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Mw from vehicle explosions are worst i think. Psykers i can live with, it makes sense i a way. But an exploding rhino killing d3 marines /squad in an aura feels cheesy compared to d3 guardsmen/squad. It could be auto wound or whatever, but please give us armour saves with some ap

It sounds like one of the biggest drives behind this is the 3++ Knight.

Perhaps a flat -1 to invulnerable saves made by / applied to titanic units would suffice?

I do like mortal wounds, I like the idea that snipers have a chance to plug a shot right through the target's eye. and I think that they are necessary for beating the exceptionally durable units in the game. But, I can also see how disheartening it can be if you've paid for a durable unit and the opponent just ignores it. I had enough of that facing elder with my orks in 7th. "KFF? that's cover, right? oh, you don't get that...".

I feel that perhaps there needs to be a toning down of mortal wounds - perhaps state that if a model has an unvulnerable save, they may ignore the wound on a 6+ (non-modifiable). That way mortal wounds aren't a guarantee, but they do more to non-invuln units than invuln units.

Mortal wounds are flat out bad design because they are unevenly distributed and ignore all defenses except wound count and feel no pain effects, (which are also not available to everyone.)

I’d feel a bit better about them if they split into “toughness-ignoring auto-wounds” and “save-ignoring wound attempts” instead of simultaneously bypassing both of the standard defenses by default.

“But but invuln saves!”
Make more shieldbreaker-effect weapons. Fixed.

Yes. What the game needs is an arms race escalation that makes most weapons obsolete again.

First, EVERY army needs to gain acess to sshield breaker style weapoms. THEN they need to be made common enough that everyone can bring them in enough numbers that those units are not simply targetted and destroyed so as to make the high invul units safe. Finally, everyone can have to bring a minimum x number of shield breakers which makes the other weapons that CANT deal with invuls much less valuable to the point of making units unusable.

Lets escalate again and more. Thats the balancing move to make.

 Lance845 wrote:
Yes. What the game needs is an arms race escalation that makes most weapons obsolete again.

First, EVERY army needs to gain acess to sshield breaker style weapoms. THEN they need to be made common enough that everyone can bring them in enough numbers that those units are not simply targetted and destroyed so as to make the high invul units safe. Finally, everyone can have to bring a minimum x number of shield breakers which makes the other weapons that CANT deal with invuls much less valuable to the point of making units unusable.

Lets escalate again and more. Thats the balancing move to make.

You realise thats exactly what mortal wounds feel lije wheb you don't play an army with easy acess to them, especially when you units paying massive premiums for high toughness and 2+ saves, which are worth 0 points against MW spam.

This is the biggest issue with MW, it's a solution to a problem of GW's own making which doesn't change the issue.

GW is charging points for toughness and saves which mean nothing to Mortal wounds.

They charging points for weapons with AP and then hand out invulnerable saves like candy and wonder why people complain about the cost of high AP weapons.

MW spam against chaff units gives poor return on points but against geared up models, give rediculous returns.

The other issue is that the opposite end of the spectrum of just throwing 100+ dice at a problem with the core mechanics of 8th also work so you have a mechanics where cheap poor stuff works because brute force through weight of dice and MW spam destroy expensive models but MW or weight of dice both provide poorer returns against cheap trash models.

Mortal wounds should probably be a thing but they should be significantly reduced in prevalence than they currently are, as should a number of the invulnerable saves.

Either that or we stick with the current issues of cheapest of the cheap or expensive models which need to stack a page of special rules, stratageums etc only actually see use.
Got a ok save and no special rules go directly to unplayable, never to see the table in ith edition.

I dumped most of my AP when Drukhari dropped.

@Ice_Can

Your conclusion has been my argument. You CAN reduce the amount of MWs that are in the game. But only if you hard cap invul saves at 5+ and MAYBE reduce the amount of them that are around with it.

You cant have one without the other.

I have a much bigger problem with invo saves than mortal wounds. I'd like to see certain weapons reduce invo saves.

Like for example a las cannon should probably be ap-3/-1invun save.

 Lance845 wrote:
@Ice_Can

Your conclusion has been my argument. You CAN reduce the amount of MWs that are in the game. But only if you hard cap invul saves at 5+ and MAYBE reduce the amount of them that are around with it.

You cant have one without the other.

Except with a hard cap of 5++, adding invulnerable saves to 2+ armour does nothing 90% of the time. Which would be fine if GW would only charge you for the minor use but they don't. Hence the mess terminators etc are in. Also what use would say a stormshield be if all it gave was a 5++?

