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Because armor is on the outside!

Yeah but it would just slow the game down honestly

warpedpig wrote:
Yeah but it would just slow the game down honestly

Yeah that

Also, it's more fun to have the last say in if a unit lives or dies be the defender. Definitely so for the defender, and I'd also imagine it would feel a bit crappy to get through armor saves and then fail to wound after?

If anything maybe take the cover save +1 away and implement a cover save after hit rolls mechanic. Make it as normal cover on a 5 + the hit misses showing the environment your in cover for is taking the hit for you.

 ph34r wrote:
Also, it's more fun to have the last say in if a unit lives or dies be the defender. Definitely so for the defender, and I'd also imagine it would feel a bit crappy to get through armor saves and then fail to wound after?

It really doesn't matter who rolls the dice though.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 ph34r wrote:
Also, it's more fun to have the last say in if a unit lives or dies be the defender. Definitely so for the defender, and I'd also imagine it would feel a bit crappy to get through armor saves and then fail to wound after?

It really doesn't matter who rolls the dice though.

It doesn't matter on a "does this actually change outcomes?" basis, which is fine and everything, but that's no reason to choose a bad option on the "feels good to play" dimension, imo.

What ph34r said. This topic comes up every now and again. Basically, it's mildly slower to go back and forth when resolving the dice pools rather than just having each player roll all of his own pools in succession. Saves you from having to re-count the number of dice in your hand based on the results of your opponent's roll.

Possibly painting with too broad a brush here, but I get the impression that people who really really want to roll saves before wounds just struggle with the concept of abstraction. The entire attack resolution process is a math-y way to abstractly account for various advantages and disadvantages, the results of which we can then interpret to tell a story. A successful to-hit roll doesn't necessarily mean that your shot literally hit the target.

I believe that it can affect things when it comes to rerolls, let's have a quick mathhammer on it:

24 shots (4+ to hit), 12 hits (4+, rerolled, to wound), 9 wounds (3+ to save), 3 wounds go through.

24 shots (4+ to hit), 12 hits (3+ to save), 4 failed saves (4+, rerolled, to wound), 3 wounds go through.

Huh. Thought that that would have made a difference!

The other thing is any abilities which trigger on a 6 t owound - the more dice you roll, the more chance you have of rolling a 6. Saving first would mean the saves roll more dice, and the wounds roll less. Same deal with saves which trigger on a 6+, such as what the necron shield dudes used to do IIRC.

A lot of effects that trigger on a 6 it wouldn't affect. Stuff like exploding 6s wouldn't affect the average, although the deviation (meaning reliability/consistency) would be a little different depending on order.

Importantly there's quite a lot of effects triggered on to-wounds that directly impact the armour save. EG "on a 6 to wound gain -3 AP" or whatever, these would become useless, and rules like mortal wounds would be substantially nerfed.

But most importantly is just time and convenience. It's a lot faster to have one person roll everything, then the other person.

FunkAztec wrote:
If anything maybe take the cover save +1 away and implement a cover save after hit rolls mechanic. Make it as normal cover on a 5 + the hit misses showing the environment your in cover for is taking the hit for you.

Edit,
yea, fun idea.

Cover saves used to be a thing but instead of armour saves. Adding another roll for cover before the armour save slows the game down again. Adding a modifier to the save roll helps change the likelihood of an attack being effective without substantially changing he time required to resolve the attack.

 Flinty wrote:
Cover saves used to be a thing but instead of armour saves. Adding another roll for cover before the armour save slows the game down again. Adding a modifier to the save roll helps change the likelihood of an attack being effective without substantially changing he time required to resolve the attack.

Current implementation of cover disproportionately benefits armies with good saves, who should need cover the least.

Would it work to have cover do both?

Light cover: 5++ from shooting
Medium Cover: 4++ from shooting, +1 to armour saves
Heavy Cover: 3++ from shooting, +2 to armour saves

Alternatively I think modifying the strength would work (cover takes the impact out of the hit, not the AP).

Light cover: -1 to strength of weapons shooting through it (min 1)
Medium cover: -2
Heavy Cover: -3


Making cover more effective against small-arms fire for infantry and more effective against anti-tank for vehicles, without too much crossover.

Lasguns through medium cover is S1, so wounds marines on 6's, tanks on 6's, basically everything on 6's.
Bolters is S2, so same
Plasmaguns are S5, so 3's for marines but down to 4's on Orks.
Lascannon is down to S7 through medium cover so wounds on a 3+ on marines instead of a 2+.

Perhaps combining the two would make even more sense:

Light cover: 6++, -1S
Med cover: 5++, -2S
Heavy cover: 4++, -3S

ruins being medium cover, fortifications being heavy, and forests and such being light.

Gives a place for all those crazily high strength weapons out there, so they can shrug off cover.
Also makes flamers ignoring cover a really useful ability instead of being meh beause most flamers have bad AP.

Yep this is something i've always found weird.

it should be does the armor save model from damage, then, is that damage serious enough to kill or seriously wound said unit.

johnpjones1775 wrote:
Yep this is something i've always found weird.

it should be does the armor save model from damage, then, is that damage serious enough to kill or seriously wound said unit.

But it's an abstraction though. What is the advantage of changing the order you roll the dice?

Basically, it's mildly slower to go back and forth when resolving the dice pools rather than just having each player roll all of his own pools in succession. Saves you from having to re-count the number of dice in your hand based on the results of your opponent's roll.

warpedpig wrote:
Yeah but it would just slow the game down honestly

it really wouldn't you'd just be switching the time each roll is done...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
Yep this is something i've always found weird.

it should be does the armor save model from damage, then, is that damage serious enough to kill or seriously wound said unit.

But it's an abstraction though. What is the advantage of changing the order you roll the dice?

Basically, it's mildly slower to go back and forth when resolving the dice pools rather than just having each player roll all of his own pools in succession. Saves you from having to re-count the number of dice in your hand based on the results of your opponent's roll.

it simply makes more sense.
people use the 'its an abstraction' argument to excuse a lot of gak that makes no sense. like why HFs have AP-1

johnpjones1775 wrote:

warpedpig wrote:
Yeah but it would just slow the game down honestly

it really wouldn't you'd just be switching the time each roll is done...

Changing the order does slow the game down because you have to add in the time it takes to tell the other player how many dice to roll plus the time it takes them to collect those dice. Currently, letting one player simply scoop up their successful to-hit rolls and immediately use them for to-wound rolls means that the process flows pretty quickly. Changing the order to to-hit (player A), saves (player B), wounds (player A) adds to the number of times that "hand off" happens.

It doesn't add a huge amount of time, but it does add time.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:

johnpjones1775 wrote:
Yep this is something i've always found weird.

it should be does the armor save model from damage, then, is that damage serious enough to kill or seriously wound said unit.

But it's an abstraction though. What is the advantage of changing the order you roll the dice?

Basically, it's mildly slower to go back and forth when resolving the dice pools rather than just having each player roll all of his own pools in succession. Saves you from having to re-count the number of dice in your hand based on the results of your opponent's roll.

it simply makes more sense.
people use the 'its an abstraction' argument to excuse a lot of gak that makes no sense. like why HFs have AP-1

It's mathematically irrelevant.

Me doing 2 things then you doing a thing is faster and more convenient than me doing a thing, you doing a thing, and then me doing a thing.

Those are the only 2 things that matter.

The entirely subjective feeling of 'one should go before the other because I feel like it' does not matter.