A possible fix to help vehicles?

[Brother Casman]

I'm not at all concerned with point efficiency, rather I wanted to see if there was a way to replicate the general feel of how tanks used to work. I'm well aware that melta guns in half range got to roll 2D6 for their AP roll, and that most vehicles had far fewer hull points than they do wounds now, but I wanted to look at more than just melta (or lances, or whatever).

 

The current system of throwing whatever at a tank and fishing for 6s (possibly with a reroll) feels wrong. Getting caught up in a melee feels wrong. A tank getting blown up because someone fired all of the melta weapons at it, well, that feels right - anti-tank weapons should do bad things to tanks.

[MARK0SIAN]

 

Melee attacks is not going to stop them dying when someone with a melta or similar even looks at them. Making tanks good at melee is another example of making them worth taking by becoming something they’re not.

 

Currently tanks in some armies don’t do anything better than the equivalent points of an infantry unit.

 

They don’t outshoot them

They don’t take and hold ground better

They don’t survive longer

They’re harder to buff

 

Until they do something worthwhile and unique (preferably in a role that a tank should occupy) they’re going to struggle. The designers have (intentionally or accidentally) created a set of rules, points costs and unit abilities that are very unfriendly to most vehicles in this edition and until something fundamental in at least two of those categories changes then I don’t see it being a vehicle friendly edition for a lot of armies.

You mean a weapon doing job its supposed to do, does its job. Is a bad thing?

 

Where what vehicles do well:

Non Blast Based Vehicles still Pew Pew Pew in melee

They can redeploy without loss of any fire power

They require dedicated weaponry to take down reasonably

 

Like the a melta unit one rounding s vehicle. How is that a bad thing? If eradicators couldn’t. They’d be absolutely garbage. A vehicle is many things. If Marines are garbage because they just fail to do anything. Does that make infantry bad?

 

By vehicle you mean tank, by tank you meant the main battle tank:

Leman Russes

Predators

Etc

 

Or SuperTanks:

Land Raiders

Monoliths (yes I know a LoW)

Non-Knight LoW’s

 

 

There isn’t a problem with vehicles. Vehicles work fine. The fact units one shot them is intended design. If those units didn’t one shot they’d be completely garbage or didn’t one shot efficiency.

 

Land Raiders and most SuperTanks have always been garbage. Or downright game wrapping. As a melee infantry army, “big guns never tire” absoutely fricking sucks.

 

Because I have limited anti tank. And my anti-tank is alpha or outflanking. And dealing with some thing like a double shooting punisher into tide squads is awful. And scooping up a 20 marines a turn is awful. As I can only do twickle damage or reliant on like 4 units and characters.

 

Does this bias me? Perhaps. But if my Erads couldn’t reliably one shot. I’d basically never remove a tank. And said Erads are easy to screen. And have awful variance.

 

What exactly is the problem:

You complain about one shotting by units whose only effective because they one shot

You feel don’t do enough damage to units but thoss units take 2+ rounds to use punch or pew pew. And feel that you should be able to remove “Squads” of Ork Boyz (300) points from a single tank in a single round. But complain if reverse is true.

 

What do “tanks” need to do? I’d argue super tanks MBT who want to be dangerclose should be +1 Toughness. And Sponsons should be cheaper in general. While dedicated super tanks or LoW shoild be T9 or T10.

What I actually said was they don’t do any job better than infantry. A battle tank should do more damage than a squad of infantry against its intended target. It should also survive better than a squad of infantry. They do neither of these.

 

I think we also disagree that an anti-tank unit should be able to one shot any vehicle for them to be effective. If that’s the criteria for an anti armour unit then there’s literally no point in bringing any vehicle because the opponent can bring a unit who has been guaranteed to kill it in one shot.

