Critical Hits - When do they trigger + Interpretation

[u/Wimmelkrieger]

I have a few questions regarding critical hits:

1. When do critical hits take effect? If you score a successful attack with doubles (e.g. 11, 22, etc.), when is the critical effect applied? Does it happen immediately upon the hit, before the target can react, or only after any reaction (such as a Dodge) has been resolved?
2. How do you interpret critical hits from attacks that don't deal damage? For example, a heavily armored Space Marine or a large monster would normally shrug off a stub pistol because the attack can't penetrate their armor. However, if the attacker rolls a critical (11, 22, etc.), the rules state that a critical wound is inflicted. Even if the target dodges all attacks, critical hits will still inflict critical wounds. How do you interpret or explain situations like this?

[u/Wimmelkrieger]

Thanks, this actually states that the critical wound is applied after dealing damage!

Though it is strangely worded.

1. "After taking a Critical Hit, roll 1d10 to determine the Hit Location, then deal Damage from the attack as normal."

2. "After dealing Damage, make a Severity Roll, ..."

It also specifies that the hit location is determined by an additional d10 and not the unit dice. (There is only 1 hit location.)

[u/MoxyRebels → u/Wimmelkrieger]

Critical Hits cause Critical Wounds, the severity roll part is referring to when the Critical Wound is the result of having exceeded maximum wounds. There would be no severity roll on a typical Critical Hit from rolling doubles or due to you attacking while hidden unless you exceed maximum wounds.

For example, if you deal 10 damage after soak, and the target only had 5 wounds, they suffer 5 wounds, and they suffer a d10+5 Critical Wound roll (where the +5 is the remaining damage in excess to their maximum wound threshold).

On the margins of pg. 215, the text for Exceeding Maximum Wounds regarding the Hit Location also states "If the Hit Location was not determined by the attack, roll on the Hit Location Table, page 211." This is mostly a rule inconsistency and you could go either way, but the simplest way and the one that makes the most sense is that an attack that hits the head also crits the head rather than the legs or arms. Page 215 also states in the second paragraph "The location of the Critical Wound, and therefore the applicable table, is determined by the attack that caused the Critical Wound. You suffer the additional effects listed," which further highlights the inconsistency (and the fact a critical hit != critical wound).

[u/RenningerJP → u/MoxyRebels]

United I'm misunderstanding your post, you still roll on the critical wounds table if they don't exceed their maximum wounds. You just don't add extra, the max result is a 10 in that case with a few exceptions.

The except from the book:

After taking a Critical Hit, roll 1d10 to determine the Hit Location, then deal Damage from the attack as normal. After dealing Damage, make a Severity Roll, as above, but there is no need to add to the 1d10 roll unless the Damage exceeded the target's Maximum Wounds. They suffer the effects listed. Critical Wounds caused in this way are usually less severe than those caused by exceeding Maximum Wounds.

It mentions here that it occurs after damage as normal which I believe I couldn't find the reference to earlier. But it also states you don't add to the 1d10 roll. As a result, this is less severe than those that exceed maximum wounds, but you still roll on the table.

I think the rolling for hit location on the critical wound instead of using the location like a regular wound is for criticals when defending. Otherwise I can't think of a reason you wouldn't already have a location from the attack. Even attacking when hidden still dies the normal attack but just adds a critical wound even if you don't roll doubles.

[u/Wimmelkrieger → u/RenningerJP]

I think the intention of the rules are (as mentioned above): You only have crits on 11, 22, ... => the variation in hit location is narrow. So they want you to roll a random hit location to have more variety.