Editing Warmachine/Tactics/Advanced Tactics (section)

====Dice and Combat====

The thing to remember is that Warmahordes works on a 2d6 system. An attack works like this:

* Attacker rolls '''2d6 + (MAT for melee, RAT for ranged, FOCUS/FURY/whatever for magical attacks) + other modifiers'''. If equal to or greater than target's DEF, the attack hits and we go on to the next step. If not, barring it being an AOE attack that deviates onto another valid target, the attack is over.
* Attacker rolls '''2d6 + (POW for ranged and magical, P+S for melee) + other modifiers - target's ARM'''. Anything left over is applied as damage.

The average roll on 2d6 is 7. Half the time you'll roll higher. Half the time you'll roll lower. This means that '''a unit with the standard RAT 5, shooting at a target with the standard DEF 12, only has a 50% chance of connecting'''. Not exactly fantastic, I think you'll agree. From this, we can draw up the following:

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="3"|MAT and RAT Value Meanings
|-
! scope="col"| Score
! scope="col"| DEF Hit On Average
! scope="col"| Found On
|-
! scope="row"| 9
| 16
| The best of the best
|-
! scope="row"| 8
| 15 
| Officers leading elite units
|-
! scope="row"| 7
| 14
| Elite units dedicated to the role
|-
! scope="row"| 6
| 13
| Specially-trained infantry
|-
! scope="row"| 5
| 12
| Standard infantry
|-
! scope="row"| 4
| 11
| Jagoffs with no training
|-
! scope="row"| 3
| 10
| Slugs
|}

So, barring special circumstances (like special rules or the aiming bonus), you shouldn't rely on anything below MAT or RAT 7 to reliably connect with whatever you're shooting at, unless it's a particularly easy target like a heavy warjack (since they tend to have DEF 10 or thereabouts due to being fuckheug, and pretty much anybody can hit them). A 6 is ''okay''. 7 is good, even great. 8 is rare, and 9 is almost unheard of. If you're rocking a 6 or lower, though, expect to rely a lot on aiming or other bonuses if you want to actually hit anything consistently.

You can also read the above chart the other way around: 12 is pretty low for DEF. 13 is solid, 14 is great. 15 or higher is getting absurd; 16, 17, 18, or even (Emprah help you) 19 is getting fucking ridiculous and you're probably [[That Guy]] who fields Kayazy Assassins and puts Iron Flesh on them just to fuck with people. 10 or 11 means almost anything will hit you.

POW and ARM are a bit more difficult to lay out that simply, since they're also greatly influenced by how much health the model has. ARM becomes exponentially more valuable as your health track becomes larger. However, there are some broad categories which ARM values can be said to fall into:

{| class="wikitable"
!colspan="5"|ARM Value Meanings
|-
! scope="col"| ARM Score
! scope="col"| Average POW to Break
! scope="col"| Single-Wound Infantry
! scope="col"| Multi-Wound Infantry, Solos
! scope="col"| Warjacks/Warbeasts
|-
! scope="row"| 22+
| 16+
| This will almost never happen.
| You are absolutely ''stupidly'' hard to kill.
| You're a Khador player to the bone, and nothing short of a tactical nuke will take you down.
|-
! scope="row"| 21
| 15
| This will almost never happen.
| It's going to take absurd amounts of killing, probably from dedicated melee infantry, to end you.
| '''Super-heavy 'jack.''' Only dedicated ARM-crackers can threaten you.
|-
! scope="row"| 20
| 14
| This probably won't happen.
| Concentrated fire from dedicated heavy-weapons teams is the ideal solution.
| Pretty solid, but beware heavy-killers. Typical Khador heavy warjack ARM.
|-
! scope="row"| 19
| 13
| You're in Shield Wall and wearing several buffs to boot. You're a nightmare of a tarpit.
| '''Super-heavy solo.''' You're a tough one, but beware anti-solo options and assassins.  
| '''Standard heavy 'jack.''' Solid, but not unbeatable. Beware charging heavies.
|-
! scope="row"| 18
| 12
| You're a serious pain in the ass to remove and can soak up a hell of a lot of bullets.
| Still tough, but starting to look breakable. Watch your flanks.
| You'll soak most infantry fire without more than a few scratches, but other heavies are dangerous.
|-
! scope="row"| 17
| 11
| '''Standard heavy infantry.''' A decent defensive line, but concentrated fire will remove you from the board.
| '''Standard heavy solo.''' Stay cautious and you'll survive.
| '''Standard light 'jack.''' Paper, so far as actual anti-armor fire is concerned.
|-
! scope="row"| 16
| 10
| You're pretty resilient against blast damage, but a direct hit will take you out.
| Starting to look squishy, son. The Mage Hunters are watching.
| Still surviving anti-infantry guns, but only barely.
|-
! scope="row"| 15
| 9
| '''Standard medium infantry.''' Survives blasts, dies to direct hits.
| Stay hidden until the time is right. You're a juicy target.
| Keep out of LOS if you don't want to explode.
|-
! scope="row"| 14
| 8
| Mortars are starting to really scare you, and any direct hit is death.
| Standard anti-infantry guns can kill you easily.
| Absolute glass. Keep moving or die.
|-
! scope="row"| 13-
| 7
| '''Standard light infantry.''' Anything that connects kills.
| '''Standard assassin solo.''' Anything that connects kills.
| This doesn't happen. (Lesser warbeasts beg to differ).
|}

Again, the above is just a rule of thumb, as each faction has access to different POW and ARM ratings. Menoth's Temple Flameguard can break the scale for a turn or so under the right circumstances, while Khador's Winter Guard bring POW 12 guns to the table as a matter of course, so they can crack harder targets more easily. This is just a guide.

Still, it's worth noting that the average anti-infantry rifle in Warmahordes comes packing POW 10. In fact, this is ''so'' prevalent, particularly in Cygnar (seriously, they're drowning in the damn things), that RNG 10, POW 10 guns are generally referred to as "Cygnar Tens", and are consider the baseline for anti-infantry ranged options. Any squad of rifle-wielding infantry probably has something like RNG 10, POW 10. 

Because of this, infantry with ARM 16 or less tend to be seriously threatened by direct hits. If an infantry model has ARM 15 or below, it will probably have to rely on its DEF to keep it safe from Cygnar Tens. Hugging cover and breaking LOS with terrain is vital for keeping such infantry alive.

Meanwhile, most artillery in the game brings something like POW 14, which means that infantry caught in the explosion will be taking POW 7 hits. This makes ARM 13 or lower very susceptible to blast damage, and even ARM 14 isn't going to survive long against sustained barrages. However, because blast damage does not have to roll against your DEF to connect, the only defense light infantry have against this is to spread out and try to minimize the number of models caught in each explosion.

So, as you can see, "average" stats in Warmahordes mean that you have only a 50% chance to connect with a man standing out in the open, and that even a passing breeze will cause you to explode and die if it actually connects. For infantry with standard stats, combat is a coin flip: heads you die, tails I die. This is obviously not what you want to do, so remember: ''average sucks''. If you want your units to be effective, you need to beat the curve.