Tzeench psychic powers

One of the things that keeps cropping up in my group is how under powered chaos are.  In particular, how under powered Tzeench magic is.  The so called god of magic has one of the weakest spell lores out there.

I have attempted to remedy this with my own list.  See what you think.

Flickering fire of Tzeench.  WC 1+   Primaris Power
This is a witch fire with a range of 24 inches.  Declare how many warp charge points you want to attempt to cast this at.  This spell does a number of d6 s4 ap5 hits equal to the amount of warp charge declared.  Eg a WC3 cast would shoot 3d6 shots.  Any unit taking at least one unsaved wound will be affected by soul blaze.

Blessing of Tzeench WC 1   Spell number 1
Malediction.  On a successful cast of this spell transfer d3 warp charge points from your opponent’s pool to your own.

Bolt of Change WC 1 Spell number 2
This is a beam with a range of 24 inches.  Any target lying under the beam takes a strength 8 ap2 hit.

Future sight.  WC 1 Spell number 3
This is a Blessing affecting the caster and his unit.  The unit gains d3 rerolls which last through this turn, and the opponents next turn.  These may be used to reroll any single dice for to hit, to wound or save, or cast or deny spells.

Breath of Chaos. WC 2 Spell number 4
This is a witch fire.  This has a range of template.  Any model hit by this template must take a toughness test or take a wound with no armour or cover saves allowed.  Invulnerable saves may be taken, but successful saves must be rerolled.  Any unit taking at least one unsaved wound will be affected by soul blaze.

Transformation of Tzeench WC 3 Spell number 5
This is a witch fire with a range of 24 inches.  The target unit takes 2d6 s6 ap 4 hits.  If at least one model is removed as a casualty you may add a chaos spawn model to the table, one inch from the target unit.  It has a number of wounds equal to the amount of wounds inflicted by the spell.

Firestorm of Tzeench WC 4 Spell number 6
This is a witch fire.  Center the apocalyptic blast over the sorcerer casting this spell.  Every unit covered by the template take a number of hits equal to the amount of models under the template.  These hits are resolved at s5 ap4 with ignores cover.  Models with the mark of Tzeench, or Daemons of Tzeench are immune to this power, but models with the Mark of Nurgle or Daemons of Nurgle take two hits. Any units taking at least one unsaved wound will be affected by soul blaze.

7th edition Eldar Mathshammer - Which multi shot heavy weapon to use and when?

So the new codex comes out and there have been very few changes to the heavy weapons in the Eldar codex.  Or have there?

In the last edition, the Scatter Laser was king.  With laser lock the others rarely got a look in. However times change, laser lock has been resigned to the bin of history and so everyone gets to have another chance.  In this article I will compare the Scatter Laser (SL) with both the Shuriken Cannon (ShC) and the Starcannon (StC).

The reason for this article is that I read somewhere on a popular blog that there is no point in using starcannons because they are flat our inferior to scatter lasers still.  I am not so sure that is the case, so lets run the numbers shall we?  I will take several basic statlines and compare the damage each weapon does against them.  We will use GEQ, MEQ and finally TEQs.

GEQ - Toughness 3 5+ saves
SL 4 shots, hit on 3s, wound on 2s, saves on 5s.   1.49 kills
ShC 3 shots, hit on 3s, wound on 2s, no saves (bladestorm irrelevant here) 1.66 kills
StC 2 shots, hit on 2s, wound on 2s, no saves. 1.11 kills.

In a surprise to me at least, the Shuiken Cannon comes out on top here.  Saving one in three wounds really hurts the Scatter lasers damage output.  It will likely only get worse from here on out for the previous king.

MEQ - T4 3+ saves
SL 4 shots, hit on 3s, wound on 2s, saves on 3s. 0.73 kills
ShC 3 shots, hit on 3s, wound on 2s, saves on 3s (bladestorm kicks in)  0.64 kills
StC 2 shots, hit on 2s, wound on 2s, no saves.  1.11 kills

So unless my maths is wrong, the Starcannon is the best performer here.  Against the most common, popular models in the game.  Now obviously cover saves do matter, but that will only reduce the Starcannon to 0.74, still leaving it the strongest performer here.

