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So I was having a pleasantly busy Christmas, but it occurred to me that it might be entertaining to consider a way to integrate Cover and To Hit roles.

Currently cover is a saving throw, meaning that you can either take an armour saving throw, invulnerable saving throw, or cover saving throw (whichever it best). Some rules combine the two, like the Eldar Exarch Power "Crack Shot", but those are special rules. Some people dislike this arrangement, but their proposals are usually of the modifier type that doesn't fit into the modern Warhammer 40k mechanics very well.

I'm of the opinion that a designer should extend existing concepts rather than trying to bolt new concepts onto an existing game. Combat in 40,000 generally consists of rolling to hit, to wound, and to save, and rolling to hit in close combat means rolling against an index of Weapon Skills.

But rolling to hit with shooting means rolling against a flat number, with a reroll for Ballastic Skills of 6+. I've created two tables describing the Current situation. The first describes the rolls required for rolling to hit and to reroll misses, and to save. The second describes the likelihood of a successful hit and a failed save.

My proposal is that instead of having cover represented by a saving throw, it is represented by having a shift in the roll to hit following the current system of rolling to hit and re-rolling failures if your BS is high enough. My Proposal extends the current system: a sufficiently low BS will re-roll successful hits against a unit in sufficient cover. Somewhat like before a pair of tables indicating the rolls to hit and the likelihood of a successful hit.

These tables may be somewhat misleading as the proposed likelihoods of hitting do not include hitting and saving. Clearly this proposal will benefit heavily armoured units at the expense of lighly armoured ones. Also, if someone would like to check the math I've done, I'd appreciate it.

It's an interesting proposal. Well thought out and well analyzed.

But, the odds of hitting drop significantly for a 4+ cover save. And, you don't address the issue of MEQ getting a huge bump since they can now take advantage of both cover and their awesome armor.

So, I'd pair your proposal with the suggestion that all cover saves drop by 1. And, you'll have to come up with a MEQ solution on your own, since I've never been able to come up with one.

Yeah, I always thought taking a cover OR armor/invul save didn't make sense...it should be harder to hit an armored person in cover than out in the open...but it's not. There's virtually no benefit to cover unless you're armor save sucks, or unless the weapon is ridiculously strong and bypasses your armor completely. I like your idea which would provide a benefit for armored models behind cover.

As for the idea concerning MEQ units, how about anything higher than a strength 7 or 8 ignores cover? It would punch through a tree if it was capable of punching through armor anyway. Or if it's AP1 or 2, it ignores cover? Or if it ignores cover, it drops one strenght and 1 AP when striking the Mech unit?

Shenra wrote:
As for the idea concerning MEQ units, how about anything higher than a strength 7 or 8 ignores cover? It would punch through a tree if it was capable of punching through armor anyway. Or if it's AP1 or 2, it ignores cover? Or if it ignores cover, it drops one strenght and 1 AP when striking the Mech unit?

You have to remember, though, that cover doesn't always stop a shot flat. Sometimes it just makes targeting that much harder, making the shot go wide and miss alltogether. As an example, a lascannon would, as you correctly have observed, go straight through a tree as if it wasn't there, while a slugga would not, or at least be deflected. Versus somethign like the Exhaust Clouds of Ork bikers, however, the penetrative (is that even a word?) properties of the weapons matters little, it's the obscuring effect that makes it effective cover.

Grakmar:

I really don't see heavily armoured troops getting the benefits of cover to be an issue, particularly since they uniformly pay a premium for their saving throws.

Looking over the charts there, the actual result of this change would be that shooting would become dramatically less effective for almost everyone. As it stands, a Space Marine unit firing at an Ork unit in 4+ cover will score one hit for every 3 shots. With your proposed change, that ratio is cut in half; now it takes 6 shots to score one hit. A Space Marine in 4+ cover is now practically unkillable. Cover becomes dramatically more important, and assault also becomes more important. Since one of the biggest complaints about 5th edition is that assault is so much more important than shooting already, I think this is a negative change.

Earlier iterarions of 40K, most notably Rogue Trader and 2nd Edition, classified cover into two types : Hard cover and Soft cover, with "To Hit modifiers" of -2 and -1 respectively.

Hard Cover was generally materials like concrete, ruins and such, whilst Soft cover applied to such things as plants, bushes etc.

As an example of how this worked :
Space Marine with BS 4 requires a roll of 3+ to hit an open target (as with current rules).
In the following, we are assuming that 50% of the target is visible to the firing Space Marine:
If the target was behind a hedge (or cover of similar density), there would be a -1 modifier to the To Hit roll, requiring the Space Marine to roll 4+.
If the target was behind a low wall, therefore Hard Cover, the modifier would become -2, requiring a roll of 5+ to hit the target.

These rules, as any, were subject to a modicum of common sense when coupled with LOS.
Example:
Same Space Marine, firing at a target claiming Hard cover. Checking LOS shows the target is only 25% obscured,leaving (obviously) 75% in sight.
The required modifier would have been -2 for Hard cover, but because so much is visible, the modifier is adjusted to reflect this, resulting in only a -1, thus the Space Marine hits on a roll of 4+.

IMO, this system was a much better reflection of how Cover affects the ability to hit a target in "real" terms.

Just re-read that - History Lesson Endeth

BeRzErKeR:

It's interesting that you suggest that a big complain about the 5th edition is that assault is more important than shooting, because I have the opposite opinion: shooting is much more useful than assault.

Likewise it's interesting that you're phrasing it as though the ratios you're quoting will be the results rather than merely the expected results. There difference being that one is the actual result, and the other merely the average potential result. The fact that I didn't explicitly state the importance of potential results besides the average, however, is a mark against how I've presented this proposal though.

So what it seems is that you're not satisfied with the particular values attached to this proposal than having any complaint about how it works. I've run some numbers and I'd have to agree with you: The drop-off on the average is too sharp.

Grakmar's solution to this problem works, appending a single-point shift in cover saving throws seems to work well to fit this broadly into the current game balance:

Cover Type A (Razor Wire, Wire mesh): Cv-
Cover Type B (High Grass, Crops, Bushes, Hedges, Fences): Cv6
Cover Type C (Units, Trenches, Gun Pits, Obscured, etc): Cv5+
Cover Type D (Fortifications): Cv4+

I say broadly because (as mentioned) the point of this proposal is to distribute the benefits of cover to all units, and not just those with worthless armour/invulnerability.

I think that this will benefit shooting units because of the way it will favour units shooting from cover, rather than trying to cross open-ground to assault. Also it will leverage the benefit of lucky hit rolls, favouring those armies with a higher volume of shots.