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the_scotsman wrote:

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 get what you're saying here but at the same time I'm not sure the change to WS has improved a whole lot in this area.

Each to their own, of course, but (at least in my experience) duels weren't lost because one character had WS8 and another WS7. Duels were lost because one character had a QUANTUM MEGA-FIST and ARMOUR OF THE 12TH PRIMARCH, while the other was stuck with a Power Sword and a 5++.

Don't get me wrong, you're probably right. But to me there's something, I don't know, depressing about current statlines. At least the old ones at least gave a little character in terms of how skilled units stacked up against one another. Now it's just 'Oh, you're a character? Sign up here for your free WS2+, BS2+'.

the_scotsman wrote:

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.

Again, I don't disagree, but WS seems like a somewhat minor problem given that Primarchs exist.

In 7th, my decision point tactically when I had a character and my opponent had a slightly stronger character and it was time to d-d-d-d-d-d-duel was "fight/hide like a coward behind your mooks".

Now, I can influence the outcome by getting the charge off, or CP interrupting, or spending some of my CP resource to improve my chances with a stratagem.

I prefer the latter. It gives me, the general, actual options as opposed to most fights being determined by The Holy Lore and occasionally by someone rolling all 1s.

The only issue right now is how wide the point range is of characers who can easily insta-bonk other characters given one swing is. I'd prefer it to be more common for character duels with no CP expenditure to usually end in one full battle round, with one-turn kills happening more rarely except in circumstances where one character is like 50pts more expensive than the other, but then you'd run into the game's asinine 'fall back' system that makes combats HAVE to resolve in one turn or else the other guy just skips away singing la-la-la and lets his opponent get obliterated by a nearby tank.

Heck, if fall back were more limited or punishing like your opponent got to have a free punch at you as you ran away (which would, incidentally, resolve both the problem of "I have kidnapped this one guardsman so you can't shoot my whole blob of 30 orks" and the problem of "I have tied up your tank with my one gretchin, it must shoot me" instantly, while adding versimilitude to the game) then we could probably retool character stats to allow for satisfying two-turn duels to be the norm again. AND the way 9th structures combat, the guy who gets the initial charge off would only have the strike first advantage on the first turn, on the second turn the other guy would get to go first.

What a world that would be...

the_scotsman wrote:
In 7th, my decision point tactically when I had a character and my opponent had a slightly stronger character and it was time to d-d-d-d-d-d-duel was "fight/hide like a coward behind your mooks".

The challenge system in 7th was just abysmal, though. And WS was the most minor factor in that.

"RAWWGHAAAAALFJGP"

"What do you think it's saying, sarge?"

"Well, my Tyranid is a little rusty but I think it's challenging me to one-on-one combat."

"RAWWGHAGAAAALFLFJP"

"Yes, it's definitely challenging me to one-on-one, combat."

"Er... are you going to accept?"

"No, I'm just going to cry into my rat & sawdust sandwich. Best of luck, lads."

The issue is that 40k doesn't have a "dodge" stat. You've got three ways to describe how "tough" a model is (toughness, saves, and wounds), but nothing to tell you how hard it is to hit. There's no way to differentiate swinging (or shooting) at a five story tall, lumbering Stompa and a small, lightning fast, and crazily skilled Wych. That leads to all sorts of nonsense and hoops to jump through (like modifier spam and "parry" invuls that mean you're only actually parrying plasma bolts, since your armor is almost always better).

WS to WS wasn't a great system, either, as you were really limited by that chart and it didn't allow you to have aggressive or defensive fighters.

A better system (assuming we want to stick with the skirmish game, but huge, scale of 40k) would be something like adding a Defense stat that you'd need to match by adding a d6 to your WS/BS when you attack. So a grot/fire warrior could be WS 2, a guardsman/guardian WS 3, a SM/Ork's WS4, a Wych 5, and so on, and you'd compare to an ork boy/firewarrior/guarsdman Def 7, a SM/guardian/grot Def 8, and Wych at 9. Then a grot would need a six to hit a marine (or Wych, presumably a 6 would always hit since we can't move away from single d6 and keep fast rolling) and the marine would need a four to hit the grot. A guardsman would need a four to hit the ork, but the ork would only need a three to hit him back. Storied duelist characters could slap grunts around on a 2+, but have enough space where one might be more accurate but the other harder to hit, resulting in an even fight despite the different approaches. Vehicles would generally have pretty poor Def (obviously), but cover and weapon penalties would make it relevant, while allowing light and zippy vypers to be harder to hit and a stompa almost impossible to miss.

 vipoid wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
In 7th, my decision point tactically when I had a character and my opponent had a slightly stronger character and it was time to d-d-d-d-d-d-duel was "fight/hide like a coward behind your mooks".

