One of the most confusing rules in Warhammer 40k, 10th edition, is The Benefits of Cover rule, specifically how you resolve wounds and today we are going to tackle that problem. We are going to use logic, our understanding of the English language, and everything that has ever been said about it officially in the rules to try and get it right…. hopefully…. maybe…

Ok so disclosure time, strictly speaking, while I take a crack at it here from rules as written perspective, the truth is that I’m uncertain that this is the way the rules were intended to work. Intention and rules as written, don’t always align.

Ok… let’s get into it.

Visibility and Cover

Ok first thing is first, we need to understand the language difference between the concept of Visibility and Cover.

Visibility is about ranged shooting for the most part, though other rules also use visibility in different ways. The rule is quite simple, if you can draw a line of sight from one unit to another unit, you have visibility. Now there are categories of visibility.

There is Model Visibility and there is Unit Visibility. It’s mostly a distinction without much of a difference to a shooting unit, if you can see any model in a unit, you have unit visibility. It’s that simple and I don’t think anyone has any confusion about that.

Here is the BIG catch. When shooting we talk about Unit Visibility to determine the target, which as already pointed out is what you have if you’re shooting a unit you can see any model or part of a model in a unit, at which point you have unit visibility aka, a target.

Cover does not ever use the word unit at any point. It always references the Model. This is important to establish in order to understand the rest of the logic and language of the benefit of cover rules. The concept of the unit has nothing to do with the benefits of cover, only models matter to the benefit of cover rules!

Gaining The Benefits of Cover

The when of it is pretty self-explanatory with one key caveat that I will repeat many times. You gain the benefits of cover for a MODEL by being obscured in different ways by terrain. Crates and Rubble, Barricades and Fuel Pipes, Battlefield Debris, and so on, all have their own rules for WHEN you gain the benefit of cover, but again, the rules are quite specific that benefits of cover are allocated to models, never units. This is the key to the execution of the rule.

Making Wound Saves and Benefits of Cover

Each time a ranged attack is allocated to a model that has the Benefit of Cover, add 1 to the saving throw made for that attack (excluding invulnerable saving throws). Models with a Save characteristic of 3+ or better cannot have the Benefit of Cover against attacks with an Armour Penetration characteristic of 0.

Pretty straightforward, but again, the key here is the model. So let’s talk about Allocating Attacks.

Ok so this happens before the opponent makes a wound save for a model in the targeted unit (an important distinction) they must CHOOSE at this point, which model will take the wound (s).

At this stage, you select which MODEL will be removed as a result of a failed wound save.

Now remember that while we often roll buckets of dice representing multiple shots and multiple attacks etc… when rolling for wounds, a distinction between models must be made. In the same way, you have units with leaders and characters who might have different statistics, you need to decipher who is taking which wounds and that may change what sort of dice results you need for success or failure.

Benefits of Cover fall into this same category and function under the same rules, its model specific. More important is the saving throw rules here, which again, are on a per-model basis are super clear.

Here you can see that the allocation was already completed, so we know which model will be affected by a wound and now the player rolls the save and if the save fails, that model is removed. You can’t pick other models, it’s not a choice, you must remove the model that was allocated for the attack.

Examples and Putting It All Together

let’s do a full example to illustrate how wounds are allocated, how we roll wounds, and how we divide them when some models in a unit have the benefits of cover and some don’t.

In Image 1 Unit A has rolled 7 wounds on Unit B. In Unit B, three models have the benefit of cover and two models do not. How do you resolve the wounds in this situation?

To begin with, the defender gets to allocate the wounds. The defender can put the wounds all on the models that have the benefit of cover. However, since there is only 3 of them, you cannot just roll 7 dice (7 saves). The reason is that once three models have been killed, the rest of the models in the unit no longer have the benefit of cover.

So you would have to first roll 3 saves and see how many survive. Let’s imagine, 2 of them failed and 1 of them succeeded on the save. Two models must be removed and since the defender chose the models in cover to take the wounds, they MUST remove from those models first.

Why? Because the allocation and wound roll is done on a model basis, one model at a time and benefits of cover is also per model. We are taking a shortcut by rolling 3 wounds at a time because the models that have been allocated to take the wounds share the same statistic and have the benefit of cover. The player could not now, change their mind and remove a different set of models (those not gaining the benefit of cover). The player must remove those that do have the benefit of cover because that was the allocation.

This is the common mistake players make and get wrong with this rule. It’s the same as having a special character in a unit. You can’t have the special character with a better save take all the wounds, but then remove other models of the unit with worse saves as sacrificial lambs. A wound is allocated to a specific model in a unit, you roll the die for that model, and if that model fails its save, that model is removed.

In image 2 we continue with resolving the same scenario. Originally there were 7 wounds, but 3 have been allocated and resolved, resulting in 2 models being removed from unit B, but we have 4 wounds left to resolve.

The player of Unit B again gets to do the allocation, so naturally, they choose the model in cover to get the benefit of a cover bonus to their save. This time, they must roll 1 die at a time, until either they make 4 saves, or they fail one. Let’s imagine that they save 2, but fail the 3rd roll. Again, now the model that was allocated to the wound must be removed.

Finishing off the example, we have resolved 6 of the 7 wounds. We have one left to allocate and now we must allocate it to models in unit B that do not have the benefits of cover, as there are no more models left in unit B to which a wound could be allocated that have the benefit of cover. They will have a worse save.

Conclusion

Is this a good rule? I think it’s a bit finicky but honestly, I have no idea. What I’m certain about is that I have executed this example exactly how the rules instruct you to resolve the benefits of cover. It’s a bit slow, as you have to divide up and make separate rolls for models that have the benefit of cover vs. those that don’t, but it is what it is.

And yes there can be situations where you might have to roll a single die over and over again until you fail for example when 19 of the 20 models in a unit don’t have benefits of cover, but one does and you have 10 wounds to allocate. Naturally, you want to try to make as many of those rolls with the benefits of cover as you can, to leverage that quirky little advantage, but eventually… probably that model will die and then you can chuck the rest of the dice for models without the benefit of cover.

Very often cover doesn’t matter in the event you have units with a 2+ or +3 save, but if you want to play by the rules as written, I believe that this is it.

I hope that alleviates some confusion among players out there, it sure as shit, confused the hell out of me.