Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Apocalypse (section)

===Feel no Pain Saves, because Mortal Wounds are a thing===
Feel no pain saves are your last ditch attack to save a model from an attack. Once you fail your armour and invulnerability save and once damage is assigned, then each model may roll a feel no pain save if it has one to ignore the damage.

In normal tabletop this is great, as most attacks are only 1 damage, so your guardsman effectively gets a straight forward bonus save against damage (brilliant in a world where T3 and a 5+ save isn’t much). However, in apocalypse, even simple anti infantry weapons are multi damage, which is where things get complicated, so let’s look at a 5+ feel no pain save for a 1 wound guardsman, and the corresponding chance to survive:

*Against 1 damage, 33% chance.
*Against 2 damage, 10% chance.
*Against 3 damage, 3% chance.
*Against 4 damage, 1% chance.

After 2 damage you’re looking at a command point sink. This is alleviated by the model in question having more wounds, but feel no pain saves are generally only found on low wound count models.

However, mortal wounds cannot be blocked by any save other than feel no pain saves. Mortal wounds are incredibly dangerous as it doesn’t matter who you are, from guardsman to Titan, you will take the same amount of damage from it. Mortal wounds also “splash”, making them extremely dangerous to hordes, as the mortal wounds will always be efficiently used.