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Author Topic: Warhammer 40K to hit chart  (Read 16282 times)

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Offline Brutoni

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Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« on: August 8, 2011, 11:56:49 AM »
This is something that has bothered me for quite some time. Before I go into detail about it in any other thread or post though I do want to ask the community here a question;
 
Does anyone else think the "to hit" table for 40K (and warhammer for that matter) is completely rediculous? Needing x2 + 1 to be hit on a 5+ and with no hitting on a 2+ or being hit on a 6+ being possible.

Despite this models with high WS and I seem to cost as much as models with high T and S. Despite the fact high T and S favours you in many more ways (High T affecting multiple phases... High S being worth more than High WS or I).

Or is this just me?

Offline Shadows Revenge

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #1 on: August 8, 2011, 12:25:29 PM »
the only thing I can say is think about it, if you needed 6s to his something, then 5s to wound, that would be almost no attacks getting through, and visca versa. If you needed 2s to hit and say 3s to wounds, almost all your attacks will go through. It just seems to me to add alittle more random factor. Playing DE it sucks when your uber Archon misses with most of his attacks by rolling alota 1s and 2s, but it happens, and adds just a tad bit more randomness...

Offline Katamari Damacy

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #2 on: August 8, 2011, 12:54:33 PM »
I share Brutonis view here. Depending on how the chart would be altered, there would not be many situations in which the 2s and 6s come into effect as the vast majority of models has a WS between 3 and 5.
But i agree, especially for the glory of Characters and Uberbeings like the Avatar or the Greater Demons, it would be nice to have 2s and 6s. Like a WS10 Avatar should always hit a WS3 at 2+.
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Offline Fealhach

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #3 on: August 8, 2011, 03:39:31 PM »
It always bugged me from 3ed onwards seeing players throwing their cannon-fodder units against the Avatar and routinely succeed in pummelling him to death. Even a combined platoon of Guardsman should be no match for Khaine or a daemon prince and armies should be punished for such recklessness. Such monstrous warriors should be shot to death and if that doesn't work, send in a hero. It's what they exist for, not butchering some hapless mortar squad.

Randomness is good; but expensive, less-than-reliable HQ units aren't. They can't all have two sets of scything talons.

Offline Lachdonin

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #4 on: August 8, 2011, 03:45:14 PM »
I also tend to agree that the 40k To-Hit system is a little... whack. I much rather the Fantasy version, it actually offers something of a benefit to high WS and I characters.
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Offline Zilverscale

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #5 on: August 8, 2011, 03:52:47 PM »
It is wack!

Thus we house ruled it.
We use the to wound chart also for to hit.
The only N's in the chart is for WS 1 & 2
WS1 against WS 9 & 10 and WS 2 against WS 10.

It's also more realistic for WS 3 vs 4 to have a higher to hit number.

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Offline khaine

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #6 on: August 8, 2011, 03:57:25 PM »
iirc at one points 2s and 6s were on the 40k hit chart (RT 1.0 era) but equal WSs hit each other on 5s... (Or I may just be thinking of 3rd ed' WFB)

Then the big switch came with WS+highest attack dice roll came (RT 1.1) which stayed into 2nd ed'.

When they reverted back to the hit table they removed the 2s and 6s but threw in a lot more 4s, basicly to speed up the game as more hits from basic troops means more dead stuff and we all like dead stuff.  :)

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Offline IainC

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #7 on: August 8, 2011, 04:12:48 PM »
I also tend to agree that the 40k To-Hit system is a little... whack. I much rather the Fantasy version, it actually offers something of a benefit to high WS and I characters.
The Fantasy table is exactly the same:
Less than your Ws = 3+
Equal to or up to double = 4+
More than double = 5+

Initiative also does exactly the same thing in both systems unless you also have the Always Strikes First rule.

