Dual Wield as Twin Linked

So how does it sound to have dual wielding allow rerolled misses instead of granting an additional attack? The rerolled attack would use the offhand weapons modifiers and can apply any penalties for offhand attacks you see fit.

I'm not so great with probability, but I think this actually leaves you with the same chance to hit and would as vanilla dual wield. However there's no chance for multiple wounds, and it's impossible to attack multiple opponents or take multiple knocked down/stunned opponents out of action without having multiple base attacks.

It's also a simple rule which is nice.

Probably would have to make it so only the first miss can be rerolled to keep multiple attack models from getting a huge boost from dual wielding.

Actually what about rerolling failed wound rolls instead? Is that a less or more powerful an ability? I realize some skills already already allow rerolled misses on the first turn of combat and so rerolling wounds would interfere less with the core rules.

rerolling to wound rolls would put it even further out of wack compared to sngle weapon or double handed weaps in my opinion. Double handed weapons already go last (without Strongman). Seems to me this would be akin to penalizing it even further?

I'm not exactly sure how rerolling to wound would change the effectiveness of dual wielding (I can tell it would benefit smaller low strength models more), but it would be less powerful than rolling additional attacks...

The only problem I would see is that everyone would look to put a sword in the offhand as it would be the only weapon that still offers a benefit while in the offhand...

Let me clarify that I am not suggesting all misses get rerolls. A single rerolled miss would be allowed.

So think about it like this:

3 WS 3 S model attacks 3 WS 3 T model. 50% chance to hit, 50% chance to wound for a combined total of 25% to hit and wound. Now if you have two attacks you double that for 50% total chance to hit and wound, and a 25% chance to wound twice. (See this thread)

If you reroll the first miss instead you have a 50% that you hit and then 50% chance you wound for a 25% chance to hit and wound. Now 50% of the time you will be rolling again and you'll hit 50% of these and wound 50% of these. I think that makes only a 12.5% increased chance to wound (for a total of 37.5%) but I want a math wizard to check my calculations. Also no chance of a double wound. That sounds pretty nice to me, but if I'm wrong and it's still another 25% chance to wound then at least there's no chance of a double wound.

Come to think of it this actually makes it relatively more difficult to put a knocked down model out of action by dual wielding because there is no hit roll to miss so the benefit of dual wielding is lost completely (so maybe reroll a single to-wound roll instead?). That is in addition to disallowing a dual wielding single attack models to dispatch multiple knocked downed or stunned opponents.

I'm thinking if a math person can confirm that this does half the increase in chance to wound given from dual wielding then maybe allowing multiple misses to be rerolled but all rerolls from dual wielding be at -1 to hit doesn't sound so bad and would mean models with high attack stats wouldn't preferentially use two handers or halberds over dual wielding.

Jeez dual wielding is starting to sound like a terrible option now

Not the worst idea I've heard. But we just play -1 to both attacks (a combat skill to offset). It's simple, it's realistic, and it works (two weapons is good, but not so much better than everything else that it's a no brainer)

You're math is correct
(1/2) * (1/2) = (1/4) <- chance to not hit
1 - (1/4) = (3/4) <- therefore, chance to hit
(3/4) * (1/2) = (3/4 ) = .375 or 37.5% <- chance to hit and wound

And figuring out the advantage gets complicated when you start to consider how many misses may be rerolled.

My guess would be limiting it to one reroll will just shift the preference to using weapons like flails, especially if you have more then 2 attacks or high weapon skill.

It seems the problem is deeper than just how good dual wielding is... It's that shields and two handed weapons are also not attractive enough to make worth taking. On the bright side, if spears and morning stars get used more, you will also see more shield usage, no word on the two-handers .

I agree that -1 to both attacks is a very strong, balanced option, and the skill helps hero models with multiple attacks avoid getting over penalized. I just really like tweaking rules! Did I mention that -1 to both attacks is very easy? Well you did so we're cool.

Exodite - What we're doing for shields and two handed weapons in our group is eliminating armor negation from strength and giving armor penetration special rules to things like two handers, halberds, crossbows.

Hopefully this will encourage people to use shields and armor more often which will bring in more two handers and halberds as can openers.

Actually the thing I'm starting to worry about is slowing the game down because it'll be harder to kill people.

ok, that makes good sense... could see a few balancing issues around unit pricing... but that's just the nature of any change... the ripples continue outward...

Re-rolling a single roll to hit seems reasonable. Re-rolling a roll to wound seems too powerful.

We gave the commonly-used bump to shields, and as a result they seem to be becoming more common, and duel-wielding a little less so.

We're also bumping shields (haven't made a final decision about +2 in melee, +1 vs missle, or vice versa) and between that and a few other changes, it feels we're getting it about right. I also have some ideas about armour, but that's it's own thread.

I'd say +2 vs melee would be better as shields are useful vs. ranged no matter what weapons you use.

Also, +1 vs missiles/+2 in melee is consistent with Warhammer.

Consistency with Warhammer isn't really of interest to me (although I am leaning that way). The jury is still out, but I think we're leaning towards +2 in melee/ +1 vs ranged (plus starting S based Armour modifiers at S 5 instead of S 4)


And my cunning hijack of the thread is complete!