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In WHFB, generally Str 3 T 3 races with heroes and lords who were geared for combat were upgraded to have strength and/or toughness 4. I thought this was a rather cool distinction, and made buying combat gear less of a no-go considering it's usually priced the same for all factions despite different base stats. Eldar characters could especially gain from this, as of now just a plain old power sword is never an option for an Archon or Succubus due to the measily Str 3.

The HQ's I'd say warrent this kind of buff would be:

Autarchs
Succubus
Archon
Lord Commissars
Canoness
Inquisitors in power/terminator armour

It's rather telling that Dark Eldar would rather skip their HQ's all together in favour of a 12pt Lhlamean, str 3 just isn't suitable for combat characters unless they have something really fancy to make up for it,

The problems here:

In 40k S/T4 is a Space Marine, who's explicitly too big/fancy for a normal unaltered human to compete with. WHFB didn't have that point of comparison to worry about.

The basic issue with duelist HQs isn't that they don't have S/T4, it's that any duelist HQ has to be judged in competition with a Space Marine Captain in Terminator/Artificer armour with a powerfist, because that's what they're running into more often than not. The HQs you've listed a) don't/can't have 2+ armour, b) can't beat through 2+ armour fast enough to one-round a Captain before he gets to swing, and c) get doubled out by a powerfist and thus die before getting to do anything. Non-Marine/Ork/MC duelist HQs don't get used because the Instant Death rules make trying to kit them out an expensive waste of time, not because they're stuck with S/T3.

And the more pronounced underlying issue is that the 'HQ' slot means 'expensive melee beatstick' unless we're talking about a psyker or a Guard officer; there aren't enough support abilities, so commanders are stuck in the 'hitting people' role when intuitively and practically they ought to be doing things other than challenging people to single combat.

S/T4 is a surface patch that doesn't really go after the actual issue and wouldn't make that much of a difference, to the point where I wouldn't actually object to proposing to give all S/T3 HQs S/T4 for free.

(Inquisitors and Canonesses might need to pay for it, on second thought; they've got access to 2+ armour, EW, and powerfists.)

Elite S3 models often get a lot of A instead, meaning more rolls of S3 than a S4 would usually get.

Also, Eldar often get HoW, drive-by attacks or Hit&Run.

S3 is often a problem but it usually gets helped by other things.

I think there are 2 larger problems.

1.) High WS is offensively very meaningless. You never hit on 2s in CC so trying to portray a character as skillful in CC is difficult. I'd love to see WS work almost like BS where you improve the higher it gets. So if you are +1 better than your opponent you hit on 3s, +2 hit on 2s, +3 hit on 2s re-roll hit on 6 etc. So a WS 10 warrior against a WS 4 troop would hit on a 2+ re-roll to a 3+.


2.) From a fluff stand point these highly skilled warriors should have more attacks, but still the lower Str. So maybe a Succubus, has 6 attacks base. So with 2 weapons and charge would have 8 S3 attacks.


If you combined these 2 things you would have 8 WS 8 attacks so against a WS 6 Space Marine Chapter master. You would average 6.67 hits, 2.22 wounds prior to any save. With an agonizer it would go up to 3.33 wounds pre save

Against a standard space marine squad the agonizer wielding succubus would, hit 7 times on average and deal 3.5 wounds. Even with a power sword you would get 2.4 wounds.


I think that would make them seem plenty good in CC. The issue is on the durability end, other than having WS high enough to get hit on 5s (again if you fixed the chart so that you got hit on 6s at some point, maybe WS+2 is hit on 5s, WS +4 hit on 6s), there is very little durability if you have a low save, and low toughness.

Breng77 wrote:
1.) High WS is offensively very meaningless. You never hit on 2s in CC so trying to portray a character as skillful in CC is difficult. I'd love to see WS work almost like BS where you improve the higher it gets. So if you are +1 better than your opponent you hit on 3s, +2 hit on 2s, +3 hit on 2s re-roll hit on 6 etc. So a WS 10 warrior against a WS 4 troop would hit on a 2+ re-roll to a 3+.

This is sort of how the Shadow Wars works (and will be how 8th ed will use?) Both players roll, add their WS and add in any mods. The difference is the number of hits. 'S against T' is still used to wound.

