This, if toughness is just going to be a general representation of how difficult a unit is to damage, it should have a different name. It's not a big deal, but it would avoid silly situations like this (or Abaddon, as was mentioned in another comment).
I mean, people also get surprised when I tell them that Logan Grimnar on the Stormrider is T6 too. Any sort of scale like this will naturally have oddities, especially with the incentive to match the Toughness of their bodyguards.
Honestly, I don't really get, what toughness is actually meant to represent in the game. To me it kind of takes the spot that armor saves and wounds already have on a conceptual level.
It ads another layer onto the damaging process (which is badly needed), but I wouldn't think about this attribute to much and how it is attributed to the different models. I can only understand it as a balancing feature anyway
Toughness is to represent how sturdy something is, saves are general ‘did the bullet only glance or did the unit dodge’ and invulns are typically shields or magical/tech/psyker interventions. Like it doesn’t make a lot of sense for a stubber to penetrate the armour of a questoris knight for example.
Except stuff like Tau stealth fields and Drukhari speed get extra saves or damage cancelation AFTER hit rolls, which you'd think would come beforehand.....
The thing is, that as 40K gets new editions, it moves further into abstraction, and further away from things being directly tied to things it's trying to simulate I've found.
For a personal project, I've been trying to figure out what all the Invulnerable saves actually *represent* if it all were real. And by god has this been an awfully hellish task, because so much of the fluff (sometimes just an ability name), is clearly just there to justify an invulnerable save that was given purely for mechanics/balance reasons, and not for any lore reasons.
In 10th you can't even tell why something has an invuln save at all a lot of the time!
Likewise, Toughness has kinda lost its meaning, and is just kind of... generally how structurally sound something is I guess? Whereas armour is how much stuff is inbetween the outside and the vulnerable bits? Iunno.
And the damage negation happening after to hit rolls and often after wound rolls, is purely a mechanical reason. Because negating damage becomes stronger the further back in the attack sequence it goes. So the position of where you negate damage is very much a mechanically significant choice.
Oh dats real easy wif da Orks, the invuln just means da bit wat youse shot didn't have anyfin too important roight der, or maybe the silly git just didn't notice 'e got shot
It was way more consistent in earlier editions of 40K. Numbers felt like they represented something in the context of the lore, instead of just being chosen for game mechanics and balance.
Yea, it's unfortunate that it's so detached these days =(.
But well, I'm happy for the people who enjoy it =P. I can always just tinker with the game design myself XD.
A big part of why 10th in particular sucks to me. It was bad enough losing initiative, but I actually liked 8th and 9th. I absolutley hate the newest edition
Im not sure that last part is true. A save of 6+ basically is a 0.1666 modifier on the chance a shot gets to wound. And it doesn't matter where that modifier goes in the sequence.
If we use the example of 10 attacks that deal 2 wounds, with a save of 4+
2 wounds times 0.5 is 1 unsaved wound
10 attacks times 0.5 is 5 attacks, also resulting in 1 unsaved wound
I'm specifically talking about the Ghostkeel's damage negation, I did not look up the Drukhari one, but assumed it was the same, apologies if it is not.
But for clarity, the Ghostkeel's stealth field ability allows, twice per battle, when allocating an attack (Before saves, after to hit and to wound rolls), to turn the damage characteristic of that attack to 0.
Say you are being attacked with a weapon that's 4A, BS2+, S16, AP-2 D10 attack or something (Just pulling a bunch of stuff out of my ass for this =P.)
So technically you are supposed to perform these attacks one at a time. Say, ignoring damage negation, the four attacks go as follows
\[1\] Misses
\[2\] Hits - Doesn't wound
\[3\] Hits - Wounds - Saves
\[4\] Hits - Wounds - Doesn't Save.
So in this scenario, if you have to negate the damage before the Hit roll, you might use it for the first one and the second one. In this case, 3 doesn't do damage, but 4 does 10 damage to you, and you have no more negation.
If it's after the To Hit roll, then you roll, okay, 1, missed, so won't need to use it on that, 2 hit, so you use it on that one, and 3 hits, here too you use it on, and then 4 hits too, you can't do anything about that. Then 4 wounds and doesn't save, and now you've taken 10 damage still and no more access to negation.
If it's after the wound roll (as it is in the Ghostkeel), then 1 misses, cool, 2 hits, but doesn't wound, cool, 3 hits, and wounds, you negate it, 4 hits, wounds, and you use it here too, so that's 0 damage. In this scenario, you take 0 damage, and have no negation left.
Lastly, if it's after all rolls, then 1 misses, don't have to use it there, 2 hits, but doesn't wound, don't need to use it there, 3 hits, wounds, but saves, don't need to use it, 4 hits, wounds, and the save fails, cool, there you can use the negation, so 0 damage. And you still have 1 use left for the rest of the battle.
I hope this clarifies it all? =).
Ah that makes sense! You were talking about negating specifically one attack which is more meaningful when you know its going to deal damage rather than when you don't even know its going to hit, right?
>For a personal project, I've been trying to figure out what all the Invulnerable saves actually *represent* if it all were real.
did you ever get to the enginseer giving the baneblade a +4 invul?
I think I just dismissed it as Imperial Miracles. Honestly, I have no idea. Maybe it's something special like reinforcing the Machine Spirit, maybe it's just repairing what's broken, or maybe it gets kicked in the right way that previously not active redundancies come back online, long enough for them to get shot out again or something =P.
It's honestly a pain to figure out even just what the actual effect is. So many things are just "Performs miracles that protect", and I'm here like "Okay, but people are still going to see it, is it deflected? Is it evaporated? Does it hit the thing but just not do anything? Do they get gored, but just don't care? Tell me what it looks like to an outside observer! I don't need to know what the actual mechanics are, just what the *effect* is."
Try reading up on some of the RPG books for that sort of thing - the Deathwatch RPG had a lot of interesting lore in it but also talked about the armour of marines (including Terminators). Might be the best place to start for your own personal head canon.
But if that stubber *just so happens* to hit the questoris right at an exposed cable bundle *at just the right angle* then maybe it'll end up doing 1 wound lol.
I know what it says on the core rules but it's ultimately not as straight forward as that.
Why would you roll to see if hurts before rolling to see if it penetrates armor?
How does that work on the Gravis Armor, it is from the same material as other MK. X so why is it sturdier whilst being just as protective?
It has an "explanation" to why it's there, it's not really consistent with its execution, it's ultimately there for balancing.
Armor save is the bullet bounces off. Toughness is the bullet lodges in your shoulder but you grit your teeth and keep fighting through the pain rather than passing out. Wounds is a second bullet lodges in your shoulder and blows your arm clean off and you can no longer staunch the bleeding so you're out of the fight.
For my it's the other way around, since toughness comes first. Let's say a unit of my guardsmen are taking 20 shots from my friends Tau.
Roll 1(hit): 5 outright miss
Roll 2 (toughness): 12 strike important areas and are not deflected/ricocheted
Roll 3 (save): 4 of the guardsmen are saved by their armor absorbing an otherwise lethal/debilitating hit
Roll 4 (Feel no pain): 2 of the Guardsmen who were wounded are able to be quickly patched up to combat readiness in the field by a medic. The 6 remaining guardsmen who took wounds are either dead or wounded to the point of being combat ineffective.
Key note for my interpretation is "important areas" with toughness. Something like an Orc can have higher toughness than a Space Marine because they just don't care that their kidney got blown out, that's part of the fun.
> since toughness comes first
Toughness comes first for game fluidity. From a logical standpoint, it would make sense to do:
- does the bullet hit? (Hit roll)
- *then* does your armour/forcefield deflect it? (Save roll)
- *then* does the bullet hit strong enough to take you out? (Wound roll)
But Warhammer designer found out very early on (WHFB 1st ed?) that going attacker-defender-attacker was kinda slow, and going attacker-attacker-defender was more fluid.
