Discussion of AoS Rules Crunch

[OkayestDM]

I was originally going to post this in the "What do you want to see in AOS 3.0" thread, but realized that a large portion of this post was just about what I thought of the current rules, so I figured I'd make my own thread rather than bog that one down.

Things like Battleshock and turn order have been analyzed to death (quite hotly in some cases), so I'd rather we steer clear of those. I want to go over some the other rules and how they interact with each other, and see other people's views on the subject. Everybody's play experience is different, and I'm always happy to hear other perspectives on things.

For myself, I play 8 different armies ranging from recent and very powerful to old and very not. I play casually against friends, and don't go to stores, clubs, or tournaments.

Wall of text incoming . . .

Here's my take on some of the rules in the game, particularly related to combat profiles:

Mortal Wounds "In addition" on a 6 to hit - This is an ability that should be very rare in the game, as it represents a tangible increase in killing power. It would be a great way to up the lethality of Monsters, and a great way to add some punch to a hero, as those are solo models with limited weapon profiles that most people seem to agree could use a little love.  It might also have a place on super elite units like Dracothian Guard or Morghast, but in general shouldn't be something that many units have access to. At the very least, I'd like it to become a buff that requires a spell or command ability to activate.

Mortal Wounds on a hit and the attack sequence ends - On 6s to hit, I think this is a great ability. It's a nice boost to a unit's efficiency without being overwhelming, it streamlines play by reducing the number of rolls needed, and even with a large number of attacks it won't crop up too much (barring the inevitable spike, but that can go both ways.) Getting it on 5+s is a bit more questionable, but if a unit has fewer attacks and/or less efficient weapon profiles it can still be made to work.

Mortal wounds on a 6 to wound - Be it "in addition" or "attack sequence ends" (not sure if the latter one is a thing), I'm ok with this one. You have to get past the gatekeeper of your hit rolls and typically won't be working with as many dice. I still don't think it should be given out like candy, but it's a good way to give more elite combat units that extra bit of punch.

Mortal wounds on a 6 to save - This is an pretty rare ability and is a fun way to flavor more violent/aggressive factions.  I'm fine with this one so long as it remains uncommon. (Do any Khorne have access to this ability? If not, they really should, at least on the more elite guys.)

6s (or 5+s) to hit generate 2 hits -  This one's fine.  Sure, you're adding dice to the pool but you aren't over-complicating the rolling sequence, and most people like to roll lots of dice. You still have to roll wounds, and your opponent still gets to save. Just don't go overboard and give most armies abilities to turn it into 3 hits or 4 hits. Keep that rare.

6s to hit add to damage/rend- Please no. This just make the rolls more complicated. Now we have to split everything up when we make our wound rolls, and in addition we've still got a good chance of failing those wound rolls and wind up doing all that book keeping for nothing.

6s to wound add to damage/rend- Not sure how common this rule is, but this is how I'd prefer it to work for all armies. At least this way you wouldn't trigger a rare cool ability only to loose it before you even made it to the save phase.

Reroll 1s to hit/wound - This is fine. It adds a little more efficiency to attack profiles but isn't make or break, and it isn't complicated.

Reroll 1s to save - Again, this is fine. It's not a dramatic improvement in unit survivability, but can come in handy.

Reroll all hits/wounds- This is another ability that should be on the rarer side. This has a much bigger impact on a units killing efficiency, especially when paired with any of the abilities above. On its own however, it still isn't terrible and can be countered with good saves. When you're rerolling hits and wounds on the same attack though, it can get ridiculous.

Reroll all saves - This one is tricky because its efficiency is tied both to how good your save is and how high your opponent's rend is. In general though, it's still a significant leap in a unit's survivability. My feelings on this are going to be dependent on just how lethal the game-state is overall. At present I consider it ok, but don't like that it can interact with bonuses to save, which can make it incredibly powerful.

Reroll failed hits/wounds/saves- No. The other abilities may be more powerful, but they require far less book keeping. I'm delighted that the game is phasing this out and hope they never bring it back. 

+1 to hit/wound- I'm ok with these so long as they're tied to command abilities or spells. Free aura abilities from heroes should be rare (a good bonus for named characters to have, as they're supposed to be stand-out figures to begin with.) I never like these when tied to unit sizes, and I don't like when they can be stacked. 

