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Generic Guard HQs are support characters (excluding Tank Commanders), I don't understand this mentality that they need to be beatsticks.

They're cheap as anything and overall make your army better through orders. That's kind of their schtick.

 KingGarland wrote:

Tank Commander has a tank.

This warmed my heart to read. I don't even really know why.

I don’t see any reason Sisters of Battle will do better in an edition about removing their special rules.

1.7 to 1.1 using the base profile without knowing what army special rules they have, detachment abilities or the critical wound they reference which could be some kind of mortal wound mechanic versus infantry. These are modest changes to damage. So overall you’re in pretty much the same place. There’s probably still many special rules and strategies that give you minus 1 AP or auto wound etc etc

Plus every single edition damage inflates as the game progresses. So, once Marine Dex drops will be better because people will complain that they can’t table an opponent in 2 turns and that means their models aren’t doing anything. Were already starting in a similar place anyway.

They’ve never got the points system right. This is because they want armies to be roughly the same size. They don’t want marine armies being too small and they don’t want a balanced Guard army with tanks to be 200 models.

They don’t factor in that armour is a degrading profile whilst wounds and toughness aren’t. So an army built around having low wound, toughness and relying on armour disproportionally has a bad time of it and has to be used as a glass hammer. But because ohhh it’s power armour you’re ignoring 2/3 of damage it must be amazing that means Sister have to be over priced. Ohh bolters were great at killing light infantry when AP5 was a thing ten years ago but they’re still great at that anyway so let’s not factor that in.

Like they’re very close to making Orks 2 wounds as well as T5. That makes it likely they will boost tyranids up to compensate. So you have to boost Tau guns. Ah but we can’t really change Sisters because bolters are bolters and power armour is so good at mitigating damage. Those are premium items.

Again, it should be a trade out between taking those Repentia and Xephrim because one has armour and the other does not. In practice the armour is meaningless because damage is so high. So of course you end up taking low armour high damage units because if you take a hit you die anyway. That’s not how the army should function but it’s how the rules have been written.

An edition about removing special rules is really about removing mechanics to make Sisters units viable against T5 Orks, 2W marines and make up for them having Guard profiles. Just base stats won’t cut it if you don’t change the AP system to distinguish between cutting through flak armour and chipping away at Terminator armour. Only the worst guns in the game shouldn’t be able to cut through a 5 plus save but only the best guns should be able to reduce Terminator armour by 1 point.

Re characters woth close combat weapons. I think its because gw thinks duals/challenges are cool af and always wanted to encourage that. How that worked in practice varies.but its clearly the goal looking at rules and fluff

Dai wrote:
Re characters woth close combat weapons. I think its because gw thinks duals/challenges are cool af and always wanted to encourage that. How that worked in practice varies.but its clearly the goal looking at rules and fluff

That would make sense if all "duelists" were equal.
Because as we all know, an ordinary human with a pointy stick can totally beat a 20 foot tall winged demon that looks like something straight out of Berserk.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I don’t see any reason Sisters of Battle will do better in an edition about removing their special rules.

1.7 to 1.1 using the base profile without knowing what army special rules they have, detachment abilities or the critical wound they reference which could be some kind of mortal wound mechanic versus infantry. These are modest changes to damage. So overall you’re in pretty much the same place. There’s probably still many special rules and strategies that give you minus 1 AP or auto wound etc etc

Plus every single edition damage inflates as the game progresses. So, once Marine Dex drops will be better because people will complain that they can’t table an opponent in 2 turns and that means their models aren’t doing anything. Were already starting in a similar place anyway.

They’ve never got the points system right. This is because they want armies to be roughly the same size. They don’t want marine armies being too small and they don’t want a balanced Guard army with tanks to be 200 models.

They don’t factor in that armour is a degrading profile whilst wounds and toughness aren’t. So an army built around having low wound, toughness and relying on armour disproportionally has a bad time of it and has to be used as a glass hammer. But because ohhh it’s power armour you’re ignoring 2/3 of damage it must be amazing that means Sister have to be over priced. Ohh bolters were great at killing light infantry when AP5 was a thing ten years ago but they’re still great at that anyway so let’s not factor that in.

