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Okay this has probably been answered a thousand times but...when do you roll to activate force weapons? I've been rolling it at the start of my assault phase, like when I would pop off hammerhand, but a recent opponent yelled at me saying its after the first unsaved wound is caused. What does that mean?

Does it mean instead of:

Activate weaponry
Hit
Wound
Failed Save
Ld Test
Fail
DIE

Its:

Hit
Wound
Failed Save
Psy Test
Ld Test
Fail
Die

??


I'd apprecate some help on this

Read the force USR on page 37. The first clause clearly tells you when you roll for the test.

as soon as they fail to save a wound, then you activate it, and if activated, they die

thats how i understood it at least

Okay now I understand. USR on 37 says after the first wound okay okay.


So instead of being a instakill bug zapper on the end of a stick its more of a:

Oh look you're impailed on the end of my weapon, let me electricute you with psy energy!!


Okay I understand now...

KonTheory wrote:
as soon as they fail to save a wound, then you activate it, and if activated, they die

This is incorrect.

The order, for each Initiative Step, is:
Hit
Wound
Force Test
Saves
Failed saves = ID

Note that, in the GK codex, you only need to take the Force test at the highest Initiative step, and the whole squad then has Force weapons (or not, if Ld is failed).

Elric Greywolf wrote:

KonTheory wrote:
as soon as they fail to save a wound, then you activate it, and if activated, they die

This is incorrect.

The order, for each Initiative Step, is:
Hit
Wound
Force Test
Saves
Failed saves = ID

Actually, you're incorrect.
Force specifically triggers on an unsaved wound. Meaning you cannot choose to activate it until after saves are rolled and a wound is allocated.

rigeld2 wrote:

Force specifically triggers on an unsaved wound. Meaning you cannot choose to activate it until after saves are rolled and a wound is allocated.

Huh. While your reading of NFW is suspect in some instances , your reading of USR Force is better than mine. Maybe I was thinking of 5th....
Good to know.

now I'm confused ha

As a GK player myself I can confirm that the order goes like this:

I roll to Hit
I roll to Wound
Opponent rolls to save
Opponent passes all saves
No Force Weapon activation can be made

or

I roll to Hit
I roll to Wound
Opponent rolls to save
Opponent fails one or more saves
I take a psychic test to activate Force weapons and pass (do not continue to the next step if the test was failed)
Instant Death applies to all unsaved wounds

Bear in mind though that you must have a Warp Charge left to activate Force weapons. If your squad isn't lead by an IC (let's say its a standard 10-man GKSS) and it cast Hammerhand already during your turn, you then cannot roll to activate your Force weapons since the squad only has one Warp Charge. You can however activate them in your opponent's assault phase (providing the combat is ongoing), since you gain the Warp Charge back every player turn, not game turn.

Hope this clarifies.

Enceladus wrote:
As a GK player myself I can confirm that the order goes like this:

Bear in mind though that you must have a Warp Charge left to activate Force weapons. If your squad isn't lead by an IC (let's say its a standard 10-man GKSS) and it cast Hammerhand already during your turn, you then cannot roll to activate your Force weapons since the squad only has one Warp Charge. You can however activate them in your opponent's assault phase (providing the combat is ongoing), since you gain the Warp Charge back every player turn, not game turn.

Hope this clarifies.

Thats why I rolled it at the start of the phase, so its like an either or type thing.

After they fail to wound, but before an FnP roll is made (as activating the force weapon denies FnP)

GreyKnightsDude wrote:

Enceladus wrote:
As a GK player myself I can confirm that the order goes like this:

Bear in mind though that you must have a Warp Charge left to activate Force weapons. If your squad isn't lead by an IC (let's say its a standard 10-man GKSS) and it cast Hammerhand already during your turn, you then cannot roll to activate your Force weapons since the squad only has one Warp Charge. You can however activate them in your opponent's assault phase (providing the combat is ongoing), since you gain the Warp Charge back every player turn, not game turn.

Hope this clarifies.

Thats why I rolled it at the start of the phase, so its like an either or type thing.

If the unit only has one Warp Charge then yes, it's one or the other, the unit itself can't use both Hammerhand AND activate Force weapons in the same player turn. However, you can use one of an IC's Warp Charges to cast Hammerhand on the unit and use the unit's own Warp Charge to activate Force weapons if you wish.

well I'm less confused

Hope no one minds a side question on this thread but since this is all about force weapons and activations its very relevant. I am curious if a lvl 2 or higher psycher which has at least 2 warp points availble to them during the assault phase can make multiple attempts to activate a force weapons. A simple example - lvl 2 psycher causes 2 wounds to a tervigon which cannot make its armor save. Psycher fails his first activation attempt on the first wound, then attempts to activate again on the second wound. This seems like a grey area to me. I know that a psycher cannot attempt to activate a psychic power more then once a turn, and activating a force weapon is nearly identical in procedure as activating a psychic power, so it seems reasonable that a psycher only gets one chance per turn to activate a force weapon.

Suggestions! and thanks for reading and responding.

I don't believe there's anything that forbids you from making multiple attempts to activate Force weapons if you fail your original throw (unless of course you faill on 1+1 or 6+6 and you psyker dies through Perils of the Warp before getting chance to re-cast). Of course, in the case of GKSS you couldn't re-roll the entire unit's Force weapon activation because they'll have expended all of their Warp Charge Points (one) on the first failed attempt, but you may well find that your characters with more than one level of psychic mastery (and therefore more than one Warp Charge Point to use) will perhaps fail their first Force activation attempt in a challenge and may have remaining Warp Choice Points to expend trying again.

Besides, as far as I was aware, until a power is successfully cast, you can attempt to cast it as many times as you like as long as you have the Warp Charge Points to do so, but once it actually works you can't then cast it again until your next turn and must choose one of the psyker's other powers (unless the power has a special rule specifically allowing multiple successful casts). I wait to stand corrected on that.

Grey Knights are bound by their first result and so can't try again. Not sure about "normal" Force Weapons though.

I thought you could only attempt to cast each psychic power once?

Enceladus wrote:
I don't believe there's anything that forbids you from making multiple attempts to activate Force weapons if you fail your original throw (unless of course you faill on 1+1 or 6+6 and you psyker dies through Perils of the Warp before getting chance to re-cast). Of course, in the case of GKSS you couldn't re-roll the entire unit's Force weapon activation because they'll have expended all of their Warp Charge Points (one) on the first failed attempt, but you may well find that your characters with more than one level of psychic mastery (and therefore more than one Warp Charge Point to use) will perhaps fail their first Force activation attempt in a challenge and may have remaining Warp Choice Points to expend trying again.

You should re-read the rules for NFW.

Besides, as far as I was aware, until a power is successfully cast, you can attempt to cast it as many times as you like as long as you have the Warp Charge Points to do so, but once it actually works you can't then cast it again until your next turn and must choose one of the psyker's other powers (unless the power has a special rule specifically allowing multiple successful casts). I wait to stand corrected on that.

Page 67, second paragraph. Please read it.

I am still finding this very grey in my mind. You can only attempt to use a psychic power once per turn, activating a force weapon follows almost exactly the same process (picking a target is the psycher's force weapon), it seems very possible that you are only intended to have one attempt at activation. But its not disallowed, and I can even see (especially considering some of the nit picking rules lawyering I have been reading) someone making an argument saying you could try to activate the weapon multiple times for one wound.

If a psychic power can only be attempted once, and the activation of a force weapon is a psychic power, then the activation of a force weapon can only be attempted once. Therefore, a player cannot attempt to activate their force weapon twice.