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I do think with Sergeant weaponry (at least with re: SM), the granularity could be parred down a bit.

Dudeface wrote:


You're on a forum where people can't accept les than a 3+ to hit for a carnifex because it's "a melee specialist unit", they used to have at best average WS and I for the reasons you state above, but that mentality is gone largely.

People expect a unit only capable at a thing to be flatly good at that thing.

Well, that's because the Carnifex sucked outside of 3rd and 4th in which you could improve its hit roll by improving its WS and reducing the WS of its target.

In 5th, 6th and 7th Carnifexes were outright crap (then again 5th, 6th and 7th ed Tyranids in general were outright crap).

 Wyldhunt wrote:
I'd be onboard with a return to something like the old WS chart. Models being skillful at landing hits meaning that they're also skillful at parrying, dodging, etc. seems like a decent rule of thumb. Significant outliers could get a special rule to represent as much if it's really needed.

Probably wouldn't use the current S/T comparison though. Either the old chart or Tiberias's (?) revised chart in the Proposed Rules section would work pretty well.

Or if you really wanted to, you could just give all units a different stat for melee defense and melee offense represented by a + or - value that indicates what they add to their to-hit rolls and what the enemy subtracts form their to-hit rolls. So orks might be Offense +1 (good at hitting stuff) but Defense +0 or even +1 (leave themselves open to return attacks.) Guardsmen would probably be Offense +0 and Defense +0. Dire Avengers with their Defensive Tactics might be Offense +1, Defense -1 or something. Generally you'd want these values to stay low (between -1 and +1 with rare outliers). But maybe that's all a little overwrought.

I think GW is trying to avoid ‘complicated’ charts that require new people to constantly refer to, so a comparison in the same vein as S/T interaction is probably the only way we’d realistically get such a mechanism

johnpjones1775 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
Something I forgot about.

A comparative WS mechanic instead of a flat X+ to hit.

This would represent not just a model’s skill in attacking but defending as well.
Would even give a reason to bring the combat shield back, it could give +1WS.

Doesn’t need to be as complicated as old world’s to hit chart, but work the same way as the the S/T interaction for the wound roll.


A WS6 v WS3 match up would have 6 hitting on 2+ and 3 hitting on 6+

Gotta say a guardsmen hitting an orc and a drukhari with the same likelihood is kinda silly.

There's an issue with that, though-just because a Dark Eldar is harder to hit shouldn't automatically them better at hitting too.

A Guardsman hitting an Eldar on a 5+, 6+ for the more skilled ones, sure.
But an Ork only hitting them on a 5+, that don't feel right.

1. With a comparative WS mechanic WS no longer needs to be on a 1-6 scale, so a guardsman can be a 4 an ork a 5 a marine a 6 and an eldar a 7 for their standard troops.
2. Orks are brutes their ‘skill’ in combat is simply being strong, tough, and ferocious. As someone who has spent their lives in martial arts and combat sports ork vs eldar to me is like angry body builder vs lyoto machida.
3. You can use other stats to keep melee relatively even. Orks could have a lot of attacks to represent how ferocious they are. So where a standard eldar might get A2 , a boy might get A4, then strength, so where and eldar might be S3-4 a boy would be S5. How likely you are to hit is only one aspect of how good a unit is in melee.

I've seen people make the case that orks are actually lowkey really good duelists by virtue of their combat instincts. You won't see them fencing with rapiers, but they have a real knack for concepts like how best to block or parry an attack, how to keep your guard up until there's an opening, etc. Regardless, I'm inclined to agree that moderate WS but lots of Attacks for orks is probably a reasonable approach. If we really want them to be better at hitting than blocking, we can give them a rule that lets them treat their WS as 1 higher when they make to-hit rolls or something.

Kanluwen wrote:If you want things to be so complicated, go play a RPG? We don't need all this nonsense to address issues.

What seems complicated? Comparing WS?

Dudeface wrote:
You're on a forum where people can't accept les than a 3+ to hit for a carnifex because it's "a melee specialist unit", they used to have at best average WS and I for the reasons you state above, but that mentality is gone largely.

People expect a unit only capable at a thing to be flatly good at that thing.

Been a while since I've seen people discussing the carnifex, so I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth. But the issue with the carnifex is that while they should be good at their job, they don't necessarily need to be skilled duelists. Basically:

* A carnifex that manages to cross the table and charge its preferred targets (vehicles, monsters, maybe especially heavy infantry) should be able to reliably do some damage.
* A carnifex should probably have ways of avoiding getting bogged down by hordes the same way you'd probably be able to disentangle yourself from a pack of house cats without too much difficulty. That is, the carnifex doesn't need to blend its way through hordes, but it should probably not be stuck killing a couple of models at a time either.
* A carnifex that finds itself in melee with a similarly powerful foe such as a dreadnaught should probably not be especially "skillful." Think hormagaunts vs space marines.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

johnpjones1775 wrote:

I think GW is trying to avoid ‘complicated’ charts that require new people to constantly refer to, so a comparison in the same vein as S/T interaction is probably the only way we’d realistically get such a mechanism

The problem with using literally the S vs T chart/formula is that it gets out of hand almost immediately. You have a WS4 marine hitting a WS3 hormagaunt on 3's, sure, but conversely, that hormagaunt goes from hitting on 4+ to only hitting the marine on a 5+. Which makes a single point of WS a lot more powerful than it was in previous editions. That's why previous editions had the wonky (admittedly hard to remember) chart. WS 4 generally meant you were hitting WS3 units more often and getting hit by WS4 units less often, and WS5 meant you were hitting both of those units on 3s. However, no one started hitting the enemy on 5+ until you got to really big differences like WS3(?) versus WS7.

