I am just wondering, is anyone else concerned over what looks to be the to-wound table for 40k 8th edition? This is a bit of a rant, and I do it because I haven't really seen anyone else sharing a similar opinion in the matter. In my opinion this new to-wound table looks like it's going to push everything in the wrong direction. Now it seems Strength and Toughness really don't matter much compared to old editions. In all but the extreme edge cases one point of strength or toughness would make a difference. Now the one point increases often wont make a difference, and no matter what model you field it can wound and be wounded by anything; so the extreme cases have been completely elminated too. There's no absolute need to take high strength weapons anymore, since you can now always overcome weakness with share numbers of dice. I thought this was a bad thing in the last edition; multitudes of low-mid strength dice being encouraged by the game with seldom any reason to take high strength weapons. Now it's more severe and I believe that is a bad thing.

I think it's great if weapons are completely ineffectual against models that are just way too tough. I think there should be more of that, and I don't think it's a bad thing at all. I think it encourages variety in units and weapon choices. I think it's great if stats actually eliminate rolling in the extreme cases and save us some time. So if the weapon is far too weak don't bother rolling, that was great. I even think there should have been 1+ on old table. So when that snotling is definitely HIT by a crack missile or rail-gun then just remove the model. Why cant we can say for some weapons that there is just no chance of surviving a direct hit? It seems perfectly reasonable to me. You could think of it another way too. In 8th edition we have 5 possible thresholds: 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+ and 6+. In earlier editions we had 6: 2+ through to 6+ and also N (no effect). So how about 7 possible thresholds: 1+, 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+, 6+ and N.

What do you guys think about this new system? I really want to give this new edition a chance, because GW looks to actually be trying to change the fundamentals of the game for the better. In some areas I think they have done well. But this new to-wound chart really concerns me, it looks like it's going to make the units very samey. Though I hope I'm wrong.

Nope, you're not the only one. It's more homogenizing stupidity in an edition full of it.

All say it again.

In a game where all of this can be fighting in the same table at the same time and even fielding armies of only one of this kind of models:


You need to eliminate the extreme cases or your game becomes a Rock/Paper/Scissors game that is just unfun for everybody.

And if you are gonna reply with "But those things shouldn't have enter in 40k!" I'll agree. Just like Flyers, they don't belong in 40k. 40K has lost his scale years ago. But they are here to stay, so we can live with them or we can have broken after broken after broken after broken and unplayable edition.

So we have two options:

-We homogeinize everything to have a playable game where all of this works
-We go to play Flames of War or others games that know what they are.

I think it's fine.

Even though in theory you can still shoot weak guns at tough targets (lasguns at land raiders etc), the chance of anything impact happening is so very small that most of the time you wont do it unless you absolutely have to, and when it does happen, it will be fun and cool and whatnot.

You can probably make up some scenario where a lasgun is the finishing blow to a land raider.

I would just not worry about it, play some games, and see if you like 8th. It's simpler, but that doesn't have to make it worse. Most people that have tried it so far have liked it. You probably will too.

Most things will be at a 5+, or more likely 6+, to wound a vehicle. That's not factoring in the To Hit roll or the Armor Saves;

I'm glad that things are killable. That said, they have so many more wounds now that GL killing them with anything but dedicated anti-tank.

You are looking at the wound chart in a vacume without the rest of the important information.

High str weapons are no longer simply defined by their str. With the reduction of ap but also the constant usfulness of ap those hivh str weapons also reduce saves by the most without it being an all or nothing value.

They are also defined by the amiunt of damage they do. With heavier targets having heeps of wounds you want anti tank weapons because without them you will never bring down those beasts. Both because they now have saves (again high str generally has better ap to negate) and because plinking away at a 20w monolith with ap nothing 1 dmg bolters is an exercize in futility.

Finally, you are forgetting that in a system where weapons simply cannot hurt at all you are encouraged to bring things above the threshhold where your openent can hurt you without specialized units. Then you neutfalize those threats and rjn rampant. In 7th a imperial knight either killed its few threats and won the game or didnt and lost.

I would argue that this to wound chart in tbis sytem has even more granularity and significantly more interesting gameplay because of it.

I feel like individually one point of Strength or Toughness doesn't always mean much, but the AP/armour save and damage/wounds relationships have actually made statlines as a whole more granular than they used to be. AP is no longer "4 and up doesn't matter, 3 sort of matters, 2-1 actually matter", armour saves are way more important (so no more "5+/6+ are wasted ink, 4+/3+ sort of matter, 2+ actually matters), and durability depends on a whole host of factors beyond the Toughness stat. A Baneblade and a Land Raider have the same Toughness, but the difference in save and Wounds makes the Baneblade broadly tougher and makes them more vulnerable to different weapons (the Baneblade's worse save makes it easier prey for volume, the Land Raider's lower wound count makes it easier to knock out with a few powerful shots).

So you're kind of right, in that the S/T stats matter less than they used to, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing in the face of what seems to be emerging.

Marksman224 wrote:
I am just wondering, is anyone else concerned over what looks to be the to-wound table for 40k 8th edition? This is a bit of a rant, and I do it because I haven't really seen anyone else sharing a similar opinion in the matter. In my opinion this new to-wound table looks like it's going to push everything in the wrong direction. Now it seems Strength and Toughness really don't matter much compared to old editions. In all but the extreme edge cases one point of strength or toughness would make a difference. Now the one point increases often wont make a difference, and no matter what model you field it can wound and be wounded by anything; so the extreme cases have been completely elminated too. There's no absolute need to take high strength weapons anymore, since you can now always overcome weakness with share numbers of dice. I thought this was a bad thing in the last edition; multitudes of low-mid strength dice being encouraged by the game with seldom any reason to take high strength weapons. Now it's more severe and I believe that is a bad thing.

While you do not HAVE to take high S weapons it is much more effective if you do. For example if 2 units of guardsman in rapid fire range effected by FRFSRF order shooting at a T8 model with a 3+ save will do 2 wounds, while a Heavy Weapons unit with 3 Lascannons which costs 8 points LESS then the guardsman, shooting with the Take Aim! order are able to 3 wounds in a single round so a noticeable difference. So while they do similar damage we have to look at how many wounds the thing were shooting at has, T8 models hover around 12 wounds. So we can see here while the Lasguns would take 6 turns the Lascannons would only take 4 turns. So lets take the stats of a Transport and compare that, T7 and 10 wounds. The Lascannons again will do 3 wounds a turn. At 10 wounds it will take the same amount of turns, 4, because after 3 rounds we are at 9 wounds so it would seem there is no gain to be made. We can then switch to a different type of unit and weapon the trusty Plasma Rifle will be our next go to weapon. Rapid fire and take aim combined will allow us to average 5 wounds a turn, which puts us at 2 turns. Sure you may be less one guards man but we got rid of that Transport quickly and, more importantly, exposed the troops. Now we need to get rid of these troops which we will say are MEQ for simplicity (T4 3+ armor save). There are 5 soldiers in the squad we could use the Lascannons, but they would take 3 turns to kill the unit, the plasma would do the trick, but we have these guardsman that can do the trick, applying the same thing as before the math comes out to 4 dead Traitor Marines, pretty good seeing as they don't run the risk of killing themselves.

