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I'm just not a fan of two super warriors striking each other on 2s like their opponent isn't defending.

I think, even more than the wound table, the new style works better for hitting in melee.

WS=WS 4+
WS<WS 5+
WS>WS 3+
WSx2 2+
WS/2 6+

with modifiers for chargin,, out numbering etc

If your unit outnumers the target 2x or more, +1 to hit.

Power fist -1 to WS.


Eldar could have higher WS to offset the lack of initiative striking first

I did prefer comparing WS to the flat to hit of 8th, it never really complicated things. I never felt the game was slowed down by quickly asking the opponents WS to work out how well you hit them.

I'd be happy with this.

Yeah, removing WS was unnecessary (although not as bad as the removal of most things to 'simplify' in 3rd edition, only to have to heap on piles and piles of special moves because the new core rules weren't robust).

I'd be in favour of this, with a 1 always failing and a 6 always hitting.

While I agree with the general sentiment, melee currently is so unimpactful that the proposed revival of defensive mechanism would render melee outright useless.

Melee in such ranged combat heavy game should be designed in a way that it penalizes you (by means of getting massacred) if you've ended up allowing your opponents to successfully get into melee range.

Hellebore wrote:
I'm just not a fan of two super warriors striking each other on 2s like their opponent isn't defending.

I think, even more than the wound table, the new style works better for hitting in melee.

WS=WS 4+
WS<WS 5+
WS>WS 3+
WSx2 2+
WS/2 6+

with modifiers for chargin,, out numbering etc

If your unit outnumers the target 2x or more, +1 to hit.

Power fist -1 to WS.


Eldar could have higher WS to offset the lack of initiative striking first

Aren't ranged targets trying to duck and not get shot at? Why do ranged units deserve to always hit at their balistic skill unless they are facing Alaitoc or Supersonic units?

Powerfists might need to get buffed to only be -1 WS but TH certainly don't.

 vict0988 wrote:
Aren't ranged targets trying to duck and not get shot at? Why do ranged units deserve to always hit at their balistic skill unless they are facing Alaitoc or Supersonic units?

Technically, they don't. Heavy weapons and Assault weapons come with a built-in -1 penalty for different kinds of movement, and in some editions (and Kill Team) cover or even long range imposed a -1 to hit.

I am totally fine with that change.

But shooting needs to be toned down in response.

This is an idea I’ve often considered too. Hell at one stage I was going a step further and rolling up the skill and strength of the attack into one profile, but that’s a whole other discussion altogether.

Having played several editions that compared WS, I can say that I much prefer 8E's flat roll. In most cases in prior editions, the results were the same so often (dedicated melee units almost always hit on 3+, everything else on 4+) that having units that now hit on 2+ is refreshing.

It's also 1 less thing to compare, which is streamlined and when compared to prior editions, often makes unit far more reliable in melee (i.e they get more hits than before). Marines had an average WS4 previously, which in most cases mean they hit on 4s. Now they always hit on 3s. We need melee to hit just as well as ranged weapons
A unit's ability to "defend" is represented by there T and Sv already.

So no, let's no bring back another nearly useless chart

-

 Galef wrote:
Having played several editions that compared WS, I can say that I much prefer 8E's flat roll. In most cases in prior editions, the results were the same so often (dedicated melee units almost always hit on 3+, everything else on 4+) that having units that now hit on 2+ is refreshing.

It's also 1 less thing to compare, which is streamlined and when compared to prior editions, often makes unit far more reliable in melee (i.e they get more hits than before). Marines had an average WS4 previously, which in most cases mean they hit on 4s. Now they always hit on 3s. We need melee to hit just as well as ranged weapons
A unit's ability to "defend" is represented by there T and Sv already.

So no, let's no bring back another nearly useless chart

-

Agree with all this.

I’ve suggested, in the past, for formerly very high WS models inflict hit penalties on enemies in CC, as well as hitting on better than a 2+.

Obviously the FAQ needs to be addressed, but I feel the concept is sound.

They really should bring back the old to hit for melee, also they should bring back the old to wound system as well

I like both the wound and hit tables. Heck I like tables in general. You eventually learn it off by heart anyway... Thats just my personal preference.

I like the concept on the basis that it helps me with immersion. I.e. a space marine swinging a hefty over sized hammer at an agile reptile-like alien predator, or a phoenix lord with millennia of combat experience, would have a different rate of success than swinging at a stationary tank or an ordinary human.

While I personally never had a problem learning the old to-hit and to-wound charts, I've seen plenty of newbies struggle to memorize them. Some people just don't grasp that sort of thing very easily, and having to pause to look those charts up every time you attack can be somewhat embarassing, and thus something of a hurdle, for new players. The newer to-hit/wound system is better in that regard.

That said, I do feel that my Solitaire should be harder to land a hit on than some gretchin or guardsman. Something I've pitched in the past is to give some units a "stabby" or "extra stabby" keyword. Obviously the exact name could change, but the idea would be that...

* Stabby units impose a -1 to hit penalty in the fight phase.
* Extra stabby units impose a -2 to hit penalty in the fight phase.

Stabby units would include most HQs and especially talented melee units. Extra stabby units would be limited to only the most martially skilled units in the galaxy.

So a Solitaire, Lucius the Eternal, melee Phoenix Lords would be extra stabby. Captains, vanguard vets, shooty Phoenix Lords, an autarchs would be stabby. A certain amount of quibbling over how stabby various units are and how this change should impact their pricing would, of course, have to occur.

The intended result is that...
*Non-stabby things punch each other the same as they do now. The melee rules are probably fine as-is for guardsmen punching fire warriors.

* Non-stabby things punch stabby/extra stabby things worse than they do now; if you're a skilled melee combatant, you probably know how to protect yourself in melee.

