Fast Dice - super basic question

[Brother_Angelus]

My play group are all very casual and fresh to 8th after a long break with other games. We've muddled through a few small games, but some fundamental disagreements with how to apply Fast Dice have come up.

One member of the group insists that Fast Dice means we roll all hits together, roll all wounds together, assign the wounds evenly among the target unit, then roll saves on a per-model basis. From watching a lot of youtube batreps (always reliable for rules, right?), this seems to be wrong.

 

Most seem to roll armour saves first, then apply damage at the discretion of the defending player. Otherwise you end up with lots of floating wounds in multi-wound units (expressly against the rules), and you can lose heavy weapons or sgts at random, where individual dice rolling would allow a defender to apply those to plebs first.

So, help us out, and let me get back into the game with my mates instead of biting my tongue each time we play.

[Panzer]

Rolling all hits together and all wounds together, yes if possible.

Assigning wounds evenly among the target unit? No, that's not a thing in this edition.

Roll saves on a per-model basis? Depends on the wounds and the targeted unit. If it's all the same you can just roll all saves at once.

 

Fast Dice rolling is just an option. Apply if possible, adjust if needed, ignore if not useable.

 

 

The sequence with fast dice rolling in its simplest form would be:

1. Attacker selects weapons to attack with
2. Attacker rolls a dice for each attack to see if it hits
3. Attacker rolls a dice for each successfull hit to see if it wounds
4. Defender rolls a dice for each successfull wound to see if he can save against it (if his unit has a save roll against the attacks at all)
5. Defender decides which models take the damage of the unsaved wounds. Once a model is wounded the Defender has to keep allocating damage to it until it's dead. So usually you'll never see a unit with more than one wounded model in the game

However it becomes more complicated once a unit has different types of weapons.

Let's say a unit of 5 Vanguard Veterans with 2 Powerfists and 3 Poweraxes and assume the Attacker uses differently coloured dice for both types of attacks to identify which weapon hits and wounds etc.

If we go with the above sequence where the Attacker just throws all his units attacks in a bucket and rolls them at the same time, the sequence needs to be extended by a few steps to accommodate the rules of the base sequence found on page 181 in the rulebook:

1. Attacker selects weapons to attack with
2. Attacker rolls a dice for each attack to see if it hits
3. Attacker rolls a dice for each successfull hit to see if it wounds
4. Defender selects a number of successful wounds he wants a model of his choice to make save rolls against. If one of his models is already wounded he has to use that one to make saves rolls with
   1. The Attacker gave the initiative to decide on the order of his attacks away to the Defender by deciding to roll all at the same time
5. The selected model takes damage of the unsaved selected wounds according to their damage stat
6. Repeat Step 6-7 until there are no attacks to resolve left 

 

Or in a concrete example with the same unit attacking a unit of Intercessors:

1. Attacker rolls 7 Powerfist attacks (regular guy + Sergeant) and 9 Power axe attacks all at the same time using Fast Dice rolling. He hits with 3 Powerfist attacks and 6 Power axe attacks.
2. Attacker rolls to wound with 3 Powerfist attacks and 6 Power axe attacks. All Powerfist attacks wound and 4 Power axe attacks wound.
3. Defender has the initiative as stated above.
   1. He decides to resolve a Power axe attack first and attempt the save with a regular Intercessor because he's smart. He fails the armour save.
   2. The regular Intercessor model takes 1 damage so it has 1 wound left.
4. Initiative is still with the Defender.
   1. Defender now decides to resolve a Powerfist attack because he now has to attempt to save it with the already wounded model (rulebook page 181: "Allocate Wound") and because he's smart and knows that no matter how well the Attacker might roll for the Powerfists 1d3 damage stat his unit can't take more than 1 damage this way. Unfortunately for the Attacker he manages to make the save roll on a 6 just barely
5. Initiative is still with the Defender.
   1. Defender decides to take the next Powerfist attack because the situation didn't change. He fails the armour save this time.
   2. The Attacker rolls for damage and rolls an amazing 3 damage, however the model the wound is allocated to has only 1 wound left so it takes only 1 damage and the other 2 damage are wasted (we aren't in AoS where damage spills over after all)
6. This gets repeated until all wounds got allocated.
   1. In the end the Attacker got 2 Powerfist attacks (with 2+ damage each) and 2 Power axe attacks through but did only 4 damage in total, killing 2 regular Intercessors.

Now if the Attacker is smart and decides against Fast Dice rolling (or to do it in batches of Powerfists first and then Power axes afterwards) it would look very differently.

