Warhammer 40K: Does Morale Even Matter
Whatever happened to the days of breaking your opponent’s line and running down all their models? Morale Tests are not what they once were.
Leadership and Morale in Warhammer 40,000 have been a fairly useless mechanic for a few editions now. Previously it was because of the prevalence of Fearless or Leadership auras that prevented units from just running away. In 9th, we have Morale Tests and Combat Attrition Tests that are relatively minor for a few reasons. So does Morale even matter anymore and what can GW do about it?
Back In My Day…
Leadership was still one of those stats that was secondary to the game. In 40k, it really didn’t matter for things outside of Psykers…until it did. What do I mean? Well, in previous editions a failed Morale Check at the wrong time could send an entire unit fleeing off the tabletop – or it could lead them to getting run down by an enemy unit. The point is, your Leadership kept you in the game or it could send your army packing.
Basically, it was still busted. Look, it not exactly fun for an entire unit to just go *poof* because of a bad roll. At the same time, it’s also kept players on their toes and allowed for some unexpected things to happen. It was a mechanic you could use when list building and it was a “thing” you could even attack to really pull off some nasty stuff. Was it balanced? Not really – and that’s why GW changed it. However, it may have tilted too far in the other direction.
Morale Tests and Combat Attrition Checks
Now in 9th, we’ve still got Morale Tests and we’ve got these new Combat Attrition checks. That’s fine and all, but the penalty for failure isn’t that bad. What makes failure so trivial? For starters, most units are 10 models and have a leadership of 8 or more. That means if you’re losing enough models to trigger a check that matters, then you’ve already got bigger problems for the unit.
If you fail, you lose 1 model right off the bat. Then you roll a die for each model left in the unit. For each 1, you lose another model. You also subtract 1 from the roll if they are under 1/2 strength. In a 10 man unit, if you lost 3 models, failed a check to lose a 4th, then you’ve got a 1-in-6 chance to lose another model. On average you might lose 1 more model. After a round, that unit went from 10 down to 5 models. It’s not wiped out and it’s still not below half strength.
Now, let’s imagine that the unit was a large unit of 30. Let’s pretend it’s the same situation. So they lost 5 models total…out of 30. Do they even notice those missing models from their unit?
Working As Intended?
When you really boil it down the issue comes down to the punishment for failure doesn’t matter. As mentioned above, if it’s a 10 man unit and you’re forced to take a check that actually matters then you’ve got an even bigger problem. And if you’re in a horde of dudes, who cares if you’ve lost a couple stragglers to Combat Attrition.
So is there a fix? The funny part is that GW already has solved this problem with Age of Sigmar. It’s basically the same thing – only you’ll lose more models on average. You still do the same basic morale check, but for each point you fail by, you remove a model vs only losing 1 model and then having to roll again.
Not only is this more impactful on average but it’s faster as it’s less dice to roll. It’s an elegant solution and I’m not sure why GW didn’t just do the same thing in 40k (other than just wanting to make the games different).
Personally, I still don’t know if it’s the right fix. But it is one solution that makes Morale actually matter. Space Marines still have ATSKNF and 40k still has other aura issues that can make Morale not matter and I don’t have a quick fix for that. But the way Morale works in AoS is a pretty good place to start looking for answers.
So what do you think? Is Morale pointless or working just fine? Would you make any changes? Let us know in the comments!
