Are Mortal Wounds a good mechanic?

[AnarchMage]

Mortal wounds are clearly underpowered and we need a new mechanic: mortaler wounds to bypass those pesky backup saves 😛

Honestly, I’ve never had an instance where mortal wounds felt unfair or too abundant. Yeah, I’ve been hit by a lucky Lumineth roll, and it sucked, but I’ve also lost a lot to a lucky “extra hits on 6” or high rend attacks. I’m admittedly still quite new to the game and maybe I haven’t encountered the game breaking potential as my local scene is pretty chill.

[zilberfrid]

58 minutes ago, AnarchMage said:

Mortal wounds are clearly underpowered and we need a new mechanic: mortaler wounds to bypass those pesky backup saves 😛

You could call them lethal wounds*

*no guarantuee of being actually lethal, like mortal wounds need not be mortal.

[pnkdth]

MWs are fine. There are just some instances where they are a bit overused. Some armies even rely on them to have any chance of chewing throw 1+ saves.

Rend could be used as a stand-in but then we'll just complain about saves being useless and/or ending up pushing the power creep into a direction where 40k is, i.e. you need a 2+ save with a 4++ and a 5+++ and preferably 3 stratagems to play just to be sure. In that instance, we'd wish we had access to MWs. 

Most examples where MWs seem to come up is LRL. The issue when you get at its core is not MWs, it is the shooty/magic meta + being able to ignore mechanics which makes their shooting so oppressive. If 3:ed is around the corner with a supposed fix then I do not think we'll give MWs, or their presence, a second glance. It'll just be a thing some units have. So reign the shooty meta and people are not only going have better games but we'll also see different kinds of lists (since support/mid-level heroes won't just be blasted off the board T1-2).

[Joseph Mackay]

6 hours ago, Popisdead said:

Like everything GW comes up with, it's a good idea that gets put into place mostly well then abused and broken at some point with poor army book writing.

I would like for DPRs to be negated by them.  I don't want to see Nurgle getting their saves after bypassing their armour.  It's not really "mortal" then is it?  In 40k you cannot take Invulnerable saves from MWs.  I just wish they were maybe a bit sparser and not blocked.  

40K has damage saves/feel no pain that works the same way as they do in AoS. Invulnerable saves just ignore rend/ap

[Ragest]

Well, i can't see the "we are getting more and more powercreep", Evocators, Hearthguard, attack Eels and Terrorgheist were there two or more years ago.

[Phasteon]

49 minutes ago, Ragest said:

Well, i can't see the "we are getting more and more powercreep", Evocators, Hearthguard, attack Eels and Terrorgheist were there two or more years ago.

But each of those units was/is kinda dominating. 

Also powercreep imo does not mean „something that was never there before“ but „bigger better faster stronger“. 

Best example for powercreep are the LRL. So many rules, so many things other armies already do but better. 

Not hating them, but they really got a lot of stuff/rules. 

[Joseph Mackay]

56 minutes ago, Ragest said:

Well, i can't see the "we are getting more and more powercreep", Evocators, Hearthguard, attack Eels and Terrorgheist were there two or more years ago.

Powercreep started with AoS2 in my opinion 

[TheCovenLord]

I would argue that they are necessary but in their current incarnation they are becoming unhealthy (in that they are too common). It is far too easy to add "6's" do a mortal wound in addition to basically everything.

 

I am also not in agreement that there are significant defenses against mortal wounds present across armies. Maybe this is coloured by the types of armies my local meta comprises but there are few outside of death factions sporting natural shrug saves and even then rarely above a 6+ which is a pretty paltry defense for how common they have become. Maybe there are a few armies that have widespread defenses (ex: Daughters/Death factions) but it really is not common for the forces I face off against making it far more appealing than rend which is slowly becoming a forgotten stat in our group. 

 

Many factions also distinctly lack defenses or even shrug saves whatsoever against mortal wounds and it further adds to their struggle in this high shooting/high mortals/high magic era.

 

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by TheCovenLord

[Popisdead]

21 hours ago, Joseph Mackay said:

40K has damage saves/feel no pain that works the same way as they do in AoS. Invulnerable saves just ignore rend/ap

Hmm okay I guess I'm unfamiliar with many of the 40k mechanics of DPRs.  Thanks.  

