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So, my initial motivation for this is: I collect IG and out of modelling preferences have a lot of infantry. I don't know if and when I will get to play, but I'm already well aware that this might result in buckets of dice being rolled, which is also the case for other armies. On the other hand it seems to me that this excessive number of dice being rolled often does not really have a meaningful impact statistically that could not reproduced by a simpler mechanic.

Therefore I would like to collect and discuss house rules that reduce the number of dice rolled while producing - on average over many dozen rolls - a very similar result. It would also be a very valuable input to point out weaknesses or oddities of those rules, just to be aware of them.
I start with an example:

Rule: Fire/attack twice (or multiple times) effects (Rapid fire, IG order FRFSRF, Titanic feet rules creating 3 attacks per regular attack
Proposed change "each successful hit is count as two hits"
Effect: The average number of successful hit stays the same. 10 BS4+ Lasguns in rapid fire range currently roll 20 dice for 10 hits. The same Lasguns would instead roll 10 dice for 5 successes resulting in the same 10 hits. The difference would mainly be that no odd number of hits can be created
Oddities:
1. The chance for extreme results shifts a bit. 2d6 being rolled have a 27.8% chance to roll exactly one "1" and 2.8% chance to roll exactly two for 30.6% to roll at least one "1". With the new rules this would change to 16% to roll exactly two/at least one.
=> Rapid fire Plasma would become safer, Weapons that trigger something on a 6+ to hit would have a lower chance to trigger that at all but a higher chance to trigger it two times
2. Especially for rules creating multiple attacks (for example FRFSRF + Rapid fire range for 4 times the shots) on low model units this leads to a much higher chance than usual to score no hits at all or maximum hits. Example: a single guardsman under FRFSRF in rapid fire range would have 50% chance to miss completely and 50% chance to hit four times instead of 6.25% to get these extreme results
Conclusion: It should work out OK on weapons that don't do anything special on a 1 or 6 and with larger units like Conscripts, Infantry squads, Boyz. It could be problematic on things like Plasma or low model count units. So it is a potential house rule to reduce the number of dice for IG.



Other example:
Rule: reroll 1s (effectivly just a +16% in whatever output you get
Proposed change: roll the corresponding part of the attack sequence for the whole unit, multiply by 7/6, round
Effect At least over a large number of rolls, the average stays the same. => 20 BS4+ attacks rerolling 1s: average 11.7 hits. Alternative: 20 BS4+ hits generate 10 hits. Multiply by 7/6 and round: 12 hits.
Oddities:
1. there might be some cases where this favors/punishes models that by this multiplication step get something like x.49 or x.51 resulting in "loosing" or "gaining" 0.5 hits. This would be most pronounced on something usually EDIT: resulting in average 3.5 successes after rerolling 1s which would under this proposed rule result in average 4 successes
2. as above the propability to roll a 1 or 6 would change a bit. Rerolling 1s leads to a 2.8% chance to have a 1 and a 19.4% chance to have a 6. This new rules would leave both at 16%
Conclusion: Again, it should work out for units with large model and attack count. You would mostly need a calculator so one would have to try out, if there is an improvement in time consumption or not. Also again: better leave this to units that don't trigger something special on a specific dice roll.

Rule: reroll all misses
=> effect is
BS6+: from 16.7% to 30.6%
BS5+: from 33.3% to 55.6%
BS4+: from 50% to 75%
BS3+: from 66.7% to 88.9%
BS2+: from 83.3% to 97.2%
Proposed change: +1 to hit
Effect compared to reroll all hits:
BS6+: 33.3% instead of 30.6% (3.3%)
BS5+: 50% instead of 55.6% (-5.6%)
BS4+: 66.7% instead of 75% (-8.3%)
BS3+: 83.3% instead of 88.9% (-5.5%)
BS2+: 100% instead of 97.2% (-2.8%)
Oddities: 0% chance to get a 1, 33% chance to get a 6
Conclusion:: would mostly be a downgrade (especially on BS4+), but within an exaptable margin. Might cause problems together with special effects on 1 and 6 like DAKKADAKKADAKKA, but could be something for the few situations were Guard etc. reroll all shots (like in range of Yarrick against Orks)

Alternative take if one is not opposed to calculators:
Proposed change: multiply # of successes with 11/36 (BS6+), 5/3 (BS5+), 3/2 (BS4+), 4/3 (BS3+), 7/6 (BS2+) resulting in the same average numbers as with rerolling all misses
Oddities: As above, will change probability for 1s and 6s. Need for a calculator puts potential for time saving into question.
Conclusion: Maybe?

