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I think 40K players clamor for increased granularity because it's more immediately obvious and straightforward than identifying the deficiencies in the core rules that the stats drive, and because it's the sort of number crunching that us nerds like.

Like, I have seen more than one call for more granular Ballistic Skill to better statistically differentiate things in between Guardsman-level and Marine-level accuracy, but rarely do I see anyone else point out that the current to-hit system doesn't care about how far away the target is, how fast it's moving, or even how big it is. You'd think those would be more fundamental requirements- and give more levers for differentiating units- than showing that Cannon Fodder Grunt #386 is 7% more accurate than Cannon Fodder Grunt #294 in the three picoseconds before they both get atomized by a Volcano Cannon.

Not to mention things that are big in the fluff getting no representation on the tabletop. Remember those lightning raids where the Marines operate like superhuman veterans acting in perfect synchronization honed by literal decades of practice, overwhelming ill-disciplined Orks before they can even react? Yeah sorry your Marines are functionally just Orks who are tougher to kill and shoot bigger guns more accurately, so those ramshackle Orks have the exact same operational tempo as you and can react the instant you make your play. I can think of a few reasons this doesn't feel like the fluff, and 'not enough decimal points' isn't one of them.

Keel wrote:I don't think it has much to do with any illusions of "strategic depth". Special rules, stratagems, etc. add a level of immersion and viscerality that you won't accomplish with just making an elite unit BS7 instead of BS6. A named special rule makes the unit feel "cooler".

Case in point, lack of depth to the core rules is why we end up getting special rules to accommodate differentiation that should just be part of the game to begin with, and shallow mechanics mean we get tons and tons of functionally equivalent abilities (re-rolls, +1s, exploding 6s, etc- they all translate to 'you linearly do more damage' in a consistent/predictable fashion).

Special rules are fun when they're used sparingly and provide something really unique, not just bloated bonuses that could be equivalently represented through the core stats (eg more Attacks instead of all the aforementioned cruft) or provide band-aids for missing mechanics (eg invulnerable saves to represent dodging, or boring reroll-to-hit auras to represent leadership ability).

 catbarf wrote:
Like, I have seen more than one call for more granular Ballistic Skill to better statistically differentiate things in between Guardsman-level and Marine-level accuracy, but rarely do I see anyone else point out that the current to-hit system doesn't care about how far away the target is, how fast it's moving, or even how big it is. You'd think those would be more fundamental requirements- and give more levers for differentiating units- than showing that Cannon Fodder Grunt #386 is 7% more accurate than Cannon Fodder Grunt #294 in the three picoseconds before they both get atomized by a Volcano Cannon.

It's a matter of priorities. Before you start adding things like accuracy dropping over range you have to clear away the current rules bloat to make room for it. And the best way to do that is to move to a die with more increments, so that the existing 7% differentiation in accuracy can be done with +1 to the target number on the D20 instead of a bloated pile of special rules.

 catbarf wrote:
Not to mention things that are big in the fluff getting no representation on the tabletop. Remember those lightning raids where the Marines operate like superhuman veterans acting in perfect synchronization honed by literal decades of practice, overwhelming ill-disciplined Orks before they can even react? Yeah sorry your Marines are functionally just Orks who are tougher to kill and shoot bigger guns more accurately, so those ramshackle Orks have the exact same operational tempo as you and can react the instant you make your play. I can think of a few reasons this doesn't feel like the fluff, and 'not enough decimal points' isn't one of them.

Why should the ability for SM to do lightning raids before Orks can even react be in the core rules instead of in their codex? Couldn't you represent that with a move-after-fighting ability on one of their HQs instead of their inane re-roll 1s ability? The Judiciar already has a fight-last ability. If you want to represent their discipline and tactics you could have an ability that grants Overwatch to replace another one of those inane re-roll 1s abilities.

 vict0988 wrote:

Why should the ability for SM to do lightning raids before Orks can even react be in the core rules instead of in their codex? Couldn't you represent that with a move-after-fighting ability on one of their HQs instead of their inane re-roll 1s ability? The Judiciar already has a fight-last ability. If you want to represent their discipline and tactics you could have an ability that grants Overwatch to replace another one of those inane re-roll 1s abilities.

There is a handy chart available....almost something familiar, with a way to achieve just that! Along with a forgotten stat.

