High Weapon Skill versus Low Weapon Skill - revised Close Combat to hit chart

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**Mr Morden**

Dear All

Spinning off from a discussion in another thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/652245.page

I find that the current to hit chart does not adequately reflect the difference in very skilled and very poor close combat fighters and does not reward High WS in the same was as it does high BS.

The idea here is not to make every close combat a walkover for one side but merely to ensue that the very best melee experts have a more realistic chance to hitting their opponents - so hopefully both fluffy and fun.

We have in our own small club tried out a basic version with DOUBLE the WS of its opponent hits on a 2+ and found it more fun and fluffy (for both sides) and have not, thus far, had any issues.

As the discussion progressed the following chart (thank you Farseer Anath'lan ) was proposed which is a little more complex but may well be even better.

So I thought I would put this to you for your views, comments and suggestions - I shall certainly be putting it forward for testing to our club.

thanks for your time.....

**Bharring**

Typically, the side that wins in CC usually wins easily already. This would make the already-one-sided fights even more one-sided.

**Yarium**

This is the table I always wished to see. Great job! I like how it mixes the to-wound and the BS to-hit charts.

**Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl**

Maybe but I have the following concerns :
You wrote “follwoing” instead of “following”.
(Actually, I voted yes, but I think the rerolls are overkill.)

**Mr Morden**

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
Maybe but I have the following concerns :
You wrote “follwoing” instead of “following”.
(Actually, I voted yes, but I think the rerolls are overkill.)

thanks - fixed.

**Xenomancers**

Actually I voted yes but after looking at the table - no. I would not like this change. I doesn't address the problems here.

Any superior WS should hit on 3's min and get hit on 5+ max. If you double you hit on 2's and get hit on 6's.

**Spoletta**

This is what i proposed on this subject in another thread:

The actual WS system has a meaning, and that is to make the close combat highly lethal. At the worst you are hit on 5+ and that is good. Remember that a unit engaged in a fight cannot go somewhere else contrarily to ranged fights.
What is wrong is hitting the advantage limit at 3+.
I'm not too keen on letting 2+ hit, it would make for some nasty combos with preferred enemy.
I would propose the following: If your WS is 3 points higher then you can reroll to hit, similar to the effect of high BS.

What this means is:

WS4 lets you hit WS3 on 3+
WS 5 lets you hit WS4 on 3+ and reroll against WS2 while being hit at 5+
WS6 lets you hit WS5 on 3+ allows you to reroll against WS3
WS 7 allows you to reroll against WS4 and get hit at 5+ by WS3
WS8 allows you to reroll against WS5
WS9 allows you to get hit on 5+ by WS4
WS10 is pretty much useless

So, since the most common WS range from 2 to 4 with some 5 then this change would make all the WS levels more interesting, with the exception of WS10 and maybe WS 8.

It is an easy rule. I still have new players struggling with the "hit on 5+ if WS is *2+1", so i would like to avoid introducing more tables.

**Yarium**

Xenomancers wrote:
Actually I voted yes but after looking at the table - no. I would not like this change. I doesn't address the problems here.

Any superior WS should hit on 3's min and get hit on 5+ max. If you double you hit on 2's and get hit on 6's.

But what about those darn vehicles being WS 1? You're telling me that a Harlequin Solitaire - the very incarnation of Slannesh - with a mighty WS of 9 and able to move faster than the eye can see, easily running alongside most vehicles going flat-out, has the same difficulty in hitting a Rhino at as a Conscript, barely able to hold a knife let alone make sure it's going into the right target?

**Bharring**

The Solitaire is WS9?!? I've been playing it as WS7! It woulda had that WS8 Flyrant dead to rights!

I swore I looked it up, but must have looked at the wrong lines...

Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you gave me a sword, and some expert swordsman a sword, and ask us to hit a barn, my odds of hitting aren't substantially lower than said expert.