It make it so good WS was both an offensive and defensive perk, only really rare duelists and gimmicky exceptions reduced units to hitting on 5+. And hitting on 6+ wasn't generally a thing.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:If you want things to be so complicated, go play a RPG? We don't need all this nonsense to address issues.

What seems complicated? Comparing WS?

Do you really want to pretend that it's not needlessly complicating things for the sake of complicating things?

WS shouldn't be an "offensive and a defensive perk". BS isn't an "offensive and a defensive perk", yet the same justifications commonly given for putting WS to a comparative roll could be easily used to turn BS into one.

If you want to showcase how X unit might be a skilled defensive and offensive fighter...put it in the rules for said unit. Despite the rose-tinted memories of many, we had just as many special & bespoke rules back in the day as we did USRs.

Not quite, but yes you could use the same justification to implement a "how hard is something to hit at range" characteristic to compare with BS.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:If you want things to be so complicated, go play a RPG? We don't need all this nonsense to address issues.

What seems complicated? Comparing WS?

Do you really want to pretend that it's not needlessly complicating things for the sake of complicating things?

WS shouldn't be an "offensive and a defensive perk". BS isn't an "offensive and a defensive perk", yet the same justifications commonly given for putting WS to a comparative roll could be easily used to turn BS into one.

If you want to showcase how X unit might be a skilled defensive and offensive fighter...put it in the rules for said unit. Despite the rose-tinted memories of many, we had just as many special & bespoke rules back in the day as we did USRs.

As I proposed it, it’s literally no more complicated than the wound mechanic. BS is different because people don’t dodge, block, or parry bullets, lasers, etc. (at least not intentionally.) the same way people can and do in melee combat. You’re making an apples and oranges comparison.

If you want a game you don’t have to put any thought into the mechanics of the game go play dawn of war or space marine or space marine 2 when it comes out.

If you want a video game, why not just play a video game?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
Not quite, but yes you could use the same justification to implement a "how hard is something to hit at range" characteristic to compare with BS.

not really, even the most nimble fleet footed eldar isn’t intentionally dodging a bullet fired at it, let alone a laser literally moving at or just below the speed of light, so there really isn’t anything to compare against in a reasonable way.

I do think cover should be -1 to hit or something instead of a bonus to armor save.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
Something I forgot about.

A comparative WS mechanic instead of a flat X+ to hit.

This would represent not just a model’s skill in attacking but defending as well.
Would even give a reason to bring the combat shield back, it could give +1WS.

Doesn’t need to be as complicated as old world’s to hit chart, but work the same way as the the S/T interaction for the wound roll.


A WS6 v WS3 match up would have 6 hitting on 2+ and 3 hitting on 6+

Gotta say a guardsmen hitting an orc and a drukhari with the same likelihood is kinda silly.

There's an issue with that, though-just because a Dark Eldar is harder to hit shouldn't automatically them better at hitting too.

A Guardsman hitting an Eldar on a 5+, 6+ for the more skilled ones, sure.
But an Ork only hitting them on a 5+, that don't feel right.

1. With a comparative WS mechanic WS no longer needs to be on a 1-6 scale, so a guardsman can be a 4 an ork a 5 a marine a 6 and an eldar a 7 for their standard troops.
2. Orks are brutes their ‘skill’ in combat is simply being strong, tough, and ferocious. As someone who has spent their lives in martial arts and combat sports ork vs eldar to me is like angry body builder vs lyoto machida.
3. You can use other stats to keep melee relatively even. Orks could have a lot of attacks to represent how ferocious they are. So where a standard eldar might get A2 , a boy might get A4, then strength, so where and eldar might be S3-4 a boy would be S5. How likely you are to hit is only one aspect of how good a unit is in melee.

I've seen people make the case that orks are actually lowkey really good duelists by virtue of their combat instincts. You won't see them fencing with rapiers, but they have a real knack for concepts like how best to block or parry an attack, how to keep your guard up until there's an opening, etc. Regardless, I'm inclined to agree that moderate WS but lots of Attacks for orks is probably a reasonable approach. If we really want them to be better at hitting than blocking, we can give them a rule that lets them treat their WS as 1 higher when they make to-hit rolls or something.

Kanluwen wrote:If you want things to be so complicated, go play a RPG? We don't need all this nonsense to address issues.

What seems complicated? Comparing WS?

Dudeface wrote:
You're on a forum where people can't accept les than a 3+ to hit for a carnifex because it's "a melee specialist unit", they used to have at best average WS and I for the reasons you state above, but that mentality is gone largely.

People expect a unit only capable at a thing to be flatly good at that thing.