Marksman224 wrote:
What do you guys think about this new system? I really want to give this new edition a chance, because GW looks to actually be trying to change the fundamentals of the game for the better. In some areas I think they have done well. But this new to-wound chart really concerns me, it looks like it's going to make the units very samey. Though I hope I'm wrong.

As I have shown above there is more then toughness to deal with now. Where as before there were two things that determined the outcome, there are now 4. Before it came down to strength and toughness, if you didn't have the S to kill a unit it didn't matter if your weapon was AP 2. Here we have to figure out how many wounds each weapon will do and how that will stack up over the long run, we can no longer look at just S or just T we also have to look at the wounds that unit has, what armor it has, whether its worth trying to peel off some points with AP or shoot a higher S weapon at the model. There is a lot more going on in the game now then the basic S and T setup before, and I think its a good thing.

TL;DR: I think the changes are good.

fe40k wrote:
Most things will be at a 5+, or more likely 6+, to wound a vehicle. That's not factoring in the To Hit roll or the Armor Saves;

I'm glad that things are killable. That said, they have so many more wounds now that GL killing them with anything but dedicated anti-tank.

It actually isn't hard to mass enough melee or lasguns to blow up a land raider in a turn.

Marksman224 wrote:
In all but the extreme edge cases one point of strength or toughness would make a difference.

I think it seems this way when you're fighting one army list or a lot of the same unit, but against varying opponents you'll see that, for example, st5 to st6 can make a difference ie. when rolling vs guardsmen compared to rolling vs marines. When I played a test game I found myself supercharging my plasma shots to get boosted +1 st because it tipped the wound chart into double the toughness of the target unit and increased my odds of wounding.
But, I do agree with you that there should have been a cut off point at the very extreme edges of the table, as it's more realistic and would speed the game up. Overall, it doesn't bother me too much as it takes an absurd amount of lasgun shots to bring down a land raider, but I think it will be annoying to play games with people who have hordes that are trying to bring down vehicles with mountains of dice.

stratigo wrote:

fe40k wrote:
Most things will be at a 5+, or more likely 6+, to wound a vehicle. That's not factoring in the To Hit roll or the Armor Saves;

I'm glad that things are killable. That said, they have so many more wounds now that GL killing them with anything but dedicated anti-tank.

It actually isn't hard to mass enough melee or lasguns to blow up a land raider in a turn.

Is it?

16 wounds, 2+ armour save, T8.

So on average dice you need 16*6*6 hits - or 576 hits. So 1152 guardsmen or 1728 conscripts to do so in a turn. I feel your 4500-5000 points might be better off doing something else.
Yes you can get more shots with rapid fire and FRFSRF but then you need a small army of characters to give all these squads orders and have somehow crammed all these models into 12" of the Land Raider.

The same points of conscripts as a regular Land Raider strips would expect to do just over 1 wound per turn, rising to 2 wounds in rapid fire range. This is not exactly effective.

I think this system is better. Yes it homogenises but it means the gap between good units and bad units is much less distinct. It has never been fun to know from deployment that you are going to lose because your army cannot touch your opponents (or from the opposite end of the table knowing that you are going to go through your opponent with near invincibility).

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

As I have shown above there is more then toughness to deal with now. Where as before there were two things that determined the outcome, there are now 4. Before it came down to strength and toughness, if you didn't have the S to kill a unit it didn't matter if your weapon was AP 2. Here we have to figure out how many wounds each weapon will do and how that will stack up over the long run, we can no longer look at just S or just T we also have to look at the wounds that unit has, what armor it has, whether its worth trying to peel off some points with AP or shoot a higher S weapon at the model. There is a lot more going on in the game now then the basic S and T setup before, and I think its a good thing.

TL;DR: I think the changes are good.

I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you, for precisely the reasons that you just argued make this version. Players should never have to do math to figure out which things are better, it should be intuitively expressed by their stats at face value. There always was more than just strength and toughness to contend with, but differences in those stats have very little impact now.

@Galas you're absolutely right. The whole thing has been going downhill since the introduction of GMCs. There's no way you can scale these into the game without undermining the intergrity of the mechanics, and that's what's been happening. I wish there was a functional section of the gaming community that just shunned these game breakers and maintaned a more simple version with some minor house rules.

 Galas wrote:
All say it again.

In a game where all of this can be fighting in the same table at the same time and even fielding armies of only one of this kind of models:


You need to eliminate the extreme cases or your game becomes a Rock/Paper/Scissors game that is just unfun for everybody.

And if you are gonna reply with "But those things shouldn't have enter in 40k!" I'll agree. Just like Flyers, they don't belong in 40k. 40K has lost his scale years ago. But they are here to stay, so we can live with them or we can have broken after broken after broken after broken and unplayable edition.

So we have two options:

-We homogeinize everything to have a playable game where all of this works
-We go to play Flames of War or others games that know what they are.

This pic illustrates the problem quite well. Apparently GW wants each unit to contribute to the battle regardless of the opposition. This scenario is good for pick-up games or tournaments in which you never know what you are going to face.
Your Catachan Jungle Fighter Infantry Force may encounter an Ork Infantry Horde or a couple of Renegade Knights in the steaming jungles of Armageddon. In past editions of 40K the former match-up would result in an interesting battle while on the other hand the latter isn´t even worth to play. In 8th the latter match-up is not an outright hopeless endeavour but still a daunting task for the guard.

You don´t like the idea of lasguns damaging renegade knights? Well, there is a solution to your problem. Just talk with your opponent before the battle and choose armies and psi-powers accordingly. Similar armies like SM & CSM ensure close battles and not massacres. You won´t need the new wounding chart in this gaming environment because there are no untouchable units around that might spoil the fun.

In summary, apocalypse ruined the game.

At least they made it easier to say...
"Models in the Flyer or Lord of War Category are Banned from this Tournament."
Tho, that won't fix everything...

Altho, re-reading the OP. It sounds like your argument is that hitting a model with a super weapon isn't auto killing insignificant models.

Well, just because you're hit... Doesn't mean it was dead center on your chest or head. The shot might have just grazed you.
That's why 1s still fail.

Its ridiculous that armored vehicles can be hurt by basic melee weapons. A group of ~25 Ork boys can kill a Predator Tank in 2 rounds, or 1 round, with lucky rolls.

@ Talamare:
Nope, Apocalypse didn´t ruin the game. You can have great games with a lot of superheavies on BOTH sides. The "no holds barred" approach in your run of the mill 40K games made an interesting battle difficult or even impossible. That´s why it is important to talk with your opponent before the game. Sometimes it reminded me of Mike Tyson brutalizing a teenager in a boxfight and calling it a fair fight afterwards because said teenager was according to the rules a legal contender.

