Shadowwalker,

I would figure that this is probably intentional and a change in the game due to the fact that pinning made little difference in 4th edition most of the time (there were too many high Lds out there to make one test (after all the trouble you went through to wound the target in the first place) effective). Markerlights change that for us, but there are still other pinning weapons out there that don't have the benefit of Markerlights, and for those armies pinning was more than likely an incidental benefit to the weapon, rather than a reason for taking the pinning weapon (if it worked, good, if not, I wasn't counting on it anyways, so to speak).

Now, I think they have a bit more teeth, given that each weapon (as written) should be causing a test. They'll fail due to volume more often, now. Also, it gives some reward to causing multiple casualties with a group of pinning weapons, as more instances of fellow troops being cut down should cause additional instances of fear to the target squad. (This does not, however, advocate that an ordnance weapon that pins should get one test per casualty - that's not how the rule is written.)

Well, that's a point for us, and a point in the favor of carbines. They're looking much more viable in this edition.

Glory for the Greater Good.

Akiosama

If you inflice 12 casualties to a single unit, they have bigger things to worry about pinning, or it was 30 Boyz ork mob and they're fearless anyways.

Yeah, but if it was 20 Orks, then they'd have 12 Pin tests at Ld 8, and the Break test for 25% Casualties... They'd most likely be running or Gone to Ground at the end of that...

It'd be fun to watch as a Tau player.

Glory for the Greater Good.

Akiosama

If for the sake of argument, the dice gods smiled on you and you killed 12 boyz in a 30 strong mob, now they're down to 18. Are they still fearless? Does Mob rule last until the end of the turn or until they fall below the mob threshold?

Might be worthwhile to whittle `em away before attempting a pin.

At technojunkie:He said 20 boyz. So he's right (even if you need to have a really good luck/number of ML)

At Akiosama:. Pinning was a pretty much useless ability, IMHO, because of some reasons mentioned in previous posts. It seems like you may have found a little "bug" in the book ( I mean, found a small particularly important detail). When you think about it, if people want to play RAW, we should play the whole book RAW no? Should we start a new topic o discuss it or can we continue the discussion here?

At Thread Creator: I think you made a great table to graphically show your thought/work.

Fox Four,

I'd like to think it was intentional, since I'd like to think that they wouldn't put anything in the main rulebook that was totally useless.

I always lamented the way pinning worked in 4th, because, especially after playing a few games of Flames of War, where pinning is very important, it seemed like it added a bit more to the strategy arena in 40K, but was overshadowed because the other aspects, namely the almost universally high Lds or fearlessness. I'd always hoped for more variety on the psychology side of the game, but there's not too much you can do when you're running a scale of 1-10 for stats, but 7 is your average, because of the 2d6 aspect of Ld tests. That leaves a 'playable' range of 7, 8, 9, or 10 for Ld, which doesn't allow for too much variety. Add in how much of the 40K universe is fearless or virtually fearless (Synapse or ATSKNF), and you can easily see why something that relies on one unmodified test to succeed would play little to no role in the game (until markerlights came about, and even then, it seemed like Pulse Rifles were still the better choice).

So, assuming that it was an intentional change, I say good for GW to realize that this aspect of the game needed a little work. (I do wish that they'd have separated pinning effects and gone to ground, though. Going to ground is a protective measure, IMO, while getting pinned is a fear-based measure... I think going to ground should have been a bit more positive a move than getting pinned is.

Glory for the Greater Good.

Akiosama

RE: Pinning tests per unsaved pinning wound-

Honestly folks, it looks like the pinning check is per squad. Page 31 of the BRB says:

"If a unit other than a vehicle suffers any unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon, it must immediately take a Pinning Test."

Basically, a single Pinning test is caused despite the number of unsaved wounds from the firing squad.

And page 15, in the first paragraph, says:

"...you must complete all the firing by one unit before you move on to the next."

Let's say we've got three units on the board. One unit of Necron Warriors, a 12-man squad of Fire Warriors with carbines boosted to BS 5 with markerlights, and an 8-drone squad of gun drones.

In our shooting phase, the Fire Warriors open fire, and hit 11 times, and cause seven wounds. The Necrons fail two of the saves, and they go down. This immediately causes a single Pinning check, on which the Necron player rolls a 5. As these guys are getting a bit close to an objective for our liking, we decide to try and keep them from getting there, and open fire with the squad of drones, causing five hits and, as luck would have it, four wounds, of which the Necrons fail one. Again, they need to take a Pinning test (as per pg 31, 4th paragraph), but this time they roll and 11, forcing them to go to ground for the rest of this turn, and their next, giving us plenty of time to reinforce the position.

