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Made in gb
Ground Crew




Halfway between nowhere and anarchy

Hi Dakka
When I battle I use a counter rule. It doesn't come about much but when it does it's pretty cool. It works like this:
If you roll a six on a close combat armour save you can try to "counter".
You take an initiative test.
If you pass your opponent takes an initiative test.
If he passes he takes an armour save.
If he fails the counter has a killing blow effect.
Opinions? Would it be better with/without that part?

I beg to dream and differ from these hollow lies  
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

Way too complicated when you have 60+ guys going at each other at the same time.

Maybe if it was challanges only.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin





Complicated and unclear. So, after all that, do you get another attack, or do you ignore WS/S/T for some reason?

 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





In the midst of a fight between two hordes, then you're going to see (at least) 30 attacks per side. That'll mean (in a general case) 4+ to hit, meaning 15 hits, and then 4+ to wound, meaning 7.5 wounds, and then armour saves. Which means there'll probably be about 1 armour save coming up with a 6 out of all those attacks. For which you then stop the regular flow of combat in order to make one iniative test, and if that test is passed you make another iniative test, and if that is failed you make an armour test, and if that is failed then you take off a rank and file grunt. And likely repeat the whole thing again when the other side makes their 30 odd attacks.

It seems to be a lot of work for a fairly trivial result, and one that doesn't really represent anything about the fighting that you're trying to simulate.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

Plus you could easily have more than 1 roll of a 6, making it even more complicated.

Add rerolls and other things in and it gets messy very quickly.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin





The ideas of parry, riposte, counter, etc., are all the subtle nuances of Weapon Skill. The difference between a 4+ and a 3+ to Hit is the difference between one warrior's understanding of these concepts compared to his opponent.

 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





Warpsolution wrote:
The ideas of parry, riposte, counter, etc., are all the subtle nuances of Weapon Skill. The difference between a 4+ and a 3+ to Hit is the difference between one warrior's understanding of these concepts compared to his opponent.


There is a basic problem in that all the skill of melee comes down to hitting on a 3+ rather than a 4+. For a game that's nominally all about melee combat, there's a bizarre lack of importance given to soldier's actual skill with weapons.

GW has given us special rules, namely ASF, to try and make up for WS being fairly irrelevant. There's scope, I think, for plenty more special rules to try and add more detail, and try and make a warrior's skill more important.

Or they could just give us a table that's more than 'if you're more skilled you hit on a 3+, and if you're a lot more skilled they hit you on a 5+'.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin





I'll agree with that. I've always thought the requirements of being hit on a 5+ were a bit steep. Granted, the difference between 50% and 30% are pretty significant when large units are involved. Still, making that easier to attain, maybe adding in a 6+ to Hit or something.
I don't think hitting on anything more than a 3+ is a good idea, though. Not without serious reconsideration of the game.

I guess that's the big issue. As you said, the game is all about melee combat, so a change to Weapon Skill would have huge, sweeping effects.

 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





Warpsolution wrote:
I'll agree with that. I've always thought the requirements of being hit on a 5+ were a bit steep. Granted, the difference between 50% and 30% are pretty significant when large units are involved. Still, making that easier to attain, maybe adding in a 6+ to Hit or something.
I don't think hitting on anything more than a 3+ is a good idea, though. Not without serious reconsideration of the game.

I guess that's the big issue. As you said, the game is all about melee combat, so a change to Weapon Skill would have huge, sweeping effects.


It actually had a table like that, back in the day. Problem was that frequently you had rank and file troops attacking a character and needing a 6+ to hit, then a 6+ to wound, and then to have the character fail a 2+ armour save. Back then, when units were frequently only four wide (that was the minimum back then) and with no supporting attacks or anything like that, it was ridiculously unlikely that a character would ever get wounded by a grunt. They did a bunch of stuff to fix it, including changing the WS table to give much smaller advantages.

I agree with what you're saying about any change to the table having sweeping changes. For any change of real substance I doubt you could keep the current army books and keep the game at all balanced.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

They could add rerolls to the table. That would make having a higher WS actually worth something.

Something like if you are higher than your opponent, you hit on a 3+. If you are double, or more, your opponents WS, you get a 5+ reroll on your misses.


Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin





There's a thought.

I really like the second chance being less than your first. A little complicated for my tastes, but I really don't like how ASF and Hatred double your accuracy, rather than change it a step, like the standard +/- to Hit modifiers. Going from 1 out of 3 missing to 1 out of 9 is a huge jump for the inclusion of one little ability.

 
   
Made in us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

It wouldn't be so bad if the HEs didn't keep their GW bonus while doing it.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 Grey Templar wrote:
They could add rerolls to the table. That would make having a higher WS actually worth something.