 Strg Alt wrote:
@ Talamare:
Nope, Apocalypse didn´t ruin the game. You can have great games with a lot of superheavies on BOTH sides. The "no holds barred" approach in your run of the mill 40K games made an interesting battle difficult or even impossible. That´s why it is important to talk with your opponent before the game. Sometimes it reminded me of Mike Tyson brutalizing a teenager in a boxfight and calling it a fair fight afterwards because said teenager was according to the rules a legal contender.

It absolutely broke the game, It's about scale.

First of all, I will preface by saying... If you wanted Apocalypse. Then make and play Apocalypse into a separate rule set.

However, the game is designed in a scenario in which a Dreadnaught was meant to be one of the baddest things around.
In which a Land Raider is the epitome of indestructible super vehicles.

The weapons in the game are also scaled with that in mind.

If you want a more accurate example of your own example. It's not Mike Tyson vs a Teenager because the Teenager is a contender.
It's Mike Tyson vs 4 year olds.

Wanna know what the worst thing is?

After enough punches from the 4 year olds, Mike Tyson will eventually go down.
I'm just waiting for Exterminatus to be an option, and hearing people say it's totally fine.

p5freak wrote:
Its ridiculous that armored vehicles can be hurt by basic melee weapons. A group of ~25 Ork boys can kill a Predator Tank in 2 rounds, or 1 round, with lucky rolls.

Vehicles have exhaust vents, view ports, weapon barrels, tracks, and so on. These are all things that are vulnerable to close-combat attacks. It should not be easy, but it isn't, so no problem.

Tanks in the real world aren't sent without infantry support into combat with infantry either.

Sure, but in the real world 30 people with axes aren't going to stop an Abrams...ever.

Having seen copious battle reports where every type of vehicle seems to be MUCH harder to kill, I don't see it as much of an issue. Do I like the idea of non-stop super heavies in a normal 40K game? Not so much. But if you're going to leave that doggy door open - it's better off the way 8th is (at least making it possible to play a game without just shaking hands after deployment and packing up your models).

So given the silliness of 7th vs. 8th? 8th is better all day.

You know what I'm tired of?

Extreme paper/rock/scissors.

Where you can figure out that if you take a bunch of crap that most of the game can't hurt that you will teabag your opponents that aren't extreme list building like you are.

The new S/T system the way it is now helps remove some of that.

So I for one am extremely happy with the new S/T system.

Is it representative of a pure simulation system? No.

But if you want a simulation system you better be willing to go full on simulation. Which means some of you are going to be very cranky when you have to take a lot of normal grunts like real armies have to do instead of cherry picking all of the ninjas and special forces.

 auticus wrote:
You know what I'm tired of?

Extreme paper/rock/scissors.

Where you can figure out that if you take a bunch of crap that most of the game can't hurt that you will teabag your opponents that aren't extreme list building like you are.

The new S/T system the way it is now helps remove some of that.

So I for one am extremely happy with the new S/T system.

Is it representative of a pure simulation system? No.

But if you want a simulation system you better be willing to go full on simulation. Which means some of you are going to be very cranky when you have to take a lot of normal grunts like real armies have to do instead of cherry picking all of the ninjas and special forces.

I actually am a pretty big fan of the new S/T system as well.
I think the developers didn't fully embrace it yet tho.

Marksman224 wrote:
I am just wondering, is anyone else concerned over what looks to be the to-wound table for 40k 8th edition? This is a bit of a rant, and I do it because I haven't really seen anyone else sharing a similar opinion in the matter. In my opinion this new to-wound table looks like it's going to push everything in the wrong direction. Now it seems Strength and Toughness really don't matter much compared to old editions. In all but the extreme edge cases one point of strength or toughness would make a difference. Now the one point increases often wont make a difference, and no matter what model you field it can wound and be wounded by anything; so the extreme cases have been completely elminated too. There's no absolute need to take high strength weapons anymore, since you can now always overcome weakness with share numbers of dice. I thought this was a bad thing in the last edition; multitudes of low-mid strength dice being encouraged by the game with seldom any reason to take high strength weapons. Now it's more severe and I believe that is a bad thing.

I think it's great if weapons are completely ineffectual against models that are just way too tough. I think there should be more of that, and I don't think it's a bad thing at all. I think it encourages variety in units and weapon choices. I think it's great if stats actually eliminate rolling in the extreme cases and save us some time. So if the weapon is far too weak don't bother rolling, that was great. I even think there should have been 1+ on old table. So when that snotling is definitely HIT by a crack missile or rail-gun then just remove the model. Why cant we can say for some weapons that there is just no chance of surviving a direct hit? It seems perfectly reasonable to me. You could think of it another way too. In 8th edition we have 5 possible thresholds: 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+ and 6+. In earlier editions we had 6: 2+ through to 6+ and also N (no effect). So how about 7 possible thresholds: 1+, 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+, 6+ and N.

What do you guys think about this new system? I really want to give this new edition a chance, because GW looks to actually be trying to change the fundamentals of the game for the better. In some areas I think they have done well. But this new to-wound chart really concerns me, it looks like it's going to make the units very samey. Though I hope I'm wrong.

The new S/T system is sooooo vastly better. The old syatem was doggak.

With the old system S3 S5 S7 and S9 were totally irrelevant, the value of going from an even strength to an odd strength was next to nothing compared to going from odd to even and then S1 and S2 were so useless almost nothing in the game actually had them.

Meanwhile Toughness had it's own problems. Going from T3-T4 was HUGE going from T4-T5 was HUGE going from T5-T6 was pretty good, going from T6-T7 was totally irrelevant, going from T7-T8 was so bullgak it invented grav and T9 and T10 would have been so incredibly oppressive to deal with if any model had been that tough unbuffed it would have immediately broken that army.

The new system is better in every concievable way.

 Elbows wrote:
Sure, but in the real world 30 people with axes aren't going to stop an Abrams...ever.

Having seen copious battle reports where every type of vehicle seems to be MUCH harder to kill, I don't see it as much of an issue. Do I like the idea of non-stop super heavies in a normal 40K game? Not so much. But if you're going to leave that doggy door open - it's better off the way 8th is (at least making it possible to play a game without just shaking hands after deployment and packing up your models).

So given the silliness of 7th vs. 8th? 8th is better all day.

Actually....they could potentially cause it to throw a track, damage a drive wheel or even stuff grenades into the tracks.

And considering a lot of 40k vehicles have less protective armouring of tracks and engines it should be easier to break a tank by hacking it's engine in 40k than in real life.

Whilst I can understand the intent, I do wonder if this was the best way to go about it. It's certainly a bit odd when S7 is no better than S5 against T4 or T8-9 targets.

In this regard though, I think a major limitation is that the game only uses d6s.

I think the main issue though (as others have already mentioned) is that the scale of 40k is beyond ridiculous. Infantry should not be on the same board as titanic behemoths.

It would be far better for 40k to put Apocalypse units (Flyers, super-heavies, lords of war etc.) back into Apocalypse. They simply have no place in standard 40k and trying to shoehorn them in has consistently led to buggering up the rules for everyone.