Been a while since I've seen people discussing the carnifex, so I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth. But the issue with the carnifex is that while they should be good at their job, they don't necessarily need to be skilled duelists. Basically:

* A carnifex that manages to cross the table and charge its preferred targets (vehicles, monsters, maybe especially heavy infantry) should be able to reliably do some damage.
* A carnifex should probably have ways of avoiding getting bogged down by hordes the same way you'd probably be able to disentangle yourself from a pack of house cats without too much difficulty. That is, the carnifex doesn't need to blend its way through hordes, but it should probably not be stuck killing a couple of models at a time either.
* A carnifex that finds itself in melee with a similarly powerful foe such as a dreadnaught should probably not be especially "skillful." Think hormagaunts vs space marines.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

johnpjones1775 wrote:

I think GW is trying to avoid ‘complicated’ charts that require new people to constantly refer to, so a comparison in the same vein as S/T interaction is probably the only way we’d realistically get such a mechanism

The problem with using literally the S vs T chart/formula is that it gets out of hand almost immediately. You have a WS4 marine hitting a WS3 hormagaunt on 3's, sure, but conversely, that hormagaunt goes from hitting on 4+ to only hitting the marine on a 5+. Which makes a single point of WS a lot more powerful than it was in previous editions. That's why previous editions had the wonky (admittedly hard to remember) chart. WS 4 generally meant you were hitting WS3 units more often and getting hit by WS4 units less often, and WS5 meant you were hitting both of those units on 3s. However, no one started hitting the enemy on 5+ until you got to really big differences like WS3(?) versus WS7.

It make it so good WS was both an offensive and defensive perk, only really rare duelists and gimmicky exceptions reduced units to hitting on 5+. And hitting on 6+ wasn't generally a thing.

As you said, there are ways to buff or debuff the hit roll to represent excellent defense or offense.

Imho it should be near impossible for a standard guardsman to reliably hit a drukhari in melee. Same with a marine.
So yeah, an ork could have a debuff to hit, while also only hitting an eldar on a 5+.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:If you want things to be so complicated, go play a RPG? We don't need all this nonsense to address issues.

What seems complicated? Comparing WS?

Do you really want to pretend that it's not needlessly complicating things for the sake of complicating things?

It's really not "complicated." Hard to memorize the chart? Sure. And that would be a valid criticism. But "complicated" isn't the word. It's just seeing where a given X and Y axis value meet on a table. You use the same skills to look at the screen at a pizza place and see how long it will take for your order to be ready.

WS shouldn't be an "offensive and a defensive perk". BS isn't an "offensive and a defensive perk", yet the same justifications commonly given for putting WS to a comparative roll could be easily used to turn BS into one.

People have made a case for an "Evasion" stat that gets compared to BS in the past, and I think that's a reasonable suggestion as well. WS is basically the stat that represents how well you move and swing your sword in melee. The skills you use to know when and how to thrust generally go hand-in-hand with the skills that let you know when and how to parry. So having both melee and ranged to-hit rolls is a reasonable ask. BS vs BS is just a bit more of a stretch than BS vs "Evasion" or whatever.

As for why we'd want an opposed roll in the first place, it generally makes sense that an expert melee combatant is pretty good at not getting stabbed to death. You expect Lucius the Eternal or Lelith Hesperax to be better at melee defense than the average guardsman. In the same way that you'd have an easier time landing a punch on some nerd like myself than you would on a professional MMA fighter.

If you want to showcase how X unit might be a skilled defensive and offensive fighter...put it in the rules for said unit. Despite the rose-tinted memories of many, we had just as many special & bespoke rules back in the day as we did USRs.

I literally pitched something to that effect just a couple posts ago, my silly fellow:

Or if you really wanted to, you could just give all units a different stat for melee defense and melee offense represented by a + or - value that indicates what they add to their to-hit rolls and what the enemy subtracts form their to-hit rolls. So orks might be Offense +1 (good at hitting stuff) but Defense +0 or even +1 (leave themselves open to return attacks.) Guardsmen would probably be Offense +0 and Defense +0. Dire Avengers with their Defensive Tactics might be Offense +1, Defense -1 or something. Generally you'd want these values to stay low (between -1 and +1 with rare outliers). But maybe that's all a little overwrought.

^Probably horribly worded, and certainly not the only way to do the idea, but still.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

not really, even the most nimble fleet footed eldar isn’t intentionally dodging a bullet fired at it, let alone a laser literally moving at or just below the speed of light, so there really isn’t anything to compare against in a reasonable way.

I do think cover should be -1 to hit or something instead of a bonus to armor save.

You don't dodge the bullet midair. You just make a point of moving quickly, erratically, and between pieces of cover such that you become difficult to aim at. Which eldar with their superhuman speed and agility absolutely do.

Cover as a to-hit penalty has some potential. That's how some cover worked in recent editions. The tricky thing is that to-hit penalties currently don't stack and get out of hand quickly when they do. And can be pretty brutal against certain armies.

Consider instead an Evasion stat that gets compared to BS in a similar way to how WS was once compared to WS. And then letting cover provide a modifier to that. So a unit in cover might gain +1 Evasion. A unit behind cover that's also moving at high speeds might have +2. Popping your mirage launchers while you do it? That's +3. Etc.

