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See title.

A Great Unclean One has a 6+ Feel No Pain and 20 Wounds.
On average, that's the same as having 24 Wounds and no FNP.

I would be 100% fine changing them to no a FNP, 24 Wound statline. But this is also a case where that 6+ can be attempted a minimum of 20 times before death.

What about a 5+ FNP and a W2 model? That's, on average, the same as W3 with no FNP. But in practice it's pretty different, since you've still got a close to 50% chance of dying to 2 damage.

By having it seperate it acts as another lever that can be modified/added/tweaked. Having a leader add FNP to a squad is a lot cleaner then worrying about who’s he joins, what the wounds would be etc. Or a strat that adds 9t for a phase. Or things that modify dice rolls/re-rolls/etc.

It also exists for interactive time in the IGOYGO environment. Like armor saves it gives the reactive player something that feels like play on the opponent’s turn. Sure, it’s just executing a check, but it’s player involvement.

It makes for narrative moments when our fickle little 6-sided friends get spicy. We chuck a LOT of dice, so see the streaks. I’m sure every last one of us has a story where we made an unreasonable amount of saves, survived near-certain death, and triumphed. And we remember that time and look back on it fondly. Not that we don’t remember staggering away from a nasty scrap on our last wound, but ti’s not quite the same.

I definitely agree that Leaders should give a FNP instead of extra wounds, as should anything temporary (Strats, Enhancements, etc.).

But I'm a little iffier on using FNP as just a way to interact in your opponent's turn. You can't even use a Stratagem to reroll a FNP, so it's literally just busywork.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I definitely agree that Leaders should give a FNP instead of extra wounds, as should anything temporary (Strats, Enhancements, etc.).

But I'm a little iffier on using FNP as just a way to interact in your opponent's turn. You can't even use a Stratagem to reroll a FNP, so it's literally just busywork.

IIRC from a designer commentary from way back that’s why the defender makes the armor saves. It would be quicker for the attacker to roll hits, pick up the ones that did, roll those for wounds, amd then pick up the successes and check for armor. Instead of having the defender dig up the right number of dice. Gives you something to do besides just remove casualties. Less game mechanic optimization and more player experience/psychology.

Would it be faster to just add more wounds most of the time? Yes. But IMHO it would also make the game less interesting and engaging.

I get that GW is very fond of excessive dice rolling for no real return. And see your point about FNP. I just personally think what it adds is worth the time. YMMV.

I feel like you should give a unit more Wound when you want consistency, and you give them FNP when you want drama.

Not sure if pox walkers have FNP these days, but the whole zombie toughness thing is a decent example of where I could see FNP working well. A humble lasgun shot could very well be enough to take out a pox walker. But then again, sometimes those gosh darn plague zombies just keep moving when they shouldn't. A FNP roll raises the survivability of the squad, sure, but it also creates some uncertainty as to whether or not "mere" lasguns or bolters would be enough to finish the job. And conversely, FNP has counterplay in the form of higher damage weapons (read: overkill). A 1W FNP5+++ model might shrug off a bolter, but their chances of shrugging a D2 heavy bolter attack are significantly worse.

So for horde units, FNPs are sort of like invulns, but with more counterplay.

FNPs are also just easier to slap onto something as a defensive buff than fiddling around with a temporary wounds mechanic would be.

For something like a GUO, I kind of feel like a flat Wound increase would work better. Because there's already enough variability in the amount of damage put out by things like lascannons, and you already get that "dramatic" moment from an invuln save versus such attacks. FNP on a model like that ends up feeling more like "damage reduction" than anything.

I see where you’re coming from mathematically. And I don’t exactly disagree upping wounds and ditching FNP might remove further dice rolls.

But? FNP is the unknown quantity. Statisically it might be the equivalent of four more wounds. But in practice, it’s possible however unlikely they might find a weakness and exploit it that the FNP comes in clutch time and time again.

So I can never be entirely sure a given volley of firepower will take out the target. Only takes a little bit of jamminess for the owning player to roll above average on sixes, allowing the GUO to charge in their next turn and duff up one of my units.

And so yes it’s swingy, but it adds risk and further consideration, which I for one appreciate and enjoy.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

But? FNP is the unknown quantity. Statisically it might be the equivalent of four more wounds. But in practice, it’s possible however unlikely they might find a weakness and exploit it that the FNP comes in clutch time and time again.