The problem then becomes that those models (the flyers, super heavies, etc) never get used or rarely get used if at all... which sucks because they are cool models.

And certainly would be a deterrent to producing them in the first place.

 vipoid wrote:
Whilst I can understand the intent, I do wonder if this was the best way to go about it. It's certainly a bit odd when S7 is no better than S5 against T4 or T8-9 targets.

In this regard though, I think a major limitation is that the game only uses d6s.

I think the main issue though (as others have already mentioned) is that the scale of 40k is beyond ridiculous. Infantry should not be on the same board as titanic behemoths.

It would be far better for 40k to put Apocalypse units (Flyers, super-heavies, lords of war etc.) back into Apocalypse. They simply have no place in standard 40k and trying to shoehorn them in has consistently led to buggering up the rules for everyone.

I hate this argument. You know what's actually buggering up the rules? You know what actually makes the game silly? You know what REALLY doesn't have a place in 40k?

Fething Melee. The fact that this game has melee combat in it at all is the dumbest, most illogical, most unbalancing, most 'immersion' breaking bullcrap in the history of bullcrap.

Titans make sense in 40k, Planes make sense in 40k, Gargantuans make sense in 40k, a Furry running around with a hunk of metal glued to a stick and thinking he's helping is idiotic.

 Fifty wrote:

p5freak wrote:
Its ridiculous that armored vehicles can be hurt by basic melee weapons. A group of ~25 Ork boys can kill a Predator Tank in 2 rounds, or 1 round, with lucky rolls.

Vehicles have exhaust vents, view ports, weapon barrels, tracks, and so on. These are all things that are vulnerable to close-combat attacks. It should not be easy, but it isn't, so no problem.

Tanks in the real world aren't sent without infantry support into combat with infantry either.

I am not saying it should be impossible to take a out a tank in close combat. There are energy weapons for that purpose. It shouldnt be possible with a basic melee weapon, like axe, sword, cleaver, etc.

ERJAK wrote:
I hate this argument. You know what's actually buggering up the rules? You know what actually makes the game silly? You know what REALLY doesn't have a place in 40k?

Fething Melee. The fact that this game has melee combat in it at all is the dumbest, most illogical, most unbalancing, most 'immersion' breaking bullcrap in the history of bullcrap.

I disagree. I think melee as a concept is fine - especially for races like nids.

Where is starts to break down is when advanced races choose to specialise in melee instead of guns.

That said, 40k's rules for melee have been consistently awful.

ERJAK wrote:
Titans make sense in 40k, Planes make sense in 40k, Gargantuans make sense in 40k,

Sorry, no. It doesn't make sense for gargantuans, planes and titans to be present in every battle. Nor does it make sense that infantry is sent to attack titans/gargantuans/planes with weaponry designed to take out infantry or small tanks.

ERJAK wrote:


I hate this argument. You know what's actually buggering up the rules? You know what actually makes the game silly? You know what REALLY doesn't have a place in 40k?

Fething Melee. The fact that this game has melee combat in it at all is the dumbest, most illogical, most unbalancing, most 'immersion' breaking bullcrap in the history of bullcrap.

Titans make sense in 40k, Planes make sense in 40k, Gargantuans make sense in 40k, a Furry running around with a hunk of metal glued to a stick and thinking he's helping is idiotic.

I am sorry, what?
No, really, please do explain because i'm honestly interested in this. I think that a skirmish game should not be concerned by weapons that you bring to take on a fortress. And also think that businnes necessity was what pushed said big models down our wallet/throat. And with that another can of worms (like this game needed another). Imo, supeheavyes, planes, relevant heroes...thats what we used to bring in apocalypse. Or, you know...Epic.

I fail to see how melee makes thing mathematically illogical compared to titan vs infantry. Dear lord, even Flames of War (hystorically accurate, quite balanced game, whit a solid scale purpose) has melee!

I miss the days where a Dreadnought and a Carnifex where the big boys

But people surely loves their giant models. I can live with more abstract rules if that means people is able to play with those giant and very expensive models that they have put money and time to make look good.

EDIT: Meele is COOL. Jedis and Sith in Star Wars are cool. Killing your enemies with your Olographic weapon in Mass Effect is cool.

Killing a giant plasma shooting robot with a spear and your motorcicle is EPIC


Warhammer40k is Fantasy in Space. Without meele it wouldn't be Warhammer 40k.

 Galas wrote:
I miss the days where a Dreadnought and a Carnifex where the big boys

But people surely loves their giant models.

My fex has been feeling quite inadequate next to my Trygon.

 Galas wrote:
I miss the days where a Dreadnought and a Carnifex where the big boys

Same.

 Galas wrote:
But people surely loves their giant models. I can live with more abstract rules if that means people is able to play with those giant and very expensive models that they have put money and time to make look good.

But why do those giant models have to be usable in what is ostensibly a skirmish game?

 vipoid wrote:

 Galas wrote:
But people surely loves their giant models. I can live with more abstract rules if that means people is able to play with those giant and very expensive models that they have put money and time to make look good.

But why do those giant models have to be usable in what is ostensibly a skirmish game?

Because this is a one-way trip. I didn't like them or asked for them, but they are here now to stay. We should be realistic about what can happen in the future, and the invalidation of all flyers and giant models isn't a possibility.

Plus, even if I don't like them, I can emphatize with people that do and has spend money and time in those models.

 Galas wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Galas wrote:
But people surely loves their giant models. I can live with more abstract rules if that means people is able to play with those giant and very expensive models that they have put money and time to make look good.

But why do those giant models have to be usable in what is ostensibly a skirmish game?

Because this is a one-way trip. I didn't like them or asked for them, but they are here now to stay. We should be realistic about what can happen in the future, and the invalidation of all flyers and giant models isn't a possibility.

Plus, even if I don't like them, I can emphatize with people that do and has spend money and time in those models.

It's that type of thinking that keeps pushing it towards 1 way when there have already been signs and potential to push back against it.

Fireteam has exploded in popularity.
Necromunda is more or less back.
Tournaments have reduced themselves to being 1650 instead of 2500, 2000, or even 1850.
Lord of War and Flyers are their own FOC making it easier to ban them.

The fact that this thread is even debating this, is a sign that there is a push back.

 Galas wrote:

Spoiler:

All say it again.

In a game where all of this can be fighting in the same table at the same time and even fielding armies of only one of this kind of models:


You need to eliminate the extreme cases or your game becomes a Rock/Paper/Scissors game that is just unfun for everybody.

And if you are gonna reply with "But those things shouldn't have enter in 40k!" I'll agree. Just like Flyers, they don't belong in 40k. 40K has lost his scale years ago. But they are here to stay, so we can live with them or we can have broken after broken after broken after broken and unplayable edition.

So we have two options:

-We homogeinize everything to have a playable game where all of this works
-We go to play Flames of War or others games that know what they are.

I always imagined melee in space should be more of an attack of opportunity (akin to Xenomorphs in Aliens) rather than a "Jedi in sword dance formation" ala Attack of the Clones. It's something that happens either when you have more bodies than bullets, as part of specialist tasks (naval boarding actions), or the odd "trench sweep".