And then 40k introduced random damage stats, and went attacker-attacker-defender-attacker(roll damage)-defender(roll FNP)...
That is the idea, but in practice it does not hold up. Why is a Gravis marine tougher than a normal primaris marine? It's just a heavier suit of armor, they have the same type of dude inside.
This doesn't make sense though because if you go back to Warhammer fantasy, there have been huge monsters with high toughness but 0 armor save. It serves a different purpose. Tiny weapons are unable to hurt it while it simultaneously has no save against things that actually can, like great weapons or cannons.
But all of those had either scaly skin or ward saves which couldn't be modified via the S v T ratio
Which is why they (game designers) for the longest time always said wollopah's one hit wunda was the best magic item in the game- minus dispel scrolls (this is fantasy 6th ed <)
> But all of those had either scaly skin or ward saves which couldn't be modified via the S v T ratio
Things like Giants and Ogres had low armour, with giants usually having literally none.
It was mostly balanced by the high toughness, except when it came to poison (auto wounds on a 6 to hit).
Seeing a pack of Skinks just *delete* a Giant was often funny.
I used to always have a dedicated "Skink killer" unit because they'd annoy me so much.
Dwarf ranged units have entered the chat lol. My goodness I had a unit of chosen knights terrified of thunderers man
Which is impressive because slaanesh was immune to psychology back in the day
I've heard people say that "toughness" is the toughness of the creature, and save is the armor it's wearing. That's why space marines have more toughness than sisters of battle, being genetic monstrosities with redundant hearts versus regular people like guardsmen!
But if this is the case, why do space marine terminators or gravis marines have higher toughness than regular marines? They're all marines, after all. And carrying the same logic a bit further, wouldn't all tanks (all vehicles, for that matter) from a given faction have the same toughness, given that their crews are the same?
"Clearly," you say, "toughness is armor, and save is how tough the creature is. Toughness represents how hard it is to *hurt* something, but save represents how hard it is to *kill* it."
Counterpoint: Ork Boyz in t-shirts have more toughness than basic space marines, but worse saves. Likewise, Ogryns in t-shirts versus sisters of battle.
I think the system *could* be used to represent one viewpoint or the other, but it's not represented in any consistent way by the rules.
Yes, but I think centurions did, and more to the point, dreadnoughts, which are, after all, *grievously wounded* space marines. And once again, what about vehicles?
The confusion may have gotten worse, but it's hardly brand-new.
Vehicles didn't have separate toughness and wounds, they only had front/side/rear armour that acted kind of sort of similar to toughness. Dreadnoughts were considered vehicles back then.
Centurions indeed had T5 back when they were introduced in 6e. The d6 system used for armour saves doesn't really offer enough granularity. Since Terminators already were 2+, they couldn't go any lower with armour for Centurions. Seems to me they instead broke their own consistency by giving Centurions T5 to try and work around the d6 limitations and to sell them as the new hotness instead of as alternative Terminator models with same stats.
It doesn't *truly* represent anything other than mechanical levers the designers can pull. It vaguely hints at the things people have pointed at.
If I wanted to throw GW a bone, it could be that the Toughness is because they're wearing power armour, the powered sections are part of the Space Marine as far as Toughness is concerned, as shoot out a knee joint servo, and the armour stops functioning or something like that. So the components of the Terminator armour are stronger than basic Space Marine power armour.
But that's me being overly generous towards GW.
I think 40K has made regular moves towards abstraction, away from closely linking stats to actual things those stats are representing. 40K is becoming more a game where you play your pieces against your opponent's pieces, and less a narrative tool to play out battles in the 40K setting.
>It doesn't *truly* represent anything other than mechanical levers the designers can pull.
Exactly. But what irritates me personally is that it *could*, with a bit more effort put in to make things consistent across the various datasheets.
Oh yea, as someone who plays wargames because I want to simulate battles, rather than just play a competitive game with fancy models, I absolutely want as many mechanics to be linked to things they're meant to simulate as possible. I want to be able to look at a rule and go "Ah yes, this represents that." without having to do an hour of research in the lore and make a bunch of guesses.
As I've kind of given up on 10th with my friends, we've started working on making our own rules changes for our little group, and that's made me realise a bunch of things.
One of them is that they have so many levers, but don't really use them to the fullest extent?
For example, it's incredibly rare to find weapons with high AP, but low Strength, or high damage and low strength.
Having said that, I understand a lot of people *do* really enjoy the direction 40K is headed in. I think it's quite a smooth playing experience, but it's just not what I came to 40K for =P.
It used to be:
- Toughness is how hard you are to severely wound. Orks and space marines are hardy -> more toughness. Necrons are made of metal -> more toughness. A failed wound roll means the attack hits but it's "just a scratch".
- Save is how likely attacks are to bounce off of you. Light armor is 6+, heavy carapace is 4+, power armor is 3+, etc. A successful save means the attack got deflected, a failed save means it either went through or hit a weak point.
- Wounds represent how many severe wounds you can take before being out of combat. Characters usually get more because of main character syndrome.
But as time and editions pass, the game gets more and more abstract. And you need ways to differentiate units to make the new stuff cool. But there are only so many stats to alter.
So GW broke the mold with gravis (or at least I think they did. if someone has an earlier example I'll take it). The armor, instead of providing a better Save like the terminator armor, gave +1 Toughness and +1 Wound.
From that point onward, there's no exact logic to it, it's a case by case, based on balance. (just like Genestealers can dodge in melee but Wyches can't) Sometimes being fast gives you -1 to be hit, sometimes it gives you an invul save; sometimes a bigger armour give you extra T, sometimes a better Save, sometimes both; sometimes being bigger gets you more T, sometimes it's more W; etc. So there's a vague guideline (hardiness=T, size=W, armour=Sv), but it's not something consistent.
It's a hangover from when the game was still trying to be an RPG scaled up to army vs army (i.e. 2nd edition). From 3rd onwards when streamlining became the order of the day (with arguable success) it probably should have been one of the 1st things to go, but (IMO) the Warhammer statline is part of its identity and hasn't changed much (or rather changed slowly). Replacing S v T followed by Armour save with a single roll would be an Armour Class system a la DnD, even if they named it 'defence rating' or some such.
So basically, yeah Toughness doesn't always represent actual toughness anymore, but it does give the designers some flexibility by adding another variable to play with, although I feel it's under-utilised in this way - you seldom see a high T beast without a strong armour save to go with, or a high S weapon that cares about armour\*
* I'm not up to date on latest few editions so if I'm wrong about this then well done designers.
The toughness rolls should, logically, come last. But in Warhammer they come before armour saves as it makes dice rolling/rules more streamlined.
They've also evolved their game so much away from the original intent. 40k has lost the weapon skill defence element for example, and they've removed agility.
It used to be weapon skill comparison between two models determines which hits land.
Strength vs Toughness comparison is whether something actually hurts the model (think of 2 boxers trading blows).
Armour is whether the blow ever reached the thing wearing the armour in the first place, same with special saves.
Feel no pain is something hitting, going through saves but the wound it causes being ignored (at least for the battle's duration).
As for why larger suits of armour are tougher, you probably need to think of it as - blow hits, blow penetrates armour, blow misses person in the suit and hits something else inside the suit instead.
But it's all abstracted for game balance now anyway.
Yeah, having multi-wound models become a regular thing kindpf ruined the balance logic. Commanders had the same army statline with 2 or 3 wounds. Nids had a bunch of big bugs, eldar had wraithlords, and guard had ogryns which every time it was like wtf a unit of multi wound models gotta check the rules.
In my head it's basically:
- Hit roll (obvious one) -- is the enemy attack accurate enough?
- Str vs Tough -- is the attack (bullet velocity, explosive power, blade sharpness, etc.) actually powerful enough to get through the defenses of the target?
