Hi!

Example: a Tzeenzch Horror (1/2) fights a Nurgle Cultist (1/1) and a upgraded Slaanesh Cultist (1/2).

He scores one hit, no explosions.

Can the Horror, for whatever reason, assign his hit to the Slaanesh Cultist, thus slaying no enemy miniatures or does he have to use his hits to kill as many enemies as possible - thus having to assign his damaging hit to the Nurgle Cultist in order to slay it?

Thanks for any help!

I don't see anything that would contradict this. A similar situation came up here recently: A player faced two Nurgle cultists and one Slaanesh (upgraded) cultist in a Populous region, and wanted to keep Nurgle out of the region. He rolled three hits. We also played it that he can assign two hits to the Nurgle cultists and the third to the Slaanesh cultist, thereby having one hit "go to waste" and not helping kill anything.

The only thing that is not possible is "storing up" hits for other players to benefit from. Assigning them to a figure that won't be killed by the hits must be possible in situations where a player rolls too few hits to kill the present enemy figures in a region, because all hits must be assigned anyway. For example, if Khorne only has a Bloodthirster in a region (for whatever reason) and Nurgle rolls two hits with his two Plaguebearers, the hits must be assigned to the Bloodthirster and won't kill him. I don't see why that shouldn't be possible in a situation like the one you described.

Hmm, my initial instinct was that you'd need to kill off things if you could. However, on rereading the combat section before posting it's clear that, whilst you must assign hits and cannot combine hits with other players, there's nothing to stop you from intentionally not killing things provided there's enough toughness around to soak the hits

Page 24:

"A player may not assign fewer hits to a figure than are
necessary to kill it and thereby “store them up” in order
to combine hits with other players. That is, different
players may not “gang up” on the same powerful figure
within a region.

Excess rolled hits – i.e., those without a legal target –
are lost.

A player who has legal targets for rolled hits must assign
them."

To me, that prevent the gangbang possibility and the in the OP's situation, forces you to kill the Nurgle Plaguebearer.

The important word in that quote of yours is "thereby". Yes, it's there to prevent gangbanging.

However, as I wrote, it must be possible to assign fewer hits to a figure than would be necessary to kill it. Since all hits must be assigned, even if they are not capable of killing anything at all, they must be able to be assigned to things they are not able to kill. Otherwise, the game would produce invalid situations all the time. Think Slaanesh having upgraded cultists and Demonettes in a region, and the only other player with figures in the region only rolling one hit. He must assign that one hit to something it won't kill, there is no other way. Consequently, assigning hits to things that will not die is possible .

With that established, I do not see a rule that says that hits must be assigned in a way that kills the maximum number of enemy figures. They must all be assigned , true, and they will not be stored , but they need not be assigned in ways that do not assign any hits to things that will not die . The rules quote you produced does not say they need to, because it's about storing up hits, and about having to assign all hits to legal targets as long as legal targets are available, but not about having to assign them in any particular way.

I know excess implies more hits than there are targets, but I would argue that if you roll 1 hit in a region with 2 Upgraded Slaanesh Cultists is the exception. If you roll 1 hit in a region with 2 Upgraded Slaanesh Cultists and a Tzeentch Cultist, you must assign to the Tzeentch Cultist.

Given the OP's situation, the Nurgle Cultist must be killed. If their are legal targets, you must kill them. You can't assign less hits than it would take to kill something (to absorb it and save others) and you can't assign more hits than a target would take.

The only way the one hit would not be assigned is if the Nurgle Cultist wasn't there.

Are you sure about that, Brian? The hit does get assigned after all. It just doesn't kill anything. And for your second paragraph: I am fairly certain that the hits are assigned anyway, there is no exception to that rule - they are merely assigned to something they can't kill - the bit about "if the number of hits equal the figure's defense value" does not come into play. The only hits that are not assigned are excess ones.

Consequently, it is at least in some situations (namely, the last hits of a roll) valid to assign less hits to a figure than are necessary to kill it.

Assuming then that your reading is correct (which I still doubt, but is possible of course and has some things speaking for it): Is a player allowed to assign a hit to the last enemy figure with only 1 defense, if there's more enemy figures with higher defense and after assigning that hit he has only one hit left to assign? (Example: One cultist and one Horror in a region, I have two hits to assign between them. Am I allowed to kill the Cultist and assign only one hit to the Horror, thus not killing it and potentially gaining more VP due to this assignment in the longer run?)

OK, I sent another rules question about this then

It's really a border case and should not occur that often, but I can see the OP's idea of not wanting to kill mind controlled cultists and the likes. And the situation with two hits and me wanting to kill a cultist actually occured, and was VP-relevant (for corruption tokens).

Yay, the answer came really quickly this time over It appears that the case about the 2 hits to be assigned to two figures, one with 1 defense and one with 2 defense, is special. You can only assign fewer hits to a unit than are necessary to kill it if you have no other options (including other options that involve killing other units). Each assignment is considered sequentially, thus it is valid to kill a 1-defense figure with 2 hits and then have 1 hit left over to assign to something that it won't kill.

haslo said:

I agree with this but that was not the situation posted above. The situation above was that you would assign these two hits in such a way that NO figure was hit and that is against the spirit of the rules. In this scenario, you ARE assigning a hit to a figure so that it is killed. Then you are left with additional hits that have no legal targets.

The point of what I said above is that if you have something to kill you must kill it. But assigning the hits to something that can absorbe it (like a greater daemon) just to avoid killing cultists or warriors is illegal.