Wound Allocation

[pueriexdeus]

Recently I have been reading posts in B&C regarding wound allocation and the kit/equipment models in a squad have.

 

Lightning Claw > power weapon all day, every day.

 

BUT ... I equip mine with a PFist grudgingly. Only because the Codex suggests the Sergeants have a close combat weapon. My preference is not to equip them to prevent having to allocate a wound on the Sergeant just because his is equipped differently.

Since when did forced allocation happen?

 

Someone please enlighten me. Have just finished reading the BBB pg 25. I know that if there are more wounds than models all models will end up taking one or more wounds. I know it there are different models in a Sqd, PW, PG, PC, if they are allocated a wound said wound needs to be rolled separately from other models, got it.

 

But lets say the Sqd only takes five wounds, I can allocate those wounds anywhere I want, cant find anywhere in the BBB that says different troops in a unit have to take wounds. So I'm going to put all five on five Basic Bolter troops.

 

So whats up with this new liberal interpretation on wound allotment.

[Zynk Kaladin]

I always thought you could pick which models take wounds unless otherwise stated. That's why a pf sergeant in a tac squad is so effective, he essentially has 10 wounds in cc.

[Spacefrisian]

If you are searching for forced wound allocation you might be searching for a very long time. It aint their.

 

Their are a few units who are capable of picking out the sergeant but these are rare. Those are the Assassin with Sniper, Jaws of teh World Wolf and the Talos Wildfire as far as i know.

[Rayray]

The deal is, if you have 5 wounds to allocate in a 10 man unit, then yes, pick what you want. As soon as you have overflow into models with different gear of any type, be it cc weapon sarg or anything else, then you have to roll that model's wounds allocated to it seperate. Don't mean to reiterate if i didn't understand whats been said already. equipping a sarg that comes stock different from the unit will essentially make no difference from the fact that he will still be taking wounds seperate.

[thade]

Allocation works like this, brothers:

 

You allocate wounds evenly over the unit.

 

You then take saves based on like-groups in the unit.

 

Let's consider this example: A tactical squad with one sergeant (no upgrades) and four marines (no upgrades). The unit takes ten wounds which now have to be saved (armor saves have not yet been taken). We allocate evenly over the unit, each model is taking two wounds. Now to roll the saves.

 

First, we roll for the sergeant, SEPERATELY because he has his own stat line. Two saves for him. We fail even one, he is removed as a casualty.

Next, we roll for the tac marines, ALTOGETHER because they share a stat line and have the same upgrades (none, in this case). We roll eight saves, and for each one we fail, we remove a whole model (a marine).

 

This is important as rolling saves per model instead of per group is hugely to your advantage and is also against the BRB. The BRB, by the way, has some very good illustrations in it regarding wound allocation. Let's do another, more complex example.

 

This unit has one sergeant with a PF, a marine with a flamer, and three marines with no upgrades. Again, it takes ten wounds, two fo which come from a power weapon (no armor save).

 

Now, we don't want to lose the PF or the flamer, but we still have to allocate evenly. Note that you may allocate wounds in whatever order you wish within a given initiative pass. (Since a power weapon is involved here, we'll say this is happening during I4, but for the purposes of this example it doesn't really matter.) We have 2 PW wounds and 8 savable wounds. Allow me to be pedantic here and list out the exact order in which I allocate these wounds:

 

Serg (PF) takes a savable wound.

Flamer takes a savable wound.

Marines each take one, including one PW wound. (That's five allocated, five to go.)

Serg (PF) takes a savable wound.

Flamer takes a savable wound.

Marines each take one, including the last PW wound. (That's all of them allocated.)

 

Now to roll saves. I roll for the serg first, two saves. If I fail even one, he's gone. Next I roll for the flamer. Again, failing just one of his two saves = he's gone. Finally I remove two Marines (two whole models) from the three marines group for the PW wounds, then I roll the remaining four saves...if I fail even one, I lose the last marine.

 

This is were people can get confused, because in a unit where each model has different upgrades, you can stack those power weapon wounds on one model and not worry about losing another without an armor save. But, since saves are taken per like-*group* and not per model, I'm losing two marines to those power weapon hits, no matter how I cut it. I could have, if I wished, stacked the two PW wounds on the marine with the flame-thrower. In that case, the flamer would be gone, and I could have rolled saves for all of the vanilla marines.

 

I hope that helps. Again, go read those picture captions in the wound allocation section in the BRB (in the Shooting chapter). They really are good pics. =)

 

EDIT: I did in fact mean four marines, not five for the tac squad; ty Gurth.

[bystrom]

@OP: You've understood it correctly, I don't understand what the person is trying to say in your quote either... Especially since sergeants (usually) have different stats, so would take a wound anyways (if you allocate a wound to him, either by being forced through having more wounds than models, or by choice).

[Zynk Kaladin]

Ok, lemme get this straight. I have a pf sergeant and 9 other marines, but only take 6 wounds. Now do I have to allocate a wound to the serg then 5 other marines or can I put all 6 on the tacticals? I understand what happens over 10 wounds, but I just want to be sure that my serg doesn't kick the bucket too quick.

