Guide to understanding Unit and Weapon Stats.

[DuncanStewart]

Unit/Weapon and Stats Guide.

I just put up a big mod that has several thousand balance changes and is fully compatible with the Tyranid Expansion Mod and the Tau Expansion Mod. It rebalances all Seven factions at the Squad based level. It plays like how table top should feel. I learned a lot about the mechanics of the game creating the mod so I fiured I'd share some of that information here.

If you want to get that mod you can find it here.

viewtopic.php?f=235&t=63307


A lot of people are finding it hard to understand what the various in game statistics do. This guide is going to explain all the behind the scenes math so you can understand why units do what they do with the weapons they have. After a brief explanation of what the stats do I'm going to explain how combat works in detail.

To get started let's talk about the non-combat stats: cost, spotting and movement

Max number is just the number of guys in a unit, it can range from a single titan up to as many as 45 Ork boyz. It technically is a combat stat because each guys shoots all his weapons when he fights.

Cost is simply the amount of requisition (money) you need to purchase the unit.

Spotting is how many hexes of fog of war are revealed by the unit

Movement is the number of hexes a unit is able to move, under perfect conditions. If there is rough terrain it will be slower and it will be faster on roads.

Type of Movement

Type of Movement refers to the type of unit we are looking at. It could be infantry, a tank or a heavy walker. There are 14 diifferent types of movement, (1-14 in the unit editor), and each one is affected by terrain in different ways. Some movemnt types can't enter certain places like buildings or fortifications. If you want to change how units interact with terrain you can go to the Movemnt file in the Data folder and change the values with a text editor. The numbers show how much movement it costs each unit type to enter a given hex. For example, it costs a heavy walker 1.5 moves to enter a sparse jungle. If there is a -100 it means the units move ends when it enters that hex. If there is a -200 it cannot enter that hex.

Max Number

Max number is just the number of guys in a unit, it can range from a single titan up to as many as 45 Ork boyz. It technically is a combat stat because each guys shoots all his weapons when he fights. This is a very powerful stat, a unit of 30 guys is much stronger than two units of 15 guys.

Melee Accuracy

Melee Accuracy is the Percantage chance for a unit to hit with one of its attacks in melee combat. It is not like Weapon Skill in Warhammer because it doesn't depend on the opponent's Melee Accuracy. It actually functions like Balistic skill because it never changes. If you want to nerf a unit without having to change its weapon or hurting its ranged ability you should change this stat. It' generally beetter to change accuracy than the weapon itself because changing the weapon will have a large ripple effect on balancing.

Ranged Accuracy

Ranged Acuracy is the same as Melee accuracy except it affects ranged attacks. It is important to note that even in close combat, ranged accuracy will be used for ranged weapons. Change Ranged Accuracy if you want to nerf a unit's ranged damage without affecting their weapon or their melee damage at all.

Defense

Defense is how resistant a unit is to different weapon types. A higher defense means attacks that do hit are less likely to harm the unit. In Warhammer terms this stat is both Toughness and Armor Save rollied into one. Raise or Lower defense to change what TYPE of weapons are able to hurt a unit. If you want to make a unit more durable but still vulnerable to small arms you are going to have to change its Hit Points

Health

Each individual guy in a unit has a certain amount of hit points, which are like Wounds. A unit will lose a hit point whenever it is struck by a weapon and that weapon penetrates their armor. Some weapons can do more than 1 Hit point in damage if they are very strong relative to the units defense. In some cases a single hit can kill a gigantic target if you get lucky. This is a good value to change if you want to make a unit last longer while still not being able to fight outside of its class. Adding defense to Guardsmen will screw up weapon balances, and if you just add guys the unit gets too much firpower. HP is a great way to change the value of a unit.

Initiative

Initiative is a very subtle stat. If a unit has a higher initiative than it's opponent it gets to shoot first. If they are tied they shoot at the same time. Large differences in initiative will have more of an effect than smaller ones. Initiative is very subtle so I will explain it more later on. It is a lesser stat but it can be used to severly weaken heavy weapons teams or super heavy tanks.

