Has nayone got a copy of the old FAQ that dealt with Instant Death + Vulnerable to Blasts?

I was under the impression VtB was applied first then ID leading to swarms being very squshy... am I right? (Quote if possible either way would be great )

Here's the quote from the rulebook FAQ I downloaded in Oct 2006 (so it's 4th ed), I assume this is the one:

Q. How do the Instant Death and Vulnerable to Blasts/Templates rules interact? In other words, what happens when you shoot a swarm with a plasma cannon?

A. Each wound inflicted is multiplied by two and consequently every wound inflicted kills two models in the unit Vulnerable to Blast. I.e. if a plasma cannon hits and wounds against a swarm with T3 or lower, it Instantly Kills two bases.


Does that help?

Cheers

that seems a bit crap to me - very unfair

It does seem harsh. Extra hits on the unit that inflict instant death - one to each base, oops they're both dead. (Really harsh - 1 wound instantly wipes out 6 wounds of nurglings!)

I realise this is a moot point as the FAQ has ruled on this anyway, but another way to interpret the rules is that 'each wound a model suffers is doubled' therefore you roll to hit, allocate wounds, then double. That one ID wound is allotted to a base, which doubles to two wounds on the base. it's not quite clear to me why GW rules faq bods interpret it that the hits are doubled before being allocated as that's not what the rule says.

P.26: If the unit is a vehicle, then each hit counts as two hits. If it is not a vehicle, each
unsaved wound is doubled to two wounds.'

Hits are allocated before saves are made or suffered right? Roll to hit, allocate hits, double any hits, then make saves / remove casualties? Obviously if the template caused several hits on models, the situations the same anyway - A plasma cannon hits 3 bases of nurglings. Allocate the 3 plasma cannon hits to 3 bases, as per the wound allocation and saves rules, then double hits on those bases, take off 3 bases. At least the 3 hits would be 3 dead bases, not 6!

Not really. In vulnerable to blasts/templates, the wounds are doubled, not the hits. So roll to hit, take number of hits and roll to wound. Make saves against the wounds inflicted. Double the number of unsaved wounds. Resolve the wounds where unsaved wounds from a weapon double the toughness or more of the target cause instant death.

For example, 4 ripper swarm bases are targetted by 2 krak missiles. Roll to hit yields one hit. Roll to wound give 1 wound. The ripper swarms fail their save. The unsaved wound is doubled to 2 wounds. Since the missile has strength double the toughness of the ripper swarms, the wounds inflict instant death. Page 26 BRB says that if among the unsaved wounds there are some that inflict instant death you must, if possible, remove 1 unwounded model for each wound that causes ID.

So in this case, you would have to remove 2 ripper swarm bases for the 2 unsaved ID wounds inflicted.

It's an old FAQ (4th ed), however, the old FAQ wording is actually how it now works in 5th ed (so no FAQ now needed!), as timewizard demonstrates.

Herne, your way doesn't follow the 5th ed rules for multi-wound models and ID. It should be:

3 PC hits
Roll to wound, 3 wounds scored
No need to allocate wounds as all bases are the same in the unit
2 save failed, 1 made
2 unsaved wounds double to 4 because of VtB
4 models removed due to te ID rules for multi-wound models (yes it would be 6 if all saves had been failed)

I've suffered this with my scarabs. I don't like it but those are the rules and it does make sense.

sadly it's a rubbish mechanic that really hoses swarms. My ripper swarms always get blasted to bits like this. My last few games have been against grey knights, all waving S6 weapons in combat.......

Meh, on stack double double.
nurglings- not affected by ID.
Ripper swarms, of old were they affected by (ID resistant) synapse?..if hit by *str 6* flamer (or ordinance blasty stuff but then cover saves abound) they ought to melt like the flies on my wall when I light up my deoderant.
Scarab swarms probably shouldn't just instantly vanish away, probably should become immaterial for a phase or something.. but necrons get most things poopy, new codex inbound.
Its not a mechanic that instantly makes the whole unit useless.. just gives the paper a fear of people taking scissors..what were rippers going to do against that redeemer anyway ..(unlike for example those peeps with t2 and FNP)
I've only seen the stack done once, and it was by me .

Well spotted KMB... nurglings are daemons and so ID doesn't affect them

So in the case of nurglings, 6 wounds (afer VtB) would mean 2 dead stands. 4 would mean 1 dead a 1 wound on another.

Angelwing wrote:sadly it's a rubbish mechanic that really hoses swarms. My ripper swarms always get blasted to bits like this. My last few games have been against grey knights, all waving S6 weapons in combat.......

How do close combat weapons trigger VtB?!

mattjgilbert wrote:Herne, your way doesn't follow the 5th ed rules for multi-wound models and ID.......

Ah - true enough - hadn't thought it through that well - answers one question for me though.... THAT's what sleep is for....

mattjgilbert wrote:Well spotted KMB... nurglings are daemons and so ID doesn't affect them

True - Didn't know that, but then no one uses daemons down our club - am tempted to now though - a sea of nurglings would be funny.

timewizard wrote:For example, 4 ripper swarm bases are targetted by 2 krak missiles. Roll to hit yields one hit. Roll to wound give 1 wound. The ripper swarms fail their save. The unsaved wound is doubled to 2 wounds. Since the missile has strength double the toughness of the ripper swarms, the wounds inflict instant death. Page 26 BRB says that if among the unsaved wounds there are some that inflict instant death you must, if possible, remove 1 unwounded model for each wound that causes ID.

Just a point - Krak missiles don't have a blast effect, so this is a not quite accurate example...

Hah! Another good point

Socaddict wrote:Just a point - Krak missiles don't have a blast effect, so this is a not quite accurate example...

Quite right Socaddict! My mistake. Would have to be something like a plasma cannon or a demolisher cannon.
Guess I needed some sleep too!