Theatrics of game mechanics.

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**Nexus456**

Ive been mulling over this thought for the last week or so and i'm looking for some insight i suppose. I'm a long time table top player but new to 40k, mostly leaning to things like D&D where world building and details matter to the game mechanics on a bit deeper of a level.

I am having a hard time reconciling "rolls to wound" vs "save roll" because in the mechanics of the game there is (and i'm going to generalize here because getting into specific special abilities is not what i'm aiming at.) a "to hit" roll. easy, this is the actual attack being fired at a model and denotes how accurate a shot or attack is. On success you have achieved your "hit" you then move to "wounding" and this is where things for me get fuzzy.

The way the mechanics have it you take the strength of the attack, and measure that against the toughness of your target. This implies that the nature of the destructive force of the attack is being measured against the resilience of the physical structure (needed for continued functionality) of your target. This to me sounds like damage. At this point you have succeeded in hitting your target, but now you have to see if you hit them well enough to incur a wound?

The way the mechanics have it it's more or less another "roll to hit" because its done way before the targets defenses come into play at all. Normally you would have to be accurate enough to hit ~hit roll~ then get through your targets defenses ~save roll~ then move on to the destructive forces on the body ~wound roll~ then onto damage ~damage roll~

I think what it is for me is that the roll to wound is redundant. i mean i could see if if the order was, roll to hit - roll saving throw - roll to wound - then damage.

I know why the redundancy is there, if the game had even one less phase everything would die much too quickly and would reduce the fun of everything but coming from a order of operations view it just does not make much sense to me. what do you think? how do you rationalize what happens on the table? i know that with all the battle reports and articles i've read framing what happens on the table into a more novelist view i'm curious to know how other people see things.

_edit formatting_

**nareik**

Can you break this in to paragraphs and properly capitalise?

I’m not a strong reader so breaking up and presenting your ideas properly will really help me digest them. At the moment the mental load to just keep my place in the text is too high.

**tneva82**

Nexus456 wrote:

I know why the redundancy is there, if the game had even one less phase everything would die much too quickly and would reduce the fun of everything but coming from a order of operations view it just does not make much sense to me. what do you think? how do you rationalize what happens on the table? i know that with all the battle reports and articles i've read framing what happens on the table into a more novelist view i'm curious to know how other people see things.

_edit formatting_

With d6 if there was no to wound and to save rolls there would be very little graduation and everything would be more of same.

And the order is simply to save time. You can roll to hit and to wound quickly by picking up successes and rolling again. If you have to first roll save then you have to count successes, announce to opponent who picks up dices, rolls, counts successes, tells and then you pick appropriate number of dices and roll from there. Saves time to do in this order.

**the_scotsman**

tneva82 wrote:
Nexus456 wrote:

I know why the redundancy is there, if the game had even one less phase everything would die much too quickly and would reduce the fun of everything but coming from a order of operations view it just does not make much sense to me. what do you think? how do you rationalize what happens on the table? i know that with all the battle reports and articles i've read framing what happens on the table into a more novelist view i'm curious to know how other people see things.

_edit formatting_

With d6 if there was no to wound and to save rolls there would be very little graduation and everything would be more of same.

And the order is simply to save time. You can roll to hit and to wound quickly by picking up successes and rolling again. If you have to first roll save then you have to count successes, announce to opponent who picks up dices, rolls, counts successes, tells and then you pick appropriate number of dices and roll from there. Saves time to do in this order.

This, basically. Wound and Save allow there to be two different kinds of toughness present in the game, one representing sheer bulk/mass, and one representing armor plates or more magical/tricksy types of armor in the invulnerable saves. That gives you the ability to have a greater variety of weapons better at different things and at shooting different targets.

**Imateria**

You also have to take into acount the variety of units in the setting, going from Grots and Nurglings with the strength of a decrepit old man to giant Titans, it's a way of determining if the weapon is suitable to the job. It doesn't matter whether you hit or not, a lasgun should not be able to wound a Land Raider in anything but the most extreme circumstances. The rule "6's always wound" is a mechanic just to prevent the problem we saw in previous editions where it wasn't possible to wound certain targets if your weapons weren't strong enough, it made Knights a more serious gatekeeper army than they are currently.

