A-

Felling (X) reduces the target's Unnatural Toughness modifier by a number equal to (X) before determining the Damage caused by a weapon.
Felling does not reduce Unnatural Toughness by (X) when calculating Toughness Bonus as it is applied to True Grit.
First Damage calculation, then applicable Talent mitigation; the Felling Quality has no affect on True Grit.

B-

True Grit (pg 152):

The character is able to shrug off wounds that would kill lesser men.
Whenever the character suffers Critical Damage (after Armour and Toughness), reduce the amount by his Toughness Bonus (to a minimum of 1).

I am not interested in debating the definition of "lesser men".

I am making a reasonable assumption that when this rule refers to the reduction of Critical Damage due to "Toughness" it means Toughness Bonus. Otherwise, reducing Critical Damage by 40+ points makes True Grit redundant.
I am making a reasonable assumption, based on the rules, adding Unnatural Toughness modifers to TB effectively increases the total TB.

The scenario:

A wounded Ork Meganob (TB 4, Unnatural Toughness +5, Personal AP 14, 7 Wounds remaining, has True Grit) is lumbering through a ruined building (Cover AP 10), and "Lucky" Eddie decides to sneak into Short Range and take a shot with his "trusty" Meltagun. Eddie is lucky; he successfully sneaks into range and hits the Meganob. The Pen of the Meltagun is doubled at Short Range (12x2=24), so the Meganob's combined AP is negated. Eddie rolls an 8 and a 9 for Damage, adding 10, for a total Damage of 27. Subtracting the Meganob's combined TB (9), it suffers 18 Wounds, resulting in a -11 Critical Injury (off the Table), but this is reduced by a combined TB of 9 due to True Grit, meaning the Meganob only suffers a -2 Critical Injury.

So, my questions to the forum are as follows:

A- Is this a correct assessment of Felling?

B- Is the final Critical Injury a result of correctly applying the benefit of True Grit?

I only have access to the beta rules at the moment, but I'm going to hope the wording hasn't changed for Felling/True Grit.

Anyway, first side thing - I didn't see Felling used in the example. It does appear to be the proper application of True Grit though. I find it meaningful to recognize (and I guess the name of this villian makes it so), that not all enemies need to hit "death" from the crit wound table. Yes this does greatly diminish the usefulness of some talents, as well as reduce the difficulty of True Grit on enemies, but its there to streamline the gameplay.

As far as Felling goes though, I actually disagree with your reading of it. It specifically states it reduces the Unnatural Toughness for the target as a whole when calculating damage. I see that as still being in effect when calculating Crit Damage and when True Grit kicks in. Its that last sentence, "The reduction occurs for calculating Damage only and does not persist" seals it for me. Yes, its not permenant, but its in effect for the whole duration of the calculating damage step.

KommissarK said:

I entirely agree with this.

MILLANDSON said:

+1 to this. I think the rule is pretty clear: Felling reduces Unnatural Toughness, and True Grit should work with this reduced value, becuase you can't add what you don't have.

And another +1. Orks in good armour are meant to be unstoppable from just small arms fire, so the True Grit talent makes sense for them. And as has been pointed out time and again - GM can rule that when an enemy hits 0 wounds they are dead to speed things up and reserve the critical damage charts for "bosses" or more important enemies.

Kasatka said:

The GM can do whatever he wants, but the book says "minions," and if you want top interpret that literally, that means gretchens and so forth.

Orks that die when they hit 0 Wounds aren't Orks, they go down to lasgun fire relatively easily. Faster than Guardsmen do actually, since unless you hit the Body a Guardsman's AP + TB is higher than an Ork Boy's.

AtoMaki said:

I'm of the mind Felling reduces Unnatural Toughness for the purposes of Damage calculation, and that once the Damage has been calculated Felling's role is complete. True Grit then steps in with Unnatural Toughness at full strength and reduces any Critical Damage that may have been scored, to a minimum of 1. There is a distinct difference between Damage and Critical Damage. FFG simply used the same word, "Damage". Damage is what you roll. Damage in excess of TB and AP translates to Wounds. Critical Damage should read as Critical Wounds, or, as it is in the Core Rules, Critical Injury, not Critical Damage. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. Still, the debate has merit.

Felling does not say anything like "Reduce Unnatural Toughness until it has been determined whether True Grit is needed or not. If it is needed, continue applying the reduction to Unnatural Toughness from Felling until True Grit finishes reducing Critical Damage."

That would mean getting double the mileage from Felling, and I think that is an incorrect assessment of Felling's intent.

Page 250 and 251 describe the steps taking and applying damage. Based on their descriptions we know that felling applies during Step Five: Target Applies Damage. Since this is not broken up into any further steps we must assume that felling applies through the whole process and so unatural toughness does not get added to true grit against a felling weapon.