I'm not opposed to reducing the amount of invulnerable saves in 8th edition, but the other thing to remember is that a lot of thing in 8th edition still die to shear volume of dice. Invulnerable saves aren't the answer to volume either.

But maybe with less of them giving eg custodes 5 wounds terminators 4, etc down to the basic scrub infantry like conscripts and cultist 1w per model would allow having armour and AP mean something over just straight up 100 dice being just as effective at deleting elite models.

But that's more like an edition change sort of level of change, and unfortunately I still don't think GW have learnt their leason when it comes to arms race design decisions.

So the laser is so hot it breaches into the Warp to burn that demon that just rolled a 5?

 Lance845 wrote:
Yes. What the game needs is an arms race escalation that makes most weapons obsolete again.

First, EVERY army needs to gain acess to sshield breaker style weapoms. THEN they need to be made common enough that everyone can bring them in enough numbers that those units are not simply targetted and destroyed so as to make the high invul units safe. Finally, everyone can have to bring a minimum x number of shield breakers which makes the other weapons that CANT deal with invuls much less valuable to the point of making units unusable.

Lets escalate again and more. Thats the balancing move to make.

1. Toss mortal wounds out of a (preferably moving) train.

2. Races develop/find new weapons. (Or old ones they used to have.) Imperium spreads around shieldbreaker rounds purchasable on an array of weapons like heavy bolters, autocannons, and missile launchers. Other races get similar tech or develop “ethereal” energy weapons etc.

3. Much better game state. People who pay a ton for defense per wound are now getting what they paid for, and only get their defenses bypassed by weapons that paid a bunch to do that. And at the same time you can no longer run into a unit that is “practically invincible,” which seems to be the main complaint in favor of mortal wounds.

4. Invulns become Armor++

Which Invulns are you particularly angry about? Couldn't this be handled more cleanly by reducing the appropriate Invulns?

Bharring wrote:
So the laser is so hot it breaches into the Warp to burn that demon that just rolled a 5?

How does a laser hurt a daemon if it is not in psychical space to begin with? Can't get into fluff because a space marine should be able to fight 10 orks but in game terms has a pretty big chance to lose to 1. Fluff is useless here.

"How does a laser hurt a daemon if it is not in psychical space to begin with?"
Well, it's usually physical/vulnerable to the laws of physics. But about a third of the time (5++), it just isn't impacted by the laws of the physics. Invuln being short for "Invulnerable", after all. As in, some of the time, it just doesn't matter; the target is invulnerable.

"Can't get into fluff because a space marine should be able to fight 10 orks but in game terms has a pretty big chance to lose to 1."
If games were like the fluff, Marines would have a 2+ rerollable on the Marines player's turn, but IG would have the 'I turn up the power and aim reaaal gud' Order, which would give them S8 AP-5.

There's the "bolter porn" side of fluff, and then there's the "somewhat internally consistent' side of the fluff.

Bharring wrote:
"How does a laser hurt a daemon if it is not in psychical space to begin with?"
Well, it's usually physical/vulnerable to the laws of physics. But about a third of the time (5++), it just isn't impacted by the laws of the physics. Invuln being short for "Invulnerable", after all. As in, some of the time, it just doesn't matter; the target is invulnerable.

"Can't get into fluff because a space marine should be able to fight 10 orks but in game terms has a pretty big chance to lose to 1."
If games were like the fluff, Marines would have a 2+ rerollable on the Marines player's turn, but IG would have the 'I turn up the power and aim reaaal gud' Order, which would give them S8 AP-5.

There's the "bolter porn" side of fluff, and then there's the "somewhat internally consistent' side of the fluff.

So a raking weapon like a laser beam would be great against things phasing in and out of reality.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gitdakka wrote:
Mw from vehicle explosions are worst i think. Psykers i can live with, it makes sense i a way. But an exploding rhino killing d3 marines /squad in an aura feels cheesy compared to d3 guardsmen/squad. It could be auto wound or whatever, but please give us armour saves with some ap

Yeah my friends and I always joke that only if the imperium could weaponize the overheating plasma guns and fusion explosions from redemptor dreads...they would be unstoppable.

I say "it just isn't impacted by the laws of physics", and you hear "just laws of physics harder"?

What's to say their invulnerability is explicitly a predictable timeframe?

Get rid of mortal wounds entirely. They aren't well implemented, and explosions causing them is absurd.

Change Invuln saves to be AP reducing. If the attack has no AP, it has no other functional effect.