TEQ - T4 2+/5++
SL 4 shots, hit on 3s, wound on 2s, saves on 2s.  0.37 kills
ShC 3 shots, hit on 3s, wound on 2s, saves on 2s (bladestorm kicks in)  0.46 kills
StC 2 shots, hit on 2s, wound on 2s, saves on 5++.  0.74 kills

As the armour improves, the Scatter laser really loses out. The only time the scatter laser may be the optimal weapon is against a target with an armour save of 6+ or worse.  Outside of orks, I don't think there are a great many of those around.

7th Edition. Is it really 6.5?

So after a fairly long hiatus, I have finally got around to looking at the 7th edition rules.

I have to say, I am not really impressed.  For a rough estimate, I would suggest around 95% of the core rules and around 99% of special and weapon rules have stayed the same.  For the price of the books I expected more.

Which brings me to the books.  There is a big rule book, a background book and a sort of painting book.

The painting book has mostly big photos of models with no real explanation on how they were painted. There is a heavy emphasis on Ultramarines and not much on other factions and something that may possibly be classed as tactics, but it really doesn't come across that way in reading it.  I could quite happily have never seen this book, never mind paid actual money for it.  If it had shown a few more gamers armies, or shown how to do some of the painted models, or painting methods, then I would have been much more impressed.

The background book is a rehash of what has been said in previous publications.  I couldn't actually see anything new in this whole book.  While I am sure it is of some value to new gamers, to someone who has been playing for near twenty years, its not very much use to me.  The specific sections on different factions is covered in much better details in their own codexes.

Now those books have been dealt with, back to the rules.  The rules are really just 6th edition with a couple of changes.  This isn't a bad thing as 6th was a solid set of rules.

Big changes, as far as I can tell are as follows;

Psychic phase.  It looks like initially a small nerf in the volume of powers cast, although certain armies will see a boost I think.  Its quite similar to the old fashioned dice pools for casting from fantasy.  Its early to say for sure, but focused witchfires actually look usable now, which is a nice change.   There doesn't appear to be an upper limit on how many dice you use to cast either.  This means you can throw all your dice at a spell you really want.  I also like how you get the primaris power for free if you pick all your powers from the same deck.  Overall this is an improvement.

Shooting phase.  There has been a fairly interesting change.  You now roll all the weapons of one type, then resolve the effects before rolling the next set.  This will slow games down, but provides a tactical choice to the game in trying to stack melta hits on characters when the fodder is hosed down in front of him with lesser weapons.  I like this.

Charge ranges:  Has stayed the same, but with small changes.  Now difficult terrain reduces the charge by a set distance.  Makes it a bit more predictable.  I think this is good too.

Vehicle damage:  It is now no longer possible to blow up a vehicle in one hit with an Ap3 or worse weapon. This makes vehicles across the board tougher and thus more desirable.  Except oddly landraiders, and other 14 all round vehicles, which were virtually impervious to these lower damage weapons in the first place.    I am unsure how much of an effect this will have, except armour 10 vehicles become considerably tougher.

Lords of war are now included in the Force Organisation Chart.

New missions are far more dynamic, allowing armies built around speed and reaction to do well, where as static armies may struggle.

Overall my impressions are that 7th is a positive step forwards.  I can't think of any changes that have been for the worse, but it does strike me as more 6.5 than a new version of the rules.

Asurman and Dire Avengers. Why my opinion has changed

Anyone reading this blog for a long time will no doubt be laughing at the amount of backtracks I have made on actually using units, as opposed to just reading about them.  This is another such article.

Despite much trepidation I have been using both Dire Avengers, and Asurman in my lists.  Both seem over priced for what they do, yet in using them, I have won more games.

In football management terms, sometimes you can have a player in your team, who doesn't appear to do a great deal, but his inclusion means you have more wins, so you keep including him without knowing why.

This is the case with my Dire Avengers.  Everything about them screams over priced to me.  Yet they consistently do a job and do it well.  Perhaps its because I don't waste points on Exarchs and just field units of 8 normal warriors.  At the moment I don't really know, but I am endeavouring to find out.

Asurman on the other hand is solid as a rock.  This is the reason he is my Warlord.  He has worse shooting than half the other Phoenix Lords, and worse combat than pretty much all of the Phoenix lords, but is one of the most expensive.