**Nexus456**

the_scotsman wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
Nexus456 wrote:

I know why the redundancy is there, if the game had even one less phase everything would die much too quickly and would reduce the fun of everything but coming from a order of operations view it just does not make much sense to me. what do you think? how do you rationalize what happens on the table? i know that with all the battle reports and articles i've read framing what happens on the table into a more novelist view i'm curious to know how other people see things.

_edit formatting_

With d6 if there was no to wound and to save rolls there would be very little graduation and everything would be more of same.

And the order is simply to save time. You can roll to hit and to wound quickly by picking up successes and rolling again. If you have to first roll save then you have to count successes, announce to opponent who picks up dices, rolls, counts successes, tells and then you pick appropriate number of dices and roll from there. Saves time to do in this order.

This, basically. Wound and Save allow there to be two different kinds of toughness present in the game, one representing sheer bulk/mass, and one representing armor plates or more magical/tricksy types of armor in the invulnerable saves. That gives you the ability to have a greater variety of weapons better at different things and at shooting different targets.

I think that if you altered the order a bit it would not effect all that much as far as time saving. In the long run you are still going to have to make the saves. If anything i think that putting things in logical order would accentuate how effective a bit of armor is, then move on to how powerful a weapon is in comparison to a targets physical being.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Imateria wrote:
You also have to take into acount the variety of units in the setting, going from Grots and Nurglings with the strength of a decrepit old man to giant Titans, it's a way of determining if the weapon is suitable to the job. It doesn't matter whether you hit or not, a lasgun should not be able to wound a Land Raider in anything but the most extreme circumstances. The rule "6's always wound" is a mechanic just to prevent the problem we saw in previous editions where it wasn't possible to wound certain targets if your weapons weren't strong enough, it made Knights a more serious gatekeeper army than they are currently.

You are always going to get some mechanic rules that are going to forgo immersion for ease of play, and i do not really think that is a bad thing depending on the game. So far i believe that 40K is one of those games that is better streamlined than bogged down in nuance but i am surprised that somethings don't line up very well between the fluff and the crunch aspects considering how old this game has been around for. Sometimes it's very ridged like how it comes to resolving things and it's phases almost reminding me of how MTG stack rules function and how some crunch is dictated by the fluff like tau drones having moral scores. (falling in line with how they function off networked A.I.)

**tneva82**

Nexus456 wrote:
I think that if you altered the order a bit it would not effect all that much as far as time saving. In the long run you are still going to have to make the saves. If anything i think that putting things in logical order would accentuate how effective a bit of armor is, then move on to how powerful a weapon is in comparison to a targets physical being.

It's the counting and picking up dices that slows down. This way you can use same dices and just roll them again. Switched order you have to sort out # of dices to roll twice as often.

In actual odds it would't matter results. It would have slight effect in making armour save CP rolls slightly less useful an to wound rerolls sligtly more useful but th's it.

**Aash**

I completely understand the OP's confusion.It would make a lot more sense if the armour roll was before the wound roll. However I don't think this is to speed up play so much as to make things easier. the attacking player completes all of their rolls before the defender makes their rolls. The set-up seems to be a holdover from earlier editions of 40k: hit roll, wound roll, armour save roll. FNP is an edge case which was added on at the end I guess.

I've always assumed that this is was done in order to give some agency to the defending player rather than to just have the defender be a bystander while the attacker makes all the rolls then tells the defender how many models to remove.

I've always thought that the more logical order of operations would be to have the armour roll between the hit and the wound roll as the OP suggests, and I'd actually make it an Armour Penetration roll made by the attacker rather than an armour save made by the defender.

eg. a space marine currently has a Sv 3+ so fails 1/3 of the time. Change the save value to an Armour Value of 5 and the attack penetrates the armour on a roll that equals or beats the Armour Value.

This way the attacking player rolls Hits, then Armour Penetration, then Wounds and finally Damage. The convention of high rolls equalling success, and rolls of a 1 always fail is preserved with no mathematical difference to the current mechanic. Additionally, weapons' armour modifiers would be positive rather than negative values. FNP etc could work the same way as they do now with the defending player making the rolls after the attackers rolls are all completed.