-1 to hit/wound- While technically a good way to increase survivability, you're making your units better by making your opponent's units worse. A bit of a feel-bad for the other player. Capping it at -1 in melee and making it generally less common is probably the best way to go. I wouldn't remove it entirely because it is a strongly thematic ability for certain armies. Allowing the -1 penalties to stack against shooting would be fine, especially if this became part of the terrain rules.

+1 to save - Saves are trickier to balance because unlike hit/wound profiles they only rely on one die roll. Changing the value of the save, even by 1 point, represents a dramatic shift in that unit's ability to survive being attacked. Significantly more so if you add rerolls into the mix. If its going to be part of the game, I'd rather it be part of a spell or command ability and only able to affect one unit at a time. (Making it a named character aura that affects multiple units might be acceptable, so long as the aura isn't huge.) This is another ability that I think should cap at a +1 maximum bonus.

-1 to save - This ability is almost nonexistent outside of rend. In general, I'm fine with it. The few non-rend related iterations of this ability are powerful, but not game breaking and very thematic abilities that make sense.  Should definitely remain rare, however, otherwise its interaction with rend could imbalance things very quickly.

Rend -  This is a good mechanic and should be a player's go-to for dealing with high-save units. -1 rend is a good addition to tough combat units and balances pretty well in most cases. -2 rend is significantly more powerful and as a result should be rarer (monsters, heroes, and elite units only in my opinion). Anything -3 or higher should only go to the most powerful monsters or characters  Adding spells or command abilities to improve rend by -1 would be a great option to have in any army's toolbox, but it would have to be a rare ability that couldn't stack.

Rend and Mortal Wounds - This is one of my main bones of contention, because I feel like this is where the games combat currently faces it's greatest imbalance. I prefer Rend because it's something that the defending player can still typically interact with and attempt to resist. With mortal wounds its a ******-shoot, some armies have strong ways to ignore them, some weak ones, and some none at all.  This makes it very hard to balance, particularly since both are so prevalent throughout the game.

Ignore Rend of -1 - Not a terrible ability so long as the army benefiting from it doesn't have a lot of ways to buff saves to 3+. Actually a very good ability for armies with lower saves to increase their survivability, which is how I would prefer it to be used.

Ignore Rend-  I've heard a number of people say that Nighthaunt gaining this as an Allegiance ability is the reason we have so many mortal wounds floating around . I don't mind it if it's tied to  a spell or command ability, as that introduces either a tactical cost or a chance of failure.  In truth, though, it isn't an outrageously powerful ability unless paired with high saves. Keeping it rare is better though, to my mind.

Ignore Mortal Wounds on a 4+/5+/6+ - I question the wisdom of having this ability trigger on a 4+, but 5+/6+  both seem perfectly acceptable to me so long as they aren't rerollable and can't be used together.

Ignore all wounds on a 4+/5+/6+ - 4+ should be the rarest by far. It makes sense for very select heroes or monsters, but I'd prefer that it wasn't available to large units at all as it can become oppressive very quickly. As above, I think the 5+/6+ are fine so long as they aren't rerollable and can't be used together.

 

Here's some things I wouldn't mind seeing added to the pool:

6s to hit Auto-Wound- I know I'm not the first to bring this up, but I think this a great idea that would speed up play and give some units a little extra bite without unbalancing the game too much. I'd be fine with a 5+ variant as well.

6s to wound generate 2 wounds - Again, a nice way to make a unit more dangerous, but still something that an opponent has a chance to save themselves from. No 5+ variant for this one though I think.

6s to save generate 2 saves - I like the idea of this, but I would prefer it be a spell or command ability that targets a single unit to keep it from getting out of hand. No 5+ version for this one either.

[Enoby]

I agree with a lot of what you've said here, especially with how some abilities should be rarer than they currently are. I don't know how easy it would be to reverse this MW spam trend though - it'd take either a mass rewrite of battletomes/warscrolls or some overall cap like "a unit can only suffer 5 mortal wounds a turn" which would be very hard to balance. 

I think the AoS extra rules add a lot, but they have created a bit of a bottleneck in warscroll design were most abilities boil down to one of the above, and as they try to make all warscrolls stand out, you tend to get powercreep in the form that these abilities get more common over time. For example, the chaos sorcerer lord went from RR1s on wounds, saves, and hit to RR all (wounds and hits from spell, save from ability) on Slaves only. 