 

Likewise you’ve only got limited anti-tank by choice. I get you want to play a fluffy melee infantry force but there’s no reason you can’t include more anti-tank and still be fluffy. I’m also not seeing the problem with a punisher. It’s 40 shots that hit on 3s, wound on 3s with -1AP for 1 damage. And that’s if it’s a commander with tank aces. Against your marines it’s averaging 4 dead marines for. So over 200 points to kill 80 points. It’ll need to do that for 3 turns to make back it’s points.

[Schlitzaf]

A Punisher dealing 40 shots hits on 3's. Does 26.66 and wounds 13 times. And kills 6 mairnes (105) points. Then you have 6 Heavy Bolters (4) and the 2.66 wounds which do another dead marine. And I take 2 turns to get to him. In which I can do do nothing. So that 240 points of free damage. Because it two rounds worth of shooting. A 4 Lascannon Devi Squad. 2.84 hits then 1.8 wounds then 7 damage. Is 150 points. And only doings 75 points of damage. That squad of marines cost 240. And you have basically removed that squad before it could even contribute. 

[Wulf Vengis]

So... Third edition?

[MARK0SIAN]

40 shots hitting on 3s is 26.4 hits. Those wound on 3s as it’s S5 V T4 so that’s 17.4 wounds. If it has the tank aces to give it -1AP it will leave the marines with a 4+ save. That means 8.7 unsaved wounds. That is 4 dead marines.

 

If our add the heavy bolters it is one more marine so a 240 point anti-infantry tank has killed about 100 points of marines in a turn. It had to move into a 24 inch range whilst only being able to go 6 inches to let it double shoot.

 

I think this is a difference of opinion we won’t solve because I see absolutely nothing wrong with that scenario, especially not when at the same range a 135 point squad of eradicators would knock an average of 7 wounds off the tank.

[jaxom]

 

Vehicles work fine. The fact units one shot them is intended design. If those units didn’t one shot they’d be completely garbage or didn’t one shot efficiency.

 

I disagree, based on interviews with the designers and my own experience in the industry. To paraphrase the 40k and AoS lead designers, their goal is for people to have fun playing with the toys they invested money, time, and effort into collecting, building, and painting. The fun part is where things get tricky. Games like 40k are not designed around tournament play (though nowadays 40k mission design and points are influenced by tournament players because they're a large portion of players who reliably can get playtesting repetitions). Game design fun tends to focus on three things: time fulfillment, narrative fulfillment, and equity fulfillment. Short verions - Was this a good use of my time? Did I feel like I was interacting with or expressing the appropriate schema (frameworks the brain uses to understand concepts)? Did I feel like I had equitable opportunities to influence on the outcome  relative to expectations (even single player games have this, whether it be available actions, board tile placement, morality systems, etc).

 

From that, the key questions are:

 

1) Is it worth the time to buy, assemble, and paint a tank relative to its presence on the board? 

2) Does playing with a tank feel like playing with a tank?

3) Does a tank have appropriate play and counter-play?

 

One last thing I'll add is that unit repetition is usually factored into questions 1 and 3. Playing three identical copies of a low cost card just to have two almost immediately removed from play is aggregated as still getting to play "the card." To 40k it: if two units of hormagaunts die, but the third lives and makes it into combat, that can be considered as getting to play with hormagaunts.

[OldWherewolf]

40 shots hitting on 3s is 26.4 hits. Those wound on 3s as it’s S5 V T4 so that’s 17.4 wounds. If it has the tank aces to give it -1AP it will leave the marines with a 4+ save. That means 8.7 unsaved wounds. That is 4 dead marines.

 

If our add the heavy bolters it is one more marine so a 240 point anti-infantry tank has killed about 100 points of marines in a turn. It had to move into a 24 inch range whilst only being able to go 6 inches to let it double shoot.

 

I think this is a difference of opinion we won’t solve because I see absolutely nothing wrong with that scenario, especially not when at the same range a 135 point squad of eradicators would knock an average of 7 wounds off the tank.