**Unit1126PLL**

This has always bugged me too, and not simply the ordering of things, but also the meaning of things. The game stats and mechanics have only a tenuous connection to reality. Let's consider some examples:

1) Infantry models. Toughness is how durable the 'living man/woman/alien' is without armor on, and the armor save is adding armor to that. I get it. So:
a. The Adepta Sororitas wear power armor like Space Marines (3+) but are not genetically modified (T3).
b. The Imperial Guard wear worse armor than either the Sororitas or Space Marines (5+) and are also normal humans (T3).
c. Space Marine Terminators wear better armor than Space Marines (2+) and are equally genetically modified (T4).

I still don't understand what 'wounds' are. A Terminator is the same 'toughness' in the flesh as a marine (T4) and wears better armor (2+), but why does it have 2 wounds? Are there two space marines in the armor? What is the enhanced wound value an abstraction of? But I digress. The problem with the toughness vs. save durability understanding above breaks down when applied to other things:
Specifically 2) tank models and monster models (really anything non-infantry):
a. A Carnifex doesn't wear armor, but has better durability than a Space Marine (T6). Why does it have a 3+ save? Is it actually wearing armor? If the chitinous plates on its body are armor, then how is the non-hard parts of its body actually any tougher than the flesh and blood and fused ribcage of a Space Marine? And why does it have more wounds? Do wounds represent "redundancy of bodily systems" in some abstract way that isn't clear? I don't understand.
b. A Leman Russ Tank is only armor (3+), and the crew wearing it has better durability than a Space Marine (T8). Unless the T8 isn't the durability of the thing inside the armor, but rather represents the hardness of the armor itself, in which case what does the armor save mean? What does 12 wounds mean?
c. A Hammerhead Tank wears only armor (3+), but the crew inside the armor is less tough than the crew of a Leman Russ but tougher than both a Space Marine and a Carnifex (T7). Unless T7 isn't the durability of the thing inside the armor, but rather represents something unique about the armor itself - but then, why does it have the same save as a Leman Russ or a Sister of Battle? And what does 13 wounds mean - does it have 13 crewmen to the Russ's 12? If it's '1 wound more durable' but '1 toughness less durable' is it because it's made of harder metal? It has more redundant systems? The crew have greater morale? What?

The game really does do an awful job of explaining what anything really means mechanically. It's hard to write a narrative / live in the world of the following interaction:

A lascannon hits a Leman Russ (What a shot from our heavy weapon guy!)

The lascannon wounds the Leman Russ (looks like if it penetrates the armor, it'll be powerful enough to kill the T8 crewman. Or does the T8 include the armor penetration? Or are the wires and hydraulics inside the tank Toughness 8?).

The Leman Russ fails the Armor Save with a 5+ (needing a 6+. So the lascannon did penetrate the armor, meaning that the T8 must be the toughness of the stuff behind the armor, right? Are Guard tank crews T8 now? Is the ammunition stowage T8? The gearbox? Some sort of abstracted aggregate of Guardsmen flesh and motor fuel and metal?).

The lascannon does 1 wound! Oh no! (So after penetrating the armor and hitting some bizarre amalagam of flesh, metal, hydraulic fluid, and other important tanky bits hard enough to break them, the lascannon vaporized exactly 1/12th of the collective capability of the vehicle - which could have been anything from the gunner's right hand to the headlight to the commander's pocket-knife).

The Leman Russ is now 1/12th of the way dead (whatever that means) with no reduction in capability or capacity (however one manages that) after its armor was penetrated by one of the Imperium's most powerful anti-tank weapons, and the Toughness 8 Guardsmen crew (or whatever) were wounded.

**catbarf**

tneva82 wrote:
Nexus456 wrote:
I think that if you altered the order a bit it would not effect all that much as far as time saving. In the long run you are still going to have to make the saves. If anything i think that putting things in logical order would accentuate how effective a bit of armor is, then move on to how powerful a weapon is in comparison to a targets physical being.