Anyway, homogenized damage really irks me the wrong way because there are so many other ways one could have fixed a "binary" system, but perhaps the most relevant one would be making it harder to kill hidden Specials in units. (Introduce something like "take up" in Warmahordes). Making it possible to rapidly strip wounds off vehicles with Shuriken Catapults and Doom (trust me, I've seen some insane hot dice and the potential is there) is rather silly if you ask me.

Ditto the ability to swat aircraft out of the sky with flamethrowers/Flamestorm cannons.

Whoever posted that huge picture makes this thread very difficult on mobile. On topic its really not much of an issue. Yeah anything can hurt anything but a lot of stuff will take so much effort to kill with small guns that it would not be worth a players turn. A landraider would take probably over 500 shots from lasguns to kill, and thats just ridiculous to even try in a game. It can be used to maybe strip a wound or 2 off, but shouldnt be a big problem for anything else. Its better than needing 3 glancing hits to the rear armor to kill a tank

W40K is no longer a skirmish game, and I would argue that 3th and not 6th was the moment it switched. In a skirmish game you have a handfull of models (like a dozen a side) each with unique rules/ gear. That's justr not true.

As to everything can hit everyhting, I still stand by my point from another thread:

Rules that enable your tactics are more fun than rules that disable your tactics.

 Elbows wrote:
Sure, but in the real world 30 people with axes aren't going to stop an Abrams...ever.

Having seen copious battle reports where every type of vehicle seems to be MUCH harder to kill, I don't see it as much of an issue. Do I like the idea of non-stop super heavies in a normal 40K game? Not so much. But if you're going to leave that doggy door open - it's better off the way 8th is (at least making it possible to play a game without just shaking hands after deployment and packing up your models).

So given the silliness of 7th vs. 8th? 8th is better all day.

Orks aren't people. What do 30 conscripts do against a predator tank?

If you compared the size of a predator tank to an Ork and how big that Ork's axe is, it's reasonable to conclude that a dozen of those things pounding on it for a while could destroy the tracks and gun turret. Harder to envision it exploding, but maybe if they struck unexploded ordinance or something?
I like the tactical aspect melee adds to the game, but you are right in that melee's effectiveness should be toned down at times. Overwatch should hit on regular bs perhaps.

 benlac wrote:
Overwatch should hit on regular bs perhaps.

Absolutely not

 TheLumberJack wrote:

 benlac wrote:
Overwatch should hit on regular bs perhaps.

Absolutely not

I'm honestly surprised that 8th didn'y make overwatch a simple -1 BS

 Galas wrote:
I miss the days where a Dreadnought and a Carnifex where the big boys

But people surely loves their giant models. I can live with more abstract rules if that means people is able to play with those giant and very expensive models that they have put money and time to make look good.

EDIT: Meele is COOL. Jedis and Sith in Star Wars are cool. Killing your enemies with your Olographic weapon in Mass Effect is cool.

Killing a giant plasma shooting robot with a spear and your motorcicle is EPIC

Spoiler:

Warhammer40k is Fantasy in Space. Without meele it wouldn't be Warhammer 40k.

Haha, the bikes in that art have the unrepairable mould line that the poor fitting of the bike kit gives you.

I don't think it is ideal, but it's not horrible.

My only complaint is any S being able to damage any T. A grot should not be able to hurt a IK or Carnifex in CC. Zero chance. Should have been something like can't hurt something more than twice your S.

IN the last few editions, 40k ended up being Rock/Paper/Scissor game... with 7ed being the worst imo. Especially in tournament games.

To me, that was the major drag in the game.

I'm excited about 8ed's system as I'll suspect we'll see way more variety and hopefully, more enthusiasm for the game.

I wanna see more Kan Walls!

I wanna see Nids again!

...and yes, I want to see the cool Forgeworld models.

I'm not sure replacing "rock-paper-scissors" with "chinese dodgeball meets bumper cars" was the greatest idea. It also didn't need all the random damage output.


I think the thing is trying to fix a bad design idea with worse design. Knights should never have been an army, that's the solution, not everything needs to hurt everything cuz "muh toyz".

I also think if this edition will follow the aos trend of big complicated melee's in the center, it would benefit even more from tank shock rule of prior editions, instead we get grots that can stop a baneblade cold. That feels as wrong as wounding chart.

 TheLumberJack wrote:
Whoever posted that huge picture makes this thread very difficult on mobile.

Edited with spoiler. Lesson learned from my side.

When you consider how many filters are in place to prevent low strength, low ap, low damage weapons from hurting high toughness, high armor, many wound models, this is a non-issue.

It's not fair to claim any weapon can "hurt" any model. It's more fair to say any weapon can "interact" with any model.

And use your imagination for close combat weapons. Now instead of issuing everyone a trench knife armies issue everyone with a power knife/bayonet.

Marksman224 wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

As I have shown above there is more then toughness to deal with now. Where as before there were two things that determined the outcome, there are now 4. Before it came down to strength and toughness, if you didn't have the S to kill a unit it didn't matter if your weapon was AP 2. Here we have to figure out how many wounds each weapon will do and how that will stack up over the long run, we can no longer look at just S or just T we also have to look at the wounds that unit has, what armor it has, whether its worth trying to peel off some points with AP or shoot a higher S weapon at the model. There is a lot more going on in the game now then the basic S and T setup before, and I think its a good thing.

TL;DR: I think the changes are good.

I am going to have to respectfully disagree with you, for precisely the reasons that you just argued make this version. Players should never have to do math to figure out which things are better, it should be intuitively expressed by their stats at face value. There always was more than just strength and toughness to contend with, but differences in those stats have very little impact now.

The only other stats were armor, AP, and wounds. Wounds were the same across the board for just about everything with 1 and 3 being the stat for 90% of the units in the game. Armor and AP were counter stats that were all or nothing, cover played a bigger role in survivability then Armor did, and it meant that a lot of units were paying for something that was essentially useless. Well players don't HAVE to do math they can simply learn this by watching how the game plays out, and learning that some weapons are just too much for other things, for something its more nuanced like the Transport and Tank description I gave. Others its more obvious like the Lascannons against infantry example I gave.

steerpike92 wrote:
When you consider how many filters are in place to prevent low strength, low ap, low damage weapons from hurting high toughness, high armor, many wound models, this is a non-issue.

It's not fair to claim any weapon can "hurt" any model. It's more fair to say any weapon can "interact" with any model.

I'll completely agree it's a non-issue most of the time. some of the time however it will invariable exacerbate game length because of split fire and players trying to make every bolter or lasgun count.

My issue goes the other way, if we're going to open up to extremely aberrant damage possibility (lasgun v landraider), why are so many heavy weapons capped at killing a single model? I mean, why is a lascannon not able to slice through a few infantry at a time, currently regardless of damage output being 1 or 6, it still can only kill 1 dude. This in a game where currently having a single model in range and los is enough to kill a whole unit provided the firepower is adequate.