That is better than the current system at least, though it seems in that system it is almost pointless trying to attack high WS models if you are low weapon skill. For instance WS 4 vs 10 means you never hit at all. Which means unless there is some bonus for having more models 100 ork boyz can never hit a blood thirster (4 vs 9 ends up the same) That almost skews things too far toward high WS models.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problems here:

In 40k S/T4 is a Space Marine, who's explicitly too big/fancy for a normal unaltered human to compete with. WHFB didn't have that point of comparison to worry about.

To counter this argument we could say that Strength (and Toughness) doesn't need to represent brute force in all account. It can represent the ease with which an individual blowss can cause injuries. Thus, precision and technic can be factored in in more than just WS. A human with S 4 isn't has physically mighty, but will kill just as easily.

epronovost wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problems here:

In 40k S/T4 is a Space Marine, who's explicitly too big/fancy for a normal unaltered human to compete with. WHFB didn't have that point of comparison to worry about.

To counter this argument we could say that Strength (and Toughness) doesn't need to represent brute force in all account. It can represent the ease with which an individual blowss can cause injuries. Thus, precision and technic can be factored in in more than just WS. A human with S 4 isn't has physically mighty, but will kill just as easily.

That can go further for the more able Space Marines and we'd have to give them S5.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problems here:

In 40k S/T4 is a Space Marine, who's explicitly too big/fancy for a normal unaltered human to compete with. WHFB didn't have that point of comparison to worry about.

To counter this argument we could say that Strength (and Toughness) doesn't need to represent brute force in all account. It can represent the ease with which an individual blowss can cause injuries. Thus, precision and technic can be factored in in more than just WS. A human with S 4 isn't has physically mighty, but will kill just as easily.

That can go further for the more able Space Marines and we'd have to give them S5.

Indeed which wouldn't be such a bad thing in my opinion, especially for those in termy plates or Heroes and Honor Guards for example.

Elf guyz usually have their s/t balanced out by gear and other special rules. For example, you usually see an autarch with a lance or a claw - means he's usually s6+. And he's often riding a bike - means he's t4. Or farseers with flesh-bane/armor bane spears. Dark eldar also have poison, high ini and 2++ to offset low str and toughness.

Btw, most named eldar characters have s4 t4. Al lthe phoenix lords at least.

To me the strength is not usually the problem for T3 melee characters.
It's that they have very little (if any) access to Eternal warrior.
Which when str 6 is all that is needed to instant death you means if they get hit they are doomed.
They also (Typically) don't have access to as good saves as the tougher characters (Usually topping out at 3+/4++ Fnp if you're lucky. While the are fighting things with 2+/3++/FNP)
So even if their weapon(s) do pierce the armour it doesn't tend to matter

So what advantages do they have- higher Ws (Yay hit on 3's rather than 4's big deal)
Higher I (Can actually be useful if the dice gods are on your side in that moment)

Jbz` wrote:
They also (Typically) don't have access to as good saves as the tougher characters (Usually topping out at 3+/4++ Fnp if you're lucky. While the are fighting things with 2+/3++/FNP)

They can usually get ways to improve that save, though.
Mobility to get out of LOS, psykers to buff them, drugs, etc.

So what advantages do they have- higher Ws (Yay hit on 3's rather than 4's big deal)

It isn't that they hit more often, it is often that their opponents hit them less.

 Skinnereal wrote:
It isn't that they hit more often, it is often that their opponents hit them less.

Except they don't most of the time. It's a very rare occurrence for a model to hit on worse than a 4+
Especially in a HQ vs HQ fight

I'd just rather have the ability to use guns in CC. a fire warrior or guardsman get in a fistfight range of say and ork or space marine they're going to use their guns instead of futilely trying to stab an orc to death or penetrate ceramite with bayonets. (exception given to Kriegers and penal legions)

Commissar Bob Kerman wrote:
I'd just rather have the ability to use guns in CC. a fire warrior or guardsman get in a fistfight range of say and ork or space marine they're going to use their guns instead of futilely trying to stab an orc to death or penetrate ceramite with bayonets. (exception given to Kriegers and penal legions)

GJ you just made Tau the best in both range and cheap CC.