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The answer is probably obvious, but I wanted to ask anyway since the rule book doesn't say.

If you have a character in a unit with a better ward save than the other models, and you take wounds from a shooting attack, does rolling for the superior ward save require you to take the wound on the character model if you fail it?

My guess is that it does, but you can still save the character using Look Out, Sir.

Follow-up question:

Say I have a unit with 5 models plus a character. The 5 models have a 5+ ward save, the character has a 3+ ward save.

As a result of a shooting attack, I have to roll for six wounds. To spare my character, I try rolling them all on a 5+ ward save, but they all fail. Does that mean the character dies without ever having rolled for his 3+ ward save? (I'm guessing it does.) That means one would probably choose to roll on the character's ward save and risk killing the character before the other models.

The alternative would be to save the character if any of the ward save rolls are 3+, but that seems to benefit the defender too much.

I don't play fantasy, but based off of a very similar situation in 40k, I'd say:

In the example with 5 dudes and a character, you can roll 5 5+ wards and 1 (diff colicroot dice) 3+ ward save. If the 3+ rolls a 1 or a 2, the character snuffs it. (altho I suspect LOS! would come into play.) basically, so far as 40k is concerned, if you use a dude's save, the hit is on him and he takes the consequences.

If there are 5 rank and file models (ie anything but another character and a champion), the character cannot be hit by any shooting attack that uses BS to hit. Similarly, the character gets a Look Out Sir save against shooting attacks that dont use BS to hit.
Should the character be an eligible target for the wound caused, or should he fail his LOS roll, he will save using his own armour/ward save as far as I can tell. Just use a seperate dice.

Thanks. That's basically what I thought, though I didn't think to put it quite in the terms Primarch did.

I'm just going through all the contingencies I can think of as I compose my army list for Orctoberfest so I don't have to waste time on rule lookups during play.

Edit: I just realized there are extra rules on the subject in the Characters section of the rulebook. Interestingly, it states that if you have five or more rank-and-file models (not including the champion), any characters in the unit cannot be hit by normal shooting. With fewer than five rank-and-file models, characters become vulnerable, and the controlling player allocates hits to models as he wishes.

Look Out Sir only applies, then, to special attacks, and not normal (BS-based) shooting.

Glad that's been cleared up. As usual - listen to prim, ignore me

me_in_japan wrote:Glad that's been cleared up. As usual - listen to prim, ignore me

Well, your advice was correct for instances involving fewer than five rank-and-file models.

Yeah, Prim is money here as usual. I had the same question about a year ago and he clarified it then, too.