Anyone using Gladiator(s)?

[Ishagu]

But that's the issue today. Lots of anti tank weapons in play whilst tanks are costed too high.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Contagions lowering the toughness of vehicles is bad game design with lack of any real precedent.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

 

Let's not use "theme" for anything. It's not thematic for guns to shoot in angles they physically can't aim towards, or for a tank to be stopped by a guy standing in the way, or for 12 guys punching at once to kill a gladiator.

 

I'll agree that chip damage isn't the deal breaker for vehicles. But it's a factor that wasn't present before and compounds on any other weaknesses of a particular vehicle. Especially with heavy bolters doing 2 damage and how they wound all the heaviest tanks on 5s.

 

The gladiator can take chip damage and be finished off by nothing weapons in pinch. It can be tied up by stuff and have it's target selection neutered. It can also just be body blocked and have to drive around stuff. It has almost no synergy at all with stratagems or abilities. And it's priced too high after you consider all of those things.

But even now, in 9th edition, a Gladiator is more durable than tanks were in 7th edition when chip damage from low Str weapons wasn't a thing. A single Melta gun could destroy any tank in one hit.

and? They also get one shot, and are super close range...and it's supposed to be a top tier AT weapon...but also that's a lot more realistic than what we have now. What we have now makes unless you look at it from a "people are stupid and need easier rules" PoV" which is pretty stupid in itself of aPoV

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

Let's not use "theme" for anything. It's not thematic for guns to shoot in angles they physically can't aim towards, or for a tank to be stopped by a guy standing in the way, or for 12 guys punching at once to kill a gladiator.

 

I'll agree that chip damage isn't the deal breaker for vehicles. But it's a factor that wasn't present before and compounds on any other weaknesses of a particular vehicle. Especially with heavy bolters doing 2 damage and how they wound all the heaviest tanks on 5s.

 

The gladiator can take chip damage and be finished off by nothing weapons in pinch. It can be tied up by stuff and have it's target selection neutered. It can also just be body blocked and have to drive around stuff. It has almost no synergy at all with stratagems or abilities. And it's priced too high after you consider all of those things.

But even now, in 9th edition, a Gladiator is more durable than tanks were in 7th edition when chip damage from low Str weapons wasn't a thing. A single Melta gun could destroy any tank in one hit.

Yes and no. You needed 1 melta gun in 7th and lower as you say. But an infinite amount of bolters or lasguns or grots or whatever other weapons that couldn't hurt it. Now, you need two melta guns to kill that same tank, or 12 Las guns. 100% increase in survivability against an infinite decrease in survivability.

 

Really what makes vehicles less survivable is cover not being widely available in the form of obscuring or jink in addition to being wounded on 3s if you're "only" t7 from every anti tank gun out there.

[Ishagu]

No, because the vehicle auto exploded. If you got a penetrating hit it was a 1/3 chance to outright destroy any vehicle.

 

The odds of destroying a tank in 9th with two Melta guns are very slim. 1/36 chance assuming both hits even wound. I think the odds are 1/500ish for two Guardsmen with Melta guns to destroy a Gladiator tank? Feel free to check the math!

 

Honestly, as I said before, the worry over Grot guns or Las guns is indicative of lack of experience. They aren't a problem for vehicles. Maybe it's a thematic issue that people can't get over, but honestly it's pretty easy to justify.

 

200 Guardsmen in rapid fire range would not destroy a Gladiator in the shooting phase, on average. How many Guardsmen in rapid fire range of the tank does anyone expect to come across? Lol

Edited March 13, 2021 by Ishagu

[Plaguecaster]

Contagions lowering the toughness of vehicles is bad game design with lack of any real precedent.

Oh please, death guard finally have gotten something different that is actually fluffy and makes sense

Rust, degradation and corrosion are all things that affect vehicles weakening their armour and the forces of nurgle have been shown to use such tactics against necrons and mechanicus

Also the max range of Contagions is only 9 (12 with psychic power) if you let something get that close to your vehicle unopposed its your own fault

 

Even with contagions my bolters on plague marines they have done absolutely nothing to vehicles in games that's why I use melta or lascannons. Wish I could run an all melta squad like your loyalist eradicators having a dreadnought or tank destroyed in one turn by them even with DR is pretty darn annoying

Edited March 14, 2021 by Dusktiger
watch the cussing; edited to family friendly phrases

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

There’s never been an effect that lowers the toughness of multiple vehicles before and Death Guard has gotten lots of good things. It’s OP.

[SkimaskMohawk]

No, because the vehicle auto exploded. If you got a penetrating hit it was a 1/3 chance to outright destroy any vehicle.

 

The odds of destroying a tank in 9th with two Melta guns are very slim. 1/36 chance assuming both hits even wound. I think the odds are 1/500ish for two Guardsmen with Melta guns to destroy a Gladiator tank? Feel free to check the math!

 

Honestly, as I said before, the worry over Grot guns or Las guns is indicative of lack of experience. They aren't a problem for vehicles. Maybe it's a thematic issue that people can't get over, but honestly it's pretty easy to justify.

 

200 Guardsmen in rapid fire range would not destroy a Gladiator in the shooting phase, on average. How many Guardsmen in rapid fire range of the tank does anyone expect to come across? Lol

It's a 8.2% average chance for two vet guardsmen to kill a gladiator in melta range, unless I'm wrong on what can take meltas and what the bs is, then it's a 6.2% average. A melta gun that hit on 4s in melta range had a 13.6% average chance of exploding av 13 in 7th. Or 6.8% if it had 4+ cover. Interesting.

 

And it's not a "worry" about making tanks bad. It's a compounding issue for bad tanks that they can be damaged by literally anything. Play against mortifiers and have heavy bolters finish off anything the main anti tank doesn't kill.

