Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

All discussions related to games of fantasy battles such as AoS, T9A, KoW, MESBG, WAP, Warmaster, etc go here, including army construction, comp creation, campaign and scenarios design, etc...
Post Reply
Message
Author
D-4QP
Posts: 23
Joined: Mon May 26, 2014 12:52 am

Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#1 Post by D-4QP »

Hello, everyone.

This may sound like a stupid question for some, so I must ask that you be gentle with your answers. Yesterday, I played a game of Age of Sigmar with an acquaintance at the local GW store. During the game, I assaulted his Hellcannon. However, since wounds on a War Machine are no longer related to the number of "living crew members," we were struggling with how to allocate wounds. Eventually, we decided that the controlling player gets to decide how to allocate the wounds.

Later on, someone in the store claimed that the attacking player decides on how to allocate the wounds. Was he correct, or were we? Your feedback would be deeply appreciated.

Stay true to Ulthuan forever, for her glory is eternal.
User avatar
Loriel
Posts: 762
Joined: Fri Jan 21, 2011 7:27 am
Location: Winterfell

Re: Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#2 Post by Loriel »

No worries feel free to ask anything. Sometimes internet trolls might occure, but you need to deal those trolls like in Warhammer... With fire! Why else we would have this forum than ask questions and seek wisdom?

Anyway in my opinion by RAW n the rulebook covers this without shadow of a doubt

"After all of the attacks made by a unit have
been carried out, the player commanding
the target unit allocates any wounds that
are inflicted to models from the unit as they
see fit (the models do not have to be within
range or visible to an attacking unit)"

I would say warmachine is unit with crew. Now to make the thing interesting

"When in‘licting damage, if you allocate a wound
to a model, you must keep on allocating
wounds to that model until either it is slain,
or no more wounds remain to be allocated"

So if you start the first wound on Hellcannon you must kill it before you can kill crew. Or you can allocate wound to model before with risk of losing control but benefit of gaining effective wound. Naturally when the cannon is destroyed those 3 crew members starts to act like any other unit. allowed to charge move, etc. thus they have separate statline.

----

Hope this helps
High Elves since Aug 2010: Tot /W / L / D - 100 / 75 / 23 / 2
Tomb Kings since Sep 2013:Tot / W / L / D - 31 / 18 / 12 / 1

Chronicles of Loriel's Glory and Shame
User avatar
Ielthan
Posts: 362
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 11:33 am
Location: Saphery

Re: Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#3 Post by Ielthan »

I read it as you treat the crew and the war machine as separate units. I didn't find anything to indicate otherwise. So you would allocate attacks on to the hellcannon and it's crew separately, if you do too many wounds to the hellcannon the excess ones are wasted, they don't carry over to the crew. This also makes it incredibly easy to snipe off the crew. They've tried to counter this by giving some crew cover when near the war machine, but it's still really easy. Once the crew are dead they're useless (well the hellcannon can still eat things).
mcmulligan
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2014 10:21 pm

Re: Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#4 Post by mcmulligan »

War machines and their crew are separate units, in fact you can choose to field a war machine with no crew, and alternatively you can field a war machine crew with no war machine.

As such, they both have to be attacked separately.
pk-ng
Posts: 2062
Joined: Sun Sep 13, 2009 4:39 pm
Location: Cathy

Re: Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#5 Post by pk-ng »

mcmulligan wrote:War machines and their crew are separate units, in fact you can choose to field a war machine with no crew, and alternatively you can field a war machine crew with no war machine.

As such, they both have to be attacked separately.
are you sure about this? Aren't the crew part of the warscroll? remember you are no long deploying "units" but deploying "war scrolls"
ETC WHFB Team Singapore
2014 - Chaos Dwarfs & Most Favoured Enemy
2015 - High Elves & Top HE

T9A
Highborn Elves - Army Book Committee
Balancing Board
Highborn Elves - ex-Army Support
mcmulligan
Posts: 132
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2014 10:21 pm

Re: Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#6 Post by mcmulligan »

They are on the same war scroll, so despite being able to operate independently of each other (hence the rules for if they're within an inch of each other or not) I suppose they are in fact the same unit.

Those are really weird rules, aren't models in the same unit REQUIRED to be within 1 inch of each other? Suppose you could daisy chain the crew out so that not all of them are within 1 inch of the war machine....
gromo
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 1:07 pm
Location: Portland, CT USA

Re: Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#7 Post by gromo »

As much as I'd like to say the war machine is in the same unit as the crew because it makes us so much better, I'm going to have to disagree.

I'll begin by stating the definition of a war scroll:
"Models fight in units. A unit can have one
or more models, but cannot include models
that use different warscrolls. A unit must
be set up and finish any sort of move as
a single group of models, with all models
within 1" of at least one other model from
their unit. If anything causes a unit to
become split up during a battle, it must
reform the next time that it moves."

