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I've been working on my own modified version of 8th edition and am looking for some feedback on my morale rules. In my rules leadership moves to a save kind of like armour and units get a new Willpower stat. As an example I picture a standard Guardsmen as having a Leadership of 4+ and a Willpower of 3/6 where as a unit of Imperial Space Marines would have a leadership of 3+ and Willpower of 4/-. That should help contextualize the rules below.

Leadership Tests
Whenever a unit is called upon to take a leadership test, roll a single D6. If the roll is equal to or greater than the unit’s Leadership characteristic the test has been passed. Any other result and the test has been failed.

Willpower
All models have a Willpower characteristic that list two separate values. The first is the unit’s Resolve and the second is the unit’s Breaking Point. Some units will only have a single value given and for the second value will simply show a dash. Such units are either so fanatical, courageous or are so devoid of thought or sense of self preservation that they will fight on no matter what and so they do not have a breaking point and cannot ever be broken.

Casualties
Each time a unit suffers casualties place a casualty marker next to that unit. You can either stack physical markers of some kind or even just count up the number of markers the unit has on a dice of some kind. However it is done, just be sure it is clear exactly how many casualty markers the unit has received that turn.

Testing Morale
During the Morale Phase any units that suffered casualties that turn will have to check their Morale. To check morale, remove all casualty markers from the unit and make a single leadership test for each marker removed this way. Keep track of how many leadership tests are failed this way. Add up the total number of failed leadership tests and compare the result to the unit’s Willpower values. If the total number of failures equals or exceeds their Resolve value the unit is Shaken, and a Shaken marker is placed next to the unit. If the total number of failures equals or exceeds their Breaking Point, then the unit is also Broken, and a Broken marker is placed next to the unit.

Courage in Numbers
Soldiers typically find courage and strength in numbers, feeling safe in the knowledge that many of their compatriots are looking out for them. A unit adds +1 to both their Resolve and Breaking Point values for every full 5 models in the unit when they are called upon to test their Morale.

Under Strength Units
Units that have suffered horrendous losses are far more likely to break under pressure or decide to flee. When a unit that has less than half of its starting number of models remaining is called upon to test their morale, make two leadership tests for every casualty marker removed rather than one.

Shaken Units
While a unit remains Shaken, they suffer -1 to all of their hit rolls for shooting and close combat. In addition, a Shaken unit cannot be the target of friendly stratagems, command abilities or be affected by friendly aura abilities. A unit is only ever shaken temporarily. At the start of the next Morale Phase remove all Shaken tokens from all units before testing any units’ morale.

Broken Units
A unit that is broken remains so for the rest of the game, their resolve and will to fight having been completely shattered. A Broken unit halves their Resolve value (rounded up). Additionally, while a unit is broken, in any future Morale Phases whenever that unit fails a leadership test while testing their morale remove a single model from the unit as a casualty for each failed leadership test. The stress of battle has overcome those models so completely that they no longer take part in the fighting, having fled or found somewhere to hide.

I have a unit of 30 Plaguebearers. The opponent dedicates a lot of firepower into them, since they scary, killing 15.

At the end of the turn, I have to make 30 Leadership Tests. Not saying the system is unbalanced (not commenting on that at all). Only that it can require a fethton of dice rolls.

Yep. Just trade in that small handful of rolls for a straight up bucket. I'm sure the playerbase as a whole will eat that up.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I have a unit of 30 Plaguebearers. The opponent dedicates a lot of firepower into them, since they scary, killing 15.

At the end of the turn, I have to make 30 Leadership Tests. Not saying the system is unbalanced (not commenting on that at all). Only that it can require a fethton of dice rolls.

You have a very valid point. I'm just really trying to make a way to have Ld have more subtle impact and not just make guys run or do nothing at all like it is now. Could change it so that you don't double the dice, each failure just counts as two failures, so in your case you'd still only be rolling 15 dice. I know that's still a decent amount but no more than you roll in any other phase to resolve anything else. Think that seems more reasonable?

Maethbalnane wrote:
Yep. Just trade in that small handful of rolls for a straight up bucket. I'm sure the playerbase as a whole will eat that up.

Thanks for the constructive comment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay I went back to the drawing board and came up with this instead. I got rid of the dual values for Willpower, models will just have a single willpower score now.

Leadership Check
Whenever a unit is called upon to take a leadership check, roll a single D6. If the roll is equal to or greater than the unit’s Leadership characteristic the check has been passed. Any other result and the check has been failed.

