AoS Question about the Kroxigor their "jaws like a Steel Trap" ability

Hello everyone,

So I had a question about the Kroxigor their "jaws like a Steel Trap" ability, in combination with the Starpriest's Serpent staff ability which lets you double the damage a bite like attack would have normally dealt on a wound roll of 6 or higher.

Now the Kroxigor's ability allows him to roll a dice with his opponent, and if he rolls higher will deal the difference between the rolls as mortal wounds damage instead of the original 1 damage his bite attack would have done.

So my question is: Would the mortal wound damage, provided you rolled better then your opponent, count as the normal damage? I had a opponent say to me that that was not the case, and you would deal double the normal damage, however when you succeeded in the roll you would deal the mortal wounds instead of the 1 point of damage and if you failed you would deal no damage at all.

is it safe and fair to say that with the Starpriest's Serpent staff the Kroxigor's "Jaws like a Steel Trap" ability, which only triggers on a wound roll of 6+ with 1 attack per Kroxigor and for which you still have to beat your opponent in a dice roll mini game, would deal double the mortal wounds damage you would have otherwise dealt?

 

Good question. IMO, it would deal the double mortal wounds, so for this time I can't agrre with @Aginor.

For the Serpent Staff : "a wound roll of 6 or more causes twice the normal amount of Damage".
If, for this case, we think that the normal amount of Damage is the number of mortal wounds, you'll have to double it.

 

This is a pretty "bad ability" but has the advantage of giving you some threat against multiple wounded monsters besides hordes. Because that's where all the rolling worths it imo

 

Those were my thoughts as well. Basically the ability increases the damage, and the Serpent's Staff only states that it increases the damage it normally deals. And in that case, on a wound roll of 6+, you have a chance that the damage either becomes 0 or it becomes a number between 1 and 5 and as mortal wounds. The Serpent's Staff description never states that it only increases normal damage.

I will just use this description then, as it only states damage not damage characterisic, and on a wound roll of 6+ you normally do either 0 or 1-5 mortal wounds

 

<Tangent>I'm not sure it's that bad. It probably depends on the target's armor. If you get a regular wound the opponent still gets an armor save. You have -1 rend which means your wound goes through 66% of the time against 4+ armor. However against 2+ that's only 33% of the time and against 3+ it's only 50% of the time.

If my math is correct the expected value of a 6+ wound is 0.97 which is higher than any expected value for a "regular" wound other than a target with 5+ or 6+/- armor. Your odds of getting 0 wounds is 58.33% but you also have a 27.78% chance of doing 2 or more wounds which you can never do with a single 1 damage attack. Since these are mortal wounds the enemy rarely gets saves against them. The damage is incredibly spiky especially in a single game since there will be no where near enough dice rolls for averages to kick in. However, when it connects it has potential do a lot of damage.

The result of this is that the Jaw attacks are actually better to use against hard targets with lower armor values. This is very interesting because Kroxigors seem like anti-Horde specialists to me. Although since wounds carry over connecting for a 5/10 MW jaw attack is pretty devastating even to hordes. I guess your Kroxi swings the hapless sod back and forth using the opponent's legs like a flail to knock down other members of the unit.