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What if Wound attributes were more standardised, and there wasn't a practice of giving higher-rank models more Wounds in such an arbitrary manner?

For example, what if all (unenhanced) human models had one 1 Wound, from Company Commanders to basic Guardsmen? What if you could kill a Primaris Lieutenant with supercharged plasma in the same way you can an Intercessor? Would it really be so bad (assuming their battlefield roles were allowed to adjust as a result, and there remained ways to screen them).

Obviously this wouldn't apply to armies like Orks and Nids, where might usually does make right.

I’d honestly be fine with it if random infantry weapons weren’t just like, strangely powerful. I liked the old wound system a lot honestly. It made characters with 2 wounds actually pretty powerful in comparison to their 1w friends.

You could do it and make it work reasonably well. That said, I'm not sure the game would be improved by such a change. To me, the extra wounds on characters are more about plot armor/skill than any sort of physical advantage. The captain has more wounds than the intercessor not because he's less susceptible to plasma burns, but because he's got a knack for avoiding lethal harm, and that knack is partly how he lived long enough to become a captain in the first place.

It probably wouldn't be a huge issue for shooting; if you can shoot a lieutenant at all, you can probably shoot him with enough guns to kill him. It might be more noticable in the fight phase where your inquisitor displays as much fragility as the nameless guardsman next to him. Potentially even more fragility unless you added rules to prevent characters from getting ganged up on in melee.

Orks believe that characters are harder to kill... so they have more wounds.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
I’d honestly be fine with it if random infantry weapons weren’t just like, strangely powerful. I liked the old wound system a lot honestly. It made characters with 2 wounds actually pretty powerful in comparison to their 1w friends.

It REALLY did not. It made it so sometimes you tool the bare minimum unless you could Deathstar it. Higher wounds and different damage weapons were one of the only good decisions that GW made.

Wyldhunt wrote:
You could do it and make it work reasonably well. That said, I'm not sure the game would be improved by such a change. To me, the extra wounds on characters are more about plot armor/skill than any sort of physical advantage. The captain has more wounds than the intercessor not because he's less susceptible to plasma burns, but because he's got a knack for avoiding lethal harm, and that knack is partly how he lived long enough to become a captain in the first place.

IMO you already have things like invulnerables, wargear options, special rules and strategems to represent 'plot armour' (which sucks as a principle anyway, in almost any form of media).

Wyldhunt wrote:
It probably wouldn't be a huge issue for shooting; if you can shoot a lieutenant at all, you can probably shoot him with enough guns to kill him. It might be more noticable in the fight phase where your inquisitor displays as much fragility as the nameless guardsman next to him. Potentially even more fragility unless you added rules to prevent characters from getting ganged up on in melee.

Well as above, that Inquisitor would presumably have better wargear than a nameless Guardsman (possibly even physiological enhancements to make them tougher).

Ah, but an invulnerable save is generally something you take in place of your armor save. So a captain's iron halo wouldn't offer him any extra protection against weapons with low AP. I'm not sure defensive special rules and stratagems that only help characters are *that* prevalent, but even if they are, giving every character in the game a bespoke rule seems like a very roundabout way to get the same results provided by a higher Wounds stat.

Basically, the inquisitor is a higher level than the guardsman, and he has extra HP as a result. It's abstract and gamey, but it also seems like an on-brand way to handle things in a game/setting where "heroes" are a thing. It's hard to be the bloodthirsty chaos lord of Khorne, slayer of a thousand worlds, who leads from the front when one good laspistol shot can kill you.

Yeah, but extra protection is extra protection (do regular Marines get Iron Halos?). And special rules/strategems are around (e.g. Guilliman resurrecting). There are also rules like Look Out, Sir, as well as specific bodyguard models.

And my original point is that characters/HQs shouldn't get that plot armour in the first place (unless awarded it by wargear, or if there's some other logically consistent reason for it).

Wyldhunt wrote:
It's hard to be the bloodthirsty chaos lord of Khorne, slayer of a thousand worlds, who leads from the front when one good laspistol shot can kill you.

Methinks this is a bit of an exaggeration. I didn't say every model in the game should have 1 Wound, I said that characters/HQs who are physically the same as other models should have the same fragility, instead of getting additional Wounds arbitrarily for plot armour reasons.

CSM are 1 wound right now.

I don't see the value in changing this, no.

I am all for it. Never much liked how being promoted suddenly made you harder to kill (except for Orks, ironically, as much as I dislike them).

 JNAProductions wrote:
CSM are 1 wound right now.

Exactly, they should have the same Wounds attribute as other models with their physique.

I mean, if it meant those characters got a significant points cut I'd be all for it. If an Imperial Guard Platoon Commander had 1 wound and cost like 15 points I'd be fine with it. Would make snipers deadlier, and give you more points for the rest of the list.

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
It's hard to be the bloodthirsty chaos lord of Khorne, slayer of a thousand worlds, who leads from the front when one good laspistol shot can kill you.

Methinks this is a bit of an exaggeration. I didn't say every model in the game should have 1 Wound, I said that characters/HQs who are physically the same as other models should have the same fragility, instead of getting additional Wounds arbitrarily for plot armour reasons.

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
CSM are 1 wound right now.

Exactly, they should have the same Wounds attribute as other models with their physique.

A chaos lord seems to have essentially the same physique as a normal CSM. So if CSM are 1W, a chaos lord would theoretically be 1W. Which means he's going to have a hard time surviving his lead-from-the-front charge.

Basically, what you're pitching seems like it would be more "realistic," but it would also make it harder for characters to be the standout cut-above heroes that the current system makes them out to be. While in theory a chaos lord should be as easy/hard to kill with a bolt pistol as one of his unnamed flunkies, 40k as a setting seems to embrace the idea that some individuals just don't die as easily as they should. They're better at being where the enemy isn't shooting or they're killy enough that the enemy fires less bullets or they just tend to get lucky. In other words, plot armor. There's nothing innately wrong with wanting the chaos lord to die to a single bolt pistol shot, but the rules you're proposing don't support the idea of there being "heroic" types that are significantly more survivable than their friends with similar anatomies.

Also worth mentioning that the types of special wargear characters do tend to have don't necessarily do much to make them more survivable. If you ignore his prescience (which is sort of an off-brand form of plot armor), my farseer is a T3 space elf with a 4+ invulnerable save. Meaning that, against lasgun or sister's bolter, he's less likely to make a save than the striking scorpion with 3+ armor standing next to him. The inquisitor with an invuln might be more likely to survive a meltagun shot than a normal guardsman, but at 1W, he's going to die just as fast to lasgun fire. And if you give every character in the game a special rule or rewritten wargear to up their durability against all/most sources of harm, then you're basically just using more words to end up in essentially the same place.

So like, should a chaos lord be more likely to survive a bolt pistol shot than a normal chaos marine? Yes and No are both fine answers, but the latter makes it pretty difficult to be a useful beatstick.

Bring them 1W CSM Lords, or Guardsmen Colonel or whatever, let the fools acting like idiots on a battlefield die like they should and scrap plot armor from the TT game.

I'd like characters to have fewer wounds. I prefer them feeling more normal, rather than literally like Marvel superheroes.

It would have difficulties though. With the current character Look Out Sir rules, they can be quite vulnerable at times. Particularly characters trying to support melee units are very liable to getting caught out. This means making characters entirely normal is not really viable for a lot of things.

If characters were placed back inside units as they should be, then I think it'd work a lot better.

Wyldhunt wrote:

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
It's hard to be the bloodthirsty chaos lord of Khorne, slayer of a thousand worlds, who leads from the front when one good laspistol shot can kill you.

Methinks this is a bit of an exaggeration. I didn't say every model in the game should have 1 Wound, I said that characters/HQs who are physically the same as other models should have the same fragility, instead of getting additional Wounds arbitrarily for plot armour reasons.

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
CSM are 1 wound right now.

Exactly, they should have the same Wounds attribute as other models with their physique.

A chaos lord seems to have essentially the same physique as a normal CSM. So if CSM are 1W, a chaos lord would theoretically be 1W. Which means he's going to have a hard time surviving his lead-from-the-front charge.

Well in that second comment I was implying that CSM should get more wounds, like loyalists have (I'll be very surprised if they don't). Same underlying physiques after all. And yeah, a Chaos Lord with the same physique would also get 2 wounds.

Bearing in mind ofc that there's alot more leeway with Chaos for "gifts" that enhance the physiques of certain characters and units.

Wyldhunt wrote:Basically, what you're pitching seems like it would be more "realistic," but it would also make it harder for characters to be the standout cut-above heroes that the current system makes them out to be. While in theory a chaos lord should be as easy/hard to kill with a bolt pistol as one of his unnamed flunkies, 40k as a setting seems to embrace the idea that some individuals just don't die as easily as they should. They're better at being where the enemy isn't shooting or they're killy enough that the enemy fires less bullets or they just tend to get lucky. In other words, plot armor. There's nothing innately wrong with wanting the chaos lord to die to a single bolt pistol shot, but the rules you're proposing don't support the idea of there being "heroic" types that are significantly more survivable than their friends with similar anatomies.

Yep, that's pretty much the point.

As mentioned above though, there are ways around this - special wargear, strategems, even just invulns or special rules (although most of these also feel like plot armour to me).

Bodyguards are another (much better IMO) way around this. If your hero is literally going to lead from the front without a retinue, then why shouldn't the enemy be able to punish them for it?

But yeah, unless there's a good in-universe reason for a character being extra tough, I don't think they should be.

Wyldhunt wrote:Also worth mentioning that the types of special wargear characters do tend to have don't necessarily do much to make them more survivable. If you ignore his prescience (which is sort of an off-brand form of plot armor), my farseer is a T3 space elf with a 4+ invulnerable save. Meaning that, against lasgun or sister's bolter, he's less likely to make a save than the striking scorpion with 3+ armor standing next to him. The inquisitor with an invuln might be more likely to survive a meltagun shot than a normal guardsman, but at 1W, he's going to die just as fast to lasgun fire. And if you give every character in the game a special rule or rewritten wargear to up their durability against all/most sources of harm, then you're basically just using more words to end up in essentially the same place.

True, but there are logical in-universe ways to protect both those characters that don't just flatly protect them against weapon damage for no reason. E.g. retinues. Or transports. Or armour. Or in the case of a Farseer, space magic (illusions, bulletproof auras, etc). And if none of those things are in place, and somebody gets a clean shot or lodges an axe in them, then yeah, they should go down just as easily as any other model with the same physique and gear.

IMO, exemptions like that (aside from bodyguards/retinues) should only apply to a minority of characters, but they're there as options.

kirotheavenger wrote:I'd like characters to have fewer wounds. I prefer them feeling more normal, rather than literally like Marvel superheroes.

It would have difficulties though. With the current character Look Out Sir rules, they can be quite vulnerable at times. Particularly characters trying to support melee units are very liable to getting caught out. This means making characters entirely normal is not really viable for a lot of things.

If characters were placed back inside units as they should be, then I think it'd work a lot better.

Yup, agree. And able to move between units.

Disclaimer: not trying to be argumentative or a downer, but do want to point out some things that would have to be considered.

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Well in that second comment I was implying that CSM should get more wounds, like loyalists have (I'll be very surprised if they don't). Same underlying physiques after all. And yeah, a Chaos Lord with the same physique would also get 2 wounds.

Bearing in mind ofc that there's alot more leeway with Chaos for "gifts" that enhance the physiques of certain characters and units.
...
As mentioned above though, there are ways around this - special wargear, strategems, even just invulns or special rules (although most of these also feel like plot armour to me).
...

A chaos lord with 2 Wounds isn't much more durable than a chaos lord with 1 Wound. Even if we went back to every weapon basically being Damage 1, you're still looking at losing your army's leader and probably the PoV character for your narrative to a couple Sv rolls of 1-2 (assuming power armor). So if we accept that khorne lords charging into combat are a part of the setting and thus part of the game, we have to ask how they manage to do that more than once or twice before having their career ended.

You can absolutely give them special rules and gear to up their survivability. But one of the main points of this proposal (as I understand it) is lower durability. So how much do you want bespoke rules and gear to offset your proposal's durability decrease? And could you achieve the same results with fewer special rules by just letting them keep some extra wounds?

Alternatively, I guess you could just say that even chaos lords and inquisitors and such simply aren't very good at surviving combat situations, but that seems kind of out-of-tune with the lore and feel of the setting, no?

Bodyguards are another (much better IMO) way around this. If your hero is literally going to lead from the front without a retinue, then why shouldn't the enemy be able to punish them for it?

Bodyguards could be an interesting way to go, but how exactly do you intend to implement that? Does every faction need a unit with a "bodyguard" rule? Does every list need to include said unit if they want their character to live to see turn 2? Do you create one-size-fits-all bodyguard rules where the character conveys some sort of buff to the unit they're attached to? If all I have to do to kill an enemy character is kill the single squad of marines he's attached to, then I think I'll probably be killing my opponent's warlord turn 1 of every game.

But yeah, unless there's a good in-universe reason for a character being extra tough, I don't think they should be.

Well, the in-universe reasons are slightly meta, but they do exist. Why is the canoness harder to kill than a normal sister? Because being hard to kill is how she became canoness in the first place. Plus, there's the whole warpy weirdness where some people are just more significant to fate than others, and probability tends to kind of warp around them to facilitate them being important, either as a result of their reputation causing the beliefs of others to manifest in the warp (and thus in reality), or as a natural phenomenon of the warp. Basically, plot armor kind of exists in-universe in 40k.

