Twin-Linked Weapons - What does it really mean?

[daboarder]

You roll Saves after Wounds, so that they can add in systems like Rending which decide what Saves you're allowed based on the Wound roll. Twin-Linked Gets Hot weapons re-roll the overheat effect just doesn't make sense though.

"Ooh, right gun overheated, but the left one didn't. Guess I'm not getting flambeed today then!"

actually, its because it gives the playing being a shot a chance to "save" his models, its to do with psychology and that fact that giving the player being shot the final chance to stop the wound, rather than have it be in the middle of the sequence makes them feel better.

[Broodingman87]

You're assuming that Hit-Wound-Save rolls all happen in sequence, rather than at the same time. Hit represents the shot landing, Wound represents the shot inflicting lethal damage, and Saves represent the chance of various protections preventing that from happening. Logically, yes, Saves should come before Wounds, but alternating dice rolls would take longer than simply handing your opponent their Saves after you roll Hits and Wounds, and it allows effects based on Wound rolls to affect Saves. If you imagine all the rolls occurring in the same instant, then it makes much more sense. "That shot would've hit their heart and taken them down, but luckily the armour plating blocked it!"

As Path Walker says, 40K is very much about abstraction feeding the narrative rather than everything occurs in reality precisely as it does on the table a la Warmachine. In older Editions they even said that 10 Space Marines could be representative of 100 on the field.

Another one we talk about a lot is how a single Guardsman can stop a Railgun shot capable of punching through both sides of a Leman Russ, sucking the crew through the exit hole and scattering their pureed remains. Yet it can only ever kill a single Guardsman a turn if it shot them directly.

But even abstraction logic doesn't make sense. "That Bolt would have shattered my Guant's skull, but luckily my Fex stepped in the way, but now you can't roll to wound my Fex."

Wow, so instead of my friend bringing a company to shield the forgeworld from my hunt, every Imperial Fist showed up, forsaking all the rest of their watch to protect this one forgeworld in the middle of no where. Only if I'm hunting Mars would that make remote sense.

Oh yeah, Warhammer is full of those... My favorite is your Terminator Squad emergency disembarked next to the Land Raider on the other side of my Carnifex Brood, why can't they just roll it on top of them, or throw it onto another squad.

[Mr Mystery]

Cover saves aren't so much about shots fired being stopped, as shots stopped from being fired - target occlusion and that.

Yes it's an imperfect abstract, but welcome to wargaming in general. It's all imperfectly abstract.

[Path Walker]

I still think second had a better system for that, but it involved maths.