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

42 minutes ago, OkayestDM said:

6s to hit add to damage/rend- Please no. This just make the rolls more complicated. Now we have to split everything up when we make our wound rolls, and in addition we've still got a good chance of failing those wound rolls and wind up doing all that book keeping for nothing.

Absolutely agree with the book keeping issue on this one and would be happy to see it go.  (Would be fine for the Wound version to go as well but you’re right it is at least less book keeping.)

As regards the rest I admit I am torn.  On the one hand I agree that there is a bit of an arms race where units get Save bonuses (whether positive modifiers or Rend reducers) or Wound/MW negations making them that much harder to get off the table so then more Hit, Wound, Rend and MW modifiers get dolled out.  This leads to a weird pillow fight stalemate for certain well buffed units where one side is dishing out a ton but the other side is Saving or negating much of it.  Yet it also limits the utility of other lesser buffed units that now “evaporate on impact”.  I can understand the appeal of breaking out of the feedback loop escalation.

On the other hand I also see the need to better differentiate between units or weapon choices within units.  Since I just started playing them I’ll use Fyreslayers as an example.  Vulkite Berzerkers have only an okay Save, with an internal buff that comes at cost of reduced offensive firepower and a couple Hero and Prayer ways to buff, and no negation but get a once per battle pile-in on death ability, which benefits from their ability to be taken in larger numbers.  Hearthguard Berzerkers on the other hand have a very powerful negation and access to all the same external buffs so I believe that for one turn a game I can get them to a 2+/4++ rerolling Save Rolls of 1.  This is at least partially offset by their being taken in smaller units.

While many would argue that the differences between these two units is so heavily favored towards the Hearthguard Berzerkers as to limit the utility of Vulkite Berzerkers at a minimum it is very clear that these are very distinct units despite starting at very similar 2W/5+ Save/4” Move base profiles.  Then within each unit you get a choice of attack profiles.  Within Hearthguard Berzerkers you have to choose between having the MWs on unmodified 6s but no Rend and lower damage vs no MWs but Rend and higher damage.  This gives you two different tools for your army allowing you to choose targets that maximize the weapon choice’s characteristics.  Similarly the Vulkite Berzerkers offer a choice of distinct weapon profiles.

Now Fyreslayers are notorious for having a limited model range but still show how these are tools for differentiation.  As soon as we switch to factions with a lot more units the need for tools to differentiate beyond the rather limited space of 3+ to 5+ to Hit and Wound (as 2+ and 6+ are both relatively rare and should remain so).  If differentiation was the only point of these buffs and they were used relatively discretely I’m guessing you wouldn’t have as much an issue.  But of course it has gone beyond differentiation of units to differentiation of factions or sub-factions, increasing not only the proliferation but also the extent to which buffs stack.

Trying to find the Goldilocks here where there is distinction between units but every roll doesn’t have an arcane mix of modifiers constantly in conflict with each other is a tricky one I’ll agree.

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

56 minutes ago, OkayestDM said:

Rend -  This is a good mechanic and should be a player's go-to for dealing with high-save units. -1 rend is a good addition to tough combat units and balances pretty well in most cases. -2 rend is significantly more powerful and as a result should be rarer (monsters, heroes, and elite units only in my opinion). Anything -3 or higher should only go to the most powerful monsters or characters  Adding spells or command abilities to improve rend by -1 would be a great option to have in any army's toolbox, but it would have to be a rare ability that couldn't stack.

Rend and Mortal Wounds - This is one of my main bones of contention, because I feel like this is where the games combat currently faces it's greatest imbalance. I prefer Rend because it's something that the defending player can still typically interact with and attempt to resist. With mortal wounds its a ******-shoot, some armies have strong ways to ignore them, some weak ones, and some none at all.  This makes it very hard to balance, particularly since both are so prevalent throughout the game.

After doing some math on the subject, I have a rule of thumb about rend:

If you have a unit that is good at dealing damage, they can hope to deal with up to 4+ saves with no rend. After that you need rend.

A 4+ save effectively doubles the wounds of a unit against rend '-'. With the usual buffs (extra attacks, extra damage, bonuses to hit and wound) a fighty unit should be able to overcome that, regardless of rend. However, to reliably deal with 3+ saves, you need rend because the effective wounds are outpaced by what you can make up for with just volume, damage or quality of attacks. A 3+ save effectively multiplies your wounds by 3, and a 2+ save multiplies them by 6. So, effectively, the higher the target's save the more effective rend gets: If you move from a times 6 multiplier to times 3, from rend -1 against a 2+ save, that's effectively doubling your damage output. Against 6+, it's only an effective damage multiplier of x1.16.