True, but there are logical in-universe ways to protect both those characters that don't just flatly protect them against weapon damage for no reason. E.g. retinues. Or transports. Or armour. Or in the case of a Farseer, space magic (illusions, bulletproof auras, etc). And if none of those things are in place, and somebody gets a clean shot or lodges an axe in them, then yeah, they should go down just as easily as any other model with the same physique and gear.

How would you better represent my farseer's space magic than with multiple wounds? The wounds system gives him a cushion while still allowing more dangerous weapons (read: higher damage weapons) to be better at finishing him off. If you put a bolter to a farseer's head and pull the trigger, he'll die about as surely as most humanoids. But the extra wounds represent how hard it is to land a finishing hit like that. The first 4 wounds are the farseer using his prescience to barely duck down before a projectile hits him, pumping energy into his runic armor to dull a swing from a power sword, using his powers to backflip away from an attack, etc. Seems a decent way to represent that.

Again, not trying to be a contrarian. It's just that making characters die like chumps really changes what roles characters can play and kind of changes the... feel(?) of the universe. Like, we all know that chainsaw swords aren't exactly practical, but the 41st millenium certainly has them. It's not realistic, but it is one of the conceits of the setting. Survivable (to a point) characters are similar.

Wyldhunt wrote:
A chaos lord with 2 Wounds isn't much more durable than a chaos lord with 1 Wound. Even if we went back to every weapon basically being Damage 1, you're still looking at losing your army's leader and probably the PoV character for your narrative to a couple Sv rolls of 1-2 (assuming power armor). So if we accept that khorne lords charging into combat are a part of the setting and thus part of the game, we have to ask how they manage to do that more than once or twice before having their career ended.

Well I'd say there's a difference between charging into combat, and being the only one charging into combat, or timing a charge incorrectly and trying to Leroy an entire gunline solo. Besides, embed a Khorne Lord with some Khorne Beserkers and suddenly you have 10x the wounds to hide behind (redshirts around him falling while he pushes heroically onwards). These characters don't survive by being stupid.

And some characters would benefit from this. E.g. AM platoon commanders who could go (slightly) down in cost and become a little more points-efficient in their primary role.

Wyldhunt wrote:
You can absolutely give them special rules and gear to up their survivability. But one of the main points of this proposal (as I understand it) is lower durability. So how much do you want bespoke rules and gear to offset your proposal's durability decrease? And could you achieve the same results with fewer special rules by just letting them keep some extra wounds?

The point isn't necessarily lower durability, the point is equal durability unless there are good reasons to justify otherwise. E.g. no 4-wound Company Commanders that are just regular humans in flak armour... but can somehow shrug off wounds that would kill an ordinary human thrice over.

The majority of commander models would indeed be less durable. I don't think many new durability options should be included at all, but if they are necessary for a unit to function (not that I can think of a case where this is 100% true), just saying that there are options unrelated to Wounds that could be explored.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Bodyguards are another (much better IMO) way around this. If your hero is literally going to lead from the front without a retinue, then why shouldn't the enemy be able to punish them for it?

Bodyguards could be an interesting way to go, but how exactly do you intend to implement that? Does every faction need a unit with a "bodyguard" rule? Does every list need to include said unit if they want their character to live to see turn 2? Do you create one-size-fits-all bodyguard rules where the character conveys some sort of buff to the unit they're attached to? If all I have to do to kill an enemy character is kill the single squad of marines he's attached to, then I think I'll probably be killing my opponent's warlord turn 1 of every game.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, letting characters join and move between units (at which point they follow usual wound allocation) would be a good step forward. Making this a bit more dynamic, weapons with a 'Sniper" special rule could potentially allocate hits, models with a 'Bodyguard" special rule could be allocated any hits that would otherwise be allocated to characters in the same unit (or within 3"), etc.

And if you can put down enough wounds to wipe out the entire unit the warlord is in, then I'm not sure a couple of extra wounds would have saved them anyway. This also assumes that Look Out, Sir! isn't still in play, which it might be.

Wyldhunt wrote:

But yeah, unless there's a good in-universe reason for a character being extra tough, I don't think they should be.

Well, the in-universe reasons are slightly meta, but they do exist. Why is the canoness harder to kill than a normal sister? Because being hard to kill is how she became canoness in the first place. Plus, there's the whole warpy weirdness where some people are just more significant to fate than others, and probability tends to kind of warp around them to facilitate them being important, either as a result of their reputation causing the beliefs of others to manifest in the warp (and thus in reality), or as a natural phenomenon of the warp. Basically, plot armor kind of exists in-universe in 40k.

Leaders like canonesses generally rise to positions because they're more capable, experienced, privileged or, yeah, just lucky. Not because they're physically tougher for some incongruous reason. If we're talking about Orks though, then totally different story; a nob is going to be tougher than an ordinary boy for reasons that make total sense given the biological reality of Orkhood.

As for warpy things, or actual space magic, then that's the kind of thing that could be represented by something like an invulnerable save. It doesn't make sense that said lowly AM platoon commander gets extra wounds for this reason.

Wyldhunt wrote:

True, but there are logical in-universe ways to protect both those characters that don't just flatly protect them against weapon damage for no reason. E.g. retinues. Or transports. Or armour. Or in the case of a Farseer, space magic (illusions, bulletproof auras, etc). And if none of those things are in place, and somebody gets a clean shot or lodges an axe in them, then yeah, they should go down just as easily as any other model with the same physique and gear.

How would you better represent my farseer's space magic than with multiple wounds? The wounds system gives him a cushion while still allowing more dangerous weapons (read: higher damage weapons) to be better at finishing him off. If you put a bolter to a farseer's head and pull the trigger, he'll die about as surely as most humanoids. But the extra wounds represent how hard it is to land a finishing hit like that. The first 4 wounds are the farseer using his prescience to barely duck down before a projectile hits him, pumping energy into his runic armor to dull a swing from a power sword, using his powers to backflip away from an attack, etc. Seems a decent way to represent that.

I can think of plenty of ways to represent "space magic" with something other than Wounds. In fact, Wounds seem like one of the least sensical (and most lazy/boring) ways to represent space magic of the kind you just described.

Like, for example, a flat invulnerable save to represent prescience, or -1 BS to enemy units when firing at him. Or to represent the runic armour, a stratagem that grants +1 to save rolls or makes enemies re-roll successful wounds. Or a special rule that subtracts -1 from enemy WS due to his agility. They make it harder... but should an attack manage to find its mark, it can still kill. Maybe his prescience fails and he dies ingloriously to a lucky slugga shot. Maybe his armour redirects energy too slowly and a hotshot lasgun punches through it to lethal effect. Maybe he fumbles or cartwheels the wrong way, and a tenacious gaunt manages to disembowel him. Those attacks shouldn't have a 0% chance of killing him just because he's not a grunt.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Again, not trying to be a contrarian. It's just that making characters die like chumps really changes what roles characters can play and kind of changes the... feel(?) of the universe. Like, we all know that chainsaw swords aren't exactly practical, but the 41st millenium certainly has them. It's not realistic, but it is one of the conceits of the setting. Survivable (to a point) characters are similar.

I remember Shadiversity made an interesting video on chainswords. He considered them surprisingly viable.

As for the 'feel', I've never really felt like that (just that the Wound mechanics were over-gamified). And I mean, if that truly were the case, and certain characters need to be made more survivable for plot armour purposes, then why even make it possible for some of the biggest names in the 40k universe (e.g. Roboute Guilliman) to die in a 2k-point skirmish? Surely something like a Primarch should be totally invulnerable to all but the mightiest foes... ?

Honest question here, Spoon.

What draws you to 40k? It sounds like you want a more realistic wargame, which 40k just plain isn't. It doesn't claim to be either-it's always run on fantasy tropes and narrativium rather than science or facts.

Soooooo how cheap you plan to make a W2 Chaos Lord?

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Well I'd say there's a difference between charging into combat, and being the only one charging into combat, or timing a charge incorrectly and trying to Leroy an entire gunline solo. Besides, embed a Khorne Lord with some Khorne Beserkers and suddenly you have 10x the wounds to hide behind (redshirts around him falling while he pushes heroically onwards). These characters don't survive by being stupid.

I mean, current 40k models that pretty well, no? A chaos lord won't survive trying to chew his way through an entire gunline solo, especially if he doesn't have other units tying up the enemy guns. The difference is that in your version, failing to kill every enemy model before they swing has a pretty good chance of seeing the chaos lord killed off by return attacks.

And some characters would benefit from this. E.g. AM platoon commanders who could go (slightly) down in cost and become a little more points-efficient in their primary role.

Sure, but that's kind of a symptom of some of the balance issues this proposal creates, right? Characters that don't generally expose themselves to as much danger become more points-efficient while melee characters (already relatively high risk/reward) become an even greater risk and more prone to dying sooner resulting in lower reward. Again, not insurmountable issues, but issues that have to be considered.

The point isn't necessarily lower durability, the point is equal durability unless there are good reasons to justify otherwise. E.g. no 4-wound Company Commanders that are just regular humans in flak armour... but can somehow shrug off wounds that would kill an ordinary human thrice over.

It kind of sounds like your core issue with the current system is the level of abstraction. A 4 wound company commander isn't taking a bolt round to the gut and just ignoring it. The extra wounds mean that he's more skillful/lucky/etc. meaning he never gets hit by the bolt round in the first place. Just because the attacker succeeds on a to-hit roll doesn't mean the target actually got hit. It's an abstraction of the attacker's accuracy, lethality, etc. versus an abstraction of the defenders evasiveness, durability, etc.

And if you can put down enough wounds to wipe out the entire unit the warlord is in, then I'm not sure a couple of extra wounds would have saved them anyway. This also assumes that Look Out, Sir! isn't still in play, which it might be.

I feel like the problem becomes more apparent when you get in close and thus don't benefit from LoSir as much. If you fail to kill a squad's power sword sergeant, he doesn't have to get all that lucky to kill a 2 wound chaos lord. You can focus an awful lot of attacks onto a character in melee by charging at the right angle. It doesn't take a ton of snipers to take two wounds off a CSM model even if they are only allowed to target him on to-hit rolls of 6 or whatever. We are talking about a durability decrease, and think it's fair to question what the downsides of that would be.

Leaders like canonesses generally rise to positions because they're more capable, experienced, privileged or, yeah, just lucky. Not because they're physically tougher for some incongruous reason. If we're talking about Orks though, then totally different story; a nob is going to be tougher than an ordinary boy for reasons that make total sense given the biological reality of Orkhood.

Being more capable, experienced, etc. is currently represented by the extra wounds. A canoness losing her first wound or two doesn't mean she was literally perforated by a bolt shell and kept going; it means that she used up some of her luck or vigor or whatever to not actually get hit by the bolt round. As you say, extra wounds on orks are probably at least partially a reflection of their physique. Both physical and non-physical reasons for improved survivability can be represented by the Wounds stat. It's just a matter of whether or not you accept the abstraction.

As for warpy things, or actual space magic, then that's the kind of thing that could be represented by something like an invulnerable save.

..
I can think of plenty of ways to represent "space magic" with something other than Wounds. In fact, Wounds seem like one of the least sensical (and most lazy/boring) ways to represent space magic of the kind you just described.

Like, for example, a flat invulnerable save to represent prescience, or -1 BS to enemy units when firing at him. Or to represent the runic armour, a stratagem that grants +1 to save rolls or makes enemies re-roll successful wounds. Or a special rule that subtracts -1 from enemy WS due to his agility. They make it harder... but should an attack manage to find its mark, it can still kill. Maybe his prescience fails and he dies ingloriously to a lucky slugga shot. Maybe his armour redirects energy too slowly and a hotshot lasgun punches through it to lethal effect. Maybe he fumbles or cartwheels the wrong way, and a tenacious gaunt manages to disembowel him.

If you make my farseer 1W (standard for space elves that aren't suits of haunted armor), then he only has to fail 1 save against a lasgun to be dead. You could crank up the invuln to be 2+ or whatever, but you're basically just fiddling with the average number of lasgun shots it takes to kill the farseer. So if you give my farseer a 2+ invuln and a -1 to-hit penalty and a -1 to-wound penalty, you're basically just using a bunch of more complicated levers to end up changing the average number of lasgun shots needed to kill him. But in addition to needing extra rules to accomplish what Wounds are already accomplishing, you're (hypothetically) making the farseer really frustrating to play with and against. Because I'll be frustrated when my farseer gets unlucky and dies to the very first sniper shot of the game, and my opponent will be frustrated at the apparent durability of the farseer with a thousand debuffs and an unfailable invul save. (Just ask drukhari players how people react to a good run of shadowfield saves.)

So basically, I get that you want to change the "feel" of a character's defenses to be less abstract, but are the extra special rules and injected gameplay problems worth it?

Those attacks shouldn't have a 0% chance of killing him just because he's not a grunt.