The key to using him is to understand his Warlord trait ability.  D3 Warlord traits.  What you are hoping to roll is number 4.  This allows him to reroll his armour save.  A 2+ rerollable save, with eternal warrior and a 4++ invulnerable save rerolling 1s is insanely strong.  Small arms fire will bounce off him 35/36 times he is wounded which makes killing him virtually impossible outside of ap2 fire.

Stand at the front of the unit he is in, and tank everything.  You can look out sir any Ap2 hits and even if you fail, you are eternal warrior so its not the end of the world if a railgun hits you in the face.   In the event you don't get the Warlord trait you want, you can always hope you get Fortune.  You do have a farseer right?

His shooting attacks are pretty lame.  A pair of catapults making them twinlinked isn't really all that, considering his high bs of 7 would have made it kind of twinlinked anyway.

Get him into combat however and he shines.  His special Diresword makes him S5 AP2 striking on initative with a boat load of attacks.  He can and will carve through anything without a decent save, and if they have poor leadership, he will do an even more damage when they fail their leadership tests.  This special ability even bypasses eternal warrior!

Xwing Miniatures game rules confusion

One of the problems with being a long time GW player, over eighteen years and counting, is that certain rules become ingrained into your mind as being true, regardless of what game you are playing.

One of these, which is applicable pretty much across the board is "you can't reroll a reroll".  It has so long been in GW games of every type that I have played, when I play another game it can take some effort to get my head around it!

The situation came to light yesterday when we were trying to work out what the gunner card did.  It seems that combined with Han Solo you can end up with up to four rerolls if I am reading the cards correctly.

That is Han shoots, then rerolls using his ability if he needs to.  If this fails, the gunner shoots, then Han uses his reroll if needs be.  Three rerolls on one action!

The other issue is what counts as a hit.  Because we were so used to GW games, when a hit or critical hit symbol appeared on the dice we assumed that he couldnt use his reroll because he had hit.  But in reality he hadn't hit until damage is actually inflicted on the enemy ship.

So Han gets to use the Gunner card if the target manages to dodge.  Not bad, not bad at all

How to land a Daemon bomb in 6th

Having read the latest codex daemons book several times, something has struck me.  How exactly do you land your daemon models from deep striking.

Now I know this is by no means something you have to do in 6th, as daemons are capable of deploying normally like everyone else.  However you are likely to want to get your daemonettes and bloodletters to the enemy unscathed as much as possible, so you want a unit capable of planting an Icon.

Having looked at the various options, it seems there are three main candidates fulfilling the basic criteria of being fast and capable of bringing an Icon.  Lets take a look at them.

Blood crushers

How the mighty have fallen.  This used to be the premier assault unit in the daemon book, until the errata took its teeth and the new codex kicked it while it was down.  From a strictly combat perspective this unit is not great.  However, we are looking at it from the perspective of shoving an icon down the enemies throat as quickly as possible.

First notice, the unit is now cavalry, not infantry.  This improves its movement considerably, allowing it to move fairly rapidly towards the enemy 12+d6 inches on turn one.  It is still toughness 4 with 3 wounds and has the standard daemon invunerable save.  No sign of the power armour of yester year.  Three models and a banner will set you back around 150 points if you get a champion with an etherblade.  You might as well.
Not a great choice, but they will allow other khorne units to deep strike without scattering.

Plague Drones

I have to admit, when I first read the unit, I couldn't see past using them as a Tau Battlesuit style jump forwards, shoot two grenades a pop then retreat type unit.  However, the role of deep strike delivery actually suits it very well.  Toughness 5, three wounds, shrouded and an invulnerable save all contribute to being the toughest of the three units.  They pay a premium on their Icon, but you will want this.  Chances are you also want a champion with an ether blade as before, to give the unit some teeth.

On turn one this unit can move a considerable distance. 12+shooting+2d6.  The only real downside is that you don't really want to drop Plaguebeare units off close to the enemy, and those you might drop, like Beasts and Nurglings should probably already be deployed to attract fire away from your delivery units.  Like above, this unit is around 150 points and is considerably faster, tougher and move maneuverable than Blood crushers, but nowhere near as capable of combat.   It is therefore likely your units will scatter still, even with the Icon being held by them.

