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So although this is a bit random, does anyone else think the wounding sequence is just wrong?

Yes I get it, it’s a game and yes we shouldn’t lean too much into reality, but the wounding sequence is blatantly out of step.

Step 1 - roll to hit
Step 2 - roll to wound
Step 3 - roll to save
Step 4 - any additional saves

It should be

Step 1 - roll to hit
Step 2 - roll to save
Step 3 - roll to wound
Step 4 - any additional saves.

Rationale is simple - the save effectively represents the offending object hitting something like armour for example. Armour fails, then it’s a question of how badly it wounds what is under it. The traditional sequence in the context of being shot would be that you’re hit with a bullet, your wounded by the bullet, and then time rolls backwards as your armour stops it.

It’s just plain wrong.

The idea is for the attacker to make their rolls (hit, wound) then the defender makes their saves. Cuts down on the number of times you need to hand off dice or have one person stop their rolls to have the other person start doing theirs.

If that is the problem why not merg the to hit and the to wound roll. Otherwise it seems like a lot of unneeded dice rolling.

Why roll saves for attacks that don’t wound?

The way they do it (and have done for decades now) saves rolling for saves that were then pointless to have rolled for. It’s simple expediency.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:
If that is the problem why not merg the to hit and the to wound roll. Otherwise it seems like a lot of unneeded dice rolling.

I mean that in no way equates but ok. Sure, that is a decision they could make but then weapon Strength becomes irrelevant, and it’s all about marksmanship alone. That’s not how 40K currently operates.

The weapon strength isn't irrelevant in that case, it's just rolled into a single roll tone if the firing undertaken by a single.model is effective or not. You could also come up with a mechanic that takes into account the rate of fire of the weapon as well but that would require a substantial reworking of how current multi-wound models are dealt with.

The old stargrunt rules for example had a simple opposed dice roll between the attached and defender. Rolling different types of die (d4, d6, d10 etc) depending on the quality of the troops, the amount of firepower being carried by a squad, the range and any cover that might be involved. It is a really elegant system, but doesnt really have the same buckets of dice feel that GW has gone for.

Current wound system is good and i dont see any problems with it.

sajmonikpl1 wrote:
Current wound system is good and i dont see any problems with it.

There is one problem with it. Armor Saves, as a mechanic, is useless filler, that, while giving your opponent "something to do" on your turn, does not contribute to gameplay in any meaningful way. Armor Saves are a band-aid applied to "fix" the issues with an IGOUGO system.

Wish the system was - (1) Attacker rolls to hit, (2) Defender rolls to save.

And that is it. Two rolls.

But we'd probably need something other than a D6 or stats would be too samey.

 Stormonu wrote:
Wish the system was - (1) Attacker rolls to hit, (2) Defender rolls to save.

And that is it. Two rolls.

But we'd probably need something other than a D6 or stats would be too samey.

With Warhammer, I was saying some other game at the same time too called Heroscape that functioned that way. Game was okay mechanically I guess but it never caught on and I dunno if it was the most balanced thing ever.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Why roll saves for attacks that don’t wound?

Why roll to wound for attacks that don't penetrate the armor?

40K's hit resolution system is primarily a legacy of its RPG roots, where a save to avoid damage was taken after all else had failed, and carried forward by a legacy of giving the other player in an IGOUGO system at least something to do.

Most wargames nowadays have the attacking player do the dice resolution, and tend to consolidate 40K's large number of rolls (# of shots -> to hit -> to wound -> armor/invuln -> FNP) into fewer trials.

 Stormonu wrote:
Wish the system was - (1) Attacker rolls to hit, (2) Defender rolls to save.

And that is it. Two rolls.

But we'd probably need something other than a D6 or stats would be too samey.

Not if you used something like the old to-wound chart, comparing two values to determine the minimum roll needed to succeed.



A question: does anyone enjoy rolling armor saves? Is it fun to have mechanics that provide zero choice?

 JohnnyHell wrote:
I mean that in no way equates but ok. Sure, that is a decision they could make but then weapon Strength becomes irrelevant, and it’s all about marksmanship alone. That’s not how 40K currently operates.

Dream Pod 9's Silhouette system resolves an attack with a single opposed roll, and it still takes shooter quality, target quality, range, electronic warfare, weapon strength, rate of fire, conditional effects (eg flanking), and a host of other modifiers into account. Does a pretty good job of it too, IMO.

Consolidation of separate rolls is doable with the right mechanics.

Iirc, many moons ago, Gav Thorpe or one of the early devs said that the save mechanism was added to allow the defender to try and ‘save’ their troops. In effect, giving them something to do during the opponent’s turn, and not just standing around while the enemy ‘killed’ them.