It's the counting and picking up dices that slows down. This way you can use same dices and just roll them again. Switched order you have to sort out # of dices to roll twice as often.

In actual odds it would't matter results. It would have slight effect in making armour save CP rolls slightly less useful an to wound rerolls sligtly more useful but th's it.

You could solve that by having the attacker make all the rolls.

Roll to hit.
Pick up the ones that hit, roll to penetrate armor.
Pick up the ones that penetrated armor, roll to wound.
Pick up the ones that wounded, roll for damage.

The 'owning player rolls saves' convention is a historical holdover from the game's RPG roots, kept around because of the misguided idea that mechanically rolling dice gives the non-active player something meaningful to do when it's not their turn.

The CP reroll mechanic also makes for some very puzzling interactions: You can spend a CP to re-roll a failed save, but not a CP to force a re-roll of a successful wound (and vice versa, you can reroll a failed wound, but not a failed armor penetration). In practice this means that a unit which you are wounding on a 6+ followed by a 5+ save is much easier to kill than a unit which you are wounding on a 3+ followed by a 2+ save, despite the fact that in theory they should be just as hard to damage.

Apocalypse has the attacker making all rolls to resolve an attack, with then all saves resolved at the same time later, and it goes much faster as a result.

**Mud Turkey 13**

I have always rationalized the "theatrics" of hit/wound/save as this:

First, you are testing the accuracy of the person firing by using BS to determine if you hit the target at all.

Next, you roll the wound to see if that hit could cause some harm to the target. For example, I may shoot a space marine and hit it, but if my hit glanced off the space marine's shoulder pad it would not wound him. The only hits that count at this point are ones to center mass or head shots because those wounds could damage, kill, or otherwise remove the target from play.

Finally, the defender makes their armor save to see if that space marine helmet was strong enough to stop the lasgun shot from penetrating and killing the space marine.

While testing the strength of a weapon against a target's toughness doesn't necessarily fit with my "theatrics" of wounding it works well enough for the mechanics of the game.

**Cryptek of Awesome**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
I still don't understand what 'wounds' are. A Terminator is the same 'toughness' in the flesh as a marine (T4) and wears better armor (2+), but why does it have 2 wounds? Are there two space marines in the armor? What is the enhanced wound value an abstraction of?

It's an abstraction of the combined model. Back in the day IIRC terminators were described as tactical dreadnought armor. More like a mini vehicle with an operator strapped inside - not just 'really thick' space marine armor. The combined mass of man and metal together have 2 wounds. Like any of the bike units in 40k. It's usually a basic trooper statline with +1 T and +1 W.
You shoot it and wound and bypass the armor and do one wound and the game says 'Ok that shrapnel has damaged various parts of the bike, wounded the driver - but nothing fatal'. Not only does the bike have armor that's trying to prevent it from being damaged it has an amount of mass and redundancy that can take damage and keep going.

Imagine you're wearing armor, but it's made of Jello. 8+ save lol or no save at all.
But it's 3 miles thick...
20 wounds!

Unit1126PLL wrote:
The game really does do an awful job of explaining what anything really means mechanically. It's hard to write a narrative / live in the world of the following interaction:

A lascannon hits a Leman Russ (What a shot from our heavy weapon guy!)

The lascannon wounds the Leman Russ (looks like if it penetrates the armor, it'll be powerful enough to kill the T8 crewman. Or does the T8 include the armor penetration? Or are the wires and hydraulics inside the tank Toughness 8?).

The Leman Russ fails the Armor Save with a 5+ (needing a 6+. So the lascannon did penetrate the armor, meaning that the T8 must be the toughness of the stuff behind the armor, right? Are Guard tank crews T8 now? Is the ammunition stowage T8? The gearbox? Some sort of abstracted aggregate of Guardsmen flesh and motor fuel and metal?).

The lascannon does 1 wound! Oh no! (So after penetrating the armor and hitting some bizarre amalagam of flesh, metal, hydraulic fluid, and other important tanky bits hard enough to break them, the lascannon vaporized exactly 1/12th of the collective capability of the vehicle - which could have been anything from the gunner's right hand to the headlight to the commander's pocket-knife).

