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Coming back to 40k from 5th Ed and one of the weirder changes to me is how WS works.

Obviously a lot of stuff in warhammer doesn’t make all that much sense, but I don’t understand why they made WS as a flat value to hit, rather than comparing it to the martial prowess of you opponent? It wasn’t exactly a complicated system before.

Why should an Ork Boy hit a stationery tank on the same value as hitting a Phoenix Lord or Primarch? Comparing WS in the past felt a lot more immersive than only hitting on the same roll every time.

With so much stuff getting power-creeped towards WS 2/3+, it makes combat master special characters feel less special, as one of their qualities was always making lesser characters and units hit them on 4s or 5s.

Anyone feel the same?

I agree with you. CC feels very different now. But IMO the insane buffs on attacks which are prevalent now make an even bigger impact on how CC plays out in the game.

Just count how many extra attacks one can stack to a death company interecessor and weep. It's OTT ridiculous now

You played 5th(i still play 5th at my FLGS). think of 40K from 8th edition onward as a completely different game. the troupes and iconic images are still there, but for all intents and purposes they could have sold it as an entirely different game system. it was as big of, if not bigger, of a shift as the change from 2nd to 3rd edition.

When they made the change they decided to try and simplify/streamline core mechanics(the flip side is that codexes and tons of stratagems if where they dumped all the more complex rules) for new players by removing all the charts and just having fixed stats as the game has moved away from lore based rules (i.e. eldar are faster and more agile thus having a higher initiative and usually weapon skill, but are weaker than a space marine) towards a resource management systems.

While the new system is oversimplified at least it now has the entire range, from hitting on 6s to hitting on 2s. The old system was limited to hitting on 3s, 4s and 5s which was extremely silly and something I really loved to be changed.

With the old system the best fighter in the world hit on 3s against the worst figther in the world, like any decent fighter against the same target. Example: Lelith and a kabalite warrior both hit on 3s against a gretchin. Dull IMHO.

nemesis464 wrote:
Coming back to 40k from 5th Ed and one of the weirder changes to me is how WS works.

Obviously a lot of stuff in warhammer doesn’t make all that much sense, but I don’t understand why they made WS as a flat value to hit, rather than comparing it to the martial prowess of you opponent? It wasn’t exactly a complicated system before.

Why should an Ork Boy hit a stationery tank on the same value as hitting a Phoenix Lord or Primarch? Comparing WS in the past felt a lot more immersive than only hitting on the same roll every time.

With so much stuff getting power-creeped towards WS 2/3+, it makes combat master special characters feel less special, as one of their qualities was always making lesser characters and units hit them on 4s or 5s.

Anyone feel the same?

Well, no. But, I'll explain.

The problem with comparing WS was that is served both as offensive and as defensive stat. Since GW never fine-tuned weapon skill, but always handed a baseline WS to an entire codex, this meant that an ork boy or nob, both dedicated melee combatants would never hit and eldar or necrons on anything better than a 4+, even if they were fighting snipers, armed civilans or heavy fire support squads.
In the end, this cause melee damage for armies who relied on it to vary too much depending on which army you fought, and the extra layer of defense was just one of the many reason why melee was a mostly useless tool in 6th and 7th outside of invincible deathstars. Removing this defensive layer made melee units more reliable and more deadly, improving them in general.

These days, if a combat master is adept at parrying or evading blows, they get a bespoke rule saying just that, see the swarmlord, wyches or castellan crowe for examples. Agility is represented by having higher movement speed, which is also important in combat - you have more control of whether you get the charge, and when you do, you have a chance of taking down the enemy before he strikes back.

So essentially your mental image of how a fight works hasn't changed, WS simply doesn't represents how well can one defend against melee attacks any more.

All the referencing charts is a huge time sink for no actual gain. It's good that it's dead.

 Blackie wrote:
While the new system is oversimplified at least it now has the entire range, from hitting on 6s to hitting on 2s. The old system was limited to hitting on 3s, 4s and 5s which was extremely silly and something I really loved to be changed.