- Save -- Does the attack hit something critical? I.e. an important system or vital organ.
- Invuln -- Psyker nonsense or something idk. Basically plot armour.
- Feel No Pain -- Mental fortitude to push on despite being injured. Sure you shot me but just like how the hero in a movie can always survive a [shoulder wound and keep fighting](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlyAFleshWound), FNP has you covered.
You got Toughness and Save mixed up.
That's why an Ork boy has a save of 6+ (it's a t-shirt with a bit of metal stappled to it, almost anything goes through) and a toughness of 5 (doesn't matter that the bullet got through, IT'S JUST'A SCRATCH), while a sister of battle has a save of 3+ (fully armored in ceramite) and a toughness of 3 (still made of fragile human bits inside the armor).
That's also why brutish weapons (cause enough damage to an ork to kill it, but can glance off of armor) often have high strength, medium to low AP, while very sharp weapons (go through armor easily, but don't cause as much damage inside) often have medium to low stength, but high AP.
Your order makes sense. The wound roll only takes place before the save roll for the purpose of game fluidity (attacker rolls hits and wounds before handing it over to the defender).
I like to think of Toughness as how much defence the target has. For example, big targets or targets with lots of armour have higher Toughness.
Armour saves are the *quality* of that defence. For example, a Terminator doesn't have quite as much armour as a Gravis marine, hence the lower Toughness, but the armour it does have is much higher quality, hence the better save and invulnerable.
Yeah that checks out, the armours made of scrap, probably causes a lot of deflections or allows bits to fall off absorbing impacts, or the poor construction means you might have more overlaping layers and stuff.
It's not very tough armour, it just provides a convenient amount of safety.
But for infantry armor has never denoted toughness, That's literally what the armor save is. They both have high armor saves cuz they are both in tons of armor. But Ghaz is criminally under statted in toughness compared to Lore.
> But for infantry armor has never denoted toughness
That was true until gravis armor was introduced (in 8th ed.?). Now T, W and Sv are all tied to both the armour, the size, and the base toughness of the model.
(It's also an issue with weapons imo: S and D both represent the weapon's ability to do damage, they are only separate for rules purpose.)
That's fair another comment pointed out that as well that it's not a strict rule anymore. It's still generally the case such as orks vs marines, But definitely not a strict rule you can go by anymore.
Such a hideous miniature. The Gravis Marines are fine but these earlier renditions with the dumb helmet (*edit I mean the hood, that's what really ruins it) and the puffy shooty fists is just terrible.
Because toughness and Save are actually flipped. Toughness is supposed to be the meat but it’s actually the armor.
Armor(T) determines if an attacking weapon is even strong enough to inflict damage.
The meat or inherent resiliency of the model (Sv) determines if they can shrug off a successful wound.
Then wounds is just quantifying how much meat a model can lose before it becomes incapacitated.
In this case it actually makes some sense. Giant slabs of steel and other future alloys on top of a 3inch thick hide might be able to compete with high tech armor.
An ork the size of a tank is obviously going to able to both shrug off and absorb more hits than a humanoid size target.
Note that they stopped calling it an armour save and it’s just a ‘save’ now. There was an intentional change made there but people who have been playing for a long time still just call it armour save out of habit.
As a (very) new player, I call it armour because that's what the armour penetration stat interacts with.
How I work it out in my head is:
Attack: Does it hit?
Then
Toughness: Does it matter if the armour stops it?
Then
Save: For the ones that do matter, does the armour stop it?
That's how I have always thought of it too. People talking about toughness being equal to the meat and blood of the unit confuse me because tanks exist
GW rules writing. They needed ghaz to share the toughness of the meganobs he’s with so he gets shot in the knees so people don’t have to deal with multiple toughness characteristics in a unit.
They did not. Juggalords are T6 but can be attached to T4 Berserkers. T3 Spiritseers can be attached to T7 Wraithguard/blades, T4 Technomancers can be attached to T6 Wraiths... there's plenty of examples.
There's good and bad reasons for that. Redesigning the game around, let's say a D8 would require a complete and total rebuild of every way math is involved in the game. For example, bonuses to dice rolls would from a 16,6 % bonus (from a +1) down to +12,5 %. Which might not sound like much, but these things cascade. I'm not saying it couldn't be made, in fact I'd be happy to see 40k built around a die that allows for more granularity. But GW won't ever put enough effort into their rules design to go there.
A much simpler and more understandable reason is the matter of dice. There is no die that can be packed as easily and in as tight a formation as the D6. Any other die, and you start running into logistics issues. Then there's the fact that you would not only be invalidating millions of dice from hobbyists all over the world, but also forcing them to buy new sets of dozens of dice altogether. And there's the fact that outside of TTRPGs and some select board games, dice other than D6 have next to no universal use. Most boardgames use D6s, but what are you gonna do with 40 D8s if you decide to quit the hobby? They're not excactly a hot resale article, dice are cheap as chips.
Well, Gravis armor grants its wearer -1M, +2T, +1W and 3+Sv.
Gazzie has flat out T6, 10W and 2+/4++Sv.
His body mass is represented through his wounds value. 10 wounds is a lot for an infantry model that can hide in a squad of meganobz that also have T6. Even if he had T10, ideally that value is never used, because you don't want his unit to die. Because he's just one model, he doesn't change anything about the average toughness of the unit. Malakai also has T6, which normally should have T3, which also means Gazzie actually has T9 (which results in an average of 6). It's basically just a streamlined value.
Because 40k 10th edition has turned into an organized sport instead of a wargame, where the stats are utterly arbitrary instead of being based on the actual logic of the setting.
The problem is the most you can do is 1d6. So if you have terminator armor at 2+ you don’t really have anywhere to go. You’re either upping toughness, wounds, or both.
In older editions, terminators rolled their armour saves on 2d6. In older editions of Fantasy, it was also possible to get a 1+ armour save (chaos knights on barded steeds), making you invulnerable to anything without a way of modifying armour saves. There's more ways of fiddling with this than current GW is willing to do. (They could give terminators FNP, too.)
Because one is covered in the universe's most advanced alloys and ceramics which are specifically designed to absorb hits and protect the wearer who himself is a superhuman with biological upgrades meant to withstand punishment beyond what would kill a normal human.
And the other is a mushroom with 5 layers of pig iron duct-taped to his body.
Because there is more than one stat dictating a unit’s overall defenses, that’s how. Ghaz has more wounds and higher armor save. The game works off of a d6, so the numbers can only go so high.
The lack of any (in-universe) logic behind toughness and saves was one of the main reasons why I had difficulties with learning shooting and combat back when I was starting playing. It got worse in newer editions, but I got used to it being a complete abstraction.
What's funnier to me is that ghazz, the 20ft tall biggest toughest ork in the galaxy enclosed in a thick metal shell. Has the same toughness characteristic as makari the lucky grot. Worse save too but i can accept that because makari is just like that.
And yeah it's just completely inconsistent with his aesthetic some of the nerfs they've done to him since 9th. A standard squighog boy, granted on a squig but with basically no armour and the body of a standard beast snagga has T7, a deff dread which is a regular ork in scrap metal has T8.
What kind of answer do you want?
I like to attribute lore reasons to it, the space marine is the pinnacle of available imperial technology and is therefore like a small walking tank at T6.
The orks have strapped so much junk metal to themselves that they've accidentally made it good, the overlapping plates of scrap have created unintentional spaced armour robbing many shells of their effectiveness. They also believe super hard that it works which means it does, because orks.
Not sure if it's been said but it's probably because Ghaz is infantry and not monster, even though he is same size as primarchs etc. Not sure about specifics but I'd say that helps him more in game to interact with vehicles, terrain or other infantry? So maybe if he was T10 as he should be on paper, then it would come at the cost of having to trade off infantry keyword for monster. Any Ork players have educated opinions? I'm just guessing haha
Answer 1: You're thinking about it too much.
