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So then you're trying to force the rules to fit into the meaning you have personally assigned to the dice rolls.
That might not be what GW thinks of the rolls as, nor what other players think of the rolls as.

Personally I don't see any material difference between to-wound and armour saves, and I think the game would be better off if they were just one combined roll.
The only reason I consider for them being separate is to add granularity between strength and AP, although this doesn't get you very far as they both tend to scale fairly hand-in-hand.
A lot of games don't bother with this, they just have "firepower" values, often separate "anti-tank" and "anti-squishy" values.

Rolling dice determines the outcomes of decisions.
Rolling dice brings me no joy, working out what dice I need to roll brings me no joy either.
Making decisions and reaping the rewards, or mitigating the failures brings me joy.
Fewer time rolling dice means more time for making decisions.

 Jidmah wrote:

You are still sending a high WS model after its optimal target while your opponent tries bog it down with a less optimal target or kill it before it strike - the situation remains the same, at best you have a different hit roll.

Which creates problems, when all your units are suppose to be able to take out all other armies priority targets in melee, but do not have the rules and stats to do it in game. Plus it ignores the whole defensive aspect the stat could have. being hit only on +5 or +6, would greatly diminish the incoming hits in melee, while at the same time would not create a situation where you blend through a unit in a single turn, unless you were using for some reason squads bigger then 5 man.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I definitely agree with a "less is more" approach to rules.
Unfortunately that's exactly the opposite of what 40k is at the moment.

I could give you at least one example of a 8th ed less rules being implemented to highest degree and it did not create a fun or good army to play with.

In a game where winning is build on a base of an army rule set that lets you ignore, core and other army rule set, streamling of anything only makes a unit or entire army worse.

Tiberias wrote:
I still believe it would increase design space and depth with a proper rules framework fitted around it. It might be a small thing, but I think it would also increase immersion. Hitting everything on the same value just doesn't make sense. From a narrative perspective it devaluates very skilled units...I know the narrative is not the most important thing for many people, but I think you can not neglect this perspective completely, even from just a game design standpoint. Your setting and lore has to be reflected on the tabletop at least in some parts.
The best example is the good old bloodthirster: an aeons old demigod of war, which a bog standard space marine can still hit on 3+ in combat, same as if he were to try and hit an ork boy. A comparison chart would fix that issue at least. And I'll say this again: I am not claiming that you could just implement my suggestion within the framework of 9th ed.

Personally, I find the claim that weapon skill matters when you are trying to hit the a daemon with size of a building more immersion breaking than anything. You you really think he will bring down that 30 feet axe to parry all the 120 attacks made by the ork boyz horde around him instead of just killing more? Does it matter how well a succubus can use her whip when I run her over with a deff rolla? Does any space marine captain in his right mind try to parry a gorkanaut's klaw of gork? Should a guardsman with a bandana for armor really be able to parry a harleqin's kiss with a bayonet? Does an enraged khorne berzerker even understand the concept of defense?

Having a drawn out duel with fancy back and forth might sound awesome when an avatar is fighting a similarly sized monster or two humanoid sized masters of melee face each other, but for the vast majority of combats in 40k they just end with a single deadly strike or an unhealthy crunch.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
So then you're trying to force the rules to fit into the meaning you have personally assigned to the dice rolls.
That might not be what GW thinks of the rolls as, nor what other players think of the rolls as.

Personally I don't see any material difference between to-wound and armour saves, and I think the game would be better off if they were just one combined roll.
The only reason I consider for them being separate is to add granularity between strength and AP, although this doesn't get you very far as they both tend to scale fairly hand-in-hand.
A lot of games don't bother with this, they just have "firepower" values, often separate "anti-tank" and "anti-squishy" values.

Rolling dice determines the outcomes of decisions.
Rolling dice brings me no joy, working out what dice I need to roll brings me no joy either.
Making decisions and reaping the rewards, or mitigating the failures brings me joy.
Fewer time rolling dice means more time for making decisions.

