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I was thinking of how removing the double strength instant death clause from s9 and weaker weapons would effect the game.

For example: what if ID was limited only to force weaponry, inherent ID such as huskblades or boneswords etc, S10 and str D? Literally nothing changes for MCs, bikes, TWC, eternal warriors etc. Basically the 'good stuff' barring very few exceptions.

Otoh we would really only be looking at a buff to toughness 3-4 characters and units of multi wound models, nearly all of which reside in the trashbin currently.. i.e. paladins, all crappy nid warrior/ravener/biovore variants and so on units, nobz and flash gitz, non nurgle marked oblits/mutis, certain DoC units like crushers, and broadsides and wraiths to name a few.  Now out of the above and across the spectrum the vast majority are crap and one of the main reasons is the abundance of instant death. What would be an equalizer and a limiting factor is really not due to the power creep and abundance of T5 and/or eternal warriors.

People are always discussing toning down the number of special weapons, handing out eternal warrior or equivalent immunity or other 'fixes' to these units. This would be a simple across the board targetted fix to toughness 4 and below. So thoughts?

S8 large blasts are a nightmare. If dbl strength did two wounds instead that is still fair imo. Though i think D weapons in normal 40k are cack too.

I think some changes would be good.

I've always thought the following would be nice.


If you suffer an unsaved wound with a strength double or more than your toughness you suffer D3 wounds instead of 1.

If you suffer an unsaved wound from a weapon with the instant death special rule, you suffer D6+1 wounds.

Eternal Warrior: Unsaved wounds with a strength more than double your toughness only cause 1 wound instead of D3. If an unsaved wound with the instant death special rule is suffered, the wound causes D3 wounds instead of D6+1.

Eliminating the double strength = instant death stipulation would make high wound count models significantly better than they already are. My Dark Angels would be even further in the bottom of the army bin because I couldn't black knight rad grenade/vindicator demo cannon Riptides anymore. Seeing as Riptides single-handedly counter 90% of Dark Angel tactics, I see this as a fair trade off.

There would also be very, very little point to S10 weaponry. I can only think of one situation where I'd rather have S10 than S8 Melta, that being against Wraithlord/knights and their stupid T8.

Maybe it should be Toughness x 2 + 1 instead? A lot of very high cost units (Ork Nobs, Nid Warriors, etc.) have multiple wounds can be killed by the prolific Krak missile or some S8 pie-plate. It really restricts what's viable and what can be used.

Should this gib the average T3 guardsman? Yes. T4 Space Marine Captains, Warriors, and Nobs though? I don't think so. If warhammer is supposed to have character defining moments that make interesting narratives maybe make such interesting models more resistant to dying from an errant pie plate or krak missile? Granted, game play and narrative are usually more distinct.

The D3 wounds instead of ID is also another possibility. This would save the hassle of giving Eternal Warrior to a lot of models or adjusting base costs across all the codex books in use.

I think the real issue here is the wound allocation system. It sounds like you want the cool characters who are supposed to be total BAMFs to actually get a chance to shine rather than being one-shotted on their way into combat. Makes sense to me. Realism isn't exactly 40k's strong suit. I say let plot armor and rule of cool have sway over the physics of the 41st millenium.

How would you feel about removing the Look Out Sir! rule, but also changing wound allocation in such a way as to let the player who's getting his face(s) shot off decide which models get removed first? So in a tac squad, melta-bro (or bro who looted melta bro's corpse for the good of the mission) and the captain would also be the last to die thus letting them complete their super important mission of blowing up something or other. the reason for removing Look Out Sir! is to let units with precision shots (such as snipers) shine. Units such as warlocks, incubi, meganoz, etc. could be given "bodyguard" status like back in the day to grant the unit something akin to Look Out Sir to counter this.

So your favorite toys are more likely to see use, snipers are both more important and better at what they do, and bodguards let you protect your warlord relatively well. Latenight spitballing. Thoughts?

I like it. It's only going to make the game more fun in smallish fragile squads.

Could it might make clawing through a 30-strong tarpit to get at an IC frustrating though?

How? Instant death only is concerning to multi-wound models, what are you playing against that fields 30 2-wound tarpits? Besides there is challenging.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I think the real issue here is the wound allocation system.

It is.

Allow the owning player to pull whatever casualties they like, provided that it maximizes the number of models removed from play.