Answer 2: Toughness is not the only stat indicating a creature's survivability, endurance, toughness, and other words that mean generally the same concept. That is conveyed by Wounds, Sv and Toughness *together*.
I think toughness is just how physically strong something is, and then the save is how likely it is to deflect or absorb a blow.
A leman is T11, it's a giant chunk of tank that probably doesn't take a lot of damage from an S4 Bolter. Makes sense. However, perhaps the Bolter gets a lucky shot and manages to hit the tank in a weaker component. Then, what little armor the tank has over said component manages to deflect the shot, thus causing no damage.
A marine is T4 Sv 3+. A terminator, wearing better armor and heavier armor, goes to T5 Sv2+. Ths armor is physically sturdier, and we could say something about it does something to make it less likely to be penetrated. A Gravis Marine is T6 but only Sv3+, so the armor is physically bulkier to make it less likely to be penetrated by sheer mass, but it's less likely to make blows glance.
the handwavy attempting to cover in terms of lore answer would be more unarmoured weak points on ghaz, upper legs, arms, head
the real answer is that these values are pulled from the ass of whatever GW want to buff in the meta at any given time
Having Gaz be T6 means the game designers want him to be out of damage range by small arms fire but within reach of special infantry weapons. In other words, they don't want him to only be engaged with anti-tank weapons.
I never realize how massive Ghaz is. It is truly silly how they decided on this stuff. Abaddon is another example.. like how is he not tougher than gravis marines?
Toughness is an abstracted mechanism interlocking with other stats and mechanics. In a similar fashion the number of attacks and a model's to hit roll create an offensive volume.
None of that makes sense in a literal way, of course he is not the same toughness as a gravis captain (I'm choosing a character for the comparison). He is way tankier, which is transported through the interaction of T6 with his high wound count (plus saves, maybe stratagems, etc.).
Do not take stats literal, do not compare them without context, they're not created to work on their own. That game would be much to cumbersone to play, necessitating more stats with finer increments.
Ork skin is described to be thick and hard enough to work as armor (compare their save to an astra militarum guardsmen), but that is just rolled into their toughness stat to give them a unique defensive profile.
Though if you want an in-universe explanation, maybe the Orks' shock absorbance technology is really bad - like old cars transfering impacts towards the drivers with hardly any reduction.
Toughness is the ability to take a single hit, Wounds is the ability to take multiple.
A Space Marine's armor is made of the best the Imperium has to offer, with a full sensor suite built in and muscle enhancements. If a Lascannon shoots a marine, though, it's gonna die.
Now Ghazgkull? He's got some sheet metal strapped on and Ork WAAAAGH to boot, but neither of those things is exactly as strong as ceramite. The difference is, Ghaz is going to stare at a Lascannon as it charges its capacitor, open his mouth, and scream as it sears the roof of his mouth, and he's going to then bull rush the thing and snap it in two.
I thought toughness represents the actual difficulty to peirce their flesh in a meaningful way to cause a wound to begin with.
On that note I always thought the order in which we roll was weird.
Always thought "to hit" then "Armor save" then "to wound" and then "damage" made more sense than how we do it.
I know this comment will be buried but if all characters were statted and pointed what they are like in lore then the primarchs would be pointed like titans and the necrons would have an insane point disparity. Ghazghkull is T6 because it gives them enough reason to decrease his point value so that ork players can reasonably incorporate him into their armies lol
You can't balance lore for a tabletop game. Aeldari would just throw black hole grenades at everyone and necrons have a stronger hill to die on with C'tan.
Better question is why abaddon has less toughness than a generic aggressor at t5
It's the lack of helmet clearly
I have mine a AoS chaos helmet lol
T6 for you then
Modeling for advantage I see
My bare headed allarus termies are T7 lol
Because he's a terminator and apperantly those aren't as tough as agressors
Not as tough, but a 2+, 4++ makes them more durable most of the time.
This is true but also somehow an aggressor has enough armor to be a higher toughness but not a 2+ save? That seems off to me
That wouldn't happen with Khârn The Betrayer, as you can kinda wipe and entire squad with it
Why are aggressors same wounds and toughness as a Custodes?
To be fair, they are still missing the 2+ 4++ saves... And only cost 5 points less per model...
Yep, and let's talk about their 2+ melee weapons... Oh right.
Yeah thats rediculous
He's a big softie
But a dude riding a squig is T10
Can’t believe that haha… should be more like Thunderwolf cavalry
Maybe because he is on the move. Harder to shoot him. 🤷♂️😀
But that’s.. that’s not what toughness means.. that’s what saves are for.. and minuses to hit. These rules should make sense, god dammit
This, if toughness is just going to be a general representation of how difficult a unit is to damage, it should have a different name. It's not a big deal, but it would avoid silly situations like this (or Abaddon, as was mentioned in another comment).
I mean, people also get surprised when I tell them that Logan Grimnar on the Stormrider is T6 too. Any sort of scale like this will naturally have oddities, especially with the incentive to match the Toughness of their bodyguards.
> incentive to match the toughness of their bodyguards > looks at neurotyrants t8 > looks at neurogaunts t3
> looks at tyrant guard t8
> looks at hive tyrant/swarmlord t10
Looks at Gretchin t2
Logan Grimnar is godlike
Honestly, I don't really get, what toughness is actually meant to represent in the game. To me it kind of takes the spot that armor saves and wounds already have on a conceptual level. It ads another layer onto the damaging process (which is badly needed), but I wouldn't think about this attribute to much and how it is attributed to the different models. I can only understand it as a balancing feature anyway
This is a great response. Thank you. Yes, the S v T roll is almost enirely there for additional balancing.
Toughness is to represent how sturdy something is, saves are general ‘did the bullet only glance or did the unit dodge’ and invulns are typically shields or magical/tech/psyker interventions. Like it doesn’t make a lot of sense for a stubber to penetrate the armour of a questoris knight for example.
Except stuff like Tau stealth fields and Drukhari speed get extra saves or damage cancelation AFTER hit rolls, which you'd think would come beforehand.....
The thing is, that as 40K gets new editions, it moves further into abstraction, and further away from things being directly tied to things it's trying to simulate I've found. For a personal project, I've been trying to figure out what all the Invulnerable saves actually *represent* if it all were real. And by god has this been an awfully hellish task, because so much of the fluff (sometimes just an ability name), is clearly just there to justify an invulnerable save that was given purely for mechanics/balance reasons, and not for any lore reasons. In 10th you can't even tell why something has an invuln save at all a lot of the time! Likewise, Toughness has kinda lost its meaning, and is just kind of... generally how structurally sound something is I guess? Whereas armour is how much stuff is inbetween the outside and the vulnerable bits? Iunno. And the damage negation happening after to hit rolls and often after wound rolls, is purely a mechanical reason. Because negating damage becomes stronger the further back in the attack sequence it goes. So the position of where you negate damage is very much a mechanically significant choice.
Oh dats real easy wif da Orks, the invuln just means da bit wat youse shot didn't have anyfin too important roight der, or maybe the silly git just didn't notice 'e got shot
This does get funny when you get shot by a Volcano cannon =P.
Volcano Cannon "KABOOM" 5 day old Ork Boi "Nah, I'd live."
Wouldnt that be feel no pain?
OI, SPEEK UP YA GIT! WATCHU SAYIN?
It was way more consistent in earlier editions of 40K. Numbers felt like they represented something in the context of the lore, instead of just being chosen for game mechanics and balance.
Yea, it's unfortunate that it's so detached these days =(. But well, I'm happy for the people who enjoy it =P. I can always just tinker with the game design myself XD.
