Wound allocation

[Brother Theophantus]

Hi guys, quick question that came up in a game the other night. A DC squad of mine with 7 men and Lemartes was charged by lightning claw termies and took 14 wounds. I put one each on the 7 DC and Lemmy then the other 6 on the DC. Is that right or should Lemmy have taken the extra 6 wounds as the lightning claw attacks would have killed the DC outright. Also in case folk don't know Lemmy is an upgrade character not an IC and has an invulnerable save and more than one wound.

[JamesI]

You played it right.

 

You only have to put one on Lemartes. After each model is assigned a wound, you start wrapping around until each is assigned 2 or you run out. He would have needed to cause 2 more wounds to force a second on Lemartes.

[nurglez]

You assign wounds at the initiative steps. so yes it is perfectly legal to put 2 or more on each (even if 1 is enough to kill them).

 

The only thing you have to do, is make sure everyone in the squad receives 1 wound each before putting the second wound on anyone.

[Leonaides]

they dont die till after wounds have been allocated and saves failed. Power weapons mean they will fail those saves, effectively, but they're still not dead till after the wounds are dished out. You got it right.

[Frosty the Pyro]

Give me a sec, need to find the order of operations

 

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.

 

 

Long story short, you did fine

[Isiah]

Give me a sec, need to find the order of operations

 

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.

 

 

Long story short, you did fine

 

:P :lol: well done Frosty – I was wondering if 'Frosty's Wound Allocation Order of Operations' would turn up.

[Brother Theophantus]

Thanks for the replies guys. Was a pretty major talking point in the game especially as the then even madder Lemmy went on to flat out murder around 700 points of my opponents army.

[BearersOfSalvation]

Not only did you do it right, but that's far from the weirdest wound allocation. Say you have a 10-man marine squad with a sergeant with powerfist, melta gun, and multi melta attacked by SOBs. They hit you with flamers using that faith thing, so you take 10 rending wounds from flamers and 4 regular wounds from bolters. You'd think this wound wipe you out completely, but if you allocate one normal wound to each special guy, and then all of the rending wounds to the bolter marines (4 of them are taking 2 hits), then each of your 3 special guys only has to make a single armor save to live. The sisters would actually have done better to not fire bolters at all!

[Morollan]

Not only did you do it right, but that's far from the weirdest wound allocation. Say you have a 10-man marine squad with a sergeant with powerfist, melta gun, and multi melta attacked by SOBs. They hit you with flamers using that faith thing, so you take 10 rending wounds from flamers and 4 regular wounds from bolters. You'd think this wound wipe you out completely, but if you allocate one normal wound to each special guy, and then all of the rending wounds to the bolter marines (4 of them are taking 2 hits), then each of your 3 special guys only has to make a single armor save to live. The sisters would actually have done better to not fire bolters at all!

 

And this ^ is why wound allocation is probably the single wierdest part of 5th edition.

[Tanhausen]

The sisters would actually have done better to not fire bolters at all!

 

That is a common situation... that is one of the flaws of this edition.

 

Wound allocation was intended just the other way around, just so the PF and so on couldn't hide in the unit... boy did they screw that one up.

 

BTW, congrats on standing up and defending the wound allocation you knew was right <_<

[Frosty the Pyro]

The sisters would actually have done better to not fire bolters at all!

 

That is a common situation... that is one of the flaws of this edition.

 

Wound allocation was intended just the other way around, just so the PF and so on couldn't hide in the unit... boy did they screw that one up.

 

BTW, congrats on standing up and defending the wound allocation you knew was right <_<

 

 

Well dispite its oddities, I prefer the current allocation system to last editions 10 wound power fists, and 20some wound power claws. Now if only we went back to last editions no retreat.

[Morollan]

I never played 4th edition. What were the main differences in wound allocation?

[Tanhausen]

I'm not complaining: the rules are what they are... I play by them and live happily ever-after <_<

 

But still I don't like the fact that its better to shoot fewer amount and better quality if the target is low on bodies (says 5-6) than putting pressure with numbers.