Seekers

The cheapest of the bunch.  For the low cost of 70 points, you get a very rapid moving, very low toughness icon delivery system.  To make this fair though, I will compare roughly 150 points of these against the other two.  So you can get 11 of these, plus an Icon for just under 150 points.  As these have rending, and are not especially tough, there is no point in buying a champion or an etherblade.  You get 11 wounds at toughness 3 and the standard save. So by far the easiest to kill, even with more wounds.  Each wound also removes a model, reducing its combat effectiveness.

On the plus side, they move like lightning due to being slaanesh daemons.  Move 12+6+d6 on turn 1 is outstanding.  They also work well with Daemonettes, Fiends and Chariots all of which are not very resilient and want to arrive unscathed.  You also have the option of taking two units of five, both with Icons for a mere 140 points.  The only reason I can think of not to do this, is that it eats into your fast attack slots, and fast attack for Daemons are vastly improved, and probably better than Elites and indeed Heavy Support now.

Tzeench

For some reason, Tzeench gets no units that can move fast and carry an Icon.  Neither Flamers or Screamers have the option.  Which is a shame really.  On the plus side, Pink horrors want to stay far and away from the enemy.

Conclusion

The three options are fairly competitive, in that none of them is substantially better than the rest.  Bloodcrushers are the slowest, fairly dangerous in combat, but lightly armoured.  Plague Drones are the toughest, and most flexible, but also are expensive, poor in combat and only have short range shooting. Seekers are the fastest and weakest, but slaanesh has the largest amount of low toughness assault troops.

Codex Daemons first impression

I have not posted in a good while, been distracted with other things.  However I do have a brand spanking new copy of Codex Daemons that I had a brief look through.

I am not going to say I will write a full codex review, since I am unlikely to finish it.  However I will go through important changes and other bits I have picked up.

Firstly, no more daemonic assault.  The army deploys conventionally, but every unit appears to have deep strike.  Icons work as before, but as your army can deploy on the table, this is far more effective.  Substantially cheaper too.  Musicians, previously all but worthless allow other units to deep strike in without rolling if the unit with the musician passes the test.  Pretty handy if you have a greater daemon in reserve.

Psychic powers are back.  Most of the daemonic HQ choices, and Tzeench in general gets spell casters.  Different lores to Chaos marines, but obviously similar theme.  Horrors have brotherhood of sorcerers special rule and can get to have three warp charge with a big enough squad. This replaces their shooting.

Flamers were nerfed badly.  Flamers now ap4 and have no real ability vs tanks.  No surprise here.  Bloodcrushers lose their 3+ save, replacing it with a 6+ and they are no cheaper.  They are now cavalry though.  All bloodletters remain ap3 in combat.

Screamers oddly seem to have kept their overpowered abilities from the white dwarf write up. 

All lesser daemons are dirt cheap.  All the four main types are ten points or under a model.  Statistically they are worse than before, but due to price cuts, I don't think that is a big deal.

Heralds are four to a HQ slot.  They can buy loci's which upgrade their attached unit.

All unnamed HQs can buy daemonic gifts.  Three levels, costing a variety of points.  You then get  to roll on a chart to determine what you have, but can default to a weapon. 

No Keeper of Secrets special character.  Masque got nerfed.  No real love for Slaanesh with one special character.  Nurgle has two, Khorne and Tzeench three.  Tallyman got nerfed.  Fateweaver got changed substantially.  Tzeench characters get access to Diviniation, which is great.

Greater daemons become greater.  Biggest change is they all seem to have an additional wound, but worse saves than before.  Daemons get their abilities the same as in Codex Chaos.  They are mostly cheaper, with better upgrades.  Leadership maxes out at 9.

Daemonic Instability is very random.  Same as it used to be to an extent, though a double 1 heals dead models and a double 6 kills the unit out right. 

There is also a random chart you roll on per shooting phase.   It can hit your own units, but if you take one god exclusively you minimize these risks.  Otherwise it is fairly balanced by shafting you, and hurting the enemy. 

Plague drones are jump jet cavalry.  A totally unique unit in the game at the moment.

Chaos Characters - Ahriman and Huron

I realise it has been a while since I last wrote anything on the Chaos codex.  I have been distracted and playing a few games.

There is a very real chance that both Ahriman and Huron will become mainstay HQ choices for Chaos lists. The reason for this is very simple.  They have an exceptional Warlord trait.