I'm a big fan of comparing WS/WS and BS/BS when determining successful hits. I'd love that to be in the game as it's quite fluffy. We all intuitively understand a better melee combatant beating out a less skilled opponent. For BS/BS comparisons a trained sniper makes far better use of cover, then a GI would simply from their specialized training in ranged combat.

johnpjones1775 wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Not quite, but yes you could use the same justification to implement a "how hard is something to hit at range" characteristic to compare with BS.

not really, even the most nimble fleet footed eldar isn’t intentionally dodging a bullet fired at it, let alone a laser literally moving at or just below the speed of light, so there really isn’t anything to compare against in a reasonable way.

I mean the upper end of the Eldar like Harlequins, Succubi and even Wyches do dodge bullets and lasers, which is currently represented by invulnerable saves.

But even for more "standard" eldar infantry, they are likely far harder targets to hit than firing at a Baneblade that is so large a half blind guardsman could hit just by firing in its general direction.

Part of the point of such characteristic is not just to represent super nimble targets, but also big and relatively slow heavy targets like tanks and monsters that should be easier to hit.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:If you want things to be so complicated, go play a RPG? We don't need all this nonsense to address issues.

What seems complicated? Comparing WS?

Do you really want to pretend that it's not needlessly complicating things for the sake of complicating things?

It's really not "complicated." Hard to memorize the chart? Sure. And that would be a valid criticism. But "complicated" isn't the word. It's just seeing where a given X and Y axis value meet on a table. You use the same skills to look at the screen at a pizza place and see how long it will take for your order to be ready.

WS shouldn't be an "offensive and a defensive perk". BS isn't an "offensive and a defensive perk", yet the same justifications commonly given for putting WS to a comparative roll could be easily used to turn BS into one.

People have made a case for an "Evasion" stat that gets compared to BS in the past, and I think that's a reasonable suggestion as well. WS is basically the stat that represents how well you move and swing your sword in melee. The skills you use to know when and how to thrust generally go hand-in-hand with the skills that let you know when and how to parry. So having both melee and ranged to-hit rolls is a reasonable ask. BS vs BS is just a bit more of a stretch than BS vs "Evasion" or whatever.

As for why we'd want an opposed roll in the first place, it generally makes sense that an expert melee combatant is pretty good at not getting stabbed to death. You expect Lucius the Eternal or Lelith Hesperax to be better at melee defense than the average guardsman. In the same way that you'd have an easier time landing a punch on some nerd like myself than you would on a professional MMA fighter.

If you want to showcase how X unit might be a skilled defensive and offensive fighter...put it in the rules for said unit. Despite the rose-tinted memories of many, we had just as many special & bespoke rules back in the day as we did USRs.

I literally pitched something to that effect just a couple posts ago, my silly fellow:

Or if you really wanted to, you could just give all units a different stat for melee defense and melee offense represented by a + or - value that indicates what they add to their to-hit rolls and what the enemy subtracts form their to-hit rolls. So orks might be Offense +1 (good at hitting stuff) but Defense +0 or even +1 (leave themselves open to return attacks.) Guardsmen would probably be Offense +0 and Defense +0. Dire Avengers with their Defensive Tactics might be Offense +1, Defense -1 or something. Generally you'd want these values to stay low (between -1 and +1 with rare outliers). But maybe that's all a little overwrought.

^Probably horribly worded, and certainly not the only way to do the idea, but still.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

not really, even the most nimble fleet footed eldar isn’t intentionally dodging a bullet fired at it, let alone a laser literally moving at or just below the speed of light, so there really isn’t anything to compare against in a reasonable way.

I do think cover should be -1 to hit or something instead of a bonus to armor save.

You don't dodge the bullet midair. You just make a point of moving quickly, erratically, and between pieces of cover such that you become difficult to aim at. Which eldar with their superhuman speed and agility absolutely do.

Cover as a to-hit penalty has some potential. That's how some cover worked in recent editions. The tricky thing is that to-hit penalties currently don't stack and get out of hand quickly when they do. And can be pretty brutal against certain armies.

Consider instead an Evasion stat that gets compared to BS in a similar way to how WS was once compared to WS. And then letting cover provide a modifier to that. So a unit in cover might gain +1 Evasion. A unit behind cover that's also moving at high speeds might have +2. Popping your mirage launchers while you do it? That's +3. Etc.

exactly running cover to cover is something that a skilled shooter can account for, therefore a comparative test for BS is pretty silly. I’m very familiar with both shooting, and melee fighting in person, and there’s no realistic way to justify comparing BS to a stat on the target. Failing on the hit roll for BS can represent a flat out miss, it can represent hitting the cover, it can represent the target tripping and falling instead of having their head taken off.

But the idea a guardsmen has a 50/50 chance of hitting a marine or eldari in combat is just silly.

johnpjones1775 wrote:
exactly running cover to cover is something that a skilled shooter can account for, therefore a comparative test for BS is pretty silly. I’m very familiar with both shooting, and melee fighting in person, and there’s no realistic way to justify comparing BS to a stat on the target. Failing on the hit roll for BS can represent a flat out miss, it can represent hitting the cover, it can represent the target tripping and falling instead of having their head taken off.

But the idea a guardsmen has a 50/50 chance of hitting a marine or eldari in combat is just silly.

