Area effects with abilities

[Jimbo]

Hi guys and (hopefully) girls,

 

for abilities that work on an area effect, eg within 10", does the entire unit have to be within the range to gain the bonus?

 I'm particularly thinking about the CoB bloodshield ability which, when at full power, gives a 5++ to witches in 9" (clearly I'm not a power gamer!).  Can the whole unit benefit from the ward if only one model is within 9" or do all of them have to be within the 9"?

 

 

Jimbo

[Jimbo]

Thanks bro. Stil more questions tho!

So a 10 witch unit half in and half out of the bloodshield is targeted with an attack which hit and wound. 

For all units, we play that the wounds are inflicted on the unit and the defender makes the appropriate save roll and then removes any casualties from anywhere in the unit as they see fit. Usually this is from the back of the unit as the idea being that the models at the back of the unit move up to fill empty spaces at the front as their compadres fall.

 

For the witch unit, does:

1. the witch player then have to allocate the wounds to particular models before making saves? No other units have to do this so seems a bit unfair

2. Takes as many ward saves as models are in bloodshield. Any extras and fails are removed as casualties starting from those in the bloodshield zone as these models took the ward saves. Again no other unit has to do this so seems unfair.

3. As 2 but casualties removed from anywhere in the unit and not restricted to those in the bloodshield zone.  Seems right to me but don't want to be cheating anyone!

4. Models benefitting from bloodshield are at the rear of the unit and therefore not the ones being hit so no saves allowed for the unit unit all models outside the bloodshield are dead. I really hope it's not this one as it really makes the bloodshield a bit pointless.

 

I can see the bloodshield wording is trying to stop conga lines but when you look at the Saurus Guard getting +1 to their 4+ save (which is immune to -1 rend) if any Seraphon hero is within 8" of any one model in the unit, it kinda makes the bloodshield looks a bit rubbish in comparison.  

You might be able to tell that I'm a witch Aelf fan

Here's hoping for a good Aelf release soon!

Jimbo

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

With the CoB it specifies models. So only those exact models in range can be affected. So choose your casualties wisely. 

Most abilities I've seen do specify what it affects. 

Just to clarify with the CoB and other similar saves they happen AFTER you have done your normal save and assigned the damage to a model in the unit. So allocating your damage is important here. 

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

I'm pretty sure 1 is the answer. As this extra ability is outside of the normal combat phase as the ability only activates and get the save if they suffer the damage. But I may be wrong. 

[Jimbo]

Interesting! Looking at damage allocation in the rules you might be right. I think this is gonna end up with taking saves one at a time so as not to end up with a massive gap in the middle of the unit.  

Thanks again!

[Knight of Ruin]

Indeed.

Say you take 15 wounds on the wyches unit. 5 wyches are in the buff.

You make 5 saves. You fail 2. Remove 2 wyches as casualty.

Make 3 saves. You fail 1. Remove 1.

Make 2 saves, you fail 2 remove 2.

At this point you have make 10 saves. The remaining 5 wounds go on the remainder of the unit not buffed.

[BaldoBeardo]

Yep, what Knight of Ruin said, but if you want aaaaaabsolutely RAW, you pick a buffed Aelf and keep rolling until you fail and remove the model, or all wounds have been allocated - because wound allocation is technically "1 at a time until dead".

Rinse and repeat.

Effectively no different to the above, but could be important if other abilities are also in play.

[Jimbo]

Thanks. Basically the main plan should be to keep the cob as close to the witches as possible though!

[Boiling Point]

It depends on exactly what the warscroll of the unit casting the area of effect says. If it says "model", then only models within the range get the benefit.
If it says "unit" then as long as one model is within the area of effect, the entire unit gets the bonus.

A mate of mine runs Khorne Bloodbound, and does a chain of Reavers out to keep them within range of the Bloodsecrator to get 3 attacks each (instead of 1).
About 20 Bloodreavers coming at you doing 3 attacks each is damn dangerous!

[Azlak the Damned]

As a tangent on this subject I would like to know this...I run with Khorne Bloodbound and use the Bloodsecrators Portal of Skulls ability to give all units within 18" +1 attack at the start of the combat phase. Does this ability give the Bloodsecrators himself +1 attack too? I have run it as yes up to now but asked myself the question during my last battle.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[Jimbo]

The FAQ confirms that the model creating the effect is within the the required distance so does benefit from the buff.

[Nico]

Normally it's either unit or model which needs to be within range (e.g. Wrathbros aura works on models).

 

However they have made a complete hash of all the old aura ward save abilities (largely because you allocate which models die so it's artificial to say that some are in the shield and some not). We discussed this at length on TWF and came to the conclusion that it was better just to apply the shields to units within the range.