With the same units facing eachother, same amount of hits, wounds and failed saves and rolling average or above damage for the Powerfists, he'd do 6 damage in total, killing 3 regular Intercessors instead because his Powerfists wouldn't potentially waste damage by pounding on already wounded Intercessors.

(Note that batch rolling is better than doing all at once, however if you have bad damage rolls of 1 with your Powerfists among them you'd still be in the same position since the next Powerfist wound would again go to an Intercessor with only 1 wound left so potentially wasting 1-2 damage depending on how well you roll for it)

 

 

Similarly when you shoot with a Plasma unit that has more than 1 shot per model and decide to supercharge. With Fast Dice rolling and you roll two 1s on the hit-roll you don't know if a single model has rolled them (so it would kill only one of your models) or whether it was two models who each rolled a 1 (killing two of your models). That's especially important when using Plasma Inceptors which have an average of 4 shots per model.

 

 

 

tl;dr

Fast Dice rolling is a shortcut that doesn't always work or isn't always smart to use. The sequence you can find in the rulebook on page 181 "Resolve Attacks" is how the rules work and Fast Dice rolling doesn't change that.

[Slasher956]

+1 to what SFPanzer said...

 

if you are going to fast roll (because time at the club) then best to do it by single weapons type at a time...

[Cornishman]

If you want to fast roll everything for speed, and want to adhere to the rules (e.g. resolve 1 weapon group before the next), what about agreeement that you may declare the order in which the attacks will be resolved?

Unless it's possible toughness or some other affect may change during the phase I don't see a problem with this mechanically as the outcome isn't changed. This approach works fine at the club I play at.

e.g.
Here are the dice for the power axes and power fists. The powerfists will be resolved first

Here's a the bucket of dice, the two red ones are the first Plasma gun (on max), the two blue ones are the other plasma gun (also on max), the black one the lascannon, and the white ones are bolters/ storm bolter. They'll be resolved (as in wound allocation and saves) bolter, las, plasma....

[Dr_Ruminahui]

You and the other player can always agree on how you want to play the game.  Such "gentlemen's agreements" are often made where the rules don't make sense (for example, a knight no being able to fight models directly in front of it but on the second floor of a building), or where the rules are cumbersome/inefficient (as the rules under discussion can be).

 

However, if the other player does not agree to play that way, or agrees and then changes his/her mind, you have to do it as the normal rules requires you to do it.

[Brother_Angelus]

Appreciate the input everyone. I understand we can houserule whatever way we like, i'm was just after a firm line on how to allocate wounds and roll their respective saves, if the attacker chooses to fast dice their attacks.

 

I'll just have to do my best to point out there is no provision for spreading wounds equally, and the basic rules state each wound is assigned and a save rolled separately, which is as good as rolling them all and choosing casualties afterwards.

[Slasher956]

Not true....take a unit of craftworld guardians with a weapon platform ..10 x 1 wound t3 Sv 5+ & 1 x 2 wound T5 3+ models...if I was to fast roll them all together I would get a different result compared to allocating and rolling correctly (unless they all died of course)

[Brother_Angelus]

Not true....take a unit of craftworld guardians with a weapon platform ..10 x 1 wound t3 Sv 5+ & 1 x 2 wound T5 3+ models...if I was to fast roll them all together I would get a different result compared to allocating and rolling correctly (unless they all died of course)

What is 'correctly'? That's what i'm trying to get at.

 

It's not really about odd scenarios like mixed T. It's literally, the target unit has 8 identical guys, the attacker has used 'fast dice' to get 12 wounds. Do those wounds get assigned all at the same time, to different models, and saves rolled on a by-model basis, or do you roll the saves and apply damage/remove models afterwards. If you force specific models to roll saves you can lose the heavy weapon, or the sergeant, or whatever with an unlucky roll, while your plebs survive. Is that the intention?

 

The basic rules allow you to roll one save at a time, pointing at pleb 1, roll save, if failed, point at pleb 2 for the next one, if passed, point at pleb 2 again, etc, etc. 

[Panzer]

 

Not true....take a unit of craftworld guardians with a weapon platform ..10 x 1 wound t3 Sv 5+ & 1 x 2 wound T5 3+ models...if I was to fast roll them all together I would get a different result compared to allocating and rolling correctly (unless they all died of course)

What is 'correctly'? That's what i'm trying to get at.

