Removing casualties to deny further attacks (resolved)

[lord_blackfang]

EDIT: Never mind, found the answer. Wounds are only allocated after all of a unit's attacks are resolved.

 

So I faced a player who was new to AoS but not new to GW's rules writing style, and he surprised me with a few technical questions. Foremost amongst them was this:

My big nasty unit (6 Plague Drones with locus on) charges his chaff unit. I pick it to attack. I pile in so all my models are in range of his models. I resolve attacks with my first weapon type and he pulls casualties - about half his unit - , then asks innocently: "Are your models that are no longer in range of my models still able to use their remaining weapons?"

Until then we had always played it that a model that started its attack step in range could use all its attacks, but there's really nothing in the rules to support that, is there?

So I forfeited the rest of my attacks, and returned the favor next round when he charged in with a Chimera by pulling the front fly to his first attack, denying him the rest. It struck me as ridiculous how ineffective this makes big monsters.

Did we do this right?

[valenswift]

29 minutes ago, lord_blackfang said:

Did we do this right?

No.

As per the Core Rules pg. 8 "Once all of a unit’s attacks have been resolved, add up the damage that was inflicted. The player commanding the target unit must then allocate a number of wounds to the target unit equal to the damage that was inflicted."

 

It can of course be good strategy to remove models in such a way if they are in combat with more than one enemy unit.  As they could potentially prevent a second unit from being able to attack if they end up being more than their pile in distance (usually 3") away.

[Overread]

Check the Attacks sequence table on the same page as well (232 in the big rule book - 8 of the online short rules). It goes through the stages and ends on the attacked playing making save rolls to determine the wounds caused. However it does NOT state that those wounds are allocated. It's just totalling up the damage done (wounds done). 

It's only once all attacks are caused that the attacked player can then allocate the damage/wounds to their models.