Each wound suffered may be cancelled if the controlling player makes a saving throw. There are two types of saving throw: armor saves and ward saves. Armor saves suffer modifiers based on the Strength of the weapon, but ward saves are never modified.
Models that are wounded may still have a chance to avoid a grisly death by 'saving' the wound. Count your wounds inflicted (by Strength, if the target has armor saves) and your opponent will roll that many dice to attempt to make the saves. If he rolls equal to or greater than the model's save, the wound has been deflected by its armor or some other form of protection.
Some models may have both types of saves. In the case of multiple saves, you attempt the armor save first and the models that fail their armor save (or don't get to make one due to the Strength modifier of the attack) may then attempt to roll vs. their ward save. After all saves are made, then you calculate your failures and translate these into wounds inflicted for the purposes of determining casualties (described further below).
Note that a save of any kind can never be better than 1+. This does not prevent a model having items or special rules that would take the save even lower, it simply caps the saving throw at 1+. Also, remember that a roll of 1 is always a failure.
Armor Saves
Few warriors venture onto the battlefield without some measure of protection, be it only a padded leather jerkin or battered shield. Of course, the more elite or better funded a warrior is, the quality of his armor is likely to be better, so some troops wear chain-, scale- or plate mail, dramatically increasing their chances of survival. The level of this physical protection is represented by the armor save – the more armor a model is wearing, the better his armor save becomes.
The value of a model's armor save is determined by the equipment it carries, as detailed in its entry in the relevant battlescroll. No matter what they are carrying, lore-wise, armor is always of a specific type. Light armor provides a 6+ armor save, meaning that a 6 must be rolled to save a wound, whilst heavy armor bestows a 5+ armor save. Some special types of armor, such as Full Plate, Chaos Armor, or the Gromril Armor of the Dwarfs, grant a formidable 4+ armor save.
Shields
A model's armor save is boosted still further if it carries a shield. Shields are highly effective in battle, as they can be used to fend off both shooting and close combat attacks.
If a model carries a shield, the score it needs to save is reduced by 1 (though this can't take the save to beyond 1+). If a model has no armor save apart from a shield, it gains a 6+ armor save.
Cavalry Armor Saves
A cavalry unit receives a modicum of additional protection from their mighty mounts. A cavalry model's armor save is treated as being one point better than normal, so a model with heavy armor and shield, who would normally have a 4+ armor save if he were infantry, has a 3+ armor save for being cavalry. Furthermore, if the mount has barding (i.e. armor of its own), the rider's armor save is bettered by another point, which would give the model described above a massive 2+ armor save.
The table below shows the most common combinations, and their associated armor saving throws. Note that there are other armor saving throw modifiers to encounter in Battleaxe – those are discussed in their related army sections.
Loading Table
For example: A Dark Rider has light armor, giving it a save of 6+. It is also mounted, which increases its save to 5+. If it also carried a shield, its armor save would increase to 4+.
Armor Save Modifiers
Some weapons or creatures are so powerful that they can punch right through armor. Such attacks inflict a modifier on the saving throw, just as shooting modifiers affect the To Hit roll.
An attack of Strength 4 inflicts a save modifier of -1, with the modifier growing a point higher for each additional point of Strength. Note that this means a model could be hit by an attack whose armor save modifier makes the armor save impossible to pass – in which case, the save is automatically failed.
Loading Table
For example: A crossbow bolt (Strength 4) hits a warrior wearing light armor and carrying a shield. Normally, the warrior would need to roll 5 or 6 to make his armor save and avoid taking the wound but, because of the crossbow's hitting power, a -1 modifier is applied to the dice roll. Therefore, the warrior must now roll a 6 to save.
Ward Saves
Of course, the Battleaxe world is a place of magic, of spell crafted armor and magical protection, where creatures can have an arcane resilience at odds with a sometimes frail appearance. For such circumstances we have the ward save. A ward save represents some form of magical protection, be it a spell, enchanted armor, or perhaps even the innate nature of a Daemon or other magical creature. Ward saves are not necessarily represented by a model's equipment – unbound by physical laws, Daemons and their ilk have no need to burden themselves with weighty armor, for example.
The value of a ward save will always be shown in a model's entry in the relevant Battleaxe battlescroll. Two key differences between ward saves and armor saves are:
Ward saves are never modified by the Strength of the attack. Just as with armor saves, a roll of a 1 is always failure, however good the save.
