The Gaming Den

In Warhammer, you have an army of tiny guys. All of your guys roll a d6 when they attack with the inverse of their Ballistic Skill as the Target Number (TN) to resolve a hit (ie, if you have a BS of 5, you hit on a 2+; if you have a BS of 2, you hit on a 5+). Each time you hit, you then make a roll to determine if the attack is strong enough to bypass armor. This compares the Strength of the Attack to the Toughness of an opponent; if they're equal, you damage on a 4+. If STR is higher (even a lot higher) it's a 3+ to wound; if it's half as much (ie STR 2 versus Toughness 4) it's a 6+ to wound.

Normally you attack by squad, and squads could have 10 or 20 models. So you have to roll 20d6, determine hits, potentially qualify for re-rolls (usually from a special ability), then roll wounds. But you're not done!

Then the defender has a chance to negate the wounds. Often this means making an armor save, but sometimes it means making an invulnerable save. So if you rolled 20 dice to hit, and you rolled 10 dice to wound, and you scored 5 wounds, now the opponent has to make 5 saves.

Warhammer uses a 10 point scale for attributes (like Ballistic Skill), but since the d6 is so small, the only changes are for Greater/Lesser, and Double/Half - ie, you get a +1 if you have a greater score and a +2 if you have double the score.

It's possible to completely remove the rolling aspect and have units deal fixed damage (this is how it works in Magic: the Gathering), but that's a major change. If luck is completely removed from the game, I think people would find it dissatisfying. So assuming your goal was to REDUCE but not ELIMINATE dice rolling, what changes would you want to implement?

There are certain abilities that characters provide, such as the ability to re-roll 1s (potentially turning a complete miss into a hit). Why 1s and not 4s that miss? Probably because it's the most straightforward guaranteed non-hit... But surely it would be possible to have a character allow 'up to 5 re-rolls' or something, so a 2 that misses is just as valuable as a 1 that misses...

Anyways, as part of a mental exercise for tabletop wargaming design I wanted to throw this out and see what ideas the folk that pop by the den might have. People play Warhammer for the models, not the rules. I'd like to imagine a ruleset that is worth playing for.

I do know there are a lot of other games besides Warhammer, but I'm not familiar with how they handle the mechanics. I might do a deep-dive into table-top-miniature-wargaming-rules, but once again, I'd appreciate the expertise and recommendations of the hive mind.

The various GW Lotr/Hobbit/Middle Earth games put armour into the to wound roll, rather than having an extra step. And fighting is done by a simple die roll off, the fight value (the rough equivalent of WS) comes up only in case of a tie. Though some models have extra attacks, and that's how multiple models fighting one model works, which given it's a die roll off, is very important.

Do you like the idea of a roll-off?

One concern in the modern Warhammer is 'alpha-strike' - essentially their version of Rocket Tag. Going first provides an overwhelming advantage.

One thought I had would be that turn order reverses each round. ie, in round 1 Player A goes first, followed by Player B. In round 2, Player B goes first followed by Player A. Essentially, after the first turn each player will take 2 turns in a row. Extra confusing?

Age of Sigmar currently has a thing where each battle round, you roll to determine who goes first and who goes second, so occasionally you do get a "double turn", and those have a huge impact. Now, when it's not randomised and it's built in "ABBAABBA" (wasn't that a cheat code for most Virgin Interactive games?), that might not be so bad - you can both plan around it.

A better way to do it is probably just make every battle round "We both move -> we both shoot -> we both assault" (or "we both move and declare charges -> we both resolve combat -> we both shoot" or whatever, the point is the other player isn't having their whole turn happen before you get to do anything). Alternatively, a unit-by-unit activation thing, taking turns that way - but if you have weird skew lists (skaven or skeleton legions vs "my army is three giants") then it's going to be hard to balance that.

The various GW Lotr/Hobbit/Middle Earth had you both armies moving and shooting and fighting each turn, with the one who is going first for all of those things (priority) being randomised.