It clearly states that models fight in units, and the models must be from the same warscroll. It says nothing about there not being able to have 2 unit types in a war scroll.

Moving on, allocating wounds applies to units, not entire war scrolls.

Also, I am led to believe that if the crew and bolt thrower were 1 unit, they would be set up similar to our lion/tiranic chariots or skycutters. One save characteristic, and one wound characteristic.

Most other war machines in the game will have the key word "unit" under description of the crew. However, the bolt thrower does not. This leads me to believe that the intention was to have them separate units, but because Games Workshop hates us all, they left it out so we could argue over a stupid game that was supposed to cut out all this bs in the first place.
theviking
Posts: 412
Joined: Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:42 am

Re: Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#8 Post by theviking »

D-4QP wrote:someone in the store claimed that the attacking player decides on how to allocate the wounds.
It's probably more accurate to say the attacking player allocates attacks.

The way I see it, warmachine warscrolls (RBT, hellcannon, etc.) consist of a unit of one warmachine and a unit of crew. The two units are deployed together but are otherwise independent. I can charge the crew and ignore the warmachine, or the other way around. If I put 10 wounds on the crew they are really really dead but the warmachine isn't harmed until someone actually takes a swing at it. Of course the warmachine still counts as an enemy model for purposes of moving, charging, victory, etc. so practically speaking I would want to kill it as well as the crew even though it can't do anything anymore.
Motley
Posts: 99
Joined: Tue Sep 10, 2013 3:56 pm

Re: Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#9 Post by Motley »

They are on the same warscroll therefore in the same unit. The unit consists of a group of models like any other, one model for the warmachine and some for the crew. There is *nothing* in the rules to indicate that it should be treated any different to this. Therefore, as stated above, the controlling player allocates wounds as they see fit.
gromo
Posts: 30
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2015 1:07 pm
Location: Portland, CT USA

Re: Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#10 Post by gromo »

Motley wrote:They are on the same warscroll therefore in the same unit. The unit consists of a group of models like any other, one model for the warmachine and some for the crew. There is *nothing* in the rules to indicate that it should be treated any different to this. Therefore, as stated above, the controlling player allocates wounds as they see fit.
Motley, I don't want to get into a silly bout with you but I highly suggest you read more carefully. Your conclusion is based on 2 false premises.

There is nothing in the rules that states multiple units cannot be on the same warscroll. In fact, two separate profiles even suggests two separate units. If you look at chariots, cavalry or anything with more than one model, all models are INCLUDED in the UNITS STATS. one save characteristic, one wound characteristic, etc..

Also, the fact that the crew can be further than 1" suggests separate units. "IF" the crew members are within an inch...

You need to read over the rules more carefully. And to be honest, it doesn't even matter that much. If you want to allocate to the war machine first then you have 4 wounds with a 5+, allocate to the crew and you have 2 wounds with a 4+..

HOWEVER, IF you treat them as separate units, I found that there should be no reason not to take 3 or 4 crew members so when one dies, another will be there to operate and continue giving the bolt thrower its extra attacks. Just an advantage maybe nobody has thought of yet.
gnaleinad
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2015 1:52 pm

Re: Age of Sigmar- Wound Allocation for War Machines

#11 Post by gnaleinad »

gromo wrote:
Motley wrote:They are on the same warscroll therefore in the same unit. The unit consists of a group of models like any other, one model for the warmachine and some for the crew. There is *nothing* in the rules to indicate that it should be treated any different to this. Therefore, as stated above, the controlling player allocates wounds as they see fit.
Motley, I don't want to get into a silly bout with you but I highly suggest you read more carefully. Your conclusion is based on 2 false premises.

There is nothing in the rules that states multiple units cannot be on the same warscroll. In fact, two separate profiles even suggests two separate units. If you look at chariots, cavalry or anything with more than one model, all models are INCLUDED in the UNITS STATS. one save characteristic, one wound characteristic, etc..

Also, the fact that the crew can be further than 1" suggests separate units. "IF" the crew members are within an inch...

You need to read over the rules more carefully. And to be honest, it doesn't even matter that much. If you want to allocate to the war machine first then you have 4 wounds with a 5+, allocate to the crew and you have 2 wounds with a 4+..

HOWEVER, IF you treat them as separate units, I found that there should be no reason not to take 3 or 4 crew members so when one dies, another will be there to operate and continue giving the bolt thrower its extra attacks. Just an advantage maybe nobody has thought of yet.

Excellent work there!
Age of Sigmar is a model count game.
That is why sometimes I will deploy extra models for my Doomdivers Goblins Crews when my opponent is using also Doomdivers or some long range war machine.
I will take out their crew before they take out mine.
And sometime can I deploy 3 war machines with only one set of crews and spread them out..
Post Reply