Now, it remains a legacy. LOTR SBG does away with saves, except for the fate(?) roll that heroes can get. Everything else is rolled into the Defense rating or “in the way” rolls for obstacles, etc.

I agree that the order does not really make sense from a "reality" perspective but it was to reduce the amount of dice handovers to the other player.

It did create for some strange situations though. For example in 2nd edition, if a model had a Dodge save and made it, it was supposed to be moved out of a template weapon's area of effect. But you never made it to rolling for the Dodge save if the to-wound roll failed. So it creates the odd picture of the target not bothering to dodge unless they knew for sure the blast or flames were going to wound them.

Similarly it created interactions with certain of the fields like Displacer Field or Conversion Field, that had secondary effects like being displaced or emitting a blinding flash if you made the save. However no save and no effect if the hit failed the to-wound roll. So somehow the field machinery doesn't bother to activate if the hit is not "serious" enough? But how does it know that? Again does not make sense.

Blastaar wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Wish the system was - (1) Attacker rolls to hit, (2) Defender rolls to save.

And that is it. Two rolls.

But we'd probably need something other than a D6 or stats would be too samey.

Not if you used something like the old to-wound chart, comparing two values to determine the minimum roll needed to succeed.



A question: does anyone enjoy rolling armor saves? Is it fun to have mechanics that provide zero choice?

Rolling saves is more fun that just having the opponent roll their dice and tell you how many models to remove. Use to be going to ground was a choice you could make to improve your cover save (at the cost of next turns movement and snap shooting) which was to a small degree player choice. You could choose to jink for a cover save but that was declared when targeted but its always better for you to tangibly play out your decision instead of just watch your opponent roll. Same with look out sirs to shift wounds off to nearby squad members or choosing to tank the wounds on a character.

Played it both ways over the years/editions.

Neither way has ever proven particularly better or worse.

The one (slight) down side hit-save-wound had was that anytime we added a new payer we'd have to explain a house rule - that never really ever added anything to the play xp anyways. And cover it again & again for those who didn't play with us all that regular.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Why roll saves for attacks that don’t wound?

The way they do it (and have done for decades now) saves rolling for saves that were then pointless to have rolled for. It’s simple expediency.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:
If that is the problem why not merg the to hit and the to wound roll. Otherwise it seems like a lot of unneeded dice rolling.

I mean that in no way equates but ok. Sure, that is a decision they could make but then weapon Strength becomes irrelevant, and it’s all about marksmanship alone. That’s not how 40K currently operates.

but difference could come from wounds being done. First they could over spill. Which would make d4 or d6 damage weapon more powerful, and not totaly suck against horde armies. At the same time the number of 2D damage on shoting could be curbed, to stop them from being the ultimate anti tank weapon.

And to make stuff really anti infantry or anti tank there could just be weapon traits. An anti tank weapon could double or triple the number of wounds it does to a vehicle. some armies could be better vs monsters, then vehicles etc Other weapons could be really good at killing infantry, but regular vs everything else. Lets say a MM would hit on +3 on a marine, and did 4 damage, but vs vehicles it would double, and triple at half range. A hvy bolter on the other hand could have 3 shots, but each unsaved one would turn in to 3 wounds if the target was infantry.

To be fair the wound roll is pretty unrealistic. None of the weapons in 40k (not even lasguns) are going to fail to damage something they hit.

Only vehicles and large creatures, but that's what multiple wounds are for.

The Lethality comes from the accuracy of the hit.

You could redo the system to something like this:

1 miss
2-3 suppression - take a suppression marker (use to determine pinning/morale)
4-5 target centre mass- roll save
6 precise shot - ignore armour


And different armies would have different shooting profiles
Orks might be:

1-3 miss
4 suppression
5-6 centre mass-

And never be able to score a precise hit.

Maybe specialist squads could get modifiers to the table - snipers get +1 to their roll.

 Stormonu wrote:
Wish the system was - (1) Attacker rolls to hit, (2) Defender rolls to save.

And that is it. Two rolls.

But we'd probably need something other than a D6 or stats would be too samey.

My bad. I just forgot about those.But rest is ok. I think

Sumilidon wrote:
So although this is a bit random, does anyone else think the wounding sequence is just wrong?

Yes I get it, it’s a game and yes we shouldn’t lean too much into reality, but the wounding sequence is blatantly out of step.

It’s just plain wrong.

Yes logically it's somewhat wrong. It's also faster to do than "right" order. Maybe it wouldn't have been too bad in previous editions but with 8th ed already being slow as hell last thing we need is to slow down things even more. Sometimes practicalities are better reasons than realistically when the end result is same. It would not affect at all how many die etc.