I mean, we might just have to agree to disagree on this point. It's a matter of gameplay and thematics. Personally, I don't find the game to be improved when one of my "coolest" or most expensive units can be easily removed before it gets a chance to do anything. I played a game yesterday where my opponent was trying out the Swarmlord for the first time, and he was super bummed that I shot it to death before it could reach combat. I remember games played during the days of the AV system where my first shot of the game managed to explode my opponent's centerpiece land raider, and he was dispirited from that moment onward. Giving units a "wound cushion" makes feel bad moments like those less likely and generally makes you feel like your opponent had to work to remove your expensive model. What you're proposing goes in the opposite direction and thus risks increasing how often those moments of disappointment occur.

Respectfully, how happy will you be when you sit down to play with your proposed rules and your characters get killed off right away as a result? How eager will you be to play a melee beatstick character that went from W5 to W2 or W1? At what point in the game will you nod and say, "Good. My changes made that moment more enjoyable"?

I remember Shadiversity made an interesting video on chainswords. He considered them surprisingly viable.

I recall that video! Pretty sure he didn't try to defend it as a viable option when running into a gunfight. ;D

As for the 'feel', I've never really felt like that (just that the Wound mechanics were over-gamified). And I mean, if that truly were the case, and certain characters need to be made more survivable for plot armour purposes, then why even make it possible for some of the biggest names in the 40k universe (e.g. Roboute Guilliman) to die in a 2k-point skirmish? Surely something like a Primarch should be totally invulnerable to all but the mightiest foes... ?

Yes. Absolutely. And this is partly why the primarchs have been such awkward additions to the tabletop. If GW makes them too underwhelming, then they fail to live up to their own hype. If GW makes them as survivable and powerful as the novels suggest, then they become either horribly imbalanced or too expensive to field in a normal game. So now we have Magnus dying turn 1 or 2 because leaving him alone costs you the game but also he's squishy and expensive enough to be a viable target for most of your weapons. This is also, you'll note, part of the reason so many characters have an in-universe explanation for how they can "die" and keep showing up. Phoenix Lords have their armor. Chaos characters get rez'd by their gods. Drukhari have coven healthcare. Etc.

JNAProductions wrote:Honest question here, Spoon.

What draws you to 40k? It sounds like you want a more realistic wargame, which 40k just plain isn't. It doesn't claim to be either-it's always run on fantasy tropes and narrativium rather than science or facts.

The mental image of an Ork mowing down space marines ofc.

Making my own probably isn't too feasible...so any recs for a more realistic 40k?

I also think that 40k does attempt to remain semi-scientific when it comes to things like weaponry. And aspects like plot armour are almost universally bad?...

EviscerationPlague wrote:Soooooo how cheap you plan to make a W2 Chaos Lord?

2pts, 1 per wound.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Well I'd say there's a difference between charging into combat, and being the only one charging into combat, or timing a charge incorrectly and trying to Leroy an entire gunline solo. Besides, embed a Khorne Lord with some Khorne Beserkers and suddenly you have 10x the wounds to hide behind (redshirts around him falling while he pushes heroically onwards). These characters don't survive by being stupid.

I mean, current 40k models that pretty well, no? A chaos lord won't survive trying to chew his way through an entire gunline solo, especially if he doesn't have other units tying up the enemy guns. The difference is that in your version, failing to kill every enemy model before they swing has a pretty good chance of seeing the chaos lord killed off by return attacks.

Well this presumes:

1. That the suggestion to give characters retinues and/or allow them to join units doesn't eventuate.

2. That those enemy models shouldn't be able to kill a Chaos Lord in the first place.

Wyldhunt wrote:

And some characters would benefit from this. E.g. AM platoon commanders who could go (slightly) down in cost and become a little more points-efficient in their primary role.

Sure, but that's kind of a symptom of some of the balance issues this proposal creates, right? Characters that don't generally expose themselves to as much danger become more points-efficient while melee characters (already relatively high risk/reward) become an even greater risk and more prone to dying sooner resulting in lower reward. Again, not insurmountable issues, but issues that have to be considered.

Well no change like this would ever be made without considering points costs, and points costs should always consider overall unit functionality.

Wyldhunt wrote:

The point isn't necessarily lower durability, the point is equal durability unless there are good reasons to justify otherwise. E.g. no 4-wound Company Commanders that are just regular humans in flak armour... but can somehow shrug off wounds that would kill an ordinary human thrice over.

It kind of sounds like your core issue with the current system is the level of abstraction. A 4 wound company commander isn't taking a bolt round to the gut and just ignoring it. The extra wounds mean that he's more skillful/lucky/etc. meaning he never gets hit by the bolt round in the first place. Just because the attacker succeeds on a to-hit roll doesn't mean the target actually got hit. It's an abstraction of the attacker's accuracy, lethality, etc. versus an abstraction of the defenders evasiveness, durability, etc.

I mean, correct me if I'm objectively wrong, but that's very much just your interpretation, and in my opinion a more roundabout way of just taking the stats at face value. Characters shrugging off wounds are more likely just characters shrugging off wounds, the same way that characters with good BS hitting are just characters being more skilled at shooting. We see this in movies all the time... bullets are instantly fatal to mooks, but a mere inconvenience/chance to grimace heroically for the protagonist. And it's an annoying logical inconsistency in any media.

Wyldhunt wrote:

And if you can put down enough wounds to wipe out the entire unit the warlord is in, then I'm not sure a couple of extra wounds would have saved them anyway. This also assumes that Look Out, Sir! isn't still in play, which it might be.

I feel like the problem becomes more apparent when you get in close and thus don't benefit from LoSir as much. If you fail to kill a squad's power sword sergeant, he doesn't have to get all that lucky to kill a 2 wound chaos lord. You can focus an awful lot of attacks onto a character in melee by charging at the right angle. It doesn't take a ton of snipers to take two wounds off a CSM model even if they are only allowed to target him on to-hit rolls of 6 or whatever. We are talking about a durability decrease, and think it's fair to question what the downsides of that would be.

Sure it's fair to question. I personally think that sergeants with power swords or enemy snipers are dangerous enough opponents that a Chaos Lord should have to worry about them.

If we're going to change anything about the way a melee combat happens, it should be embedding characters in units or making WS relative again IMO.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Leaders like canonesses generally rise to positions because they're more capable, experienced, privileged or, yeah, just lucky. Not because they're physically tougher for some incongruous reason. If we're talking about Orks though, then totally different story; a nob is going to be tougher than an ordinary boy for reasons that make total sense given the biological reality of Orkhood.

Being more capable, experienced, etc. is currently represented by the extra wounds. A canoness losing her first wound or two doesn't mean she was literally perforated by a bolt shell and kept going; it means that she used up some of her luck or vigor or whatever to not actually get hit by the bolt round. As you say, extra wounds on orks are probably at least partially a reflection of their physique. Both physical and non-physical reasons for improved survivability can be represented by the Wounds stat. It's just a matter of whether or not you accept the abstraction.

Again, this is your personal interpretation, not necessarily the truth. And the face value explanation is much simpler/more likely. And there are much better ways to represent non-physical survivability.

Wyldhunt wrote:

As for warpy things, or actual space magic, then that's the kind of thing that could be represented by something like an invulnerable save.
..
I can think of plenty of ways to represent "space magic" with something other than Wounds. In fact, Wounds seem like one of the least sensical (and most lazy/boring) ways to represent space magic of the kind you just described.

Like, for example, a flat invulnerable save to represent prescience, or -1 BS to enemy units when firing at him. Or to represent the runic armour, a stratagem that grants +1 to save rolls or makes enemies re-roll successful wounds. Or a special rule that subtracts -1 from enemy WS due to his agility. They make it harder... but should an attack manage to find its mark, it can still kill. Maybe his prescience fails and he dies ingloriously to a lucky slugga shot. Maybe his armour redirects energy too slowly and a hotshot lasgun punches through it to lethal effect. Maybe he fumbles or cartwheels the wrong way, and a tenacious gaunt manages to disembowel him.

If you make my farseer 1W (standard for space elves that aren't suits of haunted armor), then he only has to fail 1 save against a lasgun to be dead. You could crank up the invuln to be 2+ or whatever, but you're basically just fiddling with the average number of lasgun shots it takes to kill the farseer. So if you give my farseer a 2+ invuln and a -1 to-hit penalty and a -1 to-wound penalty, you're basically just using a bunch of more complicated levers to end up changing the average number of lasgun shots needed to kill him. But in addition to needing extra rules to accomplish what Wounds are already accomplishing, you're (hypothetically) making the farseer really frustrating to play with and against. Because I'll be frustrated when my farseer gets unlucky and dies to the very first sniper shot of the game, and my opponent will be frustrated at the apparent durability of the farseer with a thousand debuffs and an unfailable invul save. (Just ask drukhari players how people react to a good run of shadowfield saves.)

So basically, I get that you want to change the "feel" of a character's defenses to be less abstract, but are the extra special rules and injected gameplay problems worth it?

Let me answer that with another question. What do you think should happen when a farseer takes a lasgun to the eye socket? In most people' minds, practically speaking, that's what's happening when your farseer fails that save. Not the farseer 'somehow avoiding the impact entirely'. You might be happy to wave the latter away as 'abstraction' or 'low-effort luck', but unless you can prove that it's intended that way, it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

And yes, ultimately it's all just playing around with dice, but there are more sensical ways to do it (if absolutely necessary; I'm not saying there should be extra rules, just that there could be). And as a dice game, Warhammer already runs on luck. Informed luck, but luck nonetheless. Important/unlucky models already die on the first turn.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Those attacks shouldn't have a 0% chance of killing him just because he's not a grunt.

I mean, we might just have to agree to disagree on this point. It's a matter of gameplay and thematics. Personally, I don't find the game to be improved when one of my "coolest" or most expensive units can be easily removed before it gets a chance to do anything. I played a game yesterday where my opponent was trying out the Swarmlord for the first time, and he was super bummed that I shot it to death before it could reach combat. I remember games played during the days of the AV system where my first shot of the game managed to explode my opponent's centerpiece land raider, and he was dispirited from that moment onward. Giving units a "wound cushion" makes feel bad moments like those less likely and generally makes you feel like your opponent had to work to remove your expensive model. What you're proposing goes in the opposite direction and thus risks increasing how often those moments of disappointment occur.

Respectfully, how happy will you be when you sit down to play with your proposed rules and your characters get killed off right away as a result? How eager will you be to play a melee beatstick character that went from W5 to W2 or W1? At what point in the game will you nod and say, "Good. My changes made that moment more enjoyable"?

Yep, let's disagree; this part basically just boils down to what we each enjoy in a game.

Wyldhunt wrote:

I remember Shadiversity made an interesting video on chainswords. He considered them surprisingly viable.

I recall that video! Pretty sure he didn't try to defend it as a viable option when running into a gunfight. ;D

You're gonna have to explain the winky face here, because if this is supposed to be a 'gotcha', I don't get it.

At least we agree on primarchs being a clunky addition.

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:so any recs for a more realistic 40k?

That's an oxymoron.

I also think that 40k does attempt to remain semi-scientific when it comes to things like weaponry.

What is the science behind a Shokk Attack Gun? Or a D-Cannon?

And aspects like plot armour are almost universally bad?...

Uh, no?

EviscerationPlague wrote:Soooooo how cheap you plan to make a W2 Chaos Lord?

2pts, 1 per wound.

So how cheap should a gretchin be?

Wyldhunt wrote:It kind of sounds like your core issue with the current system is the level of abstraction. A 4 wound company commander isn't taking a bolt round to the gut and just ignoring it. The extra wounds mean that he's more skillful/lucky/etc. meaning he never gets hit by the bolt round in the first place. Just because the attacker succeeds on a to-hit roll doesn't mean the target actually got hit. It's an abstraction of the attacker's accuracy, lethality, etc. versus an abstraction of the defenders evasiveness, durability, etc.

I mean, correct me if I'm objectively wrong, but that's very much just your interpretation, and in my opinion a more roundabout way of just taking the stats at face value. Characters shrugging off wounds are more likely just characters shrugging off wounds, the same way that characters with good BS hitting are just characters being more skilled at shooting. We see this in movies all the time... bullets are instantly fatal to mooks, but a mere inconvenience/chance to grimace heroically for the protagonist. And it's an annoying logical inconsistency in any media.

But having a high BS doesn't necessarily mean that you're skilled because of training or biology. Having a high BS is also reflective of "plot armour", of luck, and of any other factor. The point is that, no matter what the cause of the better chance to hit, you still have a better chance to hit. The same applies with Wounds: you might be shrugging off damage directly, you might be dodging/narrowly avoiding death until the final blow, or you might simply be fated by the Gods to survive - regardless, what matters is the fundamental idea that "this character somehow survives more".

If you issue is literally taking Wounds to mean wounds, perhaps this could be rectified by changing Wounds to Hit Points. After all, in D&D, HP isn't only reflective of damage, but of luck, willpower, and drive.

As for "annoying logical inconsistency in any media" - that's simply your interpretation. It doesn't annoy me in the slightest.

Wyldhunt wrote:

And if you can put down enough wounds to wipe out the entire unit the warlord is in, then I'm not sure a couple of extra wounds would have saved them anyway. This also assumes that Look Out, Sir! isn't still in play, which it might be.