By being able to infiltrate d3 units, you can get a first turn charge with a number of the units in the chaos list. This opens a world of tactical options, and essentially prevents gunlines from causing all kinds of carnage. You really do need the first turn to take the most advantage of this though.  If you don't get it, consider hiding your units within cover.  If you do go first, deploy in the open 18 inches away.  Fast units like raptors, mauler fiends, daemon princes, spawn, bikers and warptalons can assault the enemy before they have chance to do anything.

With d3 units able to do this, you want to include three units if you include either Huron or Ahriman to take advantage of this.  The best thing with this strategy is it is automatic with these Warlords, and is in effect another special rule for the characters.

Tankbusting 101 - Weapon comparison - BS4

For the last couple of weeks I have been quite busy not getting around to writing anything more on the chaos book.  It seems anything I can do to avoid writing I seem to do instead. 

What I thought I would do instead is write an updated 6th edition anti tank capability comparison between various weapons in both Space Marine and Imperial Guard lists including as many of the different types of guns as I could think of, seeing how bs 3 and 4 affect the various weapons and equally importantly looking at how the changes to how AP affects armour harms your chances of a kill. 

Firstly lets look at common anti tank weapons available to marines using BS4 adjusted for 6th edition AP values, bearing in mind anything with ap 3+ is actually 50% worse at tank killing now;

ML                                Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill

VS AV 10                              11.11%                    44.44%                7.41%

VS AV 11                              11.11%                    33.33%                5.56%

VS AV 12                              11.11%                    22.22%                3.70%

VS AV 13                              11.11%                    11.11%                 1.85%

VS AV 14                              11.11%                           0%                       0%

Lascannon                     Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill

VS AV 10                              11.11%                    55.55%                 18.52%

VS AV 11                              11.11%                    44.89%                 14.81%

VS AV 12                              11.11%                    33.50%                 11.05%

VS AV 13                              11.11%                    22.11%                  7.30%

VS AV 14                              11.11%                    10.72%                  3.54%

TL Lascannon                 Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill

VS AV 10                              13.88%                    69.44%                 23.15%

VS AV 11                              13.88%                    55.55%                 18.52%

VS AV 12                              13.88%                    41.67%                 13.88%

VS AV 13                              13.88%                    27.76%                  9.25%

VS AV 14                              13.88%                    13.88%                  4.44%

Autocannon*                    Chance of Glance     Chance of Pen          Chance of kill

VS AV 10                              11.11%                    33.33%                   5.56%

VS AV 11                             11.11%                    22.22%                    3.70%

VS AV 12                             11.11%                    11.11%                    1.85%

VS AV 13                             11.11%                           0%                       0%

VS AV 14                                   0%                           0%                        0%

TL Autocannon*             Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill

VS AV 10                              13.88%                    41.67%                   6.67%

VS AV 11                              13.88%                    27.76%                   4.63%

VS AV 12                              13.88%                    13.88%                   2.22%

VS AV 13                              13.88%                           0%                      0%

VS AV 14                                      0%                          0%                      0%

 Assault Cannon**           Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill
 VS AV 10                              11.11%                    22.22%                   3.70%
 VS AV 11                              11.11%                    11.11%                    1.85%
 VS AV 12                                    0%                    11.11%                    3.70%
 VS AV 13                                3.70%                      7.41%                   2.46%
 VS AV 14                                3.70%                      3.70%                   1.23%

 TL Assault Cannon**      Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill
 VS AV 10                              13.88%                     27.39%                  4.57%
 VS AV 11                               13.88%                    13.28%                   2.21%
 VS AV 12                                      0%                    13.28%                  6.64%
 VS AV 13                                4.43%                      8.86%                   2.93%

 VS AV 14                                4.43%                      4.43%                   1.48%

Melta under half range   Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill

 VS AV 10                               1.83%                     64.84%                  33.03%

 VS AV 11                               3.66%                     61.17%                  31.20%

 VS AV 12                               5.49%                     55.68%                  28.76%

 VS AV 13                               7.32%                     48.36%                  25.40%

 VS AV 14                               9.15%                     39.21%                  21.14%

Melta over half range      Chance of Glance        Chance of Pen          Chance of kill

 VS AV 10                               11.11%                    44.44%                  24.07%

 VS AV 11                               11.11%                    33.33%                  18.55%

 VS AV 12                               11.11%                   22.22%                   12.96%

 VS AV 13                               11.11%                    11.11%                   7.41%

 VS AV 14                               11.11%                          0%                   1.85%

* has two shots, this is a per shot comparison, so you get two chances of this

** has four shots, this is a per shot comparison, so you get four chances of this

Assaulting from a transport, rule changes for 6th

Assaulting from a transport has never been so difficult.  There have been a number of quite large changes which affect how this works.