Even if mathematically is equivalent, I think this will really change the flavour of the game.

Considering the increased (and excessive) lethality I would instead suggest to ENTIRELY REMOVE the "to hit roll" and convert the RoF of any weapons accordingly.

Since now we only have a -1 potential modifier, that can be easily integrated as a factor in the number of hit.

So, for example, an Assault Cannon for IG will cause 3 Wound roll. A unit of Guardsman will cause 1 Wound roll for any 2 Guardsman. An Ork Mod will cause 1 Wound roll any 3 Boys in range combat, etc. etc.

This way, you really save time instead of using your time saved from roll to make calculations.

Ok, that's a pretty cool idea. I did not think of that. It would change stuff that happens on 1 or 6 to hit and remove a lot of variance, but in the large average it's a pretty smooth way to do things, at least in stuff that does not degrade.

Play apocalypse. Once you reduce the way the mechanic work from a per model to a per unit the number of dice being rolled is drastically reduced. I think the biggest pile of dice I ever rolled was 12 and that was a unit of 30 termagants with devourers.

If you really want to reduce the number of dice rolls while still retaining something similar to 40k I think you have to remove the 1-to-1 correlation between number of guns and number of shots. The main reason we have so many dice rolls right now is a combination of the prevalence of re-rolls and the insane number of dice units roll in the first place.

So, instead of rolling 18 dice per Aggressor, for example, you could easily just adjust the stats for any shots above 20. So instead of rolling more dice you get +1 strength, or maybe even +1 to wound, so you treat units a bit like vehicles with degrading stats as they lose models. That gets you somewhere close to how Apocalypse works but still within the mechanics of 40k. Thematically it's basically simulating the fact that once you've created a literal wall of bullets there comes a point where it stops mattering whether there are 50 being fired per second or 100, they'll be just as lethal either way.

Between two consenting players, anything is possible.

Any amount of rolling reduction will favour “elite” attacks. Fewer numbers of attacks are more impactful when you “0-spike” a roll. Your 5 attacks of doom all miss... devastating. Your 20 lasguns only get 5 hits? Meh... was unlikely to achieve much anyway.

It also fudges with only on 1 and only on 6 effects.

Rerolling 1’s to hit has a varying impact depending on the BS of your unit. A 1 is roughly 16% chance, but rerolling on a subsequent 4+ only improves by 8%, if you catch my drift. Guardsman with reroll 1’s raises from 50% to 58.3%. Marine rerolling 1’s goes from 66.7% to 77.7% (11%).

 greatbigtree wrote:
Between two consenting players, anything is possible.

Any amount of rolling reduction will favour “elite” attacks. Fewer numbers of attacks are more impactful when you “0-spike” a roll. Your 5 attacks of doom all miss... devastating. Your 20 lasguns only get 5 hits? Meh... was unlikely to achieve much anyway.

It also fudges with only on 1 and only on 6 effects.

Rerolling 1’s to hit has a varying impact depending on the BS of your unit. A 1 is roughly 16% chance, but rerolling on a subsequent 4+ only improves by 8%, if you catch my drift. Guardsman with reroll 1’s raises from 50% to 58.3%. Marine rerolling 1’s goes from 66.7% to 77.7% (11%).

RR1s always has the same relative impact. 7/6 improvement.

36 BS4+ shots gets 18 hits. RR1s, that improves to 21.
36 BS3+ shots get 24 hits. RR1s, that improves to 28.
In both cases, they increase by the same proportion.

Hmmm.... I agree that a 7/6 factor is applied to the net results in all cases.

What I’m getting at is that the better your baseline ability, the more valuable a reroll 1 effect is. For example, 6+ reroll 1’s results in a roughly 3% increase in accuracy, whereas a 2+ reroll 1’s results in a 14% increase in accuracy.

I suppose that’s irrelevant for this discussion though. I’ll see myself out.

As Apocalypse was mentioned: is there some website that gives a rough glimpse at those rules to get a general impression?

Also: my collection is currently some 3500 points of IG, but mostly infantry and so far no Lord of War. Does Apocalypse make any sense with such an army?

 Pyroalchi wrote:
As Apocalypse was mentioned: is there some website that gives a rough glimpse at those rules to get a general impression?

Also: my collection is currently some 3500 points of IG, but mostly infantry and so far no Lord of War. Does Apocalypse make any sense with such an army?

https://warhammer40000.com/apocalypse/

Every armies datasheets are available on there for free as well.

The game is pitched as a 300 PL minimum game but playing at 100-150 PL is roughly a 2k point game and totally workable as a way to play 40k without all the dumb gak in actual 40k.