I feel like the problem becomes more apparent when you get in close and thus don't benefit from LoSir as much. If you fail to kill a squad's power sword sergeant, he doesn't have to get all that lucky to kill a 2 wound chaos lord. You can focus an awful lot of attacks onto a character in melee by charging at the right angle. It doesn't take a ton of snipers to take two wounds off a CSM model even if they are only allowed to target him on to-hit rolls of 6 or whatever. We are talking about a durability decrease, and think it's fair to question what the downsides of that would be.

Sure it's fair to question. I personally think that sergeants with power swords or enemy snipers are dangerous enough opponents that a Chaos Lord should have to worry about them.

Worry, sure - but worry to the point where your Chaos Lord acts in very un-Chaos Lord-y ways? No, that's a fault of the game design.

If the point of a Chaos Lord is to be this Leading-From-The-Front Glory Hound (which, as far as nearly all 40k media portrays, should be the case), then a Chaos Lord needs to be capable of doing that and surviving/thriving in that position. They should either be capable of killing a power sword Sergeant reliably before they can be attacked back, or able to survive against one for a meaningful time. One way this can be done is via (drumroll please) - Wounds!

When you have a situation that means that your Leading-From-The-Front leaders aren't inclined to lead from the front, then there's a disconnect in the game and the narrative.

Wyldhunt wrote:Being more capable, experienced, etc. is currently represented by the extra wounds. A canoness losing her first wound or two doesn't mean she was literally perforated by a bolt shell and kept going; it means that she used up some of her luck or vigor or whatever to not actually get hit by the bolt round. As you say, extra wounds on orks are probably at least partially a reflection of their physique. Both physical and non-physical reasons for improved survivability can be represented by the Wounds stat. It's just a matter of whether or not you accept the abstraction.

Again, this is your personal interpretation, not necessarily the truth. And the face value explanation is much simpler/more likely.

Is it? Surely the simpler solution is, if you can't get over the idea that Wounds are literally called Wounds, changing Wounds to be called Hit Points.

And there are much better ways to represent non-physical survivability.

Such as?

What do you think should happen when a farseer takes a lasgun to the eye socket? In most people' minds, practically speaking, that's what's happening when your farseer fails that save. Not the farseer 'somehow avoiding the impact entirely'. You might be happy to wave the latter away as 'abstraction' or 'low-effort luck', but unless you can prove that it's intended that way, it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

Gonna need a citation on "in most people's minds", because I think "most people" are more than find rationalising that when a Farseer is Wounded, that doesn't mean that they're taking a lasgun to the eye socket.

Maybe they're taking a lasgun to the finger. Maybe their layers of spiritual protection are being stripped away. Maybe they're burning runes to twist fate around them. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what they're doing, because it's more important to the ludonarrative of 40k that the farseer DOES survive, and Wounds are an abstraction of that, and always have been. They're not "avoiding the impact entirely", because that would be them not being hit by the attacker, or not being wounded by the Strength vs Toughness, or passing their save - what's happening is some finite resource that the character has (be that vitality, luck, runes, med-kits, physical health, willpower, orange juice, or cat pictures) is being expended to keep them alive. You can rationalise that however you want to, but you need to understand that not every successful to hit, to wound, failed save is a killing blow to everything.

As far as I'm concerned, you need to prove to me that every Wound is intended to be a killing blow to every model, as it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

And yes, ultimately it's all just playing around with dice, but there are more sensical ways to do it (if absolutely necessary; I'm not saying there should be extra rules, just that there could be). And as a dice game, Warhammer already runs on luck. Informed luck, but luck nonetheless. Important/unlucky models already die on the first turn.

There are ways to skew luck, and provide redundancies for how luck falls. These are represented via Wounds.

Again, I wonder if you would benefit from thinking of Wounds as Hit Points.

Wyldhunt wrote:Respectfully, how happy will you be when you sit down to play with your proposed rules and your characters get killed off right away as a result? How eager will you be to play a melee beatstick character that went from W5 to W2 or W1? At what point in the game will you nod and say, "Good. My changes made that moment more enjoyable"?

Yep, let's disagree; this part basically just boils down to what we each enjoy in a game.

So what is it that you enjoy out of THIS one?

Wyldhunt wrote:

I remember Shadiversity made an interesting video on chainswords. He considered them surprisingly viable.

I recall that video! Pretty sure he didn't try to defend it as a viable option when running into a gunfight. ;D

You're gonna have to explain the winky face here, because if this is supposed to be a 'gotcha', I don't get it.

If I'm not wrong, it's saying that chainswords are still "useless" in a "realistic" sense because there's no way that you'd "realistically" survive the waves of gunfire as you charge into chainsword range.

This is ignored, because 40k is not realistic.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:so any recs for a more realistic 40k?

That's an oxymoron.

Only if you ignore the essence of what I actually asked.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

I also think that 40k does attempt to remain semi-scientific when it comes to things like weaponry.

What is the science behind a Shokk Attack Gun? Or a D-Cannon?

As I've said before, there are certain grains of scientific realism (or plausibility) within 40k that people like you are just conveniently ignoring, especially when it comes to weapons. Plasma weapons linearly-accelerate balls of superheated hydrogen-based plasma contained by magnetic fields. Bolt weapons rely on a combination of technologies that are very familiar to us in the modern world. Melta, rail, pulse, missile, etc. weapons... all attempt to be grounded in current reality or scientific possibility (if not probability). Check out their wiki pages. Even most Tyranid weapons rely on organic technologies that aren't utterly implausible: acids, burrowing bugs, claws, bony protrusions, sinewy whips or hooks...

Yes, there are psykers and power weapons and literal gods and whatever else that are pretty much just handwavium/total space fantasy. Doesn't invalidate the other things that the writers attempted to keep within the realms of possibility.

But yeah, nice cherrypicking.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And aspects like plot armour are almost universally bad?...

Uh, no?

Uh, yeah? Plot armour (aka undeserved, contrived narrative protection) is almost always received negatively across various forms of media, and is usually perceived as weak/lazy storytelling. Unless we're living on different planets.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:Soooooo how cheap you plan to make a W2 Chaos Lord?

2pts, 1 per wound.

So how cheap should a gretchin be?

Well 1pt obviously.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:It kind of sounds like your core issue with the current system is the level of abstraction. A 4 wound company commander isn't taking a bolt round to the gut and just ignoring it. The extra wounds mean that he's more skillful/lucky/etc. meaning he never gets hit by the bolt round in the first place. Just because the attacker succeeds on a to-hit roll doesn't mean the target actually got hit. It's an abstraction of the attacker's accuracy, lethality, etc. versus an abstraction of the defenders evasiveness, durability, etc.

I mean, correct me if I'm objectively wrong, but that's very much just your interpretation, and in my opinion a more roundabout way of just taking the stats at face value. Characters shrugging off wounds are more likely just characters shrugging off wounds, the same way that characters with good BS hitting are just characters being more skilled at shooting. We see this in movies all the time... bullets are instantly fatal to mooks, but a mere inconvenience/chance to grimace heroically for the protagonist. And it's an annoying logical inconsistency in any media.

But having a high BS doesn't necessarily mean that you're skilled because of training or biology. Having a high BS is also reflective of "plot armour", of luck, and of any other factor. The point is that, no matter what the cause of the better chance to hit, you still have a better chance to hit. The same applies with Wounds: you might be shrugging off damage directly, you might be dodging/narrowly avoiding death until the final blow, or you might simply be fated by the Gods to survive - regardless, what matters is the fundamental idea that "this character somehow survives more".

If you issue is literally taking Wounds to mean wounds, perhaps this could be rectified by changing Wounds to Hit Points. After all, in D&D, HP isn't only reflective of damage, but of luck, willpower, and drive.

As for "annoying logical inconsistency in any media" - that's simply your interpretation. It doesn't annoy me in the slightest.

BS as an acronym literally translates to "Ballistic Skill". For most people you ask, it will simply represent a model's aptitude (whether learned or innate) for ranged combat. Saying it also reflects "plot armour" and "luck" is just your personal headcanon and isn't necessarily true... the onus is on you to prove that something like BS means something other than its literal translation... and that for example a Primaris Lieutenant is luckier or has more plot armour than Creed, instead of just being more trained, perceptive and experienced.

Same with Wounds, especially when there are other in-game mechanisms to achieve what you're describing (e.g. invulns, special rules, strategems, etc). It makes sense for a Marine to have additional Wounds/survive more injuries than Guardsmen/Sisters/Scions/etc because of their redundant organs; a small arms shot that would incapacitate an ordinary human won't usually incapacitate an Astartes. It doesn't make sense for a Company Commander or Commissar to survive twice the injuries that a Primaris Marine can.

I'm not sure renaming things solves characters being unfairly durable, or that D&D mechanics are evidence for 40k ones. LotR (also by GW) had "Fate Points" (IIRC, there were also Might and Will Points) for the kind of mechanism you're describing. It also had a Wounds mechanic (with multiple Wounds for named characters). That's a much better analogue IMO, and shows that (at least in that game) the mechanics are separate. 40k has the mechanisms I mentioned above in lieu of Might/Will/Fate Points.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

And if you can put down enough wounds to wipe out the entire unit the warlord is in, then I'm not sure a couple of extra wounds would have saved them anyway. This also assumes that Look Out, Sir! isn't still in play, which it might be.

I feel like the problem becomes more apparent when you get in close and thus don't benefit from LoSir as much. If you fail to kill a squad's power sword sergeant, he doesn't have to get all that lucky to kill a 2 wound chaos lord. You can focus an awful lot of attacks onto a character in melee by charging at the right angle. It doesn't take a ton of snipers to take two wounds off a CSM model even if they are only allowed to target him on to-hit rolls of 6 or whatever. We are talking about a durability decrease, and think it's fair to question what the downsides of that would be.

Sure it's fair to question. I personally think that sergeants with power swords or enemy snipers are dangerous enough opponents that a Chaos Lord should have to worry about them.

Worry, sure - but worry to the point where your Chaos Lord acts in very un-Chaos Lord-y ways? No, that's a fault of the game design.

If the point of a Chaos Lord is to be this Leading-From-The-Front Glory Hound (which, as far as nearly all 40k media portrays, should be the case), then a Chaos Lord needs to be capable of doing that and surviving/thriving in that position. They should either be capable of killing a power sword Sergeant reliably before they can be attacked back, or able to survive against one for a meaningful time. One way this can be done is via (drumroll please) - Wounds!

When you have a situation that means that your Leading-From-The-Front leaders aren't inclined to lead from the front, then there's a disconnect in the game and the narrative.

You could also slap players every time they target a Chaos Lord. That would make them more durable.

There are better and worse ways to achieve things. Many of those have been outlined (and ignored, apparently) already. Besides, would it really be such a bad thing if an enemy sergeant with a power weapon stood a chance against an enemy commander? Are they really so inferior? Sergeants can be heroes too.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:Being more capable, experienced, etc. is currently represented by the extra wounds. A canoness losing her first wound or two doesn't mean she was literally perforated by a bolt shell and kept going; it means that she used up some of her luck or vigor or whatever to not actually get hit by the bolt round. As you say, extra wounds on orks are probably at least partially a reflection of their physique. Both physical and non-physical reasons for improved survivability can be represented by the Wounds stat. It's just a matter of whether or not you accept the abstraction.

Again, this is your personal interpretation, not necessarily the truth. And the face value explanation is much simpler/more likely.

Is it? Surely the simpler solution is, if you can't get over the idea that Wounds are literally called Wounds, changing Wounds to be called Hit Points.

Nope, the simpler solution is that it's a personal interpretation. As is yours. Since when is reading something literally the controversial position?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And there are much more characterful/less lazy ways to represent non-physical survivability.

Such as?

Read my earlier replies. Retinues/ being embeddable in units, invulns, special rules, strategems, wargear, etc.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

What do you think should happen when a farseer takes a lasgun to the eye socket? In most people' minds, practically speaking, that's what's happening when your farseer fails that save. Not the farseer 'somehow avoiding the impact entirely'. You might be happy to wave the latter away as 'abstraction' or 'low-effort luck', but unless you can prove that it's intended that way, it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

Gonna need a citation on "in most people's minds", because I think "most people" are more than find rationalising that when a Farseer is Wounded, that doesn't mean that they're taking a lasgun to the eye socket.

Maybe they're taking a lasgun to the finger. Maybe their layers of spiritual protection are being stripped away. Maybe they're burning runes to twist fate around them. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what they're doing, because it's more important to the ludonarrative of 40k that the farseer DOES survive, and Wounds are an abstraction of that, and always have been. They're not "avoiding the impact entirely", because that would be them not being hit by the attacker, or not being wounded by the Strength vs Toughness, or passing their save - what's happening is some finite resource that the character has (be that vitality, luck, runes, med-kits, physical health, willpower, orange juice, or cat pictures) is being expended to keep them alive. You can rationalise that however you want to, but you need to understand that not every successful to hit, to wound, failed save is a killing blow to everything.

As far as I'm concerned, you need to prove to me that every Wound is intended to be a killing blow to every model, as it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

Gonna need a citation on "most people".

Maybe those things are happening. Maybe it's true that there are magical abilities at play that protect a farseer. Maybe wounds are a dumb way to represent that. Maybe your explanations don't apply to the majority of 40k characters who receive additional wounds for no discernable reasons. Maybe the examples you provided for 'resources being expended' are all things that are represented elsewhere, are silly examples with no bearing whatsoever, and/or shouldn't be exclusive to characters.

