The barrage rule says you are recommended to speed-roll for all units of the "exact same type" caught under a template

I've always played that so that you speed roll for, for example, all imperial guard infantry caught under a barrage (as they're all exactly the same), applying any hits back-to-front, and then you roll for an imperial guard command unit separately (as it's not exactly the same).

However last night I was told in a game that the word "exact" should effectively be ignored, and you should just speed-roll for all infantry, then all AV's.

Which is the one true deity interpretation?

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Well the core roll to hit states roll a dice for each unit hit. I've always applied this to barrages too, so if you are hitting 6 infantry and 2 vehicles I'd roll 6 dice on the AP column then 2 on the AT column. Then apply hits from to back under the template.


However as E&C suggest the barrage rules below actually tell you to speed dice the hits by type, so as he said different types of units would mean separate sets of dice, which in reality would actually be slower! Unless unit type means INF/AV as per the barrage column then the normal rules seem to apply to me.

There does seem to be some confusion about this. I've always interpreted played so that the exact same types are grouped together:
2 grotz, 2 boyz, 1 nob, 1 nob with supreme commander = 4 sets of dice. But others insist on a looser type, AV and Inf.

I guess it's the word exact that does it for me. If you just wanted to say AV and Inf (subdivided again by those that are cover and those that are not) then the word type would be sufficient. The addition of the word exact indicates something stricter. And it does virtually the same thing as rolling individually, while speeding things up a bit in most cases

Aye, in speed it's a half-way house between full speed-rolling and rolling individually.

I guess I've always figured it's meant to represent the slightly more random nature of an artillery strike, shrapnel flying everywhere etc. could mean that your commander gets hit and nobody else, or whatever. But I can see the logic in Mephiston's interpretation too.

I had thought this had been discussed on the forum previously, maybe I'll have a dig around in the bowels of the archives...

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Yeah, see what you can dig up E&C. there are still the two schools of thought in common practice on this one. Or that's my experience from playing a breadth of people from all round the country.

Under the description for units it says there are two broad types; Infantry and Armoured Vehicle.

Under the unit datasheet it says that "Type" is what target type the unit belongs to. After looking at a datasheet we see that this can be INF, AV, LV, WE, CHA, etc.

Writing "Units of the exact same type" suggest to me that the writer was thinking of more than two types otherwise he would've simply said "Units of the same type"......this seems to say that you should roll for each different target type.

However, remembering that the goal is to speed the dice rolling element, it wouldn't make sense to roll seperate sets of dice potentially for 4 or 5 different types of units. In this regard, I think it would simply be better to roll all AP and all AT seperately, as per the Barrage table column.

I guess it could go either way really, perhaps it is something to add to the 5 minute warm-up.

Well I had a quick dig, couldn't find anything. Nothing in the FAQ either.

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I guess we'll have to see how this topic develops...

I have vague memories of discussing this topic with Nealhunt one time, but he's away on holiday I think.

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'Exact' type rolling rould be speeded up in a certain percentage of cases (I would say a high percentage)
eg 5 tacticals + 1 tactical with a commander + 3 Rhinos.
Clearly this is going to be faster than individual rolling, though not quite as fast as speed rolling for 6 inf and 3 rhinos.

In some cases, where you have a great many different 'exact' types i.e. 1 grot, 1 boy, 1 nob, 1 big gun, you would be doing exactly the same thing as individual rolling instead of just rolling 4 dice together. I would suggest that such cases are rarer, though a little more common for certain types of armies (like orks)

It should be noted that the two different methods affect the chances of special units, further back, from being hit.

With exact type rolling, there is the same chance of your commander (bravely leading from the rear) getting hit as there is with individual rolling.

With the courser type speed rolling then there is less chance of him getting hit.

I've certainly had both interpretations at EpicUk tournements, I tend to go with roll all AT and Inf and not sperately for commenders et al as it helps stop character sniping with barrages that feels wrong to me, however I will use eiher if my opponant feels strngly, certainly one that should be FAQ'd

I'd lean toward your interpretation, E&C. The other interpretation could have been explained better by just using the word 'type' - the word 'exact' would only cloud the issue. It's use is strongly suggestive that there's something more to be gleaned from the rule.

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The rule that states templates must cover the most number of units is there to help prevent barrage sniping.
If there are certain units you don't want hit by a barrage then you move them away from the main clump

Just reading the actual barrage section in the rulebook, it does say that the exact speed rolling rule is only a recommendation! 'We recommend' is the wording they use.