With the old system the best fighter in the world hit on 3s against the worst figther in the world, like any decent fighter against the same target. Example: Lelith and a kabalite warrior both hit on 3s against a gretchin. Dull IMHO.

Okey but in return right now an IG trooper hits a custodes on a +4. It over inflates numbers of models and handicaps elite armies.

These days, if a combat master is adept at parrying or evading blows, they get a bespoke rule saying just that, see the swarmlord, wyches or castellan crowe for examples. Agility is represented by having higher movement speed, which is also important in combat - you have more control of whether you get the charge, and when you do, you have a chance of taking down the enemy before he strikes back.

Okey, but reality this breaks apart as soon as transports and jet packs are added. No to mention that some armies are told to be faster, stronger etc in the lore, but have no stratgems or extra rules to represent it, no to mention stats differences.

GK termintors are told to be moving just as fast and agile as the power armoured brothers, and that this is one of their differences from other marines. But it is just a lore thing. it doesn't come with any rules attached to it. And sometimes it is rather funny when veterans of 10k years of warp wars are just as good at hiting someone as a 30y old IG veteran.

nemesis464 wrote:


Why should an Ork Boy hit a stationery tank on the same value as hitting a Phoenix Lord or Primarch? Comparing WS in the past felt a lot more immersive than only hitting on the same roll every time.

I'm amazed at how many players find that strange, and yet no one asked why shooting at a grot or a knight on the same value was perfectly fine.

GW simply decided in 8th to apply to WS the same level of abstraction that everyone had always found fine for BS.

 Lance845 wrote:
All the referencing charts is a huge time sink for no actual gain. It's good that it's dead.

Huh? No one playing past their first ever beginners game needed to refer to a chart for WS.

Enemy over double your WS: 5+
Enemy lower than your WS: 3+
Everything else: 4+

It was that easy

There was virtually no variation in the game - most things hit each other on 4+ or 3+ especially once they got rid of 2+ and 6+ to hit.

As noted suff like a Bloodthrister/Avatar/Lelith hitting a gretchin on a 3+ was BS.

nemesis464 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
All the referencing charts is a huge time sink for no actual gain. It's good that it's dead.

Huh? No one playing past their first ever beginners game needed to refer to a chart for WS.

Enemy over double your WS: 5+
Enemy lower than your WS: 3+
Everything else: 4+

It was that easy

Just no. It was one of multiple charts in a 200 page rule book, learning it on it's own would have been fine but as one of a large myriad of convoluted rules it was easy to get it wrong in your first few months of playing whilst trying to learn everything.

Karol wrote:

These days, if a combat master is adept at parrying or evading blows, they get a bespoke rule saying just that, see the swarmlord, wyches or castellan crowe for examples. Agility is represented by having higher movement speed, which is also important in combat - you have more control of whether you get the charge, and when you do, you have a chance of taking down the enemy before he strikes back.

Okey, but reality this breaks apart as soon as transports and jet packs are added. No to mention that some armies are told to be faster, stronger etc in the lore, but have no stratgems or extra rules to represent it, no to mention stats differences.

GK termintors are told to be moving just as fast and agile as the power armoured brothers, and that this is one of their differences from other marines. But it is just a lore thing. it doesn't come with any rules attached to it. And sometimes it is rather funny when veterans of 10k years of warp wars are just as good at hiting someone as a 30y old IG veteran.

That's what "abstraction" means. That's the reason why Mortarion doesn't have a rule that has all models on the table not protected against his plague winds wither and die the second he enters and the same reason why Magnus can't wipe out the entire army in a single psychic phase.
The last time GK were even close to their mostly idiotic lore, they were insanely OP. I have also found no evidence of GK terminators being any faster than any other astartes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Imateria wrote:

nemesis464 wrote:
It was that easy

Just no. It was one of multiple charts in a 200 page rule book, learning it on it's own would have been fine but as one of a large myriad of convoluted rules it was easy to get it wrong in your first few months of playing whilst trying to learn everything.

Not to mention that no one knew which WS their characters had and always had to look it up when you hit them.

Karol wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
While the new system is oversimplified at least it now has the entire range, from hitting on 6s to hitting on 2s. The old system was limited to hitting on 3s, 4s and 5s which was extremely silly and something I really loved to be changed.