The challenge system in 7th was just abysmal, though. And WS was the most minor factor in that.

"RAWWGHAAAAALFJGP"

"What do you think it's saying, sarge?"

"Well, my Tyranid is a little rusty but I think it's challenging me to one-on-one combat."

"RAWWGHAGAAAALFLFJP"

"Yes, it's definitely challenging me to one-on-one, combat."

"Er... are you going to accept?"

"No, I'm just going to cry into my rat & sawdust sandwich. Best of luck, lads."

yup, agreed.

I'm mostly pointing out here that the fact that the models "Interacted" (by me and my opponent having to look up values on a table) is pretty much secondary to the fact that, in 8th+, I as a player might actually have agency to determine the outcome of a character duel, by ensuring that I fight first, or expending some of my command points on a stratagem.

Wheras in 7th and earlier, when two characters fought it was just "roll the dice to see what happened." the only decision was fight/dont fight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Trimarius wrote:
The issue is that 40k doesn't have a "dodge" stat. You've got three ways to describe how "tough" a model is (toughness, saves, and wounds), but nothing to tell you how hard it is to hit. There's no way to differentiate swinging (or shooting) at a five story tall, lumbering Stompa and a small, lightning fast, and crazily skilled Wych. That leads to all sorts of nonsense and hoops to jump through (like modifier spam and "parry" invuls that mean you're only actually parrying plasma bolts, since your armor is almost always better).

WS to WS wasn't a great system, either, as you were really limited by that chart and it didn't allow you to have aggressive or defensive fighters.

A better system (assuming we want to stick with the skirmish game, but huge, scale of 40k) would be something like adding a Defense stat that you'd need to match by adding a d6 to your WS/BS when you attack. So a grot/fire warrior could be WS 2, a guardsman/guardian WS 3, a SM/Ork's WS4, a Wych 5, and so on, and you'd compare to an ork boy/firewarrior/guarsdman Def 7, a SM/guardian/grot Def 8, and Wych at 9. Then a grot would need a six to hit a marine (or Wych, presumably a 6 would always hit since we can't move away from single d6 and keep fast rolling) and the marine would need a four to hit the grot. A guardsman would need a four to hit the ork, but the ork would only need a three to hit him back. Storied duelist characters could slap grunts around on a 2+, but have enough space where one might be more accurate but the other harder to hit, resulting in an even fight despite the different approaches. Vehicles would generally have pretty poor Def (obviously), but cover and weapon penalties would make it relevant, while allowing light and zippy vypers to be harder to hit and a stompa almost impossible to miss.

What, functionally, would be the distinction between a "dodge stat" and "modifier spam" that you characterize as nonsense and hoops to jump through?

And also, just pointing out here, but there definitely IS a way to differentiate swinging at a stompa and a wych in the current game state. They're completely different targets. One is T3, W1, 4++, the other is T7, W a lot, 3+. I'm completely wasting most of the stats of my Thunder Hammer if I swing it at the wych, wheras it's the perfect way to do a bunch of damage to the Stompa.

I think the point that very few here have pointed out is that very few people actually knew the WS stat of their army(unless they were really into melee) so the game always slowed down when people were looking up their I and WS.

The WS system was very unrealistic and uninteractive. Even the AC system in DnD is better than the old WS system, and there comes the crux of the problem: Some people want to treat this as a wargame whereas other kind of want more of a roleplaying game*. I understand the latter because of the roots of Games Workshop and Rogue Trader and to a lesser extent 2nd edition, but GW has been quite clear that they want want Warhammer to be an intense wargame rather than a roleplaying game so the removal of the WS(and facing and AV) makes perfect sense when it comes to streamlining the game.

* There is a third option. People who want some sort of a "reality simulator" where everything is measured and valued. Like people who like Flight Simulator. Nothing wrong with that, but it would make Warhammer too niche for most of the audience. Also, since it is hard to simulate actual warfare accurately in a dice game it would just be a group of individuals arguing whose interpretation of reality is the correct one.

the_scotsman wrote:
In 7th, my decision point tactically when I had a character and my opponent had a slightly stronger character and it was time to d-d-d-d-d-d-duel was "fight/hide like a coward behind your mooks".