Traits

Assault - Units with this trait can attack with melee weapons and will ignore cover bonuses. There are some very subtle ways assaults can resolve which I will explain later.
Fearless - Units with this trait will lose morale at half speed, morale is surprisingly underrated.
Heroic - This unit and all adjacent units will be restored to full morale at the start of the turn.
Camo - Units with this skill cannot be seen by enemy units unless they occupy the adjacent hex.
Leadership - This unit will restore 25 morale to all adjacent units at the start of the turn. None for itself however.
Flyer - This unit has some sort of evasion to damage and can not be assaulted.

Camo is a secret trait and only exists on units I have given it to in this mod. A trait called Recon and Heavy Pull exist but they are unclear to me.

Moving on to Weapons, we see that there is a statistics bar that inclues: Min Range, Max Range, Accuracy, Accuracy per Hex, Strength, Armour piercing, Shots, Ammo and Traits.

Min Range and Max range

Min Range and Max range refer to how many hexes a weapon is able to shoot. Both Ranged and Melee Weapons with 0 min range ignore cover in assaults. Weapons with a 0 max range cannot retaliate except in an assault. Min Range is a great way to stealth nerf a target. Titans with minimum range of two can get locked down by Conscripts who hang out by their feet.

Accuracy

Accuracy refers to the chance of any given weapon to hit. It is related to Melee accuracy and Ranged accuracy because it affects the chance of the weapon to hit. But this stat is just for the weapon. The lascannon itself will be just as accurate in the hands of a Space Marine as it is in a Gretchin, but it's up to the shooter to make the shot count.

Accuracy per hex.

Accuracy per hex is how much the accuracy of a given weapon falls off every extra point of range. Almost all weapons have -10% which means you take a flat 10% off the weapon accuracy. A weapon with 100 accuracy and -10% accuracy will have a 90% hit chance in the first hex and 80 in the second hex. This can be really useful if you want to make weapons like Multi-Meltas etc.

Strength and Armor Piercing

Weapon Strength tells you what sort of targets the weapon is going to be able to damage. A 20 Strength Lasgun is going to do OK vs 30 Defense Orks but poorly against 55 Defense Spacce Marines. Bolters will destroy orks but will struggle with tanks. Armor piercing tells you what % of the Defense value a shot is going to ignore. Generally the higher either of the stats are the more dakka the weapon has. But weapon stats can be misleading. When designing weapons it's very important to get the right balance between the two. If you give a bolter 30 Strength and 75% Armor Pen, it will actually be more effective than a 100 Attack 0 Ap lascannon vs a super heavy tank (105 Armor). It will actually would the tank 51% of the time while the Lascannon would only wound 50% of the time. Against an ork however, the bolter would only kill 70% of the time and the lascannon would always instagib the Ork. If you understand the math behind it, Armor penetration does not mean the weapon is good against armor, it means it is good agains a wide variety of targets. There are some weird weapons you can design with 100% armor reduction. A "kiss" gun, with 0 Attack Power and 100% ArmPen would wound 50% of the time. (I've used this for psychers, who do a flat number of kills a turn.)

Shots

Shots refers to the number of Attacks any unit gets when it attacks. If the weapon has 2 shots and the unit carrying it as 20 guys, there will be 40 shots. Every weapon held by the unit will do the same thing.

Ammo

Does not exist in this gamee. It just can't be zero.

Traits

Siege - This weapon ignores cover bonuses
Bulky - This weapon does not get to retaliate when under attack
Indirect - This weapon ignores LOS and (probably) the accuracy penalty involved in shooting at enemies in cover
AA - This weapon ignores the aerial bonus evasion
Terror - This weapon does double morale damage when it attacks.

Combat

When you combine units with weapons you now have Soldiers/Tanks that are able to kill other Soliders/Tanks. Combat seems rather hard to figure out at first but in reality it is just a very long series of dice rolls.

Using a hypothetical Guardsman unit fighting and Ork unit I will show you what happens.

