Hi, everyone.

I ran the first session of a Warhammer campaign last night. It's been well over a year since I last played this game and I wanted to make sure my understanding of the combat mechanic was sound. I've mocked up a scenario below and would appreciate anything I have wrong being corrected by those more experienced and anything I've done right confirmed. Thank you in advance.

A Gor Beastman (per the Bestiary) performs a Melee Strike against a Soldier with the following relevant statistics:

Strength: 3
Toughness: 4
Defence: 1
Soak: 2
Weapon Skill trained

Assembling the Gor's dice pool goes as follows (assuming no Aggression/Cunning/Expertise dice are added):

1. 5 blue Stat dice for the Gor's ST of 5
2. Substitute 1 Stat die for 1 Reckless die due to the Gor's permanent stance of R1
3. Add 1 purple Challenge die because the soldier has an acting characteristic (Strength) that is less than the Gor's Strength but more than half the Gor's Strength
4. Add 1 purple Challenge die because the solider has a Defence of 1.
5. Add 1 black Misfortune die because the solider has Weapon Skill trained

So, the Gor's complete dice pool would be:
- 4 blue Statistics dice
- 1 red Reckless die
- 2 purple challenge dice
- 1 black misfortune die

Further suppose that the Gor's Melee Strike succeeds and does normal damage. The damage calculation would be:

- Strength 5 + Damage Rating 4 (both per page 52 of the Tome of Adventure) for a total of 9 damage
- Damage is reduced by 4 due to the Soldier's toughness and 2 from the soak value of the Solider's armour
- Net damage is 3 (9 damage less 6 Toughness/Soak)

I see some mistakes here:

3) The card Melee strike says "vs. Targets defence". This means that the acting characteristic (STR) is measured against the Target Defence. This is a special case for an opposed check and considered, refering to the rulebook, as easy(1d) check. Variations are possible, but not hard-written in the rules. If your card would act against the targets Str, then your calculation would be right.

4) Defence points add Misfortune Dice to the pool.

5) I can't remember such a rule, but i'm not sure. What is said is, that if the Opponent has a relevant skill or specialisation you add 1 Misfortune die. I never added a misfortune die for a trained weapon skill. If the opponent has specialized in parry or block, however, a misfortune die is added.

The calculation of damage is quite right. Remember, that the minimum damage is 1 wound, regardless of the toughness/soak ratings of your opponent.

I hope I could help

for defence you take a black die for every point of defence the opponent has.

meele strike is not really an opposed check, so the soldier's strength does not come into play. also no challenge die for the soldier's weapon skill training, since the gor is not attacking the weapon skill. one could argue an attack is a check against resilience, maybe a challenge for that if he has it trained...

damage calutaion seem good to me

Sorry but no.

What you have calculated there is an opposed roll (a correctly calculated opposed roll though, be proud of that); cards which say "vs. target defence" are not opposed rolls.

Given the stats it would be

1. 5 blue Stat dice for the Gor's ST of 5
2. Substitute 1 Stat die for 1 Reckless die due to the Gor's permanent stance of R1
3. Add 1 purple Challenge die because all vs. target defence rolls are considered "easy" challenges
4. Add 1 misfortune die because the solider has a Defence of 1.
5. Allow the soldier to use any defence/reaction keyword action cards to add additional challenge and/or misfortune dice
6. Spend any aggression from your GM budget to add in any expertise dice you want
7. Add in any number of fortune and/or misfortune dice for other factors you deem necessary (cramped space, outnumbered opponent, poor lighting etc)

If all things are equal (7), the solider has no parry/block/dodge cards (5) and you don't spend any budget (6) you would be rolling

- 4 blue Statistics dice
- 1 red Reckless die
- 1 purple challenge dice
- 1 black misfortune die

Your damage calculation is entirely correct

EDIT: Ha! Ninja-ed by 2 people while typing it all out!

Thank you, everyone, for the clarification. I'm glad it's simpler than I thought!

So help me understand one thing... I've read the rules and I'm still unclear in my mind as to when an "opposed check" is used in contrast to combat where it looks like (outside of dice added specifically by actions) one Challenge die is all that is ever rolled.

opposed checks are done, when you try to do something with a specific character, for example influence or sneak up on.

when trying to influence someone it would be guile vs intelligence, when sneaking up on someone it would be stealth vs observation

in combat, you can also add multiple challenge, depending on the size of the opponent for example...

wapcaplets said:

I'll try to sum this up into a couple of easy rules:

"Skill vs Defense"
Allways start out with 1 Challange Dice. Then add any dice listed on the Action Card. Then add any Misfortune Dice for Defense.

"Skill vs Skill"
This is an opposed skill check and uses the normal opposed skill check rules. Add any dice listed on the Action Card.

"Skill"
This is a skill check and has no Challange Dice unless the card lists any.

In addition to this, the GM is of course free to add any Fortune/Misfortune Dice he feels appropriate for the situation.

Thanks, everyone. This thread has been very helpful to me.

Matchstickman said:

Excellent combat summary...

However, you take Expertise dice from the Expertise budget. Also, you can only add one Expertise dice per action, no matter the size of the budget.

Example: Ungor have two Expertise dice in their Expertise budget...However the Ungor could only add 1 Expertise dice to his melee action against Bob the Dwarf on the Ungor's turn.

I would like to add that the limit to 1 die per Expertise DOES NOT apply to the Aggression and Cunning budgets...So spend spend as many fortune/misfortune dice as you want from those budgets! LOL