Pinning per weapon?

[Voltaire]

I'm am not claiming that there is a hidden rule, more so an easily abused set of rules.

Its not a loop hole so much as it is a tool for heavily competitive players to use during tournys.

It seems that the majority of people here would rather it be a singular pinning test instead of multiple due to the simplicity of it.

 

The fact that it says a wound by a pinning weapon, which therefore means that two unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon would cause two pinning tests.

[Legatus]

The fact that it says a wound by a pinning weapon

That's not what it says.

[Grey Mage]

Exactly.

 

The unit can take any number of wounds from an enemy pinning weapon, or salvo of them for that matter. Because it says "take any wounds"

[rat of vengence]

I'm am not claiming that there is a hidden rule, more so an easily abused set of rules.

Its not a loop hole so much as it is a tool for heavily competitive players to use during tournys.

It seems that the majority of people here would rather it be a singular pinning test instead of multiple due to the simplicity of it.

 

The fact that it says a wound by a pinning weapon, which therefore means that two unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon would cause two pinning tests.

No, it is something that would show a competitive player to be a tool. :blink:

 

This is pretty damn clear, I see no hint of a grey area at all. It has nothing to do with what people would rather, and everything to do with what the rules actually say. As several people have clearly explained.

 

RoV

[Ashe Darke]

Ok, having looked at the rules and the previous posts I don't see how this got past Grey Mage's first post. It almost sounds as if the OP has started this thread without actually reading what it says on pg31 as I find it hard to believe anyone who has read it and understood it could then go on to make a thread like this.

[Legatus]

This is pretty damn clear, I see no hint of a grey area at all.

No, unfortunately the issue is not clear at all. What I have been doing in my posts is argue that the way the rule is written would be gramatically correct if the intent was that all pinning wounds form an enemy unit combined would cause one single pinning test.

 

"If a unit other than a vehicle suffers any unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon, it must immediately take a pinning test."

5th ed. BRB, p. 31.

 

It is easy to see why some people would interprete that as "evey pinning weapon that causes wounds forces a pinning test", as the only thing that hints at only one test being taken per unit is the fact that the test is taken "immediately" after the wounds are suffered, since all saves against one enemy unit's fire are taken at the same time, so all pinning wounds would be suffered at exactly the same time, without the opportunity to take one pinning test "immediately" after suffering one pinning wound before going on to resolve the next wound (and then immediately taking another pinning test).

 

But there is a bit of in depth rules combination involved in that interpretation, and it is not immediately discernible from the pinning weapons rule alone.

 

The previous Editions were much more specific than the 5th, but then 3rd and 4th were written mainly by Rick Priestley and Andy Chambers, while 5th was written by Alessio Cavatore. While from 3rd to 4th a lot of rules were reworded to be more precise, for 5th a lot of wording was simply "changed".

 

"When the firing of a single enemy unit inflicts casualties with pinning weapons, the target must take a Leadership test to avoid being pinned down."

4th ed. BBB, p. 32.

[Race Bannon]

Aaaand Legatus wins ... again. :cuss

 

Anything other than this is looking for an advantage that is not there.

[bystrom]

I find the whole thing incredibly suspect for several reasons, including the fact that its most grammatically correct as a one-test-per-salvo, but what really gets my suspicions up is that we heard none of this for almost a year after 5th ed was released, and then where does it come from initially?

 

Tau players [more text]

 

As far as I remember, this came up quite soon to the release of 5th (or rather, quite soon after I bought the BBB). I was unsure then how to interpret the rule and I'm still unsure how to interpret it. As, have been said, the wording has been changed from 4th. This seemed quite unnecessary unless the rule actually changed. On the other hand, it seems 'weird' to have to test several times for multiple snipers in a unit. On the other hand, if you instead had these snipers over several squads, you'd have to take multiple tests. On the other hand... And so it goes on. Hence, I've stuck with the 4th ed. wording and hoped someone sometime could figure out what the rule's saying.

[rat of vengence]

This is pretty damn clear, I see no hint of a grey area at all.

No, unfortunately the issue is not clear at all. What I have been doing in my posts is argue that the way the rule is written would be gramatically correct if the intent was that all pinning wounds form an enemy unit combined would cause one single pinning test.

It seems pretty clear to me.

 

"If a unit other than a vehicle suffers any unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon, it must immediately take a pinning test."

5th ed. BRB, p. 31.