Aecus Decimus wrote:It's a matter of priorities. Before you start adding things like accuracy dropping over range you have to clear away the current rules bloat to make room for it. And the best way to do that is to move to a die with more increments, so that the existing 7% differentiation in accuracy can be done with +1 to the target number on the D20 instead of a bloated pile of special rules.

Hitting on fixed values is going to be shallow and inadequate whether the baseline is 3+ on D6 or 5+ on D12. The best you can do without special rules is 100% hit rate, and that's just 1.5x better than baseline. Greater granularity in such a shallow system won't eliminate the need for piles of special rules to make elite units feel elite, or clunky invulnerable saves to represent dodging. Plus, just hitting 8.33% more really does not make a unit feel meaningfully different. Frankly, hitting 16.67% more doesn't either.

The special rules bloat isn't there solely to create minor statistical differentiations between units. It's to sub in for distinctions that the core mechanics do not model, and provide adjustment levers that overly-simple core rules can not. The old S-vs-T chart differentiated weapons and units better than the current comparison system, but either would be better than going to fixed to-wound values like AOS, regardless of what die you use to implement that mechanic.

Going further: Fleet used to be unit-specific, rather than a game-wide ability. Weapon types used to have much more impact on how mobile a unit could be while still putting out firepower. The old AP system- love it or hate it- established breakpoints that gave weapons clearly defined roles. Morale was a bigger part of the game. These are core mechanics that made units and armies feel different even within the constraints of D6 resolution, because they were functional and contextual distinctions, not bland percentage buffs to firepower or durability. You can't create those distinctions with bigger dice.

There are tons of D6-based wargames out there, some even published by GW, that distinguish factions from one another without 40K's current level of rules bloat. They do so both through deeper resolution mechanics that provide external levers for adjustment, and by focusing on functional differences rather than minutiae.

Edit: Further to that point, 40K already has a downright excessive number of compared checks and rolls just to resolve a simple attack. Roll to hit, roll to wound, roll saves, roll for damage- that's four different stat checks (one flat, three opposed comparisons) on top of weapon type, range, and shots providing differentiation, and all of those are levers that can be adjusted to produce incremental outcomes. Apocalypse uses D12s because it consolidates the entire wound/save/damage process into a single roll, but 40K seriously does not require further granularity on individual checks to create relevant distinctions, it just needs those mechanics to work as intended.

vict0988 wrote:Why should the ability for SM to do lightning raids before Orks can even react be in the core rules instead of in their codex? Couldn't you represent that with a move-after-fighting ability on one of their HQs instead of their inane re-roll 1s ability? The Judiciar already has a fight-last ability. If you want to represent their discipline and tactics you could have an ability that grants Overwatch to replace another one of those inane re-roll 1s abilities.

Yeah, you could take a fundamental concept like command and control and turn it into army-specific special rules, like how only GSC get crossfire, or boil it down to a gimmick ability for one or two characters. It's not a particularly elegant way to represent it, it limits it to just a few factions or units instead of allowing it to characterize factions as a whole, and it contributes further to codex bloat because the core rules don't provide the mechanics for the armies to interact with. But it could be done.

Or, look at how Epic:Armageddon does it. The core activation mechanic is simple, but different armies interact differently with it, and that makes them feel and play very differently from one another. Marines are rock-solid reliable and can press the initiative when they see fit, Guard are more ponderous and tend to get bogged down in contact, Orks will never let you down if you're getting them into the fight but become unruly with more coordinated maneuvers. It does this with a single D6 roll, different base values to succeed, and contextual modifiers.

Simple, elegant core mechanics that allow for functional distinctions between armies and units > dice for the dice god and special ability bloat.

Racerguy180 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Why should the ability for SM to do lightning raids before Orks can even react be in the core rules instead of in their codex? Couldn't you represent that with a move-after-fighting ability on one of their HQs instead of their inane re-roll 1s ability? The Judiciar already has a fight-last ability. If you want to represent their discipline and tactics you could have an ability that grants Overwatch to replace another one of those inane re-roll 1s abilities.

There is a handy chart available....almost something familiar, with a way to achieve just that! Along with a forgotten stat.

I believe you're answering how instead of why, am I misunderstanding?

 catbarf wrote:

The old AP system- love it or hate it- established breakpoints that gave weapons clearly defined roles.