And yes, if we're talking about something like luck or plot armour coming into play, then we're talking about avoiding impacts. Doubly so if we're taking about a character dodging attacks due to his "prescience", or backflipping away due to his "agility".

You've also tried your best to strawman my point by claiming that I think 'one failed save should kill everything', which I definitely don't, and never said.

As far as I'm concerned, you need to prove to me that Wounds aren't necessarily intended to represent wounds, as it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And yes, ultimately it's all just playing around with dice, but there are more sensical ways to do it (if absolutely necessary; I'm not saying there should be extra rules, just that there could be). And as a dice game, Warhammer already runs on luck. Informed luck, but luck nonetheless. Important/unlucky models already die on the first turn.

There are ways to skew luck, and provide redundancies for how luck falls. These are represented via Wounds.

Again, I wonder if you would benefit from thinking of Wounds as Hit Points.

Nope. Again, there are plenty of other mechanisms.

And I have zero idea as to why you're so fixated on renaming Wounds, or think it's some kind of valid counterpoint to dismiss everything I said/the original intent of my post.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:Respectfully, how happy will you be when you sit down to play with your proposed rules and your characters get killed off right away as a result? How eager will you be to play a melee beatstick character that went from W5 to W2 or W1? At what point in the game will you nod and say, "Good. My changes made that moment more enjoyable"?

Yep, let's disagree; this part basically just boils down to what we each enjoy in a game.

So what is it that you enjoy out of THIS one?

Greater immersion, characters feeling more like skilled mortals and less contrived/gamified, lucky shots changing the game (and character-hunting being more viable), no 6-7-wound Marines/Custodes casually shrugging off entire heavy support gunlines (I've seen this happen) for no in-universe reason beyond their status, and just a general lack of cognitive dissonance that will make me a happy/fappy chappy.

Aside from wanting melee characters who can solo entire detachments, what wouldn't you enjoy?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

I remember Shadiversity made an interesting video on chainswords. He considered them surprisingly viable.

I recall that video! Pretty sure he didn't try to defend it as a viable option when running into a gunfight. ;D

You're gonna have to explain the winky face here, because if this is supposed to be a 'gotcha', I don't get it.

If I'm not wrong, it's saying that chainswords are still "useless" in a "realistic" sense because there's no way that you'd "realistically" survive the waves of gunfire as you charge into chainsword range.

This is ignored, because 40k is not realistic.

Define "realistic". If modern militaries had to deal with melee foes like Orks and Tyranids, I have no doubt they'd change their tactics and wargear. Bayonets are still a thing for the record (and I believe there was even a documented bayonet charge as recently as Afghanistan).

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:so any recs for a more realistic 40k?

That's an oxymoron.

Only if you ignore the essence of what I actually asked.

You asked for a more realistic 40k. 40k is designed to be unrealistic. If we wanted a more "realistic" 40k, Wound isn't where I'd start.

As I've said before, there are certain grains of scientific realism (or plausibility) within 40k that people like you are just conveniently ignoring, especially when it comes to weapons. Plasma weapons linearly-accelerate balls of superheated hydrogen-based plasma contained by magnetic fields. Bolt weapons rely on a combination of technologies that are very familiar to us in the modern world. Melta, rail, pulse, missile, etc. weapons... all attempt to be grounded in current reality or scientific possibility (if not probability). Check out their wiki pages. Even most Tyranid weapons rely on organic technologies that aren't utterly implausible: acids, burrowing bugs, claws, bony protrusions, sinewy whips or hooks...

Yes, there are psykers and power weapons and literal gods and whatever else that are pretty much just handwavium/total space fantasy. Doesn't invalidate the other things that the writers attempted to keep within the realms of possibility.

But yeah, nice cherrypicking.

If anything's cherrypicking, it's the literal "grains" of realism you talk about - because they're just that, grains. 40k isn't realistic. It's weapons wouldn't be practical, and their effects on tabletop aren't "realistic" either. The firing of a plasma or melta gun would kill the wielder too. Bolters being as effective as they are is also an unrealistic element.

40k works on rule of cool, with the barest amount of scientific pseudo-jargon to explain it. There's more emphasis on the "grain" part than "scientific realism".

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And aspects like plot armour are almost universally bad?...

Uh, no?

Uh, yeah? Plot armour (aka undeserved, contrived narrative protection) is almost always received negatively across various forms of media, and is usually perceived as weak/lazy storytelling. Unless we're living on different planets.

Uh, no. Gonna need a source for that, if you want to make that claim.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:Soooooo how cheap you plan to make a W2 Chaos Lord?

2pts, 1 per wound.

So how cheap should a gretchin be?

Well 1pt obviously.

So how cheap should a Chaos Space Marine be? Because they're clearly stronger than a gretchin, but weaker than a Chaos Lord. So, what do you cost them?

Or have I fallen for a troll?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:But having a high BS doesn't necessarily mean that you're skilled because of training or biology. Having a high BS is also reflective of "plot armour", of luck, and of any other factor. The point is that, no matter what the cause of the better chance to hit, you still have a better chance to hit. The same applies with Wounds: you might be shrugging off damage directly, you might be dodging/narrowly avoiding death until the final blow, or you might simply be fated by the Gods to survive - regardless, what matters is the fundamental idea that "this character somehow survives more".

If you issue is literally taking Wounds to mean wounds, perhaps this could be rectified by changing Wounds to Hit Points. After all, in D&D, HP isn't only reflective of damage, but of luck, willpower, and drive.

As for "annoying logical inconsistency in any media" - that's simply your interpretation. It doesn't annoy me in the slightest.

BS as an acronym literally translates to "Ballistic Skill". For most people you ask, it will simply represent a model's aptitude (whether learned or innate) for ranged combat. Saying it also reflects "plot armour" and "luck" is just your personal headcanon and isn't necessarily true... the onus is on you to prove that something like BS means something other than its literal translation... and that for example a Primaris Lieutenant is luckier or has more plot armour than Creed, instead of just being more trained, perceptive and experienced.

Sorry, so you're only saying that we should take things completely literally? That a random Genestealer Primus is as good a shot as the master sniper of the Ultramarines Chapter?

I'm beginning to think that "literal" maybe isn't accurate after all.

Same with Wounds, especially when there are other in-game mechanisms to achieve what you're describing (e.g. invulns, special rules, strategems, etc).

So, when there are stratagems that improve a character's skill with shooting, why is that not represented by an increased BS, if there's already an in game mechanism to reflect it?

It makes sense for a Marine to have additional Wounds/survive more injuries than Guardsmen/Sisters/Scions/etc because of their redundant organs; a small arms shot that would incapacitate an ordinary human won't usually incapacitate an Astartes. It doesn't make sense for a Company Commander or Commissar to survive twice the injuries that a Primaris Marine can.

That's because they aren't Wounds - it actually states in the rulebook that Wounds are: "Wounds show how much damage a model can sustain before it succumbs to its injuries." - note that this is ultimately arbitrary. "Damage can sustain" doesn't mean "killing blows". And hell, "sustain" can refer to any of the examples I meant earlier - narrowly missing, luck running out, burning runes, fated by gods - it really is as simple as that.

So, yes, in the world of 40k, where plot armour is very much a part and parcel of the setting, it does make sense that a commissar can stick around longer, because it's cool.

I'm not sure renaming things solves characters being unfairly durable, or that D&D mechanics are evidence for 40k ones. LotR (also by GW) had "Fate Points" (IIRC, there were also Might and Will Points) for the kind of mechanism you're describing. It also had a Wounds mechanic (with multiple Wounds for named characters). That's a much better analogue IMO, and shows that (at least in that game) the mechanics are separate. 40k has the mechanisms I mentioned above in lieu of Might/Will/Fate Points.

I disagree - simply expanding the definition of Wounds so that people don't take it as hyper-literal serves the same purpose.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:When you have a situation that means that your Leading-From-The-Front leaders aren't inclined to lead from the front, then there's a disconnect in the game and the narrative.

You could also slap players every time they target a Chaos Lord. That would make them more durable.

So would not playing - is that an option you considered?

There are better and worse ways to achieve things. Many of those have been outlined (and ignored, apparently) already. Besides, would it really be such a bad thing if an enemy sergeant with a power weapon stood a chance against an enemy commander? Are they really so inferior? Sergeants can be heroes too.

Heroes with a lower case h. A Sergeant is a Sergeant. A Captain is a Captain. Guardsmen can be heroes too - should they be considered equal to Abaddon?

A sergeant with a power sword *does* stand a chance - slim, but it's there. And yes, they really ARE so inferior.

Since when is reading something literally the controversial position?

It's controversial when it comes at the cost of logic and reason - being hyper-literal for no other purpose than "because it says so" it meaningless when there is no attempt to defend the virtue of being literal.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And there are much more characterful/less lazy ways to represent non-physical survivability.

Such as?

Read my earlier replies. Retinues/ being embeddable in units, invulns, special rules, strategems, wargear, etc.

Invulns can be ignored by mortal wounds. Retinues don't suit every character, and not every retinue is made equal. Wargear oftentimes doesn't fit with the theme of a faction (ie, a Platoon Commander probably shouldn't be decked out to the nines), and special rules and strategems can often be reflected in a simple numerical change to a statline - such as Wounds.

What, do you think that all models should have the same statline and then use special rules and stratagems to differentiate them?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

What do you think should happen when a farseer takes a lasgun to the eye socket? In most people' minds, practically speaking, that's what's happening when your farseer fails that save. Not the farseer 'somehow avoiding the impact entirely'. You might be happy to wave the latter away as 'abstraction' or 'low-effort luck', but unless you can prove that it's intended that way, it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

Gonna need a citation on "in most people's minds", because I think "most people" are more than find rationalising that when a Farseer is Wounded, that doesn't mean that they're taking a lasgun to the eye socket.

Maybe they're taking a lasgun to the finger. Maybe their layers of spiritual protection are being stripped away. Maybe they're burning runes to twist fate around them. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what they're doing, because it's more important to the ludonarrative of 40k that the farseer DOES survive, and Wounds are an abstraction of that, and always have been. They're not "avoiding the impact entirely", because that would be them not being hit by the attacker, or not being wounded by the Strength vs Toughness, or passing their save - what's happening is some finite resource that the character has (be that vitality, luck, runes, med-kits, physical health, willpower, orange juice, or cat pictures) is being expended to keep them alive. You can rationalise that however you want to, but you need to understand that not every successful to hit, to wound, failed save is a killing blow to everything.

As far as I'm concerned, you need to prove to me that every Wound is intended to be a killing blow to every model, as it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

Gonna need a citation on "most people".

Yeah - that's what I asked of you first. Go on, deliver it.

Maybe those things are happening. Maybe it's true that there are magical abilities at play that protect a farseer. Maybe wounds are a dumb way to represent that. Maybe your explanations don't apply to the majority of 40k characters who receive additional wounds for no discernable reasons. Maybe the examples you provided for 'resources being expended' are all things that are represented elsewhere, are silly examples with no bearing whatsoever, and/or shouldn't be exclusive to characters.

Hence why it's not just characters with multiples Wounds.

Luck and plot armour are discernible reasons, like it or not.

And yes, if we're talking about something like luck or plot armour coming into play, then we're talking about avoiding impacts. Doubly so if we're taking about a character dodging attacks due to his "prescience", or backflipping away due to his "agility".

And? Avoiding an impact can be redirecting a hit into a non-vital location and gritting one's teeth and keeping going.

I'm not really sure why you need to think that every successful Wound is a killing blow.

As far as I'm concerned, you need to prove to me that Wounds aren't necessarily intended to represent wounds, as it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

As far as I'm concerned, you need to prove to me that Wounds can't reflect vitality, willpower, or any other factor. The only thing the rulebook says is "how much damage a model can sustain before it succumbs to its injuries" - that, to me, doesn't mean that all that damage hits necessarily. It reflects a variety of ways that damage is "sustained".

And I have zero idea as to why you're so fixated on renaming Wounds, or think it's some kind of valid counterpoint to dismiss everything I said/the original intent of my post.

Likewise, I have no idea why you're so fixated on Wounds literally meaning wounds, like being hyper-literal is always correct.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:So what is it that you enjoy out of THIS one?

Greater immersion, characters feeling more like skilled mortals and less contrived/gamified, lucky shots changing the game (and character-hunting being more viable), no 6-7-wound Marines/Custodes casually shrugging off entire heavy support gunlines (I've seen this happen) for no in-universe reason beyond their status, and just a general lack of cognitive dissonance that will make me a happy/fappy chappy.

No, I asked what you enjoy out of THIS game - as it is now. Not what you've imagined it to be.

Aside from wanting melee characters who can solo entire detachments, what wouldn't you enjoy?

I want my heroes and villains to be heroic, not cowering behind a screen. 40k isn't "realistic", yet I can still get immersion from it - because my immersion comes from 40k as it's presented, as a story of heroes leading from the front and villains rising to meet them. A 40k where my Chaos Lord is cowering behind a screen of lesser warriors impedes that immersion.

Define "realistic". If modern militaries had to deal with melee foes like Orks and Tyranids, I have no doubt they'd change their tactics and wargear. Bayonets are still a thing for the record (and I believe there was even a documented bayonet charge as recently as Afghanistan).

