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AoS has magic happen in that game's equivalent of the Command Phase and it has never produced any issues or complaints.

Restricting spells/powers to only MWs as a damage source, though, has always sucked. I remain disappointed in this aspect because GWs creativity has consistently been a strong point over the years--they could do a LOT of really cool stuff if they didn't artificially limit themselves.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Where is the skill?

1. Positioning - getting the psyker to within 18", still be protected, and have the target visible
2. Target selection - understanding the limitations of your powers that can and can not target the closest and how those relate to the objectives you need to score since your removal potential is limited.
3. Managing resources ( Thousand Sons ) - knowing your goals for the phase and available cabal points to cast spells in the right order and to use cabal abilities in an appropriate sequence - also dependent on secondaries.

That wasn't what I was talking about. I was talking about the wide swings that the convoluted dice mechanics can bring.

You can do all of the above and the dice go south and none come up above a 2. Or it's sixes as far as the eye can see.

I know there are those who are all about "the uncontrollable unknowable power of the warp," and in that case, lets just roll a d6 and have each player eliminate that many models, determined randomly. Can't get any more balanced than that, right?

Out of interest, how does everyone feel about Perils of the Warp as it stands?

 vipoid wrote:
Out of interest, how does everyone feel about Perils of the Warp as it stands?

It's fine I guess? It seems to be a pretty rare event so maybe it should be a D6 risk of MW as opposed to a D3 risk, but its fine.
The lack of interaction for the other player is a more pressing matter, imo.

 vipoid wrote:
Out of interest, how does everyone feel about Perils of the Warp as it stands?

I find it rather dull, just like many aspects of the psychic phase. I think that it would have been more interesting to have at least a small miscast table or the like. If it's meant to be random there can be more interesting things happening than even more mortal wounds.

 Dolnikan wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
Out of interest, how does everyone feel about Perils of the Warp as it stands?

I find it rather dull, just like many aspects of the psychic phase. I think that it would have been more interesting to have at least a small miscast table or the like. If it's meant to be random there can be more interesting things happening than even more mortal wounds.

Maybe, that's what WHFB had. Then again, there was a bad case of random tables for the sake of random tables in earlier editions, and GW might be tempted to back to that nonsense.
If the psychic phase wasn't such a one sided affair then it probably wouldn't seem so dull.

Having a chance of a daemon incursion or possession that's hostile to everyone would be interesting, but then you'd have to write in an "AI" and expect everyone to have a bunch of daemon models on hand.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
That wasn't what I was talking about. I was talking about the wide swings that the convoluted dice mechanics can bring.

How is that different to charging, shooting or assaulting?
Which is kind of the same argument for the lack of interaction.

I think Perils of the Warp is kind of stupid from a gameplay perspective. Seeing as its essentially meaningless - or a feels bad moment - without much interactivity. (Beyond "oh I've got one wound left, maybe I shouldn't risk it by casting at all".) It feels like something that should punish you taking risks - i.e. rolling a third dice or something. But then we'd need pooled power dice or some other mechanic.

As always though, if you make the downsides much more dramatic, people will just take insurance. And if there isn't affordable insurance, they just won't run psykers over other things.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Where is the skill?

1. Positioning - getting the psyker to within 18", still be protected, and have the target visible
2. Target selection - understanding the limitations of your powers that can and can not target the closest and how those relate to the objectives you need to score since your removal potential is limited.
3. Managing resources ( Thousand Sons ) - knowing your goals for the phase and available cabal points to cast spells in the right order and to use cabal abilities in an appropriate sequence - also dependent on secondaries.

That wasn't what I was talking about. I was talking about the wide swings that the convoluted dice mechanics can bring.

You can do all of the above and the dice go south and none come up above a 2. Or it's sixes as far as the eye can see.

I know there are those who are all about "the uncontrollable unknowable power of the warp," and in that case, lets just roll a d6 and have each player eliminate that many models, determined randomly. Can't get any more balanced than that, right?

Baleful is about the only super swingy spell there is. I cast it once with a 15 and managed to do 2 MW total, but that's just dice and I soon learned that the diminishing returns are pretty sharp.

In general it seems that GW gives an increase variability when your flexibility increases. Doombolt is closest at 18" and 3MW. Firestorm is 6+/5+ on 9 dice, but it can go out to 24" and can freely target. That to me is a very competent dynamic that promotes taking a gamble at a crucial target without outright giving you the ability to snipe out characters.