You've fought humans, I assume?
Not space elves with reflexes a thousand times better than any real human can have?
Or daemons from hell that are literally magically fast?

Tyran also has a good point-something like a Baneblade or even a Fortification is going to be leagues easier to hit than even an ordinary human target-it's larger and its movement is more predictable. (In the case of a building, it's literally NOT moving.)

Edit: Also, while it's nice to have each step represent its abstraction accurately, it's important to also look at the whole of the action.

A Guardsman has 1/18 chance of doing any damage to a Marine-not lethal damage, just damage.
A Marine is more than three times as likely to damage a Guardsman, and one damage kills them rather than just injuring.

exactly running cover to cover is something that a skilled shooter can account for, therefore a comparative test for BS is pretty silly. I’m very familiar with both shooting, and melee fighting in person, and there’s no realistic way to justify comparing BS to a stat on the target. Failing on the hit roll for BS can represent a flat out miss, it can represent hitting the cover, it can represent the target tripping and falling instead of having their head taken off.

But the idea a guardsmen has a 50/50 chance of hitting a marine or eldari in combat is just silly.

I'd argue that compensating for a moving target is comparable to a duelist compensating for his opponent's reflexes or fighting style by opting to use a certain technique, target a certain area, etc.

Our hypothetical "Evasion" stat would just be a "how hard is this thing to hit?" stat. You may be the best marksman in the world, but it's still easier to hit a large, slow target moving in a straight line than a small, quick, erratically moving one, right?

Broad side of a barn: Evasion 1.
Wings of a fly at 50 paces: Evasion 10.

I'm a big fan of comparing WS/WS and BS/BS when determining successful hits. I'd love that to be in the game as it's quite fluffy. We all intuitively understand a better melee combatant beating out a less skilled opponent. For BS/BS comparisons a trained sniper makes far better use of cover, then a GI would simply from their specialized training in ranged combat.

BS vs BS gets a little weird. A genestealer traditionally has terrible or null BS, but they're notoriously difficult to hit due to their superhuman speed. A tyrannofex* is huge and frequently stationary but has a better ballistic skill than an ork kommando. Which one would you have an easier time hitting?

There would probably be a tendency for models with good BS to also have good Evasion thanks to the training/skills you pointed out, but they probably shouldn't literally be the same stat.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

exactly running cover to cover is something that a skilled shooter can account for, therefore a comparative test for BS is pretty silly. I’m very familiar with both shooting, and melee fighting in person, and there’s no realistic way to justify comparing BS to a stat on the target. Failing on the hit roll for BS can represent a flat out miss, it can represent hitting the cover, it can represent the target tripping and falling instead of having their head taken off.

But the idea a guardsmen has a 50/50 chance of hitting a marine or eldari in combat is just silly.

I'd argue that compensating for a moving target is comparable to a duelist compensating for his opponent's reflexes or fighting style by opting to use a certain technique, target a certain area, etc.

Our hypothetical "Evasion" stat would just be a "how hard is this thing to hit?" stat. You may be the best marksman in the world, but it's still easier to hit a large, slow target moving in a straight line than a small, quick, erratically moving one, right?

Broad side of a barn: Evasion 1.
Wings of a fly at 50 paces: Evasion 10.

I'm a big fan of comparing WS/WS and BS/BS when determining successful hits. I'd love that to be in the game as it's quite fluffy. We all intuitively understand a better melee combatant beating out a less skilled opponent. For BS/BS comparisons a trained sniper makes far better use of cover, then a GI would simply from their specialized training in ranged combat.

BS vs BS gets a little weird. A genestealer traditionally has terrible or null BS, but they're notoriously difficult to hit due to their superhuman speed. A tyrannofex* is huge and frequently stationary but has a better ballistic skill than an ork kommando. Which one would you have an easier time hitting?

There would probably be a tendency for models with good BS to also have good Evasion thanks to the training/skills you pointed out, but they probably shouldn't literally be the same stat.

You can argue that, but you’d be 100% wrong.

I’ve hit a jet ski moving at 20+mph from roughly 1000-1200 yds with my first 2-3 shots, that was much easier to do, than land a clean punch or kick in a Muay Thai fight.

It’s not even remotely a comparable pair of skills. Again, the target your shooting isn’t actively reacting to your shots in order to make you miss. In melee your target is actively trying to respond to a specific attack.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
exactly running cover to cover is something that a skilled shooter can account for, therefore a comparative test for BS is pretty silly. I’m very familiar with both shooting, and melee fighting in person, and there’s no realistic way to justify comparing BS to a stat on the target. Failing on the hit roll for BS can represent a flat out miss, it can represent hitting the cover, it can represent the target tripping and falling instead of having their head taken off.

But the idea a guardsmen has a 50/50 chance of hitting a marine or eldari in combat is just silly.

You've fought humans, I assume?
Not space elves with reflexes a thousand times better than any real human can have?
Or daemons from hell that are literally magically fast?

Tyran also has a good point-something like a Baneblade or even a Fortification is going to be leagues easier to hit than even an ordinary human target-it's larger and its movement is more predictable. (In the case of a building, it's literally NOT moving.)

Edit: Also, while it's nice to have each step represent its abstraction accurately, it's important to also look at the whole of the action.