Quite true, and for a BS of 3, that's a tank commander, with Punisher & 3 HBs comes in at 240 points.  Meanwhile

• Its only 135 for the Eradicators
• Eradicators can move and advance 8.5" and shoot, while the tank has to move 6" or less or lose half the Punisher shots
• That TC gives up 2 VPs, Eradicators give none
• Those 135 points of Eradicators do 140 points of damage in 1 round (when shooting at the TC), while the 240 point tank commander does 100 points of damage to those eradicators.  So 70% more cost for 30% less damage. 

[Schlitzaf]

Your wrong. They do 7 damage. Or 70 points:

6 shots: 4 Hit: 2 Wounds. 3.5 Damage Each. The Eradicators will now give 1 VP wit new ones. (If you do one wound someplace). And if they advance no double shooting

[jarms48]

40 shots hitting on 3s is 26.4 hits. Those wound on 3s as it’s S5 V T4 so that’s 17.4 wounds. If it has the tank aces to give it -1AP it will leave the marines with a 4+ save. That means 8.7 unsaved wounds. That is 4 dead marines.

 

If our add the heavy bolters it is one more marine so a 240 point anti-infantry tank has killed about 100 points of marines in a turn. It had to move into a 24 inch range whilst only being able to go 6 inches to let it double shoot.

 

I think this is a difference of opinion we won’t solve because I see absolutely nothing wrong with that scenario, especially not when at the same range a 135 point squad of eradicators would knock an average of 7 wounds off the tank.

 

Anything that's not a demolisher just isn't worth taking sadly. You save points and a tank ace, for a weapon that should kill 4 MEQ's or TEQ's, or a vehicle/monstrous creature fairly equally. 

[Morticon]

Okay, so I've been turning over a few ideas in my head for a few days, and I've been thinking about Land Raiders specifically, but I'll put them out there regardless.

 

So, for context, in previous editions the Land Raider was AV14 all around. To actually damage the tank, you had to get through the armour, via an armour penetration roll. You'd (usually) roll a D6 and add the value to the Str characteristic of the attack. If you equaled the AV value, you did a glancing hit (and some minor damage), and if you beat the AV value, you did a penetrating hit (and usually major damage).

Some quick comparisons:

Str 10 needed a 4+ to do anything to a Land Raider

Str 9 needed a 5+

Str 8 needed a 6+

Str 7 and below could not beat the armour with a D6 AP roll and (generally) couldn't cause damage

 

GW has moved to a unified Toughness system for models in recent years (which I generally prefer, but that's topic for another discussion), and the To Wound roll is mostly analogous to the old AP roll. If we wanted to keep Str 10 attacks to a 4+ to actually cause damage to a Land Raider, the Land Raider would need to be a minimum T of 10.

So versus Toughness 10:

Str 10 needs a 4+ (which is fine)

Str 9 needs a 5+ (matches our old scale, so probably okay)

Str 8 needs a 5+ (hmmm, our old scale was 6+, but that would require T 16 in this case. T16 would make the Str 10 wound on a 5+, so a bit of a dilemma)

Str 7 and Str 6 also need a 5+ (hmmm...)

Str 5 and below need a 6+ (uh-oh)

 

I think part of where people are getting hung up is that the Land Raider doesn't feel as durable as it did before. With the AV system, there was literally no point in attacking with low Str weapons, since they couldn't do anything.

 

With all that in mind, I would probably start by bumping the Toughness of the Land Raider up to 10 (at minimum). I would probably also explore the idea of adding a rule associated with the "Vehicle" keyword, where if the Str of your attack is 3 or more points lower than the Toughness, you can't actually wound the vehicle. In general, we won't be able to wound a T 10 Land Raider with Str 7 or lower attacks, though specific weapons may need to get looked at along the way.

 

Alas, as a solution, I fear we'd be looking at an edition change to implement all that. So, my short answer is that we should probably bump up the Toughness of Vehicles in general.

 

 

Came here to echo this. 

 

 

Tanks should move to an 8/9 standard, not a 6/7 standard.  

 

Rhino at T8, battle tanks at T9 and LandRaider esque units at T10.

