The wound chart has a stepped progression when comparing S to D. IMHO this leads to unnecessary imbalancing and an over-reliance on S4 to represent a model's ability to cut through average defences; but also leads to some armies being less effective than others who are better armoured, eg: Galadhrim vs High Elves.

So my proposal would be, where the wound chart shows a 4 or 5, to take the second number in the step and require a second roll of 4+; and where the wound chart shows a "pure" 6, to take the second "pure" 6 and require a second roll of 3+. So the progression for S3 would be:


While the chart for S4 would be:

Obviously if the chart shows you need a 4/4, and you roll a 5, you do the wound without the second roll. Basically it means no matter the opponent, whatever equipment you take isn't a waste of points.
Thoughts?

I like this idea.
This makes the game a little bit easier, because you don't have to think too much about the other guy's strength to choose your own defence line.
When you take a shield upgrade, you will always have an advantage.
You won't get the incredible advantage like uruk-hai against minas tirith.
And your shields on moria goblins won't be totally useless.

A possible disadvantage is that it will slow the game down a bit,
and strategy becomes less important because it doesn't really matter which units charge specific enemies.
In the minas tirith example, you would take some fountain guards with shield to be competitive against strength 4 units.

I think it would be fun playing some matches like that with normally under powered army lists to make them more competitive.
And I will probably try this out with my local gamers if they want to.
But for competition, I don't think it will be an improvement.
The strategic actions really become less important with this rule.

I totally disagree on the lowering of strategic level with this idea. If anything it boosts it as you now have more to think about as the attacker and as the list builder.
My only concern is the odds of wounding D 5 vs 6 is a 16.7 vs a 16.7 if you're strength 3. Or did I miss something?

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No way. The amount of change just makes it confusing. I mean really? You need to roll two dice to hit a guy with standard defense of 5? Noooooo please.

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I thought about this Idea before but I thought it may slow the game down a bit. (less Casualties)
I feel it help the Rohirrim a lot as well as other armies and balances the game more makes every defence valuable.

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Whipping up the math, if you are some number X vs X, you now wound 41.7% of the time instead of 50%.

X vs X+1, 33.3%, normally 33.3%
X vs X+2, 25%, normally 33.3%
X vs X+3, 16.7%, normally 16.7%

So it makes the curve more dynamic, but frankly I would prefer models to die faster in combat that even slower. It is hard enough to kill a Minas Tirinth warrior with a bow! This change makes it 33% harder to kill such a target with an orc bow 16.7 lowers down to 11.1%

I think the only real fix to this would be to change the wounding chart such that it is like in the Warhammer Fantasy and 40k games, and then re-statted and repriced everything. However that would be a mess and something I don't expect to happen anyways.

Instead of doubling the dice rolls, why not double the number of faces per die?
The same result can be achieved by using a D12, which probably is a slightly more elegant solution.

Using same St/Def as a basis, the chance of success should be 50%, so a 7+. From thereon, it's simply 1 more difficult each time.

St3 vs Def1 5+ (or chance of 2:3, so just like the normal 3+ on a D6)
St3 vs Def2 6+
St3 vs Def3 7+ (chance of 1:2)
St3 vs Def4 8+
St3 vs Def5 9+ (chance of 1:3)
St3 vs Def6 10+
St3 vs Def7 11+ (chance 1:6)
St3 vs Def8 12 (1:12, no second roll needed here either)
St3 vs Def9 12/5 (1:18, funny how it is still X/5 - easy to remember!)
St3 vs Def10 12/9 (1:36)

So there you have it, same odds for S3 against the odd numbers, and slightly easier against all even ones below 8. You can of course also shift them all one place.

I quite like it to be honest, as it's very strange that taking a massive shield doesn't change anything half the time. Paying for a higher strength or a higher defence always is worth it, which definitely is an improvement.

True, and the chart could always be shifted once the other way:
S2:

S3:

S4:


As for more rolls, that wouldn't be necessary all the time. If you have a WoMT on a goblin-with-sheild, you can roll 2 dice of different colours (say, green and red). If the green die gets a 5+ you're good. If it gets a 4, the red needs to be 4+.

Edit: I like idea of D12 conceptually, I was just trying to keep the D6 base since most people already have them.

What if we just said shields didn't add to your defense? What if they just flat out said "opponent gets -1 on To Wound checks," or something to that effect? It would be useful up until the part where it turns into 6/4 and higher, but then you could just say one of two things: 1. you need might or some other type of bonus to indeed wound, or 2. the penalty applies to the last dice needed to be rolled for wounding.

Even simpler we could just say it gives you a save on a 5+ or so.

Shields aren't the problem, the problem is the stepped nature of the wound chart. I'm just trying to remove the steps so that added equipment always has an impact.

I really like the idea of fixing the To Wound table, as indeed it is weird that often a point higher defence does not matter.
I'd like to see some of these ideas fleshed out, that would be great. Added benefit of having a D12 is that you can have more modifiers, and these can be more subtle.


Funny, in the house rules Coenus and I always use, we give Medium Shields a 5+ save (large shield 4+ and bucklers a 6), although not everything may be saved (falling, fire, siege engines etc).

Id much prefer to have a d8 or 12 system period, yes.

Good choice. I didnt thoroughly look at your post but this is better than the other suggestion^

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It seems like a slightly convoluted system to me - roll a D6, if you get x, you wound, get y you roll again and need z to wound, you get a you do nothing.

If you're finding the current system imbalanced, my suggestion would be to turn to a Fantasy/40k wounding chart.

Not sure how it's convoluted. It's exactly the same method used to wound high D targets, it's just not limited to the 6s.

It's very convoluted when you include the higher defence targets. 3 dice rolls on a single attempt to wound is more than is necessary.

I'm not saying it doesn't work, but I am saying there are more elegant solutions if you're finding it problematic as is.

Now I'm confused...which 3 dice? There is a max of 2 (per strike) in all cases.

I'm not so fond of whafrog's chart but I do like the idea and the effort you have put in. Thanks. Although I will definitely suggest the D12 method to my gaming group. I think it is an awesome idea and would make the game much more fair. It works perfectly and I have tonnes of D12's lying around from D 'n' D campaigns.

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For those who liked the idea of using a D12, this would be the complete table:

Thanks, seeing is believing I only own 2 D12s, I guess I'll have to pick up more.

I will give this a try next time my son and I play. Thanks for the chart!

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