 Crablezworth wrote:
I'm not sure replacing "rock-paper-scissors" with "chinese dodgeball meets bumper cars" was the greatest idea. It also didn't need all the random damage output.


I think the thing is trying to fix a bad design idea with worse design. Knights should never have been an army, that's the solution, not everything needs to hurt everything cuz "muh toyz".

I also think if this edition will follow the aos trend of big complicated melee's in the center, it would benefit even more from tank shock rule of prior editions, instead we get grots that can stop a baneblade cold. That feels as wrong as wounding chart.

well having "Chinese dodge-ball meets bumper cars" is a better idea then "rock paper scissors", that is for certain. having to purchase $5,000 worth of models does not sound appealing to anyone but the most rabid fans. Just to start the game some people needed $300 in books before they even started picking models. And for people to spend $1,000 in models only to be told "Well your army is crap so your going to lose all the time" is a good way to make yourself go out of business. No one is going to pay $1,500 to lose every game because the're favorite color is read so they picked Blood Angels.

You cant just remove Knights (I hate them as well there stupid and require no strategic thinking), they are here to stay so like the cancer they are we have to figure out a way to live with them.

Your not going to see big complicated melees in the center of the board you will see that with some armies, other armies will avoid CC at all costs. As time develops you will see people develop different strats.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:
My issue goes the other way, if we're going to open up to extremely aberrant damage possibility (lasgun v landraider), why are so many heavy weapons capped at killing a single model? I mean, why is a lascannon not able to slice through a few infantry at a time, currently regardless of damage output being 1 or 6, it still can only kill 1 dude. This in a game where currently having a single model in range and los is enough to kill a whole unit provided the firepower is adequate.

Because if they do that then all you will see is as many heavy weapon teams with Lascannons on the board as possible. There is no reason to bring a Heavy Bolter if the Lascannon can kill as many guys as it can and kill tanks.

ERJAK wrote:

I hate this argument. You know what's actually buggering up the rules? You know what actually makes the game silly? You know what REALLY doesn't have a place in 40k?

Fething Melee. The fact that this game has melee combat in it at all is the dumbest, most illogical, most unbalancing, most 'immersion' breaking bullcrap in the history of bullcrap.

Titans make sense in 40k, Planes make sense in 40k, Gargantuans make sense in 40k, a Furry running around with a hunk of metal glued to a stick and thinking he's helping is idiotic.

Chainsaw swords are awesome. Your argument is invalid..

vipoid wrote:Whilst I can understand the intent, I do wonder if this was the best way to go about it. It's certainly a bit odd when S7 is no better than S5 against T4 or T8-9 targets.

In this regard though, I think a major limitation is that the game only uses d6s.

Look at it this way. My M4 (Rifle) is no less effective at killing an infantry unit then my 240-B (Machine gun) the difference comes from the number of shots and how well I shoot. At the same time if I shoot those 2 guns at a tank, the same thing occurs the strength difference makes no difference against the thick armor, it again comes down to how well I shoot and how many bullets I put out.

ERJAK wrote:I hate this argument. You know what's actually buggering up the rules? You know what actually makes the game silly? You know what REALLY doesn't have a place in 40k?

Fething Melee. The fact that this game has melee combat in it at all is the dumbest, most illogical, most unbalancing, most 'immersion' breaking bullcrap in the history of bullcrap.

Titans make sense in 40k, Planes make sense in 40k, Gargantuans make sense in 40k, a Furry running around with a hunk of metal glued to a stick and thinking he's helping is idiotic.

Melee combat is unavoidable in war. It still happens, and If you think that the US military wouldn't arm a guy in power armor with a Sword AND a gun, your just not in touch in reality.

Crablezworth wrote: "chinese dodgeball meets bumper cars"

What *is* this amazing game?

Isn't this the eclectic thread.

Play some games - actual games, against actual armies with varied toughness units.

Not speculation, not scenarios in your head - actual experience.

The new chart is fine.

There are a TON of nuances in the game that are NOT obvious until you play it - the wound chart is one of them.

Movement is even more so - especially in close combat with the nature of the consolidate moves.

After playing some games and thinking about them - this is quite possibly the best 40k yet.

Coming from Fantasy/AOS where anything can wound anything on a roll of a 6 I can tell you now it is nothing to worry about (assuming they have got the wounds balance correct).

I can see how some people might be upset that a little guy with a slingshot brings down a Tank haha. Yes it will happen, however it will either be so ridiculous it will be funny or it will come through such poor decision making it might cost the player the game.

When something has 12 - 24 wounds and a good save it is going to take an extreme amount of shots and luck to bring it down. Then once you have finished your crusade you realise that all that time you should have been shooting something else.

The great thing that it does do is mean that units are never totally useless. If there is a tank with 1-2 wounds left and there is nothing else to shoot at well you can try your luck. It keeps people in the game and having fun.

These types of changes are what is opening my eyes to giving 40K another try.

The thing you want to worry about are how powerful are the weapons that deal D3 and D6 wounds.........not the dozen guys hitting and wounding on 5/6's and need you to fail a 2/3+ save. Seriously in Fantasy the biggest issue was multiple wound weapons taking Dragons and monster out of the game in 1-2 hits, not the concentrated small arms fire hitting and wounding on 6's. This will be no different with 40k 8th, just hope those D3 and D6 weapons are balanced!

In the world wars they had tanks being brought down by flamethrowers, machine guns, mines, grenades, planes, etc etc etc. Tanks aren't invincible behemoths that require other tanks to destroy them. They're versatile, fast, and deadly, but a single skilled person can destroy them. I see no reason why the sci-fi future should be different. Its not like Predators have force fields or something.

Heck in games like Halo they have Spartans blowing up whole Scarabs by themselves. In Star Wars they have fighters not meant for heavy combat taking out giant armored walkers. Or worse, a single gungan being lucky/stupid (jar jar would make a great ork). I don't see why 40k should be the one universe were none of what I just talked about applies.

edit: thats just the 'makes sense lore wise' part of it. People in this thread have explained much better than I could.why having binary mechanics in 40k isn't very fun.

 Talamare wrote:

First of all, I will preface by saying... If you wanted Apocalypse. Then make and play Apocalypse into a separate rule set.

This is probably where it started to become an issue. Escalation allowed for apocalypse-sized models to enter into "standard" (for lack of a better term) 40k games.

However, I will agree with Galas, 40k is a game which cares little for a proper sense of scale. Rule of cool is meant to apply here (which has its own set of positives/negatives), and at least GW has not just purely hamfisted these vehicles in (Strength D being a rule which, while fine in apocalypse, ruined regular 40k). At least they have, in some sense, attempted to balance these weapons for regular games; albeit at the price of scale.


