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It occurred to me last night that the BS value is literally just code for "X+ To Hit". Why does a Space Marine's statline have "BS4" rather than "BS3+" or something? Sure, some of the higher BS values allow re-rolls on different values, but they could just specify "2+/4+".

It doesn't need a change (the BS chart is hardly difficult), but it's a little curiosity.

Because GW wanted higher numbers to be better for stats.

I would imagine that this is a hold over from 40k's days as a RPG-esque game.

Modifiers basically. A -1 to BS is different from -1 to roll once you get to 6+ BS. Even before the reroll stuff was added if you had 6 BS skill and got -1 BS from some modifier you'd be unaffected but if you had 2+ to hit, and got -1 to your roll you'd be affected.

GW likes formulas.


A model hit on a 7-their BS on a d6.

so a BS 2 model hit on a 5+ (7-2=5)
and a BS 4 model hit on a 3+ (7-4=3)

and a BS 6 model hit on a 1+but 1's always fail so they hit on a 2+ with a re-roll equal to the remainder (1) back into the formula so 7-1=6+ for the reroll.

or

A model with BS above 5 counts as BS 5 with a reroll equal to their BS-5. So they hit on a 2+ with a reroll of [7-(BS-5)].

Which also gives for BS 6, hit on a 2+ with a reroll of [7-(6-5)]=6+

Peregrine wrote:Because GW wanted higher numbers to be better for stats.

Then why not do the same for saves? Give an "Armour Chart" with Terminators at "Armour 5" (2+) and Orks at "Armour 1" (6+). It just seems oddly inconsistent. Not that GW are the paragons of consistency.

Tinkrr wrote:Modifiers basically. A -1 to BS is different from -1 to roll once you get to 6+ BS. Even before the reroll stuff was added if you had 6 BS skill and got -1 BS from some modifier you'd be unaffected but if you had 2+ to hit, and got -1 to your roll you'd be affected.

Were BS modifiers a thing in the earlier days of the game? I've been in since very late 4th and I can't think of any BS modifiers other than the kind that state BS1, like Snap Shots.

Yes, they were. There were also modifiers to Armor Saves. (That's what AP was.)

Question answered, then; it's a relic of editions past, and back then it had a direct reason (BS modifiers). It's interesting to see those little vestigial bits left in the rules.

You still have positive BS modifiers, and the chart allows for the BS 6+ cases (The rerolls), which is a lot more awkward with a straight X+ System.

 Peregrine wrote:
Because GW wanted higher numbers to be better for stats.

Which could easily be achieved through 'Roll under your stat, 6 always fails, re-roll misses with BS6+' ...

It is easier for some rules to have the BS being a value from 1-10 instead of 6+ to 2+.

Like substract the BS value from scatter dice is much more complicated if there is a flat 3+ to hit.
the same for BS modifier which are not used any more but would be an easy solution to some problems the game has.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

Peregrine wrote:Because GW wanted higher numbers to be better for stats.

Then why not do the same for saves? Give an "Armour Chart" with Terminators at "Armour 5" (2+) and Orks at "Armour 1" (6+). It just seems oddly inconsistent. Not that GW are the paragons of consistency.

That would be an awesome fix for Terminators. Give them high armour rating and let them re-roll like with BS higher than 5.
Armour Rating 8? 2+ save and re-rollable with 4+.

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

Peregrine wrote:Because GW wanted higher numbers to be better for stats.

Then why not do the same for saves? Give an "Armour Chart" with Terminators at "Armour 5" (2+) and Orks at "Armour 1" (6+). It just seems oddly inconsistent. Not that GW are the paragons of consistency.

That would be an awesome fix for Terminators. Give them high armour rating and let them re-roll like with BS higher than 5.
Armour Rating 8? 2+ save and re-rollable with 4+.

The problem is that armor starts being a slider at that point.

Whilst terminators start being respectably tough, regular marines are being forced to roll 4s or better vs Ork and IG standard weapons, and 'light' heavy weapons (auto cannon, heavy bolter) are making them roll 5+ or 6+ to make their save.

You either end up with AP being broken to the point of armor being worthless and the solution is more bodies, or you end up with impenetrable armor fortresses, giving units with high armor saves (and armies with them) nigh unkillable status.

The sad truth is that WHFB was a fairly scrappy, unsophisticated game design even by the standards of the early 1980s. The writers didn't try to create an elegant design concept, they just bodged together a load of little mechanisms. Thus you have these anomalies like rolling higher being better except when rolling lower is.

35 years later, 40K is still built on the same basic rules as the original WHFB.

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 Frozen Ocean wrote:

Peregrine wrote:Because GW wanted higher numbers to be better for stats.

Then why not do the same for saves? Give an "Armour Chart" with Terminators at "Armour 5" (2+) and Orks at "Armour 1" (6+). It just seems oddly inconsistent. Not that GW are the paragons of consistency.

That would be an awesome fix for Terminators. Give them high armour rating and let them re-roll like with BS higher than 5.
Armour Rating 8? 2+ save and re-rollable with 4+.

This would possible work if AP would be a modifier to the Armour Rating.
Instead AP5 Bolters get AP2 and substract this from the Armour.

