Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XXXVII: Highlighting the Contrasts

[Avaris]

But it is uncertain. A D3 has an even chance to roll 1, 2 or 3. And it does matter. If the opposing model has 3 wounds, there is an even chance I can kill it with one shot. If it has two wounds, the odds skew in my favour. And it's exactly as dramatic as I make it. Hell, it's my opponent's Warlord, he's down to three (maybe even two) Wounds, and I have a dude with a Power Fist. Here we go!

Isn't this exactly what you're talking about?
Except now skew it up to every single model in your army?

...Except instead of learning the results of the D3 immediately...You have to wait 'til the end of the round?

You must gamble on the results of the D3. Will it roll a 3 and kill my opponent's Warlord? Or should I waste a few more attacks just in case I roll a '1'?
...Making choices like that on no information, is the opposite of tactics.

Meanwhile, if you have a weapon that only does 2 Damage, you know you wont destroy your opponents model with three wounds if you hit once, which allows you to make a better - tactical - choice.

It’s random, but the outcome is not uncertain. If I fail to roll the damage necessary I likely have other things I can immediately use to get the results I want. So the death of the Warlord is, most likely, certain. Therefore, the randomness of the damage doesn’t add anything to the game. Also, the dice rolls in 40k are highly variable in how much they matter to the outcome: all my bad luck came on damage rolls for a unit that doesn’t matter, whereas yours were armour saves on your general? Too bad.

By contrast, damage at the end of the turn, you’re making a calculated risk that you can’t immediately correct if it goes wrong. So the randomness of it matters. Your decision isn’t based on no information, You know the odds: that character has 6 wounds, a 50% chance of failing a saving throw, so causing 12 wounds is 50% chance of killing them. Then the tactical decision is ‘is that good enough?’ Some players will take that chance, others will push to 75% or even 90%. The good generals will work out the sweet spot between not dedicating all their firepower on one thing and succeeding most of the time, while also having a plan for if it goes wrong.

(Worth noting, humans are very bad at probability: understanding likely outcomes and planning on that basis is very skill intensive)

A good tactical game tests your skill both when things are going to plan, and when they are not. Uncertainty adds to that dynamic in a positive way. Randomness for the sake of randomness is bad, but that doesn’t seem to be what we’re getting here: the uncertainty is contollable, you’ll know the odds, and then that randomness is be resolved immediately, all at once, allowing for adaptation to the new state of the battle.

Edit: I’m reasonably certain that random damage weapons won’t be a thing, or if they are you’ll know the results straight away upon shooting. The damage phase seems to be moving the saving throws to the end of the turn: you’ll know how much damage is on each enemy unit and what they need to save it. So you can get a reasonable expectation, with an element of controllable uncertainty due to armour saves

Edit 2: Ork preview up, confirming that Power levels are used to select forces (talks about cheap things to use spare Power on). Also indicates that 4 small blast markers is ‘almost enough to scrap a knight’, which suggests that a blast marker does not always equal a wound. I suspect each blast marker is multiple wounds, unsure if that will be static or variable though.