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Being as you always wound on a 6s and never wound on a 1, no matter how Strong your weapons are or how Tough the target is... doesn't this reduce the usefulness of T and S characteristics? I know having a high T and low S means that it's hard to wound something, but it doesn't stop it.

Wouldn't this be better (in the current form) be rolled up into the W, D, AP and Sv system? Tougher opponents would just get higher wounds and/or Saves. Strong weapons just get more AP or D. No need for a roll to wound, surely? This could be removed and you just get more Wounds to simulate "flesh wounds".

Just looking for opinions. I would normally say that Strength and Toughness would be great things for roleplay and fun, but with the current system where everything can wound, and even realliy powerful weapons may not wound, it seems less worthwhile.
Instead, assume everything that hits could cause damage IF you can get through the armour, but really mighty people might not notice just a little flesh wound. It's the same as it is now, but with one bloody roll.

I wouldn't say it's broken at all. A Boltgun wounds a Leman Russ on 6's, meaning (if my maths is right), you need almost 650 Boltgun shots to destroy a Russ assuming no modifiers, and I can see that happening in the fluff, eventually the huge barrage of bolts strips away armour until one gets into the fuel/engine/ammo and takes it out.

Removing the S/T mechanic will just make things more complicated, more wounds to track here and there, and everything in the game will have to be re-written from the ground up.

I think you'd need 345 bolter shots to kill a russ... but yea I don't see that happening. Even with the Guard, 4 squads using FRFSRF gets 148 shots, so while it would do some damage, it wouldn't kill anything that tough.

I wasn't suggesting it's broken as such. Just sub optimal... Or less useful.

Is it SO sub optimal or less usful that it necessitates a more complex rewrite of every unit? Or is it simple and "good enough"?

It´s not the T/S system that´s a problem, it´s the implementation. At least, the current implementation.

It just doesn´t provide a good layer of "Weapon A is effective/ineffective against target B". Sure, the difference between 3+ and 5+ is enough to tip the balance (assuming there was balance), but if you ask the question of effectiveness, nobody cares.

Imagine the following: "Sergeant, our lasguns only wound those CSM on a 5+, should we switch targets?"
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, KEEP FIRING, YOU LAZY COWARD!!!"

Now, if you haven´t noticed, a mere bolter is equally effective against your average chunk of armor on wheels (tank) as a lasgun is against a marine. (Same for the armor save, sadly).
Does any guardmen hesitate to fire at (Chaos) Marines? No. Should any marine hesitate to fire at a tank? No.
Armies with wide access to (as little as) S5 (eg T´au) can even apply the same question to knights! Yes, a pulse rifle is equally effective against a knight, as a lasgun against a marine.

So that´s why I don´t think your suggestion will solve the fundamental problem, it will just shift the problem to somewhere else.

And while the idea itself isn´t bad - computer games for example make excessive use of larger ranges for HP, damage and armor - there´s that one little difference between me and a computer: I´m not so good at calculating and keeping track of large numbers. So I´d rather roll that extra dice.

I personally would prefer them to put the chart back to how it was prior to 8th. I know it's a long shot but some weapons should not be able to hurt tougher tanks and creatures. I can fire an assault weapon at a tank all day long, the chances of doing any real damage is not 1 in 6.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I personally would prefer them to put the chart back to how it was prior to 8th. I know it's a long shot but some weapons should not be able to hurt tougher tanks and creatures. I can fire an assault weapon at a tank all day long, the chances of doing any real damage is not 1 in 6.

Its not 1 in 6 now either. Its 1 in 6 to successfully wound. It's probably another 1 in 3 to get through armor to actual cause damage.

So maybe adjusting the to wound table would be better then? I do agree something is not right... but with the current wound table, S and T are less relevant.
Maybe just go back to someway of making it so that weak weapons never wound a really tough opponent and strong weapons always wound weapon opponents.
I wonder if that will go to balance out the horde thing that I hear people complaining about, and make Space Marines great again.

I'd have probably made it something like; if T is 3 times or more than S you cannot wound at all. And then jiggle some things upwards at the top end a bit (T9 LRBT for example, maybe lascannons up to S10, no reason not to have things at T>10) to make it work. Still a massive rewrite through.

Or +1 to save vs weapons with S less than 1/2 your T. Still allows some through, but makes it almost not worth rolling the dice in many cases.