 

It is easy to see why some people would interprete that as "evey pinning weapon that causes wounds forces a pinning test", as the only thing that hints at only one test being taken per unit is the fact that the test is taken "immediately" after the wounds are suffered, since all saves against one enemy unit's fire are taken at the same time, so all pinning wounds would be suffered at exactly the same time, without the opportunity to take one pinning test "immediately" after suffering one pinning wound before going on to resolve the next wound (and then immediately taking another pinning test).

The key words here are 'wounds' (note the plural) and 'a pinning test' (singular). Since the unit firing at them fires all at once, I don't see how 'immediately' would somehow come between things that have happened at the same time.

 

Some might be confused I guess, or be looking for an Easter Egg. At least most of us have come to the same conclusion whatever path we took. :)

 

RoV

[Legatus]

The key words here are 'wounds' (note the plural) and 'a pinning test' (singular).

And the crux is that it is 'a weapon' that inflicts those 'wounds'. There are pinning weapons that are capable of inflicting multiple wounds, such as mortars. If it was 'a wound' people might interprete it so that every wound caused by a single mortar shot would force a pinning test. Since it is 'wounds from a weapon' at least we know for sure that even if the mortar inflicts 3 wounds, it will only force one test.

 

 

Since the unit firing at them fires all at once, I don't see how 'immediately' would somehow come between things that have happened at the same time.

That's how I suggested the rule is to be interpreted, but that interpretation hardly is "pretty clear" after a casual reading of the 'pinning' rules. It is easy for people to assume that for suffering three wounds the unit now immediately has to take three tests.

 

The 4th Edition rules were quite specific. Though what changed since then is that in 4th Edition it was "casualties" that forced a pinning test, while in 5th Edition it is "unsaved wounds". I.e. now if you take one wound off of a multiple wound model it will already force a test, while in 4th Edition it was required that at least one model is removed as a casualty.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

I'm am not claiming that there is a hidden rule, more so an easily abused set of rules.

Its not a loop hole so much as it is a tool for heavily competitive players to use during tournys.

It seems that the majority of people here would rather it be a singular pinning test instead of multiple due to the simplicity of it.

 

The fact that it says a wound by a pinning weapon, which therefore means that two unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon would cause two pinning tests.

 

No chap. You are word-lawyering.

 

It is one test per unit volley.

 

And it says any wounds, not a wound.

[Agrab]

"If a unit other than a vehicle suffers any unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon, it must immediately take a pinning test."

pg 31

 

Based on this, any non-vehicle unit that suffers unsaved wounds must take the test. As wounds are occurred at once per squad shooting, they only need to take the test once. Now, if you have 3 sniper squads shooting at them, that is a potential 3 tests, no matter how many snipers you have in there.

[Voltaire]

Then why is the previous wording so obviously open to interpretation and lawyering?

[Legatus]

Because writing comprehensive and unmistakable rules is not an easy task.

[Grey Mage]

Because writing comprehensive and unmistakable rules is not an easy task.

Agreed. IIRC last time this came up we had to bring out the sentence diagrams.

[Sparhawk]

Then why is the previous wording so obviously open to interpretation and lawyering?

 

 

I've read through some legal documents before and I have to tell you that in order to make something airtight and ironclad also tends to render it inscrutable. There is a reason that we don't have lawyers right out the rulebooks....please don't respond to this with the 1 or 2 games that actually do have lawyer rule-writers...;)

[Marshal Wilhelm]

Then why is the previous wording so obviously open to interpretation and lawyering?

 

Though I do love GW as a whole, they are not even close to perfect for writing rules. They always have been a bit lax and things only get shown up when people with different views on how the game is to be played (ie competitive instead of beer & pretzels) get their hands on it. They assume that everyone who plays the game has the same GW-tinted lenses on that they do. :geek:

 

Remember "the golden rule" ~ about having fun? I think that illustrates their mentality of "relaxedness" to rules. If they were slick with rules, they would not need to put in that proviso. :)

 

Privateer Press sent out Mk2 of Warmachine to the whole player group to get feedback on balance and rules queries. That is not important to GW.

 

Unfortunately people have to rely on a concensus from those who have played the hobby over a few editions, to get the gist of what GW meant.

 

I am sorry about that but that is how it seems to work at the moment :lol:

[thade]

As the grammar angle seems addressed but isn't satisfying, and others have well-addressed the sense-angle and that's not satisfying either, I thought I'd take another approach: game design.