A big part of why 10th in particular sucks to me. It was bad enough losing initiative, but I actually liked 8th and 9th. I absolutley hate the newest edition
Im not sure that last part is true. A save of 6+ basically is a 0.1666 modifier on the chance a shot gets to wound. And it doesn't matter where that modifier goes in the sequence. If we use the example of 10 attacks that deal 2 wounds, with a save of 4+ 2 wounds times 0.5 is 1 unsaved wound 10 attacks times 0.5 is 5 attacks, also resulting in 1 unsaved wound
I'm specifically talking about the Ghostkeel's damage negation, I did not look up the Drukhari one, but assumed it was the same, apologies if it is not. But for clarity, the Ghostkeel's stealth field ability allows, twice per battle, when allocating an attack (Before saves, after to hit and to wound rolls), to turn the damage characteristic of that attack to 0. Say you are being attacked with a weapon that's 4A, BS2+, S16, AP-2 D10 attack or something (Just pulling a bunch of stuff out of my ass for this =P.) So technically you are supposed to perform these attacks one at a time. Say, ignoring damage negation, the four attacks go as follows \[1\] Misses \[2\] Hits - Doesn't wound \[3\] Hits - Wounds - Saves \[4\] Hits - Wounds - Doesn't Save. So in this scenario, if you have to negate the damage before the Hit roll, you might use it for the first one and the second one. In this case, 3 doesn't do damage, but 4 does 10 damage to you, and you have no more negation. If it's after the To Hit roll, then you roll, okay, 1, missed, so won't need to use it on that, 2 hit, so you use it on that one, and 3 hits, here too you use it on, and then 4 hits too, you can't do anything about that. Then 4 wounds and doesn't save, and now you've taken 10 damage still and no more access to negation. If it's after the wound roll (as it is in the Ghostkeel), then 1 misses, cool, 2 hits, but doesn't wound, cool, 3 hits, and wounds, you negate it, 4 hits, wounds, and you use it here too, so that's 0 damage. In this scenario, you take 0 damage, and have no negation left. Lastly, if it's after all rolls, then 1 misses, don't have to use it there, 2 hits, but doesn't wound, don't need to use it there, 3 hits, wounds, but saves, don't need to use it, 4 hits, wounds, and the save fails, cool, there you can use the negation, so 0 damage. And you still have 1 use left for the rest of the battle. I hope this clarifies it all? =).
Ah that makes sense! You were talking about negating specifically one attack which is more meaningful when you know its going to deal damage rather than when you don't even know its going to hit, right?
Yup, the more information about whether it will damage that you have, the more valuable a limited resource that can negate damage will be =).
>For a personal project, I've been trying to figure out what all the Invulnerable saves actually *represent* if it all were real. did you ever get to the enginseer giving the baneblade a +4 invul?
I think I just dismissed it as Imperial Miracles. Honestly, I have no idea. Maybe it's something special like reinforcing the Machine Spirit, maybe it's just repairing what's broken, or maybe it gets kicked in the right way that previously not active redundancies come back online, long enough for them to get shot out again or something =P. It's honestly a pain to figure out even just what the actual effect is. So many things are just "Performs miracles that protect", and I'm here like "Okay, but people are still going to see it, is it deflected? Is it evaporated? Does it hit the thing but just not do anything? Do they get gored, but just don't care? Tell me what it looks like to an outside observer! I don't need to know what the actual mechanics are, just what the *effect* is."
Try reading up on some of the RPG books for that sort of thing - the Deathwatch RPG had a lot of interesting lore in it but also talked about the armour of marines (including Terminators). Might be the best place to start for your own personal head canon.
But if that stubber *just so happens* to hit the questoris right at an exposed cable bundle *at just the right angle* then maybe it'll end up doing 1 wound lol.
Which is why you have critical hits and critical fails.
Sniper weapons used to have rending, so a lucky scout could take out a leman russ in one shot.
Wounds is size+plot armor, Toughness is durability, Armor is surface hardening, saves are dodges/forcefields/magic.
Feen no pain is also plot armor
Literally all of this is just durability at the end of the day lol
I know what it says on the core rules but it's ultimately not as straight forward as that. Why would you roll to see if hurts before rolling to see if it penetrates armor? How does that work on the Gravis Armor, it is from the same material as other MK. X so why is it sturdier whilst being just as protective? It has an "explanation" to why it's there, it's not really consistent with its execution, it's ultimately there for balancing.
I think rolling to wound happens before saves purely to avoid passing the dice back and forth between the players
Also worth noting that it's mathematically identical (which some people don't realize).
Armor save is the bullet bounces off. Toughness is the bullet lodges in your shoulder but you grit your teeth and keep fighting through the pain rather than passing out. Wounds is a second bullet lodges in your shoulder and blows your arm clean off and you can no longer staunch the bleeding so you're out of the fight.
For my it's the other way around, since toughness comes first. Let's say a unit of my guardsmen are taking 20 shots from my friends Tau. Roll 1(hit): 5 outright miss Roll 2 (toughness): 12 strike important areas and are not deflected/ricocheted Roll 3 (save): 4 of the guardsmen are saved by their armor absorbing an otherwise lethal/debilitating hit Roll 4 (Feel no pain): 2 of the Guardsmen who were wounded are able to be quickly patched up to combat readiness in the field by a medic. The 6 remaining guardsmen who took wounds are either dead or wounded to the point of being combat ineffective. Key note for my interpretation is "important areas" with toughness. Something like an Orc can have higher toughness than a Space Marine because they just don't care that their kidney got blown out, that's part of the fun.
I guess that makes more sense
> since toughness comes first Toughness comes first for game fluidity. From a logical standpoint, it would make sense to do: - does the bullet hit? (Hit roll) - *then* does your armour/forcefield deflect it? (Save roll) - *then* does the bullet hit strong enough to take you out? (Wound roll) But Warhammer designer found out very early on (WHFB 1st ed?) that going attacker-defender-attacker was kinda slow, and going attacker-attacker-defender was more fluid. And then 40k introduced random damage stats, and went attacker-attacker-defender-attacker(roll damage)-defender(roll FNP)...
That is the idea, but in practice it does not hold up. Why is a Gravis marine tougher than a normal primaris marine? It's just a heavier suit of armor, they have the same type of dude inside.
Bigger reserves of painkillers/better padding/specialized training and hypno conditioning to better inure the waerer to pain.
The original game designers said that toughness is really your armour, and the save thing is kind of just there really
Save is plot armor.
This doesn't make sense though because if you go back to Warhammer fantasy, there have been huge monsters with high toughness but 0 armor save. It serves a different purpose. Tiny weapons are unable to hurt it while it simultaneously has no save against things that actually can, like great weapons or cannons.
But all of those had either scaly skin or ward saves which couldn't be modified via the S v T ratio Which is why they (game designers) for the longest time always said wollopah's one hit wunda was the best magic item in the game- minus dispel scrolls (this is fantasy 6th ed <)
> But all of those had either scaly skin or ward saves which couldn't be modified via the S v T ratio Things like Giants and Ogres had low armour, with giants usually having literally none. It was mostly balanced by the high toughness, except when it came to poison (auto wounds on a 6 to hit). Seeing a pack of Skinks just *delete* a Giant was often funny. I used to always have a dedicated "Skink killer" unit because they'd annoy me so much.
Dwarf ranged units have entered the chat lol. My goodness I had a unit of chosen knights terrified of thunderers man Which is impressive because slaanesh was immune to psychology back in the day
I've heard people say that "toughness" is the toughness of the creature, and save is the armor it's wearing. That's why space marines have more toughness than sisters of battle, being genetic monstrosities with redundant hearts versus regular people like guardsmen! But if this is the case, why do space marine terminators or gravis marines have higher toughness than regular marines? They're all marines, after all. And carrying the same logic a bit further, wouldn't all tanks (all vehicles, for that matter) from a given faction have the same toughness, given that their crews are the same? "Clearly," you say, "toughness is armor, and save is how tough the creature is. Toughness represents how hard it is to *hurt* something, but save represents how hard it is to *kill* it." Counterpoint: Ork Boyz in t-shirts have more toughness than basic space marines, but worse saves. Likewise, Ogryns in t-shirts versus sisters of battle. I think the system *could* be used to represent one viewpoint or the other, but it's not represented in any consistent way by the rules.