 

Can keep dreads at T7, imo

[Captain Idaho]

I agree except Dreads should also be T8/9 as well. They're a heavy unit. They do have less wounds than a vehicle generally.

[Brother Sergeant Tiberius]

I'd rather see vehicles gain more wounds than toughness. The higher toughness goes the more some factions will struggle to even hurt vehicles and that I think will tip the scales too far the other way

[TrawlingCleaner]

Personally, I don't think increasing all vehicles toughness characteristic is a good idea. Dark Eldar Raider going from T5 to T6 was meta and game changing, flat increases across the board would need additional rebalancing of weapons, points costs etc. As others have said, more wounds and other rules is a better way (IMO) of doing it.

 

Durable vehicles should have the wounds to match as well as reduction of damage, ignoring AP or Feel no pain. Skimmers should move faster/be harder to hit. Make it so that vehicles in different factions actually feel different. At the moment, unless it has the fly keyword, all vehicles feel exactly the same especially Imperium ones

[Brother Casman]

Personally, I don't think increasing all vehicles toughness characteristic is a good idea. Dark Eldar Raider going from T5 to T6 was meta and game changing, flat increases across the board would need additional rebalancing of weapons, points costs etc. As others have said, more wounds and other rules is a better way (IMO) of doing it.

 

Durable vehicles should have the wounds to match as well as reduction of damage, ignoring AP or Feel no pain. Skimmers should move faster/be harder to hit. Make it so that vehicles in different factions actually feel different. At the moment, unless it has the fly keyword, all vehicles feel exactly the same especially Imperium ones

Sorry if I've been imprecise, when I say "increase toughness in general" I certainly wouldn't expect to do a flat increase to all vehicles. I should have made that more clear, but I didn't want to delve too deeply into specific exceptions in an already long post. I agree, different faction vehicles should feel different, ideally.

 

I just wish GW had more willingness to play around with the base unit stats, since they're (allegedly) no longer tying themselves to a maximum of 10, instead of creating new special rules and exceptions. Ah well, not much I can do to change it from the outside.

[chapter master 454]

Personally, I don't think increasing all vehicles toughness characteristic is a good idea. Dark Eldar Raider going from T5 to T6 was meta and game changing, flat increases across the board would need additional rebalancing of weapons, points costs etc. As others have said, more wounds and other rules is a better way (IMO) of doing it.

 

Durable vehicles should have the wounds to match as well as reduction of damage, ignoring AP or Feel no pain. Skimmers should move faster/be harder to hit. Make it so that vehicles in different factions actually feel different. At the moment, unless it has the fly keyword, all vehicles feel exactly the same especially Imperium ones

 

To be honest, each faction should have a unique mechanism for their tanks in one form or another. Necrons had Quantum Shielding until GW decided it was too hard to understand and it created an interesting design area: Necron tanks were all extremely light deals with poor armour, toughness and even wound count for what they were however Quantum Shielding made it so that the big anti-tank guns would struggle to remove them and thus encourage use of smaller guns to destroy the tanks, creating these vehicles that felt untouchable but in reality they were just good at mitigating high damage shots.

However I do suppose there is a case that it may become harder to balance for but still, that's where points and being mindful of unit stats come in.

 

Eldar could likely have a similar mechanic with holofields. However their gimmick would be more about missing them, perhaps a simple "re-roll successful hits. If the firing unit has one or more rules that would allow it to re-roll failed hits then neither rules will apply", annoying to hit but you can handle it by finding a source of re-rolls.

 

Orks actually have their own version in ramshackle which isn't really used enough imo. It really should be all ork vehicles that aren't bikers. Just a simple roll to see f you hit a vital piece or it was the orks favourite drink holder. Can also add that for vehicles with damage tables, their ramshackle save improves the more damaged it becomes.

 

Really the Imperium is the one lacking any unique variance between tanks. They are all just "metal boxes with turrets" and aren't enough statted to be notable. To me the Leman Russ should have something for handling being damaged, to be honest I think they should be unique in not having damage affect them except for movement. For marines their tanks I feel should have high stats overall, like you look at a predator and see high armour, high wounds, high save, fast movement and see how stacked it is; the tank reflects the faction.

