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But shouldn't the basic wounding mechanic be changed from toughness first with an armor save to instead a roll to pierce with a toughness save? Seeing as how that's how it'd happen in real life, and it virtually changes nothing except makes it a little more realistic.

The bullet hits the armor. The armor breaks. The bullet then goes into the body, but the body survived on its own toughness.

It's an abstraction. It's just quicker for your opponent to collect their dice pool, roll some dice, pick up the hits and roll them again than to...

1. collect dice pool
2. roll to-hit
3. wait for you to collect your saves dice pool
4. wait for you to roll all possible armor saves/feel no pain
5. collect their to-wound dice pool
6. roll to-wound

It just flows more smoothly. Less switching between players and picking up fresh dice (as opposed to just picking up "hits" from the first roll).

EDIT: Rolling saves after-the-fact doesn't mean the bullet somehow hits the armor after hitting skin any more than assault 2 means a shuriken catapult only fires two projectiles. Space marines also aren't dying to the first bullet to hit a weak spot in their armor; they're dying to the 20th "minor" injury to be sustained from a salvo of fire. Abstraction.

If abstraction isn't the opposite of dynamic, it sure sounds close.

 Quarterdime wrote:
If abstraction isn't the opposite of dynamic, it sure sounds close.

"Dynamic" in what sense? Unless I'm missing something, you're proposing the exact same system that's already in place, but with the rolls in a different order. Which, while not a big deal, would probably take slightly more time to perform.

EDIT: After re-reading, it looks like maybe you're proposing that instead of to-wound rolls, we have "to-pierce" rolls and "toughness saves?" In which case, you're presumable creating the exact same system and just renaming the rolls?

EDIT: After re-reading, it looks like maybe you're proposing that instead of to-wound rolls, we have "to-pierce" rolls and "toughness saves?" In which case, you're presumable creating the exact same system and just renaming the rolls?