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Dudeface wrote:
Hitting on a 4 should be normal, it should be acceptable, 3+ should be above average.

*sheds tears of the T'au finally accepted*

Dudeface wrote:

The strength cap is a bit of a problem for nids in general, can't argue that, but why does anything hit on a 4+? A carnifex is meant to be a bit of a lumbering brute that's not exactly quick or skilled, but instead just applies brute force, it's always been low initiative before and the base WS has gone up and down over the years.

Lore wise Carnifexes also were know to pick up speed as they charged, which usually was represented as to hit bonuses when charging.

Also there is the Enhances Senses biomorph that was a +1 to hit when shooting, but that is part of the whole issue of Nids losing biomorph upgrades... again.

My one want for every future edition of 40k - people need to stop wanting everything to be efficient at everything. Hitting on a 4 should be normal, it should be acceptable, 3+ should be above average.

For generalist units that's fine, but speciallist units should be efficient at their niche.

A Tyrannofex hitting on 4s never made much sense as it supposedly was a long range specialist.

The hard part about something like evasion is that its very difficult to make it effective without making blink tanks dramatically more survivable than heavy armor. 40k technically already has this with Invul saves and its a notable issue as is.

Ultimately for what 40k is trying to be, I think the melee works fine. It could probably use more things like a melee only invul or some minor modifier special rules like we have with stealth, but it serves the "cut through swarms of henchmen" about as well as anything. Honestly, most of my issues with it are just how its the one area where they try to make positioning really matter and stuff like the pile in rules create weird advantages in how to reposition models that mess with other game elements.

 Tyran wrote:

While at it also create an "Evasion" stat and add a BS vs Evasion to hit table for shooting. Cover and distance would improve evasion and large units like monsters and vehicles would usually have low evasion stats.

I always like the idea of an Evasion stat. Where I get a little hung up is in deciding who gets what Evasion values specifically. Like, pretty much all non-wraith eldar would probably be pretty evasive, so are we functionally just giving all space elves -1 to being hit? Doable, but definitely a big change that would call for a significant points increase. Are marines fast/trained enough compared to guardsmen to warrant a difference in their Evasion stats? Are orks less evasive than guardsmen and marines? Do we end up basically just giving everyone a +1 to hit against orks or necrons? Again, doable but a pretty major thing.

I do really like the idea of cover and distance (and the speed you moved last turn?) factoring into how well you hit things though.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

While at it also create an "Evasion" stat and add a BS vs Evasion to hit table for shooting. Cover and distance would improve evasion and large units like monsters and vehicles would usually have low evasion stats.

I always like the idea of an Evasion stat. Where I get a little hung up is in deciding who gets what Evasion values specifically. Like, pretty much all non-wraith eldar would probably be pretty evasive, so are we functionally just giving all space elves -1 to being hit? Doable, but definitely a big change that would call for a significant points increase. Are marines fast/trained enough compared to guardsmen to warrant a difference in their Evasion stats? Are orks less evasive than guardsmen and marines? Do we end up basically just giving everyone a +1 to hit against orks or necrons? Again, doable but a pretty major thing.

I do really like the idea of cover and distance (and the speed you moved last turn?) factoring into how well you hit things though.

Battletech tries to do all of this and its just kind of a slog. It's kind of like complex terrain rules. I like them in theory, but in practice I find myself more engaged with abstracted terrain rules that lets the terrain look cool and the models be placed naturally around it. I'm generally wildly in favor of modifiers in general, but how you lay them out matters a lot. For example, Alpha Strike and Warmachine effectively use the same combat engine, but it feels more cumbersome in Alpha Strike because of how they divided individual actions across multiple models. Notably, remaining stationary provides a to-hit buff to you and anyone shooting at you rather than simply providing you a to-hit buff and a defense debuff. It's a minor difference, but one where you go through a checklist every attack that you really shouldn't have to.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On a side note, I think the main issue right now with the 40k engine is that while I consider the SvT check fairly easy to work with, it creates a weird situation where its pretty rare to be rolling for 4+. 2+,3+,5+,6+ all have bands of T values that you tend to fall into, but 4+ only happens against specific targets and that's definitely a more noticeable issue after the (much needed) expansion of the Toughness stat. Not sure the best way to fix it, but its definitely something I regularly notice in 10th far more than 8th or 9th.

vipoid wrote:Out of interest, do you have any proposals for how a Melee Fightin' Stat would work to better represent good fighters?