Now, I can influence the outcome by getting the charge off, or CP interrupting, or spending some of my CP resource to improve my chances with a stratagem.

I prefer the latter. It gives me, the general, actual options as opposed to most fights being determined by The Holy Lore and occasionally by someone rolling all 1s.

Well that is nice, for armies that were given access to stuff that lets them move fast enough to get in to melee on their turns or those stratagems. But for the armies that actually did have those "best duelist in the world" the change was not a good one. I would prefare for those super duelist dudes to actually be out killing entire armies like they do in the lore.

Karol wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
In 7th, my decision point tactically when I had a character and my opponent had a slightly stronger character and it was time to d-d-d-d-d-d-duel was "fight/hide like a coward behind your mooks".

Now, I can influence the outcome by getting the charge off, or CP interrupting, or spending some of my CP resource to improve my chances with a stratagem.

I prefer the latter. It gives me, the general, actual options as opposed to most fights being determined by The Holy Lore and occasionally by someone rolling all 1s.

Well that is nice, for armies that were given access to stuff that lets them move fast enough to get in to melee on their turns or those stratagems. But for the armies that actually did have those "best duelist in the world" the change was not a good one. I would prefare for those super duelist dudes to actually be out killing entire armies like they do in the lore.

Luckily, because that would mean GW would sell one model instead of whole armies, the game will never be that dumb.

 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.

Technically you're not wrong, but in practice you usually only see things hitting on 3+ or 4+, with the occasional 2+, so I'm not sure that the variety has really improved. Usually the only things I see hitting on 5+ or 6+ are vehicles.

If people had trouble with the old table (which, at its core, really wasn't very complex), I'd be open to seeing opposed WS using the same sort of calculation as S v T. That would produce more of a range than the old table, and give high-WS units greater durability in melee in addition to greater offensive output. It would give units like Howling Banshees or Genestealers a way to be effective in melee without being bucket-of-dice glass cannons.

The removal of the WS stat was a mistake. I've said this before and I stand by that assessment.

The "to hit" value they have replaced it with, may have streamlined the game, but it limited design space. It makes no sense that a guardsman hits a grot and a bloodthirster on the same value. It gives even less opportunity to differentiate between different units which is already hard to begin with on a D6 system with stats that range from 1-10.

They should have kept the comparison chart, but expanded it so that you can actually hit on 2+ depending on your WS and your opponents WS.
They also should have expanded the range of WS distribution between units and factions. In previous factions about 80% of all units had a WS between 3 and 5 with some outliers, which didn't matter at all, because best you could hope for was to hit on 3+ anyway so a WS 10 on a bloodthirster was more or less for show.

I understand why they made the decision to change WS, but I think it will hurt the game in the long run.

the_scotsman 796575 11068308 wrote:
Well that is nice, for armies that were given access to stuff that lets them move fast enough to get in to melee on their turns or those stratagems. But for the armies that actually did have those "best duelist in the world" the change was not a good one. I would prefare for those super duelist dudes to actually be out killing entire armies like they do in the lore.

Luckily, because that would mean GW would sell one model instead of whole armies, the game will never be that dumb.

...which is why you never see armies like Space Marines, Death Guard, Custodes, or Necrons with primarily elite infantry based army setups, and the entire meta boils down to being more numerous and points efficient.

Yep.

Certainly not 80-90% of the meta right now.

Dude, I know you dislike marines, but don't call them a one army. Because there is a difference betwee a under 40% win rate DA army, pre codex, and a WS one which is only worse then harlis and co.

Plus all those armies get a ton of buffs and stacking rules on top of each other. And it can't even be said that those are 9th ed changes, because marines actually got worse comparing how they were at the end of 8th, and Custodes and harlis run on old books.

Only DG and necron have good 9th ed rules, but I have no idea what that has to do with being elite. One army spams super efficient termininators and a big monster like Mortarion, or even more termintors, and the other spams warriors and a Ctan. Is the elite thing related to the lore or number of units being taken in your argument, because I don;t think I understand you here.

Karol wrote:
Dude, I know you dislike marines, but don't call them a one army. Because there is a difference betwee a under 40% win rate DA army, pre codex, and a WS one which is only worse then harlis and co.

