Problems with the Persistent trait

[Till]

I'm starting a MI army now, but I have problems with Persistent trait. On the one hand it says it continues to roll the damage dice if armour saves are successful and on the other hand it says that the Persistent effect only wears off if there is a natural 1 or 2 rolled.

Since the Plasma Ammunition is the only persisting weapon of the MI I used this as example weapon.

Plasma Ammunition against lonely Tanker
So my MI CAP NCO throws his Plasma Ammunition at a lonely Tanker bug in direct fire. He gets to roll 4xD10 (2xD10 with LZ 2”). He rolls: 2,5,7,9. That makes 2 hits. The tankers rolls his armour saves and succeeds with just one. The tanker Bug gets one hit. So far no problem. Now at the start of the next player turn how much damage dice do the MI player roll.
->One damage die (The 2) extinguishes, this is clear.
->But what is with the die which rolled the 5, since it doesn’t provoked an armour roll.
->What is with the one of the two dice which made a hit. The armour save wasn’t successful.
->The one die which generated the successful armour save is clearly rolled again.

Second question is, what is meant with “each subsequent player turn”? During one “game turn” each player gets its own turn, followed by the air phase. So does for example a Tanker really gets damage at the begin of each players turn, what would mean two times in each game turn, or is it just bad written and each game turn is meant.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Chemical grenades are also persistent.

EVERY damage die is rolled at the start of EACH player's turn regardless of misses and armour saves until you roll a 1 or 2 on each die, in which case it is removed.

In your example at the beginning of the Arachnid's turn you would roll the FULL 4D10 as the persistent effect only causes damage in SUBSEQUENT turns. Any 1s or 2s rolled then would remove the die from the subsequent at the beginning of the next turn.

Worth noting that in Artillery mode you only roll for damage if a model ends an action in the area of effect. You can move through it with no ill effects.

 

[Till]

OK, if this is so, second situation.

I throw the Plasma Ammunition in direct fire at a unit of 3 Grizzly Exos. I score 2 hits. Then 2 Exos will be hit with one hit. Regardless of they are succeeding the save or not. Who gets how many damage at the start of the next player turn?

2 Exos, each 1xD10? (Cause 2 exos got just one hit each.)
2 Exos each 2xD10? (Cause 2 exos got at least one hit and the Plasma Ammunition has 2xD10 base damage)
2 Exos each 4xD10 (Cause 2 Exos got at least one hit and the Plasma Ammunition does 4xD10 in direct fire.)
2 Exos each 1xD10 and 1 Exo 2xD10 (Cause the Plasma Ammunition does 4xD10 in direct fire and the damage dice get divided among the Unit.)

Out of intuition I would prefer the second solution, but the first one seems also to be quite OK. But both solutions does not suit to the solution for the Tanker example posted above.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Not so sure about this one. I tend to use persistent weapons either against one big target or in Artillery mode.

I think it's most likely that you'd roll the number of dice originally allocated to each model each turn (solution 2 in your post) until the effect wears off. Initial hits on the model don't matter for working out the number of dice you subsequently roll, as long as you score at least one hit, and since you initially split the dice allocated that seems right.

There could be a case made that any model that is hit has to roll the full 4D10 each turn since it tells you to roll the weapons damage dice each turn rather than dice allocated. Seems a bit much for a 25 point weapon !

 

[Makoto]

Imo in direct fire it's just 4d10 spread among the firezone using normal rules. Not sure if the Persistent effect will apply, though, as there's no template ("area of effect) though.

 

[Till]

@Iain McGhee
Then should the Tanker in situation 1 only get 2xD10 damage in the subsequent round cause this is the base damage of the Plasma Amunition. Not the 4xD10 from using the direct fire. Even if the Tanker got 3 or 4 hits in the round I threw the Plasma Ammunition after him.

@Makoto
The Persistent trait ist not linked to weapons using a template it should work in direct fire.

 

[Makoto]

Hmm.. In that case the area would be centered around the center point of the firezone I reckon.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Against a single target (Tanker example) it would get all 4D10 as there isn't any other models to "dilute" the attack. In direct fire Persistant trait continues to affect anything hit until it wears off or the target dies.

Possible it would only get the 2D10 base damage each turn, but I think it is the Damage Dice used on each model initially that is rolled. Post in Rulesmasters if you want a definitive answer.