No I am not trying to force them into meaning. I just responded how I see the to hit, to wound and save roll from a narrative perspective while also clarifying that these fews are my personal view and not objective. I made no arguments to change the wound or save roll mechanics.

What I was trying to do with the chart was to free up design space and make melee combat more interesting. A welcome side effect of this is that it also makes more sense from a narrative perspective.

Edit: I don't mean this in any condescending way, but if rolling dice brings you no joy...doesn't that mean 40k in general is a huge drag for you? Rolling lots of dice is just a fundamental part of the game.

Karol wrote:
Which creates problems, when all your units are suppose to be able to take out all other armies priority targets in melee, but do not have the rules and stats to do it in game. Plus it ignores the whole defensive aspect the stat could have. being hit only on +5 or +6, would greatly diminish the incoming hits in melee, while at the same time would not create a situation where you blend through a unit in a single turn, unless you were using for some reason squads bigger then 5 man.

As I said in the other thread, GK fluff is stupid, rules as stupid as that fluff are bad for the game. See 5th edition for proof.
Just for the record, the correct representation of GK on the tabletop would be to force the entire army to start in reserves and disallow them to deploy unless chaos is involved.

I agree, that's why I think the wound/armour/damage mechanics better suits the setting than the hit/miss/cover that (for example) was the focus during 3rd - 7th.
Do you remember it, right? That was extremely based on hit and miss. 9th is about wounds and saves.

That said, no abstraction makes really sense in a general way, they're simply abstract mechanics that somehow feels like they make sense from a wider point of view... But they are not particularly simulative or accurate from any metrics (that even before you compond the fantasy elements)

Tiberias wrote:
No I am not trying to force them into meaning. I just responded how I see the to hit, to wound and save roll from a narrative perspective while also clarifying that these fews are my personal view and not objective.

That is forcing them into a meaning.

What I was trying to do with the chart was to free up design space and make melee combat more interesting. A welcome side effect of this is that it also makes more sense from a narrative perspective.

You keep saying that, but you haven't actually answered why that would be more interesting, while there have been multiple response why people think it is not adding anything to the game.

 Jidmah wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
I still believe it would increase design space and depth with a proper rules framework fitted around it. It might be a small thing, but I think it would also increase immersion. Hitting everything on the same value just doesn't make sense. From a narrative perspective it devaluates very skilled units...I know the narrative is not the most important thing for many people, but I think you can not neglect this perspective completely, even from just a game design standpoint. Your setting and lore has to be reflected on the tabletop at least in some parts.
The best example is the good old bloodthirster: an aeons old demigod of war, which a bog standard space marine can still hit on 3+ in combat, same as if he were to try and hit an ork boy. A comparison chart would fix that issue at least. And I'll say this again: I am not claiming that you could just implement my suggestion within the framework of 9th ed.

Personally, I find the claim that weapon skill matters when you are trying to hit the a daemon with size of a building more immersion breaking than anything. You you really think he will bring down that 30 feet axe to parry all the 120 attacks made by the ork boyz horde around him instead of just killing more? Does it matter how well a succubus can use her whip when I run her over with a deff rolla? Does any space marine captain in his right mind try to parry a gorkanaut's klaw of gork? Should a guardsman with a bandana for armor really be able to parry a harleqin's kiss with a bayonet? Does an enraged khorne berzerker even understand the concept of defense?

Having a drawn out duel with fancy back and forth might sound awesome when an avatar is fighting a similarly sized monster or two humanoid sized masters of melee face each other, but for the vast majority of combats in 40k they just end with a single deadly strike or an unhealthy crunch.

Yeah, sure it doesn't make perfect sense, it's still an abstraction. I just think it's a better abstraction than a flat to-hit value.

Tiberias wrote:


No I am not trying to force them into meaning. I just responded how I see the to hit, to wound and save roll from a narrative perspective while also clarifying that these fews are my personal view and not objective. I made no arguments to change the wound or save roll mechanics.