Like Wyldhunt said, the opposed roll is a simple and clean way to handle it. Just so long as you do it better than how 40K did it in old editions, where you basically never hit on worse than 4+.

HH2.0 has improved the mechanic by making it 'steeper', ie you reach 5+ to hit in relatively common scenarios, but you could even go a step further and roll in some of those bonuses like exploding hits. Like, maybe when the expert swordsman fights conscripts, he hits on a 2+ with bonus exploding hit on a 6, while the conscripts need a 6 to hit him back. This gets you a six-to-one ratio of hits inflicted to hits received (functioning as both an offensive and defensive stat), so even if that master swordsman has exactly the same strength and attacks and everything as the conscripts, he'll still be able to take on several at once and expect to win.

That's just one way to do it, using a stat that has always existed in the game. There are other ways...

LunarSol wrote:What is a high melee fighting stat if not a large number of attacks with high accuracy? Ultimately however you define your core rules, the base stats you give your models are still going to in effect result in having more of these traits.

That's not to say there aren't other ways to simulate melee combat; I mean... I play Bushido, but more attacks at higher accuracy is generally what makes a character effective in melee regardless.

...and this brings up my other complaint with how 40K currently handles statlines, which is stats that step all over each other's toes. I mean, with WS vs Attacks you at least have some thematic difference between 'precise and measured' (high WS, low A) and 'violent and uncontrolled' (low WS, high A). But in the current implementation, A2 at 3+ comes out to the same average as A4 at 5+ in all circumstances. So in most cases, all WS or BS is being used for is a more granular way to control offensive ability than the jump from A1 to A2. Their function is identical, better number = more hits against all targets.

It gets worse with defensive stats, where T, W, and Sv are used seemingly interchangeably. It used to be that most things were W1, so T defined how tough you were while Sv defined armor (and of course vehicles were their own thing), but over time that's been eroded. Now this suit of armor gives you more T, this one gives you an extra Wound, this one boosts your Save. What does it mean, in terms of what it's simulating? Dunno. Is a battle tank's armor represented as its Save, which is barely better than that of a Stormtrooper, or its Toughness, which is comparable to big flesh lump daemons that aren't armored at all? How do you define a good anti-monster weapon when a monster's defensive profile isn't especially different from a tank or an airplane or a walker or a demigod?

Well, you make a kludgy Anti-Monster USR so that a weapon doesn't need to actually be uniquely good against monsters, you can just shortcut the attack process to declare it so. We've got these nitpicky stats that define weapons in terms of strength, armor piercing, actual damage done, but because they haven't built a coherent model out of these stats it all goes out the window in favor of Kills Monsters Good (3+). And on top of that you get weird stuff like meltaguns that are described as anti-tank weapons, go right through tank armor (high AP) and do devastating damage (high Dam), but 2/3 of the time they hit they don't do anything (wound on 5+). What does that mean? What's it actually modeling? Why is the attack process with a meltagun so different from the attack process with a chainfist?

I'm fine with either an effects-focused keyword-based design approach, or a simulation-focused stat-based design approach. It's the inconsistent mix on top of quasi-redundant stats that makes the game so unnecessarily complex, despite GW's attempts to streamline and simplify. You have all these fiddly stats to track, and then you also have to remember the bespoke abilities and USRs as well. It's a lot, and I think it's really telling when I can go back to 3rd-5th and get a game going with a newbie more easily than I can with 10th.