Damage
Each time a unit suffers any unsaved wounds, place a damage marker next to that unit. You can either stack physical markers of some kind or just count up the number of markers the unit has on a dice of some kind. However it is done, just be sure it is clear exactly how many damage markers the unit has received that turn.

Panic Tests
During the Morale Phase any units that were given one or more damage markers that turn will have to take a Panic Test. To take a panic test, divide the number of damage tokens the unit has by their willpower characteristic (rounded up) and make that many leadership checks. If any checks are failed, the unit is Shaken, and a Shaken marker is placed next to the unit. If the total number of failed checks equals or exceeds their willpower, then the unit is also Broken, and a Broken marker is placed next to the unit.

Courage in Numbers
Soldiers typically find courage and strength in numbers, feeling safe in the knowledge that many of their compatriots are looking out for them. A unit rolls one fewer leadership check when taking a panic test for every 10 models in the unit.

Under Strength
Units that have suffered horrendous losses are far more likely to break under pressure or decide to flee. If a unit is under half it’s starting number of models, it rolls one additional leadership check when taking any panic tests.

Shaken Units
While a unit remains Shaken, they suffer -1 to all of their hit rolls for shooting and close combat. In addition, a Shaken unit cannot be the target of friendly stratagems, command abilities or be affected by friendly aura abilities. A unit is only ever shaken temporarily. At the start of the next Morale Phase remove all Shaken tokens from all units before any units make any panic tests.

Broken Units
A unit that is broken remains so for the rest of the game, their resolve and will to fight having been completely shattered. A Broken unit halves their willpower (rounded up). Additionally, when a broken unit is forced to make a panic test, remove a single model from the unit as a casualty (chosen by the owning player) for every failed leadership check taken as part of that test. The stress of battle has overcome those models so completely that they no longer take part in the fighting, having fled or found somewhere to hide.

Characters, Monsters and Vehicles
Units with the Character, Monster or Vehicle keyword can never be broken regardless of how many failed leadership checks they make when taking a panic test.

I actually don't have problem with the number of dice rolled in either version. In JNA's example, you might be rolling 30 dice instead of a single die, but it's still just one pool of dice. The only slow-down involved is the time it takes to grab the appropriate number of dice. The GW rules already require you to count up how many casualties you've taken. The proposed rules just require you to fish out that many dice rather than treating the number of casualties as a modifier.

However, the proposed rules do add a lot of complexity to what is currently a very simple mechanic. I feel like most of the proposal is adding/changing rules without directly addressing your goals.

I'm just really trying to make a way to have Ld have more subtle impact and not just make guys run or do nothing at all like it is now.

In addition, a Shaken unit cannot be the target of friendly stratagems, command abilities or be affected by friendly aura abilities.

The first quote is your stated goal. The second quote is very similar to something I've pitched in the past and also happens to achieve your stated goals more or less on its own.

Assuming someone took the time to label all appropriate strats and special abilities in the game as "command abilities," then this would make morale have a huge impact on the game without simply being an additional source of casualties. I'd argue that it's also a fluffier representation of "morale" in 40k than the current rules. With the exception of humans, tau, and maybe craftworlders, pretty much no one on the tabletop should be straight up running away from a fight or even being rendered combat effective for the duration of a battle. Necrons just aren't that scared of night lords. But blasting chunks out of units or freaking out commanders with various forms of spookyness could reasonably cause a squad to not execute a first rank fire second rank fire very effectively.

My version of this was basically:
* Morale no longer causes casualties, but morale tests remain unchanged.
* Failing morale causes a unit to become shaken.
* Shaken units cannot benefit from command abilities and become unshaken at the start of the next morale phase.
* Maybe give some weapons a "pinning" or "suppression" rule that basically inflicts a penalty on the morale test of enemies that suffer one or more casualties from such weapons.

i'd be in favor of a shaken condition rather than "model flees"

The current rules, even for Marines, basically means if you run more than 5 models you are probably going to lose a handful to leadership, but if you run 5 you never will unless Eldar trickery is afoot.

I preferred forcing units to run away, it didnt directly kill them (unless they ran off the board) but it did royally mess things up like a gun is out of position now or now theyre in the open and easily charged. Morale currently either does nothing, or cripples you, and i find it annoying.

So went back to the drawing board. I wanted to keep a similar concept but like everyone has said simplify it a little more and cut down on the dice rolling. Here's what I've got now.

Leadership Check
Whenever a unit is called upon to take a leadership check, roll a single D6. If the roll is equal to or greater than the unit’s Leadership characteristic the check has been passed. Any other result and the check has been failed.