Like they’re very close to making Orks 2 wounds as well as T5. That makes it likely they will boost tyranids up to compensate. So you have to boost Tau guns. Ah but we can’t really change Sisters because bolters are bolters and power armour is so good at mitigating damage. Those are premium items.

Again, it should be a trade out between taking those Repentia and Xephrim because one has armour and the other does not. In practice the armour is meaningless because damage is so high. So of course you end up taking low armour high damage units because if you take a hit you die anyway. That’s not how the army should function but it’s how the rules have been written.

An edition about removing special rules is really about removing mechanics to make Sisters units viable against T5 Orks, 2W marines and make up for them having Guard profiles. Just base stats won’t cut it if you don’t change the AP system to distinguish between cutting through flak armour and chipping away at Terminator armour. Only the worst guns in the game shouldn’t be able to cut through a 5 plus save but only the best guns should be able to reduce Terminator armour by 1 point.

It's probably a bit much to say a Sister has a 'guard profile'. And they didn't boost termagants - on top of their weapons getting nerfed...

One goal of this edition is to reduce lethality. Claiming they're going to bump it right out the gate? Seems dubious.

There aren't going to be many layered special rules. You get 2 page of which 1 will be the 6 strats. The article today is going to show us one.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Dai wrote:
Re characters woth close combat weapons. I think its because gw thinks duals/challenges are cool af and always wanted to encourage that. How that worked in practice varies.but its clearly the goal looking at rules and fluff

That would make sense if all "duelists" were equal.
Because as we all know, an ordinary human with a pointy stick can totally beat a 20 foot tall winged demon that looks like something straight out of Berserk.

Haha well yeah, it harkens back to the metal album cover era. My personal take is a SM chapter master should be able to take on a bloodthirster and win on occasion, but it would seriously feth him up and lore wise be one for the annuls. Should that be possible in game? I think so but again I am a sucker for the metal album era.

I dont see the harm in allowing them to have a decent gun though, sure GW have modelled this in the past by having the main gun slung over the shoulder and cc stuff in hands. This sort of thing is ridiculously easy to convert to a good enough standard too. Nmnr strikes again!

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I don’t see any reason Sisters of Battle will do better in an edition about removing their special rules.

1.7 to 1.1 using the base profile without knowing what army special rules they have, detachment abilities or the critical wound they reference which could be some kind of mortal wound mechanic versus infantry. These are modest changes to damage. So overall you’re in pretty much the same place. There’s probably still many special rules and strategies that give you minus 1 AP or auto wound etc etc

Plus every single edition damage inflates as the game progresses. So, once Marine Dex drops will be better because people will complain that they can’t table an opponent in 2 turns and that means their models aren’t doing anything. Were already starting in a similar place anyway.

They’ve never got the points system right. This is because they want armies to be roughly the same size. They don’t want marine armies being too small and they don’t want a balanced Guard army with tanks to be 200 models.

They don’t factor in that armour is a degrading profile whilst wounds and toughness aren’t. So an army built around having low wound, toughness and relying on armour disproportionally has a bad time of it and has to be used as a glass hammer. But because ohhh it’s power armour you’re ignoring 2/3 of damage it must be amazing that means Sister have to be over priced. Ohh bolters were great at killing light infantry when AP5 was a thing ten years ago but they’re still great at that anyway so let’s not factor that in.

Like they’re very close to making Orks 2 wounds as well as T5. That makes it likely they will boost tyranids up to compensate. So you have to boost Tau guns. Ah but we can’t really change Sisters because bolters are bolters and power armour is so good at mitigating damage. Those are premium items.

Again, it should be a trade out between taking those Repentia and Xephrim because one has armour and the other does not. In practice the armour is meaningless because damage is so high. So of course you end up taking low armour high damage units because if you take a hit you die anyway. That’s not how the army should function but it’s how the rules have been written.

An edition about removing special rules is really about removing mechanics to make Sisters units viable against T5 Orks, 2W marines and make up for them having Guard profiles. Just base stats won’t cut it if you don’t change the AP system to distinguish between cutting through flak armour and chipping away at Terminator armour. Only the worst guns in the game shouldn’t be able to cut through a 5 plus save but only the best guns should be able to reduce Terminator armour by 1 point.