I think part of the difference to me is that the more wounds a model has, the stronger the bell curve and also the more spread out the attacks that eventually kill him might be. So Feel No Pain on a W2 model is dramatic. Will this attack be enough to finish him off? Will he eat at least one more shot thus helping to keep his squad alive long enough and in large enough numbers to still be a menace? Will that W4 character manage to hang in there to return some attacks in melee?

But on something like a GUO, the benefits of the FNP are more spread out across all 20 of their base wounds. You can still get a dramatic "will he survive against this final attack" moment, but it's kind of watered down by the ocean of other attacks that maybe rolled above or below average (and are more likely to have landed somewhere close to average because of the bell curve). He didn't survive that last lascannon attack because he made some feel no pains against that attack specifically; he survived that last lascannon attack because he made a handful of successful FNPs thirty minutes ago during your opponent's previous shooting phase, and it left his health bar high enough to survive now.

I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well. Basically, models with lower numbers of Wounds are less susceptible to the bell curve and thus those FNP rolls can be more dramatic. A single FNP roll deciding whether or not a space marine sticks around feels very different from 20 FNP rolls deciding whether a GUO sticks around a little longer.

This is why the subfaction rule sthat gave FNP6+ to vehicles in 8th/9th tended to be kind of boring. There was technically that statistical outlier chance that your dreadnaught would go around making all his 6+ FNPs like a badass, but 99% of the time a 6+++ just translates to 1 extra wound per 6 wounds on the unit. Which on a vehicle, might not actually matter because they're frequently being targeted by high Damage weapons that are likely to overkill them. It doesn't matter if your chimera effectively had 2 more wounds if the lascannon that killed it did 3+ more damage than it needed to.

But also, I feel like FNP mostly exists as a buff you can slap on units when increasing their wounds would be messy. Want death company to feel more durable but don't want to give them a 50% health boost by increasing their W to 3? Give them a 5+++ or 6+++ or whatever they have these days.

I think I follow you.

But for me, FNP is fully intended as a way to potentially toughen up a model. Even when it’s already got a fat stack of wounds, your opponent can never be sure just how much it’s going to soak.

Let’s say I pull off a perfect shot with D D6+3 shot. I hits, I wounds, you fails your save, and I roll a 6. Without FNP, that’s a comfortable 9 wounds off you. But, with FNP? It could be anywhere from 0-9, with varying degrees of likelihood. And it only takes a couple of such instance during a game to see the FNP beneficiary last way longer than it might look.

If we just give it the 4 extra wounds to carry the original subject? Well now I know I only need 3 such Perfect Shots to pop that boil.

I’m still incentivised as an opponent to hit you with the biggest gun or hitty stick I have, because typically they’re most likely to do some damage in the first place, and means your FNP is having to work a lot harder to mitigate, as again they typically do multiple damage.

If I’m especially keen to see your GUO cast into the warp? I’m likely to also look for sources of D re-rolls or boosts etc, because I again want to reduce the likelihood of your FNP spoiling my fun.

And so more than just having more wounds? FNP shifts my approach, as I have to account for it, and run the risk that at a critical moment, all the sixes in the world decide I smell, and so gang up on me.

On paper, more wounds + no FNP = less wounds + FNP, but in reality it depends on what army you are talking about.

The regeneration themed armies (Necrons and anything Nurgle) will always prefer to have less wounds + FNP, as regenerating wounds that can be in turn saved by a FNP roll is much more valuable, and a big part of playing those armies is managing how much damage you can tank on key units and still come back to combat effectiveness.

For the non-regen armies though, it wouldn't hurt to streamline things a bit outside of epic heroes.

Anything with more than 6 wounds should probably just get more wounds instead of FNP. Once you're up to 12+ wounds it really is just another dice roll getting int he way of the game.

For smaller models I see the point of a FNP. Even a 6+ with W2 messes with damage allocation from D2 weapons, which does add something to the game, I think.

Slipspace wrote:

For smaller models I see the point of a FNP. Even a 6+ with W2 messes with damage allocation from D2 weapons, which does add something to the game, I think.

Models with 2-3 wounds and FNP is definitely the most mechanically interesting design space.

Outside of 2-3 wound models FNP just gives a unit an "unnaturally tough" feel. Considering how GW is currently not putting FNP everywhere like they used to, I don't mind it on large models, even it statistically is identical to just adding more wounds.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

But? FNP is the unknown quantity. Statisically it might be the equivalent of four more wounds. But in practice, it’s possible however unlikely they might find a weakness and exploit it that the FNP comes in clutch time and time again.

