Something that has always confused me

[SotonShades]

Hello boys, girls and those much scarier denizens of the Forum.

This one isn't a rules query as such, more a discussion point. I've been playing 40k for the better part of a decade and half and since day one this has puzzled me. The order of To Hit, To Wound and then Saves doesn't seem to make sense to my fragile little mind.

Now I understand that from a streamlining point of view "player one rolling all his dice followed by player two rolling all of his" makes a lot of sense, but as long as you have two players who are actually paying attention to the game, I can't see why this approach wouldn't work;

• Player 1 rolls to hit with all of his shooting
• Player 2 allocates all the hits in the exact same way as wound allocation is currently (if necessary)
• Player 2 takes any saves availible (armour, cover, invulnerable; all on a per model basis)
• Player 1 rolls to wound (based on the stats of the weapon and the actual model it is wounding)

So example time, possibly to make myself a little more clear;

A Space Marine Tactical Squad fires at a Chaos Space Marine Squad of 6 Marines and a Champion. 9 Bolter Shots hit, as well as a Melta gun and a Krak Missile Launcher.
The Chaos player assigns the Krak Missile Shot and the Melta gun shot to 2 of the three models in cover and distributes the bolter shots among the 6 Marines and the Champion (who isn't in cover) including the two who have taken .
This leaves the Champion with 1 bolter hit against him, which he saves with his armour save, 8 Bolter shots on Chaos Marines, 3 of which fail their armour save, the melta shot on a Chaos Marine (who makes his cover save) and the missile on a chaos marine (who fails his).
The Space Marine player rolls to wound with the three bolters and the missile, killing 3 Chaos Marines in total.

The advantages here are that only models in cover actually get cover saves (no worrying if enough of the squad is in cover to qualify) and units with multiple toughnesses/armour saves take the wounds on the right models... no chance of Ork Runt herds dieing because their Gretchin charges are so much punier than they are. I'm fairly certain you end up rolling more or less the same number of dice in total; Player 2 has more armour saves, but Player 1 would have fewer To Wound rolls. I'm sure we have some Mathammer experts amoungst us who can prove me right/wrong.

Now I can see that this could potentially get complicated, especially with complex units shooting at other complaex, multi-statline units that are part in cover, part out. If this was in the general game I'm do get the impression you would end up with every lascannon armed Marine and Melta-armed Guardman in the galaxy aiming for terrain rather than enemy troopers, but how is that different to now, where you end up with both the lascannon and the melta hitting and killing one guy while the lasgun shots hit everyone else? However, to me it makes more sense. You are hit, your armour stops the bullet/energy/mystical force, fine. You are hit, your armour fails, do you actually get hurt?

Equally, I imagine going through this at every inititive value in combat could potentially get tedious (though speeded up by the lack of cover saves muddling the issue).

What do you lovely people think? Am I just a little crazy (yes...) and possibly sleep deprived at the moment, or does this approach actually make any sort of sense? Would you prefer to be rolling to kill at the end or do you like that you can thwart your opponant after he has rolled particularly well. Would it actually make much difference to the number of models removed from a particular round of shooting?

Let the good times, beer and lengthy discussions/arguments roll...

Shades

[Tynskel]

this is sounding like a previous edition.

been there, done that.

Quite frankly, the 5th Edition way is pretty darn quick. you just roll to hit, roll to wound. Then your opponent (who, if smart, has multiple dice) assigns all the damage. Then rolls.

Pretty darn quick.

if there is an argument about cover, +/- for cover. pretty simple.

[Wildeybeast]

Its hit/wound/save for beacuse that's how it work in Warhammer. It works that way beacuse the S of the weapon modifiers your armour save in Warhammer. GW likes to keep a similar core rule base across its games. I don't see any point to your proposed system, their doesn't seem either much benefit or disadvantage, so why bother?

[thecactusman17]

Hello boys, girls and those much scarier denizens of the Forum.

This one isn't a rules query as such, more a discussion point. I've been playing 40k for the better part of a decade and half and since day one this has puzzled me. The order of To Hit, To Wound and then Saves doesn't seem to make sense to my fragile little mind.

