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Since 8th and more so since 9th, a lot of units seem to be inhereting ws or bs 3+. The nid leaks are the latest example of the haruspex and exocrine getting the bump. Likewise daemon engines got the same bump up.

Armies without widespread bs/ws3+ who function in those phases heavily (shooting for tau and gsc), tend to have easy/manageable access to +1 to hit stacks to effectively end up at 3+ to hit.

Every army that gets a refresh there seems to be a shout for an increase in some specialist units. Even now there's a want for 3+/3+ carnifex etc.

Back in the older editions 4+ was normal, 3+ to hit at range was deemed "above average". WS was a comparison table and again the equivalent to today's 3+ was deemed above average.

It seems the 2 stats that were once based on a units relative, skill, training and prowess are simply a nice to have efficiency dial for everyone now.

Anyone else feel the same? Likewise of everyone is 3+ should we begin to see marines move to a 2+ in order to maintain their better than average nature?

I would say so. But its not just because of the lowering of BS/WS but also the prevalence of +1 and reroll rules. Mitigating randomness is good but it's too consistently available and too easy to access and then keep on the board because its generally on an untargetable character. There should be some cost related to dice mitigation auras and abilities like having to spend some kind of POINT in order to COMMAND a unit to do better. We could call them Strategy Tokens maybe.

Yes. As soon as they went from a comparative measure for ws to a fixed roll, the number of effective values decreased.

 Hellebore wrote:
Yes. As soon as they went from a comparative measure for ws to a fixed roll, the number of effective values decreased.

I see it as more of an attitude shift as well, the online community seems to see them as a simple efficiency dial, utterly abstract from any in-game reason.

3+ is more reliable or the point where people consider something "good" at a role, so that's what they want, reasoning aside.

Dudeface wrote:
Since 8th and more so since 9th, a lot of units seem to be inhereting ws or bs 3+. The nid leaks are the latest example of the haruspex and exocrine getting the bump. Likewise daemon engines got the same bump up.

Armies without widespread bs/ws3+ who function in those phases heavily (shooting for tau and gsc), tend to have easy/manageable access to +1 to hit stacks to effectively end up at 3+ to hit.

Every army that gets a refresh there seems to be a shout for an increase in some specialist units. Even now there's a want for 3+/3+ carnifex etc.

Back in the older editions 4+ was normal, 3+ to hit at range was deemed "above average". WS was a comparison table and again the equivalent to today's 3+ was deemed above average.

It seems the 2 stats that were once based on a units relative, skill, training and prowess are simply a nice to have efficiency dial for everyone now.

Anyone else feel the same? Likewise of everyone is 3+ should we begin to see marines move to a 2+ in order to maintain their better than average nature?

Add to that all the rerolls and in particular to hit is practically quaranteed for any serious unit these days.

Orks still hit on BS 5+ though so these changes are not uniform.

I think the increases are being done mostly on units that are expensive pointwise and you can't really spam to make up for its lack of BS/WS. Take for example the Plaguburst Crawler. If it were to back to BS 4+ the whole platform would need to drop down to 110-120 points due to how unreliable the platform is.

I think GW dropped the ball, again, when they removed the cap on stats but kept them siminar. T, S, WS and BS should be all over the place. There should be 0+BS or T12 and so on.
Otherwise you just miss the oportunity that thd open stats give you

 Eldarsif wrote:
Orks still hit on BS 5+ though so these changes are not uniform.

I think the increases are being done mostly on units that are expensive pointwise and you can't really spam to make up for its lack of BS/WS. Take for example the Plaguburst Crawler. If it were to back to BS 4+ the whole platform would need to drop down to 110-120 points due to how unreliable the platform is.

This is exactly the issue, that's a mental profile and stack of abilities to only be worth 120. 4+ I'd argue isn't unreliable, its average.