Baleful has high potential and increased variability as well as increased casting requirements. Let's say you cast Smite on a 8(9). You can punch that up to a D6 with a +2. A single D6 is a very swingy result. Baleful on an 11 can get you 2D3 30% of the time, which is better than D6. It will get you 3D3 or 4D3 25% of the time. 43% of the time the outcome is possibly worse to completely worse. If you happen to cast unmodified 10 or 11 then boosting it to 13 is almost a negligible increase in the outcome.

But then Baleful is not closest and Smite is so if you really needed to hit that big unit behind a smite screen...

With regards to randomness, there's two kinds of randomness:

Die rolls have been used to adjudicate the success/failure of actors at carrying out the player's orders since Kriegspiel. The player is not expected to shoot a musket for each soldier in the formation. There is a P_success of any given action, and a roll is made to determine if it succeeds or fails, and potentially the margin of success. The Psuccess of a Guardsman shooting a Space Marine is 6%, the Psuccess of the inverse is 30%. This actual value is non-deliberately obfuscated by the rolling of 3 consecutive D6's, which has the benefit of being easier to do, available, and having the warm fuzzies of being able to roll a bunch of dice and feel like both players are doing something, but you could just replace it all with a 1d100 without changing the game.

This is not bad randomness. From the perspective as a model of war, this randomness models something concrete: the performance of actors below the players' level of control. From the game perspective, this kind of randomness, even for low Psuccess actions, is plannable as long as the Psuccess can be reasonably understood [does not need to be precisely known, just its characteristics across the potential range of decisions to be made be estimated].



I would say that "bad randomness" is stuff like the BubbleChucka or the Obliterator.
Theoretically, this models the unreliability of the Bubblechucka. Practically, this is just rolling a bunch of dice because they thought it was funny, and makes the weapon completely unplannable. It's Psuccess could be quite literally anything against anything.
An Exorcist is also an unreliable weapon, hence the 1d6 shots. 1d6 Shots at S8, AP1 has a pretty substantial uncertainly in Psuccess. However, it is still plannable, because while it can range dramatically against any given target, it can also be understood that whatever the reliability factor causes, the Exorcist will always perform better against TEQ Infantry and Medium Vehicles than Heavy Vehicles or GEQ Infantry.

As for the psychic powers, most of it I would say is also "bad randomness" in the other way, because all of them just do about 2-4 MW, and it's really just rolling a bunch of dice to get there because GW thinks that rolling dice will be entertaining. Their final effect is all the same. They are plannable, but they don't model anything.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
I would say that "bad randomness" is stuff like the BubbleChucka or the Obliterator.
Theoretically, this models the unreliability of the Bubblechucka. Practically, this is just rolling a bunch of dice because they thought it was funny, and makes the weapon completely unplannable. It's Psuccess could be quite literally anything against anything.
An Exorcist is also an unreliable weapon, hence the 1d6 shots. 1d6 Shots at S8, AP1 has a pretty substantial uncertainly in Psuccess. However, it is still plannable, because while it can range dramatically against any given target, it can also be understood that whatever the reliability factor causes, the Exorcist will always perform better against TEQ Infantry and Medium Vehicles than Heavy Vehicles or GEQ Infantry.

I think bad randomness is what slows the game down. Like getting D3 MWs on a 6 instead of 1 MW on a 5+ or 2 MW on a 6+. Bubblechukkas are super slow to resolve, because you have to do them one a at a time which I find to be the main crime in their design. How often are you going to get the highest number of wounds with the right profile against the right target? The middle profile can already get lucky and swat 6 Guardsmen and unlucky and do nothing, same thing against a Chimera.

As for the psychic powers, most of it I would say is also "bad randomness" in the other way, because all of them just do about 2-4 MW, and it's really just rolling a bunch of dice to get there because GW thinks that rolling dice will be entertaining. Their final effect is all the same. They are plannable, but they don't model anything.