LOL was this serious? The old AP system meant you had AP2 or you needed enough shots to eventually break in a wound. I know you're probably thinking "but old AP3 meant it was specialized against Marines!!!1!", except that AP3 was ACTUALLY a rarer value than old AP2 LOL

I'd have thought the problem is more "if Marines can do lightning-fast raids and tear disorganised Orks to bits" - who on earth is going to want to play the Orks?

Waaagh da Sun Elfs etc - but we had various eras of the game where Eldar were meant to be some "high skill" army that could avoid counterattacks and inflict massive damage.
And the reality was that this wasn't "high skill" - it was just "overpowered". Because it's just not that difficult to not point Fire Dragons at Ork Boyz.

 vict0988 wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Why should the ability for SM to do lightning raids before Orks can even react be in the core rules instead of in their codex? Couldn't you represent that with a move-after-fighting ability on one of their HQs instead of their inane re-roll 1s ability? The Judiciar already has a fight-last ability. If you want to represent their discipline and tactics you could have an ability that grants Overwatch to replace another one of those inane re-roll 1s abilities.

There is a handy chart available....almost something familiar, with a way to achieve just that! Along with a forgotten stat.

I believe you're answering how instead of why, am I misunderstanding?

Initiative and the WS/BS chart would be in core rules, that way the codex can adjust for specific units. But that would require USR and GW has an apparent aversion to them, instead choosing ISR and doubling down.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

The old AP system- love it or hate it- established breakpoints that gave weapons clearly defined roles.

LOL was this serious? The old AP system meant you had AP2 or you needed enough shots to eventually break in a wound. I know you're probably thinking "but old AP3 meant it was specialized against Marines!!!1!", except that AP3 was ACTUALLY a rarer value than old AP2 LOL

EviscerationPlague completely misses the point of the post to nitpick specific examples, while misremembering how prior editions actually worked (ie 5th Ed passing out AP3 like candy), more at eleven.

Tyel wrote:
I'd have thought the problem is more "if Marines can do lightning-fast raids and tear disorganised Orks to bits" - who on earth is going to want to play the Orks?

Waaagh da Sun Elfs etc - but we had various eras of the game where Eldar were meant to be some "high skill" army that could avoid counterattacks and inflict massive damage.
And the reality was that this wasn't "high skill" - it was just "overpowered". Because it's just not that difficult to not point Fire Dragons at Ork Boyz.

Having the sheer firepower to win a knock-down-drag-out fight has its appeal. Marines in Epic aren't the everything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better of 40K; they pay a premium for those C&C advantages and are limited in heavy firepower, so have to be played surgically. Concentrate a tremendous amount of combat power onto a small subset of the enemy (using fast transport to get there, then organic fire support, crossfire, and assault to maximize disruption), win locally, then press the advantage or disengage before the enemy can bring full firepower to bear. If they get into a slugfest with Stompas, attrition is not on their side.

Like you said, GW's tried to do something similar with Eldar in 40K over the years. Except 40K can't support hit modifiers without breaking down immediately, so concepts like 'speed as defense' or holofields are functionally represented as armor instead (anyone else remember unkillable Falcons?), it's difficult to mitigate return fire through positioning when many weapons can shoot clear across the board with full effectiveness, and it's difficult in general to avoid counterattacks when mobility is universally high, everyone can move and fire and charge, and the board looks like a parking lot. The mechanical levers needed to represent their high concept simply do not exist, so they default to the same expressions of firepower and durability as everyone else.

I'm not saying 40K should be a reimplementation of Epic. But I am saying that the explosion of special rules bloat is a result of the core mechanics failing to convey differences between units and factions. Increased granularity in the core mechanics gets you nowhere if those mechanics aren't doing what they need to do.

Racerguy180 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Why should the ability for SM to do lightning raids before Orks can even react be in the core rules instead of in their codex? Couldn't you represent that with a move-after-fighting ability on one of their HQs instead of their inane re-roll 1s ability? The Judiciar already has a fight-last ability. If you want to represent their discipline and tactics you could have an ability that grants Overwatch to replace another one of those inane re-roll 1s abilities.

There is a handy chart available....almost something familiar, with a way to achieve just that! Along with a forgotten stat.

I believe you're answering how instead of why, am I misunderstanding?

Initiative and the WS/BS chart would be in core rules, that way the codex can adjust for specific units. But that would require USR and GW has an apparent aversion to them, instead choosing ISR and doubling down.

