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Or ... you activate one of your units, moving into position and shooting at one of those Tactical squads. You get lucky and gun down 8 of them. Next, another Tactical squad does the same to one of your unactivated units, or it moves into cover, a flanking position, etc.

If the activation sequence is fixed (the only game I can think of like that is the long-OOP Confrontation, or a lot of RPGs), then what's to say your active unit is in position to do anything to the next enemy unit to activate (if each side's activation sequence is even known to the other player, or to the controlling player for that matter)?

I think it's cool. Just because you hit and penetrate the armor/carapace/thick skin/whatever, doesn't mean you kill. A space marine is what? 7+ feet tall? I think a SM or ork could easily withstand a shot or two, hence the wound roll to see if they survive.

Therefore you prefer the To Hit/To Wound/To Save combat resolution over To Hit/To Save?

This is a terrible idea. No argument is even necessary.

From a gameplay perspective, the 3 rolls are there to help differentiate between outcomes, for example the probability of rolling 3 6s in a row is 1/216, to get the same probability with 2 dice, those dice would need at least 30 sides between them (ie D20 + D10 gives 1/200)

The order (to hit, to wound, to save) was probably decided upon because then the defending player rolls last, instead of in the middle, more intuitive in terms of gameplay, less so when considering what is 'actually' happening.

123ply wrote:
This is a terrible idea. No argument is even necessary.

That is right. No argument is necessary, but debating is. Also it's fun debating as well.

machineuk wrote:


The order (to hit, to wound, to save) was probably decided upon because then the defending player rolls last, instead of in the middle, more intuitive in terms of gameplay, less so when considering what is 'actually' happening.

Yeah, the illogic of the armour save being made after the wound roll has long irritated me. It's also questionable as to why it isn't the active player "rolling to pierce" as opposed to the inactive player rolling saves. I get that it gives the inactive player something to do, but I wonder is that really important -during my opponents turn -while I like to pay attention to the outcomes of shooting and assaults - I'd sooner have some time to observe the battlefield than rolling bunches of dice.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Yeah, the illogic of the armour save being made after the wound roll has long irritated me.

Mechanically it's sound. If you get 10 hits, you have 10 potential wounds. Sure you can roll 10 dice now and see how many you save, but it's easier to roll the wounds first. After all if you don't get anythen you can skip the save step altogether. Remember 40k used to deal in much lower volumes of fire which is where this system originated. Back when it was 'these two marines shoot at that ork, I'll roll my 2 dice to hit' it made a lot more sense not to waste time saving wounds that weren't by any means guaranteed. Now the volumes of fire are so great some number of wounds is almost inevitable.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Yeah, the illogic of the armour save being made after the wound roll has long irritated me. It's also questionable as to why it isn't the active player "rolling to pierce" as opposed to the inactive player rolling saves. I get that it gives the inactive player something to do, but I wonder is that really important -during my opponents turn -while I like to pay attention to the outcomes of shooting and assaults - I'd sooner have some time to observe the battlefield than rolling bunches of dice.

It works that way because GW wants to give you the illusion of being able to do something to "save" your models from death. Even though you aren't making any choices you still have that moment where you roll the dice and hope your models will survive. It's the kind of artificial "action" that GW is a fan of, even the most clueless newbie can still "save" just as many models as the most experienced veteran and feel like they accomplished something. But at some point you realize that you're just rolling dice for the sake of rolling dice, and the system is a bloated mess with no real strategic depth.

The illusion of agency over events completely out of player control (such as save results) is nothing unique to GW, and us a cornerstone in game design.

Even when the player can't do anything, you want him to FEEL like he did, and saves accomplish this. And such tool, much like placebo medicine, are still just as effective as you are aware if them.
It matters not the result was random as long you feel you did something even a hail merry attempt. It will make the low odd that succeeded feel great and the sure save that failed feel painful.

Simple and efficent design tool, even if it looks wonky when you really look at it.



Now, it's best used when implementated with some meaningful choices alongside it, 40k only has the jink/gotoground and the lookoutsir mechanics there for most units, but even with so little, even if there were none, it's still a useful tool.

 Kojiro wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Yeah, the illogic of the armour save being made after the wound roll has long irritated me.

Mechanically it's sound. If you get 10 hits, you have 10 potential wounds. Sure you can roll 10 dice now and see how many you save, but it's easier to roll the wounds first. After all if you don't get anythen you can skip the save step altogether. Remember 40k used to deal in much lower volumes of fire which is where this system originated. Back when it was 'these two marines shoot at that ork, I'll roll my 2 dice to hit' it made a lot more sense not to waste time saving wounds that weren't by any means guaranteed. Now the volumes of fire are so great some number of wounds is almost inevitable.

