Does attack and defense really matter?

Do they really matter that badly if the unit's lethality is what kills? Does defense lower the attacking units lethality?:wall:

Attack/Defense affects to-hit I believe. They affect completely different parts of the combat equation.

attack and defense affect the chance that a hit is made. lethality determines the chance (in %) that a hit results in a kill

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Originally Posted by mcantu

attack and defense affect the chance that a hit is made. lethality determines the chance (in %) that a hit results in a kill

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Then the enemy's defense decreases your unit's chance to hit? I'm curious about this too.

Common sense (and AFAIK experiments by the kinds of weirdoes who actually are willing to spend weeks to figure out this kind of "under-the-hood" engine mechanics) suggests the comparision of attack value to defense score affects the likelihood of "scoring a hit", obviously, while lethality then governs the likelihood of the "hit" being a "telling" one, ie. taking off a hitpoint from the target...

Check out this post for an explanation of R:TW's combat engine.