Plus all those armies get a ton of buffs and stacking rules on top of each other. And it can't even be said that those are 9th ed changes, because marines actually got worse comparing how they were at the end of 8th, and Custodes and harlis run on old books.

Only DG and necron have good 9th ed rules, but I have no idea what that has to do with being elite. One army spams super efficient termininators and a big monster like Mortarion, or even more termintors, and the other spams warriors and a Ctan. Is the elite thing related to the lore or number of units being taken in your argument, because I don;t think I understand you here.

The difference between DA and WS is the same as Farsight Enclaves and Bork'an Sept.

One army. Different sub factions.

 Lance845 wrote:

Karol wrote:
Dude, I know you dislike marines, but don't call them a one army. Because there is a difference betwee a under 40% win rate DA army, pre codex, and a WS one which is only worse then harlis and co.

Plus all those armies get a ton of buffs and stacking rules on top of each other. And it can't even be said that those are 9th ed changes, because marines actually got worse comparing how they were at the end of 8th, and Custodes and harlis run on old books.

Only DG and necron have good 9th ed rules, but I have no idea what that has to do with being elite. One army spams super efficient termininators and a big monster like Mortarion, or even more termintors, and the other spams warriors and a Ctan. Is the elite thing related to the lore or number of units being taken in your argument, because I don;t think I understand you here.

The difference between DA and WS is the same as Farsight Enclaves and Bork'an Sept.

One army. Different sub factions.

Call me when Bork'an gets a book. Until then, they are not the same in the least.

Spoletta wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Karol wrote:
Dude, I know you dislike marines, but don't call them a one army. Because there is a difference betwee a under 40% win rate DA army, pre codex, and a WS one which is only worse then harlis and co.

Plus all those armies get a ton of buffs and stacking rules on top of each other. And it can't even be said that those are 9th ed changes, because marines actually got worse comparing how they were at the end of 8th, and Custodes and harlis run on old books.

Only DG and necron have good 9th ed rules, but I have no idea what that has to do with being elite. One army spams super efficient termininators and a big monster like Mortarion, or even more termintors, and the other spams warriors and a Ctan. Is the elite thing related to the lore or number of units being taken in your argument, because I don;t think I understand you here.

The difference between DA and WS is the same as Farsight Enclaves and Bork'an Sept.

One army. Different sub factions.

Call me when Bork'an gets a book. Until then, they are not the same in the least.

Call me back when DA have their own codex again. While they are a add on to the codex SM they are just that. Codex SM.

Karol wrote:
Dude, I know you dislike marines, but don't call them a one army. Because there is a difference betwee a under 40% win rate DA army, pre codex, and a WS one which is only worse then harlis and co.

Plus all those armies get a ton of buffs and stacking rules on top of each other. And it can't even be said that those are 9th ed changes, because marines actually got worse comparing how they were at the end of 8th, and Custodes and harlis run on old books.

Only DG and necron have good 9th ed rules, but I have no idea what that has to do with being elite. One army spams super efficient termininators and a big monster like Mortarion, or even more termintors, and the other spams warriors and a Ctan. Is the elite thing related to the lore or number of units being taken in your argument, because I don;t think I understand you here.

Custodes and Harlequins are indeed running on older books...but weirdly, they were doing much, MUCH worse in terms of winrates and in terms of the percentage of lists being run in 8th than in 9th.

And I'm not entirely up on competitive necron tactics, but while warrior spam does seem to be a thing, it's pretty tough for me to describe the codex as not "Elite."

You said something to the effect of "9th rewards you for being numerically superior to your opponent" and I'm just pointing out that the vast vast VAST majority of the armies being taken in the competitive meta are at the very least a bit elite, if not extremely elite like competitive DG lists, and most of the worst armies in the game currently are the ones based around "numerical superiority" - Guard, GSC, Tyranids, etc.

An objective analysis on early 9th edition is going to come to the conclusion that in general, the armies that do the worst are either those that A, rely heavily on psykers to succeed (GK Tsons Eldar) or B, rely heavily on static shooting or light infantry to succeed.

 catbarf 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.

Technically you're not wrong, but in practice you usually only see things hitting on 3+ or 4+, with the occasional 2+, so I'm not sure that the variety has really improved. Usually the only things I see hitting on 5+ or 6+ are vehicles.