But Initiative did not let Space Marines perform lightning raids, it just made them strike first in melee. To me that sounds like saying Necrons can reanimate because they have a 4+ FNP, that might have been what the rule was representing, but it wasn't what it did. I think you must have been forging a narrative like I do now with true LOS.

 catbarf wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

The old AP system- love it or hate it- established breakpoints that gave weapons clearly defined roles.

LOL was this serious? The old AP system meant you had AP2 or you needed enough shots to eventually break in a wound. I know you're probably thinking "but old AP3 meant it was specialized against Marines!!!1!", except that AP3 was ACTUALLY a rarer value than old AP2 LOL

EviscerationPlague completely misses the point of the post to nitpick specific examples, while misremembering how prior editions actually worked (ie 5th Ed passing out AP3 like candy), more at eleven.

5th did not pass out AP3 like candy LOL. Did you even play that edition?

Necrons had 3 AP3 weapons and 6 AP1 weapons, spamming the former would be easier but Necrons could get a lot of AP1 as well. I think krak missiles were AP3 but their heyday was 4th right? AP5, 1 and 2 seemed way overrepresented.

 kodos wrote:
the original system in Warhammer was meant to simulate a single D20, but having 3 D6 rolled

to hit, to wound and armour

yet GW never came on using the full potential of the D6 as it is, like with the "to hit" roll were instead going from 2-6 we only saw 3-5
same with the old armour system were only 2-3 meant something in the game

Threadwinner.

If you crunched the numbers, the range of results in GW combat systems was extremely narrow. A WS 10, S 10 monster fighting a WS 1, T 1 minion had only a 55 percent chance of wounding. (You needed a 3+ to hit and a 2+ to wound).

Some years back when I decided to build my own fantasy rules, this immediately stood out. GW had tons of stats, but none of them meant anything. That's why buckets and buckets of dice were needed for anything useful to happen.

Ironically, 2nd ed. actually achieved a high lethality because the mass of firepower dumped on the table was insane. It was also reasonably balanced for the same reason: everything can kill you, so get into some cover.

For those who crave the d10 fix, Dust uses it, and I believe the abortive competitor to 40k Void also used it. (Full disclosure: my Eldar are almost all Void figures bought on clearance.)

Anyway, GW exists to make miniatures, not create a stable, durable rules system. Been that way since 1998 or so.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
For those who crave the d10 fix, Dust uses it

Did Dust Warfare (the miniatures system) have a major overhaul to switch to D10s? When I last played, it exclusively used custom D6s with 'hit' on two of the six faces, so essentially every roll was a success on a 5+.

The game adjusted success rates entirely through number of dice rolled and the presence or lack of re-rolls.

 catbarf wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
For those who crave the d10 fix, Dust uses it

Did Dust Warfare (the miniatures system) have a major overhaul to switch to D10s? When I last played, it exclusively used custom D6s with 'hit' on two of the six faces, so essentially every roll was a success on a 5+.

The game adjusted success rates entirely through number of dice rolled and the presence or lack of re-rolls.

Now that I think about it, I could be wrong. Void definately used d10s, which are annoying to handle.

The other thing about GW was that they used a ten-point scale with six-sided dice and then worked it down further into only three possible results. The "to hit" table may as well have been a d3.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

The old AP system- love it or hate it- established breakpoints that gave weapons clearly defined roles.

LOL was this serious? The old AP system meant you had AP2 or you needed enough shots to eventually break in a wound. I know you're probably thinking "but old AP3 meant it was specialized against Marines!!!1!", except that AP3 was ACTUALLY a rarer value than old AP2 LOL

EviscerationPlague completely misses the point of the post to nitpick specific examples, while misremembering how prior editions actually worked (ie 5th Ed passing out AP3 like candy), more at eleven.

5th did not pass out AP3 like candy LOL. Did you even play that edition?

5th ed passed out all high AP values like candy, while at the same time removing much of the LOS blocking terrain :/ Although on the AP3 front, the examples that come to mind are Sternguard specialized ammunition that could spam AP3, and Leman Russes/Basilisks available to take in squadrons. Necron Destroyers became AP3 late in that edition IIrc.