Chill man.

We have seen all of 2.25 Datasheets as of now. We have seen almost no detachments yet since all we know is the Space Marine detachment is Gladius Strike Force and their Faction Ability is Oath of Moment that we know has something to do with targeting a unit. There is so much they can do to make Sister of Battle playable in a system that we know Intercessors seem to be pretty much as they are in 9th, Terminators are tougher but have less AP, and Termagants have less AP also.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/04/07/faction-rules-are-leaner-and-cleaner-in-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000/?utm_source=CUSTOMERS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=gw_7th_april_faction_rules_eng_&utm_content=&utm_term=

info on faction rules, not read it yet, but here ya go.

ok, so some new info:

all the rules for a detachment MUST fit onto one double page spread. no detachment will have more than 6 strats, and the core strats set has been expanded to 12. they give an example of a strat as "armour of contempt", which is a -1AP mod on a single astartes unit. they mention a lot of strats from 9e have been embodied into units as abilites, though, with the logic they simplifying the play of game, not trying to make it "shallow".

the index rules will have a single detachment for each faction. the two examples named are the tyranid Invasion Fleet, and the space marine Gladius Task Force. Codexes will contain additional ones, but the intent is almost all army rules for a playable force should be within that two page spread, and different detachments are supposed to be sidegrades, not expansions. we will see if GW have the discipline to pull this off.


ALL relics and WLT are linked to specific detachments, and part of the customisable design space for those. I imagine some might be part of multiple detachments, though.

re rolls are "significantly" less common. Space marines get a faction ability "oaths of moment", that gives full re-rolls to hit AND wound vs one specifed unit per battle round, chosen by the marine player. the tryanid faction ability is all about manipulation of the new battleshock and morale rules. they mention going into detail on the tyranid rules "next month", so sometime in May.

these faction rules are separate to the detachment ones, but seem to be pretty minimal, at least so far, so shouldn't be too hard to just keep "in the head".

exploding 6s to hit is now codifed as "sustained hits", and "auto wounds on 6s to hit" is now codifed as "lethal hits". theirs a ability called "precision", but i didnt see what that did. Critical hits and critical wounds appear to defined terms for natural 6s, and lethal hits are automatically critical hits (ie a 6 to hit on unit with lethal hits can cascade and trigger abilities that key off a 6 to wound)



theirs a "cryptic" reference to characters "leading" units that they call attention to, and remarks that some enhancements improve the squads the character is in, so im guessing they are moving towards allowing characters to join units again.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


It's probably a bit much to say a Sister has a 'guard profile'.

There aren't going to be many layered special rules. You get 2 page of which 1 will be the 6 strats. The article today is going to show us one.

Is it? They are much closer to Guard than to Space Marines without special rules.

Yes and i have to somewhat agree with Totalwar1402, the only reason Sisters ever worked since 8th Edition were always many layered special rules, which means GW would need to be all of a sudden far more competent than ever before without that let alone without any impactful Miracles mechanics

The leading character hint is probably just them returning to pre-8th ed embedded characters.

Which is great, because the 8th and 9th ed characters were stupid and clunky as hell.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The leading character hint is probably just them returning to pre-8th ed embedded characters.

Which is great, because the 8th and 9th ed characters were stupid and clunky as hell.

Absolutely not. Characters attached to units was one of the single worst aspects of 3rd-7th since all other did was encourage death stars moreso than 8th worst "death stars". On top of that, it's characters forgetting they're leading an army, not just that one single squad.

xerxeskingofking wrote:
... all the rules for a detachment MUST fit onto one double page spread...

Remember when the design process for AoS and 40k got all messed up because those in charge became obsessed with the idea of the core rules having to fit on 8 pages?

It's happening again...

Yeah, I hated characters joining units- especially ones with different toughness and save characteristics- clumsy AF.

Depends what the character is capable of.

I’ve always liked Characters properly joining the unit, mostly because that’s just the way I’m used to.

PenitentJake wrote:
Yeah, I hated characters joining units- especially ones with different toughness and save characteristics- clumsy AF.