 

GW designed it's rules to reduce - not increase - the number of necessary dice rolls. They in fact mention this once or twice in the rulebook. This makes sense. It speeds up game play and reduces potential for confusion. (irony)

 

Rolling pairs of dice can't really be done in large clumps (as you can with armor saves, hit rolls, wound rolls, etc), so why would they break their own stream-lined design by forcing you to potentially roll multiple dice-pair tests? Three units of ten snipers causing three Pinning checks to a target is one thing; three units of ten snipers causing THIRTY Pinning checks to a target (or across multiple targets, say three full squads of Ork boyz) is *ridiculous*. And it's not that uncommon of a thing to have a bunch of pinning weapons in a unit (if not SM, consider Tau who love to load up Fire Warrior squads with those Pinning rifles) or across multiple units (if your other option is Kroot, you'll probably take more Fire Warriors, and may as well kit them out to Pin so they don't die in assaults constantly). Do you really want to stand there and make that many checks? No, probably not. And during testing, GW's people came to the same conclusion...hence, the rule is worded as it is.

[HiveFleetEzekial]

You're jumping to conclusions there Thade, assuming that absolutely every shot is not only going to hit, but also wound, and the armor save is failed. That's alot that needs to be taken into account. What's the avereage BS of the most prominent snipers? What's the average Sv of the most likely to run into them? What's the LD of the most common units in the game? Tha's an awful lot of 'stuff' that needs to happen, and be just right, in order for this particular take on pinning to be truely effective. Most things, have the armor and LD to shrug off most pinning wounds and checks.

 

Most things that have pinning weapons, either have them in limited quantity as to only affect one unit per turn, or have such a low BS that they 'need' massive ammounts to even start having a chance to actually pin something. And no one says (far as I've seen) that multiple sets of dice would need to be rolled. Just keep track of how many wounds were actually made, then roll that many times. Soon as one is failed, done, ignore the rest. Really, a statistical analysis should be done before 'new pinning' is declared broken or over powered.

 

So.. Let's get some statistics going here. See just how 'bad' it will end up being on average. (keeping in mind the probability of the extreme cases where either all work, or none work)

 

 

And, had the intended for it to still work based on units firing, not weapons firing... they could have just as easily left that part of the wording exactly like it was. That was much much clearer and didn't leave any room for 'per weapon' arguments. But, they chose to change the wording, in several ways. From needing full casulties to just needing wounds, and 'unit with pinning weapons', to 'by a pinning weapon'.

[Marshal Wilhelm]

(various people)

as rule of thumb, the designers do not hide "easter eggs" in the rules. If clever reading is required to unlock some sort of hidden option, then it is most likely the result of wishful thinking.

 

I think you've forgotten your sig, HiveFleetEzekial :D

[Baragash]

And, had the intended for it to still work based on units firing, not weapons firing... they could have just as easily left that part of the wording exactly like it was. That was much much clearer and didn't leave any room for 'per weapon' arguments. But, they chose to change the wording, in several ways. From needing full casulties to just needing wounds, and 'unit with pinning weapons', to 'by a pinning weapon'.

 

On the flip side, in the history of all editions of WHFB and 40k, how many effects have potentially triggered more than one Ld test of the same type?

 

It is substantially more likely that if they intended to change the way Pinning weapons inflicted tests, it would have been spelled out very clearly.

[Legatus]

You're jumping to conclusions there Thade, assuming that absolutely every shot is not only going to hit, but also wound, and the armor save is failed. That's alot that needs to be taken into account. What's the avereage BS of the most prominent snipers? What's the average Sv of the most likely to run into them? What's the LD of the most common units in the game? Tha's an awful lot of 'stuff' that needs to happen, and be just right, in order for this particular take on pinning to be truely effective. Most things, have the armor and LD to shrug off most pinning wounds and checks.

Creating a rule system that may lead to excessive die rolling and then assume that players will usually roll average and it won't be that bad is not really agood way to approach the issue as a game designer.

 

Here are a few situations that can reasonably be expected:

 

12 Tau Firewarriors with Pulse Carbines, firing at an advancing unit of Orks. The Orks have been marked once, which the Firewarrior squad decides to use for +1 BS.

 

12 Shots that hit on 3+ --> 8 hits that wound on 3+ --> 5-6 wounds with AP 5

 

If the Orks still number 8-10 after that they will pass most of the pinning tests.

 

Another:

 

10 Eldar Rangers shooting at a doomed IG veteran squad.

 

10 shots that hit on 3+ --> 6-7 hits that wound on 4+ and can be re-rolled --> about 5 wounds. 4 after saves.