A Guardsman has 1/18 chance of doing any damage to a Marine-not lethal damage, just damage.
A Marine is more than three times as likely to damage a Guardsman, and one damage kills them rather than just injuring.

Chance to damage is a different argument from chance to stab or bludgeon a marine.

You can argue that, but you’d be 100% wrong.

I’ve hit a jet ski moving at 20+mph from roughly 1000-1200 yds with my first 2-3 shots, that was much easier to do, than land a clean punch or kick in a Muay Thai fight.

It’s not even remotely a comparable pair of skills. Again, the target your shooting isn’t actively reacting to your shots in order to make you miss. In melee your target is actively trying to respond to a specific attack.

I guess I'm unclear on what you're trying to say here. I'm not arguing that shooting things is easier or harder than punching people. Nor am I arguing that people being hard to punch makes them harder to shoot? I'm not sure why you're comparing shooting to punching at all here.

I get that you're the world's most badass marksman or whatever, but you agree that there are shots that are easier to hit and shots that are harder to hit, right? If I asked you to shoot a target the size of a truck from 10 feet away 100 times and then asked you to hit a target the size of a penny from a mile away while riding on horseback 100 times... you'd miss a lot more of the latter shots than the former, right? That's what the Evasion stat would represent. Some targets are more difficult to consistently shoot than others.

I don't think either of us is making the case that opposed WS doesn't make sense, so I'll refrain from addresing the muay thai thing.

EDIT: Oh! Did you think I was arguing that melee skills somehow translated to BS skills or vice versa? No. What I was saying earlier was that your level of skill in a melee fight impacts how easy it is for your opponent to hit you in melee. In a boxing match, a trained boxer would do a better job of keeping his guard up, maintainign his distance, etc. than some untrained amateur who's never been in a fight. So comparing WS to WS makes sense. Comparing BS to BS makes sense up to a point (knowing how to shoot might reasonably mean knowing how to avoid getting shot), but it's not the only factor, and 40k has lots of units that shoot well but are probably easy to shoot at or that shoot poorly but are probably relatively hard to shoot at.

ccs wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
My hope for 11th edition starts with every single 10th edition rulebook - digital and physical - and every prototype, backup etc. of such spontaneously combusting.

And then every single person at GW who has advocated for no-model, no-rules follows suit.

Can we switch the spontaneous combustion out for simply vanishing?

Because the collateral damage from the resulting fires would be really costly & inconvenient.

I suppose I could settle for vanishing, but like Wyldhunt says I don't make the rules.

 JNAProductions wrote:
There's an issue with that, though-just because a Dark Eldar is harder to hit shouldn't automatically them better at hitting too.

Actually, if a model has good weapon skill, it would be reasonable to assume it includes offence and defence/parrying.

I know that the rules give the impression of exchanging blows, but realistically you would be expecting them to try and dodge/parry/block one another whilst fighting - not just for protection but also because doing so is often how you create openings to attack.

Put simply, offence and defence in melee are intertwined.


That said, I'd be open to a single 'Dodge' stat that you could compare both WS and BS to.

I feel like this gets said every edition, but here's what I honestly want. GET. RID. OF. SMALL ARMS. KILLING/WOUNDING.TANKS.

A Grot blaster, no matter how unlikely, should NEVER be able to chip a wound off a titan. Much less a Rhino. I am all for if the Toughness is greater than Double the Strength of the weapon, Make wounding impossible.

I know all the really good arguments against this, "IT'll invalidate half my faction etc." But I think in certain cicumstances, we can bend. For instance, Guard squads, Nid Swarm Talons might have a keyword that if en-mass attacks hit, it gains Armor Penetration or something. But yeah. I think Tankers shouldn't fear a horde of pox walkers and their s2 attacks.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I feel like this gets said every edition, but here's what I honestly want. GET. RID. OF. SMALL ARMS. KILLING/WOUNDING.TANKS.

A Grot blaster, no matter how unlikely, should NEVER be able to chip a wound off a titan. Much less a Rhino. I am all for if the Toughness is greater than Double the Strength of the weapon, Make wounding impossible.

I know all the really good arguments against this, "IT'll invalidate half my faction etc." But I think in certain cicumstances, we can bend. For instance, Guard squads, Nid Swarm Talons might have a keyword that if en-mass attacks hit, it gains Armor Penetration or something. But yeah. I think Tankers shouldn't fear a horde of pox walkers and their s2 attacks.

this whole arguement is litterally irrelevant, its such a mathematically small odd of happening that its basically already a rule in the game.....

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I feel like this gets said every edition, but here's what I honestly want. GET. RID. OF. SMALL ARMS. KILLING/WOUNDING.TANKS.

A Grot blaster, no matter how unlikely, should NEVER be able to chip a wound off a titan. Much less a Rhino. I am all for if the Toughness is greater than Double the Strength of the weapon, Make wounding impossible.

I know all the really good arguments against this, "IT'll invalidate half my faction etc." But I think in certain cicumstances, we can bend. For instance, Guard squads, Nid Swarm Talons might have a keyword that if en-mass attacks hit, it gains Armor Penetration or something. But yeah. I think Tankers shouldn't fear a horde of pox walkers and their s2 attacks.