If modern militaries had to deal with melee foes like Orks and Tyranids, melee still wouldn't affect things a jot, because the range of weapons in 40k, if you took then "literally" as you do with Wounds, would make them pitifully short ranged. If modern militaries had to deal with 40k armies as they are literally presented (ignoring all the unrealistic parts like psykers), then they'd still win on numbers alone.

40k is not realistic because nothing in it scales to reality - and that's okay!

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:so any recs for a more realistic 40k?

That's an oxymoron.

Only if you ignore the essence of what I actually asked.

You asked for a more realistic 40k. 40k is designed to be unrealistic. If we wanted a more "realistic" 40k, Wound isn't where I'd start.

I was replying to a post that recommended I try other wargames. I asked if he/she knew of a more realistic 40k.

And I agree, Wounds aren't where I'd start either.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

As I've said before, there are certain grains of scientific realism (or plausibility) within 40k that people like you are just conveniently ignoring, especially when it comes to weapons. Plasma weapons linearly-accelerate balls of superheated hydrogen-based plasma contained by magnetic fields. Bolt weapons rely on a combination of technologies that are very familiar to us in the modern world. Melta, rail, pulse, missile, etc. weapons... all attempt to be grounded in current reality or scientific possibility (if not probability). Check out their wiki pages. Even most Tyranid weapons rely on organic technologies that aren't utterly implausible: acids, burrowing bugs, claws, bony protrusions, sinewy whips or hooks...

Yes, there are psykers and power weapons and literal gods and whatever else that are pretty much just handwavium/total space fantasy. Doesn't invalidate the other things that the writers attempted to keep within the realms of possibility.

But yeah, nice cherrypicking.

If anything's cherrypicking, it's the literal "grains" of realism you talk about - because they're just that, grains. 40k isn't realistic. It's weapons wouldn't be practical, and their effects on tabletop aren't "realistic" either. The firing of a plasma or melta gun would kill the wielder too. Bolters being as effective as they are is also an unrealistic element.

40k works on rule of cool, with the barest amount of scientific pseudo-jargon to explain it. There's more emphasis on the "grain" part than "scientific realism".

"Literal grains"? You keep poking fun at me using the word "literal", but I'm not sure you actually know what it means.

And yep, I agree. 40k isn't entirely realistic. No scheisse. What I originally said in the post that you quoted is that "40k does attempt to remain semi-scientific when it comes to things like weaponry". Not sure where you're getting this idea that I think it's diamond-hard sci-fi. I was just responding to a post saying that 40k has "always run on fantasy tropes and narrativium rather than science or facts."

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And aspects like plot armour are almost universally bad?...

Uh, no?

Uh, yeah? Plot armour (aka undeserved, contrived narrative protection) is almost always received negatively across various forms of media, and is usually perceived as weak/lazy storytelling. Unless we're living on different planets.

Uh, no. Gonna need a source for that, if you want to make that claim.

Lolwat? Methinks you're straining a bit to be contrarian here; just google "plot armour".

Here's the Wiktionary definition for example:
"(slang, fiction, sometimes derogatory) A plot device wherein a fictional character or other entity repeatedly and inexplicitly avoids harm or misfortune, due to their importance to the work's continued plot; the property of being prone to deus ex machinas."

Or maybe you'd prefer the top Urban Dictionary one, since we're talking about popular perceptions:
"Character shields (also known as plot armor or plot shield) are plot devices in films and television shows that prevent important characters from dying or being seriously injured at dramatically inconvenient moments. It often denotes a situation in which it strains credibility to believe that the character would survive."

You could also check out the TV Tropes page on plot armour, or just watch reviews of GoT's final seasons (one of the biggest complaints with the series was its adoption of plot armour, especially towards the end, which provides a nice contrast of people first liking the show for its lack of plot armour and then disliking it for the opposite reason).

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:Soooooo how cheap you plan to make a W2 Chaos Lord?

2pts, 1 per wound.

So how cheap should a gretchin be?

Well 1pt obviously.

So how cheap should a Chaos Space Marine be? Because they're clearly stronger than a gretchin, but weaker than a Chaos Lord. So, what do you cost them?

Or have I fallen for a troll?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:But having a high BS doesn't necessarily mean that you're skilled because of training or biology. Having a high BS is also reflective of "plot armour", of luck, and of any other factor. The point is that, no matter what the cause of the better chance to hit, you still have a better chance to hit. The same applies with Wounds: you might be shrugging off damage directly, you might be dodging/narrowly avoiding death until the final blow, or you might simply be fated by the Gods to survive - regardless, what matters is the fundamental idea that "this character somehow survives more".

If you issue is literally taking Wounds to mean wounds, perhaps this could be rectified by changing Wounds to Hit Points. After all, in D&D, HP isn't only reflective of damage, but of luck, willpower, and drive.

As for "annoying logical inconsistency in any media" - that's simply your interpretation. It doesn't annoy me in the slightest.

BS as an acronym literally translates to "Ballistic Skill". For most people you ask, it will simply represent a model's aptitude (whether learned or innate) for ranged combat. Saying it also reflects "plot armour" and "luck" is just your personal headcanon and isn't necessarily true... the onus is on you to prove that something like BS means something other than its literal translation... and that for example a Primaris Lieutenant is luckier or has more plot armour than Creed, instead of just being more trained, perceptive and experienced.

Sorry, so you're only saying that we should take things completely literally? That a random Genestealer Primus is as good a shot as the master sniper of the Ultramarines Chapter?

I'm beginning to think that "literal" maybe isn't accurate after all.

Yep, that's a bit dumb of GW, especially from a lore perspective. As I said earlier: if I had my way, Wounds definitely wouldn't be the first thing I'd change. But it doesn't really invalidate my point, just shows that GW thinks a Primus is as good a shot as something like a Primaris Lieutenant.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Same with Wounds, especially when there are other in-game mechanisms to achieve what you're describing (e.g. invulns, special rules, strategems, etc).

So, when there are stratagems that improve a character's skill with shooting, why is that not represented by an increased BS, if there's already an in game mechanism to reflect it?

Different mechanisms achieve different things. Base stats are immutable. Stratagems are optional bonuses (that in this case, can temporarily augment BS with modifiers or re-rolls). Same reason I disagree with bolters getting AP via doctrines instead of as part of their base weapon stats.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

It makes sense for a Marine to have additional Wounds/survive more injuries than Guardsmen/Sisters/Scions/etc because of their redundant organs; a small arms shot that would incapacitate an ordinary human won't usually incapacitate an Astartes. It doesn't make sense for a Company Commander or Commissar to survive twice the injuries that a Primaris Marine can.

That's because they aren't Wounds - it actually states in the rulebook that Wounds are: "Wounds show how much damage a model can sustain before it succumbs to its injuries." - note that this is ultimately arbitrary. "Damage can sustain" doesn't mean "killing blows". And hell, "sustain" can refer to any of the examples I meant earlier - narrowly missing, luck running out, burning runes, fated by gods - it really is as simple as that.

So, yes, in the world of 40k, where plot armour is very much a part and parcel of the setting, it does make sense that a commissar can stick around longer, because it's cool.

Your own quote supports my position as much (if not much more) than yours. A Company Commander can literally survive 2x the damage that a Marine can. He can survive a Dmg 2 heavy bolter/autocannon/overcharged plasma round that bypasses his armour, or a Dmg 3 carnifex scything talon... whereas the Marine can't. He can survive three fleshborers, lasgun hits or any other Dmg 1 weapon: 3x times more than the Marine. He can survive a krak grenade, or any other Dmg D3 weapon, whereas 67% of the time the Marine can't. These are the same weapons, going through the same process: hitting, wounding, defeating armour... and dealing the same "damage". With the current system, those weapons are straight-up less effective against the former human than the latter Astartes.

And "narrowly missing", "luck running out", "burning runes", "fated by gods" don't equal "damage sustained" by any common-sense interpretation. In fact, 'sustaining damage from a miss' is more of an oxymoron than the example you tried to call out before.

As for 'cool'... extremely subjective. Do Wounds correspond to 'coolness' now? Is my badarse Company Commander precisely 2x as cool as a Primaris or Nob?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

I'm not sure renaming things solves characters being unfairly durable, or that D&D mechanics are evidence for 40k ones. LotR (also by GW) had "Fate Points" (IIRC, there were also Might and Will Points) for the kind of mechanism you're describing. It also had a Wounds mechanic (with multiple Wounds for named characters). That's a much better analogue IMO, and shows that (at least in that game) the mechanics are separate. 40k has the mechanisms I mentioned above in lieu of Might/Will/Fate Points.

I disagree - simply expanding the definition of Wounds so that people don't take it as hyper-literal serves the same purpose.

I disagree. That doesn't serve the same purpose any more than improving a model's Toughness or Saves would. Each of those stats means something specific though, as outlined in the core rules. And I've shown you an example of GW straight-up segregating these mechanisms... but you continue to combine them and spruik your own interpretation with no evidence.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:When you have a situation that means that your Leading-From-The-Front leaders aren't inclined to lead from the front, then there's a disconnect in the game and the narrative.

You could also slap players every time they target a Chaos Lord. That would make them more durable.

So would not playing - is that an option you considered?

Might have to explain that one.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

There are better and worse ways to achieve things. Many of those have been outlined (and ignored, apparently) already. Besides, would it really be such a bad thing if an enemy sergeant with a power weapon stood a chance against an enemy commander? Are they really so inferior? Sergeants can be heroes too.

Heroes with a lower case h. A Sergeant is a Sergeant. A Captain is a Captain. Guardsmen can be heroes too - should they be considered equal to Abaddon?

A sergeant with a power sword *does* stand a chance - slim, but it's there. And yes, they really ARE so inferior.

You want to make Guardsmen equal to Abaddon, be my guest. But to answer your question, no... nowhere did I suggest that, and nowhere did I suggest anything that would logically result in that. False equivalence.

I'm not sure the difference in melee capabilities between real-world sergeants and captains is as pronounced as you think. Or is it true that generals are without exception the most potent melee combatants in a modern military?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Since when is reading something literally the controversial position?

It's controversial when it comes at the cost of logic and reason - being hyper-literal for no other purpose than "because it says so" it meaningless when there is no attempt to defend the virtue of being literal.

Except it doesn't come at the cost of logic and reason. I could say (and am probably more in my right to say) the same about your interpretations. The next time somebody asks me to slice an onion, should I assume they want their hair cut?

As for "no other purpose than because it says so"... what are you smoking when this becomes your logical fallback in a tabletop game with clearly-defined rules and mechanisms? You're being hyper-interpretive and subjective with no evidence. I can appreciate being a devil's advocate, but at least try not to throw stones from glass houses.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And there are much more characterful/less lazy ways to represent non-physical survivability.

Such as?

Read my earlier replies. Retinues/ being embeddable in units, invulns, special rules, strategems, wargear, etc.

Invulns can be ignored by mortal wounds. Retinues don't suit every character, and not every retinue is made equal. Wargear oftentimes doesn't fit with the theme of a faction (ie, a Platoon Commander probably shouldn't be decked out to the nines), and special rules and strategems can often be reflected in a simple numerical change to a statline - such as Wounds.

What, do you think that all models should have the same statline and then use special rules and stratagems to differentiate them?

Yes Mr. Strawman, that's exactly what I think and said. No hyperbole at all.

A lascannon can kill a 5W Chaos Lord in one shot. Does that mean Wounds aren't a good way of increasing resilience on characters? What's your core issue?

By their nature, stratagems aren't interchangeable with unit/weapon stats. Stratagems are temporary, paid bonuses. Unit/weapon stats are fundamental. And just to set the record straight, I never actually suggested that surplus wounds should all be replaced by other mechanisms, just that stratagems, wargear, special rules, etc. would be more sensible means for characters' abilities to protect them in the cases where that was absolutely warranted, e.g. the farseer examples.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

What do you think should happen when a farseer takes a lasgun to the eye socket? In most people' minds, practically speaking, that's what's happening when your farseer fails that save. Not the farseer 'somehow avoiding the impact entirely'. You might be happy to wave the latter away as 'abstraction' or 'low-effort luck', but unless you can prove that it's intended that way, it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

Gonna need a citation on "in most people's minds", because I think "most people" are more than find rationalising that when a Farseer is Wounded, that doesn't mean that they're taking a lasgun to the eye socket.

Maybe they're taking a lasgun to the finger. Maybe their layers of spiritual protection are being stripped away. Maybe they're burning runes to twist fate around them. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what they're doing, because it's more important to the ludonarrative of 40k that the farseer DOES survive, and Wounds are an abstraction of that, and always have been. They're not "avoiding the impact entirely", because that would be them not being hit by the attacker, or not being wounded by the Strength vs Toughness, or passing their save - what's happening is some finite resource that the character has (be that vitality, luck, runes, med-kits, physical health, willpower, orange juice, or cat pictures) is being expended to keep them alive. You can rationalise that however you want to, but you need to understand that not every successful to hit, to wound, failed save is a killing blow to everything.

As far as I'm concerned, you need to prove to me that every Wound is intended to be a killing blow to every model, as it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

Gonna need a citation on "most people".

Yeah - that's what I asked of you first. Go on, deliver it.

Yes, because I meant that every single failed save is a lasgun blast to the eye socket. That couldn't possibly have been one of many potential examples of a fatal hit.

Also you've quoted the exact same strawman argument of yours I already debunked before, without including my (much longer than 1 line) response. I never said "every Wound is intended to be a killing blow to every model". Not once.