 Tyran wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

The strength cap is a bit of a problem for nids in general, can't argue that, but why does anything hit on a 4+? A carnifex is meant to be a bit of a lumbering brute that's not exactly quick or skilled, but instead just applies brute force, it's always been low initiative before and the base WS has gone up and down over the years.

Lore wise Carnifexes also were know to pick up speed as they charged, which usually was represented as to hit bonuses when charging.

Also there is the Enhances Senses biomorph that was a +1 to hit when shooting, but that is part of the whole issue of Nids losing biomorph upgrades... again.

My one want for every future edition of 40k - people need to stop wanting everything to be efficient at everything. Hitting on a 4 should be normal, it should be acceptable, 3+ should be above average.

For generalist units that's fine, but speciallist units should be efficient at their niche.

A Tyrannofex hitting on 4s never made much sense as it supposedly was a long range specialist.

I disagree that specialists need to be hitting on 3s. They just need to be capable in their role at the end of their Hit-Wound-Save chain. Nobody expects Ork Shootas to be hitting on 3s, the solution for them isn't high accuracy but high number of shots. 4+ to hit is fine if the weapon is capable.

You are right in that it is a bit weird that if you have a S8 weapon you roll 2+ vs T2-4, 3+ vs T 5-7, 4+ only against T8, 5+ against T 9-17!

The range is 3 values for 2+, 3 values for 3+, 1 value for 4+ and then it is 7 values for 5+.

With a lower S it moves around a bit but you always get a weird distribution. Adding or removing 1 S can do nothing against certain T but also greatly change how well it performs against models with very low or very high T.

They should probably have done the old formula or one like MESBG in that it is fairly linear how S and D interact so it doesn't immediately becomes easy (3+) or hard(5+) to wound just by shifting S +- 2 when it is a scale with over 20 values on it while at some times adding 2 or more S does nothing into its preferred target even if it already wasn't wounding better than 5+. This messes a lot with modifiers as well.

Sometimes getting +1 to wound is equal to getting +1 to S but at other times it is the same as getting +5 to S. Due to the wounding table and S/T breakpoints in 8th and 9th and the +1 to wound from Blood Angels chapter tactic +1 to S were many times the same as getting another +1 to wound. BA getting +1 to S in 10th is not nearly as good as getting +1 to S in the 2 previous editions.

In mesbg +2 to strength is for most, 95%+ of models in most scenarios about the same as +1 to wound. (+1 S is a bit more situational due to the wounding table working in increments of 2 but valuing it at half the value of 2 extra S or +1 to wound is close enough for most purposes) It is slightly worse in pure damage potential but extra S has a few extra bonuses when interacting with Monster, Magic and Siege special rules. Doesn't matter if it is a 5pt goblin, decent 100pt combat hero/monster or one of the best and expensive fighters at 200pts. +2 to S or +1 to wound is going to be about the same for most of the range and thus quite easy to evaluate and balance for players and game developers.

Must be a nightmare trying to balance the effectiveness of weapons vs toughness of units in this edition and make it feel right as well as cost the right amount of points at the same time.

 catbarf wrote:

vipoid wrote:Out of interest, do you have any proposals for how a Melee Fightin' Stat would work to better represent good fighters?

Like Wyldhunt said, the opposed roll is a simple and clean way to handle it. Just so long as you do it better than how 40K did it in old editions, where you basically never hit on worse than 4+.

HH2.0 has improved the mechanic by making it 'steeper', ie you reach 5+ to hit in relatively common scenarios, but you could even go a step further and roll in some of those bonuses like exploding hits. Like, maybe when the expert swordsman fights conscripts, he hits on a 2+ with bonus exploding hit on a 6, while the conscripts need a 6 to hit him back. This gets you a six-to-one ratio of hits inflicted to hits received (functioning as both an offensive and defensive stat), so even if that master swordsman has exactly the same strength and attacks and everything as the conscripts, he'll still be able to take on several at once and expect to win.