[Ashe Darke]

You choose how to do it so you generally take it on the normal men. Say you receive 2 melta wounds and 18 bolter wounds on a 10 man squad. There is nothing to stop you putting the two melta wounds on the same guy and then having everyone else take 2 normal saves.

[thade]

You choose how to do it so you generally take it on the normal men. Say you receive 2 melta wounds and 18 bolter wounds on a 10 man squad. There is nothing to stop you putting the two melta wounds on the same guy and then having everyone else take 2 normal saves.

 

This is partially incorrect. Again, if everybody has different load outs, you can take saves per model and do this. If you have ten guys with exactly the same load out (ie ten vanilla bolter marines) and you took two melta hits, you are losing two marines without saves, period. You cannot stack the melta wounds on one of the models and go from there. You must remove FULL models for each failed save. Since two melta hits = two automatically failed saves, you are losing two models.

 

EDIT: In the case where you have a model with a unique upgrade-kit in that unit (in my previous example, a guy with a flamer) you CAN stack both melta wounds on him provided unit-wide wounds are still allocated equally (ie if he has two wounds, no other model can have less than one). But saves are ultimately taken on like-*groups*....not each model.

[Zynk Kaladin]

Ah, ok so I am thinking of it right. Thanks guys.

[Gurth]

A tactical squad with one sergeant (no upgrades) and five marines (no upgrades). The unit takes ten wounds which now have to be saved (armor saves have not yet been taken). We allocate evenly over the unit, each model is taking two wounds.

I think you meant to say a five-man squad, one of whom is a sergeant — or to put it another way, a sergeant and four normal marines. The rest of your example fits in that case, but with the numbers of models you actually mention, the smart move would be to allocate two wounds each to four marines and one each to both the remaining marine and the sergeant :)

[Ashe Darke]

The player must allocate one wound to each model in the target unit before he can allocate a second wound to the same model.

 

Once all models in the target unit have one wound allocated to them, the process is repeated and the player must allocate all models in the target unit before he can allocate a third, and so on, until all wounds from the firing unit have been allocated.

 

Pg 25 Complex units.

 

There is nothing to say it can't be done like that. The example they give is not very good and I think it would have been better off with two melta shots

[thade]

The example in the caption on p25 still works well. Look very closely at it.

 

There are two bolter marines. The single Melta shot is put on one of them. Each of these marines are given two additional bolter wounds. That "spare wound" they're throwing on the bolter marine pair is not to protect one member of this pair...it's to protect the ML marine and the sergeant, both of which have different stat lines/kits. We roll saves in single batches, as the rules say. Again, read the caption very carefully.

 

One marine dies outright to the melta shot and is removed. Then they roll FOUR saves for the remaining bolter marine. Failing even one save, that marine would be removed. He in fact fails three saves, but only has one marine left in that like-group, so he only loses that one.

 

If what you are saying is true, then the last bolter marine would only have to roll two saves and not four. But, rules as they are, he must roll four, as four savable wounds were allocated to him and his now-fallen brother marine.

[Ashe Darke]

Right, gotcha. Cheers Thade : )

[thade]

Cheers. =) This crap be confusing, yo. It takes all of us to figure it out!

[pueriexdeus]

Thanks for the input guys. Clarified several things for me.

[Frosty the Pyro]

probably a bit late but.

 

Frosty's Wound Allocation Order of Operations

 

1. Enemy Rolls to hit

2. Enemy Rolls to wound

3. Apply one wound to each MODEL untill each model has one wound, Then Apply a second, third, and so on untill there are no more wounds to allocate.

4. Seperate wounded models into different identical groups based on wargear and profile (so all marines with just a bolter in one group, ones with a boltpistal/ccw in another, plasmaguns in another, sergents in another and so on)

5. Roll armor saves for each GROUP

6. Within each group aply wounds in such a way to remove the maximum amount of models/wounds posible (for example intant death goes on the ones with the most wounds remaing), extra wounds do NOT carry over into other groups, they are lost.

[Mordekiem]

When the wound allocation rules really start to make a big difference is when you have significantly different models. Say you have a Templar crusader squad with 5 initiates and 5 neophytes. If you take 3 PW wounds and 3 regular wounds you want to put the PW wounds on the neophytes. The regular wounds you may want to put on yoru initiates since they have a better saving throw. This makes a 20 man unit of templar very hard to mow down with AP 2/3 weaponry.

 

Another example is take a space marine commander attached to a 5 man tactical squad. If you get hit with a plasmagun you may want to consider assigning that wound to the commander since he (assuming you equipped him right) gets an invulnerable save. If he makes it the hit goes away. If he fails he takes one wound, but has two more. If you assigned that wound to a marine you would have a dead marine.

 

The examples can go on and on, but wound allocation is an art form. Mastering it can mean the difference between losing a unit and losing one or two marines.

[Wildfire]

Ok, lemme get this straight. I have a pf sergeant and 9 other marines, but only take 6 wounds. Now do I have to allocate a wound to the serg then 5 other marines or can I put all 6 on the tacticals? I understand what happens over 10 wounds, but I just want to be sure that my serg doesn't kick the bucket too quick.

 

You can put all 6 on the bolter marines, in your example.