Panic Tests and Fleeing
During the Morale Phase, for each unit that suffered unsaved wounds that turn, compare the total number of unsaved wounds they suffered to their Morale characteristic. If the total number of unsaved wounds is equal to or greater than their Morale, then the unit has to take a Panic Test by making a Leadership check. If the unit suffered double their Morale in unsaved wounds, they suffer a -1 penalty to their roll. If they suffered triple or more their Morale in unsaved wounds, they suffer a -2 penalty to their roll instead.

If the check is passed the unit suffers no further ill effect. If it is failed however, the unit becomes Shaken. Place a suitable token or marker next to the unit as a reminder that they are Shaken.

Units do not remain shaken indefinitely. In most cases the unit is only temporarily affected and is able to gets their wits about them once again. At the start of the Morale Phase, any units that are Shaken cease to be Shaken if they did not suffer enough unsaved wounds that turn to cause a Panic Test.

If a Shaken unit did suffer enough unsaved wounds to cause a Panic Test, then they will remain Shaken unless the unit passes their Panic Test, in which case they cease to be Shaken immediately upon passing. If a Shaken unit fails a Panic Test however, the extreme duress the unit is under may cause some members to flee or hide. If a Shaken unit fails their Panic Test, roll a single D6 for each remaining model in the unit and for each roll of 1 a single model has fled and is removed as a casualty (chosen by the unit’s controlling player).

Breaking Point
Units that have suffered horrendous losses are far more likely to break under pressure or decide to flee. If a unit is under half it’s starting number of models it must take a panic test every Morale Phase regardless if it has taken any unsaved wounds that turn or not.

Shaken Units
A unit that is Shaken suffers a -1 penalty to all of their hit rolls for shooting and close combat. In addition, a Shaken unit cannot be the target of friendly stratagems, command abilities or be affected by friendly aura abilities.

Characters, Monsters and Vehicles
Units with the Character, Monster or Vehicle keyword never flee. Do not roll a D6 for any such models if they are Shaken and fail a Panic Test. The unit just simply remains Shaken. In addition, units consisting of entirely Characters, Monstrs or vehicles check to see if their unit is under half their starting total of wounds and not models when determining their breaking point.

I like where you're going with this, but my personal preference would be to get rid of wound counting altogether, since it could prove overly time consuming.

If you don't mind, I was musing on the following:

- a unit must take a leadership test each time they suffer a wound.
- if failed, the unit is shaken and suffers -1 to hit, and half movement
- shaken status is carried over each turn until leadership is passed or when an ability negates it, however a shaken unit that takes casualties and fails another check becomes pinned. Pinned units hit on 6s, and may not move or charge.
- Bonus: units at half strength suffer +1 to leadership rolls, and units in cover get -1 to leadership rolls.

Certain units may be immune to pinning, but no one should be immune to shaken. e.g. space marine ATSKNF prevents pinning, but not shaken, or commissars undo pinning by executing a model, but don't affect shaken, etc.

Anyway, those are just my ideas.

Dandelion wrote:
I like where you're going with this, but my personal preference would be to get rid of wound counting altogether, since it could prove overly time consuming.

If you don't mind, I was musing on the following:

- a unit must take a leadership test each time they suffer a wound.
- if failed, the unit is shaken and suffers -1 to hit, and half movement
- shaken status is carried over each turn until leadership is passed or when an ability negates it, however a shaken unit that takes casualties and fails another check becomes pinned. Pinned units hit on 6s, and may not move or charge.
- Bonus: units at half strength suffer +1 to leadership rolls, and units in cover get -1 to leadership rolls.

Certain units may be immune to pinning, but no one should be immune to shaken. e.g. space marine ATSKNF prevents pinning, but not shaken, or commissars undo pinning by executing a model, but don't affect shaken, etc.

Anyway, those are just my ideas.

Wanted to keep wound counting mostly so you can't just hit every unit for minimal damage and force checks army wide. I mean in the heat of combat casualties are to be expected, it would take somewhat heavier losses to really alarm a unit.

I did actually consider the whole pinning idea though of having ascending conditions if you keep failing but in the end I kind of leaned towards less record keeping than that and having one catch all condition for simplicity's sake.