[AaronWilson]

On 4/8/2021 at 10:14 PM, Popisdead said:

Hmm okay I guess I'm unfamiliar with many of the 40k mechanics of DPRs.  Thanks.  

Josheph Mackay is 100% not correct, 40K has a LOT of "if you suffer a wound on a 5+ the wound is ignored" Tyranids have in the catalyst power, Death company have it as a 6+, etc. 

[Joseph Mackay]

5 hours ago, AaronWilson said:

Josheph Mackay is 100% not correct, 40K has a LOT of "if you suffer a wound on a 5+ the wound is ignored" Tyranids have in the catalyst power, Death company have it as a 6+, etc. 

I think you may have misunderstood. The post I was replying to said in 40K you don’t get Invulnerable Saves against mortal wounds (which is true) but I was pointing out that it has lots of ‘ignore wounds’/damage saves/feel no pain (whatever you want to call them) just like AoS does

[AaronWilson]

40 minutes ago, Joseph Mackay said:

I think you may have misunderstood. The post I was replying to said in 40K you don’t get Invulnerable Saves against mortal wounds (which is true) but I was pointing out that it has lots of ‘ignore wounds’/damage saves/feel no pain (whatever you want to call them) just like AoS does

Ah, then I do apologise my man, I mis understood. 

[Liquidsteel]

I voted yes, and share the same sentiment as many others.

Mortal Wounds should be saved for things like Spells, Magic Weapons and/or niche abilities like an elite unit or monsters.

The problem has arisen that with Mortal Wounds literally being a dime a dozen for some armies, the response has been to throw DPR/After Saves on to everything. 

I would love to see the interaction change to better armour saves and more rend, you can go up to rend -5 or so. The flip side here is that the power creep then reflects what's occurring in 40k, with invulns. I appreciate it's tricky to balance and I'm far too underqualified to fix it, but something has to be done.

The absolute worst offenders in all of this, are ranged Mortal Wounds from Shooting, looking at you Lumineth Sentinels. Ignoring the key mechanic of look out sir from 3/4's of the board away is a terrible design.

[stratigo]

On 4/7/2021 at 2:55 AM, Kasper said:

Mortal Wounds as a concept is great IMO and is a way to deal with high re-rollable armor save units. It also seperates how magic and combat/shooting works.

It only becomes an issue IMO when it is super easy to apply, ala LRL archers that 1) ignore LOS 2) has immense range and 3) triggers on hit. This leaves a feeling of not being able to counter this in any way at all, meaning it is almost pointless to bring low (5 wound) support heroes to the table because of how easily they can be sniped. Look-out sir is worthless because the MW triggers on unmodified hits anyways, you cant hide the hero due to ignoring LOS and the range means you cant really put them in a safe spot unless they are so far away from the objectives etc. that they are essentially useless and might as well be dead. 

This is an example when MWs becomes an issue. Skinks is somewhat the same, although they dont have the same range and they dont ignore LOS either, so there is a way to play around them. 

Skinks get to teleport.

 

Also any time there is a strong magic army, their damage comes with mortal wounds stacked on mortal wounds. And, here's a secret, there's no real difference between a ranged attack made by casting a spell verse on made by shooting a gun. They are both ranged damage sources. And neither should so easily allow for subversion of all defenses

 

But the issue is high save rerollable is kind of a problem with the game that should ALSO not be a thing.

On 4/7/2021 at 11:56 AM, BaylorCorvette said:

I think Mortal Wounds in general are good for the game. However, I think how easy it is to deal mortal wounds in the current state is not healthy for the game (looking at you specifically LRL that basically has the opportunity to deal Mortal Wounds with half their army). Their should be a pretty high value on the ability to deal mortal wounds IMO and reserved for Heroes, certain spells & prayers and super elite units.

 

It is not a mistake that the best armies in the game are also armies with a lot of easy and reliable ways to pump mortal wounds, usually at range, though IDK do it in your face.

 

Seraphon? Buffed skinks and Kroak.