What about the plagueburst crawler makes it an above average marksman for example?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Fwlshadowalker wrote:
I think GW dropped the ball, again, when they removed the cap on stats but kept them siminar. T, S, WS and BS should be all over the place. There should be 0+BS or T12 and so on.
Otherwise you just miss the oportunity that thd open stats give you

My concern is that people seem to want the gap closing, as shown above, anything below 3+ is too unreliable to use.

 Fwlshadowalker wrote:
I think GW dropped the ball, again, when they removed the cap on stats but kept them siminar. T, S, WS and BS should be all over the place. There should be 0+BS or T12 and so on.
Otherwise you just miss the oportunity that thd open stats give you

My concern is that people seem to want the gap closing, as shown above, anything below 3+ is too unreliable to use.

I think that is only partially true. It is GW with releasing 8th who started it. They have the power to stop it. Build on that the tournament scene loves them their statistics. Thus the harmonization continues.

 Fwlshadowalker wrote:

 Fwlshadowalker wrote:
I think GW dropped the ball, again, when they removed the cap on stats but kept them siminar. T, S, WS and BS should be all over the place. There should be 0+BS or T12 and so on.
Otherwise you just miss the oportunity that thd open stats give you

My concern is that people seem to want the gap closing, as shown above, anything below 3+ is too unreliable to use.

I think that is only partially true. It is GW with releasing 8th who started it. They have the power to stop it. Build on that the tournament scene loves them their statistics. Thus the harmonization continues.

Personally I wouldn't mind a 10th ed refresh edition to expand stat ranges and prune back modifiers/rerolls.

One issue with stuff that’s inaccurate is physical. If priced correctly, it’s just as good as the more accurate stuff, but you need to buy more models. Which runs into game issues of force org slots, but also blasts and morale. And buying/painting more models.

Yes, and it sucks. GW should have kept the comparison chart and expand it so to be able to hit on 2+, also expand the range of WS compared to previous editions where most things were WS3-5.
But instead we get this short sighted nonsense, where every unit starts to become more and more the same and you lose more and more levers to adjust things on the unit datasheet itself so GW has to inevitably resort to slapping on more and more special rules on units to make them feel unique.
This has to inevitably lead into a hard reset, because you simply can not escalate unit stats forever if your statblock goes from 1-10 and you remove WS/BS and initiative values completely.

I wouldn't say so. WS was largely irrelevant in earlier editions because no matter what your WS was in 90% of cases you either hit on 3+ or 4+. Daemon engines and monsters being BS 4+ always caused bad feelings and usually made them subpar choices (engines even more so since being a vehicle was a hard downgrade, while being a Monster gave you a lot of stuff), so them being WS and BS 3 now I'd say is a case of "it's about time!"
The cap on modifiers in 9th seems to be the real Problem and I'm a little puzzled that it still hasn't been refined.

Overall this is a problem of how granular can a D6 based game be.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I wouldn't say so. WS was largely irrelevant in earlier editions because no matter what your WS was in 90% of cases you either hit on 3+ or 4+. Daemon engines and monsters being BS 4+ always caused bad feelings and usually made them subpar choices (engines even more so since being a vehicle was a hard downgrade, while being a Monster gave you a lot of stuff), so them being WS and BS 3 now I'd say is a case of "it's about time!"
The cap on modifiers in 9th seems to be the real Problem and I'm a little puzzled that it still hasn't been refined.

Overall this is a problem of how granular can a D6 based game be.

You're right melee was often 3+ for a capable unit but 4+ otherwise, but the removal of initiative has also stripped out another balancing lever for making interesting melee profiles.