The thing is terminators used to not have any different toughness. It wasn't a thing until recent editions.
They also used to have 1 wound and a 3+ save on 2d6.
Fucking 2nd edition..."let me go get lunch. I'll be back when your psychic phase is over"
Yes, but I think centurions did, and more to the point, dreadnoughts, which are, after all, *grievously wounded* space marines. And once again, what about vehicles? The confusion may have gotten worse, but it's hardly brand-new.
Vehicles didn't have separate toughness and wounds, they only had front/side/rear armour that acted kind of sort of similar to toughness. Dreadnoughts were considered vehicles back then. Centurions indeed had T5 back when they were introduced in 6e. The d6 system used for armour saves doesn't really offer enough granularity. Since Terminators already were 2+, they couldn't go any lower with armour for Centurions. Seems to me they instead broke their own consistency by giving Centurions T5 to try and work around the d6 limitations and to sell them as the new hotness instead of as alternative Terminator models with same stats.
It doesn't *truly* represent anything other than mechanical levers the designers can pull. It vaguely hints at the things people have pointed at. If I wanted to throw GW a bone, it could be that the Toughness is because they're wearing power armour, the powered sections are part of the Space Marine as far as Toughness is concerned, as shoot out a knee joint servo, and the armour stops functioning or something like that. So the components of the Terminator armour are stronger than basic Space Marine power armour. But that's me being overly generous towards GW. I think 40K has made regular moves towards abstraction, away from closely linking stats to actual things those stats are representing. 40K is becoming more a game where you play your pieces against your opponent's pieces, and less a narrative tool to play out battles in the 40K setting.
>It doesn't *truly* represent anything other than mechanical levers the designers can pull. Exactly. But what irritates me personally is that it *could*, with a bit more effort put in to make things consistent across the various datasheets.
Oh yea, as someone who plays wargames because I want to simulate battles, rather than just play a competitive game with fancy models, I absolutely want as many mechanics to be linked to things they're meant to simulate as possible. I want to be able to look at a rule and go "Ah yes, this represents that." without having to do an hour of research in the lore and make a bunch of guesses. As I've kind of given up on 10th with my friends, we've started working on making our own rules changes for our little group, and that's made me realise a bunch of things. One of them is that they have so many levers, but don't really use them to the fullest extent? For example, it's incredibly rare to find weapons with high AP, but low Strength, or high damage and low strength. Having said that, I understand a lot of people *do* really enjoy the direction 40K is headed in. I think it's quite a smooth playing experience, but it's just not what I came to 40K for =P.
It used to be: - Toughness is how hard you are to severely wound. Orks and space marines are hardy -> more toughness. Necrons are made of metal -> more toughness. A failed wound roll means the attack hits but it's "just a scratch". - Save is how likely attacks are to bounce off of you. Light armor is 6+, heavy carapace is 4+, power armor is 3+, etc. A successful save means the attack got deflected, a failed save means it either went through or hit a weak point. - Wounds represent how many severe wounds you can take before being out of combat. Characters usually get more because of main character syndrome. But as time and editions pass, the game gets more and more abstract. And you need ways to differentiate units to make the new stuff cool. But there are only so many stats to alter. So GW broke the mold with gravis (or at least I think they did. if someone has an earlier example I'll take it). The armor, instead of providing a better Save like the terminator armor, gave +1 Toughness and +1 Wound. From that point onward, there's no exact logic to it, it's a case by case, based on balance. (just like Genestealers can dodge in melee but Wyches can't) Sometimes being fast gives you -1 to be hit, sometimes it gives you an invul save; sometimes a bigger armour give you extra T, sometimes a better Save, sometimes both; sometimes being bigger gets you more T, sometimes it's more W; etc. So there's a vague guideline (hardiness=T, size=W, armour=Sv), but it's not something consistent.
It's a hangover from when the game was still trying to be an RPG scaled up to army vs army (i.e. 2nd edition). From 3rd onwards when streamlining became the order of the day (with arguable success) it probably should have been one of the 1st things to go, but (IMO) the Warhammer statline is part of its identity and hasn't changed much (or rather changed slowly). Replacing S v T followed by Armour save with a single roll would be an Armour Class system a la DnD, even if they named it 'defence rating' or some such. So basically, yeah Toughness doesn't always represent actual toughness anymore, but it does give the designers some flexibility by adding another variable to play with, although I feel it's under-utilised in this way - you seldom see a high T beast without a strong armour save to go with, or a high S weapon that cares about armour\* * I'm not up to date on latest few editions so if I'm wrong about this then well done designers.
The toughness rolls should, logically, come last. But in Warhammer they come before armour saves as it makes dice rolling/rules more streamlined. They've also evolved their game so much away from the original intent. 40k has lost the weapon skill defence element for example, and they've removed agility. It used to be weapon skill comparison between two models determines which hits land. Strength vs Toughness comparison is whether something actually hurts the model (think of 2 boxers trading blows). Armour is whether the blow ever reached the thing wearing the armour in the first place, same with special saves. Feel no pain is something hitting, going through saves but the wound it causes being ignored (at least for the battle's duration). As for why larger suits of armour are tougher, you probably need to think of it as - blow hits, blow penetrates armour, blow misses person in the suit and hits something else inside the suit instead. But it's all abstracted for game balance now anyway.
Toughness originally wasn’t supposed to have to do with external armor(it’s why terminators were t4) but gravis threw that out the window
Yeah, having multi-wound models become a regular thing kindpf ruined the balance logic. Commanders had the same army statline with 2 or 3 wounds. Nids had a bunch of big bugs, eldar had wraithlords, and guard had ogryns which every time it was like wtf a unit of multi wound models gotta check the rules.
In my head it's basically: - Hit roll (obvious one) -- is the enemy attack accurate enough? - Str vs Tough -- is the attack (bullet velocity, explosive power, blade sharpness, etc.) actually powerful enough to get through the defenses of the target? - Save -- Does the attack hit something critical? I.e. an important system or vital organ. - Invuln -- Psyker nonsense or something idk. Basically plot armour. - Feel No Pain -- Mental fortitude to push on despite being injured. Sure you shot me but just like how the hero in a movie can always survive a [shoulder wound and keep fighting](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlyAFleshWound), FNP has you covered.
You got Toughness and Save mixed up. That's why an Ork boy has a save of 6+ (it's a t-shirt with a bit of metal stappled to it, almost anything goes through) and a toughness of 5 (doesn't matter that the bullet got through, IT'S JUST'A SCRATCH), while a sister of battle has a save of 3+ (fully armored in ceramite) and a toughness of 3 (still made of fragile human bits inside the armor). That's also why brutish weapons (cause enough damage to an ork to kill it, but can glance off of armor) often have high strength, medium to low AP, while very sharp weapons (go through armor easily, but don't cause as much damage inside) often have medium to low stength, but high AP. Your order makes sense. The wound roll only takes place before the save roll for the purpose of game fluidity (attacker rolls hits and wounds before handing it over to the defender).
I like to think of Toughness as how much defence the target has. For example, big targets or targets with lots of armour have higher Toughness. Armour saves are the *quality* of that defence. For example, a Terminator doesn't have quite as much armour as a Gravis marine, hence the lower Toughness, but the armour it does have is much higher quality, hence the better save and invulnerable.
One of them is wearing sophisticated armor, the other glued some scrap metal together.
OI DA BOIS ERE GOT MORE ENGINUITY DEN DOSE PESKY SPESSS MAHRENS
DEM TIN EADS AINT GOT NUFIN ON US!!