That's just one way to do it, using a stat that has always existed in the game. There are other ways...

LunarSol wrote:What is a high melee fighting stat if not a large number of attacks with high accuracy? Ultimately however you define your core rules, the base stats you give your models are still going to in effect result in having more of these traits.

That's not to say there aren't other ways to simulate melee combat; I mean... I play Bushido, but more attacks at higher accuracy is generally what makes a character effective in melee regardless.

...and this brings up my other complaint with how 40K currently handles statlines, which is stats that step all over each other's toes. I mean, with WS vs Attacks you at least have some thematic difference between 'precise and measured' (high WS, low A) and 'violent and uncontrolled' (low WS, high A). But in the current implementation, A2 at 3+ comes out to the same average as A4 at 5+ in all circumstances. So in most cases, all WS or BS is being used for is a more granular way to control offensive ability than the jump from A1 to A2. Their function is identical, better number = more hits against all targets.

It gets worse with defensive stats, where T, W, and Sv are used seemingly interchangeably. It used to be that most things were W1, so T defined how tough you were while Sv defined armor (and of course vehicles were their own thing), but over time that's been eroded. Now this suit of armor gives you more T, this one gives you an extra Wound, this one boosts your Save. What does it mean, in terms of what it's simulating? Dunno. Is a battle tank's armor represented as its Save, which is barely better than that of a Stormtrooper, or its Toughness, which is comparable to big flesh lump daemons that aren't armored at all? How do you define a good anti-monster weapon when a monster's defensive profile isn't especially different from a tank or an airplane or a walker or a demigod?

Well, you make a kludgy Anti-Monster USR so that a weapon doesn't need to actually be uniquely good against monsters, you can just shortcut the attack process to declare it so. We've got these nitpicky stats that define weapons in terms of strength, armor piercing, actual damage done, but because they haven't built a coherent model out of these stats it all goes out the window in favor of Kills Monsters Good (3+). And on top of that you get weird stuff like meltaguns that are described as anti-tank weapons, go right through tank armor (high AP) and do devastating damage (high Dam), but 2/3 of the time they hit they don't do anything (wound on 5+). What does that mean? What's it actually modeling? Why is the attack process with a meltagun so different from the attack process with a chainfist?

I'm fine with either an effects-focused keyword-based design approach, or a simulation-focused stat-based design approach. It's the inconsistent mix on top of quasi-redundant stats that makes the game so unnecessarily complex, despite GW's attempts to streamline and simplify. You have all these fiddly stats to track, and then you also have to remember the bespoke abilities and USRs as well. It's a lot, and I think it's really telling when I can go back to 3rd-5th and get a game going with a newbie more easily than I can with 10th.

Another good post, catbarf.

Despite recent editions' attempts to streamline the game, I do feel like we've landed in this weird, tangled-up mess of legacy stats and rules that fail to evoke fluff as well as past editions did. 10th feels like it's doing a lot to try and address very specific issues of 9th (ex: meltas wounds tanks on a 5+ because multi-meltas were too strong in 9th). Maybe in 11th, the designers should step back re-evaluate more of the core elements in the game and go from there. *Do* we really need to-hit, to-wound, *and* save rolls followed by a potential damage roll? I've pitched dropping at least one of those steps in the past. Would the game be ruined if we moved away from IGOUGO? Do we need Beast and Mounted keywords in an edition where all they really do is tell you whether you can move through ruin walls? What are we trying to accomplish with this weird pseudo-PL points system? Etc.

Part of the inherent problem is just that its hard to make low volumes of anything effective in a system that has so many relatively high failure gates. 2+ seems great and all, but even if you're wounding on 2+ as well and cut straight through armor you're still failing about a third of your attacks. Any sort of Invul and it gets bad quick.

That said, I feel they didn't put enough effort into melee keywords. Blast would be very suitable for like, Thunder Hammers or something so they could get away with having lower attacks while still being decent into hordes.

There are several traps people can get caught in discussing this.