I still disagree on the daemon engines, people again wanted them 3+ just to be "better" or to "match the rest of the codex", neither of which necessarily equate to being a worthwhile change. They could have made them worthwhile with 4+, instead I feel they copped out the easy route and instead just went with the 3+ is better go hit more often, go us.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I wouldn't say so. WS was largely irrelevant in earlier editions because no matter what your WS was in 90% of cases you either hit on 3+ or 4+. Daemon engines and monsters being BS 4+ always caused bad feelings and usually made them subpar choices (engines even more so since being a vehicle was a hard downgrade, while being a Monster gave you a lot of stuff), so them being WS and BS 3 now I'd say is a case of "it's about time!"
The cap on modifiers in 9th seems to be the real Problem and I'm a little puzzled that it still hasn't been refined.

Overall this is a problem of how granular can a D6 based game be.

Yes, it was, but they could have improved that system like I mentioned instead of replacing it with something inferior.

Tiberias wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I wouldn't say so. WS was largely irrelevant in earlier editions because no matter what your WS was in 90% of cases you either hit on 3+ or 4+. Daemon engines and monsters being BS 4+ always caused bad feelings and usually made them subpar choices (engines even more so since being a vehicle was a hard downgrade, while being a Monster gave you a lot of stuff), so them being WS and BS 3 now I'd say is a case of "it's about time!"
The cap on modifiers in 9th seems to be the real Problem and I'm a little puzzled that it still hasn't been refined.

Overall this is a problem of how granular can a D6 based game be.

Yes, it was, but they could have improved that system like I mentioned instead of replacing it with something inferior.

They could do the same with the current system by moving to something other than a D6. Would still be better than a mostly useless chart stuck with a limitation thanks to the D6.

 Nevelon wrote:
One issue with stuff that’s inaccurate is physical. If priced correctly, it’s just as good as the more accurate stuff, but you need to buy more models. Which runs into game issues of force org slots, but also blasts and morale. And buying/painting more models.

Also more models is just not very thematic for certain armies. Guardians used to be BS 4+ which effectively turned Aeldari into a horde army(Footdar) which is just not very Aeldari to begin with. Same goes for a Daemon Engine heavy Death Guard list that suddenly finds themselves with PBC at 110 points or MBH at 70 points because they are 50/50 at hitting stuff(use to be -1 in older editions if they moved). Now they are spamming Daemon Engines in an army that should feel somewhat elite.

 Eldarsif wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
One issue with stuff that’s inaccurate is physical. If priced correctly, it’s just as good as the more accurate stuff, but you need to buy more models. Which runs into game issues of force org slots, but also blasts and morale. And buying/painting more models.

Also more models is just not very thematic for certain armies. Guardians used to be BS 4+ which effectively turned Aeldari into a horde army(Footdar) which is just not very Aeldari to begin with. Same goes for a Daemon Engine heavy Death Guard list that suddenly finds themselves with PBC at 110 points or MBH at 70 points because they are 50/50 at hitting stuff(use to be -1 in older editions if they moved). Now they are spamming Daemon Engines in an army that should feel somewhat elite.

Maybe game sizes should shrink and people should have fewer models? It's mental to think that a 12w t8 3+/5++ vehicle with out of LOS shooting is only worth 110 points. That body should be writing the cheques for it, not the firepower. Simple way round making the game less lethal - stop handing out increased BS, +hit modifiers and rerolls.

Dudeface wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
One issue with stuff that’s inaccurate is physical. If priced correctly, it’s just as good as the more accurate stuff, but you need to buy more models. Which runs into game issues of force org slots, but also blasts and morale. And buying/painting more models.

Also more models is just not very thematic for certain armies. Guardians used to be BS 4+ which effectively turned Aeldari into a horde army(Footdar) which is just not very Aeldari to begin with. Same goes for a Daemon Engine heavy Death Guard list that suddenly finds themselves with PBC at 110 points or MBH at 70 points because they are 50/50 at hitting stuff(use to be -1 in older editions if they moved). Now they are spamming Daemon Engines in an army that should feel somewhat elite.

Maybe game sizes should shrink and people should have fewer models? It's mental to think that a 12w t8 3+/5++ vehicle with out of LOS shooting is only worth 110 points. That body should be writing the cheques for it, not the firepower. Simple way round making the game less lethal - stop handing out increased BS, +hit modifiers and rerolls.