As for Wounds, well the 40k Core Rules would be a good start:
"Wounds (W): Wounds show how much damage a model can sustain before it succumbs to its injuries."

And a very similar, slightly expanded version from another GW product: the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying wiki:
"Wounds (W) represent the amount of damage that can be endured before serious injury or even death is caused. Some creatures can sustain more damage than others, either because they have more physical stamina or because they have little regard for or feeling of pain. This is represented by the number of W a creature has."

Or, since again we're talking about community perceptions, related reddit posts like this one.
"damage indicates the projectile's ability to destroy the target, such as making bigger holes, going deeper etc."
...
"Damage represents how many vital organs/parts is likely to be destroyed in the target once past the armour, since a lot of things in 40k have multiple of the same organs/parts."

Now you. Go on, deliver it. Show me evidence to support your point: that Wounds represent luck, or plot armour, or runes, or willpower, or orange juice/cat pictures, or any other abstractions that go beyond/supersede the official sources.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Maybe those things are happening. Maybe it's true that there are magical abilities at play that protect a farseer. Maybe wounds are a dumb way to represent that. Maybe your explanations don't apply to the majority of 40k characters who receive additional wounds for no discernable reasons. Maybe the examples you provided for 'resources being expended' are all things that are represented elsewhere, are silly examples with no bearing whatsoever, and/or shouldn't be exclusive to characters.

Hence why it's not just characters with multiples Wounds.

Luck and plot armour are discernible reasons, like it or not.

Nope, but it's characters with extra wounds. All this shows is that you're either fundamentally misunderstanding my argument, or that you're deliberately ignoring it.

Are they? Just because you say so? As above, please provide proof.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And yes, if we're talking about something like luck or plot armour coming into play, then we're talking about avoiding impacts. Doubly so if we're taking about a character dodging attacks due to his "prescience", or backflipping away due to his "agility".

And? Avoiding an impact can be redirecting a hit into a non-vital location and gritting one's teeth and keeping going.

I'm not really sure why you need to think that every successful Wound is a killing blow.

As I said above, that's not a justification exclusive to characters. It also doesn't check out logically. "Don't worry men, I'll just redirect this supercharged plasma bolt into a non-vital location and continue unfettered. Not even Marines can do that."

And again, saaaaaaaame strawman argument. Never said that "that every successful Wound is a killing blow". Definitely don't think that "every successful Wound is a killing blow". You're legit just making this up.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, you need to prove to me that Wounds aren't necessarily intended to represent wounds, as it's not a valid counterargument in my mind.

As far as I'm concerned, you need to prove to me that Wounds can't reflect vitality, willpower, or any other factor. The only thing the rulebook says is "how much damage a model can sustain before it succumbs to its injuries" - that, to me, doesn't mean that all that damage hits necessarily. It reflects a variety of ways that damage is "sustained".

Again, that supports my position more than yours. See above about providing proof. To you that might not mean that any damage hits, but to anyone with basic reading comprehension and no agenda it will. Especially now that "damage" is a specific term used to denote the destructiveness of weaponry.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

And I have zero idea as to why you're so fixated on renaming Wounds, or think it's some kind of valid counterpoint to dismiss everything I said/the original intent of my post.

Likewise, I have no idea why you're so fixated on Wounds literally meaning wounds, like being hyper-literal is always correct.

I'm describing something that already exists in official GW documents. You're describing something that exists in your head. Burden of proof is on you, buddy.

And yeah, you keep acting like it's the naming that I have an issue with. It's not. Call it Coffinphobia for all I care, doesn't change my initial point.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:So what is it that you enjoy out of THIS one?

Greater immersion, characters feeling more like skilled mortals and less contrived/gamified, lucky shots changing the game (and character-hunting being more viable), no 6-7-wound Marines/Custodes casually shrugging off entire heavy support gunlines (I've seen this happen) for no in-universe reason beyond their status, and just a general lack of cognitive dissonance that will make me a happy/fappy chappy.

No, I asked what you enjoy out of THIS game - as it is now. Not what you've imagined it to be.

Really? It's possible to like a setting and not think it's perfect y'know.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Aside from wanting melee characters who can solo entire detachments, what wouldn't you enjoy?

I want my heroes and villains to be heroic, not cowering behind a screen. 40k isn't "realistic", yet I can still get immersion from it - because my immersion comes from 40k as it's presented, as a story of heroes leading from the front and villains rising to meet them. A 40k where my Chaos Lord is cowering behind a screen of lesser warriors impedes that immersion.

I mean, wouldn't he be more heroic for charging in with less plot armour? Just saying.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Define "realistic". If modern militaries had to deal with melee foes like Orks and Tyranids, I have no doubt they'd change their tactics and wargear. Bayonets are still a thing for the record (and I believe there was even a documented bayonet charge as recently as Afghanistan).

If modern militaries had to deal with melee foes like Orks and Tyranids, melee still wouldn't affect things a jot, because the range of weapons in 40k, if you took then "literally" as you do with Wounds, would make them pitifully short ranged. If modern militaries had to deal with 40k armies as they are literally presented (ignoring all the unrealistic parts like psykers), then they'd still win on numbers alone.

40k is not realistic because nothing in it scales to reality - and that's okay!

I'll admit I don't really get what you're trying to say here. Why wouldn't modern militaries have to change tactics to deal with melee enemies? What does that have to do with 40k range mechanics? And who says I like the way 40k weapon ranges currently work? Also now you're implying that there... are realistic parts to 40k?

The whole "Wounds" thing is basically just you trying to redefine the meaning of an established term with no actual evidence so far to support your interpretation. If you want to make Range analogous to what I'm saying with Wounds, imagine for a moment that characters got 3x the Range with every weapon they equipped. Give your commander a plasma pistol or hand flamer, it becomes R36". Give them a boltgun, it becomes R72". Their grenades get 18". Would that seem totally sensible and not-at-all-incongruous to you, attributable to luck/resolve/space magic? Or would it seem like they had an arbitrary and unjustified boost? That's currently how I perceive characters getting extra Wounds.

Spoilering because I can't be bothered to scroll further than I need to.

Giving characters more "Wounds" DOES have a purpose - it makes them live longer, which is important in a game setting which centres itself on heroic and villainous figures of renown, and those characters surviving long enough to do meaningful stuff without cowering in the corners. That is important to the feeling that the game attempts to invoke.

Been away from the computer for a couple days. Going to try to narrow things down to the most relevant points. Quick reminder that we're all here to discuss toy soldiers, so there's no need for any of us to get snippy.

Giving characters more "Wounds" DOES have a purpose - it makes them live longer, which is important in a game setting which centres itself on heroic and villainous figures of renown, and those characters surviving long enough to do meaningful stuff without cowering in the corners. That is important to the feeling that the game attempts to invoke.

A.) Pretty much this. I think it's pretty uncontraversial to say that 40k as a setting embraces the idea of powerful mortal(ish) characters, some of whom are known for diving into melee and surviving the experience.

B.) So if we can agree on that much, can we agree that your proposed changes make it harder for said characters to do that, spoon? See: a chaos lord with W2 being less likely to survive a fight phase than a chaos lord with W5?

C.) I think part of the confusion for Smudge and I is that you seem to be saying that various special rules could be used to offset the decreased survivability (at least partially). For instance, you've mentioned invulnerable saves and attaching characters to squads.

To those specific suggestions, I've pointed out that invulnerable saves don't necessarily make a character more survivable than his peers; they just make him more survivable against attacks with AP. A captain with W2 isn't more durable against lasguns than a normal marine is. And attaching to a unit doesn't necessarily provide additional protection either because most units can be shot to death in a single turn. If anything, it seems like it would make characters more vulnerable because overkilling the unit means killing the character whereas currently said character might still be screened by additional intervening units.

But maybe getting that specific is still getting into the weeds. Do you think that, were your proposal to be accepted, that rules should be introduced to offset the decrease in character survivability? And if so, what would those rules look like exactly? The examples you've given so far don't seem like they would solve the issue.

D.) If you WANT characters to have decreased survivability, do you see how that could work against the notion established in point A? Are you okay with removing that element from the tabletop?

E.) From my point of view, it seems like you are okay with removing the larger-than-life-heroes concept mentioned in point A. Which is partially where I (and I believe Smudge) get the idea that you're trying to argue for "realism." To my mind, Wounds work well as abstract "hit points." So regardless of whether or not that's GW's intent, that's the setting-appropriate job that they seem to be doing well. And because that end result seems setting-appropriate and good for the game (imho), I'm reluctant to use your proposed rules as they seem like they'd introduce problems for the sake of making characters as squishy as their non-character counterparts. Which in turn feels inappropriate for the setting/"feel" of the game.

F.) Maybe it would help if you fleshed out your proposal with an example. Let's use the chaos lord I keep going back to. Under your proposal he would go to W2, right? What other changes, if any, would you implement that are relevant to that change? Would you give him some sort of special rule to make him more durable?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Spoilering because I can't be bothered to scroll further than I need to.

Spoiler:

I_am_a_Spoon wrote:I was replying to a post that recommended I try other wargames. I asked if he/she knew of a more realistic 40k.

And the answer is that 40k isn't realistic. It's that simple.

"Literal grains"? You keep poking fun at me using the word "literal", but I'm not sure you actually know what it means.

You misquote me. It's "literal 'grains'". You said grains, and I am emphasising that that yes, it is a small as "grains" of science.

What I originally said in the post that you quoted is that "40k does attempt to remain semi-scientific when it comes to things like weaponry". Not sure where you're getting this idea that I think it's diamond-hard sci-fi. I was just responding to a post saying that 40k has "always run on fantasy tropes and narrativium rather than science or facts."

But that the thing - it's not even "semi-scientific". It's more like "quasi-scientific", as in, science and "realism" are given the slightest of thought. 40k does and has always run on fantasy tropes and handwavium.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:Uh, no. Gonna need a source for that, if you want to make that claim.

Lolwat? Methinks you're straining a bit to be contrarian here; just google "plot armour".
(insert links to various definitions)

I'm waiting for where you back up your claim of "almost universally bad" with some actual numbers and surveys. I know what the definition is - I want you to show me why I should care.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:Soooooo how cheap you plan to make a W2 Chaos Lord?

2pts, 1 per wound.

So how cheap should a gretchin be?

Well 1pt obviously.

So how cheap should a Chaos Space Marine be? Because they're clearly stronger than a gretchin, but weaker than a Chaos Lord. So, what do you cost them?

Or have I fallen for a troll?

So, a troll. Is it nice under that bridge?

Yep, that's a bit dumb of GW, especially from a lore perspective. As I said earlier: if I had my way, Wounds definitely wouldn't be the first thing I'd change. But it doesn't really invalidate my point, just shows that GW thinks a Primus is as good a shot as something like a Primaris Lieutenant.

So, GW thinking that a Guardsman officer is tougher than a Guardsman Veteran is all good then?

What is it - are the stats meant to be accurate or what? Is a random Primaris Lieutenant meant to be as good a shot as the most accomplished marksman of the Ultramarines Chapter? If so, then isn't the abstraction of Wounds fair game?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Same with Wounds, especially when there are other in-game mechanisms to achieve what you're describing (e.g. invulns, special rules, strategems, etc).

So, when there are stratagems that improve a character's skill with shooting, why is that not represented by an increased BS, if there's already an in game mechanism to reflect it?

Different mechanisms achieve different things. Base stats are immutable. Stratagems are optional bonuses (that in this case, can temporarily augment BS with modifiers or re-rolls). Same reason I disagree with bolters getting AP via doctrines instead of as part of their base weapon stats.

But why should different mechanism affect things differently when they achieve the same outcomes - at a certain point, adding extra layers just bogs the game down where an abstracted and streamlined system works better. And you mention base stats being immutable - immutable factors like luck, willpower, tenacity, plot armour, etc?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:So, yes, in the world of 40k, where plot armour is very much a part and parcel of the setting, it does make sense that a commissar can stick around longer, because it's cool.

Your own quote supports my position as much (if not much more) than yours. A Company Commander can literally survive 2x the damage that a Marine can. [...] With the current system, those weapons are straight-up less effective against the former human than the latter Astartes.

Yeah - because the human is marked as special by plot. Simple as that. As I said - the blows that are hitting the Space Marine are Wounding less often (higher Toughness) but the Commander is blessed by Plot Armour, and gets to stick around longer because that's how 40k is.

And "narrowly missing", "luck running out", "burning runes", "fated by gods" don't equal "damage sustained" by any common-sense interpretation. In fact, 'sustaining damage from a miss' is more of an oxymoron than the example you tried to call out before.

They kinda do - those are all ways by which a character resists and fights off the mounting causes of damage being hurdled at them. You don't "sustain damage" from a miss, you burn through your luck making those shots miss.

It reminds me of the logic of the Uncharted games - in those games, your character isn't tanking hundreds of bullets. The screen going red from your character getting "hit" is their luck running out as they narrowly avoid being killed - it's only the final bullet that resets you to the last checkpoint being the one that kills you.

As for 'cool'... extremely subjective. Do Wounds correspond to 'coolness' now? Is my badarse Company Commander precisely 2x as cool as a Primaris or Nob?