Ork #1 is better against low T units. Ork #5 is better against bigger units. Thousand Sons #11 is good against high-save units. #23 is anti-horde. There are wrong ways to use all these powers just like with an exorcist. If the target average of a power is 1,5 MW then that's different from a power with a target average of 2 or 3, otherwise, you could say that a lasgun, a boltgun and a storm bolter should have the same profile. Rolling 9D6 on 6+ doesn't take longer than 3D6 on 4+ so it's actually good design to roll 9D6 on 6+ if the number 6 or 9 is flavourful for the faction or if the faction is supposed to be more swingy and random.

 vict0988 wrote:
Rolling 9D6 on 6+ doesn't take longer than 3D6 on 4+ so it's actually good design to roll 9D6 on 6+ if the number 6 or 9 is flavourful for the faction or if the faction is supposed to be more swingy and random.

So rolling 20d6 doesn't take more time than 2d6?

tneva82 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Rolling 9D6 on 6+ doesn't take longer than 3D6 on 4+ so it's actually good design to roll 9D6 on 6+ if the number 6 or 9 is flavourful for the faction or if the faction is supposed to be more swingy and random.

So rolling 20d6 doesn't take more time than 2d6?

The difference between 3 and 9 dice is pretty negligible.

They could always strip things out, but people were pretty much against AoS not having a toughness value. People have certainly adapted to it, but I doubt there would be many complaints if T came back to the system.

There are mechanics to get you to a raw mathematical output and there are mechanics that help you experience the world you're playing in. Part of Warhammer is that sort of gummy randomness and I bet most people would be adverse to rolling a single attack dice for an outcome.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Rolling 9D6 on 6+ doesn't take longer than 3D6 on 4+ so it's actually good design to roll 9D6 on 6+ if the number 6 or 9 is flavourful for the faction or if the faction is supposed to be more swingy and random.

So rolling 20d6 doesn't take more time than 2d6?

The difference between 3 and 9 dice is pretty negligible.

Rolling dice, it mostly a bit of extra time gathering and reading.

Effectiveness on the battle field is massive. If the target is a spell that does up to 9 Mortal Wounds, I can't think of a more swingy option than roll 9d6 and hope of 6's:

9d6, 6= 1 MW yields Average 1.5 MW (Less than 1% chance of 5+ MW, 19.38% chance of 0 MW)

9d6, 5 or 6 = 1 MW yields Average 3 MW (Less than 1% chance of 7+ MW, only 2.6% chance of 0 MW)

3d3 MW yields Average of 6 MW with a 3.7% chance of 9 MW

1d3 + 1d6 MW yields average of 5.5 MW with a 5.56 chance of 9 MW

So this is really about rolling 9 dice, not having a useful spell with any reasonable success rate. Bad rules writing!

I don't feel rolling 9 dice at once and looking for 6s is that onerous compared with say rolling 3 dice and looking for 4s. Or one D3 and that's it.

The whinge I see is more that the typical three step hit/wound/save process for determining an attack is now often 7 or 8 steps.

I.E. Dice to determine number of shots, roll to hit, rerolls, roll to wound, rerolls, save, dice to determine damage, FNP rolls etc. Plus exploding/proccing 6s that need to be picked out. You probably won't have all of these up all the time - and I think GW has sort of started trying to moderate it. But its inconsistent like usual.

Some of this - arguably all of this - is about simulating mechanics to "experience the world" etc. But that doesn't stop it feeling kind of clunky.

The problem is I know if they removed all rerolls in the next edition I'd be the first person on here going "wow, it really sucks when you get an unlucky (but statistically inevitable) roll and there is nothing you can do about it."

GW need to decide what game scale 40k is meant to be and adjust accordingly.

if its squad based (it isn't) it needs more detail, if its company based, probably less

Tyel wrote:
I don't feel rolling 9 dice at once and looking for 6s is that onerous compared with say rolling 3 dice and looking for 4s. Or one D3 and that's it.

The whinge I see is more that the typical three step hit/wound/save process for determining an attack is now often 7 or 8 steps.

I.E. Dice to determine number of shots, roll to hit, rerolls, roll to wound, rerolls, save, dice to determine damage, FNP rolls etc. Plus exploding/proccing 6s that need to be picked out. You probably won't have all of these up all the time - and I think GW has sort of started trying to moderate it. But its inconsistent like usual.

Some of this - arguably all of this - is about simulating mechanics to "experience the world" etc. But that doesn't stop it feeling kind of clunky.

The problem is I know if they removed all rerolls in the next edition I'd be the first person on here going "wow, it really sucks when you get an unlucky (but statistically inevitable) roll and there is nothing you can do about it."