What I was trying to do with the chart was to free up design space and make melee combat more interesting. A welcome side effect of this is that it also makes more sense from a narrative perspective.

Edit: I don't mean this in any condescending way, but if rolling dice brings you no joy...doesn't that mean 40k in general is a huge drag for you? Rolling lots of dice is just a fundamental part of the game.

Apologies, I think we may have misunderstood each other.
It seemed to me that part of your reasoning for changing this would be to make melee more 'logical' or 'realistic'. It makes sense that a clumsy Ork would struggle to land a blow on a master Blood Thirster, right? So you implement a system that would mean the Ork's 'to-hit' roll becomes harder to represent that.

But I disagree with the supposition, that that situation would or should be represented by the to-hit roll. Perhaps the Bloodthirster parrying the clumsy Ork attacks is represented by the save roll?
Hence why I said you're trying to impose your own suggestion of what to-hit represents by adding this new mechanic which adds relative dueling ability to the roll.

 Jidmah wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
No I am not trying to force them into meaning. I just responded how I see the to hit, to wound and save roll from a narrative perspective while also clarifying that these fews are my personal view and not objective.

That is forcing them into a meaning.

What? No it's not. I made no suggestions to change the wound or save roll. I just gave my opinion as to how I see those rolls narratively.

What I was trying to do with the chart was to free up design space and make melee combat more interesting. A welcome side effect of this is that it also makes more sense from a narrative perspective.

You keep saying that, but you haven't actually answered why that would be more interesting, while there have been multiple response why people think it is not adding anything to the game.

Blastaar wrote:

Attacking should work like this:

Roll to hit vs, evasion

Roll to wound vs. armor

Apply damage. Done.

Why not roll for damage? You could hit a vital spot, but your round could go through muscle and hurt very little...it could tumble causing more damage, or it could shatter bone by accident, increasing it. If we're rolling for hit and wound vs armor, why not damage vs vitality stat? Why is damage the only aspect of this whole process without roll, especially when S vs T/Armor roll is the one that makes least sense? If you hit someone with a big choppy chainsword, the armor is either tough or not. And if the hit slides off the armor, surely that's part of to-hit, your blow landed poorly, not to wound, which is after your blow connects? Armor is a binary stat, either it stops the hit or not, and it's consistent- hit armor with two shots of the same caliber and one of them won't miraculously have less force...

Jumping in late here. But anyways:

First of all, the old WS chart had some overlooked nuance to it. Namely that trying to hit an opponents with equal WS or one point higher was a 4+ to hit. But going the other way, the model with 1 WS higher would hit on a 3+. So this wasn't quite as extreme as many people make it out to be. The vast majority of matchups were against WS's with 1 point differences.

Secondly, those really high WS values, while not granting 2+ hit rolls, regularly meant there had reliable hits (3+) and we're harder to be hit themselves. This works to reduce the lethality somewhat, as you're never hitting on 2+ and often only being hit back on a 5+. People complain about the lethality in 9th, and then poo-poo the way certain things used to work that made it less lethal.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Jumping in late here. But anyways:

First of all, the old WS chart had some overlooked nuance to it. Namely that trying to hit an opponents with equal WS or one point higher was a 4+ to hit. But going the other way, the model with 1 WS higher would hit on a 3+. So this wasn't quite as extreme as many people make it out to be. The vast majority of matchups were against WS's with 1 point differences.

Secondly, those really high WS values, while not granting 2+ hit rolls, regularly meant there had reliable hits (3+) and we're harder to be hit themselves. This works to reduce the lethality somewhat, as you're never hitting on 2+ and often only being hit back on a 5+. People complain about the lethality in 9th, and then poo-poo the way certain things used to work that made it less lethal.

100% agree with you there and one of the reasons for my suggestion for the updated chart.