 

 

Space Marine Scouts also still had BS 4 when these rules were inroduced. And those are just the averages. It may happen that they only cause 3 wounds. Or they may cause 7. It may not happen in every game, but the mere fact that it can happen is bad enough.

If a unit was forced by some special rule to re-roll their succesful morale test, that would be a very potent special rule. Here they would instead be asked to occsaionally pass 4+ morale tests in a row, so any doubt about this having been the game designers intention is understandable.

 

 

And, had the intended for it to still work based on units firing, not weapons firing... they could have just as easily left that part of the wording exactly like it was. That was much much clearer and didn't leave any room for 'per weapon' arguments. But, they chose to change the wording, in several ways. From needing full casulties to just needing wounds, and 'unit with pinning weapons', to 'by a pinning weapon'.

The rule was written by a different author than the rule in 3rd and 4th edition was, and it was changed in a few aspects, so it did have to be rewritten. Pinning tests are caused by wounds now, instead of casualties, for example.

[HiveFleetEzekial]

-remove (accidental double post )-

[HiveFleetEzekial]

-remove (accidental double post :) )-

[HiveFleetEzekial]

Creating a rule system that may lead to excessive die rolling and then assume that players will usually roll average and it won't be that bad is not really a good way to approach the issue as a game designer.

 

This is GW we're talking about... ;p

 

 

Here are a few situations that can reasonably be expected:

 

12 Tau Firewarriors with Pulse Carbines, firing at an advancing unit of Orks. The Orks have been marked once, which the Firewarrior squad decides to use for +1 BS.

 

12 Shots that hit on 3+ --> 8 hits that wound on 3+ --> 5-6 wounds with AP 5

 

If the Orks still number 8-10 after that they will pass most of the pinning tests.

 

Another:

 

10 Eldar Rangers shooting at a doomed IG veteran squad.

 

10 shots that hit on 3+ --> 6-7 hits that wound on 4+ and can be re-rolled --> about 5 wounds. 4 after saves.

 

 

Space Marine Scouts also still had BS 4 when these rules were inroduced. And those are just the averages. It may happen that they only cause 3 wounds. Or they may cause 7. It may not happen in every game, but the mere fact that it can happen is bad enough.

If a unit was forced by some special rule to re-roll their succesful morale test, that would be a very potent special rule. Here they would instead be asked to occsaionally pass 4+ morale tests in a row, so any doubt about this having been the game designers intention is understandable.

 

Well there's some statistics. And it's not nearly so horribly overpowered. And, they can still only affect one target per turn. So they either have to switch up units each turn in order to hinder the enemy much, or focus on that one unit, tieing them up for the game as well as (potentially) their target. And with most marine scouts now having a lower BS, it makes them less effective than they used to be. Merely having to actually roll against their BS makes snipers less effective than before.

 

 

 

On the flip side, in the history of all editions of WHFB and 40k, how many effects have potentially triggered more than one Ld test of the same type?

 

So? Precident from previous editions means nothing in this game. How many times have GW gone and drasticly changed the way various things, even the whole rules themselves, from edition to edition...

 

 

It is substantially more likely that if they intended to change the way Pinning weapons inflicted tests, it would have been spelled out very clearly.

 

The rule was written by a different author than the rule in 3rd and 4th edition was, and it was changed in a few aspects, so it did have to be rewritten. Pinning tests are caused by wounds now, instead of casualties, for example.

 

Yes.. I even cited the wounds example, myself. And doesn't matter the possible reasons behind it. A change is a change. Like it or not, 'by a unit' is nolonger in the rule, anywhere. For whatever reasons they may have, (and it's not just a single person that writes any of the rules, it's a joint effort and one person just gets the lead credit for it, be it the BRB or a codex. They also get the blame) the rules were changed, significantly, from the way they used to be worded for almost two editions straight.

 

 

 

(various people)

as rule of thumb, the designers do not hide "easter eggs" in the rules. If clever reading is required to unlock some sort of hidden option, then it is most likely the result of wishful thinking.

 

I think you've forgotten your sig, HiveFleetEzekial :)

 

Ya know.. It's suprising how many times people try to throw my own sig at me. No, I never forget that. And if you've seen any of my other rules arguments, you'd know I don't. I argue the points I do for the sake of clarity, and getting everythng completely hashed out and clear. This is one such situation that is not clear. Som please don't just so blindly assume stuff like that.