A little thought experiment run wild. I am not a big fan of the wound allocation system for various reasons that need not be the subject of this topic. The issues, I believe, are all created in the basic idea of 40K: it is both skirmish and battle scale at the same time, meaning one unit can contain models with different characteristics and different equipment which all need to be done justice. Also, range, line of sight, movement and cover are basically judged on a per model basis. This means shooting isn't really unit versus unit, as so many exceptions are made to account for the various factors that affect individual models. The choices GW made to work this mess out are in part reflected in the wound allocation system, which I don't like very much. It doesn't drive me to nerd rage or anything, but it irritates me a little, like a stubborn itch. (This is not a 6th edition novelty, btw.) So, whilst I think there is no real solution to the problems of wound allocation, because the actual problem lies deeper, I thought there might be an equally poor solution that nevertheless pleases me more and that this might be a change from allocating wounds to allocating hits.
With only a little further ado, I present the following wall of text with a system for allocating hits that also happens to change a few other rules on the way (most notably cover I guess, which in this form is unfinished as it also requires different rules on terrain). It is not meant to be a ready replacement for wound allocation, as obviously the rules below affect game balance on a larger scale. If anyone fancies developing a mild headache I'd be delighted if you try and pick it apart. I have no delusions of sending this in to GW and making the gaming world forever a better place, it's just a fun bit of 'what if'.
Definitions
Active player
The player whose turn it is, is called the ‘active player’.
Natural values
The rules will sometimes refer to a ‘natural dice roll’, or ‘natural Ballistic Skill’ and similar expressions. In this case, the unmodified values are meant, that is: the actual result of the dice roll without any modifiers, or the actual Ballistic Skill value as given on a model’s characteristics profile without any modifiers. Whenever the rules do not refer to natural values, they are always referring to modified values.
Cover
A model is assumed to be in cover when:
- its base is touching an area terrain feature, or;
- it is inside a building, or;
- its base is touching a linear terrain feature and:
a) if shot at: the majority of firing models in the firing unit trace their line of sight to the target model across this linear terrain feature;
b) if charged: there is no direct base contact between the target model and the attacking model.
Fortified
A model is assumed to be fortified when:
- its base is touching a fortified area terrain feature, or;
- it is inside a fortification, or;
- its base is touching a linear fortified terrain feature and:
a) if shot at: the majority of firing models in the firing unit trace their line of sight to the target model across this linear fortified terrain feature;
b) if charged: there is no direct base contact between the target model and the attacking model.
Shooting
Selecting a firing unit and a target unit
The active player selects one of his units to be the firing unit. This unit may target one enemy unit. In order to be a valid target, the target unit must be within range and line of sight of at least one model in the firing unit.
Select shooting models
The active player then selects a model from the firing unit in order to resolve its shooting. You do not have to shoot with every model in the firing unit, as long as at least one model with an eligible target shoots. If you have multiple models from the unit firing at the same Ballistic Skill, you can resolve the shooting of these models simultaneously. It is important to use a different dice colour for each type of weapon you shoot, regardless of whether you roll for each shot one by one or all in one go, in order to account for differences in Strength and Armour piercing values.
Hitting a target
Each shooting model must determine whether or not it hits its target. To do so, roll a D6 for each shot fired by the model. Determine the shooting model’s Ballistic Skill and compare your roll to the chart below:
Remove any dice that represent misses. Leave all the dice that represent a hit, these will form the hit pool. Any dice that came up a natural 6 are always a hit. Continue shooting with any models in the firing unit that are still to shoot, adding hits to the hit pool as they occur and remembering to use one dice colour per type of weapon used. Once the active player has shot with all models in the firing unit that he wishes to shoot, it is time to allocate the hits.
Allocating hits
The players now take turns to allocate the hits in the hit pool one by one, starting with the active player. Simply place the dice that represent hits next to a model you want to allocate a hit to. Hits must be allocated to any model that has not yet been allocated a hit from any shooting model in the firing unit, until every model in the target unit has been allocated a hit, or you run out of hits. Note that a hit cannot be allocated to a model that is outside the range or line of sight of any shooting model using the type of weapon that caused the hit. If every model in the target unit has been allocated a hit, continue with another round of allocation until every model has had two hits allocated or you run out of hits. Continue in this fashion until all hits have been allocated.