12w T8 3+/5++ means nothing if you can't kill anything or do actions. Some people might enjoy a movable expensive terrain, but in general 40k it's more or less useless except as an inconvenience for a turn. There is a reason why spitters were popular in 8th, and only changed in 9th with an upgrade to BS. I don't even remember anyone fielding MBH in 8th because 50% chance is a gakky chance on an expensive platform that could be better switched for something else that can actually do game important stuff. Same went for the drones. How many Blight Launchers did people see? It was Turtles and Spitters all the way down because some weirdo thought an Elite army should have BS 4+ on their vehicles.

People seem to also forget that 9th brought the CORE rules which removed a lot of rerolls from anything that wasn't infantry so I am not sure why people are complaining about more accuracy when in many ways it has also reduced for many armies. There is a reason you don't see many Space Marine tanks these days and it's because they are expensive and do not have access to rerolls, making them a liability in 40k. They also lack invuln saves and I imagine PBCs would be dead in the water if it weren't for that saving grace.

PS: I find PBC to be fairly costed at this moment. Didn't even mind the original sticker price of 175 points before the CA update. However, this "Daemon Engines Must Be BS 4+" nonsense feels like people who just want to punish an army that is supposed to feel like an elite army.

The problem is cap on modifiers. Once GW introduced "6 always hits" they should have been able to go crazier with modifiers. Instead we get silly stuff like "can't be hit/wounded on 1-3" instead of just letting the Custodes Blade Champ do a -2 to hit in melee. And then your Phoenix Lords can have a BS/WS1+ so they still hit him on a 3+.

 Eldarsif wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
One issue with stuff that’s inaccurate is physical. If priced correctly, it’s just as good as the more accurate stuff, but you need to buy more models. Which runs into game issues of force org slots, but also blasts and morale. And buying/painting more models.

Also more models is just not very thematic for certain armies. Guardians used to be BS 4+ which effectively turned Aeldari into a horde army(Footdar) which is just not very Aeldari to begin with. Same goes for a Daemon Engine heavy Death Guard list that suddenly finds themselves with PBC at 110 points or MBH at 70 points because they are 50/50 at hitting stuff(use to be -1 in older editions if they moved). Now they are spamming Daemon Engines in an army that should feel somewhat elite.

Maybe game sizes should shrink and people should have fewer models? It's mental to think that a 12w t8 3+/5++ vehicle with out of LOS shooting is only worth 110 points. That body should be writing the cheques for it, not the firepower. Simple way round making the game less lethal - stop handing out increased BS, +hit modifiers and rerolls.

12w T8 3+/5++ means nothing if you can't kill anything or do actions. Some people might enjoy a movable expensive terrain, but in general 40k it's more or less useless except as an inconvenience for a turn. There is a reason why spitters were popular in 8th, and only changed in 9th with an upgrade to BS. I don't even remember anyone fielding MBH in 8th because 50% chance is a gakky chance on an expensive platform that could be better switched for something else that can actually do game important stuff. Same went for the drones. How many Blight Launchers did people see? It was Turtles and Spitters all the way down because some weirdo thought an Elite army should have BS 4+ on their vehicles.

People seem to also forget that 9th brought the CORE rules which removed a lot of rerolls from anything that wasn't infantry so I am not sure why people are complaining about more accuracy when in many ways it has also reduced for many armies. There is a reason you don't see many Space Marine tanks these days and it's because they are expensive and do not have access to rerolls, making them a liability in 40k. They also lack invuln saves and I imagine PBCs would be dead in the water if it weren't for that saving grace.

PS: I find PBC to be fairly costed at this moment. Didn't even mind the original sticker price of 175 points before the CA update. However, this "Daemon Engines Must Be BS 4+" nonsense feels like people who just want to punish an army that is supposed to feel like an elite army.