I will say, however, that the new S/W chart is much less granular, which annoys me slightly. Sure, the original chart might have been somewhat harder to memorize, but I feel like it really wasn't so difficult to reference that it slowed gameplay significantly. In fact, comaring S to T values is quite simple with the chart. It's quite likely that, since we're seeing strength occasionally dip into double digit values (I.E. Strength 12 Dreadnought Fists), that it made more sense to simplify the chart in order to not over-complicate the chart.

in any edition the role to wound of a 1 was always fun to represent your big gun blowing off a leg, an arm or shooting thru one of the 2 hearts of a Marine. YOU keep fighting for your life with those injuries in the heat of battle.

You may die later...perhaps some of those guys that 'died' actually can be saved after the battle.

But when my wife rolled a 6 to wound with a krak missile on a squat gunner today.....we just said she shot his head off.

lol

ERJAK wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Whilst I can understand the intent, I do wonder if this was the best way to go about it. It's certainly a bit odd when S7 is no better than S5 against T4 or T8-9 targets.

In this regard though, I think a major limitation is that the game only uses d6s.

I think the main issue though (as others have already mentioned) is that the scale of 40k is beyond ridiculous. Infantry should not be on the same board as titanic behemoths.

It would be far better for 40k to put Apocalypse units (Flyers, super-heavies, lords of war etc.) back into Apocalypse. They simply have no place in standard 40k and trying to shoehorn them in has consistently led to buggering up the rules for everyone.

I hate this argument. You know what's actually buggering up the rules? You know what actually makes the game silly? You know what REALLY doesn't have a place in 40k?

Fething Melee. The fact that this game has melee combat in it at all is the dumbest, most illogical, most unbalancing, most 'immersion' breaking bullcrap in the history of bullcrap.

Titans make sense in 40k, Planes make sense in 40k, Gargantuans make sense in 40k, a Furry running around with a hunk of metal glued to a stick and thinking he's helping is idiotic.

I hate to be that guy, but why on earth are you playing 40k in the first place? This is like walking into a vegan restaurant and being furious they don't serve steak. Based on your outlook 40k should have never interested you in the first place. 40k is literally "every dumb trope that looks cool in space" the game. Did you not see the armies of chainsaw wielding knights plastered all over the artwork in the books, videogames, comic books, etc.?

Marksman224 wrote:I am just wondering, is anyone else concerned over what looks to be the to-wound table for 40k 8th edition? This is a bit of a rant, and I do it because I haven't really seen anyone else sharing a similar opinion in the matter. In my opinion this new to-wound table looks like it's going to push everything in the wrong direction. Now it seems Strength and Toughness really don't matter much compared to old editions. In all but the extreme edge cases one point of strength or toughness would make a difference. Now the one point increases often wont make a difference, and no matter what model you field it can wound and be wounded by anything; so the extreme cases have been completely elminated too. There's no absolute need to take high strength weapons anymore, since you can now always overcome weakness with share numbers of dice. I thought this was a bad thing in the last edition; multitudes of low-mid strength dice being encouraged by the game with seldom any reason to take high strength weapons. Now it's more severe and I believe that is a bad thing.

I think it's great if weapons are completely ineffectual against models that are just way too tough. I think there should be more of that, and I don't think it's a bad thing at all. I think it encourages variety in units and weapon choices. I think it's great if stats actually eliminate rolling in the extreme cases and save us some time. So if the weapon is far too weak don't bother rolling, that was great. I even think there should have been 1+ on old table. So when that snotling is definitely HIT by a crack missile or rail-gun then just remove the model. Why cant we can say for some weapons that there is just no chance of surviving a direct hit? It seems perfectly reasonable to me. You could think of it another way too. In 8th edition we have 5 possible thresholds: 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+ and 6+. In earlier editions we had 6: 2+ through to 6+ and also N (no effect). So how about 7 possible thresholds: 1+, 2+, 3+, 4+, 5+, 6+ and N.

What do you guys think about this new system? I really want to give this new edition a chance, because GW looks to actually be trying to change the fundamentals of the game for the better. In some areas I think they have done well. But this new to-wound chart really concerns me, it looks like it's going to make the units very samey. Though I hope I'm wrong.

If 40k is going to insist that superheavies, fliers, and giant monstrous creatures belong in the base game, it is absolutely necessary. Had we stayed in a 5th and earlier mindset, where the most insane model you ever saw was a monolith or land raider, and we had a set force org, the old system worked fine. It had it's flaws to be sure, but as an IG player for example I knew my infantry (my troops, you know, the guys I'm supposed to have the core of my army built out of) could reasonably be expected to contribute every game.

In 7th, your troops were usually considered useless for the majority of the armies out there. They simply lacked the firepower to deal with things like knight titans, fliers, and all the psychic BS that ran rampant. Simply put, we were trying to play apocalypse with regular 40k.

Bringing apocalypse class units to 40k was a huge mistake and this is the only way to fix the mistake without telling people who blew hundreds of dollars on things like knights, baneblades, fliers, etc. to get bent and buy a new army.

Also, from a fluff perspective, weapons in the 40k setting are ridiculously powered compared to stuff we're used to. For example I can think of two instances off the top of my head in books where guardsmen defeated dreadnoughts with nothing more than lasguns. We also always heard things about snipers nailing drivers through driving slits yet the rules never supported that either. Does it sound ridiculous? Yes, it does, but this is 40k, ridiculous is pretty much the entire premise of the setting.

Watch some videos of games being played, believe it or not the chart does a pretty good job at keeping vehicles and big creatures from easily dying to massed infantry fire. You really do need either an absolutely absurd amount of infantry to kill something like a landraider, usually more than their target was worth. My only complaint is all the random damage many weapons have. Part of the reason I'm leaning so heavily towards plasma and autocannons for example is that they have a set damage that I can count on. I'm the kind of guy who will roll 1's on lascannon's damage every game with my luck and it's kind of annoying that it varies that much. Some weapons ignore it or mitigate it, but not many. I feel many heavy weapons should've just had set damage values, saving random for things improvised melta charges and the like. Depending on how hordes end up damage spillover might've needed to be implemented, but I'm willing to give it a shot for now.

 Galas wrote:

You need to eliminate the extreme cases or your game becomes a Rock/Paper/Scissors game that is just unfun for everybody.

Why? "Everything can hurt everything" -principle is pointless since for practical purposes, extreme cases still can't hurt each other. Because if light weapons had a serious, game-affecting ability to hurt very toughest models, it would feel unrealistic and people would complain. So the chance is reduced to so small it is for basically irrelevant. Trying to hurt a Land Raider or Knight with Lasguns is just as hopeless as trying to kill those Invisible 2++ rerollable Deathstars. And everyone remembers how much fun THAT was, no?

(I mean, seriously, I've heard this a lot that it is "unfun" when there were weapons in the game which couldn't hurt some models. Hello? It was game breaking when Boltguns couldn't hurt a Leman Russ or Land Raider? Did we play the same game? I never heard or read such a complaint. What I DID hear and read were complaints about 2++ rerollable Deathstars, which COULD be hurt by any weapon in the game.)