It should still be rolling a save to negate a hit. It makes more sense that way.
If an hit is blocked by armor, then that hit cannot wound, no? It doesn't seem logical that an injury is magically cancelled out by armor.
I get that its potential wounds; that the wound could have happened, but it was negated. But that just adds padding, doesn't it? If the wound didn't happen due to armor, then why bother rolling for it?

The system should really be hit --> save --> Wound

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
The system should really be hit --> save --> Wound

The problem is this means passing the dice back and forth an extra time. It's simpler to have one player finish all of their rolls then have the other player do theirs.

Why are people arguing that rolling dice should be closer to an approximation of what "would" happen?

It's a game, not a simulation. Players literally take turns to move their whole armies made up of sentient mushrooms, daemons or magical space men. The order of dice rolling is the last thing on the list when it comes to realism.

You could of course bundle all of it in to one roll. To hit/to wound/to save could easily be simplified to a single roll. I don't think it'd really be of benefit though, I never found the 3 rolls to be all that time consuming unless you're playing against someone who is a slow roller. What slows down 40k and can make the game tedious isn't the rolling so much as the movement, model removal, excessive special rules that interrupt the flow of the game and so forth.

123ply wrote:
This is a terrible idea. No argument is even necessary.

It's not that bad an idea. It's worked OK for over 30 years, after all.

With the current system there is no way we could remove to wound rolls. The six sided die just doesnt have enough variation for that. However if you moved to a d20 that would be a different story. On the other hand who wants to roll 50 lasgun shots with d20's? Who actually has 50 d20's? I may have about 20 but definitely not 50.

machineuk wrote:
From a gameplay perspective, the 3 rolls are there to help differentiate between outcomes, for example the probability of rolling 3 6s in a row is 1/216, to get the same probability with 2 dice, those dice would need at least 30 sides between them (ie D20 + D10 gives 1/200)

The order (to hit, to wound, to save) was probably decided upon because then the defending player rolls last, instead of in the middle, more intuitive in terms of gameplay, less so when considering what is 'actually' happening.

That is correct, however does the game need to differentiate between outcomes whose difference in probability is under 0.5%?

To put it in practical terms, do we really need to be able to establish that Unit A is 0.46% more likely than Unit B to successfully attack enemy Unit 1?

The use of two D6 gives outcomes with a difference of under 3%, allowing you to have 35 discreet attack/defence graduations without taking into account range, rate of fire, hit points, tactical modifiers and other variables that can be used to create additional variation between units.

If the game was made slicker and faster, it would be easier to play more matches in a given time, or else play larger matches. Either option gives you a bigger range of possible outcomes with more opportunities to affect them by tactics of actually playing the game rather than selecting a particular unit type to gain a 0.46% advantage.

 Xerics wrote:
With the current system there is no way we could remove to wound rolls. The six sided die just doesnt have enough variation for that. However if you moved to a d20 that would be a different story. On the other hand who wants to roll 50 lasgun shots with d20's? Who actually has 50 d20's? I may have about 20 but definitely not 50.

Wich is not true for 40k.
The variation in 40k is non existend and a single D6 would be enough to cover all possibilities from all units out there.
If you keep 2 D6 rolls, you gave enough variation for a good SciFi Mass Skirmish game.

40k has 3 dice rolls, but does not use the possibilities of variation they give them.
It is a good idea to keep hit/wound/save if they would be used to add more variation to the game and not just keep the same 3 different kind of units for all factions.

 Peregrine wrote:
The better solution is to remove saves from the game. Get rid of the silly idea that the owner of a model always gets to roll a die to see if they can save it and just have a single roll of strength vs. toughness. The system would have to be re-scaled, of course, but the end result would remove some of the tedious dice rolling.

The dice roll to save is the only response you get to shooting, other than to declare going to ground. Otherwise you could just go to the bathroom during your opponents turn. it gives you something to do and a stake in whats happening.

This debate usually comes down to either-

Armour becoming a toughness bonus and consequently AP being a strength bonus- playing havoc with low AP anti infantry weapons like Hellguns and inferno bolts.
Toughness becoming an armour bonus with strength becoming an AP modifier or AP becoming a modifier to saves.

LOTR already required a roll to hit and EXTRA rolls to hit for high toughness/armoured targets like Trolls (hit on a 6 and then another 5 or whatever)
That's the same damn thing as a to-wound/save roll- just more tedious because the same player is doing all the rolling.