Pour one out for Tom Stoppard.

Your post reminds me of the scene(s) in Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are dead where they flip heads 92 times in a row.

I feel like FNP should be used more sparingly, particularly the 6+ FNP variant as it tends to feel like more of a time waster than anything else, particularly on single wound models. I feel like GW should use different levers to reflect survivability since typically how an edition goes is that weapons start gaining more AP or damage as the power creep goes by, then they compensate by giving things better saves or invulnerable saves. Then they go back to adding caveats like mortal/devastating wounds to get around that and then they jack up FNP to compensate for the increase in deadliness and it leads to a big feeling of "have and have nots" depending on if the codex design philosophy has kept up with the level of lethality GW tends to juice up at the end of the edition.

 LunarSol wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

For smaller models I see the point of a FNP. Even a 6+ with W2 messes with damage allocation from D2 weapons, which does add something to the game, I think.

Models with 2-3 wounds and FNP is definitely the most mechanically interesting design space.

This is probably the worst place for FNP practically speaking. Nothing slows down the game like FNP on multi-wound models against multiple wound attacks.

FNP should be restricted to single models (in or out of units). Otherswise, better to modify an existing roll rather than adding one.

Slipspace wrote:
Anything with more than 6 wounds should probably just get more wounds instead of FNP. Once you're up to 12+ wounds it really is just another dice roll getting int he way of the game.

For smaller models I see the point of a FNP. Even a 6+ with W2 messes with damage allocation from D2 weapons, which does add something to the game, I think.

I think this pretty much sums up what I was trying to say earlier. On models with 7+ wounds, the total amount of punishment you tank should average out to something pretty predictable. The occassional exceptions where you get lucky and tank a million attacks are statistically unlikely enough to not be worth the extra time needed to roll the FNPs. And the exceptions where you don't make a single FNP on that unit before it dies is just kind of frustrating/feelsbad.

On the other hand, a death company marine managing to tank an extra heavy bolter shot makes the unit feel noticably tougher and has the potential to meaningfully impact how the non-marine player deals with them. *And* because those rolls are life-and-death (rather than just another wound in a sea of 20 wounds), it's easier to notice them as they happen and get that little hit of happy brain juice as you picture your dude getting his arm blown off by the heavy bolter and continuing on anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 alextroy wrote:

Models with 2-3 wounds and FNP is definitely the most mechanically interesting design space.

This is probably the worst place for FNP practically speaking. Nothing slows down the game like FNP on multi-wound models against multiple wound attacks.

FNP should be restricted to single models (in or out of units). Otherswise, better to modify an existing roll rather than adding one.

Yeah, FNP definitely has a place.
And while it is most time consuming on W2-3 minis, it’s also at its best there, potentially saving a whole model tangibly on any given shot.

Just another roll and a waste of time. Why not removing FNP and adding a -1 to be wounded for example?

 Nevelon wrote:
By having it seperate it acts as another lever that can be modified/added/tweaked. Having a leader add FNP to a squad is a lot cleaner then worrying about who’s he joins, what the wounds would be etc. Or a strat that adds 9t for a phase. Or things that modify dice rolls/re-rolls/etc.

It also exists for interactive time in the IGOYGO environment. Like armor saves it gives the reactive player something that feels like play on the opponent’s turn. Sure, it’s just executing a check, but it’s player involvement.

It makes for narrative moments when our fickle little 6-sided friends get spicy. We chuck a LOT of dice, so see the streaks. I’m sure every last one of us has a story where we made an unreasonable amount of saves, survived near-certain death, and triumphed. And we remember that time and look back on it fondly. Not that we don’t remember staggering away from a nasty scrap on our last wound, but ti’s not quite the same.

It also acts as a check on Mortals. FNP still works - Armor and Invuln do not. In addition FNP stacks with failed saves giving you a second bite at the apple.

SU-152 wrote:
Just another roll and a waste of time. Why not removing FNP and adding a -1 to be wounded for example?

It could work, but

A.) You'd have to be careful that the math lands where you want it to. FNP(X+) gives the designers some flexibility on just how much extra durability they want an FNP rule to provide.