The reason it goes from 3-5 rather than 2-6 like the wound table is that assaults from high quality troops are much more conclusive than shooting so the table balances assaults with ranged attacks without making it impossible for troops that are outclassed to defend - no matter how good you are, you still miss a third of the time but no matter how bad you are, you still hit a third of the time. That way combat is more of a risk for the high quality troops.
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Offline Lachdonin

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #8 on: August 8, 2011, 04:20:50 PM »

The Fantasy table is exactly the same:
Less than your Ws = 3+
Equal to or up to double = 4+
More than double = 5+

Yeah, Thats my bad. As High Elves, i tend to forget not everyone gets the benefits of Always Strike First, ie that reroll for high I.

Anywho, i think if the goal was to ballance out combat with shooting, they failed misserably at it. Assault is the prefered method of killing in 40k by far, and armies who rely on shooting tend to be heavily penalised because of that.

Still, the fact that the scaling on WS seems to be completely different than the scaling on other stats seems to indicate there are inherent problems with the current design. Couldn't for the life of me come up with a better system, but someone like a Succubus or an Avatar should be untouchable to all but highly trained fighters.
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Offline Katamari Damacy

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #9 on: August 8, 2011, 04:26:05 PM »
Well, there are twice as many rounds of combat as there are shooting phases in a game. Makes sense, but the addition of 2s and 6s, starting maybe at 'twice the WS+/-1" or something would be cool. 6th Edition rumors say that the combat phase and the shooting phase will switch places in the turn structure, plus new 'to hit' tables, which might fundamentally change things anyways.
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Offline khaine

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #10 on: August 8, 2011, 04:32:42 PM »
Still, the fact that the scaling on WS seems to be completely different than the scaling on other stats seems to indicate there are inherent problems with the current design. Couldn't for the life of me come up with a better system, but someone like a Succubus or an Avatar should be untouchable to all but highly trained fighters.

Or that there was an inherent problem with the old design and so it was changed to the current version.

Worth keeping in mind that the current editions of 40k are meant to be less 'hero' based than the older editions, you can argue if that's the case or not but that was the intention GW put forward, to move away from the uber killy characters and focus more on the squads.

With 2s and 6s back on the table it would turn some characters from being good to amazing... Lelith vs a guard squad? Over 10 attacks hitting on 2s with almost no chance of any guardsmen that survived being able to touch her.

Great if you like your Herohammer (And I'm not saying that's a bad thing) but not so great for a game that over the years has put more and more emphasis on basic troops.

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Offline IainC

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #11 on: August 8, 2011, 05:04:18 PM »
Despite this models with high WS and I seem to cost as much as models with high T and S. Despite the fact high T and S favours you in many more ways (High T affecting multiple phases... High S being worth more than High WS or I).

I meant to address this in the earlier post but I forgot. No, Ws and I are not costed at the same level as T and S. Back when there was a formula (late RT, early 2nd ed), the most expensive stats were Attacks, Wounds, Strength and Toughness. Everything else was worth a fraction per point of those stats. When we did 3rd ed, the old formula hadn't been in use for a while (because it wasn't actually very useful in determining how much something should cost) and things were priced based on what they could do rather than what their stats were. So yes the thing with a high Ws might be expensive but it won't be purely because of that stat. It will be because his rules and abilities combined with the high Ws make him worth that cost. There's nothing off the top of my head that I can think of that just has a high Ws; they all have a lot of attacks as well or a high strength or a suite of special rules that give them other advantages in what - as Lachdonin noted - is often the most effective part of the game. I guarantee you that the stats aren't added up to reach a points cost and that adding Ws to a model does not massively add to its cost.
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Offline myles

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #12 on: August 8, 2011, 05:10:44 PM »
It always bugged me from 3ed onwards seeing players throwing their cannon-fodder units against the Avatar and routinely succeed in pummelling him to death. Even a combined platoon of Guardsman should be no match for Khaine or a daemon prince and armies should be punished for such recklessness. Such monstrous warriors should be shot to death and if that doesn't work, send in a hero. It's what they exist for, not butchering some hapless mortar squad.
someone like a Succubus or an Avatar should be untouchable to all but highly trained fighters.

