do you take your saves in sets?

[like the lion]

in the rule book it states that when a squad is wounded by shooting you must allocate wounds to the models and then save. so say you have 5 guys and 15 saves. each guy then takes 3 saves, so if you fail 2 saves on one guy you only lose one model instead of two.

 

i have never ever played this way, does anyone play this way? i just roll for all my saves and then remove models as necessary.

[thade]

in the rule book it states that when a squad is wounded by shooting you must allocate wounds to the models and then save. so say you have 5 guys and 15 saves. each guy then takes 3 saves, so if you fail 2 saves on one guy you only lose one model instead of two.

 

i have never ever played this way, does anyone play this way? i just roll for all my saves and then remove models as necessary.

Nope, because this isn't how it works. :P Re-read that wound allocation section. Had you posted this on the OR board, Frosty would post his short-cut for you.

 

You roll saves in batches, meaning that if you have two identical marines to which you've allocated three wounds, and you fail two of those saves, you lose both marines. You don't allocate wounds to models but to groups.

 

EDIT: As a matter of fact, consider this my formal request for a mod to bump this to the OR board where it can get proper treatment. <3

[like the lion]

i have never played like that. i can see that saving more models.

 

so if you have two identical marines and 3 wound allocated to each and you fail 3 you only remove two models right?

[thade]

i have never played like that. i can see that saving more models.

 

so if you have two identical marines and 3 wound allocated to each and you fail 3 you only remove two models right?

If I'm reading that correctly, then yes, you are correct.

 

Concrete example time:

 

Five marines: serg w/ Power Fist, two marines with plasma guns, two marines with boltguns.

 

Opponent successfully delivers six normal wounds and two AP2 (he also has plasma) wounds to my unit. Uh oh.

 

I have to allocate evenly, so:

One normal wound to serg.

One normal wound to each plasma gun guy.

One AP2 wound to each boltgun marine.

 

Now everybody has at least one wound, so I can double up on wounds. I put two of them on the boltgun marines and the last one on the plasma guns...I really want to save that PF if I can.

 

The boltgun marines can't save the AP2 wounds and there are two of them...so I lose both of those models as casualties; no need to roll those three other saves as they're already dying...but the good news is, those wounds go to the void.

 

The plasma marines have three saves to take so I roll...and fail all three of those saves. Three wounds suffered to that group, but only two wounds (two 1w marines) to be lost. I lose them both, the third unsaved wound going to the void.

 

Now I have one save to take for the PF...and well, I roll a one. Typical. He's gone too.

 

See what I did there? (Other than lose my entire squad.)

[JamesI]

Its one of the odd things in 5th edition, that sometimes its better to cause fewer wounds.

 

Case in point.

 

A few weeks ago, I faced Demonettes. They got as many rending hits on me as I had models. But, they also got quite a few non-rending hits. So one subset of my unit (assault marines with no upgrades) could eat all the rending hits, while the non-rending were shrugged off by the upgraded guys (sergeant, meltagunners).

[thade]

Its one of the odd things in 5th edition, that sometimes its better to cause fewer wounds.

Or exclusively cause the nastier brand of wounds, such as a command squad that only has plasma guns to shoot at you with.

 

But, yes. It's true.

[Droma]

Thade gave a good example on how wounds are allocated. It takes a few games to really figure out for some people but it's not that complicated for most units. It only really starts getting complicated when you have units of multi-wound models(nobs/gk paladins/tyranid warriors) all modeled with different wargear.

 

Example 1: I have 2 ork nobs both with the exact same wargear (shoota/choppa). Turn one a single bolter is fired at them and they fail their save. So one of them is now down to 1 wound while the other still has 2. Next turn that same bolter fires a shot and the nob fails his save so the nob that was already down 1 wound gets removed as a casualty his buddy still has 2 woulds though.

 

Example 2: Now the two nobs have different wargear(I gave one of them a boss pole). Turn one a single bolter is fired at them and they fail their save. So one of them is now down to 1 wound while the other still has 2. Next turn that same bolter fires a shot and manages to wound, but because they have different wargear I get to roll that save on the nob that still had 2 wounds. He fails and now my nob unit still has both nobs except each has 1 wound. Then next turn they charge into combat and oh boy is that marine annoyed about wound allocation.

[breng77]

The strange thing about wound allocation is that it often causes less models to die than rolling all saves and removing models for each failed save, but it means that it is more likely that special weapon models will die..

[Droma]

It was designed so you couldn't "hide the power fist". It works just fine except when it comes to units of multi-wound models all equipped differently, any other time it generally does what it's supposed to.

[breng77]

It works fine short of 2 cases

1.) Multi-wound models

2.) When you have a few armor ignoring wounds, and a bunch of regular wounds

[Isiah]

No need to bump this to the OR section as it isn't contentious and has been answered. So let's all pretend we've got DA models in our examples and we'll be fine to stay here -_-

[Droma]

It works fine short of 2 cases

1.) Multi-wound models

2.) When you have a few armor ignoring wounds, and a bunch of regular wounds

 

To be fair with #2 the same thing happened under the old rules, that sarge wasn't being taken out with power weapon wounds if there were bodies infront of him to soak hits. That's the reason it was called a hidden fist in the first place. Now at least you don't need to do enough wounds to wipe the squad to have a chance of taking out the fist.

[like the lion]

so should this be done per vehicle/unit shooting at my termies? does this also apply to close combat?

[JamesI]

so should this be done per vehicle/unit shooting at my termies? does this also apply to close combat?

In shooting you do this per unit that shoots you. In combat you do it per initiative value, no matter how many units.

[Droma]

It applies whenever wounds are done to you in either the shooting or assault phases generally. It doesn't apply to dangerous terrain tests, vehicle explosions, or gets hot rolls.

[breng77]

To be fair with #2 the same thing happened under the old rules, that sarge wasn't being taken out with power weapon wounds if there were bodies infront of him to soak hits. That's the reason it was called a hidden fist in the first place. Now at least you don't need to do enough wounds to wipe the squad to have a chance of taking out the fist.

 

the difference is not sometimes 2 Power weapon wounds only kill one model, where they used to at least kill 2 models.

[Droma]

That's true but you have to admit there were more than enough situations where that didn't matter. You weren't getting rid of that fist/special weapon unless you did enough to wipe the whole squad. So yeah the new rules make for weird things to happen the old rules were just as bad and imo(and the devs) worse. It's just not (I hate to use this word) realistic that the guy with the special weapon always is the last alive.

 

Either way the question has been answered so I hope the OP has good games from now on.

[breng77]

Oh I agree that the old rules had their own issues, though having the special weapon live to the end could be "realistic" because if the guy next to me had a better gun and he died, I'm taking his gun (assuming the gun still functions.) Now for weapons like power fists that are wired into the armor it makes less "realistic" sense, and I am fine with the wound allocation rules, the biggest issue I have is that people forget to allocate.

[Bryan Blaire]

I think the biggest issue is that people don't allocate correctly or know how and you can end up having a game fold because they read/interpret the rules differently than you have and want to argue about it. Personally, I just go with it until the game seems substatially one sided and there is nothing I can do before I start talking about how the wounds are being allocated.

[Grey Mage]

I think the biggest issue is that people don't allocate correctly or know how and you can end up having a game fold because they read/interpret the rules differently than you have and want to argue about it. Personally, I just go with it until the game seems substatially one sided and there is nothing I can do before I start talking about how the wounds are being allocated.

I dont get that. I can see someone being confused- as the OP was- but I cant see any other way of interpreting wound allocation in 5th edition. For GW, thats actually something to be proud of.

 

I find the largest problem is people just not bothering to allocate at all, and then when its brought up they go 'oh' and remove the special models... and feel cheated. Or they dont allocated to their advantage, and end up removing useful things when they had a chance of living- wich happens often when something like James1's large daemonette squad come up for example. Thats a player skill issue, not a rules problem.

[Brother Kovash]

The only real problem I've seen is watching people not allocate their wounds properly to save their more important models, or splitting the wounds up properly to make sure more models survive. For example, whenever my DW squad with Belial gets shot at, I almost always allocate at least 1 wound to my HQ. That way, the entire group stands a chance of making it across the battlefield together when they are getting shot at as they run across the field.

[kizzap88]

The only real problem I've seen is watching people not allocate their wounds properly to save their more important models, or splitting the wounds up properly to make sure more models survive. For example, whenever my DW squad with Belial gets shot at, I almost always allocate at least 1 wound to my HQ. That way, the entire group stands a chance of making it across the battlefield together when they are getting shot at as they run across the field.

 

I think that is the point of this topic, that wounds should all be allocated after all the shooting is completed, and all models should ideally be receiving equally the wounds caused by that squad. I think the ambiguity is caused by people trying to stack non-savable wounds onto one model, where there are a number of different models in the squad that have the same wound characteristics. Which of course is not allowed via the rules. This system of wound allocation is only allowed where there are a number of models with differing wargear (think fully geared out Nobz).

 

Say a squad of 5 marines, including a sarg (1+4) all just with bolters, and the sarg with something special, takes 2 unsavable wounds, and 4 savable wounds. Now the options that you have are either give the sarg the two unsavable wounds, and give the other 4 wounds to the other guys to try save, which will result in a definative loss of the sarg, + whatever models don't pass their saves. The second option is to put the two unsavable wounds on the squad, then divy out the remaining wounds to both the sarg and the squad, resulting in one savable wound on the sarg and the other 3 savable wounds left in the squad, resulting in a definate loss of 2 plebs, +the sarg if it fails the save and the other squad members up to the number of failed saves.

 

Where I am a little confused with the rules, probably because I haven't played an actual match in AGES is when the saves for wounds taken from shooting are taken. Am I correct in saying that if a squad shoots at a squad, all the wounds are taken, before the next squad shoots, which is then able to shoot at the remaining models in that squad?

 

-kizzap

[Cactus]

Where I am a little confused with the rules, probably because I haven't played an actual match in AGES is when the saves for wounds taken from shooting are taken. Am I correct in saying that if a squad shoots at a squad, all the wounds are taken, before the next squad shoots, which is then able to shoot at the remaining models in that squad?

 

Yes. If enemy squad A shoots at your tactical squad all of the models in squad A roll to hit and to wound, then you allocate wounds, take your saves and remove casualties. Enemy squad B can now shoot at your tactical squad and the process is repeated.

 

The part I most often see done incorrectly (and I'm guilty of doing this in the heat of battle) is removing some casualties before all of the enemy squad have fired. Having different coloured dice so you can roll attacks from different weapons at the same time really helps.

[Brother Kovash]

I think that is the point of this topic, that wounds should all be allocated after all the shooting is completed, and all models should ideally be receiving equally the wounds caused by that squad. I think the ambiguity is caused by people trying to stack non-savable wounds onto one model, where there are a number of different models in the squad that have the same wound characteristics. Which of course is not allowed via the rules. This system of wound allocation is only allowed where there are a number of models with differing wargear (think fully geared out Nobz).

 

Yes, it gets tricky at times. When I played my orks more people hated my Nobz group, because I had almost every guy equipped differently. Add in heavy armor and a Big Mek with a force field, and it almost guaranteed every model I had was going to survive, since each has 2 wounds.

 

 

When playing a game there is no shame in going back to the rulebook and rereading the section on wounds. It took my friends and I a few games before we got used to it, but don't let people ever rush you into rolling dice before you have worked things out properly.