Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi all,

I had a game on monday and something has been bothering me a bit. I was playing pMagnus versus pButcher. I was slowly taking apasrt his army, but thanks to a big misstake on my turn I was fighting a battle against a slightly damaged jugger with not much left to harm it and a butcher with only 5 health gone, 2 shocktroopers and a manhunter versus my 4 croes, magnus, a out of position Kell, saxon and 2 renegades (1 of which was also out of position.) I had already used both obliterators and my feat.

on his final turn he charged past my croes and hit magnus. Because he passed croes he would get a few free strikes. Now the question is, do the free strikes go against his basic armour, or against armour + focus (he had 6 on butcher at the time). I would think armour (giving me a remote chance of hitting and killing him with 3 models). my opponent thought it would be armour + focus, because he had 6 focus on him when the free strike occured. In the end it probably did not really matter as the chance of killimg him with 3 strikes was not that great, but I was curious about it.

Thanx for the answer..

it would be armour plus Focus, but free strikes give you boosted to hit and damage for free remember

Free strikes follow all the normal rules of attacking and damaging, and since the free strikes rules do not explicitly say that you ignore focus on a caster, then you dont Of course there is the bonus to the attack roll and the boosted damage to consider, but your free strikes are against current ARM, which is base ARM + focus + spells (when applicable).

hmm, would that have mattered then...

for croes that would be 2x hitting def 16 (he had a Wardog) with boosted hit, let's say I make the rolls

I then get 4d6 damage (poisoned weapons + boosted for freestrike = roughly 14. 14 + 8 = 22. he was sitting on arm 23 or 24 (don't remember exactly). So no damage. Saxon could also make a shot, but he had nothing for extra damage and so would probably not do anything either...

Ah well...if it was basic armour I might have had a chance, now it was pretty hopeless... :(

This also means that most combat oriented casters can walk out of combat with little to no risk of getting killed (unless on last couple health) Have to see how that works out in a couple games then... pSkarre on feat turn and with 3 or 4 focus of sacrificial lamb would be able to walk with impunity past a lot of troops and light jacks...

LordRavurion wrote:This also means that most combat oriented casters can walk out of combat with little to no risk of getting killed (unless on last couple health) Have to see how that works out in a couple games then... pSkarre on feat turn and with 3 or 4 focus of sacrificial lamb would be able to walk with impunity past a lot of troops and light jacks...

Terminus lives on this fact With a few souls on the feat turn and full focus he can weather quite a few free strikes when he flies over to murderize your warcaster

Keep in mind free strike DO NOT give boosted attack rolls, you get +2 to hit and boosted damage.

But! free-strikes ignore shields !

as you are considered to be hitting them in the back arc.
But this will not give people with the backstab additional stuff :( stupid back strike rules are silly

Yeah the only time you can ignore a caster's focus is if you have Arcane assassin type abilities, Or its a Continuous fire damage roll. Or you have eyriess for some shoopy shooting.