The Leman Russ is now 1/12th of the way dead (whatever that means) with no reduction in capability or capacity (however one manages that) after its armor was penetrated by one of the Imperium's most powerful anti-tank weapons, and the Toughness 8 Guardsmen crew (or whatever) were wounded.

2 problems with this example - changes to vehicles this edition and balance issues with damage D6 weapons.

I felt like this made more sense in previous editions where tanks had AV stats.
So in the same example once you hit the tank and wounded it you were almost guaranteed to get a roll on the penetrating hit chart that would stand a good chance to immobilize the tank or permanently destroy a weapon.
So now it doesn't mechanically work the same it doesn't feel like a meaningful tank hunter anymore.

**Nexus456**

Mud Turkey 13 wrote:

Next, you roll the wound to see if that hit could cause some harm to the target. For example, I may shoot a space marine and hit it, but if my hit glanced off the space marine's shoulder pad it would not wound him. The only hits that count at this point are ones to center mass or head shots because those wounds could damage, kill, or otherwise remove the target from play.

Finally, the defender makes their armor save to see if that space marine helmet was strong enough to stop the lasgun shot from penetrating and killing the space marine.

This right here is where i have a issue with the semantics. After the contact of the hit roll then is the wound, but in the abstract the only things that could prevent the wound at this point is.... the armor/ shields/ esoteric energies/ force of will ect which constitutes the Sv value. Then after getting through plasteel, exoskeleton, or overpowering that damn tau shield generator then is when the fury of the attack hits the squishy bits on the target with the wound roll (str of the attack vs the toughness of the target itself). With weapons being used in the 41st you have to imagine the proposed lethality of any attack at all landing even a glancing blow is capable of catastrophic damage without any protection which is why i don't buy the rationalization of "wound as hitting well enough to actually cause damage" because you have to actually pit the str of the attack against the toughness of the entity under attack.

**JohnnyHell**

Rolling saves before wounds just adds redundant rolls. It doesn’t add anything to the game other than time. It slows down unnecessarily. There’s a reason they’ve used this method for 30years.

**Aash**

How does it add redundant rolls though? You wouldn’t make wound rolls for any saves that pass and the total number of rolls is the same.

**vipoid**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
This has always bugged me too, and not simply the ordering of things, but also the meaning of things. The game stats and mechanics have only a tenuous connection to reality. Let's consider some examples:

1) Infantry models. Toughness is how durable the 'living man/woman/alien' is without armor on, and the armor save is adding armor to that. I get it. So:
a. The Adepta Sororitas wear power armor like Space Marines (3+) but are not genetically modified (T3).
b. The Imperial Guard wear worse armor than either the Sororitas or Space Marines (5+) and are also normal humans (T3).
c. Space Marine Terminators wear better armor than Space Marines (2+) and are equally genetically modified (T4).

I still don't understand what 'wounds' are. A Terminator is the same 'toughness' in the flesh as a marine (T4) and wears better armor (2+), but why does it have 2 wounds? Are there two space marines in the armor? What is the enhanced wound value an abstraction of? But I digress. The problem with the toughness vs. save durability understanding above breaks down when applied to other things:
Specifically 2) tank models and monster models (really anything non-infantry):
a. A Carnifex doesn't wear armor, but has better durability than a Space Marine (T6). Why does it have a 3+ save? Is it actually wearing armor? If the chitinous plates on its body are armor, then how is the non-hard parts of its body actually any tougher than the flesh and blood and fused ribcage of a Space Marine? And why does it have more wounds? Do wounds represent "redundancy of bodily systems" in some abstract way that isn't clear? I don't understand.
b. A Leman Russ Tank is only armor (3+), and the crew wearing it has better durability than a Space Marine (T8). Unless the T8 isn't the durability of the thing inside the armor, but rather represents the hardness of the armor itself, in which case what does the armor save mean? What does 12 wounds mean?
c. A Hammerhead Tank wears only armor (3+), but the crew inside the armor is less tough than the crew of a Leman Russ but tougher than both a Space Marine and a Carnifex (T7). Unless T7 isn't the durability of the thing inside the armor, but rather represents something unique about the armor itself - but then, why does it have the same save as a Leman Russ or a Sister of Battle? And what does 13 wounds mean - does it have 13 crewmen to the Russ's 12? If it's '1 wound more durable' but '1 toughness less durable' is it because it's made of harder metal? It has more redundant systems? The crew have greater morale? What?