One difference randomising priority makes is someone chasing someone running away from them, if they alternate who moves then it's trivially easy to determine whether or not the runner will be caught and where, but if the pursuer is close enough that winning the turn order roll can put then in base to base and thus combat with the pursued, it's much less predictable.

As for a simple roll off to determine fight results, it seems a bit counter-intuitive, but it does seriously emphasis the importance of ganging up on enemies, which may or may not be important. Though, they did have some modifiers to the roll-off, which also was a big deal, a single -1 to hit because you have a two handed weapon means the two handed weapon person is a bit rubbish unless they are supported by someone else, which may or may not be desirable. Personally I'm against penalties for two handed weapons like that, beyond not holding a shield or something in the other hand, though, but that's another issue.

Those games do seem to want to be able to re-enact lone heroes (or small groups) doing things from the films (not necessarily just fighting), as well as bigger forces with lots of generic randoms involved fighting each other, though.

Oh, actually, first step should probably be defining what the game would look like. I mean, different versions of warhammer have had different numbers of models involved, which may or may not be in regular formations which limited movement and turning arc, heroes and monsters might be flavourful and tactically interesting, or they might dominated the game. It might be made for fighting in green flocked meadows or for besieging castles, magic might be an addendum to a shooting phase or it's own big thing, etc.

You'd probably want to set those in stone first.

Those are good points.

I was looking at One Page Rules, and it looks like each player takes turns activating units. It sounds like players may have different number of units so potentially one player will finish activating all of their units and the other player will be able to activate several units in a row. In that case, the player that has the fewer number of units goes first in the following round.

In a situation where one player has three giants and the other player has 40 squads of Gremlins, that's a pretty big disparity. Presumably getting to use all of three big units in the same time that your opponent gets to use three very small units would tend to favor the larger units. Potentially point costs and durability might help address that point.

For my druthers, I would like a game that can scale up from individual squads to multiple squads to full armies.

My preference would be where a squad takes all of its actions at one time. That could be move + shoot, or move + move, or maybe 'overwatch' (ready shoot). I think that having characters taking actions with their squads would likewise make things easier.

I would also have a preference that rules encourage armies to move. Hiding behind cover may be tactically sound in general, but it doesn't make for dynamic games. Having abilities that reward you for closing with your opponents (such as a bonus for initiating melee) suit me.

deaddmwalking wrote: ↑

Thu May 15, 2025 5:43 pm

I would also have a preference that rules encourage armies to move. Hiding behind cover may be tactically sound in general, but it doesn't make for dynamic games. Having abilities that reward you for closing with your opponents (such as a bonus for initiating melee) suit me.

In that case, I'd recommened bonuses for flanking or catching enemies in a crossfire, though that requires mucking about determining facing and the like.

Recognizing that some units are very powerful and some units are very weak, it's pretty much automatic that players would activate their best unit first if given the choice.

What are the pros/cons of activating each unit in terms of cost (low to high). I can see that would mean the most expensive units always go last, and opponents would have a lot of incentive to try to take them out before they ever take a turn. I feel like that offers some interesting possibilities for how you price powerful units, but it might be too disappointing if you never get to play with your cool toys.

What about a system where every unit has an activation cost that's roughly equivalent to the point cost in hundreds (ie a 200 point unit would cost 2 command points to activate). During the round you get a variable number of command points at a time (like 1d6+5). You could choose to use them right away but then your opponent might be able to activate 2 or 3 smaller units before you have a chance to go again. This would be a little like mana in MtG - reserving some command points might be helpful to activate a passive ability or respond to a stratagem. Each round would have a number of phases - in phase 1 each player generates command points and activates units until they both no longer wish to (or can pay for) additional activations. Phase 2 would add more command points (unspent points would roll over) until every unit has activated. At that point command points would refresh to 0, round 2 would begin, and a new phase would start with generating command points.