I just want to say that I don't think GW will ever go back, the cats out of the bag, but I brought it up because I thought it would make for an interesting topic of conversation, which I think it did. I'm also happy about the constructive critisicm and scrutiny, which I believe is a good thing and necessary.

 Mezmorki wrote:
Jumping in late here. But anyways:

First of all, the old WS chart had some overlooked nuance to it. Namely that trying to hit an opponents with equal WS or one point higher was a 4+ to hit. But going the other way, the model with 1 WS higher would hit on a 3+. So this wasn't quite as extreme as many people make it out to be. The vast majority of matchups were against WS's with 1 point differences.

Secondly, those really high WS values, while not granting 2+ hit rolls, regularly meant there had reliable hits (3+) and we're harder to be hit themselves. This works to reduce the lethality somewhat, as you're never hitting on 2+ and often only being hit back on a 5+. People complain about the lethality in 9th, and then poo-poo the way certain things used to work that made it less lethal.

I'm fairly sure that 90% of the time people complain about 9th being too lethal, they are referring to shooting.

Reducing the efficiency of melee is not going to make the game less lethal, it's going to make melee disappear as a tactic again. WS doubling as defensive stat was a flaw, not a good thing.

If evasion should be a thing, it should not be rolled into another stat, and it should work against melee and ranged equally.


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Tiberias wrote:
I did, you just disagreed, which is fine.

Would you mind quoting the relevant posts? If you did, I'm sorry, but everything I could find was just you stating your opinion as fact. I have understood that you think that reducing melee damage is "interesting", but that's not actually an argument.

 Mezmorki wrote:

Secondly, those really high WS values, while not granting 2+ hit rolls, regularly meant there had reliable hits (3+) and we're harder to be hit themselves. This works to reduce the lethality somewhat, as you're never hitting on 2+ and often only being hit back on a 5+. People complain about the lethality in 9th, and then poo-poo the way certain things used to work that made it less lethal.

I can run some numbers, but I'd be surprised if melee in 5th wasn't at least as deadly as melee in 9th.

In melee vs vehicles, you automatically hit the rear armor of any tank you got into contact with, and even if you didn't insta-kill it, several results on the damage table would immobilize it at least temporarily, guaranteeing you a second swing during your opponent's turn. I recall countless times easily popping medium tanks with a squad's single power klaw and having so much overkill that we'd roll it out and laugh at how the vehicle would take most of the damage table all at once.

in melee vs infantry, the lack of fall back meant that you would much more often get to swing twice in a battle round, and also Sweeping Advances were a thing.

WS could work with a more granular table and with GW giving different initiative and WS values to each unit.

But GW still lives in a world were the 80% of a codex has the same stats with the exception of characters.


But at the end of the day, the old meele system was devoid of any kind of tactic.

Literally. It was like Raid: Shadow Legends. Once two units made contact, the only decision a player had was to issue a duel. Everything else was automated by Initiative and WS. Now at least you have the minigame of alternating activating units, stratagems, consolidations and pile ins to make enemy units unable to attack back, etc...

 Jidmah wrote:

 Mezmorki wrote:
Jumping in late here. But anyways:

First of all, the old WS chart had some overlooked nuance to it. Namely that trying to hit an opponents with equal WS or one point higher was a 4+ to hit. But going the other way, the model with 1 WS higher would hit on a 3+. So this wasn't quite as extreme as many people make it out to be. The vast majority of matchups were against WS's with 1 point differences.

Secondly, those really high WS values, while not granting 2+ hit rolls, regularly meant there had reliable hits (3+) and we're harder to be hit themselves. This works to reduce the lethality somewhat, as you're never hitting on 2+ and often only being hit back on a 5+. People complain about the lethality in 9th, and then poo-poo the way certain things used to work that made it less lethal.

I'm fairly sure that 90% of the time people complain about 9th being too lethal, they are referring to shooting.

Reducing the efficiency of melee is not going to make the game less lethal, it's going to make melee disappear as a tactic again. WS doubling as defensive stat was a flaw, not a good thing.