Cover and fortification rolls
The target unit’s player must now make cover and fortification rolls. If a model in cover is hit, pick up the hits allocated to this model and roll these dice again. On a 5+, the hit is discounted. Fortified models discount hits on a 4+. If multiple models of the same target type are hit, roll cover or fortification rolls simultaneously per target type, after which the target unit's player distributes the left-over hits equally over the models just rolled for.
Target types
Models that are the same form a target type. In order to be the same, models must share the same name as given in their Codex, have the same Toughness value and have the same Armour and/or Invulnerable Save values. Any differences in equipment that do not affect these values are irrelevant. Each character is always treated as an individual target type, even if there are two identical characters involved.
Look out Sir!
Any character that still has a hit allocated to him may now attempt to make a ‘Look out Sir!’ roll for every hit that that is allocated to him, if there are other models in the unit within 6" of him. The character’s owning player picks up the hits allocated to the character and rolls these dice again: he may re-allocate any dice that come up a 3+ in the normal fashion described under ‘Allocating hits’ - ignoring the character model, the weapon’s range, and the shooting models’ lines of sight - to models in the unit within 6". Hits re-allocated in this fashion may be allocated to other character models, but these characters do not get to make their own Look out Sir! roll against re-allocated hits. Cover and fortification saves also cannot be taken against re-allocated hits.
Precision shots
Any hits that are represented by a natural dice roll of 6, caused by a model with the ‘Precision shot’ special rule, are allocated in advance of any other hits by the active player. These hits cannot be re-allocated in any way and cover or fortification rolls cannot be made to discount them.
Wounding a target
After every shooting model in the firing unit has attempted to hit its target and all hits have been allocated, continue with trying to wound your target. Like cover rolls, hits are resolved by target type rather than per model. The active player picks up all the hits scored on one target type and rolls these dice again. Compare the Strength of the weapons that caused the hits to the Toughness of the target type and consult the chart below:
Remove all hits that failed to wound and leave the dice that represent a wound. The target unit’s player will now use these dice for the purpose of making saves.
Making saves
Taking the dice representing wounds, the target unit’s player now gets to make saves. Look up whether the wounded model type has an Armour Save. If it does, compare the Armour Save value to the Armour Piercing value on the weapon responsible for the wounds. If the Armour Piercing value is lower than or equal to the Armour Save value, the Armour Save is ignored. Next, look up whether the wounded model type has an Invulnerable Save. If the wounded model type has only an Armour Save that is not ignored, use this value. If the wounded model type has only an Invulnerable Save, use this value. If the wounded model type has both an Armour Save value that is not ignored and an Invulnerable Save value, use only the lowest of these. If the wounded model type gets to make a save, roll the wound dice and compare the roll to the Save value. Discard all dice that rolled equal to or higher than the Save value. The remaining dice represent unsaved wounds.
Removing casualties
Count the number of dice representing unsaved wounds. The target unit’s owning player then removes that many wounds worth of models of the target type from the target unit. Shots from a specific weapon type cannot result in casualties outside of the range of anyone in the firing unit using this weapon type. Continue ‘Wounding a target’, ‘Making saves’ and ‘Removing casualties’ until all hits from the firing unit against the target unit have been resolved. When this is done, the active player may start again from ‘Selecting a firing unit and a target unit’ and continue the process until he has no more units he can or wants to shoot with.
Morale checks
When the active player has finished shooting, any unit on the table that suffered 25% or more models in casualties, respective to the amount of models it included at the start of the Shooting phase, must test for Morale. Note this includes the active player’s units in the case friendly fire caused sufficient casualties. Refer to the section on Morale for the handling of Morale checks. When all Morale checks have been resolved, the Shooting phase ends and the Close Combat phase commences.
Shooting phase Example
A unit of 20 Imperial Guardsmen shoots at a unit of 10 Orks. The Imperial Guard have 1 sergeant shooting a plasma pistol, 1 guardsman shooting a meltagun, 2 guardsmen shooting 1 lascannon and 16 guardsmen shooting a lasgun each. The Ork unit is composed of 1 Weirdboy in cover, 1 Mega-armoured Big Mek with Kustom Force Field, 1 Ork Nob, 1 Ork Boy with Big shoota, and 6 Ork Boys with Choppa and Slugga, of which 3 are in cover.