One is working within the 3 roll paradigm of hit wound save and how the statistics work out for that.

Another is the role that casualties play in the game.

These two combined multiply the issue.


In a 3 stage attack paradigm, the relative low success was less important when the leadership thresholds were reached. Casualties are a means rather than the ends here, to trigger a unit effect to prevent their action.


GW has shifted to a casualty as ends approach, putting greater strain on the attack rules.

They need to decide which way the game should go and build it that way, rather than trying to straddle both. Personally I find the kill centric approach really reductive and boring, but it seems to be what people measure effectiveness by and they enjoy killing.

I used to enjoy playing a game to the end and there still being a third or more of the forces left but a decisive victory still had. Games where you just remove handfuls of models is not my cup of tea.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I disagree that specialists need to be hitting on 3s. They just need to be capable in their role at the end of their Hit-Wound-Save chain. Nobody expects Ork Shootas to be hitting on 3s, the solution for them isn't high accuracy but high number of shots. 4+ to hit is fine if the weapon is capable.

It the the lore aspect more than the math aspect (although hitting on 4s does increase the variance). Gaunts are the baseline and they hit on 4s. Tyranid specialists should hit on 3+ because they are supposed to be better than Gaunts.

Specialist should be better than the baseline.

 Tyran wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I disagree that specialists need to be hitting on 3s. They just need to be capable in their role at the end of their Hit-Wound-Save chain. Nobody expects Ork Shootas to be hitting on 3s, the solution for them isn't high accuracy but high number of shots. 4+ to hit is fine if the weapon is capable.

It the the lore aspect more than the math aspect (although hitting on 4s does increase the variance). Gaunts are the baseline and they hit on 4s. Tyranid specialists should hit on 3+ because they are supposed to be better than Gaunts.

Specialist should be better than the baseline.

What do you define as a specialist? To go back to the carnifex, it's still a blunt instrument of raw strength, rather than a creature of dexterity and skill. It also has a very broad generalist selection of wargear.

The game is/was too lethal and yet people still stand by wanting everything to kill everything faster. Hellebore speaks a lot of truth in that removing units shouldn't be the only or even best metric to work by, but it's pushed and treated that way.

The big perk of the carnifex (imo) is it's flexibility and the ability to have those high strength attacks in the first place, that's a perk enough not to need to make every attack more efficient as well.

Smaller armies, bigger table, lower casualty rates, make positioning and objective play the key feature.

I'd agree the Carnifex isn't supposed to be a specialist.

It kind of was a generalist specialist originally. You'd take specific gear and upgrades to make its generic core into a specialist for set roles back when Tyranids didn't have any other super-heavies to really cover all bases.

As the army expanded we gained more (often bigger) specialists in very set roles that basically do what the Carni does, better. The Carny even gets sold in a twinpack now and its downgraded somewhat. Heck 10th edition its lost a lot of its old upgrades too.

It's gone from tool-kit heavy specialist to tool-kit middleweight.





On the damage from I 100% agree. With the alternate turn sequence and GW's general approach to deal with a problem by making things more lethal, the game is focused heavily on lots of kills in a very short span of time. To the point where you can sometimes obliterate whole massive chunks of your opponent with a good turn.
In my view this is a negative, the best time in wargames is when its more of a scrum. When both sides are taking and giving blows and the potential for one side to win or lose hangs in the balance for the longest possible duration of turns. When you get a good turn on turn 2 with your alpha strike and half your opponent's army is wiped off the board that isn't as fun. Your opponent is suddenly smashed to bits and whatever game plan they had is gone; meanwhile your army now has a much easier time taking blows and giving out more.

Dudeface wrote:

What do you define as a specialist? To go back to the carnifex, it's still a blunt instrument of raw strength, rather than a creature of dexterity and skill. It also has a very broad generalist selection of wargear.

The base Carnifex is a generalist and a blunt instrument, in that I agree.

