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Digging through this thick 6th ed book, trying to purge all previous (ancient) knowledge of how things worked and/or other games (damn you DP9 for making me want to check MOS for everything hehe). I want to ensure I'm not derping on how covers saves/modification and assaults (not mutually exclusive I suppose) work.

Saves
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Armor is the obvious one, Invuln is the "oh crap" one you can pull if the weapon being used would normally overkill the model in question (AP nullified for all intents and purposes). I get that you can't roll both - normally just picking which ever one is better for the situation. However, cover saves are independent of both these per-model characteristics right? In that, if I'm sitting in cover and some jackwad shoots at me - the material around me would first take the brunt (maybe) of the weapon before it reaches me. So... is it safe to assume you roll a cover save first, and then roll armor/invuln if the terrain doesn't do it's job? And it behaves the same way for nullifying the AP value of the shot.

On the same coin, if I'm shooting through cover, there is a penalty assessed correct? It doesn't modify the weapons stats (or does it...) but gives the target the opportunity to roll the same chance as if they were in the cover rating?


Assault:
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If I'm reading this right, the mechanics boil down to:

Whom ever has the highest value of I gets first strike. Roll to hit, roll to wound, saves thrown (no cover saves). Pretty much the mirror of the shooting phase, except right in someone's face.

You then assign wounds to the struck models and remove them from the field *before* they get their chance at retaliation. It made sense to me from a mechanical standpoint... not much point in having an attack order if both sides get to attack before you apply outcome.


* Reason I ask - I played my first game a week or so ago and (shocker) lost. However, reviewing the play-by-play in my head, I think a good chunk of the mechanics were mysteriously overlooked by my opponent. For example...he fired overwatch at me at full strength rather than snap shot values (with good results LOL!). It's all good though, I just want to make sure I got the core stuff down (to be fair...that game was *way* more complicated than a newbie should have been exposed to).

Thanks!

Armor is the obvious one, Invuln is the "oh crap" one you can pull if the weapon being used would normally overkill the model in question (AP nullified for all intents and purposes). I get that you can't roll both - normally just picking which ever one is better for the situation. However, cover saves are independent of both these per-model characteristics right? In that, if I'm sitting in cover and some jackwad shoots at me - the material around me would first take the brunt (maybe) of the weapon before it reaches me. So... is it safe to assume you roll a cover save first, and then roll armor/invuln if the terrain doesn't do it's job? And it behaves the same way for nullifying the AP value of the shot.

Short answer: You only get 1 save, so take the best one you get. If your armor save is 3, your cover save is 4, and your invulnerable save is 5, take the armor save. But you don't get to take 1 of each.

On the same coin, if I'm shooting through cover, there is a penalty assessed correct? It doesn't modify the weapons stats (or does it...) but gives the target the opportunity to roll the same chance as if they were in the cover rating?

While you have to work it out model by model, yes. Shooting through cover would grant the defender a cover save, generally speaking.

Whom ever has the highest value of I gets first strike. Roll to hit, roll to wound, saves thrown (no cover saves). Pretty much the mirror of the shooting phase, except right in someone's face.

You then assign wounds to the struck models and remove them from the field *before* they get their chance at retaliation. It made sense to me from a mechanical standpoint... not much point in having an attack order if both sides get to attack before you apply outcome.

Pretty much correct. Just remember that if you both have models with the same initiative, then those specific model's attacks are simultaneous.

Cover saves, armor saves and invuln saves all work the same way in that you can only ever make ONE save. whichever is better. So if you have 2+ cover but 4+ armor. You make the 2+ cover save. If you roll a one, you take a wound.
The one exception is Feel No Pain. This special rule allows you to make another save after any unsaved wound.

You are right on target with assault and initiative. and remember if two models have the same initiative, the strikes are simultaneous. So they COULD both die at the same time.


