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After several years of playing 40k, a thought has just occurred to me: Why do we roll to wound before taking armour saves? Shouldn't saves prevent you from being wounded? Shouldn't attacks have to penetrate your saves first before wounding you? This wouldn't make much difference, but to better suit how this would work in real life, I think we should use this sequence:

1. Roll to hit (Using WS/BS)
2. Make saving throws (With AP value ignoring their corresponding armour save)
3. Roll to wound/pen (Using attacker's S & defender's T/AV)
4. Make any Feel No Pain rolls (indicating more that it is separate from Saving Throws)

It's just because its easier. To have to switch back and forth from one player to another rather than just have the same player roll to hit, then wound with the same dice and then have the opponent take their saves allows it to play smoother. Mathematically speaking there's no difference either way, its just the sequence of events that's slightly different.

I've tried to work this out (and I know mathematically there is no difference which order you make rolls) but it confuses me so much trying to resolve damage this way. We would be taking saves against everything that hits and then rolling to wound against all unsaved hits?

IIRC the idea was that the owner of the model should always have the last opportunity to roll to save their model from dying. The attacker figures out how much damage they're going to do, and then the defender rolls and hopes to stay alive.

How are you going to roll saves for squads with mixed saves if you don't know how many wounds are there yet?

 koooaei wrote:
How are you going to roll saves for squads with mixed saves if you don't know how many wounds are there yet?

Same way you deal with squads with mixed toughness values now?

 Grimskul wrote:
It's just because its easier. To have to switch back and forth from one player to another rather than just have the same player roll to hit, then wound with the same dice and then have the opponent take their saves allows it to play smoother. Mathematically speaking there's no difference either way, its just the sequence of events that's slightly different.

This.