Wound allocation in the 41st millennium

[me_in_japan]

So, I actually managed a game of 40k today, against the ever gracious Ashmie. Both of us are very new to this edition, so we proceeded with caution. One thing that came up was wound allocation in close combat. Consider the following situation:

A unit of possessed assaults a unit of 2 marines accompanies by Sicarius. Sicarius is I5, so he takes a swing at the possessed. He kills one. The remaining possessed now hit at the same Initiative step (i4) as the marines.

question 1: do the possessed attack Sicarius and the marines as a unit, or do the possessed in B2B with Sicarius attack only Sicarius, and those only in B2B with the marines attack only the marines?

We looked in the book, but couldn't see anything about dividing attacks, so we went with the "as a unit" option, with the possessed rolling to hit vs the majority WS of 4 for the marines.

So, moving on, we get to wound allocation. Say the possessed score 7 wounds, rolling to wound vs majority toughness.

Question 2: Are the wounds allocated:

1) one on Sicarius, one on marine 1, one on marine 2, (roll around) two on Sicarius, two on marine 1, two on marine 2, (roll around) three on Sicarius? Sicarius rolls 3 dice for his saves, marines roll 4 dice for their saves, as they are both the same.
OR
2) one wound on Sicarius. Sicarius rolls to save. If he ain't dead, allocate 2nd wound to Sicarius. Roll his save. Rinse and repeat till he dies. Allocate remaining wounds to the 2 marines and roll that many saves.

Both the above examples assume owning player decides to start wound allocation with Sicarius. As I understand it, he could also start from the marines, leaving Sicarius' rolls till after the marines are dead.

We played option 2 - allocate 1 wound, roll to save, allocate 2nd wound, roll to save, repeat till dead.

Were we right, or do I owe Mr Sicarius an apology?

[Primarch]

Question 1: Page 63, Characters and Assaults, end of the paragraph. Characters cannot be singled out. You roll vs the Unit.

Question2: Page 25, Allocating Wounds. Wounds are allocated to models in base to base contact (owning players choice) and saves are made. Once there are no more models B2B then the wounds carry over to models not B2B.

In your example of option 2, you did it the correct way, but you didn't have to start from Sicarius.

[me_in_japan]

well, that's good Glad to see we could muddle our way through and come out with the right decision in the end. Ash and I realised that we (well, he, actually) didnt need to start with Sicarius, but as he overall failed 3 saves, it was fairly moot anyway. (Sicy was on his last wound, too.)

*edit* I've been reading up on this situation a bit. Other things which didnt come up today, but which may be relevant at naghammer are:

1) shooting player says which shots get saved first (e.g. I shoot a plasma gun and 5 bolters at a unit of marines led by a terminator lord, who also happens to be the nearest target. Everything hits and wounds. I say "plasma wound first". Opponent says "crap" and takes it on his termy lord. I then get to use the bolter woundson the regular marines, assuming his termylord died.)
Does this also apply to CC wounds? e.g. I hit the same unit in CC with my unit of wyches led by a succubus with a huskblade. I suppose if I say "husk blade wounds first" my opponent gets to say "fine, but we're starting allocation from this schmuck marine here", because the marines and the termy are all equidistant (ie B2B) with my wych unit/succubus. I appreciate that a challenge would sort this problem out, but assuming no challenges have taken place...

2) Look Out, Sir! rolls can take place at 2 different times, depending on the target unit composition. According to the rulebook,

ｱ) if the target unit has all saves the same, the sequence is:

. 1) roll to hit, roll to wound target unit majority T
. 2) roll all saves
. 3) allocate unsaved wounds
. 4) make "look out sir" roll
. 5) remove casualties.

イ) If target unit has mixed saves:

. 1) roll to hit, roll to wound target majority T
. 2) allocate one wound to nearest model. Assuming that that model is a character...
. 3) make "look out sir" roll
. 4) make saving throw
. 5) remove casualty (if the character died, or his "look out sir" schmuck died.)

Note that option ア the Look Out Sir roll comes after saves are made. In option イ it comes before saves are made. I believe this is in accordance with the rules, and the wierdness comes from the whole wound allocation malarky, rather than from LO,S being wierd in and of itself.

Just thought these were worth mentioning, what with Naghammer coming up

[ashmie]

Aha, glad we could make sense of that one. I'd be interested to observe a few different games to see if everyone got the same understanding of those rules.
Might be worth having a rules Q and A thread before NH so everyone understands the hazy bits all the more.
I like the Glorious Intervention rule personally. Very heroic. In the character rules section.

[ashmie]

The way we played it was to continue allocating wounds to Sicarius until they got through to kill him one after the other before moving down the line to the next model. So it seemed he was taking all the saves for his brothers. Is that right?

[Primarch]

1) ...
Does this also apply to CC wounds? e.g. I hit the same unit in CC with my unit of wyches led by a succubus with a huskblade. I suppose if I say "husk blade wounds first" my opponent gets to say "fine, but we're starting allocation from this schmuck marine here", because the marines and the termy are all equidistant (ie B2B) with my wych unit/succubus....

Yep. The only thing that makes a difference is if you are attacking at different initiatives. Don't forget though that characters (including sergeants etc) can get precision hits when rolling to attack and can pick who they strike.

2) Look Out, Sir! rolls can take place at 2 different times, depending on the target unit composition. According to the rulebook,

ｱ) if the target unit has all saves the same, the sequence is:
. 1) roll to hit, roll to wound target unit majority T
. 2) roll all saves
. 3) allocate unsaved wounds
. 4) make "look out sir" roll
. 5) remove casualties.

イ) If target unit has mixed saves:
. 1) roll to hit, roll to wound target majority T
. 2) allocate one wound to nearest model. Assuming that that model is a character...
. 3) make "look out sir" roll
. 4) make saving throw
. 5) remove casualty (if the character died, or his "look out sir" schmuck died.)

Note that option ア the Look Out Sir roll comes after saves are made. In option イ it comes before saves are made. I believe this is in accordance with the rules, and the wierdness comes from the whole wound allocation malarky, rather than from LO,S being wierd in and of itself.

This got FAQ'd. Now ANY characters in a unit make the unit count as mixed saves since ALL characters have Look Out Sir.

So the procedure is:
ｱ) if the target unit has all saves the same and contains no characters (remembering that sergeants etc are characters as well).
. 1) roll to hit, roll to wound target unit majority T
. 2) roll all saves
. 3) allocate unsaved wounds
. 4) remove casualties.

イ) If target unit has mixed saves or contains ANY characters:
. 1) roll to hit, roll to wound target majority T
. 2) allocate one wound to nearest model. Assuming that that model is a character...
. 3) make "look out sir" roll
. 4) make saving throw
. 5) remove casualty (if the character died, or his "look out sir" schmuck died.)

Of course, this doesn't always come into play. If the character is at the back and you only cause a couple of hits then you don't need to worry about it and can use ｱ. If the character has the same save as the rest of the unit you can just roll all the armour saves at once and then Look Out Sir them as and when you get to the character. (Sometimes there will be enough hits that not all of them can be LOS'd anyway).

The old method gave the same results either way as you were still rolling against the same numbers, just in a different order. The new FAQ'd method just clarifies things a bit.

[AndrewGPaul]

With a bit of squinting the first method you describe is basically just a special case of the second. The rulebook doesn't do a good job of explaining it like that, though.