Wounding against Leadership...

[danvk]

I am sorry for arriving late to the party, but I definitely agree that this needs to be addressed in a FAQ because the rules are confusing and, on a personal note, I don’t like them. Here are some quoted rules and how I understand them to interact.

 

DE Codex p61:

* When rolling to wound, an orb of despair rolls against its target’s Leadership, not against its Toughness.

 

The Leadership value of the defending unit is used in place of their Toughness value on the To Wound Chart.

 

All of the Leadership-enhancing abilities granted by special characters in the Space Marine Codex (Marneus Calgar’s God of War and Cato Sicarius’ Rites of Battle) apply only to Morale and/or Pinning tests, meaning they are no protection against the Orb of Despair.

 

BRB p26:

If a model suffers an unsaved wound from an attack that has a Strength value of double its Toughness value or greater, it is killed outright ...

 

Since the rules do not specify replacing the word ‘Toughness’ with the word ‘Leadership’, the defending model’s Toughness value is still used for determining Instant Death.

 

 

I have two arguments for how to handle different Leadership values within the same unit.

 

BRB p19:

... roll to wound using the Toughness characteristic that is in the majority in the target unit.

 

Argument 1: Since the rules do not specify replacing the word ‘Toughness’ with the world ‘Leadership’, the attacking player rolls to wound against each model’s Leadership value, meaning the attacking player must roll separately for models with different Leadership values.

 

BRB p8:

If a unit includes models with different Leadership values, always use the one with the highest Ld value.

 

Argument 2: Despite being under the heading LEADERSHIP TESTS, that is a subheading under the heading CHARACTERISTIC TESTS, and rolling to wound is not a characteristic test. The quote, however, unambiguously declares that units with varying Leadership values always use the highest value among the group.

 

Honestly, I have no idea what to do with this one. My gaming group is going to have to make a House Rule.

[Hellios]

Good post danvk :)

[danvk]

Thanks!

 

With any luck I will be able to post a link to a FAQ soon. ^_^