There's no sense to making an opponent take a Pinning check for every unsaved wound. That being said, if anyone can find something to counteract the references, please post it up.

Sa'cea Mont'yr,

You know, I read it that way as well, when I first read it.

The word that brings the whole issue to question, IMO, is immediately. That says to me that it interrupts the normal firing sequence to roll the test (sort of like what a Goblin Fanatic does in WFB to a charging unit), and then you continue to the next weapon in the squad, thereby completing the rule you quoted on p. 15 regarding finishing the firing of one unit before going on to another. The pinning test does not change the fact that you're finishing the firing of one unit before adjucating the firing of another unit.

But, truth be told, until GW clears it up, we could go back and forth, since the language is ambiguous enough.

Glory for the Greater Good.

Akiosama

I don't play WHF, so I don't know about Goblins and such. As for completing my quote, where does it say to go onto the next weapon in the squad? It simply says (in its entirety), "You can choose any order for your units to shoot, but you must complete all the firing by one unit before you move on to the next."

You do have a good point with the word immediately, though, and I can understand where you're coming from. If it does come up in friendly games, and neither person convinces the other, I'd say just dice it off. If it's in a tournament, I'd suggest clearing it up with the tournament organizer before the day of play.

The Pinning Test does indeed interrupt the normal timing of affairs. A Morale Check is taken at the end of the Shooting Phase (P.44 BRB) once *all* shooting at that particular unit is completed in that entire Shooting Phase. A Pinning Test is indeed taken "out of the normal sequence", but not before all shooting from the individual enemy unit has been completed , as all shooting from a unit is deemed to happen simultaneously. The results of this shooting with pinning weapons - ie unsaved wounds - are what trigger the pinning test, not the individual shots. You wouldn't insist that an unsaved wound caused by a single boltgun in a 10-man tactical Squad all carrying boltguns and all of which cause a wound should have their saves made as and when they "happen", ie one by one. So too with a unit of snipers. All shots occur together (P.16 BRB bottom right corner).

E.

I'd agree with the fact that all the shooting by a unit goes together, but the RAW indicate that you may force multiple tests from the same unit. So a unit of gun drones shoots at a tac squad and does 2 successful wounds. The tac squad would, after the saves have failed, take 2 pinning tests.

Do you mind explaining how the RAW supports it, bored1?

I do believe that it is per weapon that causes a wound in each squad.

Why? Because the wording CAN definitely be taken that way (it is how I read it) and the wording has changed significantly since the last edition.

Why would GW change the wording of a rule that was very clear in its meaning already? In 5th edition GW have been very careful to make things make more sense, sure they have messed up a few of the new rules, but the existing ones have only been improved IMO (less ambiguity overall in this edition). It just doesn't make sense to have the wording "If a unit other than a vehicle suffers any unsaved wounds from a pinning weapon" and "immediately" in there otherwise.

Remember also the way that wounds are allocated and saves taken in 5th, if there are differences, the saves are taken one at a time.

If this is not the case, I think that the pinning rules still suck, in 4th you pinned a unit once every ten games or something silly! Units just do not fail Ld tests on their basic Ld very often.

But that would be because the shots all have the same effect. Just like rolling to save where all the models are the same, the rulebook even says you COULD roll the save one at a time, but you roll them all at once to SAVE TIME.

If pinning WEAPONS have an additional effect, then multiple pinning weapons do not equate to a single type of gun being shot.

That is how I see this anyway...

No, the Icon of Chaos Glory allows a re-roll on failed Morale tests, not Leadership tests. So they don't get a re-roll against pinning.

No, the reason immediately is in there is that it indicates that you do the test after doing the wounds, before going onto a new unit's firing, and before any Morale tests.

Oops. Ninja'd

So why change it from it's 4th ed wording that was clear and unambiguous?

Sa'cea Mont'yr: I think the relevant rules have been posted, but to document fully in case not:

p 31, BRB, under "Pinning"
1.


2.


with regard to "Fast Rolling With Different Weapons", p18, BRB
3.


Point 3 clearly states that you should be rolling all the dice together, and more importantly, that all shots are simultaneous, regardless of how you roll them (within the same unit that is).

