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It came up in a thread on the general discussion about indestructible units, and as I didn't want to derail the thread, I thought it would be a good one to discuss here.

The premise is simple:

WS and BS is rolled against Initiative, which is representative of a units ability to dodge being hit. the idea thrown in was:

Skill double I or more, Hit on 2+
Skill greater than I but not double, Hit on 3+
Skill equal to I, hit on 4+
Skill less than I but not half, Hit on 5+
Skill half of I or less, Hit on 6

Now in theory this sounds like a great idea to me. You can shoot a tank a darn-sight easier than shooting a harlequin, and furthermore it allows the flexibility of WS & BS to go all the way up to 10.

The downside for me is going to be in how well it scales. It's fair to guess that tanks, in general, will have I1, and so will be easily hit by damn near everything, even Orks, which seems counter-intuitive. You could add a rule limiting each races abilities, but then that skews the system.

If you give Vehicles I2, then you need WS/BS4 to hit them on a 2+. BS3 would hit on a 3+, BS2 on a 4+, so that works fairly well. Then Infantry would be I3 in general, meaning BS2, BS3 and BS4 hit as they do now (5+, 4+, 3+). Fancy eldar (EG harlequins) might be I4 or even I5 or 6 to represent their dodginess, and lose their invulns to compensate.

I would then also look to make any "± to hit" rules instead confer adjustments to the statistics, so a unit with I5 which is subject to what is currently a -1 to hit effect would instead get +1I, meaning BS3 now hits on a 6, BS4 still hits on a 5, BS5 now hits on a 5, and BS6 now hits on a 4. This means that playing a "-1 to hit" effect on an already hard to hit unit may not actually help much.

What are peoples views on this?

We've discussed variations on this in the past. I really like the idea in theory, but finding exactly the right numbers is tricky. If initiative looks like this...

Orks 2
Humans/Marines 3
Eldar 4

...and BS looks like this...

Orks 2
Humans 3
Eldar/Marines 4

... Then the humans feel about right, but the poor orks are suddenly much less survivable and only hit fast armies like eldar half as often as they do now. You could up Ork initiative to 3, but then we're basically just talking about an always-on to-hit penalty against fast armies like eldar.

If you spread that range out a bit...

INITIATIVE
Orks 3
Humans 4
Eldar 5

BS
Orks 3
Humans 4
Eldar 5
Marine Captain 6

... Then the orks aren't punished quite as much on the offensive but still get hit more often than normal.

Basically, you're going to end up nerfing slow armies and buffing fast armies. Which can work, but the relative points values of units will need to be updated accordingly. (And yes, I realize that that's the case with pretty much any change proposed in this section of the forum.)

Also, I worry that especially high stats might get a little wonky. Orks and humans hit an I5 craftworlder on a 5+. Fair enough. Now, are my harlequins an even higher initiative than the craftworlders? If so the orks are functionally facing an army of calidus assassins. Back in the day, my succubus and troupe master were (iirc) I8, so the same would be true against humans for those models. I guess what I'm saying is maybe it would be better to confine the Skill and Initiative tats to a relatively limited range.

 some bloke wrote:

I would then also look to make any "± to hit" rules instead confer adjustments to the statistics, so a unit with I5 which is subject to what is currently a -1 to hit effect would instead get +1I, meaning BS3 now hits on a 6, BS4 still hits on a 5, BS5 now hits on a 5, and BS6 now hits on a 4. This means that playing a "-1 to hit" effect on an already hard to hit unit may not actually help much.

What are peoples views on this?

My gut impression is that it might be better to stick to flat to-hit modifiers instead. In my local gaming group, we typically write lists before knowing who or what we'll be playing against. Finding out at the table that I gave my warlock a psychic power that won't matter against my opponent's Skill stats, it's going to feel frustrating rather than rewarding. A flat to-hit modifier means that said psychic power will always do something regardless of whether I'm facing orks, humans, or other eldar.

Sorry. I rambled a ton there. Overall, I really like the concept. Using everyone's 7th edition stats +1 feels like a good starting point. So orks (who were I2) would now be I3, BS3, and WS 5.

I like it. Except perhaps as mentioned spread it out a bit more at the high end. At minimum, you'd only need 6s if the Initiative was 3x your skill.

Then you can also have certain weapons which always hit on a flat roll. Like a Flamer for instance.