With the old system the best fighter in the world hit on 3s against the worst figther in the world, like any decent fighter against the same target. Example: Lelith and a kabalite warrior both hit on 3s against a gretchin. Dull IMHO.

Okey but in return right now an IG trooper hits a custodes on a +4. It over inflates numbers of models and handicaps elite armies.

Yeah because if theres any category of army that needs help right now it's elite armies, yes sir.

 Lance845 wrote:
All the referencing charts is a huge time sink for no actual gain. It's good that it's dead.

I mean, it took like three games to memorize the chart. Not much of a time sink there.

Whilst the mechanic itself wasn't that much of a problem, the table was pure trash as it only used 3/5's of the possible outcomes on a dice for no reason whatsoever and actually served to make really high skilled combatants seem really weak, my WS8 Succubus was no better in combat against a Space Marine than my WS5 Wych despite having a massively higher stat.

As Jidmah pointed out, it also had the problem of making certain combat armies rather bad against armies like Eldar and Nids thanks to the way the WS stat worked which is a terrible position to put an army in.

I think removing the defensive nature of the opposed roll and Initiative and leaving the WS and A stats as purely offensive in nature has been a good thing overall, sure it's contributed to the increased lethality of the game now but combat armies are no longer a pointless build.

I don't think the current system is any worse than the previous table. Different and imperfect, yes, but not worse.

As others have said the new system is more in line with how BS has always worked. I think the intention was to simplify/streamline the game. (Also why BS is now a 2+/3+/4+ etc live a Save instead of a Stat with an (admittedly very simple) table to reference.

Personally I'd have preferred a system with both melee attack and melee defence stats, especially since Initiative was removed. They could have used the same table as S/T for WS and a Melee defence stat.

 Imateria wrote:

nemesis464 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
All the referencing charts is a huge time sink for no actual gain. It's good that it's dead.

Huh? No one playing past their first ever beginners game needed to refer to a chart for WS.

Enemy over double your WS: 5+
Enemy lower than your WS: 3+
Everything else: 4+

It was that easy

Just no. It was one of multiple charts in a 200 page rule book, learning it on it's own would have been fine but as one of a large myriad of convoluted rules it was easy to get it wrong in your first few months of playing whilst trying to learn everything.

Just no.

Older editions had a wealth of confusing convoluted rules, but that ridiculously easy WS system was not one of them. If someone had an issue understanding that, they probably didn’t understand 95% of the rules in the book. If loads of 12 year olds at my LGS could get on fine with the rules complexity, then so could most people.

I’m completely open to the idea that the rule itself was flawed as a lot of people have already pointed out, but too complicated? Absolutely not.

In my personal opinion, the way WS vs WS was implemented was bad game design.

First, it was contrasted with BS, which not only went up to 2+ but also was not a comparative stat - your target did not have an "evasiveness" stat, or you didn't have to compare your BS to how fast your target had moved in the turn, or anything like that. This devalued melee comparative to shooting.

Second, it was basically impossible or incredibly unusual to have a melee unit capable of hitting on 2s or needing to hit on 6s.

A unit's damage potential edging closer to 'predictable' territory makes it much much easier to properly value a melee unit in 8th-9th than in pre-8th.


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If ballistic skill had also been a contested stat (lord fething knows 40k is in DESPERATE DESPERATE need of limitations to its hit rolls, it's absolutely laughable that units with Range = Board can easily fire across the entire board full of models and terrain and usually hit exactly the same as if they were 2" away from the target) then WS vs WS would have made much more sense. Improve it by making it possible to go to 6 and 2+, and it'd be good in my book.

But if we're not going to have that, I think it makes more sense to make WS flat.

nemesis464 wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

nemesis464 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
All the referencing charts is a huge time sink for no actual gain. It's good that it's dead.

Huh? No one playing past their first ever beginners game needed to refer to a chart for WS.

Enemy over double your WS: 5+
Enemy lower than your WS: 3+
Everything else: 4+

It was that easy

Just no. It was one of multiple charts in a 200 page rule book, learning it on it's own would have been fine but as one of a large myriad of convoluted rules it was easy to get it wrong in your first few months of playing whilst trying to learn everything.