No - as I said, Wounds correspond to plot importance in characters. This is not a precise scale, but simply a mechanism by which characters get to stay alive longer, which is cool.
If you don't find that cool, then I'm not sure what attracts you to 40k, because the setting is full of this kind of character-worship.

I disagree. That doesn't serve the same purpose any more than improving a model's Toughness or Saves would. Each of those stats means something specific though, as outlined in the core rules. And I've shown you an example of GW straight-up segregating these mechanisms... but you continue to combine them and spruik your own interpretation with no evidence.

As I showed you in the core rules, Wounds is simply ability to sustain damage - it doesn't specify that it needs to be "yeah, I can take twelve lasguns to the chest because TOUGH" any more than it could be "I am fated by the gods themselves, and they decree that I am not to die from puny lasguns".

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Sgt_Smudge wrote:When you have a situation that means that your Leading-From-The-Front leaders aren't inclined to lead from the front, then there's a disconnect in the game and the narrative.

You could also slap players every time they target a Chaos Lord. That would make them more durable.

So would not playing - is that an option you considered?

Might have to explain that one.

I'm sure you can figure it out.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

There are better and worse ways to achieve things. Many of those have been outlined (and ignored, apparently) already. Besides, would it really be such a bad thing if an enemy sergeant with a power weapon stood a chance against an enemy commander? Are they really so inferior? Sergeants can be heroes too.

Heroes with a lower case h. A Sergeant is a Sergeant. A Captain is a Captain. Guardsmen can be heroes too - should they be considered equal to Abaddon?

A sergeant with a power sword *does* stand a chance - slim, but it's there. And yes, they really ARE so inferior.

You want to make Guardsmen equal to Abaddon, be my guest.

You're the one advocating for it - why not say it with your whole chest?

But to answer your question, no... nowhere did I suggest that, and nowhere did I suggest anything that would logically result in that. False equivalence.

You sure? Because you DID just say that "Sergeants can be heroes too" - so can Guardsmen, ergo, a guardsman should be able to stand a chance against an enemy commander such as Abaddon.

Don't play coy. Stick to your guns.

I'm not sure the difference in melee capabilities between real-world sergeants and captains is as pronounced as you think. Or is it true that generals are without exception the most potent melee combatants in a modern military?

I got as far as "real-world", and then stopped reading. Next.

The next time somebody asks me to slice an onion, should I assume they want their hair cut?

That depends - are you being obtuse for the sake of it? Given your earlier comments, why should assume anything less?

As for "no other purpose than because it says so"... what are you smoking when this becomes your logical fallback in a tabletop game with clearly-defined rules and mechanisms? You're being hyper-interpretive and subjective with no evidence. I can appreciate being a devil's advocate, but at least try not to throw stones from glass houses.

"Clearly defined rules and mechanisms"? Please, explain to me the logical mechanisms behind which only one Astartes squad can be Transhuman, or why only one squad of Guardsmen can throw all their grenades.

No hyperbole at all.

So, explain to me where a Chaos Marine stands, if a Gretchin is 1 point and a Chaos Lord is 2 points.

A lascannon can kill a 5W Chaos Lord in one shot. Does that mean Wounds aren't a good way of increasing resilience on characters? What's your core issue?

Can - if it's lucky. I thought you were all about that?

I don't have a core issue - it seems that you do.

And just to set the record straight, I never actually suggested that surplus wounds should all be replaced by other mechanisms, just that stratagems, wargear, special rules, etc. would be more sensible means for characters' abilities to protect them in the cases where that was absolutely warranted, e.g. the farseer examples.

But why layer extra rules when they all fundamentally serve the role of "this keeps character alive longer"? That seems like redundancy.

That couldn't possibly have been one of many potential examples of a fatal hit.

And also potential examples of a non-fatal hit on such a mighty character.

As for Wounds, well the 40k Core Rules would be a good start:
"Wounds (W): Wounds show how much damage a model can sustain before it succumbs to its injuries."

Wow! You can quote a source I already quoted to you, which I already said is inconclusive in what "sustain" means, and confirms nothing.

And a very similar, slightly expanded version from another GW product: the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying wiki:
"Wounds (W) represent the amount of damage that can be endured before serious injury or even death is caused. Some creatures can sustain more damage than others, either because they have more physical stamina or because they have little regard for or feeling of pain. This is represented by the number of W a creature has."

So, a completely unrelated product.

Or, since again we're talking about community perceptions, related reddit posts like this one.
"damage indicates the projectile's ability to destroy the target, such as making bigger holes, going deeper etc."
...
"Damage represents how many vital organs/parts is likely to be destroyed in the target once past the armour, since a lot of things in 40k have multiple of the same organs/parts."

And... a reddit post? That's your evidence?

Now you. Go on, deliver it. Show me evidence to support your point: that Wounds represent luck, or plot armour, or runes, or willpower, or orange juice/cat pictures, or any other abstractions that go beyond/supersede the official sources.

I just did - "how much damage a model can sustain before it succumbs to its injuries", which doesn't rule out any of the above. Ultimately, that can mean whatever you want - mechanically, it's all the same. You rationalise it as "that Commissar's taking killshots to the face", I see it as "that Commissar's gritting his teeth and pushing on because he's *special*".

Nope, but it's characters with extra wounds.

And what is a Wound? What tangibly makes up a Wound? What does it measure? It measures how much something can take before it succumbs to injuries - therefore something with higher Wounds is something which is harder to kill - par for the course in 40k.

It also doesn't check out logically.

Welcome to 40k. Logic isn't exactly big there.

To you that might not mean that any damage hits, but to anyone with basic reading comprehension and no agenda it will. Especially now that "damage" is a specific term used to denote the destructiveness of weaponry.

Again, already been through how it doesn't really support anything - it simply says "sustain". That can mean a lot of things.

I'm describing something that already exists in official GW documents. You're describing something that exists in your head. Burden of proof is on you, buddy.

Buddy, we quoted the same document. It didn't provide anything other than more words that ultimately come to interpretation.

Really? It's possible to like a setting and not think it's perfect y'know.

So what part of the setting built on characters charging headlong into challenges and frontline duels agreed with you?

Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Aside from wanting melee characters who can solo entire detachments, what wouldn't you enjoy?

I want my heroes and villains to be heroic, not cowering behind a screen. 40k isn't "realistic", yet I can still get immersion from it - because my immersion comes from 40k as it's presented, as a story of heroes leading from the front and villains rising to meet them. A 40k where my Chaos Lord is cowering behind a screen of lesser warriors impedes that immersion.

I mean, wouldn't he be more heroic for charging in with less plot armour? Just saying.

No - dunno about you, but there's this thing called immersion, even in a ludonarrative setting. See, for something to live up to the idea of being heroic, it needs to do heroic things, and not just attempt, but reasonably succeed.

When the game discourages you from making those "heroic" moves, then immersion is broken.

Sgt_Smudge wrote:If modern militaries had to deal with melee foes like Orks and Tyranids, melee still wouldn't affect things a jot, because the range of weapons in 40k, if you took then "literally" as you do with Wounds, would make them pitifully short ranged. If modern militaries had to deal with 40k armies as they are literally presented (ignoring all the unrealistic parts like psykers), then they'd still win on numbers alone.

40k is not realistic because nothing in it scales to reality - and that's okay!

I'll admit I don't really get what you're trying to say here. Why wouldn't modern militaries have to change tactics to deal with melee enemies? What does that have to do with 40k range mechanics? And who says I like the way 40k weapon ranges currently work? Also now you're implying that there... are realistic parts to 40k?

Because those "melee enemies", as presented in 40k, don't translate well into real life, because 40k isn't real life. It's as simple as that.

The whole "Wounds" thing is basically just you trying to redefine the meaning of an established term with no actual evidence so far to support your interpretation.

And yours is taking the term hyper-literally without considering the abstraction behind it.

If you want to make Range analogous to what I'm saying with Wounds, imagine for a moment that characters got 3x the Range with every weapon they equipped. Give your commander a plasma pistol or hand flamer, it becomes R36". Give them a boltgun, it becomes R72". Their grenades get 18".

But why? That doesn't add anything mechanically to the feel of the game.

Would that seem totally sensible and not-at-all-incongruous to you, attributable to luck/resolve/space magic? Or would it seem like they had an arbitrary and unjustified boost? That's currently how I perceive characters getting extra Wounds.

It's arbitrary and unjustified because it achieves nothing - it's pointless.

Giving characters more "Wounds" DOES have a purpose - it makes them live longer, which is important in a game setting which centres itself on heroic and villainous figures of renown, and those characters surviving long enough to do meaningful stuff without cowering in the corners. That is important to the feeling that the game attempts to invoke.

Maybe it's best to leave it there. We're just going in circles. I can see a whole bunch of things I want to respond to... but in the spirit of Wyldhunt's post, and in the interests of time, we may just have to agree to disagree on interpretations and preferences.

Wyldhunt wrote:I think it's pretty uncontraversial to say that 40k as a setting embraces the idea of powerful mortal(ish) characters, some of whom are known for diving into melee and surviving the experience.

Not at all controversial, I agree.

Wyldhunt wrote:So if we can agree on that much, can we agree that your proposed changes make it harder for said characters to do that, spoon? See: a chaos lord with W2 being less likely to survive a fight phase than a chaos lord with W5?

If viewed in isolation, yes. Some characters (not all, or even most) could have alternative mechanisms that provide resilience in other ways. But something like an AM Company Commander for example would die to enemy attacks just as readily as a Guardsman with the same wargear.

Wyldhunt wrote:I've pointed out that invulnerable saves don't necessarily make a character more survivable than his peers; they just make him more survivable against attacks with AP. A captain with W2 isn't more durable against lasguns than a normal marine is. And attaching to a unit doesn't necessarily provide additional protection either because most units can be shot to death in a single turn. If anything, it seems like it would make characters more vulnerable because overkilling the unit means killing the character whereas currently said character might still be screened by additional intervening units.

But maybe getting that specific is still getting into the weeds. Do you think that, were your proposal to be accepted, that rules should be introduced to offset the decrease in character survivability? And if so, what would those rules look like exactly? The examples you've given so far don't seem like they would solve the issue.

Well that assumes that the "issue" needs to be solved in a way that maintains current balance perfectly, which I think is a flawed assumption to begin with. But rolling with that, yes, I can think of a few generic rules that would make characters as a whole more survivable (especially in melee). See the bottom of my post.

Wyldhunt wrote:If you WANT characters to have decreased survivability, do you see how that could work against the notion established in point A? Are you okay with removing that element from the tabletop?

I think this is a bit absolutist. I support the idea of removing survivability where that survivability has no justification beyond plot armour. So removing arbitrary plot armour from the game? Yep, happy for that to go. Making Chaos Lords as survivable as Guardsmen, as Smudge suggested? No.

Wyldhunt wrote:To my mind, Wounds work well as abstract "hit points." So regardless of whether or not that's GW's intent, that's the setting-appropriate job that they seem to be doing well. And because that end result seems setting-appropriate and good for the game (imho), I'm reluctant to use your proposed rules as they seem like they'd introduce problems for the sake of making characters as squishy as their non-character counterparts. Which in turn feels inappropriate for the setting/"feel" of the game.

This might just be a matter of perspective. I generally don't appreciate systems where "hit points" are code for plot armour, but I'm self-aware enough to realise that dislike isn't universal. I just find it logically inconsistent and immersion-breaking for characters to soak up way more damage simply because they're characters. A sniper hits an AM officer, even rolls a 6 to Wound... and yet the Officer can keep running around and shouting orders unimpeded despite suffering something like a headshot, or at least a critical injury that would have killed an ordinary human twice over? That level of immersion is also important IMO.

And I'm not sure the 'problems' they'd introduce would be dealbreakers that couldn't be worked around (or even necessarily problems).

Wyldhunt wrote:Maybe it would help if you fleshed out your proposal with an example. Let's use the chaos lord I keep going back to. Under your proposal he would go to W2, right? What other changes, if any, would you implement that are relevant to that change? Would you give him some sort of special rule to make him more durable?

Yeah, good suggestion.

I've put together a prototype Chaos Lord datasheet below (in the spoiler tags). It outlines some different ways in which characters could be better protected (retinues, improved saves, special rules, etc) that seem less immersion-breaking in my mind. Note that these (and the points costs) are just spitballs, and I'd be keen to hear any feedback or criticisms. I also threw in a second statline with some extra changes to make Marines and Boltguns a bit more powerful in general (as has been suggested elsewhere in the forum, and which I'd personally like to see).

The special rules I added are a bit elaborate, but I had the chance to go nuts and have some fun with them... so I did. Aside from some simple bonuses, they aim to represent divine intervention on behalf of the Lord's chosen deity by means of a basic FNP... which is then boosted by lore-friendly acts of tribute (bloodshed for Khorne, resilience for Nurgle, being 'instrumental to the grand plan' for Tzeentch and perfection for Slaanesh). The Undivided one is a bit weak, but couldn't be bothered thinking it through in depth by that point. And hopefully the others don't come across as too micro-intensive.

Legend:
Green = new
Blue = changed
Red = removed (AoC basically, it's compensated for by the 2+ save.)

And some misc changes (also spitballs) I think would be worth considering, that would help almost all characters (not just Chaos Lords). These are just random thoughts, but provide some alternative (common-sense, IMO) mechanisms to make characters/high-WS models more difficult to kill in melee.