Of course there are a lot of moving parts here. Number of attacks, damage, different profiles... But as a rule of thumb it works. I think it also gives us some insight into a dynamic that the rules would support well, but which is not found in game at the moment: High quality, low rend attacks vs. low quality, high rend. In theory, that should be a real choice: Do I want a unit that can deal enough damage to wipe out a horde, or do I want one that has enough rend to take down a high-armoured target? Or do I take the middle ground unit that performs OK against both, but not as good against either? The tools to implement these kinds of units are there, but they are currently not taken advantage of well, because all the really good elite units can deal with both hordes and high armour.

And that does not even take mortal wounds into account. From my perspective, the role of mortal wounds is to show up in low volumes and in situations where we don't want saves to come into the equation, like magic. To cast a spell, you already need to win two dice rolls (cast and unbind). Adding saves on top would just be excessive. So a spell doing a small number of mortal wounds (1d3 or 1d6 mortals to single target or even 1 mortal on a 5+ for every model in a unit) seems like a good use for the mechanic. Same for "once per turn/battle" abilites like Gyrocopter bombs. But currently, we have models with the ability to deal high volumes of mortal wounds through magic (Kroak) and mortal wounds as an additional effect on high-volume attacks (Lumineth archers). And I think in that context mortal wounds become overbearing, since they are just straight better than regular wounds with little counter play.

 

[Nizrah]

"Mortal Wounds on a hit and the attack sequence ends " God pls no. Its allow just to spam unit like LRL archers which have 36" range without los mortals output... its horrible to play againts.  Move it to wound please

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, Nizrah said:

"Mortal Wounds on a hit and the attack sequence ends " God pls no. Its allow just to spam unit like LRL archers which have 36" range without los mortals output... its horrible to play againts.  Move it to wound please

I think this is actually OK on melee units. It's ranged where it becomes hard to deal with. Freeguild Greatswords have the better version of that rule, mortal wounds on hit in addition, and they don't even show up in the discussion about broken units with their 5" move.

[OkayestDM]

@Beer & Pretzels Gamer I agree with you that the need for internal diversity for faction units is essential. 

The way the game is designed, it breaks around unit durability, and mechanics to counter that durability.

We operate on D6s, although we effectively only have 5 die faces to work with, because 1s are always a failure. Any change to which die faces work at that scale is a big deal.

The 2-tiered hit and wound metric deals with this nicely, because we now have 10 due faces to spread effectiveness across, making it easier to balance. A tweak to one or the other is relevant, but not overwhelming.

Any tweak to a save, on the other hand, can be crippling to either party, especially since so much rides on the success or failure of a save. @Neil Arthur Hotep did a good write up of Rend's effectiveness on manipulating saves, and a great way to use hit and wound to mitigate the effect that honestly would work extremely well.

Once we incorporate a generous amount of wounds that ignore saves, and then strong saves that ignore rend, the balance gets blown right out of the water very.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't exist (flavor and variety are both very important) only that they should be used far more sparingly. I think rerolls are very powerful, but I'll take rerolls over excessive mortal wounds or 4+ ward saves any day.

@Neil Arthur Hotep, thanks for the math hammer! I'm 100% onboard with your take on the way attacks and rend should work, and the way mortal wounds should work. For my part I'm even fine with melee units having limited access to mortal wounds in combat - so long as the access really is limited!

1 hour ago, Nizrah said:

"Mortal Wounds on a hit and the attack sequence ends " God pls no. Its allow just to spam unit like LRL archers which have 36" range without los mortals output... its horrible to play againts.  Move it to wound please

Sentinels MW output without buffs or rerolls would average about 3 per block of 20, which really isn't all that bad. It's when they MW on a 5+ rerolling that it gets unpleasant.

That said, I'm all for removing mortal wounds from shooting entirely, and probably reducing access to rend while we're at it.

[mojojojo101]

Mortal Wounds on a hit and the attack sequence ends

This rule sits in a weird place for me, because of the large number of units who get MW in addition, the number of MW you can get from other places and the various MW protection some units have I just don't think it feels very satisfying.