The situation is this. The Humans have 20 men, they have 50 Melee accuracy and 50 ranged Accuracy. They are using Lasguns which do 20 damage, 0% armor penetration and have 90% accuracy and -10% per hex. Each gun has 1 shot and 2 range. The humans' defense is 20.

The Orks have 20 men too. They have 50 Melee Accuracy and 25 Ranged Accuracy. They are using sluggas which do 30 damage, 0% armor penetration and have 80% accuracy and -10% per hex. Each gun has 1 shot and 1 range. They are also using Choppas with 20 damage, 0 range, 50% armor penetration, 80% accuracy and -10% per hex. The Orks' defense is 30.

If the Guardsman shoot at two range, the Orks will not be able to retaliate, so this is how the situation will unfold.

First the Guardsman will shoot their lasguns ONCE each for a total of TWENTY shots. They are not good shots (Ranged Acc = 50%), so approximately TEN have a chance of hitting the Orks. BUT Lasguns are not reliable weapons. Since the Orks are two spaces away, only 70% of the Lasgun shots are going to work (90%-20% range penalty). That leaves us with only 7 shots that connect. The last step determines how many kills there are. We use the weapon attack, armor penetration and defense to do that. Each shot has a 50% chance to kill if the attack and defense scores (after armor penetration) are the same. In this case the Lasguns have 20 damage and 0 ap while the Orks have 30 defense. Therefore the wound chance is 40%. (50% + Attack - Net Defense)) (50+20-30)%. That means out of the 7 shots, around 3 should kill.

If there were only 1 space of distance there would be a very different result. The guardsmen will shoot TWENTY shots, of which around TEN might hit, of which because of the Lasgun's inaccuracy 80% (90% - 10%) of them will hit for EIGHT hits. Since Orks are still 30 defense around THREE will be killed this time (3.2dmg expected). The Orks will retaliate with their sluggas with TWENTY shots. Around 25% of these shots will hit because of the Orks Ranged Accuracy. Since the weapons are unreliable only 70% of them work (80% - 10%). That leaves us with 3.5 hits. In reality it has to be a whole number so we can assume FOUR, the Orks got lucky this time. Now sluggas are stronger than lasguns and have an attack strength of 30. The guards have defense 20. Therefore 60% of the shots kill (50%+30%-20%). Overall that means we have 2.4 kills. Lets say they only got 2 this round.

Now, imagine that the Orks are assaulting the humies. Before the assault phase there is a shooting phase identical to the last one we looked at. At the end of it, we had 3 dead Orks and 2 dead humans. In the assault phase that follows, no humans can fight because they don't have hand weapons. The Orks will have 17 guys standing ready to fight with Choppas (3 are dead remember). They will swing seventeen times and will hit with 50% of them, for 9 hits. Choppas themselves are unreliable and only work 70% of the time (80%-10%). That leaves us with 6 hits. The Attack Strength is 20 and the Defense is 20 BUT the choppa ignores 50% of the target's defense. The net defense is 50% of 20, or 10. Therefore the wound chance is 60% (50 + 20%- 0.5(20)). That leaves us with 6 k dead guardsmen and 3 dead Orks.

Cover is actually very simple, it is a percentage reduction of unit accuracy. 30% cover reduces accuracy by 30%. Units also reduce accuracy by 10%. Each extra unit will reduce it by another 10$. (I don't know what the word to describe it is, but it doesn't take a whole 10% off, just 10% of what you have left. So if 40% of the shots hit the target, a blocking unit would lower your accuracy to 36%)

Initiative is actually surprisingly complicated. Two units with tha same amount of initiative will shoot at the same time. If one unit has more initiative it will shoot first. If it kills any units, some of the dead ones will not get a chance to shoot. If there is 1 pt on initiatve difference, one guy can be taken out before retaliation. Two initiative means two guys can be taken out. If your initiative is high enough, you can completely overrun an enemy unit. This initiative system happens both before ranged combat and melee combat. Initiative can make a really big difference between glass cannon units that have low Max Numbers/Hit Points

Extra Damage

Some guns are so powerful that they can do extra damage. The amount of damage is based on the difference between Attack and Net Defense.