EDIT - ninja'd

 Icculus wrote:
Cover saves, armor saves and invuln saves all work the same way in that you can only ever make ONE save. whichever is better. So if you have 2+ cover but 4+ armor. You make the 2+ cover save. If you roll a one, you take a wound.
The one exception is Feel No Pain. This special rule allows you to make another save after any unsaved wound.

You are right on target with assault and initiative. and remember if two models have the same initiative, the strikes are simultaneous. So they COULD both die at the same time.


EDIT - ninja'd

Ahhhhh,... ok got it. I keep trying to make them modifiers rather than choices. Ughh! I will get it sorted eventually

Glad I got the assault bits in line.

Ninja'd, but posting anyway due to stubbornness.

Rules questions should be posted in the You Make Da Call sub-forum, it keeps general clear and helps keep the rules-bunnies from running free in other forums.

1a) You can only make one save against wounds. The three types are Armour saves, Invulnerable saves and Cover saves, and you pick the best relevant to weapon (AP value, "Ignores Cover" special rule etc.) - Models with more than One Save, page 19 of the Rulebook. There are additional ways to rescue the model that are not officially "saves" and thus can be taken in addition to a save - examples are Feel No Pain special rule (page 35), or Necron's Reanimation Protocols.

1b) To determine cover saves, you use LoS (Line of Sight - page 8, Determining Cover Saves - page 18), so simply shooting through cover won't give the enemy a save unless they are actually obscured (some exceptions: Shooting 'between' models in a different unit, if the enemy is in "area terrain", if the shot passes through a Forest - pages 18, 91 and 102).

2a) Models that are dead when their Initiative step is reached cannot attack (some exceptions possible in specific army books), models that died in their own Initiative step still make their attacks as they are considered 'simultaneous'.

2b) Some abilities (notably the Divination Psychic power Foreboding - page 420) can cause Overwatch at full Ballistic skill, but they are usually few and far between.

 Quanar wrote:
Ninja'd, but posting anyway due to stubbornness.

Rules questions should be posted in the You Make Da Call sub-forum, it keeps general clear and helps keep the rules-bunnies from running free in other forums.


1b) To determine cover saves, you use LoS (Line of Sight - page 8, Determining Cover Saves - page 18), so simply shooting through cover won't give the enemy a save unless they are actually obscured (some exceptions: Shooting 'between' models in a different unit, if the enemy is in "area terrain", if the shot passes through a Forest - pages 18, 91 and 102).

My bad, noted for future posts.

Ok, so - the fact that I'm simply *in* cover doesn't mean it effects my shots. Only if the thing I'm shooting as is somehow blocked - by either *my* cover or *his* would the shot be affected? Like, If I've got clear LoS to him, we're good. If I want to take a shot at him and, in my own derpieness, find myself partially obscured by a tree (stupid trees...) then he gets the cover bonus as if he was standing behind it? Still worth taking the shot I guess.

ncshooter426 wrote:
My bad, noted for future posts.

No worries, welcome to Dakka!

ncshooter426 wrote:
Ok, so - the fact that I'm simply *in* cover doesn't mean it effects my shots. Only if the thing I'm shooting as is somehow blocked - by either *my* cover or *his* would the shot be affected? Like, If I've got clear LoS to him, we're good. If I want to take a shot at him and, in my own derpieness, find myself partially obscured by a tree (stupid trees...) then he gets the cover bonus as if he was standing behind it? Still worth taking the shot I guess.

Take, for example, a wall:
If model A is next to the wall, and model B is far away, B won't get a cover save but A would do if they fired at each other. If both are far from the wall, each gets a cover save. The value of the cover save depends on the object that is doing the obscuring (on page 18).

Yeah most of the time firing from within cover does not affect your shots. But if there is some piece of terrain between your unit and your target unit, then yeah that may provide the target with a cover save.

But when we play, we usually rule that firing from within cover doesn't affect the shooting as long as there is any LoS at all. However, like I said, if the target of the shooting is partially obscured, then we can determine what type of cover save that may be.