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

Stepping back a minute - @OkayestDM where do you think the right balance is between models staying on the table vs being removed?

I often think back to the original Space Invaders.  It was not programmed to run faster as fewer aliens were on the board it was just a side effect of the processor design that with less on the screen it sped up.  

Given the time ranges GW puts out for how long games should last and battleplans suggesting 5 rounds to me the equilibrium between those two comes with a relatively steady attrition of forces on both sides which allows the game to speed up as fewer models are being moved and fewer dice are being rolled.

A side effect of the power creep here is that we seem to have two extremes.  Either too much is getting erased in R1&2 and thus the game is over quickly.  Or nothing is dying in those early rounds and you’re struggling to finish R3, nonetheless R4&5 in the time “allotted”.

I saw the inability to stack Wound and MW negation abilities as a positive step in GH20 but recognize that others seem more focused on the other extreme of MW spam.

[yukishiro1]

Things like LRL Sentinels should never have existed. Mortals on a 6 at range should never have existed. The ability to boost it to a mortals on a 5+ at range especially should never have existed. And then, on top of all that, to also give them a spell to reroll hit rolls so that more than half the unit's ranged attacks end up as mortal wounds...that's just insane. And then taking it to truly absurd, caricature-level territory, if by some miracle you actually manage to stay out of LOS, they can shoot 30" without LOS and still do the mortals on a 5+ (though probably without the rerolls)!

That GW stacked all these things on top of one another - any one of which should have triggered the "uh, that's a bad idea" sensor - is enduring proof of just how bad at balance they are.

Edited February 3, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Doko]

Yes,when i compare my irondrakes with their 9999999 handicaps as cant move,cang have units in melle, only 16" ,very expensive 160 points and only 1 rend to the new broken units as the lumineths archers or the new morathi snake archers......

Even the sister of the watch have the same mortals at ranged.......but at 18", cant move, cant have units at melle and it is 6 to wound not at 5 rerolling misses with hits.

I dont get how gw team balance units

The problem isnt only the mortal damage output(that it is a problem), it is as retarded easy is to do and havent counterplay.

But after see how they didnt have done nothing to fix lumineths and moreover they have put other same level broken unit as the snakes,i havent hope that they gonna fix it.

Pretty sure that the new mounted archers of slanesh and cangoos gonna have this same mortal damage and the trend gonna continue.

Edited February 3, 2021 by Doko

[Beliman]

I would add things like +1 attack and +1 damage in the mix, because they can snowball really fast.
The combination of all this tools become a bit obnoxious for both players and the line between diferent profiles gets a bit blurred.

Edited February 3, 2021 by Beliman

[Skreech Verminking]

32 minutes ago, Doko said:

Pretty sure that the new mounted archers of slanesh and cangoos gonna have this same mortal damage and the trend gonna continue.

I’m waiting for that one model, that just has the rule: if put on the table you win automatically 

[Doko]

That never gonna happen due to the huge powercreep of gw.

Maybe we have that unit that 100% wins you the game,but then next tome come with a even better unit and then the powercreep continue....

 

Per example you have that unit with the rule: if put on the table you win the game.

Next tome have a unit with the rule:the enemy cant put in the table units with the rule "win the game"

Next tome: you army ignore the rule "win the game" and all your units have the rule"autowin the game"

Then the cicle continue......

[Ragest]

I think Sentinel’s example is the new trend, but you have to think that if you want to access to MW on 5+ With RR you need to pass your first magic step, and then another one to place umbral and another one to cast lambent light throught portal, and just 1 unit being affected. And if you want more than 10/20 sentinels doing that add more magic to the mix, and the fact that they can just cast 1 spell and you almost everytime need to place at least ethereal or double movement and the only way to cast more than once is wasting one aetherquartz losing +1 save to guys saving at 5+ or an aetherquartz + a cp in syar.

So please, if we want a serious discussion about, don’t take stuff that need that amount of resources like raw on warscrolls.

Edited February 3, 2021 by Ragest

[NinthMusketeer]

@OP yup, more or less agree with everything you said.

[OkayestDM]

2 hours ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

Stepping back a minute - @OkayestDM where do you think the right balance is between models staying on the table vs being removed?

I often think back to the original Space Invaders.  It was not programmed to run faster as fewer aliens were on the board it was just a side effect of the processor design that with less on the screen it sped up.  

