So we are about to have surge tokens added to the game, which is a neat idea.

One thought that I have had to play around with dice probabilities is this:

What if there was the ability to convert a surge result into 2 hit/block results?

Such as

Expertise X

(When converting attack dice surges, add one extra hit result for each surge converted up to a maximum of x extra hit results)

It is great that surge tokens will open up more possibilities for choice and variety...Alex Davey would call it ‘spicy’ 😀

I genuiinely dislike the game mechanic I call "exploding 6es". That's when you need to score 6es (or 8es in Legion) in order to double damage / get extra attacks / trigger special rules. It adds even more luck elements in a game that is already dependent on dice. It doesn't add any strategic value to the game and simply says: Hey, if you rolled lucky already, here, get a bonus!

46 minutes ago, SailorMeni said:

I genuiinely dislike the game mechanic I call "exploding 6es". That's when you need to score 6es (or 8es in Legion) in order to double damage / get extra attacks / trigger special rules. It adds even more luck elements in a game that is already dependent on dice. It doesn't add any strategic value to the game and simply says: Hey, if you rolled lucky already, here, get a bonus!

That's why I think this mechanic would work better on a unit that doesn't surge to hit or crit. You have to actually put some effort into getting it a surge token in order for the ability to have a chance to hit.

Technically, Surges already add an extra hit/crit/block to the result of the roll seeing as innately, a Surge counts as a miss.

This would turn surges into a different form of crit, since now the surge converts into enough hits to account for Heavy Cover/Armour 2. This is arguably better in some situations than rolling a crit, since 3 hits and 1 crit against heavy cover results in 2 defense rolls, while 3 hits and 1 surge with this Expertise keyword would result in 3 hits.

I'd say rather than turn a single surge into hits or blocks, the ability to use one surge token to turn two surge results into hit or blocks is better. Minor difference, but still useful. I've found that I either don't roll surge results when I have a surge token, or I roll a lot of surge results. Nothing in between. Making the most out of those results would be awesome.