The old AP system did create strong breakpoints between weapins and troops though, it created a wider gammut of differentiation while still using just a D6. Imo it was very clever. The main issue is the eventual failure of designers to use restraint with its implementation. Which as it turns out is the same problem they're having with the current system as well, who'd a thunk it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 kodos wrote:
the original system in Warhammer was meant to simulate a single D20, but having 3 D6 rolled

to hit, to wound and armour

yet GW never came on using the full potential of the D6 as it is, like with the "to hit" roll were instead going from 2-6 we only saw 3-5
same with the old armour system were only 2-3 meant something in the game

Threadwinner.

If you crunched the numbers, the range of results in GW combat systems was extremely narrow. A WS 10, S 10 monster fighting a WS 1, T 1 minion had only a 55 percent chance of wounding. (You needed a 3+ to hit and a 2+ to wound).

I feel like this is on purpose in the CC phase so that not-good troops can actually have a chance against good ones, which I think is ok despite having mixed feelings about it. There were enough other ways to make troops more effective in CC baked into the rules, such as number of attacks and Power Weapons etc. Plus the old Sweeping Advance rules allowed for total butchery after a solid round of combat. The net results were reasonable.

But speaking of narrowing stat options, the post 8th to-wound chart is the worst culprit. Most cases are 3-5, and the cases that require a 6 to wound would have been impossible in earlier editions, in a way just creating an increase in the number of dice being rolled just fishing for 6s.

Imo there's a place for Strength vs. Toughness to have both auto-wound scenarios, as well as "no chance, don't even roll because you can't hurt it" ones. If that Lascannon hits a Guardsman, don't roll to wound, save your dice.

If GW does implement d10's, d12's or other dice, people will come out of the woodworks to complain about the new issues they case:
A. Lack of easy to purchase bundles of other kinds of dice (d6 and sets of DnD dice are the most common)
B. price of GW dX dice
C. difficulty to roll/math/add dX dice
D. confusion between results of 6 and results of 9
E. very high or very low rolls being ineffectual
F. increased chance of cocked dice, difficulty reading 'whole face', etc

It's all moot because it's not going to happen.
If you think you can make a d10, d12, d20 wargame work, go make one. Let us know how you do.

 Insectum7 wrote:


But speaking of narrowing stat options, the post 8th to-wound chart is the worst culprit. Most cases are 3-5, and the cases that require a 6 to wound would have been impossible in earlier editions, in a way just creating an increase in the number of dice being rolled just fishing for 6s.

Imo there's a place for Strength vs. Toughness to have both auto-wound scenarios, as well as "no chance, don't even roll because you can't hurt it" ones. If that Lascannon hits a Guardsman, don't roll to wound, save your dice.

My point is that GW didn't even bothering all six faces of a d6, so why would they use all of the ones on a d10?

If they adopted a d10, they would use only a fraction of its probabilities, because their game design is remarkably, consistently, inept.

They cover this up through incredible art, a massive catalog and spackling special rules to fill the gaps.

To be fair, they probably sell more copies of their rules in a day than I ever have.

^ I think moving to D10 is unrealistic to begin with. D6 is just too good in terms of accesibiliy (and that alone makes it the right choice), and there is plenty of ability to get granularity using D6s.

 Insectum7 wrote:
^ I think moving to D10 is unrealistic to begin with. D6 is just too good in terms of accesibiliy (and that alone makes it the right choice), and there is plenty of ability to get granularity using D6s.

There is something inherently satisfying in throwing fistfuls of d6s to resolve a combat.

When I made my own fantasy/historical system, there was no question that I would follow that example. A brick of six-siders is easy to obtain, and there's no reason you can't use them for whatever application you want.

GW simply failed to use all of the sides. Other systems do.

 Insectum7 wrote:
^ I think moving to D10 is unrealistic to begin with. D6 is just too good in terms of accesibiliy (and that alone makes it the right choice), and there is plenty of ability to get granularity using D6s.

We live in the age of the internet. It's NOT hard to buy D8s or D10s.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
^ I think moving to D10 is unrealistic to begin with. D6 is just too good in terms of accesibiliy (and that alone makes it the right choice), and there is plenty of ability to get granularity using D6s.

We live in the age of the internet. It's NOT hard to buy D8s or D10s.

If you can't buy them alongside the models and rules that you're getting, easily and in the color that you like, it's not going to take off.

Ease of access compared to d6's for other dice is simply not there, and GW isn't going to change the entire dice system that their game has been based off of for 50 years knowing full well they'd have to front-run a different set of dice.