Firstly, you can only now disembark if the transport moves a maximum of 6 inches in the movement phase. You can only assault if the vehicle is an assault vehicle.

Other vehicles previously could be used to launch assaults if they stayed stationary, but this rule has gone. Also gone is the ability to move full speed and drop off the troop capacity.  Now, no matter how fast your transport may be, be it a slow Rhino or a supersonic Stormraven, you can only move 6 inches to drop your troops off.

This means you will need to be virtually on top of the enemy the turn before, in order to do this.  Flyers will need to go into hover mode to drop off their troops, because otherwise they are moving too fast to do this.

Relative powers of different abilities

So far I have not had time to work out and write down the various other power weapon statistics against other common enemy types.  This post is kind of related, so bear with me.

Rending used to be the poor relative of having a power weapon.  It only used to ignore armour saves on a 6.  However with the changes made to power weapons and rending remaining the same, it has actually improved rending, relative to the other weapons.  Essentially, rending stood still, while power weapons took steps backwards.

The same goes for Monstrous creatures, their attacks still ignore armour save, and what is more, they now have a special attack they can use if they really want to against armour.  You probably won't ever need to use it, unless assaulting Monoliths and Landraiders, but its nice to have for free!

I am not convinced fleet is as good as it used to be, and it was never brilliant before.  A lot of eldar troops have this ability but are not close combat equipped.  Those troops who are close combat equipped could run d6 and charge 6 in the past, now it is looking like they will be statistically worse than the average of 10.5 the 5th edition run+charge brought.

Assaulting 101

Taking a break from all the Tyranid Codex review pages I have written recently to look at a key area of the game; Assaulting.

I think there is a common misconception as to what a good assault unit does.  A good unit DOES NOT win in the turn it charges into combat.  This is very bad.

Now you may be thinking why am I saying this.  Surely a unit which can kill pretty much anything on the charge, such as a full squad of Paladins with master crafted weapons, is a great unit.  In a lot of ways you would be correct.  But not all.

In an ideal world you want to leave a couple of enemies left.  This is to stop the enemy offloading a bunch of high powered anti infantry weapons into you.  Melta and plasma weapons enmass will cut through your super expensive Paladin unit before you can say help.  By staying in combat, you force them to come into hand to hand to fight you.  This is where you are strongest, so it is a win win situation.

Once you kill the enemy in their turn, feel free to consolidate then charge into something else in your turn.

The only real problem with this is that you need to be able to kill the enemy in their turn even if they charge you, so it is a fine balance between the two.

Dawn of War deployment thoughts

Having played and witnessed a number of dawn of war missions lately I have learned a number of things.

1.  Going first is bad if you try to claim objectives in the middle of the table.  While it does allow you to camp on the half way line with your two units and HQ ready for assault, it means when the enemy army comes on in their turn one, their entire army will likely destroy your forward part reasonably easily which puts you at a disadvantage for the rest of the game.

2.  Therefore I suggest if you go first you either deploy in the backfield, or reserve everything.  Don't feel obliged to deploy anything.  Certainly don't deploy for the sake of deploying things.  Giving up possession of objectives can cause your opponent to make the mistake covered in point 1, which is likely to help you win the game.

3.  If Dawn of War is annihilation it could be an advantage to deploy troops if they are both long ranged and survivable.  Otherwise, you are probably better off keeping in reserve and bringing everyone on together.  Remember the key is to destroy enemy units, so you want to deploy as many threats as you can to both split enemy fire and concentrate your own.

Some exceptions apply to these general rules  Deploying a single Imperial Guard platoon can allow you to field virtually an entire army and is unwieldy to bring on.  In this case you can gain all kinds of advantages by camping the middle of the table with a huge amount of models and heavy weapons.

Wound Allocation in 5th

Wound allocation doesn't work in a sensible, clear or common sense manner in some scenarios. I will try to explain how it functions and indeed how this could be fixed relatively simply.

Scenario 1. Ten Marines with bolters vs ten Marines with bolters.
10 shots, hit 7, wound 4, four models make saves, the player who has been shot removes any three models. That is nice and simple.

