[Archive] Topic - Warhammer goes to the dice gods (The long question)

Archive [Archive] Wargame News and Discussion
1

Viskar Zhragoth:

Hello everyone. I have been reading something over on The Warhammer Forum for a while, and it has been humourous and insightful and down right wrong and right in places. It is located here:

http://warhammer.org.uk/PhP/viewtopic.php?t=49954&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Its title is Today’s Discussion Prompt. In it the poster talks bout magic ruining the game of Warhammer. Now, I might agree that certain spells can be OTT and boring after a while, I don’t think Magic per see is ruinging anything.

But something that has bothered me (not ruining, just changing the game to some extent) for some time is brought up by none other than Gavin Thorpe:

I would say that the biggest influence in Warhammer since 6th edition has been the increase of armour saves (including HW+shield, plate armour for knights without movement penalty, the removal of the heavy armour movement penalty, the spreading availability of ward saves) and consequently a massive swing towards the importance of the Strength characteristic - and this is despite bringing down the survivability of the big monsters. So, I could easily say that the hw+shield bonus is ‘ruining’ the game, but that clearly isn’t the case.
Now I agree whole heartedly with this. I think that was one of the  big things Toumas Pirinen was going for, and why his version of poison is so powerful, vs say that each poisoned hit has two chances to wound…still effective, but not nearly as powerful as an auto wound with no roll needed. And yes Hw+shield is not ruining the game, yet. Especially since everyone is now in the habit of doing it. But of course, this makes characters and high str models even more important…especially in conjunction witht he chariot rules…I mean how many top tourney armies don’t have at least one STR 7 attack somewhere…

My problem isn’t even a raise in characters per se…While i am not a big fan of herohammer, currently they are predictable (as it can be). But with HW+ Shield, High str attacks (or lots of medium ones) are king, while movement into combat has changed. Barring horrendous dice rolls one way or the other, you could have predicted most combats between two armies of people who knew how to play the game. Basically, you could figure it out (the mathhammer) and then outmaneuver your opponent after you learned how. But with HW+shield, the extra point of save makes the combat much more reliant on the dice rolls. IE, in basic you used to count on 3-5 wounds from your ten attack unit to your opponents…but now you’ll average 1.5-5…all because of that one pip on the die. So it goes more to the dice rolls…(one reason DE are tough still because that first round of Hatred really can swing things their way (especialy if they charge!)

But as Gav said, it means STR is more important, and the method GW seems to have employed is to keep giving many more attacks (ie 2 attack units, even 2 attack core units - without even having Additional HD weapons!) This puts everything even more into the dice god’s hands…don’t get me wrong I still think you can still outmaneuver your opponent, but it has become harder to do so as the dice gods claim all…

Do you all agree with any of that???

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Godbob and his jolly rogers:

Do you all agree with any of that????

Viskar Zhragoth
Did I get that!!!

No

Could you say again?:)
3

Baggronor:

Dark Elves’ hatred makes rolling to hit better, nothing to do with their strength. Rolling to hit is the dodgiest bit of combat and I would say a re-roll to hit is far better than a bit more strength in a lot of cases.

HW+Shield just makes units with shields harder to kill in HtH, I don’t see why that should make anything more random.

‘Strength becomes important because in general a lot of things are harder to kill’. That isn’t a bad thing. Troops that are harder to kill makes static combat resolution, flank/rear charges and well-planned tactics more important = good thing.

Yes, some people have 2 attacks each. Why does this make anything more random? You know they have 2 attacks each, it makes them better in HtH and cost more points. Are you saying that they should be giving them better strength than more attacks?

4

cornixt:

The more dice you roll, the closer they get to the normal distribution. However, that means that things like combat bonuses become less significant and the dice rolls determine the winners more and more.

When it comes to S and to hit bonuses, a character with basic high strenght is much better with a auto-hit weapon than an auotwound weapon

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Viskar Zhragoth:

Braggnor, yes sorry if unclear, DE get the dice in their favor due to the reroll.

Cornixt: exactly.

Godbob: sorry unclear, I was trying to make two points and hashed them together.

Here it is: The mathhammer

Two units with the same static CR. Both units are WS 4, T 4, ST 4, 2 ATT, LA+SH+HW. Both have command.

In the old rules, these guys get 11 attacks, hitting on 5.5, wounding on 2.75. With only LA and Shield, after saves you get 2.29 wounds.

In the new rules they get 11 attacks, hitting on 5.5, wounding on 2.75. With LA+SH+HW, after saves you get 1.8 wounds through.

And at the face of things there is not too much of a difference, basically with rounding the difference is only .5. But if you shift the dice average, meaning that one play rolls .5 better, than the difference becomes a full point. And if you shift both players (one up and one down), then the difference is 1.5.

So basically the units with more attacks have more chance at being up or down (at least in my games). Basically because of the new units which have more dice, they can go to more extremes, too. (And yes, the more dice you roll the more to even you become, but that is more for units of 100’s or 1,000’s.) So because you are rolling more dice, then the predictablity of a unit to perform varies more now then before. All Static CR being equal, we are more in a range of wounds than we were before (barring a player rolling 3-4 sixes in the old rules.) The increase of armor saves has sent things more to the center of the average chart for saves, making it more affected by good/bad rolls than it was even before.