On top of that, EVERY system they use is d6 based, except for Apocalypse that tried d12's, and it was obnoxious to swap between the two.

Y'all can crunch your numbers and slap your dice statistics all you want, but the business sense does not exist to support this sort of change.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
There is something inherently satisfying in throwing fistfuls of d6s to resolve a combat.

No, there isnt. Its also no fun to wait for your opponents to roll hundreds (!) of dice for just one (!) unit. Back in 8th orks had like 150 melee attacks and like 50 shooting attack, this added up to thousands (!) of dice being rolled. And then there were, and still are, rerolls.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

GW simply failed to use all of the sides. Other systems do.

You hit on 2-5, 1 automatically fails, and 6 automatically hits. Its almost the same with wounding. What side(s) of a six sixed dice isnt used by GW ? Is there a side 7 i didnt notice ?

 p5freak wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

GW simply failed to use all of the sides. Other systems do.

You hit on 2-5, 1 automatically fails, and 6 automatically hits. Its almost the same with wounding. What side(s) of a six sixed dice isnt used by GW ? Is there a side 7 i didnt notice ?

"Congrats guys, in your 9th edition codex, everything from your neophytes, to your crisis suits, leman russ and daemon engines all now have easy ways to ensure they hit on a 3+" - 9th edition. Again, we have ork community asking for standard bs 4+ because a 5+ is too bad. People don't want to use the 5, people don't want to use the 4.

drbored wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
^ I think moving to D10 is unrealistic to begin with. D6 is just too good in terms of accesibiliy (and that alone makes it the right choice), and there is plenty of ability to get granularity using D6s.

We live in the age of the internet. It's NOT hard to buy D8s or D10s.

If you can't buy them alongside the models and rules that you're getting, easily and in the color that you like, it's not going to take off.

Do I, like, have to go to the game store after work tomorrow and take pics of the D8s and D10s they have available?

EviscerationPlague wrote:

drbored wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
^ I think moving to D10 is unrealistic to begin with. D6 is just too good in terms of accesibiliy (and that alone makes it the right choice), and there is plenty of ability to get granularity using D6s.

We live in the age of the internet. It's NOT hard to buy D8s or D10s.

If you can't buy them alongside the models and rules that you're getting, easily and in the color that you like, it's not going to take off.

Do I, like, have to go to the game store after work tomorrow and take pics of the D8s and D10s they have available?

Yes, please waste some time, better yet head to a GW store and do that.

drbored wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
^ I think moving to D10 is unrealistic to begin with. D6 is just too good in terms of accesibiliy (and that alone makes it the right choice), and there is plenty of ability to get granularity using D6s.

We live in the age of the internet. It's NOT hard to buy D8s or D10s.

If you can't buy them alongside the models and rules that you're getting, easily and in the color that you like, it's not going to take off.

On the flip side, if no game is generating the demand for easy access to boxes/bags of d8/d10/d12/etc, then no-one is going to fill that gap in the market.

I'm fairly sure packs of d10 are a thing already, though - maybe via Chessex? I know I've bought them in the past.

Oh, and for the person gibbering about a wargame based around a d20, how far are the goalposts going to move to claim that Infinity doesn't count?

I don't think changing to a d12 or even d20 would be a bad idea in principle, although I agree GW would probably make a mess of it.

 Dysartes wrote:


Oh, and for the person gibbering about a wargame based around a d20, how far are the goalposts going to move to claim that Infinity doesn't count?

Or Vor the Maelstrom?

 Tyran wrote:
At the current scale and model based rules, D6s are the only viable option.

If you want larger dice, either reduce the size of the battles or change to fully abstracted unit based rules. But a game in which you can deploy hundreds of infantry models and expect each one of them to be individually represented by the rules can only be done with D6s.

Quite. I've said it many a time before when these types of threads come up. Either all of these people touting D10s need to have a look at Void and/or actually play a game of it to see what a game of 40k with D10s (and the much lauded AA!) would look like. Go on guys, the rules are free on Seb Games! I played Void back in the early 2000s and, unless 40k wants to go back to a roughly 2nd ed scale of army size, then D10s are just not viable.

Rolling scores of them is just not good for fast rolling, you can quite easily read the pips on D6s quickly, D10s less so. The dice type is just too clunky and the wrong shape for mass rolling that modern 40k demands.