 

It's not really about odd scenarios like mixed T. It's literally, the target unit has 8 identical guys, the attacker has used 'fast dice' to get 12 wounds. Do those wounds get assigned all at the same time, to different models, and saves rolled on a by-model basis, or do you roll the saves and apply damage/remove models afterwards. If you force specific models to roll saves you can lose the heavy weapon, or the sergeant, or whatever with an unlucky roll, while your plebs survive. Is that the intention?

 

The basic rules allow you to roll one save at a time, pointing at pleb 1, roll save, if failed, point at pleb 2 for the next one, if passed, point at pleb 2 again, etc, etc.

 

 

Correctly is what you get when you roll 1 attack at a time.

In your case with 8 identical targets and identical attacks it's really easy to fast dice roll though. Since they are all the same assigning them all at the same time or one after another makes no difference and rolling saves on a model per model basis or for the whole unit makes no difference. Just roll them all at the same time and remove the models you don't want to lose last. That's what you would have done if the attacks were done step by step anyway.

[Brother_Angelus]

Correctly is what you get when you roll 1 attack at a time.

In your case with 8 identical targets and identical attacks it's really easy to fast dice roll though. Since they are all the same assigning them all at the same time or one after another makes no difference and rolling saves on a model per model basis or for the whole unit makes no difference. Just roll them all at the same time and remove the models you don't want to lose last. That's what you would have done if the attacks were done step by step anyway.

Great, that's exactly what I believed it to be. We have a guy really hung up on the 'allocation' of wounds and it's been putting me off playing entirely.

 

Thanks again.

[Panzer]

If he really has such a problem with allocating wounds to the unit instead of allocating it to the models even if the models are all basically the same and the incoming wounds are all the same as well then just let him roll all the hits and wounds at the same time and continue with taking one of the wounds, allocate it to one specific model, roll the save, apply damage if needed, proceed with the next. Rinse and repeat.

It's tedious and will give the same results as just rolling the saves for the whole unit and then removing the models as you please. Do it a few times and eventually he might be convinced that it's the better way to do it. ^^

[Dr_Ruminahui]

There are also times when its better to take saves one at a time - for example to kill the models out of cover first so that the rest of the unit can have the save bonus from cover.

[wildweasel]

The handy rule of thumb is: you can fast roll when the order of attacks doesn’t matter. When it does, you need to resolve them individually, or in chunks no larger than what would trigger the order mattering.

[Claws and Effect]

 

Correctly is what you get when you roll 1 attack at a time.

In your case with 8 identical targets and identical attacks it's really easy to fast dice roll though. Since they are all the same assigning them all at the same time or one after another makes no difference and rolling saves on a model per model basis or for the whole unit makes no difference. Just roll them all at the same time and remove the models you don't want to lose last. That's what you would have done if the attacks were done step by step anyway.

Great, that's exactly what I believed it to be. We have a guy really hung up on the 'allocation' of wounds and it's been putting me off playing entirely.

 

Thanks again.

Wound allocation only matters in units of multi-wound models.

 

A unit of Guardians has 1 wound each, so each unsaved wound equals a dead model.

 

With multiple wounds you're supposed to allocate wounds to models that have already taken one. Can't spread out 5 wounds to 5 different Intercessors so none of them die.

 

Could be wrong, but it kinda sounds like that's what your dude is trying to do.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

That's not quite true - wound allocation can matter in other instances, such as when a unit is partially in cover, as the owner of the unit can put wounds on models out of cover so that, once they are all killed, the rest of the unit gets the improved save for being in cover.

 

Other than that, what C&E says is correct - you can't spread wounds out over multiple multiwound models, as once a model is wounded all future wounds must be allocated against it until it is dead.

[wildweasel]

That's not quite true - wound allocation can matter in other instances, such as when a unit is partially in cover, as the owner of the unit can put wounds on models out of cover so that, once they are all killed, the rest of the unit gets the improved save for being in cover.

 

Other than that, what C&E says is correct - you can't spread wounds out over multiple multiwound models, as once a model is wounded all future wounds must be allocated against it until it is dead.

Or mixed saves in a unit, like Deathwatch Veterans that have a guy with a storm shield and a Terminator along some basic power armor guys. You can fast roll hits and wounds in this or the cover case above, but the wound allocation and which save is being taken by which model will matter.

 

Or mixed Toughness in a unit. If that Deathwatch Veterans unit has a bike in it, you can’t necessarily fast roll the to-wounds because as soon the unit is reduced to an equal number of bikes and non-bikes it becomes T5.