If evasion should be a thing, it should not be rolled into another stat, and it should work against melee and ranged equally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tiberias wrote:
I did, you just disagreed, which is fine.

Would you mind quoting the relevant posts? If you did, I'm sorry, but everything I could find was just you stating your opinion as fact. I have understood that you think that reducing melee damage is "interesting", but that's not actually an argument.

I think we might have had a misunderstanding here. I did not state any of my proposals as fact. In scientific terms I was proposing a hypothesis, which is just that. It has no claim to objective truth before it provides testable, reproducable peer reviewed results (broadly speaking). I can't provide that, how could I? I stated that my comparison chart could not be properly implemented in 9th, it requires a rule framework that was designed with it in mind. My point was simply that GW could have implemented a better system with an expanded comparison chart than we have now that is also a narratively better abstraction than we have now....not a the best one or a realistic one, just better than we have now.

The interesting part about reducing melee damage due to WS comparison imo is that in can provide a form of additional defense for units with higher WS. In the current system if you have enough attacks, rerolls and enough ap to at least force invulns, it absolutely does not matter what you fight against....a good example for this currently are repentia. I am proposing the notion that it would provide a bit more of a tactical consideration when you have to take into account the enemy WS. I would also propose that it provides more room to play with modifiers as compared to a blanket +1/-1 due to the wider range of WS stats.

the_scotsman wrote:

 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.

A dodge stat would consolidate all the various extra rules into one easy to reference place and give you a framework to reliably differentiate the evasive nature of wildly different models? You could declare that all models wound on a 4+ and then add in a modifier for race, another for weapon used, one more for target race, a fourth for target's armor, and so on to achieve the same result as you would currently, but that's a load of extra steps and things to reference that could easily be boiled down. The math doesn't change, it's just cleaner. It also feels more representative of the lore (which I'm sure we all agree is a good thing as long as it doesn't harm the game) for most to have that sort of stat laid out. Timmy wants to play the super armored marines because he wants to wade through oncoming fire while striding out the other side covered in bullet hits and laser burns but still swinging; Jimmy wants to play Dark Eldar because he wants to backflip through a storm of bullets and land dramatically on the other side without a scratch on him.

You could obviously compress lots of the stats 40k uses into a single roll (even Apocalypse dropped down to Hard/Soft firepower), but that's not what 40k is currently about. I wouldn't hate that move, and it would make sense with the way the game has grown, but if GW is going to stick with a rpg-lite or skirmish system, just lean in and make the best of it.

As for the last comment, there is not a difference in hitting the two, which was clearly what I was talking about. That is, after all, what the entire thread is talking about. You wound, save, and can sustain damage differently (three whole sets of rolls/opposing stats for "how much of a beating can you take"), but there is nothing representing how hard you are to hit in the first place.

And before anyone comes in with the "this is just a nerf to melee" cry, you'd of course have to redesign a large part of the game for these changes to make sense. No one's asking you to sharpie a new stat or chart into your 9th ed codex. Though I'd like to point out, again, that I would make "dodge" work on shooting, too. A Fortress of Redemption isn't exactly going to be jumping out of the way of 50% of a guardsman's lascannon shots, is it?

 Jidmah wrote:

Karol wrote:
Which creates problems, when all your units are suppose to be able to take out all other armies priority targets in melee, but do not have the rules and stats to do it in game. Plus it ignores the whole defensive aspect the stat could have. being hit only on +5 or +6, would greatly diminish the incoming hits in melee, while at the same time would not create a situation where you blend through a unit in a single turn, unless you were using for some reason squads bigger then 5 man.

As I said in the other thread, GK fluff is stupid, rules as stupid as that fluff are bad for the game. See 5th edition for proof.
Just for the record, the correct representation of GK on the tabletop would be to force the entire army to start in reserves and disallow them to deploy unless chaos is involved.