**Mr Morden**

Bharring wrote:
The Solitaire is WS9?!? I've been playing it as WS7! It woulda had that WS8 Flyrant dead to rights!

I swore I looked it up, but must have looked at the wrong lines...

Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you gave me a sword, and some expert swordsman a sword, and ask us to hit a barn, my odds of hitting aren't substantially lower than said expert.

Scarily enough - the current system has it that you are both quite likely to miss that barn................ :0

**Bharring**

Which is accurate to a degree well beyond the point of the abstraction layer.

What would his odds of missing be? Maybe 1%? Mine? Maybe 1.5%? Its a barn. More skill helps, but is mostly irrelevant in that case.

**Yarium**

Bharring wrote:
If you gave me a sword, and some expert swordsman a sword, and ask us to hit a barn, my odds of hitting aren't substantially lower than said expert.

Actually, the game handles that just find. The barn is immobile, and so is WS0, so you auto-hit. So does the expert Swordsman. However, let's say that you were fighting against a moving car. It's driving along. Most of the car, even if you hit it with your sword and chip some paint or put a dent in it, won't actually deal any damage. However, the right hit in the right spot could be devastating. You need to carefully line up your attack so that you hit the car without being run over by it. Note, the driver of that car is actively either avoiding you, and sometimes changes course to make it look like they will run into you! Sure their vision of the situation isn't as clear as yours, but it's not like they're in park waiting to see what happens.

Hence why vehicles are WS1 (and I believe some vehicles should even be higher WS to show that they're even better).

**jade_angel**

My main complaint is that this still tends to make one-sided battles even more one-sided, without alleviating the problem of a highly skilled warrior totally whiffing against an inferior opponent.

Ideally it'd probably have something to do with remaining numbers - the more enemy models there are, the harder it is to make sure you're actually hitting someone without his buddies running interference, while if there's one Fire Warrior left, you bet your heinie that those Incubi are going to cut him into gory little chunks. That said, this is probably too sticky, and anything that works that way would be unacceptably complex.

I'd go with a system similar to the one Spoletta proposed - it still lets poor fighters get lucky, while reducing the chances of a total whiff by the far more skilled party.

I had another half-baked idea that uses dice pools and contested rolls, but that would take for-the-heck-ever, and is probably just a sign that I'd been playing too much World of Darkness.

**Lanrak**

Hi I like the basic idea, but would tweek the table slightly.

For opponents with WS 6 or more or higher change the result to 6+ and HALVE the number of hits.

For opponents with WS 5 or more lower , change the results to 2+ and DOUBLE the number of hits.

**Ratius**

Its definitely a step in the right direction but I'd take issues (mainly fluff based) with a few numbers. And I fully acknowledge that fluff dosent = GWs game mechanics but somewhere it has to be accounted for.

Main example would be say a Chapter Master (potentially hundreds of years of combat experience) WS6 fighting the Avatar. Should he only hit it on a 6? 16% chance - Im not sure.

Conversely said Chapter Master WS6 VS a Termagant WS3. The termy can hit on 5s? A 33% chance?

A few more tweaks and it could work overall.

**Poop Deck**

Ratius wrote:
Its definitely a step in the right direction but I'd take issues (mainly fluff based) with a few numbers. And I fully acknowledge that fluff dosent = GWs game mechanics but somewhere it has to be accounted for.

Main example would be say a Chapter Master (potentially hundreds of years of combat experience) WS6 fighting the Avatar. Should he only hit it on a 6? 16% chance - Im not sure.

Conversely said Chapter Master WS6 VS a Termagant WS3. The termy can hit on 5s? A 33% chance?

A few more tweaks and it could work overall.

I think your issue, then, is not the chart, but that the WS values don't match the fluff. I.E., the Chapter Master should not be a WS 6, but a higher number. Similarly, the termagant should also be higher. Am I correct?

**Dakkamite**

Xenomancers wrote:
Actually I voted yes but after looking at the table - no. I would not like this change. I doesn't address the problems here.