Just no.

Older editions had a wealth of convoluted rules, but that ridiculously easy WS system was absolutely not one of them. If you had an issue understanding that, you probably didn’t understand 90% of the rules in the book.

Well I was learning in 7th which was a ridiculously overly convoluted and bloated mess that ment brain fades on the simplist things were quite common, knowing how something works and being confident in it as your playing are two very different things.

 Imateria wrote:
Well I was learning in 7th which was a ridiculously overly convoluted and bloated mess that ment brain fades on the simplist things were quite common, knowing how something works and being confident in it as your playing are two very different things.

7th was absolutely a bloated mess. In my opinion the less model interaction you have the worse of the game is. Two heroes fighting becomes better when their stats effect each other. If strength is measured against Toughness then I feel like WS should be measured against "parry" or just WS. BS should have an equivalent. We can assume everyone is very good at shooting their weapons in 40k (except orks). So maybe it should be measured more on the unit that's being shot at ability to to avoid fire rather then the accuracy of the shooter. Or something similar.

While we're on the subject I believe veichle facings and such also have its place in a model game. I very much dislike that everything become so...streamlined. Yeah it's smother but also models interact much less. it makes it move away from the relevance of the models themselves.

Thank you all for the responses. This is great that I can do this. Put some personal aspiration and character into the hobby and game. I really thank you for taking the time to educate a newbie like my self.
Take care

The new system has more variety while being simpler as well, for me it's a perfect example of good streamlining. The old one was a clumsy chart that made WS basically only matter in extreme fringe cases like a bloodthirster fighting a phoenix lord, 90% of the units in the game had a WS between 2 and 4. Now you move between 2+ and 6+. The only effect the change has is on characters fighting characters which are now mostly 2+ (and before that were 5-9, so basically always hit on 3s).

 Nerak wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
Well I was learning in 7th which was a ridiculously overly convoluted and bloated mess that ment brain fades on the simplist things were quite common, knowing how something works and being confident in it as your playing are two very different things.

7th was absolutely a bloated mess. In my opinion the less model interaction you have the worse of the game is. Two heroes fighting becomes better when their stats effect each other. If strength is measured against Toughness then I feel like WS should be measured against "parry" or just WS. BS should have an equivalent. We can assume everyone is very good at shooting their weapons in 40k (except orks). So maybe it should be measured more on the unit that's being shot at ability to to avoid fire rather then the accuracy of the shooter. Or something similar.

While we're on the subject I believe veichle facings and such also have its place in a model game. I very much dislike that everything become so...streamlined. Yeah it's smother but also models interact much less. it makes it move away from the relevance of the models themselves.

The MODELS shouldn't be interacting the PLAYERS should be interacting.

This superficial finicky rules that create exception clause after exception clause don't actually increase any amount of interactivity. It just creates a flow chart you have to navigate to find out the one piece of information that you use regardless of how complicated it is.

What you, and others, have done is confused that meaningless BS as interactivity or depth of game play when it's neither. It's just complication without merit and it WORKed on you because the player to player interactivity in 40k is so shallow as to not exist. 40k needs an overhaul to make what the players do and the decisions the players make matter more so that actual game play can take over from this nonsense.

 Nerak wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
Well I was learning in 7th which was a ridiculously overly convoluted and bloated mess that ment brain fades on the simplist things were quite common, knowing how something works and being confident in it as your playing are two very different things.

7th was absolutely a bloated mess. In my opinion the less model interaction you have the worse of the game is. Two heroes fighting becomes better when their stats effect each other. If strength is measured against Toughness then I feel like WS should be measured against "parry" or just WS. BS should have an equivalent. We can assume everyone is very good at shooting their weapons in 40k (except orks). So maybe it should be measured more on the unit that's being shot at ability to to avoid fire rather then the accuracy of the shooter. Or something similar.

While we're on the subject I believe veichle facings and such also have its place in a model game. I very much dislike that everything become so...streamlined. Yeah it's smother but also models interact much less. it makes it move away from the relevance of the models themselves.