* Stabby/extra stabby units hit each other slightly less well than they do now. This means that combats between heroes of close combat will be slightly more drawn out with more back-and-forth rather than being a matter of charging first and not whiffing.

* We get to keep the simple WS X+ system that we have now, albeit with a higher prevalence of melee to-hit modifiers than we have now.

 Galef wrote:
Having played several editions that compared WS, I can say that I much prefer 8E's flat roll. In most cases in prior editions, the results were the same so often (dedicated melee units almost always hit on 3+, everything else on 4+) that having units that now hit on 2+ is refreshing.

It's also 1 less thing to compare, which is streamlined and when compared to prior editions, often makes unit far more reliable in melee (i.e they get more hits than before). Marines had an average WS4 previously, which in most cases mean they hit on 4s. Now they always hit on 3s. We need melee to hit just as well as ranged weapons
A unit's ability to "defend" is represented by there T and Sv already.

So no, let's no bring back another nearly useless chart

-

Agreed with all that

That's what I've proposed in the past, Wyld.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Easier way to do it:

WS2.............5+
WS3.............4+
WS4.............3+
WS5-6..........2+
WS7-8..........1+, inflict a -1 to-hit penalty in CC
WS9-10........0+, inflict a -2 to-hit penalty in CC

Conversion system.

Obviously this doesn't work with GW's "Nothing exists below 1" ruling, but that should be addressed too.

The current wound system isn't presented as a table anymore and is pretty easy to follow.

The problem as I see it, is that you've got like asurmen fighting guilliman and these two gods of war are slapping each other like they're standing still.

The other thing is that they've dropped initiative which is something that helped squishy units in melee.

There are two ways to represent skill in melee - being so fast that you kill your enemy before they strike or being so tough that you SURVIVE your enemy's strike to kill them.

The game currently falls almost entirely on the toughness and survival side of the equation.

Using WS comparison provides a speed proxy without initiative in the game.


IMO they should have moved to a BS comparison system rather than shifting WS to a flat roll.

Some enemies are intrinsically harder to hit because they're fast and dodgy.

Toning down shooting would be by either comparing stats or adding more modifiers.

 JNAProductions wrote:
That's what I've proposed in the past, Wyld.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Easier way to do it:

WS2.............5+
WS3.............4+
WS4.............3+
WS5-6..........2+
WS7-8..........1+, inflict a -1 to-hit penalty in CC
WS9-10........0+, inflict a -2 to-hit penalty in CC

Conversion system.

Obviously this doesn't work with GW's "Nothing exists below 1" ruling, but that should be addressed too.

I pretty much agree with that. I'd be tempted to make some things that were WS6 -1 to hit. An autarch, for instance, could probably justify it. As could a captain. I also thing this would provide an opportunity to better distinguish certain melee units that have come to overlap with other units too much. Vanguard vets versus death company, for instance. Currently, they're functionally very similar, but you could use the to-hit penalty as a way of indicating one is more "skillful" while the other has more raw offense. Giving such a rule to something like blood brides would give you a reason to invest in them as well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hellebore wrote:

IMO they should have moved to a BS comparison system rather than shifting WS to a flat roll.

Some enemies are intrinsically harder to hit because they're fast and dodgy.

Toning down shooting would be by either comparing stats or adding more modifiers.

I would have been fine with something like that too. Compared to what they did with 8th, it would be a different-but-also-good direction to go in. At the end of 7th, there was a lot of talk on here about giving units an "Evasion" stat that was basically the opposed stat to BS. A lot of to-hit modifiers could basically be a buff to Evasion. Of course, that's sort of functionally what we have. Flyers functionally just have a high Evasion. A wave serpent that advances to trigger its vectored engines is basically moving farther (or at least giving up some shooting performance) to boost its Evasion. A venom's flicker field is basically a boost to Evasion.

So assuming that most things would be basically the same Evasion (any infantry that wouldn't be unusually hard to hit, for instance), we functionally have the same end result. I guess you could give some things a lower-than-normal evasion if you wanted to make them easier to hit, but spreading that around too freely sounds like it could be problematically detrimental to some units. A dreadnaught might have low Evasion because it's big and not really faster than a marine, for instance, but then you'd just be making a mediocre unit even less survivable. Many 'cron or orks units could conceivably have a low Evasion, but should Tau really be hitting them on 3s instead of 4s standard?

Yeah, the conversion chart is not meant to be perfect.

A Culexus, for example, should NOT inflict a -1 to-hit. But for MOST units, it’d work.

Yep, I think it would have been a very simple addition. I also think they should have kept the old BS - but solely because they reintroduced modifiers...but decided to drop to a simple flat D6 system instead of a WS/BS system of old. This is partially why "re-rolling ones" and "re-roll misses" has become such a big thing, because suddenly your 2+ shooting Primarch is still impacted by -1 and -2 to hit. Whereas in the old version, if a Primarch had possessed a BS of 10, it would have been immune to negative modifiers up to -5....which was kind of the whole point of those stats.

A simple BS table was not a problem...so it's unfortunate it disappeared when it actually would have slotted perfectly into 8th edition. Likewise, I fully agree the WS system should have been simplified to the wounding system. Simple, and would actually make close combat units worth it on occasion.

If anything, they should have got rid of S and T rather than WS. WS actually is two things opposing each other, while S and T are just checks done on successful strikes.

- Weapons just have wounds on a dice number.

- Tougher units have more wounds and better armour saves

Then, bring back Initiative, and have it work like current S vs T, except it's WS or BS vs I. Initiative represents how fast and well the model can position itself or be aware of surroundings to avoid fire or someone hitting you.

Agree completely. They could even use the system that is now used for S and T. I think they should have gone further as well, they should do the same for shooting maybe bring back initiative to represent how good at doging you are.