7- Armour Rating - Penetration = Armour Save
Now change Cover from a save to be a bonus to the Armour Rating and change stuff like Shrouded to a negative BS modifier

7 - Armour Rating + Penetration - Cover

To further balance the first number can be increased to 8 or 9. (the same for BS) so that units like Marines have still an average save of 3+

9 - 7 (Marines) + 2 (Bolters) - 1 (Crater) = 3+ Save

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Thus you have these anomalies like rolling higher being better except when rolling lower is. 35 years later, 40K is still built on the same basic rules as the original WHFB.

That's actually a very sad thing to consider. Even the D&D franchise managed to scrap the "high is good except when low is" once it got to 3rd Edition, and that was 15 years ago!

The same type of anomaly has crept into AoS, where you need to roll high to hit, wound, and so on, but low for Battle Shock.

Some-high, some-low rolling means fudged dice are useless.
If you could always roll a 6 to win, fixing your dice to roll 6 more often would make sense.
But, if a double-6 is a bad thing, those dice are a liability.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Some-high, some-low rolling means fudged dice are useless.

That's a point, ofc. But fudging dice without it being bloody obvious is pretty hard - I'd bet most funny result guys use some rolling technique instead (or just cheat when counting the results). We had one guy who'd gather all the dice in his hand and just drop them on the table so they hardly bounced at all, for example.

Counting in one direction just makes it simpler for everyone, especially the guy who uses a calculator to add up anything beyond 2d6.

If you want to eliminate all chance of dice bias from whatever cause, the way to do it is to design a system that doesn't use dice.

As noted, it's just a legacy from the game where BS modifiers were plentiful - and where (occasionally) stats were used for other things.

Initiative, for example was also the distance (in inches) at which you spotted 'hidden' models, and so on.

BS had an alternate use when firing at vehicles - you rolled for location on a chart, but could 'shift' your point of impact on the grid a number of spaces equal to your BS - allowing you to either avoid heavy armoured areas or to pick on a critical target (like a weapon or track).

It occurred to me last night that the BS value is literally just code for "X+ To Hit". Why does a Space Marine's statline have "BS4" rather than "BS3+" or something?

Note that the last four times GW has created a rules-set completely from scratch (Epic:Armageddon, Lord Of The Rings, War Of The Ring, and Age Of Sigmar), that's exactly what they've done - each weapon or unit has a printed 'to hit' value that you roll directly.

Then why not do the same for saves? Give an "Armour Chart" with Terminators at "Armour 5" (2+) and Orks at "Armour 1" (6+). It just seems oddly inconsistent. Not that GW are the paragons of consistency.

Because - at the time Statlines became a thing - armour wasn't part of a model's statline. You had WS, BS, S, T, etc, etc, up to Ld. But that's where the statline stopped.

Your armour appeared in your list of wargear, and gave you your armour save - much like your bolter gave you your ranged attack. Neither belonged to 'the model' per se, and instead, you'd just see that the unit had 'power armour' or 'terminator armour' and look in the rulebook for the save it gave you.

It could still have worked the same, though. The fact it didn't, indicates that the designers did not sit down and settle on a coherent philosophy (high rolls = good, for instance.) They wrote rules for different things as they came up in their thoughts, without relating them to a basic concept.

40K rule writing still works like that.

If the system should only have "high rolls = good" how would you resolve Leadership tests?

 kodos wrote:
If the system should only have "high rolls = good" how would you resolve Leadership tests?

Demanding that you reach a certain number on a roll plus your LD stat would work.

it's weird, but it isn't broken, it's not hard to learn, so why bother changing it? or would you consider this more rhetorical of a topic?

Spetulhu wrote:

 kodos wrote:
If the system should only have "high rolls = good" how would you resolve Leadership tests?

Demanding that you reach a certain number on a roll plus your LD stat would work.

LotR did this 13 years ago - roll 2D6 and add your courage, success on a 10+

Momotaro wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:

 kodos wrote:
If the system should only have "high rolls = good" how would you resolve Leadership tests?

Demanding that you reach a certain number on a roll plus your LD stat would work.

LotR did this 13 years ago - roll 2D6 and add your courage, success on a 10+

Which has 2 rolls (11 & 12) for automatic success while the other system has 2 rolls which always fail.
So for a 40k like test, it needs to be 13+

But this could possible work.

The easiest fix to 40K's armor problems would be to have an AP/Modifier for weapons.

Something that is supposed to be strong, but not too strong, could have a split stat. A Bolter could be AP: 5/-1, for example. Meaning it automatically defeats Armor 5+, and applies a -1 penalty against something tougher. A Plasma gun becomes AP:4/-2 or somesuch, killing weaker troops outright, but allowing heavily armed troops like Marines or Battle Suits, etc to have some chance of survival.

This removes the problem that straight AP has of being "All or Nothing" where weapons are either ridiculously too strong or hilariously underpowered circumstantially, and removes the marginalization of the mid-range armors (3+ and 4+) from the game.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Were BS modifiers a thing in the earlier days of the game? I've been in since very late 4th and I can't think of any BS modifiers other than the kind that state BS1, like Snap Shots.

Yes they were.

This is also why armour saves appear to be backwards - so that when your weapon gives the enemy a negative save modifier that's bad for them.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It could still have worked the same, though. The fact it didn't, indicates that the designers did not sit down and settle on a coherent philosophy (high rolls = good, for instance.) They wrote rules for different things as they came up in their thoughts, without relating them to a basic concept.

40K rule writing still works like that.

They only thing it indicates is that it didn't concern the rules writers if sometimes high = good and other times low = good.

I do not see it as problematic either.