Something like that feels like it would roughly balance how many units a horde army can use before an army with elite units can activate another. Units could have abilities that cost command points that could be used out of turn. Something like 'hit the deck (1 command point) - the unit gains the benefit of cover for 1 attack phase. Playing defensive tactics would slow how quickly you activate your units (or whether you can activate your most expensive units right away) so that feels like it would always provide some tactical considerations and provide rough parity in player actions.

deaddmwalking wrote: ↑

Sat May 17, 2025 2:58 am

What are the pros/cons of activating each unit in terms of cost (low to high). I can see that would mean the most expensive units always go last, and opponents would have a lot of incentive to try to take them out before they ever take a turn. I feel like that offers some interesting possibilities for how you price powerful units, but it might be too disappointing if you never get to play with your cool toys.

Hmm, cost doesn't always equate to power/usefulness in context.

Possibly you could try to design things so that due to various conditions, the units you want to be activating aren't always the same, though that seems like it might be more fiddly than worthwhile.

7TV has a mechanic where you get plot points based on the number and value of units you have, and each costs one to activate, but you can also use the plot points to pay for using special abilities or getting rid of affects, though that still greatly (and intentionally) favours the big heroes.

I think Kings of War (Song of Ice and Fire too?) have squads/regiments statted as one big unit that suffers penalties when under half strength.
In Warhammer 40k current edition terms it would be treating blobs of infantry guys the same way Vehicles and Monsters are already treated.

So you have a Carnifex, an Avatar of Khaine, and 10 Harlequin Troupes at Full Strength having the stats as X Y Z.
When the Carnifex, Avatar of Khaine, and 10 Harlequin Troupes suffer X wounds, they now have a penalty to Y and Z.

The way currenthammer infantry/bikes/other smaller dudes points are done, this wouldn't be too hard to convert to. The unit entry could be for 10 Harlequins, and then a starting unit strength of 5 Harlequins means they just fight at that penalized strength until all are wiped out.

Statting units as the whole unit allows for more versatility in attack/defense power... say in currenthammer "all 10 fire dragons have fusion guns" exists alongside "...and one Dark Eldar raider has an anti tank blaster", which results in odd defensive stats for vehicles where the one anti-tank gun is just a scratch so you need 10 for guaranteed destruction, and those 10 guys are also blasting terminators off the board.
Imperial Guard and Ork Boyz can have more tiers, like 30, 20, 10, 5

That's a big change of a suggestion... but part of the visceral fun of 40k is rolling 40 dice as 20 orks shoot. Changing the turn order to "I activate, you activate" would solve a lot of the alpha strike problem.

Fantasy Flight xwing's "Phase 1 Slowest units move first, Phase 2 fastest units attack first" captures the dynamic feeling of dog fights, it could work for Warhams type games too. Orks are traditionally low initiative but can mob up to seize the center zone, Eldar can intentionally take more slowish wraithlords to move up to objectives earlier and the fast guys in antigrav ships are moving later to intercept or hit and run.


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I believe rerolls should be used for 'situations that can change turn to turn', and +/- should be for "permanent upgrades". Warhams has a problem where they just mix it up into a goop, sometimes it's an ability on a guy, sometimes its a universal rule for cover or a temporary debuff or buff. So the way I'd do it is....

1) Situational Terrain (cover), Stratagems and Psychic Powers like energy shielding and so on, are reroll effects like "reroll 6's to wound" "Reroll 6's to hit against units in cover"
2) Gear and permanent effects the model has like a forcefield, special training, grants -/+ type effects like "-1 to be wounded"

I'd also want to see comparing Weapon skills return, would see less of a need for 4++ and defensive buff stacking when heroes fighting heroes hit on a 4+ instead of a 2+. Taking it a step further separating it into "Melee hit" "Melee defense" lets you create different kinds of melee profiles like a tarpit shield toting unit (wraithblade with shield and axe) vs a wild berserker with no thought of defense (space wolf pups, orks, dual blade wraithblades)

OgreBattleFight wrote: ↑

Thu May 29, 2025 8:12 am

I'd also want to see comparing Weapon skills return, would see less of a need for 4++ and defensive buff stacking when heroes fighting heroes hit on a 4+ instead of a 2+. Taking it a step further separating it into "Melee hit" "Melee defense" lets you create different kinds of melee profiles like a tarpit shield toting unit (wraithblade with shield and axe) vs a wild berserker with no thought of defense (space wolf pups, orks, dual blade wraithblades)

I think there's a lot in your entire post to think about and digest, but the portion quoted above makes me want to ask about 'hit expectations'.