The game really does do an awful job of explaining what anything really means mechanically. It's hard to write a narrative / live in the world of the following interaction:

A lascannon hits a Leman Russ (What a shot from our heavy weapon guy!)

The lascannon wounds the Leman Russ (looks like if it penetrates the armor, it'll be powerful enough to kill the T8 crewman. Or does the T8 include the armor penetration? Or are the wires and hydraulics inside the tank Toughness 8?).

The Leman Russ fails the Armor Save with a 5+ (needing a 6+. So the lascannon did penetrate the armor, meaning that the T8 must be the toughness of the stuff behind the armor, right? Are Guard tank crews T8 now? Is the ammunition stowage T8? The gearbox? Some sort of abstracted aggregate of Guardsmen flesh and motor fuel and metal?).

The lascannon does 1 wound! Oh no! (So after penetrating the armor and hitting some bizarre amalagam of flesh, metal, hydraulic fluid, and other important tanky bits hard enough to break them, the lascannon vaporized exactly 1/12th of the collective capability of the vehicle - which could have been anything from the gunner's right hand to the headlight to the commander's pocket-knife).

The Leman Russ is now 1/12th of the way dead (whatever that means) with no reduction in capability or capacity (however one manages that) after its armor was penetrated by one of the Imperium's most powerful anti-tank weapons, and the Toughness 8 Guardsmen crew (or whatever) were wounded.

I think this is a pretty good summary.

Separating toughness and armour does seem questionable. Really, you'd think the former would include the latter. Especially given that we're currently using the same system for necrons, tyranids, vehicles etc. - each of which would logically have no discernible difference between the two.

**Cryptek of Awesome**

Aash wrote:
How does it add redundant rolls though? You wouldn’t make wound rolls for any saves that pass and the total number of rolls is the same.

Going to requote this from someone above.

tneva82 wrote:

It's the counting and picking up dices that slows down. This way you can use same dices and just roll them again. Switched order you have to sort out # of dices to roll twice as often.

In actual odds it would't matter results. It would have slight effect in making armour save CP rolls slightly less useful an to wound rerolls sligtly more useful but th's it.

You're right - saying 'redundant' rolls is wrong. But it breaks the flow.
Right now say you roll to hit and then from the pile you remove the failures, then simply pick up the remaining dice and roll again. Count up the success and tell your opponent to roll for X saves.
The other way you roll for hits remove the failures and tell your opponent to roll X saves.
They have to count the failures and tell you to roll X dice.
It's adding more times where you have to count out a new handful of dice and share info across the table - each time slows the game and is a point for possible confusion.

**Nexus456**

JohnnyHell wrote:
Rolling saves before wounds just adds redundant rolls. It doesn’t add anything to the game other than time. It slows down unnecessarily. There’s a reason they’ve used this method for 30years.

I thought about that for a few days now and really looking at the stat cards i think it would actually speed things up. Most of the save rolls are actually very good compared to the wound roll. it would make unarmored blobs easier to knock out and make specialty units with good defenses more relevant. making small armies with very elite units relevant in the meta without just getting gunned down with mob spam.

**greatbigtree**

****

Gather round, young ones, for your elder has the answers you seek.

The reason saves are rolled last, is that GW feels it's "empowering" to the owning player to have the last roll to determine if your model survives.

I can't quote the source, but that's the reason saves are last. To give the owning player a warm-fuzzy-feeling because they "saved" their dude from dying. Mathematically, no difference to the order of operations.

That's it. That's why saves come after wound rolls.

****

**Nexus456**

greatbigtree wrote:
****

Gather round, young ones, for your elder has the answers you seek.

The reason saves are rolled last, is that GW feels it's "empowering" to the owning player to have the last roll to determine if your model survives.

I can't quote the source, but that's the reason saves are last. To give the owning player a warm-fuzzy-feeling because they "saved" their dude from dying. Mathematically, no difference to the order of operations.