Yeah it is a fine balance and I am a lot more sympathetic to GW rules mistakes than most, knock on effects are difficult to see. WFB 8th is the lerfect example of this for me. Good intentions and on the surface good changes all round to encourage infantry units. In reality, massive blocks rolling dice at each other.

 alextroy wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Rolling 9D6 on 6+ doesn't take longer than 3D6 on 4+ so it's actually good design to roll 9D6 on 6+ if the number 6 or 9 is flavourful for the faction or if the faction is supposed to be more swingy and random.

So rolling 20d6 doesn't take more time than 2d6?

The difference between 3 and 9 dice is pretty negligible.

Rolling dice, it mostly a bit of extra time gathering and reading.

Effectiveness on the battle field is massive. If the target is a spell that does up to 9 Mortal Wounds, I can't think of a more swingy option than roll 9d6 and hope of 6's:

9d6, 6= 1 MW yields Average 1.5 MW (Less than 1% chance of 5+ MW, 19.38% chance of 0 MW)

9d6, 5 or 6 = 1 MW yields Average 3 MW (Less than 1% chance of 7+ MW, only 2.6% chance of 0 MW)

3d3 MW yields Average of 6 MW with a 3.7% chance of 9 MW

1d3 + 1d6 MW yields average of 5.5 MW with a 5.56 chance of 9 MW

So this is really about rolling 9 dice, not having a useful spell with any reasonable success rate. Bad rules writing!

You listed a bunch of outcomes based on different dice formats there, but didn't really relate to the core issue.

5+ Firestorm averages 3MW. So do you just make it flat 3MW? Or maybe just D3+1? Certainly that's simpler, but it isn't the same.

An unmodified 9+ isn't easy to roll. I can get a super smite with less effort. Giving it a flat value or low variance doesn't give the same potential. D3+1 gets you to the same average, but not the same spikes.

And what will you do with the 6+ variant? Surely it can't be D3, because getting just one extra MW for a 9 seems pretty silly and a flat 1 or 2 makes me consider Gaze and a better spell. It hasn't been uncommon for me to still do 2 or 3 MW by spiking 6s.

Rolling up and dropping 5 or 6 5+ out of 9 dice is a rare and often crushing outcome. Certainly we've moved away from the ultra-random and goofy things, but having some minor multi-level spells is hardly pushing the envelope.

Tyel wrote:
The problem is I know if they removed all rerolls in the next edition I'd be the first person on here going "wow, it really sucks when you get an unlucky (but statistically inevitable) roll and there is nothing you can do about it."

Frankly, GW should just make a dice-free variant for people who don't want randomness in their dice-based wargame. Perhaps based on a deck of cards, so that there's some variance but your 'luck' is a finite quantity that always balances out in the end.

I find that re-rolls out the wazoo make for an experience that is not only tedious to resolve, but downright dull to play, because the result is typically so predictable. I am not on the edge of my seat waiting to see how twenty shots hitting on 3s re-rolling all failures will pan out, and I much prefer a system where you have to accept some risk and cannot stack buffs until a positive outcome is virtually guaranteed. Yeah, sometimes your single lascannon shot hitting on 2s will roll a 1 and there's nothing you can do about it- except having contingencies beyond blaming the dice.

leopard wrote:
GW need to decide what game scale 40k is meant to be and adjust accordingly.

if its squad based (it isn't) it needs more detail, if its company based, probably less

If you zoom out far enough that you can't see whether your Havocs have heavy bolters or lascannons then you've gone too far, if you zoom in far enough that you have to choose a background for unit champions you've gone too far. That's where 40k becomes Apocalypse and Kill Team respectively.

Dai wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I don't feel rolling 9 dice at once and looking for 6s is that onerous compared with say rolling 3 dice and looking for 4s. Or one D3 and that's it.

The whinge I see is more that the typical three step hit/wound/save process for determining an attack is now often 7 or 8 steps.

I.E. Dice to determine number of shots, roll to hit, rerolls, roll to wound, rerolls, save, dice to determine damage, FNP rolls etc. Plus exploding/proccing 6s that need to be picked out. You probably won't have all of these up all the time - and I think GW has sort of started trying to moderate it. But its inconsistent like usual.

Some of this - arguably all of this - is about simulating mechanics to "experience the world" etc. But that doesn't stop it feeling kind of clunky.