 

If for example I score 4 ML wounds, those 4 guys are usually dead (unless they are an uber CC unit with a 2+).

 

If I shoot the same 4 ML and and say score 30 bolter hits... those 4 "kills" are going to end up stacked on some sucker...

[Frosty the Pyro]

I never played 4th edition. What were the main differences in wound allocation?

 

 

in 4th ed, enemy rolled to wound, and then you rolled all your armor saves together, removing a wound of your choice for each fail. Thus it was always your choice who to remove, and as such anyone with a special weapon was almost asuridly removed last. Thus as long as there was another person alive, your power fist could never die.

[Morollan]

I never played 4th edition. What were the main differences in wound allocation?

 

 

in 4th ed, enemy rolled to wound, and then you rolled all your armor saves together, removing a wound of your choice for each fail. Thus it was always your choice who to remove, and as such anyone with a special weapon was almost asuridly removed last. Thus as long as there was another person alive, your power fist could never die.

 

Hmmm. Whilst I can see the drawback to that, it does seem to be a lot simpler than the current system and certainly quicker, with fewer ":)?!" moments as wounds miraculously vanish and models survive when firing fewer shots would have killed them.

[DarkGuard]

Some people prefer the old style due to simplicity and all that, others prefer the current one for being able to single out specials. I'm in the latter boat, I just really enjoy the current 5th Ed model of wound allocation. You need to think more about who's going to take a hit and who won't, whether you risk that special or that heavy, and it makes the game more exciting when you unexpectedly lose your special trooper. And it's not that slow. Once you get the hang of it it's relatively easy and simple to assign the wounds quickly, and then get through them quickly. Of course, there are some extremes of this. I once had a situation where my Sternguard shot 2 heavy flamers, 3 combi-meltas, and 4 hellfire rounds into an Ork Nob Biker unit. Thanks to all the different wounds and model types we actually had to borrow different coloured dice from a nearby table to actually get our heads around the wound allocation. Thankfully that doesn't happen often.

[Abyssel]

Yes but with that said for 4th ED, lets give an example of what I dealt with last night

 

Rhino with 7 PM's 2 plasma rifles in a rhino.

 

4 DA termies. 3 hammernators and a fisty. fisty is 5++ and hammers are 3++

 

you would roll 4 dice getting all 3+, would it then be that the pwr fist would live sense you are using the hammernators invul?

 

or would it be you roll, then compare to the charts. sense you have all 3's, and your hammernators are a 3+ invul they would be fine, but the pwr fist is a 5+ and he would die?

 

EDIT:

 

lets build onto it.

 

Say he had 5 termis, 3 hammer 2 pwr fist.

 

2 plas shots make it through.

 

He rolls his dice not declaring who's taking it, rolls 3's and says "the hammers are ganna take that."

[Frosty the Pyro]

Yes but with that said for 4th ED, lets give an example of what I dealt with last night

 

Rhino with 7 PM's 2 plasma rifles in a rhino.

 

4 DA termies. 3 hammernators and a fisty. fisty is 5++ and hammers are 3++

 

you would roll 4 dice getting all 3+, would it then be that the pwr fist would live sense you are using the hammernators invul?

 

or would it be you roll, then compare to the charts. sense you have all 3's, and your hammernators are a 3+ invul they would be fine, but the pwr fist is a 5+ and he would die?

 

EDIT:

 

lets build onto it.

 

Say he had 5 termis, 3 hammer 2 pwr fist.

 

 

 

2 plas shots make it through.

 

He rolls his dice not declaring who's taking it, rolls 3's and says "the hammers are ganna take that."

 

the rules for mixed saves in 4th were a little obtuse, but in a nutshell it involved taking saves to the majority save value first, and once you had rolled saves equal to the number of majority models you could either continue taking saves on the majority value or start on a diferent value, but loses had to come from the save value rolled on. But they went out of their way to ensure very few units had mixed save values without attached IC (who would almost never be the majority value).

[Leonaides]

Yes but with that said for 4th ED, lets give an example of what I dealt with last night

 

Rhino with 7 PM's 2 plasma rifles in a rhino.