IDK? Eels

LRL? Teclis and sentinels (And like a dozen other ways too cause lul)

KO? Teleporting WLV and boat combat

DoK? Teleporting snake ladies.

Tzeentch? Well... like... it's tzeentch yo.

[Kasper]

14 hours ago, stratigo said:

Skinks get to teleport.

 

Also any time there is a strong magic army, their damage comes with mortal wounds stacked on mortal wounds. And, here's a secret, there's no real difference between a ranged attack made by casting a spell verse on made by shooting a gun. They are both ranged damage sources. And neither should so easily allow for subversion of all defenses

 

But the issue is high save rerollable is kind of a problem with the game that should ALSO not be a thing.

Yeah but at least you can zone out Skinks - It is difficult to zone out almost boardwide range. Also their MWs are on wounds, so any modifiers to their hit rolls are huge where as Sentinels just dont care when it is on modified 5/6s to hit.

Again there is a massive difference. Some units got a "spell ignore" effect. Spells are predictable since you typically cant teleport/move then cast a spell unlike with shooting, so the moment you end your movement you know exactly if you just entered their spell range for next turn. Spells also generally dont have a 18"+ range. Sure you have instances of Kairos + Spellportal but "at least" it is just 1 spell per turn. Spells are also not affected by look-out sir or other similar debuffs.  

[Beliman]

15 hours ago, stratigo said:

But the issue is high save rerollable is kind of a problem with the game that should ALSO not be a thing.

Are we sure that this is a problem? I can understand that it could be really problematic if we had BigRulebook full of Universal Special Rules. But AoS has abilities tied to warscrolls, that means that game-designers are 100% in power without going "wide" in USR.

If something has a 2+save, re-rolling ones (1+ save is another beast), a simple profile with 1 unique ability could do the trick:

GW can tweak a bit between armies to make it special or more unique, and not all -3 rend (or more) weapons need to have that.

Edited April 21, 2021 by Beliman

[Tiberius501]

I feel like the escalation of Mortal Wounds and other power through 2.0 is due to the way they release books.

GW are very sales based with their books, releasing battletomes through the year, instead of all upfront with the new edition. This means that reducing dmg would mean that newer armies are worse than older armies, and who wants to buy a nerfed army?

If they released all of the factions at once with a new edition philosophy of reduced dmg, it could work a lot more successfully.

But GW want money, which is understandable but unfortunately skews the game towards constant growth and bloat; better dmg = better saves = more mortal wounds = more after saves, etc. until it becomes a crazy bloat fest of crazy numbers and abilities which it is becoming.

Unfortunately I don’t see how 3rd can be much different in this regard, but hopefully it band aids some issues like shooting. 

Edited April 21, 2021 by Tiberius501

[Evantas]

I wish they had a more 'logical' or proper definition when mortal wounds happen.

E.g. Arcane/Electricity/Fire/Light/Necrotic spells or non-physical shooting attacks can cause MWs. Then have units with MW-negating auras / protections, that basically act as spell/energy barriers.  

Some big physical attacks like Terrorgheist's MW, should be rend -3 imo, so extreme saves (1+ or 2+) still work, but those protection spells that block specifically MWs won't. 

Then be really really careful about handing out FNPs.

[Perturbato]

I'm in aos for only a year but what was the situation before all those mortal wounds ? Saturation with heavy armor save ? Anyway if a unit doesn't inflict mortal wound or have fnp it looks like it is useless now ...

Edited April 21, 2021 by Perturbato

[Tiberius501]

23 minutes ago, Perturbato said:

I'm in aos for only a year but what was the situation before all those mortal wounds ? Saturation with heavy armor save ? Anyway if a unit doesn't inflict mortal wound or have fnp it looks like it is useless now ...

Before the huge saturation of mortal wounds, and also a lot less Rend, a 4+ save was quite strong, and more units were a lot tougher. Mortal wounds were reserved almost exclusively for magic.

Imo, it was a vastly superior way of handling it. 

[whispersofblood]

2 hours ago, Tiberius501 said:

I feel like the escalation of Mortal Wounds and other power through 2.0 is due to the way they release books.