But a dakkafex with enhanced senses isn't a generalist, it is a mid-close range anti-infantry specialist. A screamer killer is an anti-heavy infantry specialist. A thornback is a infantry hunting specialist for heavy cover environments, etc.

Whether the Carnifex is a "generalist" or not, it should still hit more often than baseline infantry.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Whether the Carnifex is a "generalist" or not, it should still hit more often than baseline infantry.

Why? I disagree.

For the same reason it was stupid when Defilers hit on a 4+. They're more skilled than Guardsmen in close combat.

More skilled than Guardsmen, sure, but that's not really what WS represents anymore. It's just a filter for overall damage output that on the face of it just models how often the unit hits- ignoring that a unit hitting 50% or 67% of the time against all targets in all situations is silly to begin with.

It doesn't bother me that a big, ponderous monster doesn't hit any more often than basic infantry. The stat isn't modeling anything deeper or more significant than that.

Defilers have more attacks than guardsmen too, which is a representation of skill.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
For the same reason it was stupid when Defilers hit on a 4+. They're more skilled than Guardsmen in close combat.

Is it more likely that a person sized crabby claw on a tank the size of a small outbuilding is deftly parrying swords duelling intently with people, or just lolz smashing at things and grabbing at them? The latter isn't skilled, it's just a case of being fast and large.

But this is where, as Catbarf says, the fluff goes wibbly wobbly and subjective regards representing trying to represent narrative nuance vs just giving a maths result. Maybe a fex should be a 4, maybe a guardsman should be a 5? Does it matter as said if it's static?

Catbarf strikes again: agree.

Also I'm not sure Gaunts are barticularly bad shots to begin with, either.

BS 4 covers the same wide gamut the same way S 3 does. Untrained, unfit human striking with a wooden spoon? S 3. Roided up hyper-trained half-beast-half-man from high gravity world? S 3. The ultimate test is whether the intended difference between units comes out at the end of the roll-chain.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Catbarf strikes again: agree.

Nah. 'Cause Daemon Engines were fixed and given better stats. The Carnifex was hitting on 3's. It regressed.

This is unacceptable.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Catbarf strikes again: agree.

Nah. 'Cause Daemon Engines were fixed and given better stats. The Carnifex was hitting on 3's. It regressed.

This is unacceptable.

So what're you (or anyone else) going to do about it?

ccs wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Catbarf strikes again: agree.

Nah. 'Cause Daemon Engines were fixed and given better stats. The Carnifex was hitting on 3's. It regressed.

This is unacceptable.

So what're you (or anyone else) going to do about it?

It's not like you, or anyone else, have the option to play games other than nailing yourself to tournament-standard current 40k, is it? Hrm...

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Catbarf strikes again: agree.

Nah. 'Cause Daemon Engines were fixed and given better stats. The Carnifex was hitting on 3's. It regressed.

This is unacceptable.

Lol. The whole game has regressed and is unacceptable, man.

IIrc the BS3+ on a Carnifex was an upgrade anyways. I think it's been 4+ by default since 3rd edition. I imagine it could have been better in 2nd, though.

I don't care about BS3+*.

I care about WS3+. That's what it should have.



*Insofar as that BS3+ should be an option, which you should pay points for, because virtually all of the 'Fexes upgrades have vanished in 10th despite being pat of the actual physical kit.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I don't care about BS3+*.

I care about WS3+. That's what it should have.

Ahh, fair. Fair.

*Insofar as that BS3+ should be an option, which you should pay points for, because virtually all of the 'Fexes upgrades have vanished in 10th despite being pat of the actual physical kit.

Yup, as part of the "regressed and unacceptable clause".

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Catbarf strikes again: agree.

Nah. 'Cause Daemon Engines were fixed and given better stats. The Carnifex was hitting on 3's. It regressed.

This is unacceptable.

You know what, they also aren't progressing, 2+ to hit! It's been long enough!

Dudeface wrote:
You know what, they also aren't progressing, 2+ to hit! It's been long enough!

That's cute.