I'll be honest, I don't think that actually increases any kind of interactivity or interest for me.

It's just yet another way for Games Workshop, rather than the player's decision making, to impact who wins or who loses a battle. It's a way for superspecial kickass megahero from...let's call it "Faction S" to always just coincidentally seem to have WS8 while superspecial kickass megahero from let's say "Faction X" always seems to have WS7, giving an enormous advantage to the former vs the latter even if they're approximately the same or very close to the same points value. It also greatly reduces any kind of tension - welp, looks like for this fight, the 140pt special character's nominal damage output is being reduced by 66% because the 150pt special character has 1 more point of WS - I wooooooonder who will wiiiiiiiiiiin in this exciting battle of champions...

The old WS and I situation created a whole lot of clear, obvious, "Don't Even Try" fight situations, just like the "double your T = INSTANT DEATH" threshold. 9th has a deadliness problem, but at the very least there's a way to beat opponents by outmaneuvering them instead of just...automatically knowing that you should always refuse the challenge vs character A because his I and WS are high enough that he'll easily butcher you before you get to swing and because your WS is lower you wouldn't do any damage anyway.

I really don't prefer a situation where superspecial mega-character who is the best duellist evar in the lore is always able to win in a fight, no matter what I, the actual player who is actually playing the supposedly tactical miniatures game, have to say about it.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Nerak wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
Well I was learning in 7th which was a ridiculously overly convoluted and bloated mess that ment brain fades on the simplist things were quite common, knowing how something works and being confident in it as your playing are two very different things.

7th was absolutely a bloated mess. In my opinion the less model interaction you have the worse of the game is. Two heroes fighting becomes better when their stats effect each other. If strength is measured against Toughness then I feel like WS should be measured against "parry" or just WS. BS should have an equivalent. We can assume everyone is very good at shooting their weapons in 40k (except orks). So maybe it should be measured more on the unit that's being shot at ability to to avoid fire rather then the accuracy of the shooter. Or something similar.

While we're on the subject I believe veichle facings and such also have its place in a model game. I very much dislike that everything become so...streamlined. Yeah it's smother but also models interact much less. it makes it move away from the relevance of the models themselves.

The MODELS shouldn't be interacting the PLAYERS should be interacting.

This superficial finicky rules that create exception clause after exception clause don't actually increase any amount of interactivity. It just creates a flow chart you have to navigate to find out the one piece of information that you use regardless of how complicated it is.

What you, and others, have done is confused that meaningless BS as interactivity or depth of game play when it's neither. It's just complication without merit and it WORKed on you because the player to player interactivity in 40k is so shallow as to not exist. 40k needs an overhaul to make what the players do and the decisions the players make matter more so that actual game play can take over from this nonsense.

chill dude, I don't see why models shouldn't be interacting. In a game where small plastic miniatures represent fictional characters interaction is reasonable, IMO anyway. If you've played something like bolt-action then you can see how this could work. As to player decisions mattering then yes, that should also be more obvious. If two different people play the exact same list vs the same opponent then you should get different outcomes. I think that's the basic of pretty much any game. I assume that is what you ment anyway. That said I do believe my Carnifex fighting a pheonix lord should have different interactions to fighting a guardsman. I want my models to have a feel of being unique, and a good way to do that is increased interaction with other models. I guess it's an extension of the "your dudes" argument. I'm mostly still in 40k because of the models, not the games. I want the rules to represent my models properly interacting with other models. That way I feel like their accomplishments mean more. All that said though rules bloat is a bother and should be avoided.

Also the flat value worked really well in Epic Armageddon.

 Nerak wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

 Nerak wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
Well I was learning in 7th which was a ridiculously overly convoluted and bloated mess that ment brain fades on the simplist things were quite common, knowing how something works and being confident in it as your playing are two very different things.

7th was absolutely a bloated mess. In my opinion the less model interaction you have the worse of the game is. Two heroes fighting becomes better when their stats effect each other. If strength is measured against Toughness then I feel like WS should be measured against "parry" or just WS. BS should have an equivalent. We can assume everyone is very good at shooting their weapons in 40k (except orks). So maybe it should be measured more on the unit that's being shot at ability to to avoid fire rather then the accuracy of the shooter. Or something similar.