Is the concept broken just because it was badly executed once? Are Space Marines stupid and bad for the game because of the 8e 2.0 book+supplements?

 Trimarius wrote:
A dodge stat would consolidate all the various extra rules into one easy to reference place and give you a framework to reliably differentiate the evasive nature of wildly different models...

Maybe not all, but a significant portion of them could be baked in. I still think it is odd that that evasion can be the same thing as an energy shield. Sure they both prevent hits from connecting to Wound, but armor does that, too. A good example for an odd thing is Markerlights where Hits are always effective and cannot be Saved against. Dodging should avoid it, but cannot so long as it is a Save.

 Trimarius wrote:
As for the last comment, there is not a difference in hitting the two, which was clearly what I was talking about. That is, after all, what the entire thread is talking about. You wound, save, and can sustain damage differently (three whole sets of rolls/opposing stats for "how much of a beating can you take"), but there is nothing representing how hard you are to hit in the first place.

Indeed. Hitting a Stompa should be rather easy (unless you're arcing fire or literally can't hit the broadside of a barn), but a Wych should be a devil for anyone lacking skill.

 Trimarius wrote:
And before anyone comes in with the "this is just a nerf to melee" cry, you'd of course have to redesign a large part of the game for these changes to make sense. No one's asking you to sharpie a new stat or chart into your 9th ed codex. Though I'd like to point out, again, that I would make "dodge" work on shooting, too. A Fortress of Redemption isn't exactly going to be jumping out of the way of 50% of a guardsman's lascannon shots, is it?

Agreed. There is no reason to exclude shooting from having to face a defensive stat if melee is facing one, too.

I would quite like a defensive stat determining how difficult a model is to hit.

I was only objecting to simply dropping the old WS chart in to current 40k.

I think a two dice attack sequence is best. Ballistic/Weapon skill vs evasion followed by strength/ap vs defence.
It'll be simpler and more elegant.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I was only objecting to simply dropping the old WS chart in to current 40k.

Yeah, it's not really needed when you can simply use the same comparison system being used for SvT.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I think a two dice attack sequence is best. Ballistic/Weapon skill vs evasion followed by strength/ap vs defence.
It'll be simpler and more elegant.

So long as the Save system is kept for the defending player to counter as it is an iconic system.

 Charistoph wrote:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I was only objecting to simply dropping the old WS chart in to current 40k.

Yeah, it's not really needed when you can simply use the same comparison system being used for SvT.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I think a two dice attack sequence is best. Ballistic/Weapon skill vs evasion followed by strength/ap vs defence.
It'll be simpler and more elegant.

So long as the Save system is kept for the defending player to counter as it is an iconic system.

Definitely. Attacking player rolls the offence (WS/BS vs 'evasion'), defending player rolls the defence ('firepower' vs 'defence'). This is how most games work. More dice rolls in a sequence doesn't really add much other than slowing stuff down.

I think now one of the issues 40k has is that it has several factions with a faction fantasy of being evasive and fast. With the only real way to show that is with a save that everyone can get.

A defensive stat would probably change little in how many roles but done well could open up the chance for more options in tactics.
It also means they could possibly look at buffs to hit and defensive stats as design opportunities rather than needing things like reroles to cover those which they seem to be trying to pull back a lot.
And I think it would fit better than a return to WS v WS and adding BS into the mix for it.
The old way of doing things mostly just seem favour how marines worked with the extreme edge cases struggling to fit in.

I also cannot find my copy’s of the rule books, since I seem to rember them changing it a few times in small ways over the years as well. But I forget where and how lol

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Definitely. Attacking player rolls the offence (WS/BS vs 'evasion'), defending player rolls the defence ('firepower' vs 'defence'). This is how most games work. More dice rolls in a sequence doesn't really add much other than slowing stuff down.

Most games just have the attacker roll everything to resolve an attack. Passing off some of the rolls to the defender- when there is no actual agency involved- just slows it down.