That's it. That's why saves come after wound rolls.

****

I think the idea of GW trying to "empower" it's player base and give them warm fuzzy anything is somewhat comical considering some of their observed business practices. In a grim dark setting like this i would rather it have a bit more of a honesty to it if this is actually the case rather than a run of the mill oversight in how some of the mechanics are run.

**greatbigtree**

I can only show you the path, Grasshopper. You must walk it on your own.

**AnomanderRake**

greatbigtree wrote:
...Mathematically, no difference to the order of operations...

There is a slight mathematical difference to the order of operations; you can model it as simply odds of hitting * odds of wounding * odds of saving, sure, but on the tabletop you're not going to be rolling as many saves as you are wound rolls and not as many wound rolls as hit rolls so things that affect the earlier parts of the process have a chance to influence more dice. I can model out the specifics if you really, really want me to.

**vipoid**

greatbigtree wrote:
****

Gather round, young ones, for your elder has the answers you seek.

The reason saves are rolled last, is that GW feels it's "empowering" to the owning player to have the last roll to determine if your model survives.

I can't quote the source, but that's the reason saves are last. To give the owning player a warm-fuzzy-feeling because they "saved" their dude from dying. Mathematically, no difference to the order of operations.

That's it. That's why saves come after wound rolls.

****

But then shouldn't damage rolls also come before save rolls (FNP notwithstanding)?

Otherwise - especially for characters and other important models - it'll typically be the attacker who gets the last roll that determines whether the model lives or dies.

**catbarf**

JohnnyHell wrote:
Rolling saves before wounds just adds redundant rolls. It doesn’t add anything to the game other than time. It slows down unnecessarily. There’s a reason they’ve used this method for 30years.

What redundant rolls?

It'd add more dice rolled for units that have poor saves but are difficult to wound, reduce the number of dice rolled for units that have good saves but are easy to wound, and otherwise is a wash. Getting rid of the counting/handoffs simply speeds things up.

**Inquisitor Lord Katherine**

Nexus456 wrote:
Ive been mulling over this thought for the last week or so and i'm looking for some insight i suppose. I'm a long time table top player but new to 40k, mostly leaning to things like D&D where world building and details matter to the game mechanics on a bit deeper of a level.

I am having a hard time reconciling "rolls to wound" vs "save roll" because in the mechanics of the game there is (and i'm going to generalize here because getting into specific special abilities is not what i'm aiming at.) a "to hit" roll. easy, this is the actual attack being fired at a model and denotes how accurate a shot or attack is. On success you have achieved your "hit" you then move to "wounding" and this is where things for me get fuzzy.

The way the mechanics have it you take the strength of the attack, and measure that against the toughness of your target. This implies that the nature of the destructive force of the attack is being measured against the resilience of the physical structure (needed for continued functionality) of your target. This to me sounds like damage. At this point you have succeeded in hitting your target, but now you have to see if you hit them well enough to incur a wound?

The way the mechanics have it it's more or less another "roll to hit" because its done way before the targets defenses come into play at all. Normally you would have to be accurate enough to hit ~hit roll~ then get through your targets defenses ~save roll~ then move on to the destructive forces on the body ~wound roll~ then onto damage ~damage roll~

I think what it is for me is that the roll to wound is redundant. i mean i could see if if the order was, roll to hit - roll saving throw - roll to wound - then damage.

I know why the redundancy is there, if the game had even one less phase everything would die much too quickly and would reduce the fun of everything but coming from a order of operations view it just does not make much sense to me. what do you think? how do you rationalize what happens on the table? i know that with all the battle reports and articles i've read framing what happens on the table into a more novelist view i'm curious to know how other people see things.

_edit formatting_

The hit roll represents the unit in question firing a discrete salvo from it's weapons. For some, like a Leman Russ, it's one shell that causes a lot of hits on the target because it explodes in flying shrapnel. For some like a Boltgun, it's a burst of fire.

