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 Mr Morden wrote:
Don't some of the psychic abilities do it as well?

Entirely possible, though I've no idea which ones.

In any case, it's not like the current psychic system is the pinnacle of balance to begin with.

Id agree that hand to hand needs a little help. We're well past the bad old days where you could overrun into another unit & start another combat.

Id say GW needs to get rid of random charge, challenges or improve the to-hit chart. Getting a 2+ to hit if you double your opponents ws is good. I believe doubling is good, not more then doubling. That way a chapter master hits a cultist on a 2, a Deldar warrior hits a Fire Warrior on a 2, as well. On the reverse, said inferior opponents would hit on 5s.

Just one change would be needed I believe. If I had to choose one I'd say random charge. The overkill change to challenged demoted it to a lesser evil. An improved to-hit would be a good consolation prize.

With that chart, you would need to remove master crafted and digital weapons as well as preferred enemy. They're way too cheap for what they do together with that.

 Purifier wrote:
With that chart, you would need to remove master crafted and digital weapons as well as preferred enemy. They're way too cheap for what they do together with that.

Sorry, but that's a really idiotic solution.

Not all units with one or more of those rules will even be benefiting from the new chart. My Destroyer Lord has Preferred Enemy and sometimes Master Crafted too. That'll make him unstoppable with his... WS4. But I guess his now needing 5s and 6s to hit many enemies needs to be balanced by... making him even worse as hitting.

Also, whilst preferred enemy is good for high-WS characters, is Master Crafted really that amazing?

I don't even see the connection with regard to digital weapons.

 vipoid wrote:
I can think of only 3 in the entire game, none of which seem particularly strong.

Could you list the bunch of models that would benefit so much from this?

There is the avatar, the bloodthirster and… I do not know, others…

 vipoid wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

- All the stuff that reduce WS in the game is removed or toned down.

What like?

The only thing that comes to mind is Fear, and if you tone that down any more you might as well just remove it from the game entirely.

I kind of remember Dark Angels have stuff like this, and then some horrible grenades some Inquistor can take. And then there is blinding.

 vipoid wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
With that chart, you would need to remove master crafted and digital weapons as well as preferred enemy. They're way too cheap for what they do together with that.

Sorry, but that's a really idiotic solution.

Not all units with one or more of those rules will even be benefiting from the new chart. My Destroyer Lord has Preferred Enemy and sometimes Master Crafted too. That'll make him unstoppable with his... WS4. But I guess his now needing 5s and 6s to hit many enemies needs to be balanced by... making him even worse as hitting.

Also, whilst preferred enemy is good for high-WS characters, is Master Crafted really that amazing?

I don't even see the connection with regard to digital weapons.

When you hit everything on 2+ master crafted is fantastic. If you have 4 attacks, you MIGHT miss one, and master crafted then brings it from 75% hit to 100% hits. That's a big difference.

I KNOW it's an idiotic solution. That's my whole point. The "new chart" fails to take all the reroll options that melee has into account. That's why it's bad.

 Purifier wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
With that chart, you would need to remove master crafted and digital weapons as well as preferred enemy. They're way too cheap for what they do together with that.

Sorry, but that's a really idiotic solution.

Not all units with one or more of those rules will even be benefiting from the new chart. My Destroyer Lord has Preferred Enemy and sometimes Master Crafted too. That'll make him unstoppable with his... WS4. But I guess his now needing 5s and 6s to hit many enemies needs to be balanced by... making him even worse as hitting.

Also, whilst preferred enemy is good for high-WS characters, is Master Crafted really that amazing?

I don't even see the connection with regard to digital weapons.

When you hit everything on 2+ master crafted is fantastic. If you have 4 attacks, you MIGHT miss one, and master crafted then brings it from 75% hit to 100% hits. That's a big difference.

I KNOW it's an idiotic solution. That's my whole point. The "new chart" fails to take all the reroll options that melee has into account. That's why it's bad.

Yet shooting can hit on a 2+ and have re-rolls and that is ok?

When I pay 150+ points for a single infantry model like a SM captain, he should be murdering 4 guys a turn. We have all got used to supposed melee powerhouse characters hitting well under their points value.

Letting them hit on 2+ would be a good start.

 Purifier wrote:

When you hit everything on 2+ master crafted is fantastic. If you have 4 attacks, you MIGHT miss one, and master crafted then brings it from 75% hit to 100% hits. That's a big difference.

Only if you use false probabilities.

 Purifier wrote:

I KNOW it's an idiotic solution. That's my whole point. The "new chart" fails to take all the reroll options that melee has into account. That's why it's bad.

But that's the thing, I still don't see why rerolls are such a big issue with the new chart. Yes, you'll usually get an extra hit... so how is that different to what they do now? Either way, you're just upping the average a little.