I have been playing a long time (and admittedly can still remember old rules from time to time-a “old gamer” curse, and the beginning of the end they tell me :wink: ), but I have won several tournaments, placed well in others, and tend to win more than I lose. My friends don’t like it due to my ability to always outmaneuver them…all good players learn how to “see” a few turns ahead, or predict certain outcomes…and I just think it has gone more to the dice gods than the old rules did. It is more up to the rolls of the dice than it is to good manuvering. I am not saying that in a situation where you have skaven slaves attacking chaos warriors this is the case, just when the units are more or less even…And moving your units well is still king, it is just less than it was before because of the “ranges” of the dice rolls

My second point was that I agree with Gavin in that there is more importance on the STr characteristic now than before, and that characters are more important due to their inherit STR boosts, as well as their ability to upgrade this due to weapons, magic items, gifts, etc. And it is not nearly at Herohammer levels, but it makes characters more important and the most “predictable” of units…

But in the current set, big units can clash and do 1-2 wounds at most…not including characters due to the fact thta more people are surviving. The Design studios pattern in the last several books seems to be to give 2 attacks or more and more units as we go along…basically to increase the outcome affect on the CR, they are giving more attacks to “force” the wounds through the armor saves. But, because the dice gods tend to smile on each of us differently by making more dice rolls, it seems to be multiplying this affect of the dice (once again when things are equal…I mean knights still trump most things…but …

One thing is that who gets the charge off is currently skewed a bit, or it seems to me, as players with a “newer” book, can get charged, and still have enough attacks to even out the damage back. where older units are even more hurt by a charge agasint them…they don’t have the #'s to attack back as effectively…this can make moving a unit against a unit less effective and require more and more need for flanks, etc…so I am not unhappy with that aspect. But I wonder if this is a choice of different people in the studio, or if it is just a evolution of the one simple rule of HW+SH. And barring the ability to get into flanks, it seems this proliferation is a shift that is occuring (so far) in many of the books. so will it continue or not?

And I am not trying to whine, I still do pretty well, I just wonder if anyone else sees a shift in the new books at this level…to me it is even more important than the “power creep” some people are complaining about.

Does that make it more clear?

6

Baggronor:

But in the current set, big units can clash and do 1-2 wounds at most...not including characters due to the fact thta more people are surviving. The Design studios pattern in the last several books seems to be to give 2 attacks or more and more units as we go along.....basically to increase the outcome affect on the CR, they are giving more attacks to "force" the wounds through the armor saves.
When is 'before'? All the troops in the recent books with 2 attacks (Ghouls, Daemonettes) had 2 attacks in their old rules, apart from Chaos Warriors and Black Guard (and they both sucked with 1 attack). They are all the sort of troops that should have 2 attacks, and in most cases did. I don't think it has anything to do with the Hw+Shield rule specifically, they are just Hitty troops in Hitty armies. I don't see Skaven or Beastmen getting more attacks each.
One thing is that who gets the charge off is currently skewed a bit, or it seems to me, as players with a "newer" book, can get charged, and still have enough attacks to even out the damage back. where older units are even more hurt by a charge agasint them....they don't have the #'s to attack back as effectively
Like Chaos Warriors? Frankly, you would expect them to, they would be rubbish if they were super-expensive, slow and couldn't even put up a fight when they inevitably got charged. Ghouls? No armour means they die relatively easily and S3 means their opponents get full saves. I do feel the poison is a bit good as it removes the odd roll to wound, but its not that bad. DE? They die as easily as before. Daemonettes? Maybe yes.
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Viskar Zhragoth:

Sorry, I was comparing Warhammer before Hw+SH (ie 5th and earlier) to current rules (ie 6th and later).

But black guard and chaos warriors sucked with 1 attack…as in they weren’t as hitty as other things…but in 5th edition, very few things had 2 attacks…and now lots of things do.

and yes, chaos warriors are tough, but in the old rules if they were outmanuevered then they had to “survive” through armor, etc…they didn’t deal out the punishment like they do now a days.

Maybe it is more an effect of overall power creep, but ever since toumas put in HW+SH and poison, There has been this trend to more attacks and more randomness.

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Baggronor:

and yes, chaos warriors are tough, but in the old rules if they were outmanuevered then they had to "survive" through armor, etc....they didn't deal out the punishment like they do now a days.
Yeah but there was also no outnumbering bonus, and ranks could be 4 wide and still get full bonuses, plus overkill wasn't capped. There is more static combat resolution now. They also had 2 attacks basic, which would double to 4 with the inevitable Banner of Rage, so I think they are still tame now compared to their old rules :) In 3rd they used to have 2 wounds each :cheers
9

snowblizz:

and yes, chaos warriors are tough, but in the old rules if they were outmanuevered then they had to "survive" through armor, etc....they didn't deal out the punishment like they do now a days.
Yeah but there was also no outnumbering bonus, and ranks could be 4 wide and still get full bonuses, plus overkill wasn't capped. There is more static combat resolution now.


Baggronor
I was going to suggest just that. Static combat res has increased, not only due to the outnumber bonus, but due to generally cheaper models.

As I sometimes reflect with a friend, 5th ed dwarf units were 12-16 models MAX, now it's more closer to 20-25. Many more units are able to max out the static combat res and elite units were also docked stats to cut "costs" but it seems they lost their killyness in a much greater degree than they could make up in static combat res.
I agree that HW+SH has impacted the game to a certain degree, a lot of poor troops are now mediocre if not good due to low cost and decent survivability. A 4 point goblin (with equipment) would have better survivability than a 12 point elf. That's why almost all new "elite" units have additional boosts, +1A or some special rule.

I think the fundamental shift is the larger amount of miniatures on the board (increasing static combat res as the dominant factor) which is then further boosted by the much increased survivability HW+SH gives to even poor and mediocre troops. This of course is also why strength is so much better, it affects 2 stats in combat and it does it immediately one point of strength will immediately affect the result, one point of WS or *sigh* I will rarely have any effect.

It seems the balancing is more emphasised on the unit level (which I think is correct, there is only so much sweeping changes can make) which is why I think we see more units with another attack or funky special rules.