Some ideas I had for interacting with these rules though;

- Sniper weapons cause a Panic Test if they cause even a single wound
- ATSKNF: never have models flee and and do not suffer the -1 hit penalties for being shaken but still cannot use auras and stratagems while Shaken
- Commissars raise unit's Morale stat by 1 within 6" and can kill a model to re-roll the failed Ld check
- Orks add +1 to their Ld checks if over 10 models or +2 if over 20, get +1 to their morale for every 5 models in the unit. Can count the unit size of friendly Ork units within 6" in place of their own.
- Night Lords Legion tactics is enemy units are -1 morale if any Night Lords units are within 12" and if a Night Lords unit is within 3" must take a Panic test regardless of how many wounds they suffer
- Auto-pass morale stratagem becomes 1 CP ignore all penalties to your Ld check

Imo, wound counting is more record keeping than simply upgrading a shaken token to a pinned token (since you could just flip the token to another face).

That said, I don’t believe there’s any problem with min wounding to force a leadership check. For starters, it’s difficult for players to gauge how many attacks should be allotted to each enemy unit. The dice will underwound certain units and overwound others.

In addition, it’s only one check per unit, so you can assume that most of your army will pass anyway under normal conditions. If implemented with the penalty for half strength, you’ll need to kill half a unit to better guarantee a failed check anyway, which is just a less granular version of what you’re trying to do. It also scales with unit size in a simple way.

You could simply implement it in such a way that healthy units have sufficient leadership to pass checks most of the time, while half strength units drop that a bit and losing your warlord or being in combat decreases it further.

e.g. a squad gets leadership 8, and checks are done on 2D6:
- half strength = -1 leadership
Already their chance to pass goes from 72% to 58%
But you could also stack other penalties too for things like:
- nearby unit shaken
- warlord killed
- lost combat round
- spooky night lords
And also have positives:
- banners
- nearby commander
- in cover
Said squad above in cover and near a commander now has a 90% chance to pass, making them very resilient to small amounts of fire.

In a lot of ways this is similar to previous editions, with the exception that units are pinned instead of running away.

I suppose it all depends on how you want to model the morale mechanics.
If it is just units loosing wounds , or units loosing confidence?
Does this cause a leader ship test to avoid negative morale,or negative morale that is removed by passing a leadership test next turn?
Etc ,etc.

My preferred option would be to simply model ''loss of unit confidence'' with direct and emmidiate effect.(Eg basic Suppression rules.)

Eg,
Unit confidence could take current wounds and armour save into account.
So a unit failing more armour saves than half its remaining wounds , would automatically become ''Shaken''.(Move up to M stat or shoot up to half range.)
''Shaken'' units have to pass a morale test to recover full morale /actions..

Passing a morale test next ''end of game turn'', ( with modifiers? ), removes Shaken status.

I do not like emmidiate morale tests as it slows the game down IMO.Rolling for morale at the end of the turn is better.

However, I am biased, as I tend to play more modern war game's so it may not be a good fit with current 40k rules.

I tend to think of morale as an attack on a units ability to act.

Weapons attack unit numbers, morale attacks unit actions.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I have a unit of 30 Plaguebearers. The opponent dedicates a lot of firepower into them, since they scary, killing 15.

At the end of the turn, I have to make 30 Leadership Tests. Not saying the system is unbalanced (not commenting on that at all). Only that it can require a fethton of dice rolls.

Wouldnt plague bearers be basically immune to moral though? so in this case would have a crazy high will power or whatever ?

 FEARtheMoose wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I have a unit of 30 Plaguebearers. The opponent dedicates a lot of firepower into them, since they scary, killing 15.

At the end of the turn, I have to make 30 Leadership Tests. Not saying the system is unbalanced (not commenting on that at all). Only that it can require a fethton of dice rolls.

Wouldnt plague bearers be basically immune to moral though? so in this case would have a crazy high will power or whatever ?

First off, even if they had a 2+ rerollable, they've still got a close to 60% chance of failing.

Second off, Plaguebearers are Leadership 7. They're one of the few units in the game that actually CARES about morale.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 FEARtheMoose wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I have a unit of 30 Plaguebearers. The opponent dedicates a lot of firepower into them, since they scary, killing 15.

At the end of the turn, I have to make 30 Leadership Tests. Not saying the system is unbalanced (not commenting on that at all). Only that it can require a fethton of dice rolls.

Wouldnt plague bearers be basically immune to moral though? so in this case would have a crazy high will power or whatever ?

First off, even if they had a 2+ rerollable, they've still got a close to 60% chance of failing.

Second off, Plaguebearers are Leadership 7. They're one of the few units in the game that actually CARES about morale.

For beeing literally horrors out of a parallel dimension, Daemons do indeed suffer heavily from morale.

