Immersion, or not, in 40K from 8th Edition

[Slave to Darkness]

None of the vehicle rules since 1st ed have been realistic, and as for weak weapons penetrating tough armour, a longbow can penetrate modern body armour.

 

Actually the Rhino can be built from any locally sourced materials using various forms of power. So who says the Rhinos your using aint wooden steam powered versions?

[Claws and Effect]

Duh. :facepalm:

 

I just realized WHY vehicles got changed. Can't believe I didn't grok it sooner.

 

They're getting rid of pretty much all the tables we currently have ti roll on to determine what happens.

 

Look at what we've already learned:

 

Vehicle damage table? Gone.

 

WS vs WS table for close combat? Gone.

 

How much do you want to bet the D weapon table and Stomp table will be gone as well?

 

If the goal is to streamline and speed up the game, getting rid of all the tables we have to consult during the game will shave a decent amount of time off. I'd be willing to bet that any table that can be done a different way will disappear in 8th edition.

 

The only table we know for sure is staying is the damage table, and it is simpler than it could be. Everything wounding on a 6 is easier than having to roll a 6 then another die after the 6.

 

Even multiple wound dealing weapons can be sped up. Just use 3 different colored dice and roll them all at the same time. If it misses ignore the other two. If it fails to wound ignore the third.

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

How much do you want to bet the D weapon table and Stomp table will be gone as well?

Didn't they already confirm that str D was gone? Mortal wounds is the replacement I believe.

[Hellrender]

Nah D is gone because strenght can go above 10 and do multiple damage points.

[Ascanius]

The point being made is that while the models are vehicles, the rules treats them as creatures, which really breaks the immersion factor.

 

This is only true in the sense that you've already decided the 7th Edition rules for creatures are a good representation of creatures and a poor representation of vehicles. As I and others have argued elsewhere, you could easily flip it around the other way: why don't living creatures fight on through adrenaline and rage until finally hit in a vital organ, dying instantly, while vehicles have to have their armour, weapons, and motive elements slowly degraded? After all, if you blow out one of the tires on my car, I can still drive it - just not as fast.

 

Just step back, drop your assumptions about how the old rules were perfect for creatures - they're not, it's all an abstraction that breaks down into utter goddamned nonsense if you press on it too hard - and try to approach it with fresh eyes.

[Damo1701]

 

The point being made is that while the models are vehicles, the rules treats them as creatures, which really breaks the immersion factor.

 

This is only true in the sense that you've already decided the 7th Edition rules for creatures are a good representation of creatures and a poor representation of vehicles. As I and others have argued elsewhere, you could easily flip it around the other way: why don't living creatures fight on through adrenaline and rage until finally hit in a vital organ, dying instantly, while vehicles have to have their armour, weapons, and motive elements slowly degraded? After all, if you blow out one of the tires on my car, I can still drive it - just not as fast.

 

Just step back, drop your assumptions about how the old rules were perfect for creatures - they're not, it's all an abstraction that breaks down into utter goddamned nonsense if you press on it too hard - and try to approach it with fresh eyes.

 

 

I have never said the previous editions treated creatures well, or better than vehicles.

 

If it was up to me, MCs would be actual creatures, not suits, robots or whatever, and would have a damage table to simulate limb loss, vital organ failure/damage and what have you.  However, there was the Instant Death rule, which was great for MCs.  GCs, on the other hand, took much more work, and couldn't be instagibbed unless you hit them wth a D weapon.

 

Your car, as I am guessing, isn't an armoured fighting vehicle from the 41st millennium, correct?  Therefore, your driving ability matters very little when it comes to things that are designed to work until they can't any longer.  Sure, remove the tracks/wheels/tyres from an AFV.  It can still shoot you, especially is it has repositionable guns.  Manage to knock a gun off?  It can still move and fire with any remaining weaponry.  Remove all its weaponry?  It can still run things over.

 

There are a few ways to render an AFV useless, for the immediate fight...  That doesn't mean it will have exploded, BUT, yes, vehicles can explode, they can go off throwing shrapnel a huge distance, belching smoke into the air with massive flames.  It's pretty safe to say that, if that happens, close things are going to get hurt too.

 

So, while I would fully expect small arms to damage, cripple, or even destroy civilian vehicles, armoured fighting vehicles?  Not a hope.

[MysticTemplar]

So out of curiosity, how do what are currently Super Heavy Vehicles fit into this view? Because the Baneblade currently fights at full strength right until it hits its critical existence failure point (0 hp), and ignores the vast majority of the vehicle damage chart.