Something like if you are higher than your opponent, you hit on a 3+. If you are double, or more, your opponents WS, you get a 5+ reroll on your misses.


The odds of scoring a hit in that mechanic is 78% between the two rolls, which is not that different to rolling a 2+ (84%). Doesn't seem worth the hassle of having to reroll dice, might as well just make it 2+.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Warpsolution wrote:
There's a thought.

I really like the second chance being less than your first. A little complicated for my tastes, but I really don't like how ASF and Hatred double your accuracy, rather than change it a step, like the standard +/- to Hit modifiers. Going from 1 out of 3 missing to 1 out of 9 is a huge jump for the inclusion of one little ability.


They don't double your accuracy. From 3+ to 3+ with a reroll the number of attacks that hit increase from 67% to 88%, a 33% increase in the number of successful attacks. 4+ is a 50% increase, while 5+ is a 67% increase.

But they are certainly a very effective way of increasing your attacks. Its kind of silly that having a higher weapon skill only increases you from 4+ to 3+, for a 67% chance of hitting. But having lower weapon skill but hating your opponent... well that increases your hits to 75%. Between training and improving your technique or going to lectures about evil the enemy is, the latter pays off better

I mean, I know hatred only lasts one turn, but still.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2013/02/21 04:27:06


“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin





You're right on that. I think I'd swapped out misses and hits in my head for the first part of the math. Or something.

But yeah. To be honest, I never really understood why Hatred gave people re-rolls; hating someone seems more like a defensive quality, from a tactical standpoint, like the hateful unit is harder to break, because they refuse to back down.

 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





Warpsolution wrote:
You're right on that. I think I'd swapped out misses and hits in my head for the first part of the math. Or something.

But yeah. To be honest, I never really understood why Hatred gave people re-rolls; hating someone seems more like a defensive quality, from a tactical standpoint, like the hateful unit is harder to break, because they refuse to back down.


It used to give unmodifiable Ld 10, which made more sense but was really crappy from a game play point of view. Dark Elves just never felt right under those rules.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in gb
Ghastly Grave Guard



Uk

 Stoned Monkey wrote:
Hi Dakka
When I battle I use a counter rule. It doesn't come about much but when it does it's pretty cool. It works like this:
If you roll a six on a close combat armour save you can try to "counter".
You take an initiative test.
If you pass your opponent takes an initiative test.
If he passes he takes an armour save.
If he fails the counter has a killing blow effect.
Opinions? Would it be better with/without that part?

Its a cool idea but not relly feasible unfortunately...
   
Made in gb
Agile Revenant Titan




In the Casualty section of a Blood Bowl dugout

 sebster wrote:
Warpsolution wrote:
The ideas of parry, riposte, counter, etc., are all the subtle nuances of Weapon Skill. The difference between a 4+ and a 3+ to Hit is the difference between one warrior's understanding of these concepts compared to his opponent.


There is a basic problem in that all the skill of melee comes down to hitting on a 3+ rather than a 4+. For a game that's nominally all about melee combat, there's a bizarre lack of importance given to soldier's actual skill with weapons.

That's because, when you're pressed up against an enemy unit, with enemies swarming very close by around you, it's not that hard to bash someone over the head with a sword, since you'll be very close and there'll be a high sense of adrenaline, confusion and possibly panic too. Therefore, being skilled in swordplay may not make that much difference at all. So it does, a little bit, but not much. It makes sense.

As for this rule, I like the idea but I feel that this is too complicated and the application of it to every single model is a bit stupid. Reason being that most people aren't going to be skilled enough to pull it off or won't think of it at the time. I think it could be restricted to a special rule for a character, in which case the idea works quite well. I'd still simplify it down though, something like: If your opponent rolls a "1" to hit, you can immediately make an attack with your normal profile (one for each 1) This makes sense, since your opponent has made a dodgy blow with his roll of one and you (being a skilled special character) have been able to exploit this in your counter attack. There are a few finer points to address, such as, if you kill your opponent with this attack, do his remaining ones go through?, but that's the basic gist of it.

DT:90S+++G++MB++IPwhfb06#+++D+A+++/eWD309R+T(T)DM+

9th Age Fantasy Rules

 
   
Made in gb
Ground Crew




Halfway between nowhere and anarchy

As for this rule, I like the idea but I feel that this is too complicated and the application of it to every single model is a bit stupid. Reason being that most people aren't going to be skilled enough to pull it off or won't think of it at the time. I think it could be restricted to a special rule for a character, in which case the idea works quite well. I'd still simplify it down though, something like: If your opponent rolls a "1" to hit, you can immediately make an attack with your normal profile (one for each 1) This makes sense, since your opponent has made a dodgy blow with his roll of one and you (being a skilled special character) have been able to exploit this in your counter attack. There are a few finer points to address, such as, if you kill your opponent with this attack, do his remaining ones go through?, but that's the basic gist of it.