I'm just going to quote myself from the last "Leadership as a save" post (the first paragraph of which is almost exactly what I thought when reading this post! funny!):

 Yarium wrote:
I think treating Leadership as a save against Morale is quite clever. In a way, the rules somewhat already do this, except with no guaranteed failure like with regular saves. While I don't think I like having to roll for each model in a squad, I do like the thought behind it. I quite like the simplicity of rolling 1 dice; the ugly part is having to think of 3 numbers, with 2 of those numbers being things you don't often think of.

Currently; Ld + Dice Roll - Models Lost = Lose 0 if 0 or positive, lose number equal to result if negative.

Well, you don't normally look up Ld, so that's a number that's hard to remember. You have to remember how many models died this turn (usually you keep those models nearby, but sometimes you forget), and then you factor in the die result. Finally, you're looking for a negative number, which is an extra mental flip. None of these things are hard, but 3 of them require a moment of consideration.


How about the following?

Ld Saves:
"If a unit has lost any number of models this turn, it has to make a Ld save during the Morale phase. Roll 1d6 and compare it to the Ld Save of the unit. If the number is equal to or greater than the Ld Save value (Ld+), then the unit is brave and suffers no ill effects. If the result rolled is less than the Ld Save value, that many models flee the unit. For example, if a unit of Space Marines (Ld 3+) rolls a 1, then 1 Space Marine flees and is removed from the battlefield. A natural roll of 1 always fails, regardless of any modifiers, and at least one model must flee due to such a result."

So yeah, Characters naturally are fearless, because they're units of 1 model. Same for Knights and most vehicles. Very brave units, such as Terminators, would have a Ld 2+ save. Extra brave units, like Space Marines, would have a 3+ save. Somewhat brave units like T'au would have a 4+ save. Not very brave units like Guardsmen would have a save of 5+. Panicky units like Cultists would have a 6+ save. Cowardly units like Grots would have a - save, meaning they'd always fail and lose models equal to the dice rolled. Two nice things about this system are that it affects both big and small units (and so big units can take the losses more), and that a lot of times it'll keep with GW's way of having consistent stat-lines; 3+'s across the board for Marines, 5+'s across the board for Orks, etc.

Speak of Orks, let's look at a few ways of modifying these values due to special rules:

#1 - And They Shall Know No Fear: One fewer model flees this unit when it fails a Ld save, to a minimum of one.
#2 - Commissars: The first time a friendly unit fails a Ld save whilst within 6" of this model, one model dies instead, and the unit rerolls its Ld save.
#3 - Mob Rule: This unit adds 1 to Ld save rolls for every 10 friendly Ork models within 6" of it.
#4 - Night Lords Terror: Whenever an enemy unit fails a Ld save whilst within 12" of a NIGHT LORDS unit, one additional model flees the unit.
#5 - Terrifying Visions (psychic power): If this power is successfully manifested, up to one target enemy unit within 18" subtracts 1 from its Ld save rolls until the start of your next turn.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's a quick list of Factions and what I think their average Ld should be like in this model:

1+ (these factions are utterly unbreakable outside of shenanigans):
- Adeptus Custodes
- Necrons

2+ (these factions are extremely brave and intractable):
- Grey Knights
- Officio Assasinorum
- Harlequins

3+ (these factions are known for discipline and resoluteness):
- Sisters of Battle
- Space Marines
- Deathwatch
- Imperial Knights
- Inquisition
- Sisters of Silence
- Chaos Knights
- Chaos Space Marines
- Craftworld Eldar

4+ (these factions are known neither for bravery or cowardice)
- T'au
- Astra Militarum
- Adeptus Mechanicus
- Drukhari
- Genestealer Cult

5+ (these factions are known for being unruly, or prone to panic)
- Orks

6+ (these factions are known to be little more than beasts)
- Tyranids
- Unaligned



Some notable exceptions:
- Tyranids within range of Synapse automatically pass Leadership Saves.
- Veterans for every faction generally have +1 to the Ld save value.
- Grots have a Ld - save, meaning they can never pass a Ld save if they are called to make one.
- Chaos Cultists would have a Ld5+ save, as would Guard Conscripts.

Pinning Tests - fail the test and you forfeit your next move/shooting/assault phase and can't overwatch.

Tank Shock Tests - Run or get cRUNched

Loyalty Tests - if double 6, the unit changes to your opponent's side for the duration of the battle

Or the alternative, lets dust off our old 3rd edition rulebooks and bring back THE GREATEST RULEBLOAT OF ALL TIME!