Do Ironjawz Ardboys shields stop mortal wounds?

[Superninja]

I've been searching around these forums and others to find this answer and I have found a lot of different opinions.  I am new to the game and I want to be sure I play correctly.  Do we have a final answer on this situation? Please forgive me if this has be finalized and I just haven't found it yet.

 

[EMMachine]

In Age of Sigmar a Save only works with mortal wounds if the Rule says that it works against mortal wounds. After the Orruk-Forged Shields only mention wounds it doesn't work against mortal wounds.

[RuneBrush]

On 14/04/2018 at 7:34 PM, Superninja said:

I've been searching around these forums and others to find this answer and I have found a lot of different opinions.  I am new to the game and I want to be sure I play correctly.  Do we have a final answer on this situation? Please forgive me if this has be finalized and I just haven't found it yet.

Hi,

The Orruk Forged shields only ignore damage against regular wounds, Mortal Wounds would automatically go through.

Quote

As an example, let's say a unit of 'Ardboyz are attacked by a unit of Bloodletters.  The Bloodletters roll 20 attack dice to hit, needing a 4+ to hit and rolls of a 6 becoming a mortal wound.  Let's say they get 12 hits, with 3 of them becoming mortal wounds.  They roll 9 to wound dice, scoring 4 wounds at -1 rend.

The 'Ardboyz roll 4 save rolls - getting 2, 3, 5, 6.  The rend changes those rolls to 1, 2, 4, 6 - 'Ardboyz have an armour save of 4+, so they've saved two.  Then, using their Orruk Forged Shields ability, they roll two dice to see if the can ignore the remaining two damage - getting a 1 and a 6!  That means they can ignore one damage.

So end result is four wounds - one "regular" wound and three mortal wounds.

Here's another example but against a model with multiple damage.

Quote

Your unit of 'Ardboyz has been attacked by an evil Morghast with it's spear.  The Morghast manages to land an impressive 4 wounds on you at -2 rend with a scary 3 damage a piece!

You roll 4 save rolls - getting 2, 5, 6, 6.  The rend changes those rolls to 0, 3, 4, 4 - you've luckily saved two of those attacks, however the two that have gone through have done a total of 6 damage.  You now get to roll six dice (one for each damage) with the Orruk Forged Shield abilities, rolling a pitiful collection of 1's and 2's, so all six damage is inflicted to the unit.

 

[Screwface]

20 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Hi,

The Orruk Forged shields only ignore damage against regular wounds, Mortal Wounds would automatically go through.

Here's another example but against a model with multiple damage.

 

Ardboyz are mixed-weapons units, so would you get all these save rolls in your last example no matter how many models in the unit had shields? 

If you failed the rolls as per the example, presumaby the first models to get removed would be the ones with shields?

 

[PlasticCraic]

I can see why this keeps coming up, the reason being that Mortal Wounds are never saved - they are ignored. 

GW has been very consistent with this terminology except in this one case - they use the Ignore terminology here, even though they don't mention Mortal Wounds.  So I can see why it gets asked quite often.  

I was surprised it didn't come up in the last FAQ - for some reason Destruction was completely bypassed.  Might be worth emailing AoSFAQ@gwplc.com because although some people will tell you the answer is already clear, it is certainly a Quesion that is Frequently Asked.

[RuneBrush]

2 hours ago, Screwface said:

Ardboyz are mixed-weapons units, so would you get all these save rolls in your last example no matter how many models in the unit had shields? 

If you failed the rolls as per the example, presumaby the first models to get removed would be the ones with shields?

Had forgotten that bit for a moment  

The way the wound process works is Damage Pool > Allocate > Inflict.  So the rule for Orruk Forged Shields is "Before allocating a wound to a model with an Orruk Forged Shield", which means in a mixed unit, you'd roll for each damage, one at a time.

Because I love an example

Quote

A second unit of 'Ardboyz is attacked by another similar unit of Bloodletters, this time though only some of the 'Ardboyz have Orruk Forged Shields.  As before the Bloodletters roll 20 attack dice to hit, needing a 4+ to hit and rolls of 6 becoming a mortal wound.  This time, they're really lucky and get an impressive 15 hits through, with 5 of them becoming mortal wounds.  Of the remaining 10 hits, they roll averagely and get  5 wounds at -1 rend.

The 'Ardboyz roll 5 save rolls - getting 1, 2, 2, 6, 6.  The rend changes those rolls to 0, 1, 1, 5, 5 - with their armour save of 4+ they've saved only two, creating a damage pool of 8 - 5 of which are mortal wounds.  Now we allocate the wounds to models, we can chose to do this in any order we chose, so decide to deal with the regular wounds first.  The first model I pick has an Orruk Forged Shield, so I roll my dice for this and get a 3, so that Orruk takes one point of damage, putting him on 1 wound left.  Because he's injured I have to allocate the next wound to him, so I make another Orruk Forged Shield roll, getting a 6 which is enough to ignore the damage, so the final regular wound has to go to that Orruk - rolling once more I get another 6 and can ignore that damage too!  However I now have 5 mortal wounds to allocate, of which the first must go onto that Orruk which kills him and another two Orruks from the unit.

[DinoTitanedition]

I`ve actually forwarded this question on the Games Workshop community site. So far they told me they`d give the question to the rules team, but didn`t no answer since.

[BunkhouseBuster]

5 hours ago, DinoTitanedition said:

I`ve actually forwarded this question on the Games Workshop community site. So far they told me they`d give the question to the rules team, but didn`t no answer since.

