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In 8e, there were three values that mattered for Morale:

Your Leadership value.

Modifiers to your Leadership value, including the number of models that died this round.

The D6 roll for Morale.

Add these together, and you'd get the number of lost models that round. As such, almost all "Morale" abilities modified one of these three values; the most exotic variants in the whole game were Furies (who made an extra model flee regardless of the result) and abilities that limited the models who could flee to 1. Unfortunately, in part because this was such a straightforward casualty multiplier, Morale tests became poison to hordes and irrelevant to elites, and most armies had a pretty consistent set of tools for just... outright ignoring Morale. Tyranids had Synapse, Orks had Mob Rule, and so on.

9e introduced new Morale rules, with a much more mechanically granular system. Now there are four values:

Your Leadership value.

Modifiers to your Leadership value, including the number of models that died this round.

The D6 roll for Morale.

The D6 roll for Combat Attrition.

This immediately opens up a huge range of different modifiers. The number of models that flee on a basic Morale fail. Modifiers to Attrition rolls. Attrition re-rolls. The number of Attrition dice you roll. The number of models that flee on a failed Attrition roll. And what's more, failing a basic Morale test isn't itself the end of the world, so more armies can afford to actually engage with the Morale system in interesting ways. Armies like Night Lords or The Dark Creed can actually work without needing to just sidestep the Morale system entirely, instead of being utterly shut down by most armies just by default.

And then Space Marines dropped, and And They Shall Know No Fear just straight-up ignores all Attrition modifiers, no matter the source. Oh, and Dark Angels and Indomitable Chapters just outright ignore Attrition. Ultramarines and Raven Guard also get a flag for ignoring Morale tests entirely. The very first release, for the most widely played army in the game, and the whole concept is immediately thrown out of the window - in the same book that they add new Stratagems and Warlord Traits for being a Scary Dude who modifies Attrition tests! What was the point?

And They Shall Know No Fear could just be "Each time a Combat Attrition test is taken for this unit, ignore any modifiers for being below half-strength", or "If this unit fails a Morale test, a model does not automatically flee", or "Re-roll unmodified rolls of 1 for Combat Attrition tests taken for this unit". Grim Resolve could be "Add 1 to Combat Attrition tests for this unit"; same result as ignoring Attrition entirely, most of the time, but because it's not a blanket ban it leaves the door open for other factions to have fun with Combat Attrition - like Flesh Tearers, whose one unique Stratagem now actually has a purpose against Space Marines.

You're not wrong, but also...

1.) Fluff-wise, almost no armies in 40k should actually be all that susceptible to morale. It should pretty much be a special rule for IG, tau, gretchin, and *maaaaybe* craftworlders. Freaking out when you take casualties just isn't a behavior common enough to most playable factions to warrant being a core mechanic of the game.

2.) If we're revising morale, I feel that having models "run away" really isn't the way to go. My pet preference is to mark a bunch of buffs in the game as "command effects", and then say that units can't benefit from command effects if they failed a morale test in the previous player turn. This is relevant to this thread because I can't picture most of the units in the game having guys run away or become so distracted that they're rendered ineffective for the rest of the battle, but I *can* picture a squad having their groove thrown off by suddenly not having anyone watching the left flank, having their brains messed with by fear gas, or being infuriated by that disrespectful flourish a Night Lord added while he killed your friend.

Wyldhunt wrote:
You're not wrong, but also...

1.) Fluff-wise, almost no armies in 40k should actually be all that susceptible to morale. It should pretty much be a special rule for IG, tau, gretchin, and *maaaaybe* craftworlders. Freaking out when you take casualties just isn't a behavior common enough to most playable factions to warrant being a core mechanic of the game.

2.) If we're revising morale, I feel that having models "run away" really isn't the way to go. My pet preference is to mark a bunch of buffs in the game as "command effects", and then say that units can't benefit from command effects if they failed a morale test in the previous player turn. This is relevant to this thread because I can't picture most of the units in the game having guys run away or become so distracted that they're rendered ineffective for the rest of the battle, but I *can* picture a squad having their groove thrown off by suddenly not having anyone watching the left flank, having their brains messed with by fear gas, or being infuriated by that disrespectful flourish a Night Lord added while he killed your friend.

Yeah. 40k has handled Morale in a number of different ways throughout the years, but the three key ones are:

Debuffs and loss of options if you fail a Morale test, to represent being pinned, confused, shaken, or otherwise distressed

Loss of control if you fail a Morale test, as the unit is forced to retreat and regroup, possibly being overrun in the process

Casualty multiplier, as extra models "flee" or are otherwise lost from units that fail Morale tests

The third type is the simplest of the three, which is probably why it's used in modern 40k and AoS, but it has the flaw of not suiting the character of many armies (even when broken and routed, a Space Marine is hardly going to run off screaming and leave the battle) and being potentially quite extreme, meaning defences against it also have to be very strong. It works best in melee, as literal attrition caused by models being dragged down and trampled; that translates less effectively to shooting casualties.

The first two (as seen in Kill Team, 30k, and previous editions) are more complex, and can potentially feel very bad (if a unit refused to rally, or was locked down and unable to act, for example), but offer a much wider range of potential consequences, meaning defences against them can also be more varied and "softer".

That's important, because you hit the nail on the head when discussing specific armies; in general, Leadership mechanics should exist to support the themes of armies, in terms of how they exploit it (Night Lords, Drukhari, Slaanesh, Raven Guard, shock-and-awe charges, barrages, sniper attacks, psychic horrors, etc) or how they lessen their natural vulnerability to it (Orks mobbing up, Tyranids needing Synapse, T'au relying on Ethereals, Guard using vox for orders, etc). The current "hard" Leadership system discourages these mechanics, because it's so binary and extreme - there's no room for "just a little bit of Morale vulnerability".

Combat Attrition was a step in the right direction for adding some granularity, but it's still in the same ballpark even if Space Marines hadn't utterly fluffed it. Rather than "my mates are all dead, I'll leg it", Leadership can cover discipline, morale, clear lines of communication, and so on. The old rule about having to make a Leadership test to shoot or charge a target other than the closest is a good example - in that situation, Leadership debuffs become less of a casualty multiplier, and more about disrupting the enemy's plans and taking control away from them.