Reverse engineering AoS stats Pt2 – WS
In the original conversion rules this was one of the simplest, you just copied across the WS value. In Age of Sigmar they have replaced the WS value with a To Hit roll instead, which varies by weapon being used, which makes it a bit more interesting to reverse engineer.
| WFB | WQ | AoS | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goblin Stabba | 2 | 2 | 5+ |
| Swamp troll/Fellwater Troggoth | 3 | 3 | 3+ |
| Ghoul | 2 | 2 | 4+ |
| Squig | 4 | 4 | 4+ |
WS seems to be all over the shop here, with no real parity across the examples. I can’t remember where I read it, but I vaguely recall the assumption that the AoS WS rolls assumed you were going up against someone with WS4, which sort of works for the Ghoul to get a WS of 2 mapping to a 4+, but none of the others. Lets have a look at the old WQ To Hit tables and see if there’s anything we can reverse engineer
| WS | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4+ | 4+ | 5+ | 6+ | 6+ | 6+ | 6+ | 6+ | 6+ | 6+ |
| 2 | 3+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 5+ | 5+ | 6+ | 6+ | 6+ | 6+ |
| 3 | 2+ | 3+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 5+ | 5+ | 5+ | 6+ |
| 4 | 2+ | 3+ | 3+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 5+ | 5+ |
| 5 | 2+ | 2+ | 3+ | 3+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ |
| 6 | 2+ | 2+ | 3+ | 3+ | 3+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ |
| 7 | 2+ | 2+ | 2+ | 3+ | 3+ | 3+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ |
| 8 | 2+ | 2+ | 2+ | 3+ | 3+ | 3+ | 3+ | 4+ | 4+ | 4+ |
| 9 | 2+ | 2+ | 2+ | 2+ | 3+ | 3+ | 3+ | 3+ | 4+ | 4+ |
| 10 | 2+ | 2+ | 2+ | 2+ | 3+ | 3+ | 3+ | 3+ | 3+ | 4+ |
First experiment is to see if the AoS to hit values map to some form of consistent enemy WS.
| WFB | WQ | AoS | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goblin Stabba | 2 | 2 | 5+ | This seems to assume an enemy WS of 5 or 6 |
| Swamp troll/Fellwater Troggoth | 3 | 3 | 3+ | This seems to assume an enemy WS of 3 |
| Ghoul | 2 | 2 | 4+ | This seems to assume an enemy WS of 2, 3 or 4 |
| Squig | 4 | 4 | 4+ | This seems to assume an enemy WS of between 4 and 8 |
| Skeleton | 2 | 2 | 3+ | This seems to assume an enemy WS of 1 or more |
| Zombie | 2 | 2 | 5+ | This seems to assume an enemy WS of 5 or 6 |
Unhelpfully none of this seems to help map over nicely, so we can only assume that AoS has had some of the units take a massive step up in power. I could have sworn that I’d read that the enemy WS is assumed to be 4, but this doesn’t equate. The most confusing one is the skeletons who have gone from being worse than Stormtroopers to being absolute monsters… so this isn’t the approach. Lets try it in reverse and see what happens if we *do* assume a baseline of WS4 or 5 for all opponents
| WFB | WQ | AoS | Enemy WS4 | Enemy WS5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goblin Stabba | 2 | 2 | 5+ | Unhelpfully there is no 5+ on the WS4 column, so we have to assume either 1 or 2 where the border sits. Given that very little has WS of 1, it seems 2 is the most likely outcome. | 2. Spot on here |
| Swamp troll/Fellwater Troggoth | 3 | 3 | 3+ | This one doesn’t match up as it ends up with a WS of 5 as the lowest option. I do feel like the trolls have become stronger in AoS anyway, so this may pan out | Ouch! 6-10 |
| Ghoul | 2 | 2 | 4+ | A 4+ assumes that the Ghoul’s WS is between 2 and 4. I get the feeling that AoS ghouls are supposed to be more vicious opponents, so if I were converting this I would likely have gone for a WS of 3 | 3-5. This fits more with where I would assume Ghouls to be now, with the AoS power creep |
| Squig | 4 | 4 | 4+ | A 4+ assumes that the Squig’s WS is between 2 and 4. Again, it sort of works, with some guess work on the final statline | 3-5. It’s a reasonable range |
| Skeleton | 2 | 2 | 3+ | This one really doesn’t match up as it would end up with a WS somewhere between 5 and 8… so the Deadwalkers have certainly become better over time if we still run on this assumption of WS4 | 6-10… that’s just nuts power creep. There’s no way skeletons should be that powerful! |
| Zombie | 2 | 2 | 5+ | As with the Goblins, this one still works out about right. | 2 seems spot on |
| Bloodthirster | 10 | 10 | 3+ | This is another one that doesn’t seem to match up, but in the opposite direction. The Bloodthirster is supposed to be a combat monster, but only has a 3+ to hit; this puts it’s WS as between 5 and 8, which is a long way short of the 10 it used to be. | 6-10. Well at least we’re now including WS10 as an option here, but that’s quite a wide range that would need to be selected from. |
There is a lot of guess work in this conversion, but it feels like the assumption of WS5 is the closer option, followed by some comparisons to existing units to narrow down the final choice. Given that there is no 2+ value on the WS5 column, I’m going to assume that if you have an AoS To Hit of 2+, then you’d be looking at WS 9-10. Not perfect, but it’s worth more detailed testing.
Conclusion
There doesn’t seem to be a magic bullet, but if you use the following table to identify roughly what the WS range is, then compare to other WQ monsters in the same range, you can get something fairly sane. Some creatures, like the Bloodthirster and Skeletons do seem rather out of place with their values though, so there does need to be some sanity checking done after the conversion.
| AoS To hit | WS |
|---|---|
| 6+ | 1 |
| 5+ | 2 |
| 4+ | 3-5 |
| 3+ | 6-8 |
| 2+ | 9-10 |