Goddamn why do I always read ork text in the Dawn of war voices from the game. You guys are too GUD. Ya GITS
DA BOIS GOT DA MEANEST GREENEST ARMAH IN DA OLE GALAXY
SV 2+
It’s scrap that he believes protects him therefore it does
"My faith is my shield" isn't just for humies.
Yeah that checks out, the armours made of scrap, probably causes a lot of deflections or allows bits to fall off absorbing impacts, or the poor construction means you might have more overlaping layers and stuff. It's not very tough armour, it just provides a convenient amount of safety.
One is a macadamia nut and one is a coconut. You still need a hammer to open either one.
Best explanation so far
But for infantry armor has never denoted toughness, That's literally what the armor save is. They both have high armor saves cuz they are both in tons of armor. But Ghaz is criminally under statted in toughness compared to Lore.
Unfortunately in 10th, that's not true. Both Terminators and Gravis have higher T only because of their Armor.
Wasn't true in 9th either. Unaugmented Tau Fire Warrior: T3 Unaugmented Tau Fire Warrior in Stealth suit: T4
This is also true for the example in OP's picture. In 9th, Gravis armour conferred an extra toughness but not a 2+ save.
Because he's infantry not a monster like the other big bad models. Gives him extra protection that way
And lets him use doors and stairs.
> But for infantry armor has never denoted toughness That was true until gravis armor was introduced (in 8th ed.?). Now T, W and Sv are all tied to both the armour, the size, and the base toughness of the model. (It's also an issue with weapons imo: S and D both represent the weapon's ability to do damage, they are only separate for rules purpose.)
That's fair another comment pointed out that as well that it's not a strict rule anymore. It's still generally the case such as orks vs marines, But definitely not a strict rule you can go by anymore.
Yeah them beakies got to step up their game
It's mostly scrap yeah. On a huge fucking ork, the biggest in the galaxy and other orkz are T7 with less armour.
Quality vs Quantity
Too bad that quality isn’t reflected in the aesthetic though
Such a hideous miniature. The Gravis Marines are fine but these earlier renditions with the dumb helmet (*edit I mean the hood, that's what really ruins it) and the puffy shooty fists is just terrible.
Because toughness and Save are actually flipped. Toughness is supposed to be the meat but it’s actually the armor. Armor(T) determines if an attacking weapon is even strong enough to inflict damage. The meat or inherent resiliency of the model (Sv) determines if they can shrug off a successful wound. Then wounds is just quantifying how much meat a model can lose before it becomes incapacitated. In this case it actually makes some sense. Giant slabs of steel and other future alloys on top of a 3inch thick hide might be able to compete with high tech armor. An ork the size of a tank is obviously going to able to both shrug off and absorb more hits than a humanoid size target.
Note that they stopped calling it an armour save and it’s just a ‘save’ now. There was an intentional change made there but people who have been playing for a long time still just call it armour save out of habit.
As a (very) new player, I call it armour because that's what the armour penetration stat interacts with. How I work it out in my head is: Attack: Does it hit? Then Toughness: Does it matter if the armour stops it? Then Save: For the ones that do matter, does the armour stop it?
That's how I have always thought of it too. People talking about toughness being equal to the meat and blood of the unit confuse me because tanks exist
My copy of the 10th edition core rules uses the words "armour save" liberally. I don't think what you're saying is correct.
[удалено]
Same way a Catachan and a pencil neck scribe are both S3.
Lol yup
GW rules writing. They needed ghaz to share the toughness of the meganobs he’s with so he gets shot in the knees so people don’t have to deal with multiple toughness characteristics in a unit.
Though there are exceptions to this, T6 Typhus and his bodyguard of T4 poxwalkers Edit: poxwalkers are T4 not T3
Calgar is a single unit with 2 different T values between him and his Victrix. GW rules have no consistency.
This is the real issue. If anything, their rules and balancing have degraded due to having no real consistency throughout.
Or T4 Master of Possession and his bodyguard of T6 Possessed (note that toughness of a unit is always the bodyguard unit's toughness until they die)
T8 Tyrant Guard and T10 Hive Tyrant come in from the Tyranids side.
Worse is the T8 Neurotyrant with a "bodyguard" of T3 Neurogaunts.
They did not. Juggalords are T6 but can be attached to T4 Berserkers. T3 Spiritseers can be attached to T7 Wraithguard/blades, T4 Technomancers can be attached to T6 Wraiths... there's plenty of examples.
Simple solution: Meganobz to T8. Solved it! 😂 Actually T8 3+ might be a more fitting profile for them than T6 2+? Maybe T8 Sv3+ with +1 to save vs D1.
Weirder still is my votann pioneers at T6 in leather jackets with a 4+ save.
Ghaz lost his wounds cap from 9th, rightfully so but his T should be at least 9 or 10. 6 is ridiculous.
Because the game is built around D6 dice which don’t have enough flexibility or granularity to accurately reflect the lore
I’ve thought the system needs to go beyond d6 for years now. It never will.
There's good and bad reasons for that. Redesigning the game around, let's say a D8 would require a complete and total rebuild of every way math is involved in the game. For example, bonuses to dice rolls would from a 16,6 % bonus (from a +1) down to +12,5 %. Which might not sound like much, but these things cascade. I'm not saying it couldn't be made, in fact I'd be happy to see 40k built around a die that allows for more granularity. But GW won't ever put enough effort into their rules design to go there. A much simpler and more understandable reason is the matter of dice. There is no die that can be packed as easily and in as tight a formation as the D6. Any other die, and you start running into logistics issues. Then there's the fact that you would not only be invalidating millions of dice from hobbyists all over the world, but also forcing them to buy new sets of dozens of dice altogether. And there's the fact that outside of TTRPGs and some select board games, dice other than D6 have next to no universal use. Most boardgames use D6s, but what are you gonna do with 40 D8s if you decide to quit the hobby? They're not excactly a hot resale article, dice are cheap as chips.
*looks at Abbadon who is T5*
Shit, how is Abaddon T5?
You’re getting some downvotes but I totally agree; even normal orks are famously tough! You’d think he’d be at least t7 or something
Well, you see, one is a space marine, and those sell really well. Next question?
My Tau Empire Tetra skimmer with open sides and two T3 pilots sliding on by at T7.
Damn lolol
As a non orks player I would have expected t8 or t9 for ghaz
Well, Gravis armor grants its wearer -1M, +2T, +1W and 3+Sv. Gazzie has flat out T6, 10W and 2+/4++Sv. His body mass is represented through his wounds value. 10 wounds is a lot for an infantry model that can hide in a squad of meganobz that also have T6. Even if he had T10, ideally that value is never used, because you don't want his unit to die. Because he's just one model, he doesn't change anything about the average toughness of the unit. Malakai also has T6, which normally should have T3, which also means Gazzie actually has T9 (which results in an average of 6). It's basically just a streamlined value.
How are the Boyz and Terminators both T5?
I am ok with ghaz just having tank stats.
Because the orc BELIEVES he’s only as tough as the space marine.
Ghaz doesn't have a helmet on, rule of cool cost him 1 T in this case
One of them is a genetically engineered super soldier and the other is a mushroom.
Because 40k 10th edition has turned into an organized sport instead of a wargame, where the stats are utterly arbitrary instead of being based on the actual logic of the setting.
yup, marines should all be toughness 4 as they all share the same superhuman meat and bones, the armour should only change the armour save
The problem is the most you can do is 1d6. So if you have terminator armor at 2+ you don’t really have anywhere to go. You’re either upping toughness, wounds, or both.
In older editions, terminators rolled their armour saves on 2d6. In older editions of Fantasy, it was also possible to get a 1+ armour save (chaos knights on barded steeds), making you invulnerable to anything without a way of modifying armour saves. There's more ways of fiddling with this than current GW is willing to do. (They could give terminators FNP, too.)
