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I've seen on the forum there's a lot of rage about challenges... Personally I love them, they're anice way to live cinematic moments and get ICs involved in the fight without making clumsy rules (such as in the 5th ed). It also fix some nonsense (hidden PF tactic among the others).
But as several persons have pointed out, there are some possible "bugs".
The main concern is the possibility of stoppin' a 500 points cc killing machine with the sacrifice of an humble sergeant... The problem is even worse with units such as Guard blobs that can seriously spam minor characters.
Someone thinks that there should be a "wound overflow" and actually this is an hotly debated topic in YMDC. Since I do not think that the overflow is in the spirit of the rule I suggest this home rule:

- The character accepting a challenge (not the one proposing it) can decide to allocate just some of the attacks to the challenger, allocating the rest of the attacks to the unit. However, if the challengee is not able to slay the challenger, the attacks allocated to the rest of the units are lost: The humble sergeant is not so worthless as the mighty opponent expected, and he/she is proving to be worth much more attention.

What do you think?

I don't have a problem with the way they are now and the way we interpreted and play the Challenge rules at my LGS (no carry over, no overflow). You don't want that uber kill em all IC in a challenge don't assault with him alone and/or make sure you have SGT Scrubb available to either accept or issue a challenge so the big Kahuna can hit the unit.

Not really a duel if the challenged is also fighting everyone else...

The point of the rule is to avoid that challenges by humble sergeants can impair the effectiveness of 200+ points cc monsters... actually the inability to operate alone can be a serious impairment to the feasibility of such models, and it's a shame IMHO....

What about if the rule only worked for Monstrous Creatures vs Squad Leaders?
As an example, a Carnifex or Bloodthirster is going to ignore that lowly Sergeant if all he does is shout, unless he actually puts up a fight.
While someone like Skulltaker, or Calgar is going to stop and fight any challenger that stands before him.

Thoughts?

I like the idea, but i disagree.

In fantasy we have had to deal with this exact thing for years and the way around it is not issueing the challenge with the 200pt killing machine and if they issue a challenge accept it with your sarge, this allows your killing maching to do what he is meant to do and kill the enemy unit, you should not be sending the IC in by himself and if you do...thats why you get punished with the challenge rules.

But doesn't this severely damages models which costs an hellish amount of points, making them severely less viable? especially in codices with very few characters able to accept challenges, such as the tyranids?

The moral of that story then is to not fill your army with characters that cost a hellish amount of points. When I build a list I shudder when I hit the 150 point mark with anything other than a unit out of the troops slot in the force org.

Welcome to Fantasy tactics. No longer can you count on Turbo Character to simply smash all he can in one turn. Gotta play your characters smarter now, or have ways to deflect/absorb challenges of your own.

Tis why I love 6th.

I would say that one of the best fixes would be to have any extra wounds dealt count to combat resolution. Watching your Sargent the best melee guy in the squad get reduced to mulch is likely going to hurt moral.

Yeah, some people don't understand that some armies pretty much don't have the options to get cheap characters.
I'm totally on board with MCs not giving to challenges.
I really, really, really fail to see how a single guardsman sergeant can stop a rampaging Carnifex, Avatar or flying Chaos Daemon Prince. That's not cinematic at all. It could be if it happened once in a while ( ), but automatically, every time, in every game, in every squad with a character? Just no.

Carnifexes aren't characters.

His point still stands.
I agree with Macok, something should be in there about Monsterous creatures being able to ignore challenges.
You can't back up a Bloodthirster with a unit, he's not an independent character. But he's still bogged down by challenges in combat, challenges that in all reality, he would ignore.

White Ninja wrote:I would say that one of the best fixes would be to have any extra wounds dealt count to combat resolution. Watching your Sargent the best melee guy in the squad get reduced to mulch is likely going to hurt moral.

yes, that would be better than wound overflow.

We are going to trey it in a Nids Vs Guard game featuring Swarmlord+retinue and large blobs... I will tell you the outcome.