If people had trouble with the old table (which, at its core, really wasn't very complex), I'd be open to seeing opposed WS using the same sort of calculation as S v T. That would produce more of a range than the old table, and give high-WS units greater durability in melee in addition to greater offensive output. It would give units like Howling Banshees or Genestealers a way to be effective in melee without being bucket-of-dice glass cannons.

Not true. My orks have lots of stuff that actually hit on 2s (Warboss with killa klaw or big choppa, Big mek in Megarmor with stratagem and killa klaw, Deffkilla wartrike, Bonebreaka/Battlewagon with rolla, any non unwieldy weapons under the banner bubble, tin eadz big mek, dreads and nauts, anything freeboota once their trait is triggered in close combat, pretty much every named characters etc....), while basically everything in the SW roster hits most of the times on 2s. All the drukhari characters (former WS7, WS8, WS9) finally hit on 2s now.

Minus to hit also exist now so hitting on 5s and 6s is not uncommon for infantry models either.

The old table wasn't complex, actually super easy to remind. It was just stupid. IMHO the only interaction that could be interesting is some sort of dodge skill, but it also needs to affect (not necessarily in the same way) the BS then.

 Lance845 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

Karol wrote:
Dude, I know you dislike marines, but don't call them a one army. Because there is a difference betwee a under 40% win rate DA army, pre codex, and a WS one which is only worse then harlis and co.

Plus all those armies get a ton of buffs and stacking rules on top of each other. And it can't even be said that those are 9th ed changes, because marines actually got worse comparing how they were at the end of 8th, and Custodes and harlis run on old books.

Only DG and necron have good 9th ed rules, but I have no idea what that has to do with being elite. One army spams super efficient termininators and a big monster like Mortarion, or even more termintors, and the other spams warriors and a Ctan. Is the elite thing related to the lore or number of units being taken in your argument, because I don;t think I understand you here.

The difference between DA and WS is the same as Farsight Enclaves and Bork'an Sept.

One army. Different sub factions.

Call me when Bork'an gets a book. Until then, they are not the same in the least.

Call me back when DA have their own codex again. While they are a add on to the codex SM they are just that. Codex SM.

SM is a superfaction now, like Chaos. Sorry if you can't see things like they are.
No reason to hijack this thread either though, so I'll not try to convince you.

 Blackie wrote:

 catbarf 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.

Technically you're not wrong, but in practice you usually only see things hitting on 3+ or 4+, with the occasional 2+, so I'm not sure that the variety has really improved. Usually the only things I see hitting on 5+ or 6+ are vehicles.

If people had trouble with the old table (which, at its core, really wasn't very complex), I'd be open to seeing opposed WS using the same sort of calculation as S v T. That would produce more of a range than the old table, and give high-WS units greater durability in melee in addition to greater offensive output. It would give units like Howling Banshees or Genestealers a way to be effective in melee without being bucket-of-dice glass cannons.

Not true. My orks have lots of stuff that actually hit on 2s (Warboss with killa klaw or big choppa, Big mek in Megarmor with stratagem and killa klaw, Deffkilla wartrike, Bonebreaka/Battlewagon with rolla, any non unwieldy weapons under the banner bubble, tin eadz big mek, dreads and nauts, anything freeboota once their trait is triggered in close combat, pretty much every named characters etc....), while basically everything in the SW roster hits most of the times on 2s. All the drukhari characters (former WS7, WS8, WS9) finally hit on 2s now.

Minus to hit also exist now so hitting on 5s and 6s is not uncommon for infantry models either.

The old table wasn't complex, actually super easy to remind. It was just stupid. IMHO the only interaction that could be interesting is some sort of dodge skill, but it also needs to affect (not necessarily in the same way) the BS then.

Precisely. Fixed rolls are easier (until stuff like stratagems get piled on top) but that limits design space, and it's just plain boring.

Attacking should work like this:

Roll to hit vs, evasion

Roll to wound vs. armor

Apply damage. Done.

Oddly enough a lot of the objections to WS are based on the challenge rule which was introduced in 6th so removing that rule could have sorted out the problem with Weapon Skill then?

 Llamahead wrote:
Oddly enough a lot of the objections to WS are based on the challenge rule which was introduced in 6th so removing that rule could have sorted out the problem with Weapon Skill then?