B.) A to-wound modifier can change up "the feel" of weapons into certain targets. Lasguns into genestealers, while not amazing, are at least able to take a bite out of a stealer squad. If I throw -1 to-wound on them, then suddenly those lasguns are fishing for sixes and may as well not bother. -1 to-wound means that the lasguns will succeed on half as many to-wound rolls. In comparison, FNP means that those lasguns are still wounding as often as ever, the stealers are just a bit more likely to shrug those wounds. This is mostly a matter of presentation/perception, but that *does* matter a bit when the point of the rules is (in part) to help convey a story on the tabletop.

And if you turn FNP into a -1 to-wound for big things like the GUO instead of just giving them extra wounds, suddenly even anti-tank weapons (which generally have a low volume of fire) will struggle to wound it.

I agree on that.

And is it really adding that much more time to a game? It’s not like you pondering on a targetting decision, or exact placement of models.

It’s…”ok I get to make X many FNP, looking for Target Number”, then rolling X many dice. An extra step compared to most resolutions, of course. But a labourious one? Not really, no.

I think buffing Toughness is underrated, -1 to wound is also a good shout. FNP on a multi-wound unit like Wraiths is a pain to resolve. Let's say you inflict 20 wounds D2 -1, 10 unsaved, now I need to roll 4 FNPs, 2 FNP, 4 FNP, 4 FNP, 2 FNP, 2 FNP, 2 FNP. Lot of faffing about to kill 3 Wraiths. It's much less bad on 1W models, but requires a trick to do fast, roll 10 dice and re-roll successes for D2, re-roll successes a third time for D3. While it is silly to inherently have on a tank/monster, it is very easy to resolve, so getting a FNP through a Stratagem or conditional ability on a monster is totally fine.

But to be honest, there is something especially fantastic about tanking 2 6D shots, making 3/6 of the FNPs and eating the second shot on the 1W Wraith. Monkey brain.

Wyldhunt wrote:B.) A to-wound modifier can change up "the feel" of weapons into certain targets. Lasguns into genestealers, while not amazing, are at least able to take a bite out of a stealer squad. If I throw -1 to-wound on them, then suddenly those lasguns are fishing for sixes and may as well not bother. -1 to-wound means that the lasguns will succeed on half as many to-wound rolls. In comparison, FNP means that those lasguns are still wounding as often as ever, the stealers are just a bit more likely to shrug those wounds. This is mostly a matter of presentation/perception, but that *does* matter a bit when the point of the rules is (in part) to help convey a story on the tabletop.

Toughness mods have a similar sort of scaling to FNPs, just based on S rather than Damage. A D1 weapon into a W1 target gets substantially affected by a 5+ FNP, while a D2 weapon does not. A low-S weapon into a higher-T target gets substantially affected by a -1 to wound, a high-S weapon does not.

I would consider this situational benefit a positive, not a negative, because a flat increase to durability isn't particularly interesting from a design or gameplay standpoint. Something like a 5+ invuln has no real counterplay besides 'shoot at them more'. A mechanic that affects weapons differently depending on their damage or strength, on the other hand, gives you further depth of decision-making about where to allocate firepower. A flat to-wound modifier is actually closer in effect to a T increase under the old wounding chart; a unit going from T4 to T5 pre-8th just bumped up the required to-wound for anything S6 or lower by 1.

My beef with FNPs is that they add another roll, to model a mechanic redundant to two other innate durability mechanics (T and W), in a manner that can be annoyingly clunky to resolve as Vict0988 demonstrated. A to-wound mod is still bypassing the T and W attributes, but adds zero additional resolution time. But really, how many different ways do we need to model 'this guy is hard to kill'? At what point do you stop kludging extra rolls onto a game already stuffed to the gills with dice upon dice upon dice, and just make core mechanics that actually do what you need them to do?

 catbarf wrote:
Something like a 5+ invuln has no real counterplay besides 'shoot at them more'.

Mortals. Shoot at them differently.

A mechanic that affects weapons differently depending on their damage or strength, on the other hand, gives you further depth of decision-making about where to allocate firepower. A flat to-wound modifier is actually closer in effect to a T increase under the old wounding chart; a unit going from T4 to T5 pre-8th just bumped up the required to-wound for anything S6 or lower by 1.

My beef with FNPs is that they add another roll, to model a mechanic redundant to two other innate durability mechanics (T and W), in a manner that can be annoyingly clunky to resolve as Vict0988 demonstrated. A to-wound mod is still bypassing the T and W attributes, but adds zero additional resolution time. But really, how many different ways do we need to model 'this guy is hard to kill'? At what point do you stop kludging extra rolls onto a game already stuffed to the gills with dice upon dice upon dice, and just make core mechanics that actually do what you need them to do?