 

Give vehicles cover options or make heavy tanks actually have a good defensive statline. Or both. Chip damage gets deflected, and it gives a chance to survive one volley from dedicated anti tank units that are brought these days. Simple stuff. A landraider with a +1 save would be pretty cool and would still get owned by mass melta, but a bit less badly; spammed plasma and the like would nt be nearly as effective.

[Emurian]

There’s never been an effect that lowers the toughness of multiple vehicles before and Death Guard has gotten lots of good things. It’s OP.

TBH BBF I think you should be patient before calling something OP. It is new to the game. People will get but:cussed initially. That said, people adapt over time and learn to deal with it unless its so broken that it warps the meta as a whole.

 

I learned this from Magic the Gathering as a Legacy player. When a new deck comes up it might have some combo that looks OP initially, but 2 months later most top tier decks have adapted to the deck and various strategies to deal or at least endure it. Sometimes you do get a card that pulls the whole meta to a certain axis, like Wrenn and Six did for example, but luckily in MtG those cards get banned.

 

As for the Tank itself. I think the consensus is clear that it underperforms for its points or compared to other units in the codex. 

 

Heres the kicker though imo, Warhammer has always been a badly balanced game, and GW does not even WANT the game to be balanced out like we would do.

 

I would like to hear the opinion of the older players here that that played through multiple editions about this personal observarion: There is a certain trend when the game changes editions / codex. In general the things that used to perform really well for said army will be held back/nerfed to much and some other things get boosted. BUT the real laugh is when GW releases a new unit alongside the codex. These units in general tend to be better then most other units and this makes sense in a business sense. 

 

People will have bought the top performing models for their army in edition X, so how to stimulate them to buy the rest or sell those new units? By pushing their power level over the top compared to most other options.

 

Marines have this weird luxury that they get so many units that GW can't make all of them top tier. I am pretty sure that the gladiator would have had a more pushed statline if all we got where outriders, eradicators and the gladiator.

 

As a Dutch dude I can't blame them to much though, I most likely would do the same if I would work for them LOL. 

 

I think that the only way to ''fix/perfectly balance'' is by the community itself. Now something that I liked from another forum in the past is that we where so sick of the 3th edition dark eldar codex that only had 4-6 units you really used (archon/raider/warriors/wyches/warp beast) that we started rewriting our own codex. We put up a post once a week about unit X and then people would discuss and try to rebalance that unit. Those posts where also nice ways to generate more activity in general.

 

Im pretty sure your friends will at least let you try said codex changes once and once they see its not some rewritting OP bull:cuss most wont complain. 

 

so yah, gladiator topic, sorry that I went off topic a bit here, stoned rambling and stuff. . 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I saw a game IK versus DG, it’s hard to feel bad for the former but they got smashed hard in three turns. Reducing their native toughness to T7 was quite drastic reducing their survivability. I don’t think the developers thought this out all the way through.

[Ishagu]

For this reason GW will need to update all codex books and supplements.

 

Death Guard are strong, but so are the Dark Angels. Both armies are generally better than the rest of the Marine variants and factions.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

For this reason GW will need to update all codex books and supplements.

 

Death Guard are strong, but so are the Dark Angels. Both armies are generally better than the rest of the Marine variants and factions.

QFT

[SkimaskMohawk]

I mean, yes and no on the need to update.

 

Yes, of course gw needs to update the old books. 9th codexes introduced a slew of mechanics that are integral to the game like core separation, faction specific secondaries and more relic/warlord flexibility. Some unfortunate factions missed out on stuff like 2 wound marines or the updated meltas for craftworlds. And waiting for their book to drop is all they can do instead of a comprehensive start of edition faq like what's happened in the past.

 

But neither of those factions are dominating the tier lists. They might be high tier, but not top tier. The real killers are still chaos soup, harlequins and the rest that take advantage of their old books lack of core combined with inherent strengths.

[Karhedron]

I saw a game IK versus DG, it’s hard to feel bad for the former but they got smashed hard in three turns. Reducing their native toughness to T7 was quite drastic reducing their survivability. I don’t think the developers thought this out all the way through.

I thought the range of the toughness reduction started small and increased as the game went on. How did the DG bring multiple Knights into range of the aura before about T3?

 

I would have expected the IKs to take a heavy toll on the DG for the first couple of turns. Granted weapons like Avengers lose some of their punch vs DG but their weight of firepower combined with with the relative shortage of DG long range firepower outside Daemon Engines would have allowed them to dish out a lot of damage early on.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Death Guard in Rhinos and Daemon Prince.

[The Unseen]

I somehow doubt most of the knight killing was done by bolters, who don't even get AP in DG like they do in loyalist marines, so the knights still getting its full armor save. Yeah, DG if they get into close range can wound your T8 on 5s instead of 6s. But Morty, PBC's, and mortal wounds are still doing most of the work. 5 bolters double tapping into a 3+ armor T7 tank does a whopping 75% of 1 wound. Or 40% of 1 wound if the vehicle is T8. Congrats, your entire army of plague marines is somehow within 18" of a knight, and they can knock off 3 or 4 wounds.

 

Tanks aren't good because melta is everywhere cheap, and they can't be buffed to bring their damage in line with what infantry can bring, not because small arms fire can chip wounds off.
The only vehicle I've ever been worried about small arms fire for are Dreadnoughts, because they only have 8 wounds, and their primary form of damage reduction doesn't apply, -1 damage vs 1 damage weapons isn't very helpful. But dreadnoughts are generally regarded as ok to good depending on type, because they're fairly cheap, and are CORE, and have some melee threat.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I never said bolters are what killed the Knights. Them dropping to T7 really helped other weapons wounding 3+ as opposed to 4+.