D&D is sort of built around the idea of needing a 10+ (55% hit rate) to start. A 0th-level commoner with a +0 to hit trying to hit another commoner with an AC 10, for instance. They could have chosen any number. Base AC could have been 0 (95% hit rate) or 5+ (80% hit rate). In a lot of ways, it feels like D&D started with too low a hit rate.

In a game like 40K where you're going to have limited rounds, is there a 'sweet spot' that you want to aim for? I understand that 'bad units' might need a 5+ or 6, while an elite unit might need a 2+. I feel like Warhammer is built around that same ~50% hit rate. Would it be better if hits were more common, but elite units had other benefits (like resisting damage?)

Hitting more and doing less damage is functionally the same as hitting less, but I'm asking about the psychology - does it feel better to hit and then have the damage negated, or better to just miss? How much missing is too much missing? Especially if you start reducing the number of rolls...

In 40k it was not uncommon for units to have the same toughness value as the strength of their weapons. T3 humans with lasguns, say, compared to T4 marines or orks with bolters. So they have a 50% chance of injuring an equivalent, assuming hitting and failed armour saves, which otherwise would lessen things, often a lot.

So what's better - to hit a lot and have those attacks countered by saves, or to miss a lot but have those hits mostly matter?

deaddmwalking wrote: ↑

Fri May 30, 2025 5:11 pm

So what's better - to hit a lot and have those attacks countered by saves, or to miss a lot but have those hits mostly matter?

I don't think there's any easy answer to that, but I might suspect that hitting the target, who has good armour, feels better than missing the target altogether. You are being defeated by the enemy's defences, not your own inability to hit. Though the later might be more appropriate to certain forces, such as eldar.

It's just a sequence of rolling progressively fewer dice, if players are thinking deeply about the context of the first rolling step vs the second even though they have no difference on what actually happens to the units on the field they're gonna be here all day.

I think there is something mathematically interesting about picking what the neutral positions of the various steps could be tho... Like a 1/6 then a 5/6 is very close to a 4/6 then a 3/6 then a 3/6, but the way it gets affected by +1 bonuses and -1 penalties is very different

A 6 to hit on 1d6 is low, but often in warhammer 40k you are rolling 6 or more dice from the legion of axe wielding orks in melee.

There's also the to-wound and save steps. Its also interesting if terminator armor makes the captain easier to hit, so a buzzsaw ork deff dreadnought's buzzsaw canopeneners can open them easier, but the captain in regular bulk power armor has a good chance of voiding. A slaaneshi duelist greater daemon is just simply more skilled though so the grey knight captains in terminator armor have the right idea.

Doing away with "extra extra saves" like feel no pain, is good.

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Oh yeah "crossfire" "enfilade fire" rules should also be core so maneuvering is important. Warhammer Fantasy was all about ranking up and flank charges, that with bullets and lasers.

Genestealer Cults have a simple version of that rule where you have to sandwich a unit, draw a line through your two friendly squads and the enemy in between is crossfired.



I figure people can eyeball 90 degrees, though there could be arguments over "no it's only 80 degrees"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enfilade_and_defilade

Yeah, arguing over 90 degrees could be an issue, which would be a pain. Drawing line of sight to another friendly unit through the target would be easier, but generally not done IRL, because they you are shooting at a friendly unit with some enemies in the way, which isn't great.

Flanking would be useful if done right, both to make the game more interesting, and because it's been important IRL since forever.

There's a scene in Ronin (a 1998 action flick with Robert DeNiro and Sean Bean, among others) where they're planning an attack on a target. Sean Bean illustrates how if the two teams are on opposite sides of the target, it'll be caught in the cross fire. Robert DeNiro then dismantles him showing that they'll be shooting at each other.

Those GeneStealers firing at the 'exposed' unit would light each other up. The 'Not Exposed' is in more danger because they can open up with all their weapons without fear of hitting each other.

Link to Ronin Clip