Given the time ranges GW puts out for how long games should last and battleplans suggesting 5 rounds to me the equilibrium between those two comes with a relatively steady attrition of forces on both sides which allows the game to speed up as fewer models are being moved and fewer dice are being rolled.

A side effect of the power creep here is that we seem to have two extremes.  Either too much is getting erased in R1&2 and thus the game is over quickly.  Or nothing is dying in those early rounds and you’re struggling to finish R3, nonetheless R4&5 in the time “allotted”.

I saw the inability to stack Wound and MW negation abilities as a positive step in GH20 but recognize that others seem more focused on the other extreme of MW spam.

The game definitely needs to swing more towards lethality in order to keep the energy up and avoid gridlock in combat. I also agree that we are better off for having fewer ways to shrug off damage. 

To be honest, my only real issue with MW is that that they devalue normal attacks. Having a way to deal a small number of unavoidable wounds leans into the game's need to kill things a bit more reliably. Too much however, tends to result in after-saves, and things spiral quickly from there. I'd much prefer that they simply increase the number of attacks a unit gets, thereby raising the statistical likelihood of dealing damage, but still giving the opposing player a chance to spike a good save roll and come back swinging. After all, who doesn't want to roll more dice?

You painted the picture quite admirably with your description of the extremes the game can swing to. There's always going to be variation with some units killing more efficiently, and some being harder to take out of action, and I think there should be. I just wish those extremes weren't so far apart.

 

[Televiper11]

I’ve always struggled with taking a MW off a to-hit roll rather than a to-wound roll. Shouldn’t the wound roll determine if the wound is mortal or not?

[OkayestDM]

19 minutes ago, Televiper11 said:

I’ve always struggled with taking a MW off a to-hit roll rather than a to-wound roll. Shouldn’t the wound roll determine if the wound is mortal or not?

I think the logic is that you're rolling the most dice at hits, and thus are more likely to generate mortal wounds at that time (which makes sense if MW are used to speed up lay time.) Based on my understanding of what hit and wound rolls represent though, I agree that it makes more logical sense to trigger on wound rolls.

[NinthMusketeer]

The issue, as others have mentioned, is how it creates huge swings in damage output at random. Obviously it is a dice game and random happens, but 6s-to-hit-do-mortals skips two other rolls; the wound roll AND the save roll, making it exponentially more random than if it were on a 6 to wound. Plus a 6 to hit may not have wounded, but a 6 to wound was going to cause regular damage if it wasn't doing a mortal so it doesn't feel as bad for the person getting hit.

I say this as a player who uses hearthguard 'zerkers with chainy bits, a unit where the majority of its damage output comes from 6s to hit. I can get that when it is on a unit where it thematically and mechanically works like spirit hosts, but it is weird for a slayer to have his damage almost entirely determined by if he gets a 6 to hit or not.

A sidenote to all this is that in addition to MWs being oppressive (IMO of course) units that require MW damage to counter effectively are even worse though thankfully far more rare. But units like Bastiladons, Leviadons, and Spirit of Eltharion are so insanely difficult to put down with conventional means yet against MWs they just die. I understand strengths and weaknesses but that is pushing it too far.

Edited February 4, 2021 by NinthMusketeer

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

3 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

I say this as a player who uses hearthguard 'zerkers with chainy bits, a unit where the majority of its damage output comes from 6s to hit. I can get that when it is on a unit where it thematically and mechanically works like spirit hosts, but it is weird for a slayer to have his damage almost entirely determined by if he gets a 6 to hit or not.

Too funny because I frequently raise my eyebrow at some MW on unmodified 6s to Hit but when I saw it on Flamestryke Poleaxe I just went - “of course if you just took a flaming brazier to the face you’d take MW” but if it is just the chains or pole that hits, yeah, not as likely to Rend or do Damage as that two handed axe over in the other Hearthguard Berzerkers’ hands.

And I guess that’s always how I’ve mentally reconciled it.  Certain weapons are going to do Damage if they land.  As long as I understand the logic I generally take it for what it is.

Which isn’t to say that GW hasn’t become a wee bit generous in their allocating of these abilities but that I’m not sure the principle of MW from Hit Rolls is in and of itself problematic.

[whispersofblood]

These sorts of threads would be worlds better if it wasn't just paragraph length blocks of assertions without even subjective argumentation. 

[OkayestDM]

51 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

These sorts of threads would be worlds better if it wasn't just paragraph length blocks of assertions without even subjective argumentation. 