[Schlitzaf]

Chapter Master that a 'fix' I agree with. After all if our infantry are different why not our tanks?

[OldWherewolf]

Your wrong. They do 7 damage. Or 70 points:

6 shots: 4 Hit: 2 Wounds. 3.5 Damage Each. The Eradicators will now give 1 VP wit new ones. (If you do one wound someplace). And if they advance no double shooting

The assumption you're making is that 1 damage = 10 points, but that TC is 240 points for 12 wounds, or 20 points/wound, twice as much for a unit that is 30% less effective.

[Schlitzaf]

golly gee when did that happen. TC shouldn’t be anymore than 160-180 (reg Russes should be 120. But that different discussion.

 

When did IG tanks get an 80 point tax thrown on them? Well okay I retract and admit my bad. But a standard main battle tank with SPONSONS shouldn’t be more then 140 ans HQ equivalent 30-40 points more. I apologize didn’t know what IG tanks got a pointless 80 point tax in 9th.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I'd rather see vehicles gain more wounds than toughness. The higher toughness goes the more some factions will struggle to even hurt vehicles and that I think will tip the scales too far the other way

no factions will have issues hurting a T9-10 vehicle.

The point is that it should be impossible for non-heavy weapons to hurt something like a landraider, while it doesn't quite do that(without an extra special rule any way) it does come closer. It also doesn't make sense that a 3shot HB is going to to more reliably do some damage than a lascannon.

A weapon should be S6 or above to reliably do any damage to things like baneblades, raiders, or Knights.

I'm not too familiar with xenos factions and their weapons, but not a single imperial faction or chaos faction would actually struggle against T10 vehicles.

Players might have to rebalance their army lists and melee centric armies may have to diversify a bit, but every has at least one S8 weapon that will still be able to do reliable damage to a T9-10 tank.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[OldWherewolf]

no factions will have issues hurting a T9-10 vehicle.

The point is that it should be impossible for non-heavy weapons to hurt something like a landraider, while it doesn't quite do that(without an extra special rule any way) it does come closer. It also doesn't make sense that a 3shot HB is going to to more reliably do some damage than a lascannon.

A weapon should be S6 or above to reliably do any damage to things like baneblades, raiders, or Knights.

I'm not too familiar with xenos factions and their weapons, but not a single imperial faction or chaos faction would actually struggle against T10 vehicles.

Players might have to rebalance their army lists and melee centric armies may have to diversify a bit, but every has at least one S8 weapon that will still be able to do reliable damage to a T9-10 tank.

I like where you're going

 

Following GW's current precedent, vehicles should have tranhuman.  This could easily be added into a vehicle profile, maybe

• Knights/Super-heavies require S8+ or they are only wounded on a 6
• <= S5 wounds T8 vehicles on a 6,
• <= S4 wounds T7 vehicles on a 6
• T5/6 act normally

[Brother Sergeant Tiberius]

 

I'd rather see vehicles gain more wounds than toughness. The higher toughness goes the more some factions will struggle to even hurt vehicles and that I think will tip the scales too far the other way

no factions will have issues hurting a T9-10 vehicle.

The point is that it should be impossible for non-heavy weapons to hurt something like a landraider, while it doesn't quite do that(without an extra special rule any way) it does come closer. It also doesn't make sense that a 3shot HB is going to to more reliably do some damage than a lascannon.

A weapon should be S6 or above to reliably do any damage to things like baneblades, raiders, or Knights.

I'm not too familiar with xenos factions and their weapons, but not a single imperial faction or chaos faction would actually struggle against T10 vehicles.

Players might have to rebalance their army lists and melee centric armies may have to diversify a bit, but every has at least one S8 weapon that will still be able to do reliable damage to a T9-10 tank.

The less shooty armies will, orks will struggle to kill t9+ at range and proper screening means they won't get to CC.