I like this idea, it makes a lot more sense than my original of relatively pointless tests.
Cheers


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry, can't work out how to quote on my ipod

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/03 16:43:38


I beg to dream and differ from these hollow lies  
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin





 The Shadow wrote:

That's because, when you're pressed up against an enemy unit, with enemies swarming very close by around you, it's not that hard to bash someone over the head with a sword, since you'll be very close and there'll be a high sense of adrenaline, confusion and possibly panic too. Therefore, being skilled in swordplay may not make that much difference at all. So it does, a little bit, but not much. It makes sense.


I'll agree that it's probably easier to find your mark in the press of a swirling melee than in a duel, but the difference between a WS2 Goblin and a WS8 Elven Prince would be more pronounced than that same Goblin facing off against the Elf's horse.

I'd be interested in hearing the reason for the limitation of the to Hit spectrum from one of the people who designed it. Playing Skaven, I can testify to the diminishing returns that come along with hordes of low-WS, low-S attacks against models with high WS, T, and armour. I imagine more emphasis on WS would result in elite units being even more so. Which means they'd get more expensive, and the small armies would get smaller, so they skewed it to more evenly distributed the number of models they could sell across all armies. Or something like that.

 The Shadow wrote:
There are a few finer points to address, such as, if you kill your opponent with this attack, do his remaining ones go through?, but that's the basic gist of it.


All of a model's attacks are made at the same time, so there'd be no way to interrupt the one that rolled a 1 to Hit. I'd just make the counter attack occur after or at the same time as the batch of attacks that included the attack that triggered the ability.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/03 18:56:50


 
   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 The Shadow wrote:
That's because, when you're pressed up against an enemy unit, with enemies swarming very close by around you, it's not that hard to bash someone over the head with a sword, since you'll be very close and there'll be a high sense of adrenaline, confusion and possibly panic too. Therefore, being skilled in swordplay may not make that much difference at all. So it does, a little bit, but not much. It makes sense.


I don't think so. I mean, I get what you're saying about the chaos of battle and the difficulty of defending yourself when pressed up hard against the enemy, but we know from history that despite all of that elite combat units managed to put out a hell of a lot more wounds than they received.

And they didn't do it through, as WHFB would have you believe, surviving loads more stab wounds. They did it because there are effective close quarters fighting techniques that make it much, much harder to get wounded. Phalanxes, shield walls, and all those kinds of things employed by trained infantry, would dominate over less trained, less organised formations.

But in warhammer all that skill and training nets you is hitting on 3+ while the other guy hits on a 4+.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Warpsolution wrote:
I'd be interested in hearing the reason for the limitation of the to Hit spectrum from one of the people who designed it. Playing Skaven, I can testify to the diminishing returns that come along with hordes of low-WS, low-S attacks against models with high WS, T, and armour. I imagine more emphasis on WS would result in elite units being even more so. Which means they'd get more expensive, and the small armies would get smaller, so they skewed it to more evenly distributed the number of models they could sell across all armies. Or something like that.


Like I said earlier, the decision came from 'to hit' being yet another thing that meant grunts needed a six, and elite characters needed a 2+. When the grunt is facing a ludicrous 6, then another 6, then hope they roll a 1 for their armour save, while the hero is going 2+, 2+ and then the grunt doesn't even get an armour save... well neutralising one of the tables starts looking like a sensible thing. They picked the WS table.

The problem, to me, is that solution is completely ass about. If you've got a problem with characters having such powerful stats that grunts can't threaten them on any meaningful level, then the answer is to reduce the stats of the characters. Question the need for 3 wounds and 4 attacks for every combat lord (something they kind of did, eventually, with Empire generals only getting 3 attacks). Question the automatic strength and toughness increases (again, something they did with elves, eventually). Basically, they could have solved this by making characters a lot more like heroes, but leaving the tables as they were.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/03/05 06:47:24


“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





WS is here to stay. Unless it's not. Meaning, you'd have to convert it to something else and you'd have to convert it KNOWING it is nearly meaningless.

They gave Khorne Bloodhirsters 10WS and 10BS. Not for any real reason, they can't even use anything that requires BS, but they are the greatest archers in any dimension. It's basically fluff.