I sent this same question to them about this time last year, and look what that's got us so far

There are a few other spots where the whole Ironjawz army each has something on its Warscroll (except Brutes) that could use clarification or updating.  I get the feeling that the Ironjawz were probably one of the first armies written up for AoS, and that's what lead to some of these little rules discrepancies that come up.  Personally, I'm convinced that the shields DO stop Mortal Wounds, since the Rules themselves treat Mortal Wounds as wounds that basically ignore armor saves.  My logic being in the terms used to structure the process of applying the damage to a unit of models: "suffering" and "allocating".  Bolded for emphasis:

Core Rules - INFLICTING DAMAGE: "When inflicting damage, if you allocate a wound to a model, you must keep on allocating wounds to that models unti lit is either slain, or no more wounds remain to be allocated."

Core Rules - MORTAL WOUNDS: "Some attacks inflict mortal wounds.  Do not make hit, wound, or save rolls for a mortal wound - just allocate the wounds to models from the target unit as described above."

Ardboys Warscroll says: "Roll a dice before allocating a wound to a model with an Orruk-forged Shield.  On a roll of 6 the wound is ignored."

So, by this logic, I would err on the side of the Ardboys Shields protecting from Mortal Wounds, based on the wording in the rules for Mortal Wounds and Allocation, which both are done done after normal armor saves (if any).  Because it uses the word "allocate" in distributing the wounds, rather than the phrase "suffers".  And if we consider the fact that the unit can have mixed weapons loadouts, this is the only proper way to do it.  The UNIT takes the Wounds and Mortal Wounds, which are "allocated" to the MODELS as regular Wounds (or Damage), which it "suffers" one at a time until the model is slain.

My thinking is this:

Hit > Wound > Regular Saves > Damage (multi-damage, etc) > Allocation (Ardboy Shield) > Suffers (Phoenix Guard, et al.) > Slain when Wounds reaches zero

Oh, and the fact that Ironskull's Boys from Shadespire have the same phrasing of "allocating" Wounds and Mortal Wounds sets for me a precedent that the Ardboys are supposed to have their shields work against Mortal Wounds.  As they have shown with Blades of Khorne, Kharadron Overlords, and Legions of Nagash, GW is not afraid to update Warscrolls for clarity or complete overhauls.  Why hesitate for the Ardboys?

[AverageBoss]

14 hours ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

I sent this same question to them about this time last year, and look what that's got us so far

There are a few other spots where the whole Ironjawz army each has something on its Warscroll (except Brutes) that could use clarification or updating.  I get the feeling that the Ironjawz were probably one of the first armies written up for AoS, and that's what lead to some of these little rules discrepancies that come up.  Personally, I'm convinced that the shields DO stop Mortal Wounds, since the Rules themselves treat Mortal Wounds as wounds that basically ignore armor saves.  My logic being in the terms used to structure the process of applying the damage to a unit of models: "suffering" and "allocating".  Bolded for emphasis:

Core Rules - INFLICTING DAMAGE: "When inflicting damage, if you allocate a wound to a model, you must keep on allocating wounds to that models unti lit is either slain, or no more wounds remain to be allocated."

Core Rules - MORTAL WOUNDS: "Some attacks inflict mortal wounds.  Do not make hit, wound, or save rolls for a mortal wound - just allocate the wounds to models from the target unit as described above."

Ardboys Warscroll says: "Roll a dice before allocating a wound to a model with an Orruk-forged Shield.  On a roll of 6 the wound is ignored."

So, by this logic, I would err on the side of the Ardboys Shields protecting from Mortal Wounds, based on the wording in the rules for Mortal Wounds and Allocation, which both are done done after normal armor saves (if any).  Because it uses the word "allocate" in distributing the wounds, rather than the phrase "suffers".  And if we consider the fact that the unit can have mixed weapons loadouts, this is the only proper way to do it.  The UNIT takes the Wounds and Mortal Wounds, which are "allocated" to the MODELS as regular Wounds (or Damage), which it "suffers" one at a time until the model is slain.

My thinking is this:

Hit > Wound > Regular Saves > Damage (multi-damage, etc) > Allocation (Ardboy Shield) > Suffers (Phoenix Guard, et al.) > Slain when Wounds reaches zero

Oh, and the fact that Ironskull's Boys from Shadespire have the same phrasing of "allocating" Wounds and Mortal Wounds sets for me a precedent that the Ardboys are supposed to have their shields work against Mortal Wounds.  As they have shown with Blades of Khorne, Kharadron Overlords, and Legions of Nagash, GW is not afraid to update Warscrolls for clarity or complete overhauls.  Why hesitate for the Ardboys?

But then you have recent books like Legions of Nagash which seems very intent on differentiating Wounds and Mortal Wounds.

Deathless Minions trigger on allocated Wounds or Mortal Wounds.

Things like Morikhane trigger on allocated Mortal Wounds.

The Necromancer and Wight King both have special abilities that trigger only for Wounds (their previous entries stated they triggered for Wounds or Mortal Wounds).

Very confusing issue at the least.

[Superninja]

Thanks all for responding.  This is the 2 sides to the coin that i have come across when researching this topic before.  It would be nice if it did work, especially to make the Weirdnob Shaman combo even better with the ardboys, among other reasons.  So far I have been playing it with just regular wounds but I will continue to hope...