The allocation rules will determine how clumsy it will be. Majority toughness is no big deal and if you still need to allocate to the wounded unit then you're taking saves for that model rather than a unit wide average save.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The leading character hint is probably just them returning to pre-8th ed embedded characters.

Which is great, because the 8th and 9th ed characters were stupid and clunky as hell.

Absolutely not. Characters attached to units was one of the single worst aspects of 3rd-7th since all other did was encourage death stars moreso than 8th worst "death stars". On top of that, it's characters forgetting they're leading an army, not just that one single squad.

Yeah, because it was so much better for characters to stand out in the open and no one was allowed to shoot them because that grot that was slightly closer was a much more pressing target. That 8th ed rule was dumb.

In 9th ed they sort of fixed it by making it so that the character must be within 3", but by that point he might as well join the unit and it was still clunky because they had to specify that the character had to be the closest model to be targeted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PenitentJake wrote:
Yeah, I hated characters joining units- especially ones with different toughness and save characteristics- clumsy AF.

Was fine in 4th ed. You just took everyone else around them as casualties.
It was only after 6th ed that it got convoluted, I think.
On the flip side it meant characters were squishier compared to now, iirc.

07/04/2023

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/04/07/faction-rules-are-leaner-and-cleaner-in-the-new-edition-of-warhammer-40000/

Faction Rules Are Leaner and Cleaner in the New Edition of Warhammer 40,000

Detachment rules determine how your specific army performs, providing special rules and unique traits, as well as unique Stratagems and Enhancements.

Detachments represent a common fighting style for a particular faction

more will emerge as new Codexes arrive and armies expand.

every Detachment must fit onto a single double-page spread

every faction gets an army ability regardless of which Detachment you’re using

no Detachment will contain more than six Stratagems

-a robust universal menu of 12 Core Stratagems

Enhancements replace the old Relics and Warlord Traits, offering a unified list of unique upgrades for each Detachment

there are no Core Enhancements – each one is tied to a specific Detachment for a specific faction, tailored to your roster and abilities

commanders enhance the unit they’re leading

I think there's both positives and negatives to the character rules now and in pre 8th when they joined units but I do feel 8th/9th is a bit clunkier in general. One thing that always bothered me was when I would teleport in my Terminators with a Terminator character and then the unit makes their charge but the character doesn't, just leaving him stuck in the wind for reasons? I just hope that joining units doesn't mean they only effect that unit. If characters can join units to get rid of the clunky targeting rules we have now, but their aura and abilities still remain an area of effect I think we might get the best of both worlds.

xerxeskingofking wrote:

all the rules for a detachment MUST fit onto one double page spread. no detachment will have more than 6 strats,

Yup, right up to whatever point that proves inconvenient for the new thing that needs selling....
(I'm betting around this time next year)

ccs wrote:

xerxeskingofking wrote:

all the rules for a detachment MUST fit onto one double page spread. no detachment will have more than 6 strats,

Yup, right up to whatever point that proves inconvenient for the new thing that needs selling....
(I'm betting around this time next year)

Oh, dont get me wrong, im pretty cynical about it as well, but im at least going to wait for them to get impatient before i moan about it. we've already seen this sort of thing with Armies of Renown basically doing these sorts of sidegrades, so its not beyond their ability, if they just apply some discipline.

Id imagine that many armies might have 6 or 7 detachments, of which 2 get played competitively as they are objectively "better", same as it is now.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I don’t see any reason Sisters of Battle will do better in an edition about removing their special rules.

Spoiler:

1.7 to 1.1 using the base profile without knowing what army special rules they have, detachment abilities or the critical wound they reference which could be some kind of mortal wound mechanic versus infantry. These are modest changes to damage. So overall you’re in pretty much the same place. There’s probably still many special rules and strategies that give you minus 1 AP or auto wound etc etc

Plus every single edition damage inflates as the game progresses. So, once Marine Dex drops will be better because people will complain that they can’t table an opponent in 2 turns and that means their models aren’t doing anything. Were already starting in a similar place anyway.

They’ve never got the points system right. This is because they want armies to be roughly the same size. They don’t want marine armies being too small and they don’t want a balanced Guard army with tanks to be 200 models.