Point 1 can be read two ways I think. Option one is that it as a sort of "binary flag" on the unit that is constantly checked after each unit shoots at it. Did the unit take any wounds from a Pinning weapon so far? If yes, test; if not, don't. Meaning that if I shoot it with a unit of mortars, hit, wound, and kill models, the enemy takes one test.

Option two is that it happens at a weapon level. So, even though the shots happen simultaneously, as each weapon fires, you check. Meaning that the "flag" is on each weapon with the Pinning attribute. So as each weapon with Pinning shoots, you check to see if it wounded successfully. This triggers the test.

After re-reading the rule, I think I'll moderate my viewpoint as far as how definitive it is. However, I still lean towards option two, as the wording of Point 1 seems to be more focused on the weapon versus the unit.

Note that Point 2 is there just to show that there is no restriction that would prevent this as far only being forced to take one pinning test per phase or any such thing.

Hopefully that all made sense.

Hmm...

I may have to concede the point of single Pinning tests for a single salvo of Pinning weapons, but based on an interpretation of another section of the Pinning rules (it's not spelled out, but merely inferred), it's still kind of ambiguous.



Ok, now for my questions...

How do you interpret "As the unit has already taken its saves" in conjunction with "any other weapon fired by the same unit that phase"?

Does that mean that you don't roll the Pinning test until all the weapons in all the 'groups of models identical in gaming terms' within the unit have rolled their saves (i.e the entire squad has rolled all of its saves)? If that's the case, then I'd agree that you don't roll multiple tests since there's only one point where troops are wounded and it's all at the same time. But if this is the case, why does the rule say "any other weapon fired by the same unit that phase" since all saves are resolved simultaneously? (EDIT:...except to say that it doesn't retroactively affect the other saves this phase? (Though anyone who would present that would really be stretching, IMO.))

Does that mean you roll the Pinning test after the each set of pinning weapons have rolled their saves? Ok, if that's the case, then if you have a squad of Pathfinders with both Rail Rifles and Pulse Carbines, then each pinning weapon type could cause one pinning test, and the phrase "any other weapon fired by the same unit that phase" makes sense since you treat each weapon type as a group.

Does that mean you roll the Pinning test after each set of 'models identical in gaming terms' have rolled their set of saves (since all saves for each group are rolled simultaneously)? Ok, if that's the case, then if a Space Marine Dev squad took 4 casualties from Carbine Fire, and one of those wounds was the Sergeant, 2 were regular Bolter Marines, and 1 was a Heavy Weapon Marine, you would roll 3 Pinning tests? It marginally uses the "any other weapon fired by the same unit that phase" because it breaks up the 'weapons' by who the weapons are hitting.

Does that mean you roll the Pinning test after each set of pinning weapons on each set of 'models identical in gaming terms' have rolled their saves? Ok, if that's the case, then if a Space Marine Dev team took 4 casualties from Mixed Carbine and Rail Rifle fire, and one of those wounds was the Sergeant (Carbine), 2 were regular Bolter marines (one Carbine, one Rail Rifle), and 1 was a Heavy Weapon (Carbine), would you roll 4 Pinning tests (1 for the Sergeant, 1 for the Heavy Weapon Marine, 1 for the Bolter Marine killed by the Carbine, and 1 for the Bolter Marine killed by the Rail Rifle)? It's the second most loose interpretation of "any other weapon fired by the same unit that phase" because it groups the weapons by both weapon and group being hit (second only to my original interpretation).

So, IMO, looking at the rule as written, and not taking it to mean each individual weapon within the squad gets to roll a Pinning test, I still see some confusion, because I can still see four different interpretations because of the language present (3 that use all the language and a fourth (the one roll example) that doesn't need the additional wording at the end of the quote).

Still kind of confusing, and I still think GW's going to need to clear this one up.

Glory for the Greater Good.

Akiosama

P.S. - Bored1, how does your point 3 mesh with the line "any other weapon fired by the same unit that phase" if all casualties are resolved and removed simultaneously?

My interpretation is that the fact that the unit is wounded immediately and simultaneously by various weapons in a given unit has no bearing on the number of tests a unit would have to take, per RAW. That has to do with when you roll dice and make saves. If you read the Pinning rule per my "option two" above, then regardless of when the wounds happened, you must take a pinning test per weapon that causes a successful wound.

EDIT: The more I think about it, the more I think I'm being swayed the other way. The logic above is the reason I felt the one way, but I'm starting to think I could be wrong (gasp!). Hmm. As far as ease of gameplay, I think taking one pinning test per unit firing is certainly easier.