The problem is I know if they removed all rerolls in the next edition I'd be the first person on here going "wow, it really sucks when you get an unlucky (but statistically inevitable) roll and there is nothing you can do about it."

Yeah it is a fine balance and I am a lot more sympathetic to GW rules mistakes than most, knock on effects are difficult to see. WFB 8th is the lerfect example of this for me. Good intentions and on the surface good changes all round to encourage infantry units. In reality, massive blocks rolling dice at each other.

The magic changes indicate they knew it'd be going that way with many spells being great against those giant units.

It's GW's fault they don't find knock on effects, they could properly playtest their games, no need to be sympathetic towards the company. Have sympathy for the playtesters who aren't given proper instructions. Have sympathy for the writers being pressed for time. But the overall company is still incompetent enough to be worth contempt and even if the writers are pressed for time they shouldn't be writing rules like Hammer of the Emperor or the old Iyanden Craftworld bonus which break the narrative of the game. Spells that ignore spell resistance was just the worst idea ever.

 catbarf wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The problem is I know if they removed all rerolls in the next edition I'd be the first person on here going "wow, it really sucks when you get an unlucky (but statistically inevitable) roll and there is nothing you can do about it."

Frankly, GW should just make a dice-free variant for people who don't want randomness in their dice-based wargame. Perhaps based on a deck of cards, so that there's some variance but your 'luck' is a finite quantity that always balances out in the end.

I find that re-rolls out the wazoo make for an experience that is not only tedious to resolve, but downright dull to play, because the result is typically so predictable. I am not on the edge of my seat waiting to see how twenty shots hitting on 3s re-rolling all failures will pan out, and I much prefer a system where you have to accept some risk and cannot stack buffs until a positive outcome is virtually guaranteed. Yeah, sometimes your single lascannon shot hitting on 2s will roll a 1 and there's nothing you can do about it- except having contingencies beyond blaming the dice.

The alternative where high rolls are much higher isn't much better, stacking buffs is a problem. Boring auras is another problem. But if you can come up with a good reason for a unit to have or grant re-rolls then that's fine. It just became the default aura that every character got because 8th had to be shipped and making characters something other than more or less effective beat sticks was a design goal (good design goal IMO). Like if you take Destroyers and their re-roll 1s ability and replaced it with the much more interesting effect printed in the new Army of Renown granting +1 to hit against units with missing models and then replaced the Destroyer Lord's aura effect with +1 to Wound against units missing at least half their models instead of yet another re-roll wound rolls of 1 aura the codex would be more interesting and have less re-rolls. Re-roll 1s to hit and to wound isn't even that impactful, you can still roll 2s. Exploding 6s to hit and to wound wouldn't have been much better, it'd still wouldn't be backed by fluff and you'd still have to count 6s for the exploding results. But targeting units that are less than full strength and half strength respectively suddenly makes the rules mean something narratively and tactically. If a rule isn't saying something narratively it shouldn't be there. Calling something "Superior Tactical Precision" or "Conqueror of Worlds" does not make that rule feel like you are in control of something like that if it's just a re-roll 1s aura.

They bit the bullet but for 9th: they made a bunch of crap free LOL

 vict0988 wrote:
The alternative where high rolls are much higher isn't much better, stacking buffs is a problem. Boring auras is another problem. But if you can come up with a good reason for a unit to have or grant re-rolls then that's fine. It just became the default aura that every character got because 8th had to be shipped and making characters something other than more or less effective beat sticks was a design goal (good design goal IMO). Like if you take Destroyers and their re-roll 1s ability and replaced it with the much more interesting effect printed in the new Army of Renown granting +1 to hit against units with missing models and then replaced the Destroyer Lord's aura effect with +1 to Wound against units missing at least half their models instead of yet another re-roll wound rolls of 1 aura the codex would be more interesting and have less re-rolls. Re-roll 1s to hit and to wound isn't even that impactful, you can still roll 2s. Exploding 6s to hit and to wound wouldn't have been much better, it'd still wouldn't be backed by fluff and you'd still have to count 6s for the exploding results. But targeting units that are less than full strength and half strength respectively suddenly makes the rules mean something narratively and tactically. If a rule isn't saying something narratively it shouldn't be there. Calling something "Superior Tactical Precision" or "Conqueror of Worlds" does not make that rule feel like you are in control of something like that if it's just a re-roll 1s aura.

