Deathly invocation? Have I been doing it wrong?

[LJ26]

Ever since Legions came out I've been playing deathly invocation and invigorating aura as: you restore d3 models to a unit if it already is at full health (single wound and multi wound models). Recently I was told that I had been playing it wrong and that the roll tells me how many "wounds" I can restore e.g. I roll a 6 on a d3 so I can restore 1 model with up to 3 wounds. So a 1 or 2 roll does nothing for multi wound models and spirit hosts can only be regenerated back with a 5 or 6. Am I getting this right? 

[Grimnaud]

Yes.

All of the healing brings back «wounds». So unless you can roll a 3+, you’re not getting a black knight or direwolf back, and unless you nail a 5+ you don’t get a spirit host back. Also note that it’s equal to or less, so if you for example get two rolls for a unit of direwolves, say from a gravesite and deathly invocations, even if you roll a 5 and a 6 for a combined total of 6 wounds, you would only get two wolves back. The left-over wound from each roll is discarded before moving on to the rest.

[BarrowLord]

You also heal wounded units before bringing back new models.  So if you have a unit of three spirit hosts that has lost one model and has a model that has taken a single wound, you would be forced to heal that single wound before you can attempt the 5+ to bring back a full model.  Likewise if you had a unit of cavalry that lost one model and has a model with a single wound left, you would be forced to heal that single wound before attempting to bring back a full horse.  Rolling a D3 of 3 (5 or 6 on the die) would still only heal the single cavalry model (even though you technically rolled high enough to theoretically heal the unit back to full).

[RuneBrush]

Also if you're running Grand Host of Nagash, be aware that DI and Gravesites occurs at the Start of the Hero phase but Legions Innumerable is during the Hero phase (and only resurrects 1 wound models)

[Sception]

Each use of deathly invocation does one of two things.

If there is a wounded model alive in the current unit, then that one model heals up to d3 wounds.  In this case, that is all that use of deathly invocation does.

If you use DI on a unit of black knights that has suffered 5 wounds, killing two models and wounding a third, and you get a '3' on the d3 (ie a 5 or 6 on the die), then the wounded model is healed and THAT IS ALL.  That use of deathly invocation is done, and the excess potential healing is disregarded.

If you use deathly invocation on a unit that currently has no wounded models in it, then instead you return up to d3 wounds wourth of models that had been previously slain in the battle to the unit.  This cannot add models to the unit that weren't killed in battle, which mostly means it can't raise models above the units starting size, the exception being if some other ability already did, and then some models died after that, DI could bring back the slain models, even if they weren't part of the unit at the start of the game.

More importantly, this use of deathly invocation only brings back fully healed models, excess wounds rolled insufficient to bring back a whole model are disregarded.

For example, the unit of black knights from before suffered 5 wounds, killing two models and sounding a third, then a prior use of DI healed the wounded model.  Now a second use of DI is applied to the unit and the d3 result again is '3'.  Sinxe there are no wounded models currently in the unit, DI brings back ul to 3 wounds worth of fully healed models.  Black knights have 2 wounds each, so a single model is returned to the unit.  The third wound worth of healing is not enough to bring back a whole model, so it is disregarded.

A third use of DI is applied to the same unit, hoping to get them back to full strength.  This time, the d3 result is a one.  That isn't enough to bring back a whole black knight, so that use of DI does nothing.

.....

Its worth noting that this awkward interaction with multiwound models means deathly invocation (and gravesite healing, which works the same way) is better used on units od single wound models, where excess healing results are only wasted if you bring the unit back to full strength.  In the above examples, 3 uses of deathly invocation rolling a total of 7 wounds worth of healing only managed to restore 3 wounds worth of black knights.  The same dwathly invocations used of a unit of skeletons, zombies, or grave guard that had suffered at least seven wounds would have restored seven wounds.

Why does healing work like this in LoN?  Healing didn't work like this in any previous edition of warkammer fantasy.  You used to heal X wounds, first healing any wounded model to full, then bringing back a slain model with one wound, then healing that model to full, and so on.  Oldhammer healing worked better, and was significantly more intuitive and less confusing, so what changed?

What changed is how the rules are presented.  The old style of healing was easier to understand, but took more spacr to describe, space there just isn't room to repeat over and over on each character's warscroll.  Used to be rhat the way healing worked was explained in part of the army rules, but to do it that way in AoS would remove healing entirely whenever those units and characters are played outside of their specific allegiance.

This is actually a recurring problem in Age of Sigmar.  There are several pl aces where rules that were easier or shorter to write took precedence over rules that played better or were easier to understand.  How pile in rules work are still my own biggest pet peeve.