 

 

Also, I was thinking about it, and would someone please explain to me what 'cinematic' is supposed to mean in this context? Because the vehicles I see in cinema tend to behave in one of two ways: Either there's no one in them that we're supposed to care about, and they explode at the drop of the hat like they're bombs on wheels, or they're being driven by important characters and they slowly pile up damage while remaining more or less functional. Which would seem to suggest that both things we're talking about are equally cinematic.

 

(Star Wars is a great example of this - starfighters die in one shot, until it's Luke's or Wedge's fighter that's being shot at, when it instead takes damage that we are told degrades its performance, but clearly doesn't cripple it outright.)

[Khornestar]

Let's not forget all the times the hero's revolver magically holds 50 bullets, as well.

[Mazer Rackham]

The "anything can hurt anything" actually isn't that big a deal to me. For one major reason that is commonly ignored or forgotten: The tank your dudes are slowly whittling down is going to be SHOOTING BACK.

 

Sure, 100 guys might be able to kill a Baneblade if they shoot at it long enough. But that makes the totally illogical assumption that said Baneblade is just going to sit there and not use its 12 weapons to fight back.

 

100 dudes can kill it, but do you really think that is going to happen when the tank is killing 25 of them every turn?

 

 

YES. SEND IN THE NEXT WAVE!

 

In relation to other points of immersion, during the glorious time of the Templar Dex, I would choose vows and then ROAR them with ZEAL at everyone in the room.

 

Failure to do so attracted the Chaplain's ire.

 

MR.

[Slave to Darkness]

Duh. :facepalm:

 

I just realized WHY vehicles got changed. Can't believe I didn't grok it sooner.

 

They're getting rid of pretty much all the tables we currently have ti roll on to determine what happens.

 

Look at what we've already learned:

 

Vehicle damage table? Gone.

 

WS vs WS table for close combat? Gone.

 

How much do you want to bet the D weapon table and Stomp table will be gone as well?

 

If the goal is to streamline and speed up the game, getting rid of all the tables we have to consult during the game will shave a decent amount of time off. I'd be willing to bet that any table that can be done a different way will disappear in 8th edition.

 

The only table we know for sure is staying is the damage table, and it is simpler than it could be. Everything wounding on a 6 is easier than having to roll a 6 then another die after the 6.

 

Even multiple wound dealing weapons can be sped up. Just use 3 different colored dice and roll them all at the same time. If it misses ignore the other two. If it fails to wound ignore the third.

But vehicle tables are still around. Now we will have tables for multiple vehicles rather than one table for all of them.

[Claws and Effect]

True.

 

Except it only comes into play once it gets below a certain damage threshold and there isn't a die roll involved.

 

As opposed to now when you have to roll on the table every time you beat its armor.

[Garreck]

Perhaps a different way to look at the vehicle/creature mechanic.  GW is making these changes as part of a bigger picture to rebalance the entire game.  While the rebalances introduce odd artifacts like small arms being able to potentially harm armored vehicles, the overall effect is that even if you rather unrealistically bring down a main battle tank with hand guns, the (presumably) prohibitive amount of such firepower used in doing so would have been better directed at more appropriate targets...with a net "realistic" outcome of you losing the game because you thought shooting a main battle tank with small arms fire was a good tactic.

 

These are outcome based mechanics changes.  They're intended to encourage more "realistic" play, even if there are unrealistic microeffects.

 

Now...I think only table time will demonstrate whether or not GW hit the target.

[Uprising]

You know what break my Immersion most?  Unpainted models.  Rules comes and go, but models rarely do. 

[The Mad Hermit]

You know what break my Immersion most?  Unpainted models.  Rules comes and go, but models rarely do. 

 

THIS.

 

I cannot agree with this more than I already do.

[Servant of Dante]

I mean, I just don't enjoy painting.

 

Of course a painted army is very nice to see on the table, and hopefully some day I'll get there, but I'll be fielding mostly unpainted models for years to come I'm sure :D

 

It took about a year on this forum to even convince me to buy paints :P

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

I have always found it interesting how one abstract for a game can be a big deal to one player while it is something completely different for another. You also have those that aren't bothered by any of the abstracts. For me, if I didn't take the game as the fantasy game world it is I would not be able to play in the game at all. The first time I watched a game and saw motorcycles come up at high speed and then come to a stop and get locked down in a melee with some infantry I had to tell myself it was a game and I shouldn't get to caught up on "realism" overall if I wish to play the game.