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Apple fox wrote:
I think now one of the issues 40k has is that it has several factions with a faction fantasy of being evasive and fast. With the only real way to show that is with a save that everyone can get.

I've said it before and stand by it: If instead of rolling against WS or BS you compared your WS or BS stat to an Evasion stat, using the same algorithm as with S v T, it'd be much easier to implement bonuses and penalties to rolls without causing extreme breakpoints (like BS4+ armies only hitting on 6s).

Really why can't 40k boil down further to each unit having a ranged and melee firepower rating that checks against a unit's defense rating.

For example, a marine might have 2 base firepower for both melee and range. A bolter could add +1 to that with 24: range (+1 firepower within 12") and a chainsword could add +1 firepower in melee (+1 if you charged).

This is a very basic take on the idea but you don't need to make a hit and wound roll and then have your opponent take a save and then possible FNP.

EDIT: If firepower just gave a dice pool and every 5+ scored a hit then you could make defense a fixed number where you roll a number of dice equal to the hits you took and save on that number. Some units might get no save while a 2+ would extremely strong. You could also have special rules that mess with which numbers are considered a success.

kirotheavenger wrote:Definitely. Attacking player rolls the offence (WS/BS vs 'evasion'), defending player rolls the defence ('firepower' vs 'defence'). This is how most games work. More dice rolls in a sequence doesn't really add much other than slowing stuff down.

Really? Most I've seen have no interaction from the defending player at all. They just have to suck up whatever the attacking player rolls.

When utilizing a single die system like Warhammer, increasing the number of rolls used to complete an attack increases the variability in each attack, and can increase the survivability of the defender. It's not just something used to slow down the game.

catbarf wrote:Most games just have the attacker roll everything to resolve an attack. Passing off some of the rolls to the defender- when there is no actual agency involved- just slows it down.

There is some slow down, true, however, it does help keep the defending player engaged and invested instead of just removing models at whim. It is one of the failures of the WarmaHordes system, imo.

 Charistoph wrote:

kirotheavenger wrote:Definitely. Attacking player rolls the offence (WS/BS vs 'evasion'), defending player rolls the defence ('firepower' vs 'defence'). This is how most games work. More dice rolls in a sequence doesn't really add much other than slowing stuff down.

Really? Most I've seen have no interaction from the defending player at all. They just have to suck up whatever the attacking player rolls.

When utilizing a single die system like Warhammer, increasing the number of rolls used to complete an attack increases the variability in each attack, and can increase the survivability of the defender. It's not just something used to slow down the game.

catbarf wrote:Most games just have the attacker roll everything to resolve an attack. Passing off some of the rolls to the defender- when there is no actual agency involved- just slows it down.

There is some slow down, true, however, it does help keep the defending player engaged and invested instead of just removing models at whim. It is one of the failures of the WarmaHordes system, imo.

I agree it does increase variability, but not satisfactorily so.
You get to the point where despite rolling a literal handful of dice your attacks are so ineffective as to be scarcely worth rolling (looking at you, Guardsmen).
Even if you just look at the 3 core rolls (hit-wound-save), do you really need granularity of 0.46%? two rolls in sequence (eg attack-defence) give a granularity of 2.8%. That's still within territory that you're unlikely to notice a significant difference between similar attacks, but with 0.46% granularity you have no chance of noticing that distinction.

There's many ways to do it. What Canadian suggests with firepower pools is a common and effective way of doing things. I don't think 40k's method is fundementally flawed at all, I just think it's too many rolls in the sequence. Especially if you throw in 'blasts', rerolls, variable damage, and special saves it just gets ridiculous (not to mention some of those can mean fast-rolling becomes impossible so you're rolling 15 dice one-by-one).

 Jidmah wrote:
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.

Pretty much this. Melee was, 90% of the time, "everyone hits on 4s".

Infinity, Battlegroup, Flames of War, and Heroscape to my memory have some kind of die roll the defending player commonly makes.