I'd be far more in favour of the to-hit roll being folded into the to-wound roll as a modifier. BS2 would become BS-2. The effect would be that a BS2 model with a lasgun shooting a T4 target would need a 5+ to wound, modified to a 7+(treat as 6?) because of BS.
A BS 5 model would wound a t4 target on a 5, modified to 3+ because of BS.

This would nicely allow BS higher than 5 to have a decent effect ingame again.

Griddlelol wrote:Why are people arguing that rolling dice should be closer to an approximation of what "would" happen?

Who is arguing? Surprisingly we are not arguing, we are having a friendly debate.

Has anyone seen the one page 40k ruleset?

There are no strength values, only more dice generated. Marines are 3+ troops meaning they generate hits on a 3+ and save hits generated against them on a 3+.

A lascannon generates the same amount of dice as a plasmacannon. In practice this means that they are equally good at killing troops and vehicles - though the lascannon has more range.

A solution to this and other problems with removing toughness/saves would be to give weapons a separate anti personnel/ anti tank value like epic.

Davor wrote:

Griddlelol wrote:Why are people arguing that rolling dice should be closer to an approximation of what "would" happen?

Who is arguing? Surprisingly we are not arguing, we are having a friendly debate.

Argue doesn't have to mean angry. It can simply mean to put forth your opinions or reasons for/against something.

If we didn't have the to wound roll.... The imperial guard would be the best faction in the game. But unlike 40k, bolt action you always wound on a three... Try that if you don't like wound rolls that are too "Serious or big"

It makes sense to me to keep wound rolls. Hits don't necessarily have to be significantly damaging by their nature.

And like others have said, the saves are a way to keep the other player invested. It makes the game more interactive, and when you're playing a game, you usually want to interact with it in some way (at least I do), so I like having the chance to roll some saves.

So I would argue to keep it as it is.

 Griddlelol wrote:

Davor wrote:

Griddlelol wrote:Why are people arguing that rolling dice should be closer to an approximation of what "would" happen?

Who is arguing? Surprisingly we are not arguing, we are having a friendly debate.

Argue doesn't have to mean angry. It can simply mean to put forth your opinions or reasons for/against something.

Dang you are right. Just checked the dictionary online and first description is what you said. The way I see it is the seconded description when "things get heated" lol. Never knew argue would be taken as a debate, always thought it was when people get heated or angry. Learn something new everyday.

Davor wrote:

 Griddlelol wrote:

Davor wrote:

Griddlelol wrote:Why are people arguing that rolling dice should be closer to an approximation of what "would" happen?

Who is arguing? Surprisingly we are not arguing, we are having a friendly debate.

Argue doesn't have to mean angry. It can simply mean to put forth your opinions or reasons for/against something.

Dang you are right. Just checked the dictionary online and first description is what you said. The way I see it is the seconded description when "things get heated" lol. Never knew argue would be taken as a debate, always thought it was when people get heated or angry. Learn something new everyday.

That's why in a debate, you're often asked to present an argument. It doesn't have to have the connotation of aggression, we've just attached that connotation.

 Peregrine wrote:
But at some point you realize that you're just rolling dice for the sake of rolling dice, and the system is a bloated mess with no real strategic depth.

Too right

 Griddlelol wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Can you provide an example for your reasoning, because it sounds like youve never played an alternate activation system at all, or at least are very bad at them.

I've never played one. My instinct is that:

Say there are 3 tactical squads of 10 men.

If I shoot one, and reduce it to 2 models, it's now basically useless. 2 bolters aren't going to be a threat to anything. There's now no reason to shoot at it again. So I move on to the next unit. Shoot it until it's neutered and continue until all units are no longer a threat, but never wasting so much firepower as a unit is entirely destroyed - what's the point? At 2 models it's no longer a threat to anything.

Of course it depends if the unit activation is set, or whether it's changed depending on the player's choice. If it's set then you just attack what ever unit is next. If it depends on the player's choice it's different.

I don't really understand how this is a criticism of alternate activation game systems. Everything you said also applies to how 40K works now.

I didn't say it was a criticism...at least I didn't intend to.

More just thinking out loud as I've never played an alternative activation system. Even video games are all classically turn based.

I wouldn't fight the change if it was good!

All I think about is DE.

Dis Cannon is 3 shot ap2

I can put in 37 Dis Cannons into a 1850 list

Thats 111 AP2 36" shots all on vehicles that can move 12" and fire with 14 ObjSec units as well.

If I go 1st you better have a Tank Army.