I think you're epitomising the problem with the game, or at least my problem with the game. A units worth is solely about how easily it kills stuff, anything less than above average isn't good enough and defensive profiles aren't relevant.

It's not about whether an army "feels elite" nor was it about punishing an army. It was about the fact not every unit in the game needs to be firing and hitting at a 3+ and the lethality of the game reducing the value of defensive stats is why everything is forced to be so cheap.

I think you're epitomising the problem with the game, or at least my problem with the game. A units worth is solely about how easily it kills stuff, anything less than above average isn't good enough and defensive profiles aren't relevant.

The thing is, PBC's worth was in taking secondaries To The Last and providing the rare ranged firepower Death Guard has access to. It's why its profile as a survivable tank had some merit. Now - since GW reduced their point below termies - TTL is not as easily accessible unless through some skew MSU Troop lists and PBC's worth has gone down in that regard. Which leaves its current worth only as a platform that can kill stuff. Take that away and its worth in the game becomes more or less zero except as a really expensive way of body blocking(there would be cheaper alternatives).

Also, the worth of a unit is more than its firepower which is why we tend to see much less of vehicles these days in many ways. For a unit to have multiple worth it needs to kill, score points, do actions, and survive, and vehicles are more or less only in the killy department as they don't have ObSec or the ability to do actions, and without good ways to hide or often lack of invulns their survivability is often in question despite a high wound pool and Toughness.

So defensive profiles are relevant, but if they can do nothing to ensure your victory they are... just there. Since 40k is a wargame, just being there in all its zen is just kind of pointless.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
The problem is cap on modifiers. Once GW introduced "6 always hits" they should have been able to go crazier with modifiers. Instead we get silly stuff like "can't be hit/wounded on 1-3" instead of just letting the Custodes Blade Champ do a -2 to hit in melee. And then your Phoenix Lords can have a BS/WS1+ so they still hit him on a 3+.

The problem with the no cap on modifiers is that it opened up another can of worm entirely. I flew in the Aeldari air force as an Alaitoc officer and I managed to just create negative player experience for people with it.

No, they still need to exist to help with what little balance we have left.

WS/BS both have to exist on a model, other wise, you get weird situations like Tau, who have good shooting but crap fighting, it would be weird if they had the same skill at both.

I don't think this is that new; in 3rd-7th WS/BS were still almost universally 3 or 4 outside of characters (and outside of Orks' BS2, but that's always sort of been a joke). It's more a function of preserving a ratio of attacks to hits for game feel than any specific lever GW's trying to pull for balance purposes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarsif wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
The problem is cap on modifiers. Once GW introduced "6 always hits" they should have been able to go crazier with modifiers. Instead we get silly stuff like "can't be hit/wounded on 1-3" instead of just letting the Custodes Blade Champ do a -2 to hit in melee. And then your Phoenix Lords can have a BS/WS1+ so they still hit him on a 3+.

The problem with the no cap on modifiers is that it opened up another can of worm entirely. I flew in the Aeldari air force as an Alaitoc officer and I managed to just create negative player experience for people with it.

This problem exists because GW started putting "-1 to hit" on loads of things as special rules. If you look at other GW-adjacent systems with d6 to-hit and to-hit modifiers (Mordheim/Necromunda, WHFB, Bolt Action) you'll find that almost universally the only modifiers are moving and shooting, cover, and range. If they'd written their BS values to accommodate a modifier system instead of just copy-pasting the BS values from modifier-less 7th, and recognized that the system simply doesn't support that many modifiers, the no-modifiers-cap band-aid patch wouldn't have been necessary.