Wounding and Saves are kind of combined into metrics of resilience. It's a little odd on paper, since a tank is armored but relies on toughness more than armor save for it's defense, and the opposite for infantry.
However, the Wound roll represents the general ability of the weapon to make the target a casualty, stratifying out the classes of target and weapon
Then the save roll represents additional protection that the target may have to keep itself from being made casualty.

As far as the order they're taken in goes, it's mathematically the same if you do hit-wound-armor as if you do hit-armor-wound which is the "narrative" order of events, however, it's faster to do it the way we do.

**Eadartri**

I look at it as weapon and skill accuracy (to hit), power (to wound) and defensive circumstances (to save) like cover, force fields, etc. While this could seem temporally out of order, there is no need to save unless there is the power to wound, and no need to wound unless the target is hit. The dice that need be rolled are thrown.

**greatbigtree**

@ Anomander:

No, there is no mathmatical difference between 0.667 x 0.500 x 0.333 and 0.667 x 0.333 x 0.500.

And regarding damage being rolled / otherwise determined after a save, that’s a new mechanic as of 8th edition, and FNP still triggers after damage calculation... so there is that.

The final *potential roll* still belongs to the player owning the at-risk model.

**AnomanderRake**

greatbigtree wrote:
...No, there is no mathmatical difference between 0.667 x 0.500 x 0.333 and 0.667 x 0.333 x 0.500...

The commutative property of multiplication isn't the entire model of everything that's happening here. The average doesn't change, but statistical variance depends on how many dice you're rolling, so your odds of getting slightly better than average or slightly worse than average do change depending on what order you roll the dice in.

**Gitdakka**

I think they could remove the wound roll altogether. Like if they want infantry to take~2 small arms hits to kill, but 1 hit from plasma or better, just give them 2 wounds and make small arms 1dmg and plasma 2 dmg. Then make AT weapons more dmg and give large stuff enough wounds and it would probably work.

If you want granularity for small arms then give them different ap and rate of fires.

Hit roll->save roll->remove models.

**Unit1126PLL**

So anyways, let's talk about alternatives.

I for one really like the Lord of the Rings system, where toughness and everything is all rolled up into a "Defense" stat.

For example: A normal human wearing normal clothes is Defense 3.

A slightly tougher human (e.g. a hero) wearing normal clothes is Defense 4.

A shield adds +1 (as well as giving you a special combat maneuver). Armor adds +1. Heavy armor adds +2, heavy dwarf armor adds +3.

So Defenses in the game range from 3 to 10 (where siege engines, structures, etc. reside). The game uses an old 40k style wound chart, so basically, the way a fight would work is the following:

1) Roll a Duel roll (essentially a rolloff to see who wins the swordfight, with the more highly skilled model taking ties).

2) Roll Strikes (the model that wins the Duel can then hit the model that lost. It's simply a single roll, Strength vs Defense). That's it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Cryptek of Awesome wrote:
Imagine you're wearing armor, but it's made of Jello. 8+ save lol or no save at all.
But it's 3 miles thick...
20 wounds!

This doesn't hold up, though, because the armor is considerably tougher than the person, and you only roll 1 save. So, for example, if I shoot said jello-armored person with a missile launcher, what happened isn't that I wounded, penetrated the armor, and then hurt the user for d6 damage. What happened (narratively) is that I didn't penetrate the armor, because the material is too thick.

Armor thickness is presumably part of the "armor save", no? Intuitively, thickening the armor of a tank doesn't increase the number of "wounds" it has to absorb damage with, since armor doesn't absorb damage, typically. Unless wounds represent the "ablativeness" of the armor, in in which case why does a captain in Power Armor have like five times as much ablative armor as a regular Tactical Marine in the same armor?

Cryptek of Awesome wrote:
2 problems with this example - changes to vehicles this edition and balance issues with damage D6 weapons.

I felt like this made more sense in previous editions where tanks had AV stats.
So in the same example once you hit the tank and wounded it you were almost guaranteed to get a roll on the penetrating hit chart that would stand a good chance to immobilize the tank or permanently destroy a weapon.
So now it doesn't mechanically work the same it doesn't feel like a meaningful tank hunter anymore.

I preferred the system of 5th edition and before, yes. Adding Hull Points was silly and solved a problem that wasn't there, in my opinion.