Agreed, conditional abilities granting +1s is more impactful, more interesting, and less tedious than re-rolls.

But I do also feel there that too many characters are reduced to 'everyone around me hits harder', even if it is put behind a condition that must be met. It'd be cool if you could have beatstick characters that fight directly, buff characters that boost units around them, and command characters that actually lead your army in some manner. If only there was some sort of resource that you could leverage for command-like abilities. Some kind of command tokens. Command currency. Command p- ah, forget it.

AoS 2nd leaned into re-rolls as well, but in AoS 3rd they have gone the opposite direction; old abilities were all eratta'd to be +1 to hit/wound/save (as appropriate) with a core rules limit of +1 (after all math). Since there are plenty of penalties out there stacking multiple + buffs still has a point, but it is also diminishing returns. Wombo-combo largely doesn't work because in absence of debuffs multiple +s do nothing. Fingers crossed 40k goes in this direction.

 catbarf wrote:
But I do also feel there that too many characters are reduced to 'everyone around me hits harder', even if it is put behind a condition that must be met. It'd be cool if you could have beatstick characters that fight directly, buff characters that boost units around them, and command characters that actually lead your army in some manner. If only there was some sort of resource that you could leverage for command-like abilities. Some kind of command tokens. Command currency. Command p- ah, forget it.

100%, like the Commissar's morale stuff or back when Techmarines could boost terrain. I think for the Destroyer Lord though he should be boosting offense, it just doesn't seem like a deliberate design choice when offense auras are what everyone gets. How do you feel about abilities like Move! Move! Move! which allows Astra Militarum units to move twice? Because to me that level of effect is too high, it's not natural to have Guardsmen that are faster than bikes. Do they hop on to bicycles or something? What I'd like to see instead is something like +3" to Advance rolls or automatic 6" Advance in an Aura so that the effect doesn't become too high.

 vict0988 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
But I do also feel there that too many characters are reduced to 'everyone around me hits harder', even if it is put behind a condition that must be met. It'd be cool if you could have beatstick characters that fight directly, buff characters that boost units around them, and command characters that actually lead your army in some manner. If only there was some sort of resource that you could leverage for command-like abilities. Some kind of command tokens. Command currency. Command p- ah, forget it.

100%, like the Commissar's morale stuff or back when Techmarines could boost terrain. I think for the Destroyer Lord though he should be boosting offense, it just doesn't seem like a deliberate design choice when offense auras are what everyone gets. How do you feel about abilities like Move! Move! Move! which allows Astra Militarum units to move twice? Because to me that level of effect is too high, it's not natural to have Guardsmen that are faster than bikes. Do they hop on to bicycles or something? What I'd like to see instead is something like +3" to Advance rolls or automatic 6" Advance in an Aura so that the effect doesn't become too high.

Yeah, the Destroyer Lord being a combat buff is fine.

I'm not a big fan of Guard orders. I like the concept, but ever since their introduction I feel they've been too impactful, and particularly with the stratagem system in the game there's a lot of overlap between what orders do and what stratagems do. IMO it was cleaner when officers provided Leadership bubbles, but with morale no longer being a particularly important mechanic that probably wouldn't fly.

I'd be okay with more restrained effects- maybe Move Move Move lets you roll 2D6 and pick highest to advance- but ideally I'd tie it into the stratagem mechanic, if that's sticking around. Reduced CP costs on units that are in command range feels appropriate, but that's just spitballing.

 catbarf wrote:

Frankly, GW should just make a dice-free variant for people who don't want randomness in their dice-based wargame. Perhaps based on a deck of cards, so that there's some variance but your 'luck' is a finite quantity that always balances out in the end.

I don't have a problem with random elements, I have a problem with clunky, time-consuming mechanics that are used to generate randomness is hugely inefficient ways.

When it comes to rolling dice, less is less and more is more. If you can generate the same probability with a single roll, that's a much more efficient way to do it than rolling 9 dice, especially when you multiply it across multiple actions.

In theory there is some sort of regression to the mean, but there are still going to be those outlier rolls that absolutely wreck stuff. One can say "well, that's pretty rare," but why allow it at all?

GW's love of weird dice mechanics deciding games goes back decades, so this isn't anything new, but it's still annoying.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Spoiler:

 alextroy wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Rolling 9D6 on 6+ doesn't take longer than 3D6 on 4+ so it's actually good design to roll 9D6 on 6+ if the number 6 or 9 is flavourful for the faction or if the faction is supposed to be more swingy and random.