Not really. The main problem of prior editions was that WS basically was either 3+ or 4+, while now it is 2+ to 6+. People like to praise 5th edition on that board but the WS system (and I'd say the whole CC because it allowed for zero player interaction, once units were in the fight it went on until one side was erased or fled with nothing a player could do whatsoever) really was bad. It was pseudocomplex. Look at these tables and look, your characters' WS ranges from 4 to 8 but when you played the game you realized: Oh, this is all just on paper, basically I hit on 3+ or on 4+, end of the story.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 Llamahead wrote:
Oddly enough a lot of the objections to WS are based on the challenge rule which was introduced in 6th so removing that rule could have sorted out the problem with Weapon Skill then?

Not really. The main problem of prior editions was that WS basically was either 3+ or 4+, while now it is 2+ to 6+. People like to praise 5th edition on that board but the WS system (and I'd say the whole CC because it allowed for zero player interaction, once units were in the fight it went on until one side was erased or fled with nothing a player could do whatsoever) really was bad. It was pseudocomplex. Look at these tables and look, your characters' WS ranges from 4 to 8 but when you played the game you realized: Oh, this is all just on paper, basically I hit on 3+ or on 4+, end of the story.

Which is why they should have extended the WS comparison chart for units to be able to hit on 2+ or 6+.
And increase the WS stat distribution of units because most were in the 3-5 area. A WS10 bloodthirster was more for show as you said.
But if you have more combat oriented factions and units in the WS 5-6 area, things get more interesting. If harlequins were to have WS6 for example it would not only mean they hit most things well, but it would serve as a defensive stand also. Just an example but you get my point.

The WS range on units was also in such a small range that it didn't matter as much unless you were playing with special heroes.

I mean, a Grot is hitting on 5+ which was the same it was hitting most high WS heroes in the old WS system so decrying that grots are hitting your heroes on 5+ I can assure you nothing has changed in that regard.

I honestly feel like the game has streamlined without really losing anything because the margins of majority of units wasn't that high.

 Llamahead wrote:
Oddly enough a lot of the objections to WS are based on the challenge rule which was introduced in 6th so removing that rule could have sorted out the problem with Weapon Skill then?

No, because there was also the fundamental imbalance of BS always being a stat you got the full value from, while WS was a contested stat that you could pay points for and then your opponent could lower the value of by having a higher stat.

Whooch wrote:
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

I just want to take a moment to point out that the OP had their question answered and that this message is very sweet. Good luck to you, @Whooch, however the game shakes out for you!


On the current thread of the conversation: What I miss is not so much WS but I, which, while not perfect, seems to me to have been a better system than only having Fight First/Last, which as handled is a Gordian knot in the pasta of the 9th-ed rules.

Initiative is a hard stat because it either removes all interactivity from the fight phase and you just go down the list resolving things mindlessly, or it's almost irrelevant (see WHFB 6th edition, where chargers fought first regardless of Initiative values).

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 Llamahead wrote:
Oddly enough a lot of the objections to WS are based on the challenge rule which was introduced in 6th so removing that rule could have sorted out the problem with Weapon Skill then?

Not really. The main problem of prior editions was that WS basically was either 3+ or 4+, while now it is 2+ to 6+. People like to praise 5th edition on that board but the WS system (and I'd say the whole CC because it allowed for zero player interaction, once units were in the fight it went on until one side was erased or fled with nothing a player could do whatsoever) really was bad. It was pseudocomplex. Look at these tables and look, your characters' WS ranges from 4 to 8 but when you played the game you realized: Oh, this is all just on paper, basically I hit on 3+ or on 4+, end of the story.

Unless you were fighting vehicles. It really made playing Daemons difficult in 5th (amongst many, many other things) when you were hitting most vehicles on 4+ or 6+ flatly because of the way their movement rules worked for them.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Llamahead wrote:
Oddly enough a lot of the objections to WS are based on the challenge rule which was introduced in 6th so removing that rule could have sorted out the problem with Weapon Skill then?

No, because there was also the fundamental imbalance of BS always being a stat you got the full value from, while WS was a contested stat that you could pay points for and then your opponent could lower the value of by having a higher stat.

...Well, yeah. Like how it doesn't matter how much AP you paid for on your weapons if your opponent's playing Harlequins, or all the Dd6 weapons in the world do nothing if your opponent's army is all 1W models.

There, fixed it: