Mental Onslaught question

[Rogue]

Mental Onslaught targets an enemy model. But when it comes to damage, the mortal wound is inflicted on the enemy model's unit (so not necessarily the model itself). If the target model is still alive, the onslaught continues.

 

The obvious thing to do is to remove the targeted model, ending the attack. But what if that model was the only one near enough to hold an objective - could my opponent remove other models first, in the hope that I fail a roll before the squad is wiped out?

 

Alternatively, could I target a specialist within the squad (the sergeant, or a heavy weapon), forcing my opponent to either remove a key model, or take a series of ablative hits on other squad members?

[Arson Fire]

That is indeed how it works.

It gets fun with units of high wound models. Such as talos pain engines, which have 7 wounds each.

You inflict a wound to one model in the unit first, and then hit an unwounded one with mental onslaught.  They are forced to allocate wounds to the wounded model first, meaning you can drop two rather tough models with one casting.

[Rogue]

Thanks. Feels like a potentially destructive power for just a 6 on casting.

[Marshal van Trapp]

I mean you still have to dice off with your opponents leadership but yeah it is very powerful

[Rogue]

Of course, but cult psykers all have pretty good leadership, and there's no chance of wounds rebounding on you (once it's safely cast), so you can just go after big stuff and see how much damage you can do.

[Marshlands]

Pretty sure that mortal wounds to a model dont spill over, only if they hit the unit, its the same issue as the rock drill

[anarchistscourge]

The mortal wounds would spill over if there were excess. The thing with the heavy rock drill is there are never any excess mortal wounds as they are inflicted one at a time and you stop rolling once that model is slain