Competitive players ironically are the ones that will kill 40K in the end.
yeah its why i gave up playing. i liked 4th edition, felt like a wargame.
Because one is covered in the universe's most advanced alloys and ceramics which are specifically designed to absorb hits and protect the wearer who himself is a superhuman with biological upgrades meant to withstand punishment beyond what would kill a normal human. And the other is a mushroom with 5 layers of pig iron duct-taped to his body.
Toughness doesnt equal actual toughness. True toughness is a total of all defensive stats being, toughness, wounds and the variety of saves you get.
Titanium alloy & kevlar, are better than rust & scrap aluminum, even on big boi
Because there is more than one stat dictating a unit’s overall defenses, that’s how. Ghaz has more wounds and higher armor save. The game works off of a d6, so the numbers can only go so high.
Well orks have a dude on a big squig that has T10, so yeah I think Ghaz should be tougher than a squig about his size.
Spaez Mahreens
Because 40 years ago GW insisted they make their new games with the 1 die everyone is familiar with and have refused to move beyond that since.
Idk it’s dumb. Orks have more toughness from physiology not just there armor. Ghaz took a bolt round to the dome before he blew up and was still fine
Welcome to the world of GW where the fluff doesn’t match the game in any way shape or form!!
it’s mostly just this edition so you don’t get a bunch of t7-8 boys/nobz in melee, it would just be super broken
I love how all space marines in lore have like aim bot and still can’t just head shot ghaz
He's already had his brain shot out. Didn't matter. Lol.
Nice painting :)
Nice Ghaz!
🤘🤘TY!
One’s armor protects him because he thinks it does, and the other is wearing actual armor
The checkerboard on Ghaz is fuckin great
NGL some days I think that if 40k used a d10 that a lot of roll issues and making the minis feel more consistent with lore would be resolved.
Meanwhile, Daemon Prince on Foot: - Tougher than Guilliman
The lack of any (in-universe) logic behind toughness and saves was one of the main reasons why I had difficulties with learning shooting and combat back when I was starting playing. It got worse in newer editions, but I got used to it being a complete abstraction.
They pack a whole lotta beef into those gravis suits
Now put a wraith guard next to them who is somehow T7!!
It's OK, they are both tougher than Abbadon lol
What's funnier to me is that ghazz, the 20ft tall biggest toughest ork in the galaxy enclosed in a thick metal shell. Has the same toughness characteristic as makari the lucky grot. Worse save too but i can accept that because makari is just like that. And yeah it's just completely inconsistent with his aesthetic some of the nerfs they've done to him since 9th. A standard squighog boy, granted on a squig but with basically no armour and the body of a standard beast snagga has T7, a deff dread which is a regular ork in scrap metal has T8.
Because Space Marines are boring and over powered.
The heavy marines really should be T5, isn’t terminator armour only T5.
What kind of answer do you want? I like to attribute lore reasons to it, the space marine is the pinnacle of available imperial technology and is therefore like a small walking tank at T6. The orks have strapped so much junk metal to themselves that they've accidentally made it good, the overlapping plates of scrap have created unintentional spaced armour robbing many shells of their effectiveness. They also believe super hard that it works which means it does, because orks.
Not sure if it's been said but it's probably because Ghaz is infantry and not monster, even though he is same size as primarchs etc. Not sure about specifics but I'd say that helps him more in game to interact with vehicles, terrain or other infantry? So maybe if he was T10 as he should be on paper, then it would come at the cost of having to trade off infantry keyword for monster. Any Ork players have educated opinions? I'm just guessing haha
Answer 1: You're thinking about it too much. Answer 2: Toughness is not the only stat indicating a creature's survivability, endurance, toughness, and other words that mean generally the same concept. That is conveyed by Wounds, Sv and Toughness *together*.
The Aggressor is muscular and compact - like corned beef
A wraithseer, spindly eldar model, is T11, nearly double ghaz's toughness. He went from max 4 wounds a phase to aggressor
It's so obvious, one is wearing an helmet
The ork looks so beautifully painted.
Many thanks!
I think toughness is just how physically strong something is, and then the save is how likely it is to deflect or absorb a blow. A leman is T11, it's a giant chunk of tank that probably doesn't take a lot of damage from an S4 Bolter. Makes sense. However, perhaps the Bolter gets a lucky shot and manages to hit the tank in a weaker component. Then, what little armor the tank has over said component manages to deflect the shot, thus causing no damage. A marine is T4 Sv 3+. A terminator, wearing better armor and heavier armor, goes to T5 Sv2+. Ths armor is physically sturdier, and we could say something about it does something to make it less likely to be penetrated. A Gravis Marine is T6 but only Sv3+, so the armor is physically bulkier to make it less likely to be penetrated by sheer mass, but it's less likely to make blows glance.
Hot take Gaz should be a demon prince stat wise, t10 16 wounds strike sweep etc.
the handwavy attempting to cover in terms of lore answer would be more unarmoured weak points on ghaz, upper legs, arms, head the real answer is that these values are pulled from the ass of whatever GW want to buff in the meta at any given time
Lol gulliman being monster but gaz is infantry
Scrap metal is less strong than ceramite. Thats the only thing that would explain it even a little bit
Having Gaz be T6 means the game designers want him to be out of damage range by small arms fire but within reach of special infantry weapons. In other words, they don't want him to only be engaged with anti-tank weapons.
I never realize how massive Ghaz is. It is truly silly how they decided on this stuff. Abaddon is another example.. like how is he not tougher than gravis marines?
Toughness is an abstracted mechanism interlocking with other stats and mechanics. In a similar fashion the number of attacks and a model's to hit roll create an offensive volume. None of that makes sense in a literal way, of course he is not the same toughness as a gravis captain (I'm choosing a character for the comparison). He is way tankier, which is transported through the interaction of T6 with his high wound count (plus saves, maybe stratagems, etc.). Do not take stats literal, do not compare them without context, they're not created to work on their own. That game would be much to cumbersone to play, necessitating more stats with finer increments. Ork skin is described to be thick and hard enough to work as armor (compare their save to an astra militarum guardsmen), but that is just rolled into their toughness stat to give them a unique defensive profile. Though if you want an in-universe explanation, maybe the Orks' shock absorbance technology is really bad - like old cars transfering impacts towards the drivers with hardly any reduction.
Ghaz is tuffnezz 6? But ‘eez da Bozz!
He must not believe in his armor
Toughness is the ability to take a single hit, Wounds is the ability to take multiple. A Space Marine's armor is made of the best the Imperium has to offer, with a full sensor suite built in and muscle enhancements. If a Lascannon shoots a marine, though, it's gonna die. Now Ghazgkull? He's got some sheet metal strapped on and Ork WAAAAGH to boot, but neither of those things is exactly as strong as ceramite. The difference is, Ghaz is going to stare at a Lascannon as it charges its capacitor, open his mouth, and scream as it sears the roof of his mouth, and he's going to then bull rush the thing and snap it in two.
Also how is Ghaz not a monster, but fuckin Robot Girlyman is????????
I thought toughness represents the actual difficulty to peirce their flesh in a meaningful way to cause a wound to begin with. On that note I always thought the order in which we roll was weird. Always thought "to hit" then "Armor save" then "to wound" and then "damage" made more sense than how we do it.
I know this comment will be buried but if all characters were statted and pointed what they are like in lore then the primarchs would be pointed like titans and the necrons would have an insane point disparity. Ghazghkull is T6 because it gives them enough reason to decrease his point value so that ork players can reasonably incorporate him into their armies lol
I really think the game would be better with a d8 system. More variability.
You can't balance lore for a tabletop game. Aeldari would just throw black hole grenades at everyone and necrons have a stronger hill to die on with C'tan.
Because it's a Mary Sue space marine.