.

2. Big Guns Never Tire specifically says you can do as you describe. Look Out Sire does not, therefore you cant.

3. Allocating wounds is required in two situations: [a model has already lost wounds] or [has already had attacks allocated to it that phase] they're separate points.
The latter prevents you allocating a high AP hit to an invulnerable save model, passing it, then allocating the next low AP hit to an armoured model. The former has already been allocated a hit that phase so, even though they're unwounded, they still need to be allocated the rest.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mucker973 wrote:
Thanks.
What prompted me to write this post is because I came the conclusion of what you stated for rule re Silient King. But if that is true then what is the point of this, which is assigned to models in his unit?
If look out sir has no effect anyway, then the below rule is pointless right?

Triarchal Menhir
While this unit contains any Triarchal Menhirs models, it does not count as a CHARACTER for the purposes of the Look Out, Sir rule and each time an attack successfully wounds this unit, that attack must be allocated to one of those models. The destruction of Triarchal Menhirs is ignored for the purposes of Morale tests. If Szarekh is ever destroyed, any remaining Triarchal Menhirs in this unit are also destroyed.

Characters can't be protected by other characters in Look Out Sir.
So Triarchal Menhirs making him lose Character doesn't make him more vulnerable - but it does mean other characters can hide behind him. So perhaps slightly counter intuitive, but it's a good thing.

Ah I see, makes sense now, except the last rule just seems dumb. I get it now though from how you explain it. On a side not though, do you think this is what GW intended or do you think it's kind of a screw up?
Just seems silly that you would want your supreme commander taking hits over your other chars...

I think it's intentional.

Small characters have LOS to prevent them from immediately getting wiped of the board.

Large characters like the Silent King don't have that because they're durable enough they shouldn't need to hide - and indeed would be nigh unkillable if they could hide.

I think it's entirely intentional that taking a couple of large stone objects allows lesser things to hide behind him for the same reasons.

Actually, Characters with a Wound Characteristic of 9 or less don’t protect other characters via LOS. Characters with a Wound Characteristic of 10+ do protect character with 9 or less WC.

HI All,
Just want to revist this on the rule as so:

"If a model in the target unit has already lost any wounds or has already had attacks allocated to it this phase, the attack must be allocated to that model."

The consensus here (and what I believed to be true) is that the restrictions on applying wounds to a model is only in that phase. In other words if you allocate wounds to a model in shooting phase, you can allocate wounds to a new model in the fight phase - you do not have to allocate the wounds to the same model as you are in a different phase.

However, I just had an interesting conversation with a friend who interprets the above rule slightly differently, and technically either of could be right. He says that the first part (before the OR and highlighted does NOT apply to the phase.

"If a model in the target unit has already lost any wounds or has already had attacks allocated to it this phase, the attack must be allocated to that model.

I still think I am correct, but he thinks the bold part above applies no matter what (phases having no impact) therefore you always must apply wounds to the a model that already has wounds. From my perspective, english grammar wise I think I am correct as even the comma implies that "phase" is applying to both part of that statement. And secondly, if it is not the case, then it makes the second part of sentence (the bit that does mention phase) a moot point then - because the first part would ALWAYS take effect meaning the second part would never take effect.

Any thoughts?

Your friend is correct.

The sentence reads "if a model in the target unit [has already lost any wounds] or [has already had attacks allocated to it this phase], the attack must be allocated to that model".

I don't see how the command implies phase applies to the whole sentence - it suggests everything after the comma applies to everything prior.

The second part isn't redundant at all - in the case a model gets shot but passes it's save, you need to continue allocating hits to that model until it dies (for that phase at least).

I don't know, maybe my english is bad :-) But I I'd have thought that an addtional comma should have been there to split the two statements then.

I am happy to accept your answer if this is the general consensus of the forum but I still think my interpretation is still valid - it's just crappy wording from GW again. Let me give you an example of my logic outside of warhammer with the following statement:

If a man is standing upright or is sat down in a house then...

To me, this naturally implies that if he is stood up or sat down, BOTH conditions apply to him being in the house. But if we use your logic it would be as so:

[If a man is standing upright] or [is sat down in a house] then...

Which is different ofc. I think that if they meant what you said, the comma would make all the difference like so:
If a man is standing upright, or is sat down in a house then...
or
If a model in the target unit has already lost any wounds, or has already had attacks allocated to it this phase

Are you sure you right on this, or this just your opinion? Hope I don't sound rude when I say that, it's just that others (see previous posts) actually agreed with my interpretion earlier, so I am getting mixed messages.

thanks,

Use of an oxford comma like that is purely stylistic and has no bearing on the actual grammar or meaning of a sentence.

"If a model in the target unit has already lost any wounds"

This part essentially makes it so that you can only ever have a single wounded model in a unit at a time, because the game sort of breaks if you have multiple models with wounds.

"has already had attacks allocated to it this phase"

This part exists because in 8th edition, people would do "cheesy" things like have singular stormshields in squads, allocate high AP attacks to the stormshield and low AP attacks to the regular guys. This forces it so that if you allocate 1 lascannon attack to the stormshield guy, he also has to save all of the bolter shots as well.

You're right it's somewhat ambiguous and I can't say your interpretation is categorically wrong by the rules of the English language.
Yes they could have chosen less ambiguous wording/punctuation, but they haven't. Nobody ever accused GW's writers of being perfect

So given the slight ambiguity it might help to consider why this rule exists in the first place.
Firstly, tracking wounds individually across a unit of say 6 Crisis battlesuits is a pain in the arse, better to only count one at a time.
Secondly, if you were able to distribute wounds across models as you saw fit it allows you to distribute 3 wounds to each Crisis Suit, essentially absorbing 18 whole wounds without suffering a single casualty - on 4 wound models that's ridiculous. It was a big problem in 5th edition, notably with Nobz.

Hence, the first clause about must allocating wounds to already-wounded models is there. It would undermine the purpose if it only applied by phase.

I have never met anyone that has interpreted it in the way you have - I am absolutely sure I have this correct.
I don't mean to be insulting either - as I say your interpretation is technically correct. It falls apart chiefly in execution, upon which it becomes clear the correct interpretation is the one I have relayed.