And the consequences of that is that infantry become worthless as more and more high T tanks and mechs are placed onto the table because the best way to survive is to be immune to their guns.

Then then everyone will bitch about how infantry isn't in this war game.

Only guns capable of wounding the high T models will be really worth bringing and MW will be even more valuable then they are now.

The removal of the old S/T chart is a great change and the SMALL chance to do damage with everything prevents people from flooding the game with nothing but tank and anti tank.

That ruling was exactly how it was last edition. I don´t remember people bitching about how infantry isn´t in this war game. I saw and played plenty of infantry.

The thing is, some of the most powerfull anti-tank options are in the hands of infantry (maybe elite-infantry). So your opponent cannot take nothing but anti-tank. Some of the best anti-infantry is also in the hands if infantry. So there you go.

Even if this wasn´t the case, tanks usually have problems simply "chewing through" large amounts of infantry. So you can still use them as tarpit and cannonfodder.

 Lance845 wrote:
...The removal of the old S/T chart is a great change and the SMALL chance to do damage with everything prevents people from flooding the game with nothing but tank and anti tank.

I find the "SMALL chance to do damage with everything" gives people false hope and makes them waste dice accomplishing nothing. A full unit of Aggressors standing still sounds like wacky fun and "ooh, I can wound T8 on 6s!" might make you think you should shoot them at a Land Raider, and a hundred plus rolls later you've wasted ten minutes dealing two wounds that the Techmarine casually patches up next turn because they couldn't be bothered to come out and say "don't shoot boltguns at Land Raiders," they had to leave it for you to discover you're wasting time and energy.

 Lance845 wrote:
And the consequences of that is that infantry become worthless as more and more high T tanks and mechs are placed onto the table because the best way to survive is to be immune to their guns.

Then then everyone will bitch about how infantry isn't in this war game.

Only guns capable of wounding the high T models will be really worth bringing and MW will be even more valuable then they are now.

The removal of the old S/T chart is a great change and the SMALL chance to do damage with everything prevents people from flooding the game with nothing but tank and anti tank.

The answer isn't flatting the chart, it's GW realizing they made a mistake when they tore down the walls between APOC and a normal game. Those big stompy things should be put back were they belong.

Using the design space of 'abilities' section of weapons will be far simpler and far more effective than getting rid of S and T and making a uniform chart.

More weapons need to have special properties against select unit type it SHOULD be super effective against. For example:

Meltagun/Multimelta Range 12/24" S8 AP-4 Dd6 Ability: If the target is within half range of this weapon, roll two dice when inflicting damage with it and discard the lowest result. If the target is a VEHICLE, you can reroll the dice used to inflict damage.

The added abilities should be something that's not too powerful, but something that evens out the randomness.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
...The removal of the old S/T chart is a great change and the SMALL chance to do damage with everything prevents people from flooding the game with nothing but tank and anti tank.

I find the "SMALL chance to do damage with everything" gives people false hope and makes them waste dice accomplishing nothing. A full unit of Aggressors standing still sounds like wacky fun and "ooh, I can wound T8 on 6s!" might make you think you should shoot them at a Land Raider, and a hundred plus rolls later you've wasted ten minutes dealing two wounds that the Techmarine casually patches up next turn because they couldn't be bothered to come out and say "don't shoot boltguns at Land Raiders," they had to leave it for you to discover you're wasting time and energy.

I mostly agree, and yet my Poison Tongue playing self has scraped enough wounds off of knights with mass splinterfire that I'm rarely willing to give up that small chance at doing damage even if it is a waste of time. Plus, getting rid of Furious Charge means that many dark eldar units would be completely incapable of harming vehicles if you got rid of wounding on 6s.

I was going to pitch this idea in a different thread, but what do you guys think of...

1. Attacks with a strength of more than double the target's toughness automatically wound. Gets rid of usually-unnecessarry rolling and removes the feel bads of having your plasma gun somehow fail to wound that last guardsman standing on an objective.

2. When shooting at a target whose toughness is at least double your weapons' strength, you may trade 6 hits for 1 automatic wound with an AP of 0 and a Damage of 1. This way, lasguns and splinter rifles can still chip away at land raiders, and you get the same statistical average number of wounds (barring modifiers and rerolls), but you don't spend nearly as much time rolling it out.