Scenario 2. Ten Marines with bolters vs three marines, two with bolters, one with a special weapon
10 shots, hit 7, wound 4. Wound allocation fun time. You allocate wounds per group of identical armed models. Eg in this scenario you can stack 3 on the bolter guys and 1 on the special weapon, or two on the bolters and two on the special weapon. Spare wounds do not transfer from group to group. So if the bolter guys fail 3 wounds, the spare wound is lost.

Scenario 3. Ten marines, plasma cannon, plasmagun and bolters vs five marines, 1 with plasma gun, and 1 sergent.
This is a more likely scenario and can get complicated fast.
Fire plasmacannon first [as it has more targets to hit at this stage] and hits 5, wounding 5. Plasmagun wounds 1, the other marines bolters inflict say 4 wounds.

So you now have 6 plasma ap2 wounds, and 4 boltgun wounds at ap5 to divide between the 5 models. However, there are three model groups which makes this complicated.
You could for example. stick all 6 plasma wounds on the three bolter models, and put two boltgun wounds on each of the special weapon and sergent, meaning the two more valuble squad members could survive! Notice if you didnt fire the bolters, you would have killed the whole squad. Also if the five man unit didn't have different types of models, they would also all have been wiped out, regardless of the bolters firing or not.

The best way to avoid this problem is to pick weapons that have complimentary ap values. Eg all low or higher than the armour you expect to go against.

It is worth noting that some units can be built to specifically take advantage of this rule. See nobs bikers, space wolf rider things which can both take every model with different gear and they have multiple wounds meaning that the unit can take a huge amount of wounds before losing any models, greatly increasing its survivability and death dealing potential.

My Leman Russ tanks never fire their heavy bolter(s) if enemy in power armour is out of cover. There is no point as it makes the enemy have a chance of saving. It is ridiculous but true that firing more shots means people have more chance of survival. If you really must fire the fore mounted gun, upgrade to a lascannon.

As long as you dont play against people who specifically create these rule exploit units, the rule functions fairly reasonably. I can see why they have done this, but the fact the rulebook itself expressly shows how to use the wound allocation to keep men alive suggests to me GW knew exactly what they were doing when they put this rule in.

The simple solution to this problem would be to just remove any models who take wounds from weapons which cause no save, before wound allocation is applied. That way should the even from scenario 3 occur, you would remove up to six models from the plasma cannon allocated as per the normal rules, then allocate the remaining bolter wounds. In this example, you wouldn't need to allocate the bolter wounds, but if the squad was ten models strong you would. That way you would not be penalised for causing more wounds.

Cover saves and how they work

Today, I am going to talk about how cover saves work.

The rules are split into two groups.  One for vehicles and monstrous creatures, and one for everything else.  This is important to bear in mind.

Normal units gain their cover save if half the unit is in cover.  Anything can count for partial cover, so it would appear even if a models foot is in cover, that counts.  You do not need more than 50% of each model, just 50% of the unit.  If the unit is behind another unit from this category the squad, including the gaps between models, grants a cover bubble the size of the squad in front.  This means that a model doesn't have to be directly behind individual models, just behind the squad.  Please note that the models generating cover do not need to be particularly comparable size, just in this category.  Thus smallish models, like termagaunts can give a cover save to the much larger tyranid warriors. 

The larger units have their own additional rules concerning cover.  They only gain it when 50% of the model itself is obscured, rather than the unit.  This can be rather difficult to achieve, as most of these models, even monsters or dreadnoughts are rather top heavy.  It is virtually impossible for a marine dreadnought to gain a cover save from regular marines, unless they are stood on some kind of object.  This is because they only obscure the legs, rather than the vast bulk of the models body and arms. 

Interestingly, you can somewhat get around this by modelling units in a way to take advantage.  For example, if you have flying troops, being mounted on flight bases lifts them up.  It is therefore possible to be blocking the bulk of a dreadnought, rather than its legs.  Now some people may consider this unsporting, so instead you may need to be a bit more imaginative what you use to generate cover.  Tyranid Gargoyles are a perfect unit for generating cover saves for hive tyrants because the model has wings which can obscure a lot of the model, they come in large numbers cheaply and they are on flight bases by default and so no one can really claim you are exploiting the rules.