Isn't a subjective argument just another form of assertion though?

Forgive me, semantics are like bad puns, and I am irresistibly drawn to both.

Posing an argument wasn't what I was going for. I'm a bit of a rules nerd and love analyzing how they work, what works best, and what is better left limited. However, as I acknowledged above, I have a limited field of experience and wanted the benefit of other people's perspectives based on their differing experiences. 

[NinthMusketeer]

11 hours ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

Too funny because I frequently raise my eyebrow at some MW on unmodified 6s to Hit but when I saw it on Flamestryke Poleaxe I just went - “of course if you just took a flaming brazier to the face you’d take MW” but if it is just the chains or pole that hits, yeah, not as likely to Rend or do Damage as that two handed axe over in the other Hearthguard Berzerkers’ hands.

And I guess that’s always how I’ve mentally reconciled it.  Certain weapons are going to do Damage if they land.  As long as I understand the logic I generally take it for what it is.

Which isn’t to say that GW hasn’t become a wee bit generous in their allocating of these abilities but that I’m not sure the principle of MW from Hit Rolls is in and of itself problematic.

I think we are pretty close; it isn't the concept, it is that it's been taken too far. I don't have a problem with that specific weapon option dealing mortals on 6s to hit, there are thematic and mechanical support for that. The issue is that this is still a dedicated combat unit that should be dealing damage with a reasonable amount of consistency with those two meter halberds. But no 6s means they can easily deal little to no damage, while a bunch of 6s can suddenly murder an enemy which really should have taken longer to kill.

An attack on a 6 to hit does 2(!) MWs, while the weapon itself is no rend, 1 damage. A regular hit against even a 5+ save is only doing an average of 0.44 damage--I understand the 'critical hit' concept going on here but a 4.5 multiplier seems a bit much! Especially when the halberd part can supposedly cut a man in half. Shifting the damage balance more towards regular and away from mortal would be a good move IMO.

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

26 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

I think we are pretty close; it isn't the concept, it is that it's been taken too far. I don't have a problem with that specific weapon option dealing mortals on 6s to hit, there are thematic and mechanical support for that. The issue is that this is still a dedicated combat unit that should be dealing damage with a reasonable amount of consistency with those two meter halberds. But no 6s means they can easily deal little to no damage, while a bunch of 6s can suddenly murder an enemy which really should have taken longer to kill.

An attack on a 6 to hit does 2(!) MWs, while the weapon itself is no rend, 1 damage. A regular hit against even a 5+ save is only doing an average of 0.44 damage--I understand the 'critical hit' concept going on here but a 4.5 multiplier seems a bit much! Especially when the halberd part can supposedly cut a man in half. Shifting the damage balance more towards regular and away from mortal would be a good move IMO.

I was once fortunate enough to be in France at the right time of year in a particularly feculent season that allowed me to partake in a tasting menu where every dish featured truffles.  This seemed not quite Slaanesh level but still decadent right from the start but of course given their normal rarity it was quite enjoyable the first few dishes to see truffles so prominently featured.  By the end of the meal though, while I wouldn’t say we were bored of truffles we were certainly sated from a truffle flavor perspective and would’ve been happy to have seen something else more prominently featured.

Kudos to the truffle pig creatives at GW that they keep digging up new rare truffles to serve as in our war scrolls whether that is on the offensive side or defensive side.  The issue always seems to be that having added that truffle to one dish (say Wound and MW negation) they always seem to say well if you liked it there what about here? And here? How about over there?  Until it’s pretty ubiquitous (and so many units are shrugging woundsleft and right).  Of course then the dishes that didn’t get it feel too simple and plain (uncompetitive) so that have to get something to balance out that so they find a new truffle for one of them (say MWs on unmodified 6s) and the process just repeats.

So in a faction with limited access to MWs (believe Magmadroths only other on WS MW option and those a little trickier) I’m okay with “seasoning” one weapon option for one unit with said buff.  Similarly in a faction with limited access to negation (Grimwrath I think the only other on WS negation?) I’m okay with lseasoning” one unit with a pretty good negation option.  Now should one “dish” get that much “seasoning”?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

But to your point in going too far when you start looking at factions where MWs or powerful negations are getting handed out like candy on Halloween...     Then you’re definitely worried about things tipping too far from “normal” mechanics.