You need all the rolls to represent the different aspects and their modifiers, but it's slow to swap backwards and forwards between players so attacker rolls twice then defender rolls.

Blastaar wrote:

A question: does anyone enjoy rolling armor saves? Is it fun to have mechanics that provide zero choice?

There are people who enjoy playing Sorry (a game about rolling dice with very few choices), solitaire, or even the dreaded Monopoly. Or those "put dice in a cup, roll them, and be excited about the random outcome" games.

Just like a person can grow out of playing Shoots and Ladders, or Sorry, a person can grow out of enjoying rolling a save with no choices involved. I mean, seriously, 90% of the time, you could just give the other player your profile and take a break while they rolled to hit, to wound, and rolled the save.

To Hit, To wound - its just naming semantics.

They need you to roll 2d6 because it produces a nice bell curve. Swapping around "order" of identical d6 rolls on account of the labels they've been given literally wastes time and gives you no benefit.

There's a decent dice Official 40K rolling app for Android that makes rolling a breeze. You just press to roll say 20 d6, then if it "wounds" on 4, press the 4 and it auto rolls all the 4+ dice. Hand the slate over to your opponent and they re-roll those wound dice with one click - then they press 5 if they save on 5, and it deselects all the non wounds leaving you with the exact number of wounds. It literally takes seconds to roll 100s of dice - more people should use it.

I understand what the OP is saying, but I don't think that there are going to be any changes any time soon.

'But there would be unneeded saving throws' - balanced out by the unneeded wounding rolls not being made.

I will admit that I like it though. Considering that people have also been complaining about the lack of interactivity in the game, this would be an easy way to mitigate that to a minor extent.

tneva82 wrote:It's also faster to do than "right" order.

Consider ten boltgun hits on a group of Space Marines. Ten rolls to wound, and about half wound, so then about five armor saves. But if you did armor first, you'd make ten saves, and then only about three would pass, followed by three wound rolls.

In any case where a target is more likely to pass its save than the attacker is to wound it, doing armor and then wounding results in fewer rolls overall. The reverse is true when a target is less likely to pass its save than it is to be wounded.

In either case, handing off dice to the opponent universally slows it down, so having the attacker do all the rolls would be faster still.

carldooley wrote:Considering that people have also been complaining about the lack of interactivity in the game, this would be an easy way to mitigate that to a minor extent.

Mindless dice-rolling is not the kind of 'interactivity' anyone is asking for.

I find this idea that rolling dice is a chore... weird.
Because deep down, if you don't like rolling dice, 40k and games like it are a bit odd. Yes I like rolling armour saves.

It makes me wonder whether people would prefer 40k to be "averagehammer". I.E. instead of rolling dice, you just assume every roll is averaged, rounding up.
So ten lasguns into guardsmen? 5 hits, 2.5 wounds, 1.666 dead. You remove 2 models and move on.

I guess in theory this would make balancing the game easier, and make it more like chess with clear definitions of what is skill and what is not - but it would also be very weird.

Blastaar wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Wish the system was - (1) Attacker rolls to hit, (2) Defender rolls to save.

And that is it. Two rolls.

But we'd probably need something other than a D6 or stats would be too samey.

Not if you used something like the old to-wound chart, comparing two values to determine the minimum roll needed to succeed.



A question: does anyone enjoy rolling armor saves? Is it fun to have mechanics that provide zero choice?

In a game that cares so much about dice. Yes.

But I also play an army that has saves worth rolling

Mathematically A * B * C = A * C * B

Tyel wrote:
I find this idea that rolling dice is a chore... weird.
Because deep down, if you don't like rolling dice, 40k and games like it are a bit odd. Yes I like rolling armour saves.

It makes me wonder whether people would prefer 40k to be "averagehammer". I.E. instead of rolling dice, you just assume every roll is averaged, rounding up.
So ten lasguns into guardsmen? 5 hits, 2.5 wounds, 1.666 dead. You remove 2 models and move on.

I guess in theory this would make balancing the game easier, and make it more like chess with clear definitions of what is skill and what is not - but it would also be very weird.

There are some units in 40k that I think may generate more dice rolls than I make in some other games.
And I feel they account for less depth in gameplay after all that rolling than what other games do.


Really I do not think the order of roles in this case really matter so much, but switching it up could just add time for nothing so I would not think changing it to be of much use.

If I was to change it, I would go a bit further and actually think toughness could go, and use save itself as part of that. But that would be a huge shake up to how the game plays.

Tygre wrote:
Mathematically A * B * C = A * C * B

yes, if re-rolls or buffs don't exist. Sequance matters if your doing 2xA-2 or 2x(a-2).