If the WS table worked like S/T table, then units like Bloodthirsters, Bloodletters, Slaanesh, Warriors of Chaos would become insanely powerful. You'd have to take spells and gunlines because you couldn't hurt them in CC.

But as I often do in these situations. Or in life in general:

What problem are you trying to solve?

10WS Bloodthirster isn't a problem I can see. 3 WS 1 tooth soldier of Empire being WS3 being not all that different from the Bloodthirster isn't that much of a problem.

Saying shooting needs help or combat is too fast or magic is too important are problems looking for solutions. But WS->WS->S-T-Armor->Ward/Regen/Parry is a counter. Somewhere in there is everything you want.

If you want WS to matter more than you could do something like if a unit has >5 WS they get a parry save if they don't already have a sword. Representing their great martial skill.

   
Made in au
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





DukeRustfield wrote:
WS is here to stay. Unless it's not. Meaning, you'd have to convert it to something else and you'd have to convert it KNOWING it is nearly meaningless.

They gave Khorne Bloodhirsters 10WS and 10BS. Not for any real reason, they can't even use anything that requires BS, but they are the greatest archers in any dimension. It's basically fluff.


One of the problems is GW has never really figured out exactly why they stat things as they do. On the one hand they're happy to stat just for game purposes, given goblins, human and orcs all the same strength figure and then say it's because the jumps in the stats are very broad and it need to be like it is for gaming purposes. And then they go and give insanely high values that don't really mean anything to special characters and greater daemons.

Which gets to another problem - who in the hell knows what any of the stats actually mean? And particularly exactly what does the combination of WS, Initiative, and Attacks actually mean? I mean consider the Ogre, he's got low I and low WS, lower than a humble human. So you'd think he's making clumsy, slow attacks. Makes sense. But then he's got 3 attacks. That means he's making more attacks in a turn than a Swordmaster. So he's actually attacking very often (and therefore very quickly). But those attacks are at the same time slow, and going after other people's attacks. None of it actually means anything.

If the WS table worked like S/T table, then units like Bloodthirsters, Bloodletters, Slaanesh, Warriors of Chaos would become insanely powerful. You'd have to take spells and gunlines because you couldn't hurt them in CC.


That's assuming that the conversion was to make a table exactly like the Str/T chart. Which is possible (and would have the benefit of making the design more elegant, with only one table to memorise). But then that table couldn't just be dumped in to the game at present without a massive review of unit stat lines and point costs. Something which has happened before (the move to fourth ed, I believe, was basically played out of the appendix in the rulebook, with each army updated in time with an army book).

Not that I'm saying that ought to happen again, just for the sake of the WS table. But in any game designed and revised over multiple editions, sooner or later the artifact rules start to build up to form quite a mess (40K is much worse for this than WHFB). Sooner or later you need to do a fresh reboot.

When the time comes that a full reboot of WHFB is needed, the WS table ought to be one of the first things addressed. The next should be determining if Initiative still plays a meaningful role in the game, or should it be dropped (like Cool and Willpower were all those years ago).

But as I often do in these situations. Or in life in general:

What problem are you trying to solve?


The WS table at present doesn't represent skilled warriors in a way that the game designers find satisfactory. They've learned over many editions that just giving a high WS does not, in fact, produce a warrior who hits noticeably more than his opponent, to the extent that most people, designers included, would intutively think it should.

Over time they've added a lot of rules and adjustments to work around this. For instance, way back it was just assumed that giving elite High Elf units WS 5 would justify their elite points cost. It didn't and they were sucky (Swordmasters less so because even they were allowed to strike at initiative order despite wielding great weapons). So they added special rules (Swordmaster's got a -1 to be hit, even against missile fire, White Lions got their cloaks. They were later given another revision, with Swordmasters getting a second attack, and so on. Then SoA was added. And then that was reworked in the new edition to give rerolls to hit.

All those special rules chopping and changing over multiple editions, all because at it's core the WS doesn't represent what it should - warriors with high WS meaningfully hit more often, and are hit meaningfully less often. The current set up is needlessly messy, sloppy rules, that ought to be better handled in a much more streamlined way (a better WS table).

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2013/03/07 09:09:59


“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
Made in us
Evasive Eshin Assassin





Gonna have to agree with you on that, Sebster.

I see a lot of games that, instead of changing a rule that doesn't quite get the result they're looking for, they add in some extra rules on top of it.
That can work, but as you said, it starts to build up.

In 12th edition Warhammer or something of that sort, I'd expect to see the game go through a total reconstruction. That, or collapse under its own weight. The only people who'd be willing to learn the next batch of rules would be the ones who've been introduced to all the current ones over the course of the last five editions.

 
   
 
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