Now I understand that from a streamlining point of view "player one rolling all his dice followed by player two rolling all of his" makes a lot of sense, but as long as you have two players who are actually paying attention to the game, I can't see why this approach wouldn't work;

• Player 1 rolls to hit with all of his shooting
• Player 2 allocates all the hits in the exact same way as wound allocation is currently (if necessary)
• Player 2 takes any saves availible (armour, cover, invulnerable; all on a per model basis)
• Player 1 rolls to wound (based on the stats of the weapon and the actual model it is wounding)

So example time, possibly to make myself a little more clear;

A Space Marine Tactical Squad fires at a Chaos Space Marine Squad of 6 Marines and a Champion. 9 Bolter Shots hit, as well as a Melta gun and a Krak Missile Launcher.
The Chaos player assigns the Krak Missile Shot and the Melta gun shot to 2 of the three models in cover and distributes the bolter shots among the 6 Marines and the Champion (who isn't in cover) including the two who have taken .
This leaves the Champion with 1 bolter hit against him, which he saves with his armour save, 8 Bolter shots on Chaos Marines, 3 of which fail their armour save, the melta shot on a Chaos Marine (who makes his cover save) and the missile on a chaos marine (who fails his).
The Space Marine player rolls to wound with the three bolters and the missile, killing 3 Chaos Marines in total.

The advantages here are that only models in cover actually get cover saves (no worrying if enough of the squad is in cover to qualify) and units with multiple toughnesses/armour saves take the wounds on the right models... no chance of Ork Runt herds dieing because their Gretchin charges are so much punier than they are. I'm fairly certain you end up rolling more or less the same number of dice in total; Player 2 has more armour saves, but Player 1 would have fewer To Wound rolls. I'm sure we have some Mathammer experts amoungst us who can prove me right/wrong.

Now I can see that this could potentially get complicated, especially with complex units shooting at other complaex, multi-statline units that are part in cover, part out. If this was in the general game I'm do get the impression you would end up with every lascannon armed Marine and Melta-armed Guardman in the galaxy aiming for terrain rather than enemy troopers, but how is that different to now, where you end up with both the lascannon and the melta hitting and killing one guy while the lasgun shots hit everyone else? However, to me it makes more sense. You are hit, your armour stops the bullet/energy/mystical force, fine. You are hit, your armour fails, do you actually get hurt?

Equally, I imagine going through this at every inititive value in combat could potentially get tedious (though speeded up by the lack of cover saves muddling the issue).

What do you lovely people think? Am I just a little crazy (yes...) and possibly sleep deprived at the moment, or does this approach actually make any sort of sense? Would you prefer to be rolling to kill at the end or do you like that you can thwart your opponant after he has rolled particularly well. Would it actually make much difference to the number of models removed from a particular round of shooting?

Let the good times, beer and lengthy discussions/arguments roll...

Shades

I would advise no, because when you factor in things like reroll to hit it's possible to have way more saves to make after rolling to hit than you would have rolling to wound. For example, a 50-man guard unit all shooting lasrifles with First Rank Second Rank is going to force your opponent to take about 75 saves when in reality there will only be about 20-30 done to marines. That's a huge difference and would effectively negate any potential saves against actual wounds.

[Bean]

Yeah, I've actually proposed that exact system before. It would make more sense and make for a better game, mechanics-wise, though it would slow the game down some small amount.

[Denzark]

If you do as you say, rolling some succesful saves will save the attacking player making to wound rolls. If you roll the to wound first the failures will save the defending player making some saves.

six of one, half of dozen? Works OK now?

[DrLove42]

OK the current sense doesn't make sense in the order provided.

However if you change the wording of wounding to "Causes the potential to wound"

Therefore you hit, then cause the potential to wound....but only after they fail their armour save!

[dannyat2460]

I agree your way would be more "real" but the problem is it is a game and doing things life like is too annoying like if you wanted to do the shooting like that id want to so my saves more like real life.

eg. 1st as the projectile flies towards the target it passes some cover, i take a save for this, it then passes the cover my model is behind, i take another save.

2nd the projectile passes all cover and is on track to the target so before it actualy hits i have my supernatural/ shields (invuns) so my Terminator Captain with Storm Shield I should get a 3++ from the shield a 4++ from my Iron Halo and a 5++ from my Terminator Crux.

3rd and finally after getting through the shields it encounters the phisical barrier of armour and when through that you would have to then roll to see where it has hit and how much damage it had caused

[KingStuart]

I agree that allocating hits is a lot better (that's the only real difference between your way and the current method; as you suggest rearranging the order if rolls is inconsequential) as then cover saves become easier and the guys out in the open don't benefit from their squadmates cover.

The one thing this change might make is that you would be even more likely to snipe a special weapon or sergeant.

Also the question of saves, I would like a change where you can take a cover save, an invul save and an armour save much like in Fastasy, though this would require a massive change to a lot of points values...