Another issue is the current Wound table which greatly reduces granularity regarding S and T values. It is similar to the old Weapon Skill table which made WS largely irrelevant. In 8th, if you have a low S weapon you wound on 5+, and high S you wound on 3+. That is true 90% of the time and all other cases are rare exceptions. It's made worse that Toughness values are so limited and cap on T8. For example, S10 is no benefit in 8th. It's just as good as S9.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ERJAK wrote:

The new S/T system is sooooo vastly better. The old syatem was doggak.

With the old system S3 S5 S7 and S9 were totally irrelevant, the value of going from an even strength to an odd strength was next to nothing compared to going from odd to even and then S1 and S2 were so useless almost nothing in the game actually had them.

Nonsense. S5 was awesome improvement over S4. Most infantry was T3-4 so S5 gave much more wounds. Also, most Monstrous Creatures were T6 so S5 gave two times as many wounds as S4. And there were many light Vehicles with AV10-11.
By contrast, in 8th edition, all S5 does over S4 is that you wound T4 models with 3+ instead of 4+. That is literally all. Oh well, you do wound T8 models on 5+ instead of 6+, but T8 isn't terribly common.

T8 is extremely common now as a vehicle toughness level, so heavy bolters can now be thought of as a more viable threat to tanks than a bolt gun is.

The new chart also created a new point of durability for marines and Orks. Now mid level heavy weapons like autocannons and multilasers have a harder time wounding those models.

Marines are significantly more durable on the table, allowing those fielding them to not feel as though their army is simply.ply cannon fodder.

I find it interesting that people argue that the granularity of the to wound chart is somehow worse than before. It is almost entirely the same, it is just weighted toward the center rather than the extremes. In 7th the use of 3s,4's, and 5s to wound was very small, and 2s and 6s were extremely common. In 7th S5 was many times worse than S6 because it was wise at wounding, T4,5 and 6 (very common toughness), was worse at hurting all vehicles, didn't instant kill T3 models. There was a reason heavy bolsters were not a huge thing in the last several editions.

I also find complaints about random damage interesting, I assume all those same people hated the vehicle damage table as that is exactly what random damage is now. I find it to be a much better mechanic than instant death where a lascannon vaporizes a marine captain, unless he is on a bike, then he is just fine. You could argue having everything be set damage would be better (so lascannons deal 3 wounds) but I think you then end up with some weapons being way too powerful unless they are insanely expensive. I think the damage rolls add some drama to the game as well.

 Galas wrote:
All say it again.

In a game where all of this can be fighting in the same table at the same time and even fielding armies of only one of this kind of models:

Spoiler:

You need to eliminate the extreme cases or your game becomes a Rock/Paper/Scissors game that is just unfun for everybody.

Funny that other games manage to have stuff that parts of enemy cannot kill no matter what and yet it's not a problem for them...

...but to make it like that requires skill&effort from the rules writers. Too much to ask from GW.

Breng77 wrote:
I find it interesting that people argue that the granularity of the to wound chart is somehow worse than before. It is almost entirely the same, it is just weighted toward the center rather than the extremes. In 7th the use of 3s,4's, and 5s to wound was very small, and 2s and 6s were extremely common. In 7th S5 was many times worse than S6 because it was wise at wounding, T4,5 and 6 (very common toughness), was worse at hurting all vehicles, didn't instant kill T3 models. There was a reason heavy bolsters were not a huge thing in the last several editions.

It was because of the AP system. AP4 brought little benefit as Sv4+ wasn't terribly common (most MC's and Bikes were 3+ or better, ditto for much of the infantry) and even when there was one, often there was cover present, giving them 5+ anyway (or 4+ in 5th edition...). So if given a choice between Multi-Laser and Heavy Bolter, former was superior in nearly every situation since AP4 was useful only sometimes, whilst high S was always useful.
In 8th edition, there is very little practical difference between S8-S10 weapons. S8 is worse only when shooting T8 models, and most of the MC's and Vehicles are T7 or T6 against which all those weapons perform identically.

Backfire wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I find it interesting that people argue that the granularity of the to wound chart is somehow worse than before. It is almost entirely the same, it is just weighted toward the center rather than the extremes. In 7th the use of 3s,4's, and 5s to wound was very small, and 2s and 6s were extremely common. In 7th S5 was many times worse than S6 because it was wise at wounding, T4,5 and 6 (very common toughness), was worse at hurting all vehicles, didn't instant kill T3 models. There was a reason heavy bolsters were not a huge thing in the last several editions.

It was because of the AP system. AP4 brought little benefit as Sv4+ wasn't terribly common (most MC's and Bikes were 3+ or better, ditto for much of the infantry) and even when there was one, often there was cover present, giving them 5+ anyway (or 4+ in 5th edition...). So if given a choice between Multi-Laser and Heavy Bolter, former was superior in nearly every situation since AP4 was useful only sometimes, whilst high S was always useful.
In 8th edition, there is very little practical difference between S8-S10 weapons. S8 is worse only when shooting T8 models, and most of the MC's and Vehicles are T7 or T6 against which all those weapons perform identically.

Your assessment is wrong

S8 wounds T5-7 T8 on 4+, T9+(unless we have T16 at some point) on 5+
S9 wounds T8 on a 3+, T9 on a 4+, and 10+ on a 5+
S10 wounds T5 on a 2+, T6-9 on a 3+ and T10 on a 4+

Now given there are not T9 and 10 models that I am aware of at this time, but they may exist in the future, but even then S10 wounding T5 on a 2+ vs a 3+ is a difference. SO against light vehicles or heavy infantry S10 is better than 8 or 9. Also remember that S of higher than 10 now exist, so that matters as well. I think the issue here is the lack of usage of T9 and 10 more than the to wound table. I would have liked to see say the Stompa be T10 with a 4+ save or similar, but part of that might be that they seemed hesitant to have anything higher than S10 outside of close combat.

In the end the granularity was always going to be limited by using a D6

Full or nothing saves were horrible. Ap as a save modifier is much more representative of armor protecting and being easier to bypass with stronger or more penetrative weapons.

The new to-wound chart does make entire ranges of strength meaningless when it interacts with certain Toughness values; but those ranges are not meaningless vs other t values. It is a very complex interaction that is written simply. Take the humble boltgun for example: against a weedy elder or guardsman it wounds on a 3+ as italways has. Against an ork or fellow beekie it continues to wound at 4+ same as before. Shooting at most vehicles it now wounds on a 5+(t6 or t7) while the ubiquitous lasgun only wounds on a 6+. This is a fairly good representation of a gyro-jet 22mm autocannon round vs an AK-47(lasgun and autogun have the same strength): you might get lucky firing the AK at an armoured vehicle, hitting something that causes real damage. The single_shot or 3-round burst from the 22mm will punch deeper into the armour or do more damage on that lucky hit.

Tanks have always been vulnerable to infantry swarming tactic; which in 40k is melee.

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
Full or nothing saves were horrible. Ap as a save modifier is much more representative of armor protecting and being easier to bypass with stronger or more penetrative weapons.

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yup the old method was terrible it made wide ranges of weapons more or less useless, it also rendered lower armor saves to be just token values that were rarely used. My only change to the new system would have been making all cover a negative to hit modifier, rather than a bonus to save.