So currently small arms are bad at hurting tanks, but you want to take that small chance away. Then you want to give it back but in the form of special rules? To your mind, what is the key difference that makes gaunts doing next to no damage with conventional attacks bad but doing next to no damage with a special rule good?

Also, presumably you'd be making actual anti-tank weapons better at their job to make up for small arms no longer being able to contribute, right? So when I do use my anti-tank weapons, your tanks will die even faster than they do now?

It seems an easy "mod" to test just by house-ruling that you cannot wound Toughness three times or more higher than your Strenght.

It probably would change nothing.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

You can argue that, but you’d be 100% wrong.

I’ve hit a jet ski moving at 20+mph from roughly 1000-1200 yds with my first 2-3 shots, that was much easier to do, than land a clean punch or kick in a Muay Thai fight.

It’s not even remotely a comparable pair of skills. Again, the target your shooting isn’t actively reacting to your shots in order to make you miss. In melee your target is actively trying to respond to a specific attack.

I guess I'm unclear on what you're trying to say here. I'm not arguing that shooting things is easier or harder than punching people. Nor am I arguing that people being hard to punch makes them harder to shoot? I'm not sure why you're comparing shooting to punching at all here.

I get that you're the world's most badass marksman or whatever, but you agree that there are shots that are easier to hit and shots that are harder to hit, right? If I asked you to shoot a target the size of a truck from 10 feet away 100 times and then asked you to hit a target the size of a penny from a mile away while riding on horseback 100 times... you'd miss a lot more of the latter shots than the former, right? That's what the Evasion stat would represent. Some targets are more difficult to consistently shoot than others.

I don't think either of us is making the case that opposed WS doesn't make sense, so I'll refrain from addresing the muay thai thing.

EDIT: Oh! Did you think I was arguing that melee skills somehow translated to BS skills or vice versa? No. What I was saying earlier was that your level of skill in a melee fight impacts how easy it is for your opponent to hit you in melee. In a boxing match, a trained boxer would do a better job of keeping his guard up, maintainign his distance, etc. than some untrained amateur who's never been in a fight. So comparing WS to WS makes sense. Comparing BS to BS makes sense up to a point (knowing how to shoot might reasonably mean knowing how to avoid getting shot), but it's not the only factor, and 40k has lots of units that shoot well but are probably easy to shoot at or that shoot poorly but are probably relatively hard to shoot at.

If you want to suggest a bonus for shooting at units that remained stationary sure.

The point I was trying to make is no one is actively trying to counter a specific bullet/laser beam/plasma ball/etc. people may try running or driving or flying in erratic patterns to make shooting them harder, but something like that has nothing to do with the ballistic skill otherwise known as BS of the model(s) being targeted.
It’s not a good analogy to melee where the target very much can feasibly react to individual attack (punches, kicks, stabs, slashes) that someone makes towards them.
And saying a guardsman has a 50/50 chance slog bayoneting a space marine is like saying a 5 yr old has the same 50/50 chance of bayoneting and adult as they do another 5yr old.

 Tyran wrote:
It seems an easy "mod" to test just by house-ruling that you cannot wound Toughness three times or more higher than your Strenght.

It probably would change nothing.

It would make Knights impervious to bolter fire and chainswords.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I feel like this gets said every edition, but here's what I honestly want. GET. RID. OF. SMALL ARMS. KILLING/WOUNDING.TANKS.

A Grot blaster, no matter how unlikely, should NEVER be able to chip a wound off a titan. Much less a Rhino. I am all for if the Toughness is greater than Double the Strength of the weapon, Make wounding impossible.

I know all the really good arguments against this, "IT'll invalidate half my faction etc." But I think in certain cicumstances, we can bend. For instance, Guard squads, Nid Swarm Talons might have a keyword that if en-mass attacks hit, it gains Armor Penetration or something. But yeah. I think Tankers shouldn't fear a horde of pox walkers and their s2 attacks.

That argument I’ve already addressed.

If you have to fire 100+ shots with a S3-5 AP0 weapon to realistically do 1 or 2 damage to a T10 vehicle, then said army is already invalidated as is.
However, good luck for the attacker should not ever allow 18 damage through on a T10+ target.
Good luck should not allow a lasgun to finish off a repulsor executioner.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
It seems an easy "mod" to test just by house-ruling that you cannot wound Toughness three times or more higher than your Strenght.

It probably would change nothing.

It would make Knights impervious to bolter fire and chainswords.

... Is SM vs Knights dependent on bolter fire and chainswords?

 Tyran wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
It seems an easy "mod" to test just by house-ruling that you cannot wound Toughness three times or more higher than your Strenght.

It probably would change nothing.

It would make Knights impervious to bolter fire and chainswords.

... Is SM vs Knights dependent on bolter fire and chainswords?

I think the point is that would be a good thing.

No assault intercessors getting lucky with their chainswords cutting out 4-9 wounds.

 Tyran wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
It seems an easy "mod" to test just by house-ruling that you cannot wound Toughness three times or more higher than your Strenght.

It probably would change nothing.

It would make Knights impervious to bolter fire and chainswords.

... Is SM vs Knights dependent on bolter fire and chainswords?

