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Hello, I had a weird situation come up at a recent game and I was surprised by what my opponent did and just want to make sure that it is legit before I do it in a game.

I can think of 2 times it would come up and am curious if the answer is the same for both situations or not. I looked though the books and RAW seems to support him unless I missed something - please support your answers with the rules or a faq or something - it matters in tourney and league play.

First up - if the majority of a unit is in cover it can take a cover save. If it fails the cover saves must the models removed as casualties come from in cover? The rules only talk about armor save.

Second up - same basic question and situation but lets say that a unit has a mix of invulnerable saves and non invulnerable saves (via combat shields for instance) must one remove the models that take the invulnerable saves? Like I said, it seems pretty open and closed that you have to remove the models with the appropriate save, however, the rule book only references armor saves (that I can find) and neither of these is an armor save.

You can take models that are outside of the cover for missed cover saves.

If you you use an invulnerable save, you must take one of the models that use that invulnerable save as a casaulty.

IIRC, the language is subtly different between the rules.

Units who have more than half of their models in cover gain a cover save. Models who have the appropriate wargear gain an invulnerable save (excepting units such as 1Ksons, and wraiths, who all have invulnerable saves).

For cover saves, you can remove casualties from anywhere in a unit. For invulnerable saves where every member of the unit does not have an invulnerable save, you don't have that option.

I just discovered the other day that coherency only matters for casualty removal during assault. There's nothing in the rules for casualty removal from shooting which talks about maintaining coherency.

So from shooting, the casualties truly can come from anywhere in the unit. Not so when removing casualties from close combat....

So here's how it goes:

You use your armor save, majority of course.

If that is negated, you check for a cover save and/or an invulnerable save IF enough models have the cover save OR if you wish to use an invulnerable save amongst any models that also have a majority armor save.

You roll your saves.

As there are no restrictions on coherency EXCEPT that you must move back into coherency in your next movement phase...you can remove any model that is eligible. The old rules about removing models in cover first was 3rd edition, that's gone now.

I'm not quoting you pages as these rules are solely in the BBB and are readily found therein.

The previous folks have the gist of it.

The defending player chooses what save to take- whether it’s armor, cover, or invulnerable. Cover saves are allowed if most (more than half) of the models in the unit are in cover.

Any hits do have to be applied to models within range and line of sight, so if you have one model in the squad with an invulnerable save but he’s not in range or visible to the firer, you can’t take the hit on him.

After range and LOS, mixed armor is the next restriction- if there are multiple different ARMOR SAVES in the unit being shot, hits first have to go on the models with the majority save; invulnerable and cover don’t count for this.

While obeying the above restrictions, the defending player is free to take the hits on whichever models he chooses. If the model he chooses has an invulnerable save, he can use it.

If you use an invulnerable save and the model dies, he’s got to be removed. You can’t use the save then remove someone else.

Cover is different- as it’s applied to the whole unit, you can remove whoever you like, within the restrictions of range, LOS, and mixed armor (if applicable).

In 3rd edition you actually had to take hits on and remove models outside of cover first. But that's gone in 4th.

Strangelooper wrote:I just discovered the other day that coherency only matters for casualty removal during assault. There's nothing in the rules for casualty removal from shooting which talks about maintaining coherency.

So from shooting, the casualties truly can come from anywhere in the unit. Not so when removing casualties from close combat....

As Mannahnin stated, but worth repeating, that's 'casualties truly can come from anywhere in the unit' with Range and LOS permitting.................