To Wound rolls can never be modified by more than +1/-1.

@Catbarf: Fair points all around.

But really, how many different ways do we need to model 'this guy is hard to kill'? At what point do you stop kludging extra rolls onto a game already stuffed to the gills with dice upon dice upon dice, and just make core mechanics that actually do what you need them to do?

It would require something of an overhaul, but I do feel like 40k suffers from having so many rules that are all about making your attacks X% more effective or your opponent's attacks Y% less effective. I feel like there's a timeline where a future edition of 40k gets away from lethal hits and modifiers and rerolls and so forth and instead focuses on mobility, rewarding positioning, etc.

Don't give me +1 to-wound because I spent CP on the shoot-harder strat. Give me the ability to pin down an enemy that I caught in a crossfire and some better targeting options because I put a squad up on some tall terrain.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

It would require something of an overhaul, but I do feel like 40k suffers from having so many rules that are all about making your attacks X% more effective or your opponent's attacks Y% less effective. I feel like there's a timeline where a future edition of 40k gets away from lethal hits and modifiers and rerolls and so forth and instead focuses on mobility, rewarding positioning, etc.

Don't give me +1 to-wound because I spent CP on the shoot-harder strat. Give me the ability to pin down an enemy that I caught in a crossfire and some better targeting options because I put a squad up on some tall terrain.

While I think it is possible to do what you suggest reasonably well, I think it's difficult to do when you want armies to FEEL different from each other, and I think THAT'S why the X% and Y% rules exist.

Even the question of "Why have T, SV, and FNP" as different methods is at least partially explained by this. A faction with lots of FNP and smaller ammounts of the other two methods FEELS different than an army with lots of Sv but relatively less of the other two. And for many of us (though certainly not all), that difference in feel from one army to the next is more important than balance or simplicity.

And yes, having fewer of these types of rules make the game easier, less bloated and more balanced. At the coost of it being boring as hell because every army plays exactly the same.

Again, it's about where 40k falls on the spectrum between WARGAME and RPG. If you LOVE wargames (I personally don't), you'll want all advantage to come from tactics and positioning, leaving explicit rules differences between factions fewer and farther between. If you LOVE RPG's, the most important aspect of playing any army is how different it feels from all other armies, and rules complexity that contributes to that is regarded as a feature, not a bug.

It is a SPECTRUM, and like ALL spectrum phenomenon, the vast majority of data points will fall somewhere in the middle with relatively few data points falling on either extreme. When the data points involve PEOPLE, however, even though there are fewer people on the extremes, those people tend to be louder.

I am an RPG spectrum extremist. I play the game in ways theat few other people do or would want to... But I'm here in every single argument that wants to limit the game in such a way that I lose the ability to do that screaming from the rooftop that game needs to be designed for broad spectrum appeal.

 Grimskul wrote:
I feel like FNP should be used more sparingly, particularly the 6+ FNP variant as it tends to feel like more of a time waster than anything else, particularly on single wound models.

This.

If FNP is going to be used, it should be at least 5+. 6+ FNP is just a time-wasting mechanic (same with 6+ invulnerable saves, for that matter).

I also miss FNP having some actual conditions (i.e. it didn't used to work on attacks with strength at least double the model's toughness or against melee attacks that ignored armour saves). It just felt a bit more appropriate in that an individual might not feel pain but that doesn't help much if their arm is severed by a power sword or they're just turned to paste by a Demolisher Cannon.

 PenitentJake wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

It would require something of an overhaul, but I do feel like 40k suffers from having so many rules that are all about making your attacks X% more effective or your opponent's attacks Y% less effective. I feel like there's a timeline where a future edition of 40k gets away from lethal hits and modifiers and rerolls and so forth and instead focuses on mobility, rewarding positioning, etc.

Don't give me +1 to-wound because I spent CP on the shoot-harder strat. Give me the ability to pin down an enemy that I caught in a crossfire and some better targeting options because I put a squad up on some tall terrain.

While I think it is possible to do what you suggest reasonably well, I think it's difficult to do when you want armies to FEEL different from each other, and I think THAT'S why the X% and Y% rules exist.

Even the question of "Why have T, SV, and FNP" as different methods is at least partially explained by this. A faction with lots of FNP and smaller ammounts of the other two methods FEELS different than an army with lots of Sv but relatively less of the other two. And for many of us (though certainly not all), that difference in feel from one army to the next is more important than balance or simplicity.