[SpecialIssue]

I'm really liking all of 8th edition's rules so far.

 

But I liked the old Damage table because it actually closely apes how vehicles behave in real life and gave them a different flavour. You don't kill vehicles by slowly chipping down their hitpoints.

 

Instead, you either penetrate, with either a catastrophic/instant disablement, or hit weakpoints to destroy its functionality till its useless (tracks, guns, optics).

 

A pool of double-digit hitpoints makes them seem like unresponsive sponges instead of hard-but-brittle boxes. Such a large pool of wounds is also an additional record-keeping burden.

 

However, with the current meta of increasingly powerful AT available everywhere cheap, this change is sadly the easiest fix to keep vehicles competitive.

[MysticTemplar]

A pool of double-digit hitpoints makes them seem like unresponsive sponges instead of hard-but-brittle boxes. Such a large pool of wounds is also an additional record-keeping burden.

 

Out of curiosity, how is keeping track of wounds more of a record-keeping burden than the current system, which requires you to track hull points and any miscellaneous damage effects currently on the tank (weapon destroyed/immobilized/etc)?

[Damo1701]

 

A pool of double-digit hitpoints makes them seem like unresponsive sponges instead of hard-but-brittle boxes. Such a large pool of wounds is also an additional record-keeping burden.

 

Out of curiosity, how is keeping track of wounds more of a record-keeping burden than the current system, which requires you to track hull points and any miscellaneous damage effects currently on the tank (weapon destroyed/immobilized/etc)?

 

 

Damage effects are easy to remember, and, *currently* there are between 2-4 hull points on marine vehicles, excluding Forgeworld ones.  It's more about degrees rather than book-keeping.

[SpecialIssue]

 

A pool of double-digit hitpoints makes them seem like unresponsive sponges instead of hard-but-brittle boxes. Such a large pool of wounds is also an additional record-keeping burden.

 

Out of curiosity, how is keeping track of wounds more of a record-keeping burden than the current system, which requires you to track hull points and any miscellaneous damage effects currently on the tank (weapon destroyed/immobilized/etc)?

 

 

Well for one I regard hull points as even worse than vehicle wounds in that they are a half measure which clutter the game further in both logic and record keeping.

 

Rather, I admire the elegant 3rd-4th edition damage table system - there were no hull points. Just the 1-6 damage dice roll result, with glancing at the -3 modifier on the table.

 

Every effect is easily tracked on the model itself and is memorable (take off guns, smoke, etc). Each vehicle has a natural pool of 'wounds' that is formed by its functionalities - namely, you can 'glance it to death' by stripping it of its guns and mobility. No need for arbitrary stats.

 

The table needed a bit of a tweak in specifics, but was elegant and thematic - both elements which are needed in any enjoyable wargame.

[Teetengee]

Only easily tracked if your models have removable pieces.....


That being said, I am equally fine with either 3-4th ed or 8th ed abstractions, it was the mx of HP(a.k.a wounds) and damage tables that bothered me. Toughness+Armor seems a reasonable abstraction and simplifying to one damage mechanism has huge game design benefits.

[the jeske]

It would be  lot better if GW stuck to one thing, and not made stuff like "ok for tanks we have true LoS, for monsters we will have abstract cover" etc.

[Damo1701]

Ah well.

 

The toughness abstraction was a step too far, especially without the traditional damage table.

 

I probably would have shrugged with a "meh" at seeing toughness and wounds, if there was still a way to really make short work of vehicles.

 

Either your AT weapons are effective to the point of brutality against vehicles, or, they are just another weapon, albeit one that does more than 1 wound, if you are lucky.

 

While a "wait and see" approach is important to consider, we all know how the basics work now, the only thing we are really missing is the detail, the variety.

 

From what I've seen of the basics of the rules, and the fluff, I can honestly say that I am not looking forward to the edition, neither does it sound like much fun, either for the narrative or on the table.  Yes, that is my opinion.  No, it won't stop me from giving the edition a fair try, as soon as I can get my hands on the points.  Depending on the damage GW are doing by delaying both release and an actual release date, I might be able to get what I needed.  I don't know.  The dribs and drabs are getting really boring now.

[jamesvalentine]

5th, 6th and 7th broke my emersion into 40k by just being absolutely pants on head mentally challenged.

that and the player base has been getting allot worse since 4th. they really damage the fun