 Platuan4th wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I wouldn't say so. WS was largely irrelevant in earlier editions because no matter what your WS was in 90% of cases you either hit on 3+ or 4+. Daemon engines and monsters being BS 4+ always caused bad feelings and usually made them subpar choices (engines even more so since being a vehicle was a hard downgrade, while being a Monster gave you a lot of stuff), so them being WS and BS 3 now I'd say is a case of "it's about time!"
The cap on modifiers in 9th seems to be the real Problem and I'm a little puzzled that it still hasn't been refined.

Overall this is a problem of how granular can a D6 based game be.

Yes, it was, but they could have improved that system like I mentioned instead of replacing it with something inferior.

They could do the same with the current system by moving to something other than a D6. Would still be better than a mostly useless chart stuck with a limitation thanks to the D6.

Yes they could, but what would have been more likely and more practical? Improving an old system that was already in place or switching to a D10 or D12 system?
GW has dropped the ball on the long term with their current system of StReaMliNing the rules...

 Backspacehacker wrote:
No, they still need to exist to help with what little balance we have left.

WS/BS both have to exist on a model, other wise, you get weird situations like Tau, who have good shooting but crap fighting, it would be weird if they had the same skill at both.

The use cases for separate WS/BS values are Orks, on whom BS5+ exists mostly as a joke that feels increasingly outdated in the age of to-hit modifiers, and the Tau, for whom their inability to engage in melee is a persistent problem for the game since all their games feel like a one-sided stomp to someone, and who would benefit significantly purely in terms of their ability to participate in the game if you took the Tau Commander from Dawn of War 1 as an example and gave them gun-fu-based melee attacks using their ranged weapon profiles more broadly, rather than just as the one relic melee fusion blaster.

Broadly speaking I think separate WS/BS only exists now because it existed in the past and because GW's chosen to nail some factions' identities to specific stat numbers, and the game/lore would easily hold up to smooshing them together if you were willing to accept that WS/BS alone do not represent the totality of a unit's melee/ranged capabilities. Give the Tau the ability to borrow their guns' statlines for melee attacks, but keep their Attacks stats low (bring in the chainsword extra-attacks rule on weapons with higher rate of fire, let the flamer keep its d6 auto-hits to make it good at something), and only allow the Crisis-team weapon pool to have melee attacks so the big suits are stuck with their point-defense weapons only in melee. Give Orks the ability to hit on 4+ at range, but back off on their rate of fire so you're not dealing with rolling, rerolling, exploding hits, and rerolling again sixty attacks in one pool, and bring in more "this weapon does weird things on a 1 to hit" or the like if you really want to keep their shooting phase silly. Let tanks use their BS and their pintle weapons in the Assault phase, vehicles as a unit type haven't had a buff of any kind since 5e, they deserve something.

tl;dr: Separate WS/BS is one way to represent the things it's trying to represent, but it's not the only way, and from a mechanical standpoint you'd probably fix more problems than you'd create if you did smoosh them together and rework the rules around a single to-hit value per unit.

To be frank, I think they made the wrong choice. Rather than making WS hit on a flat number like BS did, they should have made BS hit on a comparative number like WS did.

That way, units with "dodges" or "evades" or "sensor scramblers" or "cover" or whatever could be harder to hit in a more coherent way than just modifiers.

Yes but this has been the case since at least 6th edition.

I find the d10 or d12 suggestions interesting because I aren't sure it would solve much. To part over like for like, or near to, using marines as a baseline would hit on a 7/8. People would still want their units to be hitting on a 7/8, because otherwise they're unreliable and overpriced. This doesn't change the current situation, it just adds a couple more "acceptable" results without removing the issue.

The more I think of it, the problem still boils down to the auras and buffs, along with an expected higher than reasonable baseline.

Dudeface wrote:
I find the d10 or d12 suggestions interesting because I aren't sure it would solve much. To part over like for like, or near to, using marines as a baseline would hit on a 7/8. People would still want their units to be hitting on a 7/8, because otherwise they're unreliable and overpriced. This doesn't change the current situation, it just adds a couple more "acceptable" results without removing the issue.

Bingo! Give the man a point.