They don’t factor in that armour is a degrading profile whilst wounds and toughness aren’t. So an army built around having low wound, toughness and relying on armour disproportionally has a bad time of it and has to be used as a glass hammer. But because ohhh it’s power armour you’re ignoring 2/3 of damage it must be amazing that means Sister have to be over priced. Ohh bolters were great at killing light infantry when AP5 was a thing ten years ago but they’re still great at that anyway so let’s not factor that in.

Like they’re very close to making Orks 2 wounds as well as T5. That makes it likely they will boost tyranids up to compensate. So you have to boost Tau guns. Ah but we can’t really change Sisters because bolters are bolters and power armour is so good at mitigating damage. Those are premium items.

Again, it should be a trade out between taking those Repentia and Xephrim because one has armour and the other does not. In practice the armour is meaningless because damage is so high. So of course you end up taking low armour high damage units because if you take a hit you die anyway. That’s not how the army should function but it’s how the rules have been written.

An edition about removing special rules is really about removing mechanics to make Sisters units viable against T5 Orks, 2W marines and make up for them having Guard profiles. Just base stats won’t cut it if you don’t change the AP system to distinguish between cutting through flak armour and chipping away at Terminator armour. Only the worst guns in the game shouldn’t be able to cut through a 5 plus save but only the best guns should be able to reduce Terminator armour by 1 point.

The reason is simple: Everything in the spoiler tag is blind speculation pulled mostly out of your own hind end.

I can do the same in the opposite direction:

Sisters are going to be beyond OP in this edition because their relative durability and damage output has been creeping steadily up for two editions now. Clearly they intend to keep Shield of Faith and are obviously going to expand it as an army wide 2++.

Additionally, Sisters units have been receiving increased damage output via stratagems and datasheet upgrades. Obviously repentia are going to be insane with Move 26" and 37 attacks per model, Anti-Everything 2+, Lethal hits, Sustained hits 8+, and AP-5 D11, but battle sisters going to T11 while also all being allowed to take a Thunderhammer and a Multimelta on each model for a total of 11ppm, a model that is ALSO OC Infinite, is going to be severely gamebreaking.

(Also, unrelated to anything else, if you look at those profiles and thought the advantage Zephyrim had was armor rather than speed, that's where a lot of your problems are.)

I wouldn't like chars joining units again, even if that Tyranid detachment practically says they do.

The issue was the possibility for characters to face tank hits for the rest of the squad, so you took cheap and hard chars and used them to protect dev squads and the like... which was dumb, why would you target the guy in front!!!

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The leading character hint is probably just them returning to pre-8th ed embedded characters.

Which is great, because the 8th and 9th ed characters were stupid and clunky as hell.

Absolutely not. Characters attached to units was one of the single worst aspects of 3rd-7th since all other did was encourage death stars moreso than 8th worst "death stars". On top of that, it's characters forgetting they're leading an army, not just that one single squad.

Yeah, because it was so much better for characters to stand out in the open and no one was allowed to shoot them because that grot that was slightly closer was a much more pressing target. That 8th ed rule was dumb.

In 9th ed they sort of fixed it by making it so that the character must be within 3", but by that point he might as well join the unit and it was still clunky because they had to specify that the character had to be the closest model to be targeted.

That could literally be fixed with a size stat to determine what blocks what.

Also your point on 9th's fix is terribly ironic as, if a character did not "join" the unit in 3rd-7th you could just shoot at it. Do you not understand why that's silly?

Spoletta wrote:
I wouldn't like chars joining units again, even if that Tyranid detachment practically says they do.

The issue was the possibility for characters to face tank hits for the rest of the squad, so you took cheap and hard chars and used them to protect dev squads and the like... which was dumb, why would you target the guy in front!!!

The same could be said of all RPGs
But yeah, that was silly. If he were big bloke sure, he can probably stop all of the bullets. But a normal sized guy? Is everyone just standing behind him in single file line?
6th ed really messed up the wound allocation rules, really. I remember them being pretty silly and convoluted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The leading character hint is probably just them returning to pre-8th ed embedded characters.

Which is great, because the 8th and 9th ed characters were stupid and clunky as hell.