 

4 DA termies. 3 hammernators and a fisty. fisty is 5++ and hammers are 3++

 

you would roll 4 dice getting all 3+, would it then be that the pwr fist would live sense you are using the hammernators invul?

 

or would it be you roll, then compare to the charts. sense you have all 3's, and your hammernators are a 3+ invul they would be fine, but the pwr fist is a 5+ and he would die?

 

EDIT:

 

lets build onto it.

 

Say he had 5 termis, 3 hammer 2 pwr fist.

 

2 plas shots make it through.

 

He rolls his dice not declaring who's taking it, rolls 3's and says "the hammers are ganna take that."

 

Sorry, are you now asking about this under 4th or 5th ed rules?

 

Under 5th ed, and for the first example - the opponent should have specified that 1 of those wounds was on the PF termie, so yes, he would be dead.

Under 5th ed, for the second example - make him roll again, and specify who each dice is for before rolling (and thus what he needs to roll to pass) if he didnt specify, then he didnt allocate, and thats a written rule.

[DarkGuard]

Yes, your opponent should have declared who was taking what, so I think you're more than entitled to ask him to re-roll them, clarifying who is taking what.

 

And Frosty, I had completely forgotten about Mixed Armour, had to deal with it at times due to my old Black Templars. Horrible system that was always confusing, I vote we keep 5th Ed Wound Allocation so we don't have to go back to Mixed Armour :D.

[BearersOfSalvation]

Well, you could get rid of normal shots protecting models from special shots by adding a little more to wound allocation. Something like 'if a squad takes more wounds that ignore armor than there are models in the squad, at least one of those wounds must be allocated to each model' and the same thing for instant-death hits. I suspect wound allocation will change whenever there's a new edition.

[dswanick]

Well, you could get rid of normal shots protecting models from special shots by adding a little more to wound allocation. Something like 'if a squad takes more wounds that ignore armor than there are models in the squad, at least one of those wounds must be allocated to each model' and the same thing for instant-death hits. I suspect wound allocation will change whenever there's a new edition.

My local group already does something similar. We house-ruled that all wounds must be grouped and allocated by Insta-death/Ignores armor saves/AP value. That way all the AP 2 plasma hits can't be stacked on a single model while distributing all the AP 5 bolter shots. Nor can multi-wound units play wound allocation games with a few insta-death hits.

[thade]

Give me a sec, need to find the order of operations

 

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.

 

 

Long story short, you did fine

 

:D -_- well done Frosty – I was wondering if 'Frosty's Wound Allocation Order of Operations' would turn up.

 

You know, I'd suggest stickying Frosty's Wound Alloc Order of Op...but I do enjoy the baited=breath-wait for his epic post every time. ;)

[timmytool]

I quite like the way 5th ed works... even the multi insta-kill on one guy makes sense.

 

In most military units sq scouts are used to protect the bulk of the sq. Also would you grab a dead guys breastplate/body-mass/etc and use it as a storm shield if you were under heavy fire, I would. The shooting phase is not a times one shot sniper round it is shoots over time aimed at a sq they don't have the opportunity to target every shot to maximum effect, and the defending sq can limit the available targets to minimize causalities. It also can be seen as smaller squads are more elite or better trained "together" to handle situations.

 

That and I run a Deathwing army so I need/prefer to use it. But saying that my guys would have trained/experienced situations were they would have to use their dead sq members to there best advantage, and the strength to lift that tank hide to intercept that big loud rocket coming there way. Even the dying guy using the last of his strength to draw fire to save is sq mates.

 

Without the in-depth look at it it sounds like a bending of the rules but it does make sense in fluff. When a sq is hit with overwhelming fire power it acts differently then to a situation were heavy weapons take well organized shots.

[Valkyrion]

So, today my 5 SGV, one with a Power Fist, take 10 hits. I allocate 1 hit to each model once and then again until all hits have been allocated. I make my saves, 8 for the 4 SGV and 2 for the one with a power fist. Correct?

 

Four years ago, I rolled 10 armour saves and removed who I liked. Also correct?