The Imperial Guard player shoots with all his models at once, as they all have the same Ballistic Skill, using a red die for the plasma pistol, a blue die for the lascannon, a black die for the meltagun and white dice for the lasguns. The lasguns get two dice each for their Rapid Fire special rule. After comparing his rolls with the ‘Hitting a target’ table, the Imperial Guard player finds he scored a hit with the plasma pistol, the lascannon and the meltagun, and 15 hits with the lasguns.
The players then take turns allocating hits. The Imperial Guard player starts by allocating the lascannon hit to the Mega-armoured Big Mek. The Ork player then puts the meltagun hit on a Boy in cover. The Imperial Guard player then puts the plasma pistol hit on the Big Mek. This would normally be disallowed, but the Big Mek is the only model in range of the pistol so there is only one option for this hit. The remaining lasgun hits are first distributed to every model that has not yet had a hit allocated to it, after which there are 7 lasgun hits leftover. The Imperial Guard player indicates he wants to hit the Ork characters as much as possible and the Ork player indicates he will place hits on models in cover as much as possible, so the obvious result is that the Weirdboy and Nob take another lasgun hit each, the 3 Boys in cover also take another hit and the last two hits go on Boys in open terrain, making the final allocation:
Weirdboy in cover: 2 lasgun hits
Big Mek: 1 lascannon hit, 1 plasma pistol hit
Nob: 2 lasgun hits
Boy in cover 1: 1 meltagun hit, 1 lasgun hit
Boy in cover 2: 2 lasgun hits
Boy in cover 3: 2 lasgun hits
Boy in open terrain 1: 2 lasgun hits
Boy in open terrain 2: 2 lasgun hits
Boy in open terrain 3: 1 lasgun hit
Boy in open terrain 4: 1 lasgun hit
The Ork player then makes his cover rolls, first individually for the Weirdboy and then simultaneously for the Boys in cover, as the Boys form one target type. The rolls discount a lasgun hit against the Weirdboy, the meltagun hit, and 2 lasgun hits against the Boys in cover.
Then the Ork player gets to make Look out Sir! rolls and manages to re-allocate the lascannon hit and a lasgun hit on the Nob to Boys in open terrain. The tally then stands:
Weirdboy in cover: 1 lasgun hit
Big Mek: 1 plasma pistol hit
Nob: 1 lasgun hit
Boy in cover 1: 1 lasgun hit
Boy in cover 2: 1 lasgun hit
Boy in cover 3: 1 lasgun hit
Boy in open terrain 1: 2 lasgun hits
Boy in open terrain 2: 2 lasgun hits
Boy in open terrain 3: 1 lasgun hit, 1 lascannon hit
Boy in open terrain 4: 2 lasgun hits
The Imperial Guard player then rolls to wound, separating the Orks in target types. The result is:
Weirdboy: safe!
Big Mek: 1 plasma pistol wound
Nob: safe!
Boys: 3 lasgun wounds and 1 lascannon wound
The Ork player then picks up the dice and attempts his saving rolls. The Big Mek’s mega-armour is ignored by the plasma pistol, but he gets to make a 5+ save from his Kustom Force Field. The lascannon likewise ignores the Boys’ armour save, but they too get the save from the Force Field. After saves, the Imperial Guard player has caused no wounds on the characters and 4 wounds on the Boys.
The Ork player then removes 4 wounds worth of Ork Boys, which equals 4 Boys. He elects to remove all the Boys in open terrain except for the Boy with the Big Shoota and then one more Boy in cover. This leaves him the valuable Big Shoota and the best position for his unit, with most of the Boys in cover.
Done! Now I just hope I didn't mess up applying my own rules... Now I could talk a lot more over the relative merits and flaws of this system versus wound allocation, but I figure people are clever enough to work this out themselves. In fact, I count on you being cleverer than me and spotting all the flaws
. All I'll say is that the 'target type' idea would possibly require some rewrites in the Codices to actually work.
(TL;DR: nothing to see here, move along.)