And yes, having fewer of these types of rules make the game easier, less bloated and more balanced. At the coost of it being boring as hell because every army plays exactly the same.

Again, it's about where 40k falls on the spectrum between WARGAME and RPG. If you LOVE wargames (I personally don't), you'll want all advantage to come from tactics and positioning, leaving explicit rules differences between factions fewer and farther between. If you LOVE RPG's, the most important aspect of playing any army is how different it feels from all other armies, and rules complexity that contributes to that is regarded as a feature, not a bug.

It is a SPECTRUM, and like ALL spectrum phenomenon, the vast majority of data points will fall somewhere in the middle with relatively few data points falling on either extreme. When the data points involve PEOPLE, however, even though there are fewer people on the extremes, those people tend to be louder.

I am an RPG spectrum extremist. I play the game in ways theat few other people do or would want to... But I'm here in every single argument that wants to limit the game in such a way that I lose the ability to do that screaming from the rooftop that game needs to be designed for broad spectrum appeal.

Interesting take. I consider myself more on the RPG-side of the spectrum, and that's *why* I prefer the idea of rules that tie into positioning etc. instead of just fiddly little modifiers to how killy your guns are. To me, something like the 7th edition warp spiders flicker jump rule (though annoying and broken) was super flavorful. Whereas something like the 9th edition drukhari rule that gave them extra AP on 6s (Blade Artisans?) was just boring and felt like bloat. Similarly, physically putting my models up on a rooftop and rewarding them for exposing themselves and seeking thath better positioning is way more appealing to me than a lieutenant giving his squad Lethal Hits because he yelled the words, "Aim better!" at them.

 vipoid wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
I feel like FNP should be used more sparingly, particularly the 6+ FNP variant as it tends to feel like more of a time waster than anything else, particularly on single wound models.

This.

If FNP is going to be used, it should be at least 5+. 6+ FNP is just a time-wasting mechanic (same with 6+ invulnerable saves, for that matter).

I also miss FNP having some actual conditions (i.e. it didn't used to work on attacks with strength at least double the model's toughness or against melee attacks that ignored armour saves). It just felt a bit more appropriate in that an individual might not feel pain but that doesn't help much if their arm is severed by a power sword or they're just turned to paste by a Demolisher Cannon.

Big agree frim me. Cutting down rolls to make is, all in all, a good thing. Whenever I look at making my own system I look at auto-wounding mechanics for the same reason. Why does a Lascannon that already rolled to hit still have a 17% chance of failing to Wound a basic infantry model like Guard of Marines? Same with FNP, beyond a certain limit the benefit should be lost, and get rid of the extra rolls. What this does is make the high powered weapons feel more powerful too.

 PenitentJake wrote:
Even the question of "Why have T, SV, and FNP" as different methods is at least partially explained by this. A faction with lots of FNP and smaller ammounts of the other two methods FEELS different than an army with lots of Sv but relatively less of the other two. And for many of us (though certainly not all), that difference in feel from one army to the next is more important than balance or simplicity.

Accomplishing the same result different ways for no reason other than to make the execution feel different isn't a feature of RPGs, it's a feature of bad RPGs. D&D would not be a better game if Barbarians got half as many hit points as Fighters but a 11+ save on D20 against each point of damage. And it would absolutely be a worse game if that was the distinguishing factor between the two classes- not actually mechanically impactful differences in their capabilities, just a wholly superficial difference in resolution, in the misguided belief that rolling dice differently will make them feel different when the end result is functionally the same.

I will again point out that when we are discussing 40K, we are talking about a game with a half dozen different ways to model 'this guy is hard to hurt', but no core mechanic for modeling 'this guy is hard to hit', which instead requires kludgy to-hit penalties or invulns patched onto the core combat resolution. Given that there are several factions that have speed-as-defense as part of their identity, it seems a glaring omission that having supernatural reflexes is mechanically represented the exact same way as an energy shield, especially if you put so much stock into differences in mechanical resolution as a means of conveying fluff.

So I don't really buy that having Toughness and Wounds and armor saves and invuln saves and penalties to wound and FNPs is essential in order to make factions feel different from one another. I bet you could consolidate defensive stats a lot and use some of that design overhead to represent literally anything else that differentiates the factions besides how well they take a punch, and it'd be a net positive for faction identity.