So rolling 20d6 doesn't take more time than 2d6?

The difference between 3 and 9 dice is pretty negligible.

Rolling dice, it mostly a bit of extra time gathering and reading.

Effectiveness on the battle field is massive. If the target is a spell that does up to 9 Mortal Wounds, I can't think of a more swingy option than roll 9d6 and hope of 6's:

9d6, 6= 1 MW yields Average 1.5 MW (Less than 1% chance of 5+ MW, 19.38% chance of 0 MW)

9d6, 5 or 6 = 1 MW yields Average 3 MW (Less than 1% chance of 7+ MW, only 2.6% chance of 0 MW)

3d3 MW yields Average of 6 MW with a 3.7% chance of 9 MW

1d3 + 1d6 MW yields average of 5.5 MW with a 5.56 chance of 9 MW

So this is really about rolling 9 dice, not having a useful spell with any reasonable success rate. Bad rules writing!

You listed a bunch of outcomes based on different dice formats there, but didn't really relate to the core issue.

5+ Firestorm averages 3MW. So do you just make it flat 3MW? Or maybe just D3+1? Certainly that's simpler, but it isn't the same.

An unmodified 9+ isn't easy to roll. I can get a super smite with less effort. Giving it a flat value or low variance doesn't give the same potential. D3+1 gets you to the same average, but not the same spikes.

And what will you do with the 6+ variant? Surely it can't be D3, because getting just one extra MW for a 9 seems pretty silly and a flat 1 or 2 makes me consider Gaze and a better spell. It hasn't been uncommon for me to still do 2 or 3 MW by spiking 6s.

Rolling up and dropping 5 or 6 5+ out of 9 dice is a rare and often crushing outcome. Certainly we've moved away from the ultra-random and goofy things, but having some minor multi-level spells is hardly pushing the envelope.

This is a question of what is the goal of the spell? How much damage do they really want it to do and then write the rules appropriately. Instead, the decided "this is a great thematic idea" and forgot to determine "is it an effective idea?"

If the damage is about right, but you don't want to waste time rolling 9 dice to little variable effect (and risking no damage at all!) I would say 1 MW on a normal cast (drop WC to 6+), 3 MW on a 9+.

 catbarf wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The problem is I know if they removed all rerolls in the next edition I'd be the first person on here going "wow, it really sucks when you get an unlucky (but statistically inevitable) roll and there is nothing you can do about it."

Frankly, GW should just make a dice-free variant for people who don't want randomness in their dice-based wargame. Perhaps based on a deck of cards, so that there's some variance but your 'luck' is a finite quantity that always balances out in the end.

I find that re-rolls out the wazoo make for an experience that is not only tedious to resolve, but downright dull to play, because the result is typically so predictable. I am not on the edge of my seat waiting to see how twenty shots hitting on 3s re-rolling all failures will pan out, and I much prefer a system where you have to accept some risk and cannot stack buffs until a positive outcome is virtually guaranteed. Yeah, sometimes your single lascannon shot hitting on 2s will roll a 1 and there's nothing you can do about it- except having contingencies beyond blaming the dice.

still have a copy somewhere, GDWs 'Battle Rider' did just that, the game was based around 2d6 rolls, the designers worked out that rolling many, many 2d6 took time and was tedious so you got a deck of cards both players shared - these all had among the things on them a single 1d6 result, and then a "success/fail" based on the 2d6 probability (with secondary results for green and veteran units) - you make ten attacks, deal ten cards.

the deck was made of 144 cards, so each possible 2d6 result was there four times - as you note its not truly random, however it did work quite nicely and was fast

a good one from a naval game I have is using a d20, your unit attacks with say 20 shots, there is a lookup table, roll the dice, it tells you how many hits you have - IIRC the table goes to 40, it you make say 45 attacks its a roll as 40 and a roll as 5. because the d20 is a single die each line has a bit of a bell curve baked in, thats also pretty fast

what 40k and similar games do currently is basically come down to more attacks usually trumps better attacks just because the law of averages helps, when I was running IG or my nids the outcome of most attack phases was pretty predictable, a lot of dice rolled then one, maybe two enemy models removed - individual rolls for smaller, elite units or heros is good, lets them swing a battle, but for the huddled unwashed hordes some sort of statistical system is better - even if its something like every five models gets one attack that has the potential to do more damage to make it all a bit more varied

 catbarf wrote:

Agreed, conditional abilities granting +1s is more impactful, more interesting, and less tedious than re-rolls.