Invuln 3 negates 3 points of AP (Our current 3++)
Invuln 2 negates 2 points of AP (Our current 4++)
Invuln 1 negates 1 points of AP (Our current 5++/6++)

No invuln save is allowed to be better than Invuln 3, regardless of strategem.

This ALSO helps revitalize Melta weaponry which has suffered this edition, since plasma is better priced. With this method, at AP-4, it will ALWAYS effect the save of the model being shot

So, shooting a terminator squad with a plasma gun with no storm shields, using this mechanic, so against that plasma gun they take their save as a 2+ (AP-3, Invuln 1) --> 4+ armor save.
That same squad, with a storm shield, continues to take a 2+ against plasma, since you pay a HUGE premium for that durability as-is, since it counteracts the AP of that plasma weapon. However, a melta at AP-4 reduces them to a 3+ save.

For demons...since I know someone will ask. They need to be assigned armor saves. Its silly that some models in this game still don't have them.

Also, powers like null zone would still work great. In addition, you can differentiate psykers now by their powers having different levels of AP.
New weapons could be introduced to play with the mechanic. Grav for example currently has no niche plasma doesn't do better. Invuln save manipulation perhaps?

Bharring wrote:
I say "it just isn't impacted by the laws of physics", and you hear "just laws of physics harder"?

What's to say their invulnerability is explicitly a predictable timeframe?

"and you hear "just laws of physics harder"?"
No - I hear it is immune sometimes and not others. So if it is an intermittent effect. A beam weapon would have a better chance of damage.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 iGuy91 wrote:
Get rid of mortal wounds entirely. They aren't well implemented, and explosions causing them is absurd.

Change Invuln saves to be AP reducing. If the attack has no AP, it has no other functional effect.

Invuln 3 negates 3 points of AP (Our current 3++)
Invuln 2 negates 2 points of AP (Our current 4++)
Invuln 1 negates 1 points of AP (Our current 5++/6++)

No invuln save is allowed to be better than Invuln 3, regardless of strategem.

This ALSO helps revitalize Melta weaponry which has suffered this edition, since plasma is better priced. With this method, at AP-4, it will ALWAYS effect the save of the model being shot

So, shooting a terminator squad with a plasma gun with no storm shields, using this mechanic, so against that plasma gun they take their save as a 2+ (AP-3, Invuln 1) --> 4+ armor save.
That same squad, with a storm shield, continues to take a 2+ against plasma, since you pay a HUGE premium for that durability as-is, since it counteracts the AP of that plasma weapon. However, a melta at AP-4 reduces them to a 3+ save.

For demons...since I know someone will ask. They need to be assigned armor saves. Its silly that some models in this game still don't have them.

Also, powers like null zone would still work great. In addition, you can differentiate psykers now by their powers having different levels of AP.
New weapons could be introduced to play with the mechanic. Grav for example currently has no niche plasma doesn't do better. Invuln save manipulation perhaps?

I read a thread in which this was being discussed. I REALLY - like this idea.

iGuy,
That sort of thing was suggested here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/766434.page

My problem with that is it basically just buffs a couple choice units that have good armor and ok invuln saves now, while gutting the entire concept of a "and this save doesn't care about AP".

My counterproposal is that what you're trying to do is probably better handled by allowing both the Armor Save and Invuln Save be taken instead. It would take a lot less adjustment to the system.

I'm not sure we need either change, though.

Xeno,
Sorry, when I said "And sometimes", I meant "some occurrences", not "some timeframes".

A consistent beam weapon would have a better chance of damage for basically any target. And more damage. But those factors aren't unique to Invulns. And are better tracked by multiple shots, not invuln modifiers.

I think the intent behind that idea would be to reduce invo saves to a lower number. A 1+ invo would give a space marine a 3+ save against anything ap1. It would be incredible.

Terms could have a 2+ invo for a 4+ save against a las cannon

In certain situations though I think some special saves would still be required. Like Wyches for example with their 4++ in CC but only have 6+ armor.

Mortal Wounds simply need to be rarer and Smite slightly harder to cast. Witchfires having several different profiles would work this edition simply because of the new AP system.

Bharring wrote:
iGuy,
That sort of thing was suggested here:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/766434.page

My problem with that is it basically just buffs a couple choice units that have good armor and ok invuln saves now, while gutting the entire concept of a "and this save doesn't care about AP".

My counterproposal is that what you're trying to do is probably better handled by allowing both the Armor Save and Invuln Save be taken instead. It would take a lot less adjustment to the system.