 Quickjager wrote:
How? Instant death only is concerning to multi-wound models, what are you playing against that fields 30 2-wound tarpits? Besides there is challenging.

The Beast Pack. Yes! 8 5 wound fearless models! This change would be a good thing.

Seriously, i hate it when my Archon is always instant deathed that his other wounds don't matter. D3 wounds would make much more sense.

for every hit taken by a weapon that is 3 STR points above a targets toughness, the model suffers an extra wound.

Plasma guns cause two wounds against MEQ, but don't ID GEQ, lascannons cause 3 wounds against GEQ, but only two against MEQ still.

Could also then make an additional rule that any weapon that is TRIPLE a targets toughness, this causes ID as double strength use too.

Now, why this may seem like a boost the GEQ's in some situations, and a slight nerf to MEQ's in some situations (plasma), it also nerfs some MC's, as lascannons and the like will now cause two wounds, but not ID MEQ's etc.

Krak missiles will be useful at taking out centurions now providing you can get past the armor save as they will cause two wounds.. I think it could go a long way to nerving some deathstars whilst not making some units just fold to moderate str weapons.

 Parity wrote:
Maybe it should be Toughness x 2 + 1 instead? A lot of very high cost units (Ork Nobs, Nid Warriors, etc.) have multiple wounds can be killed by the prolific Krak missile or some S8 pie-plate. It really restricts what's viable and what can be used.

Should this gib the average T3 guardsman? Yes. T4 Space Marine Captains, Warriors, and Nobs though? I don't think so. If warhammer is supposed to have character defining moments that make interesting narratives maybe make such interesting models more resistant to dying from an errant pie plate or krak missile? Granted, game play and narrative are usually more distinct.

The D3 wounds instead of ID is also another possibility. This would save the hassle of giving Eternal Warrior to a lot of models or adjusting base costs across all the codex books in use.

4 Warriors costs 120 points. It is exactly as difficult to wipe out this unit with S8+ AP3 weapons (like a krak missile) as it is to wipe out a Carnifex (which also costs 120 points, IIRC) -- that is, it takes 4 wounding hits.

Now, large blasts are a different story admittedly, and it is also true that the Warrior unit will be going down in effectivessness as it loses members. On the other hand, they keep performing their main function of providing synapse.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Looking at the math, the actual place where a carnifex is tougher than 4 warriors is not against S8+ weapons (blasts excepted), but against weapons of the boltgun or lasgun profile -- 72 bolter hits to kill a carnifex vs. 48 for 4 warriotrs.

SRSFACE- To clarify s10 would be the only strength based instant death (maybe that wasn't clear in my initial post). Anything below would need the USR or force.

The intent isn't to help ICs across the spectrum so challenge changes aren't the goal. I just feel it's generally a good thing for multi wound units and characters that occupy the t3-4 range to have the same ID susceptibility and immunity as t5. This change hurts nothing and opens up many units that usually see little play. Currently they get outshined because one must always consider their pts efficiency if one shotted. Very few make the cut when instant death is likely.

The only reason multi-wound T3/4 models are kind of gimp right now is because of the cheap, plentiful, high-volume fire availability of S7 and above weaponry.

When several codexes don't have any drawbacks to packing tons and tons of high strength firepower, the insta-death thing gets kind of obnoxious. Marines are about the only codex out there who actually have to pay significant points to field lots of firepower, and it's usually on models that are fairly easy to take out. If more books worked that way, I really see this as a non-issue.

And for the record, I don't think I've had Belial or Ahriman survive more than a single hit in any game I've ever played, so I know how devastating it can be to lose your big bad HQ to little effort.

Its one of the roots of the problem but realistically changing the plentiful access of S7-8+ across the board just ain't gonna happen. Even GW recognizes this (T5 wraiths) but they choose to go power creep instead of tone down.

Besides that though it really doesn't take a full army of such weaponry to completely invalidate a multi wound unit, just one or two squads dedicated to it.
For example if your running say 2x4 blood crushers because they look sweet and your opponent has brought a unit of missile devs or two and some podded melta both those units become trash. 40+ pt wounds with 5++ saves. Pretty much a duck hunt. Its why crushers, paladins, warriors and so on don't see play except in extremely tame environments.

Its excellent for the game and no, an Ork nob or a SM captain should not tank AT weaponry, that is stupid.