At 0 difference, 50% will wound
At 10 difference 60% will wound, 10% of hits will be 2W
At 20 difference 70% will wound, 20% of hits will be 2W
At 30 difference 80% will wound, 30% of total hits will be 2W
At 40 difference 90% will wound, 40% of total hits will be 2W
At 50 difference 100% will wound, 40$ of total hits will be 2W 10% of total hits will be 3W
...
At 100 difference 100% will wound, 40% of total hits will be 2W, 30% of total hits will be 3W, 20% of total hits will be 4W, 10% will be instakills

Morale

Morale is a score from 0-100 that represents how well a unit can fight. There are 4 levels of Morale Good, Normal, Poor and Broken. Good Morale gives +2 initiative and +20% accuracy. Normal morale is neutral. Poor Morale is -2 initiative and -20% accuracy. Broken is -5 initiative and -40% accuracy. These accuracy bonuses are not flat. They are multiplicative. (NB, these numbers were derived through experimentation, the Editor Program gives different results for some reason).

To summarize the formula for combat

Side 1 attacks. Kills = Total Shots * Unit Accuracy * Weapon Accuracy *Cover Penalty * (50 + Attack Strength - Net Defense)%

Side 2 attacks Kills = (Total Shots- DeadPeopleShots adjusted for initiative) * Unit Accuracy * Weapon Accuracy *Cover Penalty * (50 + Attack Strength - Net Defense)%

Then if there is a combat phase it procedes as above, but all units that died in the shooting phase are removed. Cover penalties are ignored in Melee. Initiative works out exactly the same way.


You can create units really easily by opening the Unit Editor in the WH40KEditor program. Weapons are there as well. The major problem is that you cannot balance the units using the editor. You have to manually open the Unittypes file in the data folder and edit the unit prices by hand. Make sure you keep a backup, because if you save the unit changes using the editor, every single unit will be restored to the initial price that comes with Vanilla.

[Gamebook]

Do you know what the "Siege" trait on weapons does? Flamers and heavy artillery pieces seem to have it. Does it Ignore Cover (a powerful rule in several GW games)?

[DuncanStewart]

Suppposedly this, but the unit editor doesn't do that for some reason.

viewtopic.php?f=321&t=55738&p=519094&hilit=siege#p519094

[Kuokkanen]

Can someone explain to me what units in Act I: Invasion campaign are most effective against Mega Armored Nobz and why? What units are best against them in open terrain? What units are best against them within buildings and forts?

[MadLuddite]

Can someone explain to me what units in Act I: Invasion campaign are most effective against Mega Armored Nobz and why? What units are best against them in open terrain? What units are best against them within buildings and forts?

Ogryn for infantry, Leman Russ weapon upgrade (at range 2) for tanks, Medusa for armor. Probably Devil Dog for light vehicles.

[Kayel Dee]

Max number is just the number of guys in a unit, it can range from a single titan up to as many as 45 Ork boyz. It technically is a combat stat because each guys shoots all his weapons when he fights.

i've seen 1 unit with 150 gretchin in it

[Kayel Dee]

Can someone explain to me what units in Act I: Invasion campaign are most effective against Mega Armored Nobz and why? What units are best against them in open terrain? What units are best against them within buildings and forts?

those things are a nightmare

[LordKena]

I was just wondering about the mods you are mention, where to get them. The mods arent in Steam

[DuncanStewart]

This is actually really embarrassing but I spilled water on my laptop and fried it without backups. I had all the factions made, including Eldar, Chaos and Sisters of Battle. I even taught myself photoshop to make the units

I couldn't bring myself to start from scratch.

[deranzo]

Game has many options like siege, area damage, weapon 4 but they don't work in game actually. developers removed them from code (for unknown reasons to me). if I could access codes, i would love to add them again...
Also, do you know how to limit units to have only one in mission?