Furthermore, there's the matter of diminishing returns. Spending points to increase your hit change, when you're already hitting most things on 2s, tends to be a relatively poor investment. Rerolls are better if you're hitting on 3s or 4s, because you're losing a significant portion of your attacks - and so anything you can do to prevent that will help a great deal. But, when you're losing just 1/6 of your attacks this way, it's really not a great bonus.

You'd be much better off looking to increase your to-wound chance and/or AP. After all, hitting with virtually every attack means naff-all if most of those then fail to wound and/or bounce off the enemy's armour save.

With so much wounding on a 2+ and ignoring armor saves, the To Hit is what generally saves the defending unit...

Bharring wrote:
With so much wounding on a 2+ and ignoring armor saves, the To Hit is what generally saves the defending unit...

Really?

I can't recall it ever saving mine.

Usually what I see saving units is 3+ invulnerable saves and FNP/Necro-no-pain.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:


When you hit everything on 2+ master crafted is fantastic. If you have 4 attacks, you MIGHT miss one, and master crafted then brings it from 75% hit to 100% hits. That's a big difference.

Actually rerolls benefit a 6+ most (goes from 17% to 31% chance to hit, a 83% increase in expected hits) and 2+ the least (83% to 97%, only a 17% increase in expected hits). Basically, with a very low probability of hitting you almost double the amount of hits with rerolls (converging on a 100% increase on expected hits), but with very high probabilities it does very little (converges on a 0% increases on expected hits).

 Vaktathi wrote:
There are some reasons why close combat is generally held to more limits than shooting. Shooting does not lock another units action. Shooting has no equivalent of "sweeping advance" where you can inflict one wound and force an Ld test and then wipe the entire unit. Close combat also inherently ignores all cover saves. Close Combat, unlike shooting, also gets to hit the weakest armor facing on vehicles and simply has to make it into base contact to do so and can auto-hit immobilized vehicles (unlike shooting).

Now, is that to say that the WS table isn't a bit wonky? No, it's a relic of the earliest vestiges of 40k when WS functioned differently. But there's some good reasons as to why CC is treated differently than shooting.

Yep, you are correct, sir. I don't know how many people here played third edition, but CC, armies then,using practically the same table, were beasts that elicited the same passionate debates against them as the ones on this thread urging more power to CC. I was in a tournament game using BA against Orks, and in turn 1, thanks to super charged vehicles that could be assaulted from in that edition, heavy forward deployment on the part of both armies, and a Sanguinary Priest, all but 18 Orks were removed from the table in the CC phase. In 4th, my DE did the same to another army.
Granted those were extreme examples, but CC armies would roll over pretty much anything out there. Tyranids were truly gross, also, especially in horde sized armies to the point that most armies couldn't stand against them unless they a CC army, also.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:
Some people have added Consolidate into Combat and Charge from Reserves too. They like the change.

Many other players - myself included - would hate it.

A few players agreeing and liking it is a decent endorsement, but only says so much. It certainly doesn't prove its a good idea.

The ability to consolidate into combat existed in earlier editions and pretty much gave the game to CC armies, like Tyranids. Once they got into CC on turn 2, it was most times game over for whoever they were facing because shooting was finished with from that point on.
Even in this edition, a good Ork player, to use an example from a codex that seems maligned for being weak, can curb stomp his opponent by taking advantage of the fact that an Ork army can be fast as well as huge.
This assumes, of course, that the table has more than a couple of hills for terrain.

the_hanged_man wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:


When you hit everything on 2+ master crafted is fantastic. If you have 4 attacks, you MIGHT miss one, and master crafted then brings it from 75% hit to 100% hits. That's a big difference.

Actually rerolls benefit a 6+ most (goes from 17% to 31% chance to hit, a 83% increase in expected hits) and 2+ the least (83% to 97%, only a 17% increase in expected hits). Basically, with a very low probability of hitting you almost double the amount of hits with rerolls (converging on a 100% increase on expected hits), but with very high probabilities it does very little (converges on a 0% increases on expected hits).

Except that on 4 attacks you will only ever get one reroll with master crafted. If you have 4 attacks and miss all and get one reroll, that reroll isn't worth as much as if you have 4 attacks, hit 3 and get one reroll. So yeah, if you zone in and don't at all look at the whole picture, your math is absolutely true.