No no no! This is all wrong, the whole point is that you can bring down a heroic creature by weight of numbers!

Don't be fooled by cartoons, it's not that hard to land a blow on someone. Even in Kung Fu movies (where things are highly stylized) most of the fighting involves blocking blows rather than dodging them outright. The 40k to-hit chart reflects this, even against a DE Wych Succubus, when there are ten of you and you're leaping out from behind rocks and bushes, you're going to land some blows; even if they could dodge all of someone's punches, with that many someones, there's nowhere to dodge to. Or in the case of the Avatar, yes it possesses the martial skill of a god, but it's a giant metal statue! Do you really think a full platoon of guardsmen would be unable to land more than a handful of blows? Ridiculous!

Also, don't forget that close combat takes into account more than just fists. There are grenades, point-blank shooting, and a whole gamut of things that skills in hand-to-hand combat would not protect you against.

Plus, the other stats involved in CC cover a lot of the issues and occurrences that the detractors in this thread are thinking about. Yes, a wych would be able to dodge many of her opponent's blows... and look, she has a 4++ save that represents what? Oh yeah! Likewise, an Avatar probably could walk through a full platoon of IG (as long as they didn't have a bunch of JOs with fists ;)) because even though the crush of bodies would mean that the Guardsmen could land some blows, they still have, what, like a 5% chance to wound after to-wounds and saves?




Khaine and IanC covered it pretty well, I think. The current system is fine unless you want the game to be based mostly around incredibly powerful hero units. Which I certainly don't, they're already powerful enough, if you ask me. If you think it's not "realistic" enough, then it's more likely that you're just not being imaginative enough about what's actually happening in CC than that there's a flaw in the basic mechanic.
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Offline Lachdonin

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #13 on: August 8, 2011, 05:19:25 PM »
It always bugged me from 3ed onwards seeing players throwing their cannon-fodder units against the Avatar and routinely succeed in pummelling him to death. Even a combined platoon of Guardsman should be no match for Khaine or a daemon prince and armies should be punished for such recklessness. Such monstrous warriors should be shot to death and if that doesn't work, send in a hero. It's what they exist for, not butchering some hapless mortar squad.
someone like a Succubus or an Avatar should be untouchable to all but highly trained fighters.

No no no! This is all wrong, the whole point is that you can bring down a heroic creature by weight of numbers!

Which brings me back to the problem with scaling. S3 is above normal. S4 is super human. S5 is alien monstrosity. Once you get up to 8+ your talking about things that could rip open blast doors like tinfoil. However, the dfferances between WS3 and WS5 are like going from somewhat competant bar fighter to seasoned martial artist. WS 10 is, at best, a champion martial artist. The whole scaling system just doesn't match up.

As for the Heroes thing, no, the game should not be dominated by all powerful heroes, but they should have more of an impact. As it stands, unless you take some of the mindnumbingly over powered special characters, your 'Heroes', which lets face it are the focal point of almost any naritive, go out with little more than a whimper. I don't mind when my living god is ripped appart by dozens of Gaunts, or a horde of Orks, but when 10 guardsmen can win in combat against an Avatar, its kind of off putting.
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Offline Caustic

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #14 on: August 8, 2011, 05:21:23 PM »
I agree with the above posters that things are fine as they are.  If you were to make the hitting table in Close Combat more sharp then it would fundamentally alter game balance towards assaulting armies, since there are two rounds of Assault Combat for every one round of shooting that takes place and that the 'Locking' rules for Close Combat are so debilitating to shooting in their current form.

Using the previous example of the Avatar of Khaine versus a Guardsman Blob, if you want to be hitting on 2s and me hitting on 5s or 6s then models that aren't engaged in combat (ie locked but not able to contribute attacks) should be able to fire their weapons at him since he is point blank and they are under little threat from him 'bashing them with a rock' so to speak.