But I do also feel there that too many characters are reduced to 'everyone around me hits harder', even if it is put behind a condition that must be met. It'd be cool if you could have beatstick characters that fight directly, buff characters that boost units around them, and command characters that actually lead your army in some manner. If only there was some sort of resource that you could leverage for command-like abilities. Some kind of command tokens. Command currency. Command p- ah, forget it.

I agree with some of what you're saying. However, I'd add, too, that static auras (regardless of whether they're applying a reroll or some other buff) seem by far the least interesting and least flavourful mechanic for a buff character. I have my issues with the current psychic phase, but at least psychic powers involve some choice and interactivity.

Whilst not divorced from auras, I will say that I really like the Harlequin Pivotal Role mechanic. The ability to choose how you want a given character to play (e.g. whether you want your sniper to focus on debuffing enemies or doing more damage to them; whether you want your support psyker to protect against ranged or melee attacks etc.) would go a long way for a lot of characters in other books.

Anyway, as you say, it seems like it would make a lot of sense to integrate the CP mechanic into this sort of ability. Indeed, my preference would be to scrap Stratagems entirely and spend them on character abilities instead.

 vict0988 wrote:

100%, like the Commissar's morale stuff or back when Techmarines could boost terrain. I think for the Destroyer Lord though he should be boosting offense, it just doesn't seem like a deliberate design choice when offense auras are what everyone gets. How do you feel about abilities like Move! Move! Move! which allows Astra Militarum units to move twice? Because to me that level of effect is too high, it's not natural to have Guardsmen that are faster than bikes. Do they hop on to bicycles or something? What I'd like to see instead is something like +3" to Advance rolls or automatic 6" Advance in an Aura so that the effect doesn't become too high.

I know this question wasn't directed at me but I wanted to answer anyway.

I think you're right in that some of the orders do a little too much. At the same time, I really like Orders as a basic mechanic. IMO, having a toolbox of abilities to choose from makes for a far more interesting time than a static aura.

What they should eliminate is secundis marines. Oh! And integrate fully FW into codexes!

 catbarf wrote:
But I do also feel there that too many characters are reduced to 'everyone around me hits harder', even if it is put behind a condition that must be met. It'd be cool if you could have beatstick characters that fight directly, buff characters that boost units around them, and command characters that actually lead your army in some manner. If only there was some sort of resource that you could leverage for command-like abilities. Some kind of command tokens. Command currency. Command p- ah, forget it.

The problem is that currently the majority of stratagems are just some form of "your dice math is better" rather than any meaningful representation of the chain of command. Is it really improving things to replace an aura of re-rolls with CP generation that you spend on stratagems to get re-rolls? At least with the auras you're constrained to getting that single re-roll 1s effect, with generating CP to spend on re-roll 1s effects you also have the risk of using it to unlock nonsense stratagem combos and make the buff stacking far worse.


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 vict0988 wrote:
How do you feel about abilities like Move! Move! Move! which allows Astra Militarum units to move twice? Because to me that level of effect is too high, it's not natural to have Guardsmen that are faster than bikes. Do they hop on to bicycles or something? What I'd like to see instead is something like +3" to Advance rolls or automatic 6" Advance in an Aura so that the effect doesn't become too high.

Thankfully this has already been fixed in the new codex. MMM is now +2" move on a normal move or auto-6 if you advance.

 catbarf wrote:
Frankly, GW should just make a dice-free variant for people who don't want randomness in their dice-based wargame. Perhaps based on a deck of cards, so that there's some variance but your 'luck' is a finite quantity that always balances out in the end.

Beware of unintended consequences and perverse incentives. If you have a small enough deck for luck to reliably balance out you have a small enough deck that card counting becomes an important skill. You really don't want a situation where you save your biggest guns for once you've drawn enough low cards from the deck that you can expect above-average results, or where you decline to charge the enemy because you know the cards in the deck are currently below average and you have little hope of winning the fight. And if you make the deck large enough to avoid card counting you now have a large enough RNG pool that drawing a bunch of low cards no longer guarantees that you'll see some high cards to balance it out, at which point you might as well use normal dice.