Then I'd guess your against all t5+ units, toughness conferring gear and eternal warriors. You must hate where the games at..

I am not really fond of it, no.

Personally, i think we need more ID and not less with all those annoying MC flying around. Double str ID always made sence. What doesn't is that bikes make you tougher, can turbo-boost through DT and climb ruins with their wheels.

Actually nvm.

 koooaei wrote:
Personally, i think we need more ID and not less with all those annoying MC flying around. Double str ID always made sence. What doesn't is that bikes make you tougher, can turbo-boost through DT and climb ruins with their wheels.

Nah dude, you're forging the narrative wrong. They don't ride up buildings, Ghost Rider style (unless you're Orks, then you're doing it right). They just always have debris positioned just right so they can full speed jump up onto different levels of the building.

Though I can see how Bikes would 'increase toughness'. With how bulky and outlandishly large the bikes are, you'd be more likely to hit the bike than the rider. One could theorize the bikes are fairly well armored as well, despite being a bike. *shrug*

This will make things like necron wraiths even more durable. As is RP should not work on Insta death from double strength:

Also d3 is horrible idea we need less rolls not more.
Toughness 5+ is strong for a reason this is partly why bikes are so competitive. All this does is make everything more durable. Things like eldar and dark eldar and harlequins get significantly stronger. Your not just making weak units like ogryns stronger. You're making strong units stronger too.

It wouldn't effect wraiths because s10 would remain the only strength based ID. Dark eldar bikes it would allow fnp to s8-9 but with skilled jink and their single wound low cost status those aren't the weapons that get pointed at them anyway.

I am not a fan of ID or EW.
I would much rather just let weapons cause an extra wound if they score more than 3 more than they need to wound.

Eg a str8 hit vs a T4 model.(Needing 2+ to wound.)Rather than automatically causing 2 wounds.
If the attacker rolls 2 to 4 they cause one wound.
If the attacker rolls 5 or 6 they cause two wounds.

If the T4 model was hit by a str 5 hit needing a 3+ to wound.
On the roll of a 3 to 5 the model takes one wound.On the roll of 6+ the model takes 2 wounds.

The difference between Str and T, determines the chance of causing multiple wounds.Rather than automatically doubling wounds after a threshold has been reached.

Lanrak wrote:
I am not a fan of ID or EW.
I would much rather just let weapons cause an extra wound if they score more than 3 more than they need to wound.

Eg a str8 hit vs a T4 model.(Needing 2+ to wound.)Rather than automatically causing 2 wounds.
If the attacker rolls 2 to 4 they cause one wound.
If the attacker rolls 5 or 6 they cause two wounds.

If the T4 model was hit by a str 5 hit needing a 3+ to wound.
On the roll of a 3 to 5 the model takes one wound.On the roll of 6+ the model takes 2 wounds.

The difference between Str and T, determines the chance of causing multiple wounds.Rather than automatically doubling wounds after a threshold has been reached.

And now imagine you've got an ork squad with t4 - boyz, t5 - bikerpainboss and t6 - bikerboss simultaniously. You'll have to make sub-pools for every wound pool and nominate which sub-pool of every wound pool gets allocated first.

I hate double strength ID because it doesn't inflict ID often enough. Instead of a binary normal wound vs. ID division at double strength there should be extra wounds as the strength of the weapon increases. The wounded model should suffer an additional wound for each point of strength greater than the toughness of the model. I don't care how tough and heroic you are, if a plasma gun blows your leg off you're not going to be fighting anymore.

Yeah, because Dark Eldar HQ's don't suck enough. Let's make them take double wounds from bolters....

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Yeah, because Dark Eldar HQ's don't suck enough. Let's make them take double wounds from bolters....

Seems like about what we should expect from having a grenade explode inside their body. If anything double wounds is probably too generous in that situation.

I wouldn't mind that, my IG dudes already die at the speed of light so...

I like the Double strength-ID mechanic. I think it plays into the Grim-dark aspect of the 40k universe well. It shows that no matter how great you are, how many planets you may have conquered, how blessed you are by your genes, how many people admire you and how skilled you are you will die horribly and impersonally like all of those Guardsmen you think yourself better than. For in the 41st millennium there is no time for heroes. Heroes will die unremembered to a stray artillery shell fired by a man who did not even know that he or she existed.