Offline IainC

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #15 on: August 8, 2011, 05:29:57 PM »
Which brings me back to the problem with scaling. S3 is above normal. S4 is super human. S5 is alien monstrosity. Once you get up to 8+ your talking about things that could rip open blast doors like tinfoil. However, the dfferances between WS3 and WS5 are like going from somewhat competant bar fighter to seasoned martial artist. WS 10 is, at best, a champion martial artist. The whole scaling system just doesn't match up.

That's because different stats don't have to be on the same scale. Ws 3 is someone who's trained for combat. Ws4 is someone who's trained a whole lot for combat but that level of training is still within reach of an unaugmented Human. Ws5 is possible for an unaugmented Human of heroic ability (Lord Commissars). Ws8 is possible for augmented Humans who have trained all of their lives in very specific ways of killing (Imperial Assassins). The range for stats is not always the same even if the baseline for humans happens to fall at the same point.
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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #16 on: August 8, 2011, 05:36:55 PM »
I meant to address this in the earlier post but I forgot. No, Ws and I are not costed at the same level as T and S. Back when there was a formula (late RT, early 2nd ed), the most expensive stats were Attacks, Wounds, Strength and Toughness. Everything else was worth a fraction per point of those stats. When we did 3rd ed, the old formula hadn't been in use for a while (because it wasn't actually very useful in determining how much something should cost) and things were priced based on what they could do rather than what their stats were. So yes the thing with a high Ws might be expensive but it won't be purely because of that stat. It will be because his rules and abilities combined with the high Ws make him worth that cost. There's nothing off the top of my head that I can think of that just has a high Ws; they all have a lot of attacks as well or a high strength or a suite of special rules that give them other advantages in what - as Lachdonin noted - is often the most effective part of the game. I guarantee you that the stats aren't added up to reach a points cost and that adding Ws to a model does not massively add to its cost.

The problem I have here is that you are assuming that GW operates now the way it did when you worked for them, which is how many years ago now? Based on how the last couple of years have gone it looks abundantly clear to me that GW don't work the way they used to when you were with them.
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Offline IainC

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #17 on: August 8, 2011, 05:46:55 PM »
The problem I have here is that you are assuming that GW operates now the way it did when you worked for them, which is how many years ago now? Based on how the last couple of years have gone it looks abundantly clear to me that GW don't work the way they used to when you were with them.

This is true however the current points structure is still very much based on the work we did for 3rd ed. Things have grown organically from that baseline which was a complete reset of the points system. It's true that I haven't been involved in any of the products since then but, from friends who still work in the Studio and the way that points values for most things have remained relatively steady throughout the intervening editions I can see that the base assumptions that we worked under then are still - for the most part - valid. Not exactly the same of course because the rules have changed after all but they haven't changed in such a way to turn everything on its head.
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Offline Fealhach

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #18 on: August 9, 2011, 01:34:40 AM »
If the table was changed to make it harder to hit high WS characters with scores between 3-6 rather than 3-5, I'd be happy. It's middle ground that won't necessarily break the game considering a lot of people think some characters aren't worth the points we're expected to pay for them.

I'm not so sure comparisons with reality should be the principle argument against a change since there're no such thing as daemons and space marines. It's a fantasy game not historical/modern, so its goals are slightly different; like watching an action film rather than a war documentary.

I'd imagine Lelith gracefully somersaulting over a burning Chimera through a storm of laser fire to landing perfectly amongst a squad of confused Guardsman should end in a stylishly choreographed moment of one-sided slaughter. Having her shiv a couple of Guardsmen before getting a rifle butt in the kidneys and then getting kicked and stomped on by a circle of angry soldiers may be more realistic but that's not what 40k heroes are for.

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Re: Warhammer 40K to hit chart
« Reply #19 on: August 9, 2011, 01:54:03 AM »
I want to bring up this video, old it may be, but it gives a good representation of the WS chart when you think about it:
Blades of War

Avatar with its 10 vs a warlock with 4.  The warlock is still quite capable at combat, and so it might be easier for the avatar to hit him, but that warlock is doing his damnedest not to die.
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