If you hit nothing and a reroll (against all odds) make you hit one, then you've hit infinity more times than you otherwise would
If you hit 3 times and a reroll (on a 2+ very likely to happen) you've hit only 33% more than you would,
but yet you both get one extra hit, giving the "weapon master" an easy extra hit and the other guy an unlikely extra hit. And the weaponmaster's hit is very likely to be thuroughly more devastating than the other guy's. You're not taking the whole picture into account by just looking at a very narrow part of the equation and determining it benefits low hit chance models more.

 vipoid wrote:
But that's the thing, I still don't see why rerolls are such a big issue with the new chart. Yes, you'll usually get an extra hit... so how is that different to what they do now? Either way, you're just upping the average a little.

It doesn't need to be upped.

 vipoid wrote:

Furthermore, there's the matter of diminishing returns. Spending points to increase your hit change, when you're already hitting most things on 2s, tends to be a relatively poor investment. Rerolls are better if you're hitting on 3s or 4s, because you're losing a significant portion of your attacks - and so anything you can do to prevent that will help a great deal. But, when you're losing just 1/6 of your attacks this way, it's really not a great bonus.

Master crafted only works for one attack, and is very very cheap. It's much much better on someone with a high hit chance.
On a low hit chance model, it's not really gonna make any difference. On a high hit, it's pretty much guarantee he gets all hits.
A low hit chance model will ALWAYS get to use it, yes... to try another 6+ roll.
A high hit chance model will at least half the time miss *one* attack and so will mostly also get to use it. To try another 2+ roll.

Assuming that table is being used, at what WS value do you think Master Crafted becomes an issue?

 Purifier wrote:


Except that on 4 attacks you will only ever get one reroll with master crafted. If you have 4 attacks and miss all and get one reroll, that reroll isn't worth as much as if you have 4 attacks, hit 3 and get one reroll. So yeah, if you zone in and don't at all look at the whole picture, your math is absolutely true.

If you hit nothing and a reroll (against all odds) make you hit one, then you've hit infinity more times than you otherwise would
If you hit 3 times and a reroll (on a 2+ very likely to happen) you've hit only 33% more than you would,
but yet you both get one extra hit, giving the "weapon master" an easy extra hit and the other guy an unlikely extra hit. And the weaponmaster's hit is very likely to be thuroughly more devastating than the other guy's. You're not taking the whole picture into account by just looking at a very narrow part of the equation and determining it benefits low hit chance models more.

The math still holds regardless of the number of rerolls. However, the real issue is whether going from 3+ to 2+ on the same guy makes MC weapons better. Let's look at 4 attacks:
4 Attacks
Prob of Number of Hits
# Hits 2+ 3+
4 0.482253086 0.197530864
3 0.385802469 0.395061728
2 0.115740741 0.296296296
1 0.015432099 0.098765432
0 0.000771605 0.012345679

Expected # Hits 3.333333333 2.666666667
Reroll Prob 0.517746914 0.802469136
Extra Expected Hits 0.431455761 0.534979424
Total Expected Hits 3.764789095 3.201646091
% Extra Hits 0.129436728 0.200617284


So, as you see allowing the "Weaponmaster" to hit on 2+ cheapens the value of that one reroll. Both in terms of additional expected hits (.43 on 2+ vs .53 on 3+) and % increase of expected hits (13% on 2+ vs. 20% on 3+). Essentially, the reroll is worth less on the 2+ because they are less likely to need it (52% chance on 2+ vs 80% on 3+). If you have enough attacks eventually it just works out to be just an extra attack for both, and the 2+ will do slightly better (1/6 of a expected hit to be exact)...but in the nothing worth repricing MC and digital weapons.

Edit: Gah...it looks fine in the editor. Don't have time to mess with it now. 2+ is the first column of numbers, 3+ is the 2nd.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I'd make it something like this...

Hitting someone of equal or 1 higher Ws = 4+ to hit
Hitting someone of 1 less Ws = 3+ to hit
Hitting someone of 2 or more less Ws = 2+ to hit
Hitting someone with 2 or 3 higher Ws = 5+ to hit
Hitting someone with 4 or more Ws = 6+ to hit

That means a Ws5 model would hit a Ws3 model on a 2+, but the Ws3 model would hit the Ws5 model on a 5+. Ws4 vs Ws3 would work the same way it does currently. Ws7 vs Ws3 or higher would be 2+ to hit or 6+ to get hit.

Though I like this idea, I think a rerollable modifier would be better, similar to shooting. Hitting enemy 2 lower, rerollable hits on 6, etc. WS9 & 10 auto, but if the owning player rolls dice and six comes up auto-wound. In my meta, we have stared to test this theory. It has made CC much more brutal.

Additionally, I do not want any model other than Kharn to hit on 2's.

Spaz431 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I'd make it something like this...