GW are very sales based with their books, releasing battletomes through the year, instead of all upfront with the new edition. This means that reducing dmg would mean that newer armies are worse than older armies, and who wants to buy a nerfed army?

If they released all of the factions at once with a new edition philosophy of reduced dmg, it could work a lot more successfully.

But GW want money, which is understandable but unfortunately skews the game towards constant growth and bloat; better dmg = better saves = more mortal wounds = more after saves, etc. until it becomes a crazy bloat fest of crazy numbers and abilities which it is becoming.

Unfortunately I don’t see how 3rd can be much different in this regard, but hopefully it band aids some issues like shooting. 

The bulk of the best factions are books from the end of AoS 1. DoK has only recently left that club. 

[RuneBrush]

I've decided to be controversial and answer no 😁

My long answer (only 2 weeks after the question was posted) is that I absolutely agree with most of what's been said.  Personally the mortal wound mechanic itself is fantastic - the proliferation of them isn't.  The knock on is that many units now have some kind of ignore damage roll to counteract that proliferation - "naked duardin, aelf, oruk?  Let's give them an ignore damage mechanic!"

Certainly agree that mortal wounds really should be limited to heroes and mainly magical abilities.

If I could have a magic wand, I'd love to see more things interact with rend e.g. the first round of combat a berserker improves the rend by -1.  The problem with this is that it complicates the attack phase especially if its attached to the hit roll (you have to extract those dice into two pools).  Attaching it to the wound roll would simplify this but would make some units really poor (spirit hosts would be pretty lack lustre).  I also think a 40k system where models have two armour saves (one modifiable and one that isn't and you can only pick one for each attack) would add a lot more nuance with this type of mechanic.  This could also add to the survivability of those low wound models - a heavily armoured Chaos Lord may have a 3+/5+ to represent his heavy armour and blessing from his god - mystic shield could simply grant a -/5+save roll.

[whispersofblood]

There is really two seperate streams of thought here. The narrative, and mechanical design.

Giving "elite" units MWs lets the builder of the warscroll map pretty accurately how much damage said unit will do in almost any context. I think this can be supported from a narrative perspective so long as the idea of "elite" is reasonably well maintained. And, it adds real value to the idea of "eliteness".

I think where were we run into narrative problems is when things like exotic posions or such pump out mws. I think things like skinks would be more acceptable if they did an auto wound on a 6 to hit. It also means skinks aren't doing like 8 mws to the opponent in their turn.

Generally I think we should do away with things that complicate dice pools. Like 6s to wound do dmg2 or change rend values, except on heroes since we are talking about relatively small pools of dice. On the other hand I think every combat hero should be dmg 2 so maybe I'm the crazy one.

[OkayestDM]

I voted yes because I feel MW have their place in the game, though I agree with the general sentiment that they are too prolific thought the game.

MW in magic makes sense for reasons already listed, and I'd say the same goes for prayers, charges, and a select few other abilities. It provides a reliable source of damage which - if distributed in moderation - has significant tactical use and benefits, and feels correct as most players accept a certain irresistible quality to magical/supernatural powers or being bowled over by a massive charge.

I've been firmly in the camp that MW should trigger on the wound roll for some time, as there is far less manipulation happening to that roll, and it also helps reduce the chances of MW spam.

I'm a big fan of 6s to hit generating additional hits, and also like the idea of 6s to hit auto-wounding. Both are tangible benefits to the attacker that feel good, but neither strips the defender of the ability to negate them.

Ultimately, MW are a good mechanic that has been implemented sloppily, and much of this can be attributed to the growing pains of AoS. My hopes is that, as with 2nd edition, 3rd will tighten up a bunch of the rules and introduce more consistency to the design principles.

[Lord Krungharr]

On 4/7/2021 at 1:13 AM, Joseph Mackay said:

To add on what I said before, mortal wounds should NEVER trigger from Missile weapons. If that one thing went away I’d be at least a little bit more ok with mortal wounds in general 

Except Warp Lightning Cannons and Magma Cannons.  I mean, those are like phasers and photon torpedoes compared to Aelvish arrows.  MW forever!  Even though I voted no because they should be less prevalent, and we need more rend -3 and 4 stuff instead.