Any superior WS should hit on 3's min and get hit on 5+ max. If you double you hit on 2's and get hit on 6's.

I prefer this. Tables are awful, simple rules like this get my vote. Even so voted yes because its better than the absolutely awful standard one.

GW seriously needs to reconsider their stance on melee - what 40k gives us that other sci fi settings do not is power armoured maniacs fighting greenskinned maniacs with chainswords and rusty axes. The more they tone that down, the more 40k will lose out to more traditional sci fi which do shooting mechanics far better.

**koooaei**

The WS system rework proposition pops up rather frequently.

The problem is that you're making one mellee units better against other mellee units. This needs a price increase of the WS stat. While at the same time WS doesn't really matter against shooty foes as they're as good as dead once caught up.

If a daemon prince is 2 times harder to get killed in mellee with a regular ws4 model, a DP must cost more simply for this measure of mellee protection. If he costs more, he becomes a more juicy target for shooters. If he doesn't cost more, he makes other units without super-high WS helpless against him. Further diminishing the mellee potential of regular units.

Means that if you introduce this system, people will shift towards shooters and high-WS monstrosities even more.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
As if mellee hordes need further nerfing.

**KurtAngle2**

koooaei wrote:
The WS system rework proposition pops up rather frequently.

The problem is that you're making one mellee units better against other mellee units. This needs a price increase of the WS stat. While at the same time WS doesn't really matter against shooty foes as they're as good as dead once caught up.

If a daemon prince is 2 times harder to get killed in mellee with a regular ws4 model, a DP must cost more simply for this measure of mellee protection. If he costs more, he becomes a more juicy target for shooters. If he doesn't cost more, he makes other units without super-high WS helpless against him. Further diminishing the mellee potential of regular units.

Means that if you introduce this system, people will shift towards shooters and high-WS monstrosities even more.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
As if mellee hordes need further nerfing.

In fact the Daemon Prince is already an overcosted model

**TheNewBlood**

Really like this system. There was definitely a lot of thought put into it. I especially like the re-rolls to hit a la the BS table. It also makes Hatred/Zealot much more powerful. Under this system, once you hit WS7 you are basically god-tier compared to regular units, which is how it should be.

**Ratius**

I think your issue, then, is not the chart, but that the WS values don't match the fluff. I.E., the Chapter Master should not be a WS 6, but a higher number. Similarly, the termagant should also be higher. Am I correct?

Yes and no. raising the CM to say something like 7 also makes me uncomfortable since it puts him on par with things like Jain Zar who fluff wise is a truely lethal hth combatant and puts him very close to say Abbadon which I dont agree with either.

I think for me its a case of the core mechanic of WS only running from 0 to 10 that affects everything so much.

How one works around hat though without introducing d10/d20 mechanics I dont know.

I also concede Im probably fluff biased and acknowledge in order for the game to actually function some leeway has to be given.

I'd just like to see combat "masters" be....well combat masters and not fail VS troops they should stomp.
Recently I had a Hive Tyrant miss 4 of his attacks VS stock IG troopers. very frustrating and not at all consistent with forging the narrative nor what his abilities should reflect points wise and ingame mechanic wise.

More rumination is needed!

**koooaei**

KurtAngle2 wrote:
koooaei wrote:
The WS system rework proposition pops up rather frequently.

The problem is that you're making one mellee units better against other mellee units. This needs a price increase of the WS stat. While at the same time WS doesn't really matter against shooty foes as they're as good as dead once caught up.

If a daemon prince is 2 times harder to get killed in mellee with a regular ws4 model, a DP must cost more simply for this measure of mellee protection. If he costs more, he becomes a more juicy target for shooters. If he doesn't cost more, he makes other units without super-high WS helpless against him. Further diminishing the mellee potential of regular units.

Means that if you introduce this system, people will shift towards shooters and high-WS monstrosities even more.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
As if mellee hordes need further nerfing.

In fact the Daemon Prince is already an overcosted model

bingo