Hitting someone of equal or 1 higher Ws = 4+ to hit
Hitting someone of 1 less Ws = 3+ to hit
Hitting someone of 2 or more less Ws = 2+ to hit
Hitting someone with 2 or 3 higher Ws = 5+ to hit
Hitting someone with 4 or more Ws = 6+ to hit

That means a Ws5 model would hit a Ws3 model on a 2+, but the Ws3 model would hit the Ws5 model on a 5+. Ws4 vs Ws3 would work the same way it does currently. Ws7 vs Ws3 or higher would be 2+ to hit or 6+ to get hit.

Though I like this idea, I think a rerollable modifier would be better, similar to shooting. Hitting enemy 2 lower, rerollable hits on 6, etc. WS9 & 10 auto, but if the owning player rolls dice and six comes up auto-wound. In my meta, we have stared to test this theory. It has made CC much more brutal.

Additionally, I do not want any model other than Kharn to hit on 2's.

Interesting - seems a little more complicated but more deadly.........

Can I ask why no one other than Kharn on 2's when you also have the Greater Daemons and Shards of a God of War trying to kill stuff - not sure he should be more deadly than them?

the_hanged_man wrote:

 Purifier wrote:


Except that on 4 attacks you will only ever get one reroll with master crafted. If you have 4 attacks and miss all and get one reroll, that reroll isn't worth as much as if you have 4 attacks, hit 3 and get one reroll. So yeah, if you zone in and don't at all look at the whole picture, your math is absolutely true.

If you hit nothing and a reroll (against all odds) make you hit one, then you've hit infinity more times than you otherwise would
If you hit 3 times and a reroll (on a 2+ very likely to happen) you've hit only 33% more than you would,
but yet you both get one extra hit, giving the "weapon master" an easy extra hit and the other guy an unlikely extra hit. And the weaponmaster's hit is very likely to be thuroughly more devastating than the other guy's. You're not taking the whole picture into account by just looking at a very narrow part of the equation and determining it benefits low hit chance models more.

The math still holds regardless of the number of rerolls. However, the real issue is whether going from 3+ to 2+ on the same guy makes MC weapons better. Let's look at 4 attacks:
4 Attacks
Prob of Number of Hits
# Hits 2+ 3+
4 0.482253086 0.197530864
3 0.385802469 0.395061728
2 0.115740741 0.296296296
1 0.015432099 0.098765432
0 0.000771605 0.012345679

Expected # Hits 3.333333333 2.666666667
Reroll Prob 0.517746914 0.802469136
Extra Expected Hits 0.431455761 0.534979424
Total Expected Hits 3.764789095 3.201646091
% Extra Hits 0.129436728 0.200617284


So, as you see allowing the "Weaponmaster" to hit on 2+ cheapens the value of that one reroll. Both in terms of additional expected hits (.43 on 2+ vs .53 on 3+) and % increase of expected hits (13% on 2+ vs. 20% on 3+). Essentially, the reroll is worth less on the 2+ because they are less likely to need it (52% chance on 2+ vs 80% on 3+). If you have enough attacks eventually it just works out to be just an extra attack for both, and the 2+ will do slightly better (1/6 of a expected hit to be exact)...but in the nothing worth repricing MC and digital weapons.

Edit: Gah...it looks fine in the editor. Don't have time to mess with it now. 2+ is the first column of numbers, 3+ is the 2nd.

Right, but they're not paying for the 2+. With a table rework, you're getting that for free. So saying that it's better on a 3+ is a fallacy. It would be if the 3+ and 2+ guys had payed differently for the model as such. but if you can just go "no, I don't want 3+, I'll have a 2+ instead please." then the reroll brings you to an almost 100% hitrate, whereas the 3+actually had a chance to miss *something* for the same price.

All your maths is showing is that with this "new Weapon Skill table" you don't need the master crafted because you're already that good. So we're basically saying that the best melee characters should have an extra master crafted built in? I don't think that's needed. I feel that melee already has things to make up for the WS table being narrow. If anything, your table supports that. And what if you do the same math for the other end of the spectrum, wouldn't it be the same results but in reverse? from 5+ to 6+ you'd see it getting worse. They'd have a close to 100% chance to get to use it and a 16.7% chance to hit instead of an almost 100% chance to need it followed by a 33% chance to hit.

Another solution is to keep the actual Chart and give rerolls like BS chart does.

Or for each 2 points in WS that you have more then the opponent, you get a Parade roll.

Parade would negate 1 ennemy attack, making High WS models harder to it, but without touching the offensive capabilities of lower WS units with units of equal or marginally higher WS.

For exemple if a WS7 model is attacked by a WS4 model, then the WS4 model deals one less attack, because this attack was parried.

Now you can either make it that it negates 1 attack per ennemy model to a minimum of 1, but that would maybe be overpowered, so instead make it so that you substract 1 attack of the total of attacks?