I preferred it when small arms couldn't hurt vehicles but GW has decided that they should be able to. Looking at fixes that reverse this are kind of pointless imo as it goes against their games design atm.

[Dark Shepherd]

Small arms hurting vehicles seems so unpopular, even something simple like giving more tanks 2+ save makes it even more unlikely to happen

[Pandaemonium]

Weapon strength vs. vehicle toughness modifying AP values downward. Small arms ammunition, despite it potentially being armor piercing, should not be penetrating thick vehicle armor at the same rate it penetrates infantry armor. Lower strength weapons with AP should lose AP effectiveness against what should be heavier armor.

 

Toughness greater than weapon strength ignore AP1, toughness x2 greater than weapon strength ignore AP 1-2. Additionally, give them the 2+ save. This would reduce low strength chip damage.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

 

 

I'd rather see vehicles gain more wounds than toughness. The higher toughness goes the more some factions will struggle to even hurt vehicles and that I think will tip the scales too far the other way

no factions will have issues hurting a T9-10 vehicle.

The point is that it should be impossible for non-heavy weapons to hurt something like a landraider, while it doesn't quite do that(without an extra special rule any way) it does come closer. It also doesn't make sense that a 3shot HB is going to to more reliably do some damage than a lascannon.

A weapon should be S6 or above to reliably do any damage to things like baneblades, raiders, or Knights.

I'm not too familiar with xenos factions and their weapons, but not a single imperial faction or chaos faction would actually struggle against T10 vehicles.

Players might have to rebalance their army lists and melee centric armies may have to diversify a bit, but every has at least one S8 weapon that will still be able to do reliable damage to a T9-10 tank.

The less shooty armies will, orks will struggle to kill t9+ at range and proper screening means they won't get to CC.

I preferred it when small arms couldn't hurt vehicles but GW has decided that they should be able to. Looking at fixes that reverse this are kind of pointless imo as it goes against their games design atm.

how will orks have issues shooting T9-10 vehicles?

They have plenty of AT options.

One or two may need to be bumped up to S9 but that's not a big deal

[Brother Sergeant Tiberius]

 

 

 

I'd rather see vehicles gain more wounds than toughness. The higher toughness goes the more some factions will struggle to even hurt vehicles and that I think will tip the scales too far the other way

no factions will have issues hurting a T9-10 vehicle.

The point is that it should be impossible for non-heavy weapons to hurt something like a landraider, while it doesn't quite do that(without an extra special rule any way) it does come closer. It also doesn't make sense that a 3shot HB is going to to more reliably do some damage than a lascannon.

A weapon should be S6 or above to reliably do any damage to things like baneblades, raiders, or Knights.

I'm not too familiar with xenos factions and their weapons, but not a single imperial faction or chaos faction would actually struggle against T10 vehicles.

Players might have to rebalance their army lists and melee centric armies may have to diversify a bit, but every has at least one S8 weapon that will still be able to do reliable damage to a T9-10 tank.

The less shooty armies will, orks will struggle to kill t9+ at range and proper screening means they won't get to CC.

I preferred it when small arms couldn't hurt vehicles but GW has decided that they should be able to. Looking at fixes that reverse this are kind of pointless imo as it goes against their games design atm.

how will orks have issues shooting T9-10 vehicles?

They have plenty of AT options.

One or two may need to be bumped up to S9 but that's not a big deal

Most of their abti tank comes from melee which can be negated through screening.

Then its either mek guns(variable shots str8 kmk or roll 2d6 vs toughness smasha gun) or tankbusta bomb with more dakka and preferably bad moons or lootas rocking the same thing.

Only one that won't lose effectiveness is the loots, but variable shots and bs5 already makes it swingy shooting t8 vehicles.

Making more guns str 9/10 would help but then that's another set of fixes and more balancing issues which we all know is impossible to balance for GW. T9/10 for superheavies hell yes, but for normal size tanks I think t8 with damage mitigation is a better fit imo.