While we're on the subject I believe veichle facings and such also have its place in a model game. I very much dislike that everything become so...streamlined. Yeah it's smother but also models interact much less. it makes it move away from the relevance of the models themselves.

The MODELS shouldn't be interacting the PLAYERS should be interacting.

This superficial finicky rules that create exception clause after exception clause don't actually increase any amount of interactivity. It just creates a flow chart you have to navigate to find out the one piece of information that you use regardless of how complicated it is.

What you, and others, have done is confused that meaningless BS as interactivity or depth of game play when it's neither. It's just complication without merit and it WORKed on you because the player to player interactivity in 40k is so shallow as to not exist. 40k needs an overhaul to make what the players do and the decisions the players make matter more so that actual game play can take over from this nonsense.

chill dude, I don't see why models shouldn't be interacting. In a game where small plastic miniatures represent fictional characters interaction is reasonable, IMO anyway. If you've played something like bolt-action then you can see how this could work. As to player decisions mattering then yes, that should also be more obvious. If two different people play the exact same list vs the same opponent then you should get different outcomes. I think that's the basic of pretty much any game. I assume that is what you ment anyway. That said I do believe my Carnifex fighting a pheonix lord should have different interactions to fighting a guardsman. I want my models to have a feel of being unique, and a good way to do that is increased interaction with other models. I guess it's an extension of the "your dudes" argument. I'm mostly still in 40k because of the models, not the games. I want the rules to represent my models properly interacting with other models. That way I feel like their accomplishments mean more. All that said though rules bloat is a bother and should be avoided.

....it does though.

It wounds the pheonix lord on a 3+ instead of a 2+, and the pheonix lord is this legendary combatant who's super difficult to hit, so the thing is, he gets an invulnerable save to represent that (or will, anyway, when the third xenos codex comes out in 2022) and the guardsman just gets got.

GW just changed it from "weapon skill is an offensive stat that is sometimes a defensive stat" to "WS is the offensive stat, T and Sv and Special Rules are defensive stats."

the_scotsman 796575 11068087 wrote:
Yeah because if theres any category of army that needs help right now it's elite armies, yes sir.

Well you tell me, my dudes are bottom 3 army. And where is the update suppose to come, after eldar, when all marines are going to be hard countered by them like in 8th ed?

I really don't miss the old WS system. I actually don't miss any of the older systems/books except the 5th edition Drukhari codex, but that's mostly because of all the wonderful special characters.

 Eldarsif wrote:
I really don't miss the old WS system. I actually don't miss any of the older systems/books except the 5th edition Drukhari codex, but that's mostly because of all the wonderful special characters.

There's a lot of stuff I prefer out of 5th to 9th and some stuff I prefer the idea but not the execution of (like the AV system and vehicles having semi-random damage tables instead of 'hit points'.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

the_scotsman 796575 11068087 wrote:
Yeah because if theres any category of army that needs help right now it's elite armies, yes sir.

Well you tell me, my dudes are bottom 3 army. And where is the update suppose to come, after eldar, when all marines are going to be hard countered by them like in 8th ed?

Your army is not bottom 3 because of GW having changed weapon skill from 7th to 8th, they're bottom tier because you're playing Iphone 8 super-special marines, and you're 2 generations behind the planned obsolescence curve to the point where GW is purposefully shipping updates that don't play well with your out of date firmware in the hopes that eventually you'll upgrade.

They didn't give all marine sub-factions get you by rules for free in a PDF except for GK because they forgot, or because they were being super-careful to not accidentally release broken OP gak into the game...they dropped Dark Angels all-tranhuman all the time terminators into the game. They did it because they want you to fething pony up if you want your updated marine rules.

9th structurally favors elite armies. Other than a couple of spoiler builds designed to take advantage of the fact that everybody is teching to kill elites, like 80% of the competitive play field right now is primarily based around elite infantry of some sort, whether that's marines, DG, Custodes, Necrons, Sisters, or Harlequins.