If you make them roll enough saves, they'll fail some of them.

Conversely, it means that if the Knight player can wipe out everything that's S5+, there's literally no stopping them.

johnpjones1775 wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

You can argue that, but you’d be 100% wrong.

I’ve hit a jet ski moving at 20+mph from roughly 1000-1200 yds with my first 2-3 shots, that was much easier to do, than land a clean punch or kick in a Muay Thai fight.

It’s not even remotely a comparable pair of skills. Again, the target your shooting isn’t actively reacting to your shots in order to make you miss. In melee your target is actively trying to respond to a specific attack.

I guess I'm unclear on what you're trying to say here. I'm not arguing that shooting things is easier or harder than punching people. Nor am I arguing that people being hard to punch makes them harder to shoot? I'm not sure why you're comparing shooting to punching at all here.

I get that you're the world's most badass marksman or whatever, but you agree that there are shots that are easier to hit and shots that are harder to hit, right? If I asked you to shoot a target the size of a truck from 10 feet away 100 times and then asked you to hit a target the size of a penny from a mile away while riding on horseback 100 times... you'd miss a lot more of the latter shots than the former, right? That's what the Evasion stat would represent. Some targets are more difficult to consistently shoot than others.

I don't think either of us is making the case that opposed WS doesn't make sense, so I'll refrain from addresing the muay thai thing.

EDIT: Oh! Did you think I was arguing that melee skills somehow translated to BS skills or vice versa? No. What I was saying earlier was that your level of skill in a melee fight impacts how easy it is for your opponent to hit you in melee. In a boxing match, a trained boxer would do a better job of keeping his guard up, maintainign his distance, etc. than some untrained amateur who's never been in a fight. So comparing WS to WS makes sense. Comparing BS to BS makes sense up to a point (knowing how to shoot might reasonably mean knowing how to avoid getting shot), but it's not the only factor, and 40k has lots of units that shoot well but are probably easy to shoot at or that shoot poorly but are probably relatively hard to shoot at.

If you want to suggest a bonus for shooting at units that remained stationary sure.

The point I was trying to make is no one is actively trying to counter a specific bullet/laser beam/plasma ball/etc. people may try running or driving or flying in erratic patterns to make shooting them harder, but something like that has nothing to do with the ballistic skill otherwise known as BS of the model(s) being targeted.
It’s not a good analogy to melee where the target very much can feasibly react to individual attack (punches, kicks, stabs, slashes) that someone makes towards them.
And saying a guardsman has a 50/50 chance slog bayoneting a space marine is like saying a 5 yr old has the same 50/50 chance of bayoneting and adult as they do another 5yr old.

It's pretty clear from what Wyldhunt has said that evasion and BS are not the same thing and that you shouldn't be using BSvsBS like WS vs WS?

If you went back to pre 8th ed 40k where Initiative existed, then you could easily use that as the opposing value against BS as it reflects the ability of the target to make themselves more difficult to attack, whether by out predicting the opponent's actions, making better use of cover, or their preternatural senses that allow them to see/hear/smell incoming fire and move before it gets there.

40k absolutely has examples of warriors that have reflexes faster than a bullet, so literally dodging bullets exists in the setting. The entire eldar species spans the range of preternaturally fast and able to predict the opponent's actions ahead of time to avoid being where they expect you to be, to literally blitzing across the battlefield and doing matrix moves between bullets.

We also know that in real warfare, the number of bullets fired to the number of causalities caused is huge, thousands of rounds for a single casualty. Even against insurgent/low skilled opponents. In a wargame it's not satisfying to roll lots of dice and have nothing happen, so the mechanics are abstracted. But each dice that hits a target in 40k can represent dozens to thousands of rounds fired.

If it takes ~250,000 rounds for each afghan insurgent casualty, then how many rounds do you think would need to be fired if those soldiers were fighting eldar or genestealers with their unnaturally high reflexes, precognition etc?

If the only difference in chance of hitting an enemy combatant was the shooter's skill, then veteran units wouldn't exist and casualty rates would be identical amongst green battalions as veteran ones. But the numbers say otherwise. Ergo, some aspect of the target's experience/knowledge/skill/reflexes plays a tangible role in their survival.

I think BA Assault Marines with Jump Packs and the like would argue that small arms in the right hands, can be devastating.

That is my point. Make AT Weapons have good use as AT, but not chain swords, Hurricane Bolters, Assault cannons, and general anti horde
weapons. Force the player to pay for Power Axes and Thunder Hammers. Don't just let them have AT and Anti infantry in the base load out, and later via strats or unit abilities.

I am just arguing for a line in the sand here.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think BA Assault Marines with Jump Packs and the like would argue that small arms in the right hands, can be devastating.

That is my point. Make AT Weapons have good use as AT, but not chain swords, Hurricane Bolters, Assault cannons, and general anti horde
weapons. Force the player to pay for Power Axes and Thunder Hammers. Don't just let them have AT and Anti infantry in the base load out, and later via strats or unit abilities.

I am just arguing for a line in the sand here.

So what's the cut-off?

Can a Nob with a Big Choppa hurt a Rhino?
What about a Nob with a Choppa?
Marine with a Power Weapon?
Boy with a Choppa?