Different ward saves cannot be combined to increase a model's chance of saving. If a model has more than one ward save, simply use the best. They do not get added together.
Instant Kills
Some special attacks don't inflict wounds, but require models to be removed as casualties (after failing a Ld or T test, for example). Where this is the case, not only are no saves of any kind allowed (unless specified otherwise), but the number of wounds on the victim's profile is completely irrelevant – just remove the model from play.
Determining And Removing Casualties - Shooting
The target unit suffers casualties for any wounds that have not been saved. Casualties are always removed from the rear of a unit.
For every model that fails its save the target unit suffers an unsaved wound (any saves that were not possible because the modifier was too high also count as having been failed). Most models have only a single Wound on their profile, in which case a single model is removed for each unsaved wound caused. Individual warriors are not necessarily dead, they may just be too badly wounded to fight on. For our purposes, the result is the same, so we treat all casualties as if they were killed and remove them from play.
Although casualties would normally fall amongst the front rank, for the purposes of game play we remove models from the rear rank of the unit. This keeps the formation neat and represents rear rankers stepping forward into gaps formerly filled by fallen comrades. If the unit is deployed in a single rank, then casualties are removed equally from both ends.
Note that (unless special rules state otherwise), models in the Command Group of the unit are removed last, and in the following order: Musician > Champion > Standard.
Models With More Than One Wound
Some particularly huge or hardy troops, such as Ogres, have more than one Wound on their profile. Should such a unit suffer wounds, you must remove as many whole models as possible. You are not allowed to spread the wounds throughout the unit to avoid suffering casualties.
In this situation, divide the number of wounds caused by the Wounds characteristic of the models in the target unit, removing this number of models from the rear-most rank. Any leftover wounds that were not enough to remove a model are carried over and will be added to the wounds inflicted by any subsequent attacks. Use a dice or other token to denote any wounds taken that do not fully remove a model. When the unit next suffers unsaved wounds, they are allocated to the wounded model first.
For example: A unit of Ogres suffers 5 wounds from arrow fire. Ogres are huge creatures and each model has 3 Wounds. So, 5 wounds equals one model dead (3 wounds) with 2 wounds left over. The wounds left over are not enough to remove another model, so the player must make a note that 2 wounds have been suffered by the unit. If the unit takes another wound from some other attack later in the game, then another Ogre model is removed.
Note that in this example, if the Ogre with 1 wound remaining is killed in a subsequent phase (like Melee), the combat result generated by killing said Ogre is how many wounds it has left, not the total it started with. For more info, see the Calculate Combat Results article.
Hits Inflicting Multiple Wounds
Some war machines, spells, or magic weapons are so destructive that if a model suffers an unsaved wound from them, the victim doesn't lose only 1 Wound, but 2 Wounds, or a number of Wounds equal to the roll of a D3, D6, etc, as noted in the weapon's rules. In such cases, roll to hit and to wound as normal and then take any armor saves and/or ward saves that apply. Finally, for each such wound that is not saved, roll the appropriate dice to determine how many wounds are caused.
A model cannot suffer more wounds than it has on its profile (except during an overkill during a challenge, described in more detail in the Fight! section of The Melee Phase). Should the model suffer unsaved wounds equal to or greater than their Wounds characteristic, it dies instantly and any excess wounds are wasted. You'll notice a single hit causing many wounds works differently to multiple hits that each cause a single wound. This is quite deliberate – it's easy to imagine a volley of arrows falling amongst the members of a unit and killing several, but a cannonball that hits a single Elf should always only kill a single Elf, regardless of how mighty the blow.
Multi-Wound Models And Multi-Wound Inflicting Weapons
If a unit of creatures with more than 1 Wound on their profile is hit by a weapon that causes multiple wounds, determine how many wounds are caused on each model individually (remember that each model cannot suffer more wounds than it has on its profile). Add up all wounds caused on the unit and then remove the appropriate number of models, noting any spare wounds on the unit.
This can cause multiple models to have damage on them. On subsequent attacks that inflict wounds as normal, the most damaged models take wounds first, until all damaged models in the unit have been removed. Then inflict wounds on the unit as normal.
Shooting And Panic
If a unit suffers too many casualties during the Shooting phase, there is a chance that it will panic and flee. Full rules for Panic tests can be found in the Panic section.
This method is also applied if such a unit is attacked by a spell or weapon that causes a hit on every model in the unit.
Comments