Absolutely not. Characters attached to units was one of the single worst aspects of 3rd-7th since all other did was encourage death stars moreso than 8th worst "death stars". On top of that, it's characters forgetting they're leading an army, not just that one single squad.

Yeah, because it was so much better for characters to stand out in the open and no one was allowed to shoot them because that grot that was slightly closer was a much more pressing target. That 8th ed rule was dumb.

In 9th ed they sort of fixed it by making it so that the character must be within 3", but by that point he might as well join the unit and it was still clunky because they had to specify that the character had to be the closest model to be targeted.

That could literally be fixed with a size stat to determine what blocks what.

Also your point on 9th's fix is terribly ironic as, if a character did not "join" the unit in 3rd-7th you could just shoot at it. Do you not understand why that's silly?

No, why would be it silly to be able to shoot an exposed target that's in the open, especially if he's the commanding officer?
If I can shoot a squad of grunts out in the open, I should be able to shoot a commander who's standing in the field of fire. They're both separate units, after all.

If you're going to have proximity target priority rules like what characters had in 8th ed it should apply to everyone, not just characters

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

xerxeskingofking wrote:
... all the rules for a detachment MUST fit onto one double page spread...

Remember when the design process for AoS and 40k got all messed up because those in charge became obsessed with the idea of the core rules having to fit on 8 pages?

It's happening again...

This simplified not simple corporate speak they got going on leads me to think they consider the biggest gripes against previous editions were rules all over the place. I mean that is annoying granted but really?

Spoletta wrote:
I wouldn't like chars joining units again, even if that Tyranid detachment practically says they do.

The issue was the possibility for characters to face tank hits for the rest of the squad, so you took cheap and hard chars and used them to protect dev squads and the like... which was dumb, why would you target the guy in front!!!

That was when instant death was a thing and taking out a multi-wound character when you didn't double out their toughness on top of 'Look Out, Sir!' at the time made it fairly difficult.

Now if you point anti-tank at the unit and they opt to allocate to that character it will slow things down a bit, but they're going to die. It may even wind up a mental game again by putting small arms into the unit trying to bait out a wound onto the character allowing follow up shooting to go straight into them.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
I wouldn't like chars joining units again, even if that Tyranid detachment practically says they do.

The issue was the possibility for characters to face tank hits for the rest of the squad, so you took cheap and hard chars and used them to protect dev squads and the like... which was dumb, why would you target the guy in front!!!

That was when instant death was a thing and taking out a multi-wound character when you didn't double out their toughness on top of 'Look Out, Sir!' at the time made it fairly difficult.

Now if you point anti-tank at the unit and they opt to allocate to that character it will slow things down a bit, but they're going to die. It may even wind up a mental game again by putting small arms into the unit trying to bait out a wound onto the character allowing follow up shooting to go straight into them.

Eh, it depends. I remember Archons being pretty annoying with their 2+ invul saves, and I recall there being a time where rerollable invul saves were a thing.
Sure, there was instant death, but you still have to get through that invul first.

I do not recall it being that much of an issue in 4th ed though.

Dai wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

xerxeskingofking wrote:
... all the rules for a detachment MUST fit onto one double page spread...

Remember when the design process for AoS and 40k got all messed up because those in charge became obsessed with the idea of the core rules having to fit on 8 pages?

It's happening again...

This simplified not simple corporate speak they got going on leads me to think they consider the biggest gripes against previous editions were rules all over the place. I mean that is annoying granted but really?

9th is pretty obscene.

The 'simplified not simple' proved it's veracity with today's article. It looks like many of the mechanics we have in 9th are here to stay, but just codified and restrained.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I do not recall it being that much of an issue in 4th ed though.

Yea I don't think it really came into popularity until 6th / 7th with all the upgrades and spells that could stack.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
The allocation rules will determine how clumsy it will be. Majority toughness is no big deal and if you still need to allocate to the wounded unit then you're taking saves for that model rather than a unit wide average save.

Honestly I don't understand why it created such consternation in the first place.

When it was all the same toughness, you applied wounding hits at 1 per model until everyone had at least one hit on them before looping around. When there were different toughnesses you just did the same, but with hits, then rolled to wound.

Why it became "Every hit piles on the first guy you pick until he dies, then you move onto the next guy!" I will never know.