I'm not sure we need either change, though.

I would prefer more adjustment and not more rolling, myself. Invuln saves were a surprising omission from the change to the AP system, putting many weapons in an odd spot where both armor and invulnerable saves are devalued. I support the single save system.

I think you bring up a good point though, and that it should be handled on a model by model (or wargear by wargear) basis. Wyches and Genestealers of course should naturally be unaffected by AP. It shouldn't be a 1:1 conversion, as the purpose of an invuln can differ from model to model.

*Should* Termies be taking a 4+ against a Lascannon, though? It's a freaking Lascannon.

Why should a Marine get a 3+ vs AP1, but Necron Immortals get a 4+?
Why should a Marine get a 4+ vs AP2, but a Wraithlord gets a 5+?

Why should a Marine be more durable to Assault Cannons than other 3+ Sv units?

I think the answer is that Assault Cannons - and many other AP-1 - should be AP0. That gives the same buff to Marines, but in a much simpler way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's another question:
Why is it only certain armors should retain their armor save in the face of an armor penetration stat?

I get that Power Armor is awesome. But what 3+ armors should be *less* protective than Power Armor? Immortal armor? Rhino armor? Wraithlord armor? Incubi armor?

Bharring wrote:
*Should* Termies be taking a 4+ against a Lascannon, though? It's a freaking Lascannon.

Why should a Marine get a 3+ vs AP1, but Necron Immortals get a 4+?
Why should a Marine get a 4+ vs AP2, but a Wraithlord gets a 5+?

Why should a Marine be more durable to Assault Cannons than other 3+ Sv units?

I think the answer is that Assault Cannons - and many other AP-1 - should be AP0. That gives the same buff to Marines, but in a much simpler way.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's another question:
Why is it only certain armors should retain their armor save in the face of an armor penetration stat?

I get that Power Armor is awesome. But what 3+ armors should be *less* protective than Power Armor? Immortal armor? Rhino armor? Wraithlord armor? Incubi armor?

I was just making an example of how I thought it could work - not saying that is exactly what it would be. Not intending to leave any armies behind in a new type system. Though I think eldar special save modifiers would be better represented like a dodge save instead of an AP modifier.

Please don't give Wraithlords a Dodge Save to justify this Armor Save Armor Save Modifier Modifier buff to Marines. They really *aren't* that agile.

The fact of the matter is that being able to dodge the worst of the attack factors into the "invuln" save of a genestealer. Their armor handles the rest. We do not need or want. a whole new category of saves.

In the case of other units, its a physical forcefield preventing the worst of the damage, for some its dodging the worst of the damage, and letting gear handle the rest.

I'm simply proposing that mortal wounds be folded back into the normal savable category, using a variable AP system (as discussed in the linked thread) with a high AP value. That way, they are still deadly attacks, but they are not "just remove your models without recourse" attacks

We really should not differentiate between different 3+ saves by model, a 3+ is a 3+, doesn't matter as to "why".

As far as a terminator taking a 4+ against a lascannon...well...Yes. Absolutely. I paid as many points for this storm shield as you did the gun. That terminator is super soldier wearing tank-grade armor, with an energy field custom built to protect him against such a shot.

The fact that it becomes a 50/50 is testament to both the power of a lascannon, and the durability of the model in question.

A normal power armored marine would still only be getting a 6+ against it as proposed. Maaaaybe a 5+ in cover.

I like the idea of Smite being d6 auto-wounds on a 5+ to cast, but you get your saves. Rolls of 11+ would be d6 MWs instead.
Makes MWs much rarer and at the same time, gives most armies access to more "dakka" per se.

You could even remove the Matched play restriction making successive Smite attempts harder to cast.

-

I very much like the idea of shifting most Mortal Wounds to Wounds, with the appropriate AP.

I could see some remaining - Perils for example, things like Soulcut too. But things like exploding vehicles certainly shouldn't be MW.

Bharring wrote:
Please don't give Wraithlords a Dodge Save to justify this Armor Save Armor Save Modifier Modifier buff to Marines. They really *aren't* that agile.

Eldar are typically all about aqility except when it comes to wraith contructs - that is true. Perhaps their durability is more of a factor of toughness rather than an increased save.

Bharring wrote:
I very much like the idea of shifting most Mortal Wounds to Wounds, with the appropriate AP.

I could see some remaining - Perils for example, things like Soulcut too. But things like exploding vehicles certainly shouldn't be MW.

I agree there. If they do remain, it should be very, very niche. A handful of things at most.