Splash damage?

[Valkyrion]

I've been very anti things that I consider too powerful (S14 weapons, multi shot high S, D, AP etc) and I've been focusing on things like the Tyrannofex, Railgun and so on that can do 30 wounds a turn, as unlikely as it may be. 

So I want to look at the opposite and see if it may work as a mechanic in the future - high damage weapons vs hordes.

 

Technically, a Screamer Killer can do 33 damage on the charge, which seems outrageous for a ~120 point model. It's highly unlikely, but nevertheless still possible.

However, that same Screamer Killer can also only kill 11 of anything else south of 4 wounds on the charge, which I think is unfair in the opposite direction - it should come up against a horde of gretchin or conscripts and be able to kill every single one, should the dice roll favourably.

 

So, I propose splash damage for certain weapons and certain units;

Any ranged weapon with a rate of fire of 3 or greater, and all melee weapons, do damage to the entire unit, where applicable. 

So a Heavy Bolter hitting Cultists 3 times is 6 dead, not just 3, because they are D2 weapons.  A Land Speeder Vengeance can, at best, kill 6 termagants. It should be able to kill 12 or even 18 if you supercharge, for instance. 

The underlined is the most important, IMO, because CC probably needs a boost in general. 

 

Or you could limit it to things that are only Blast or that hit automatically, like Heavy Flamers. It'd need tweaking, definitely. 

 

Or is this just making a game already deadly even deadlier? 

[phandaal]

 

Or is this just making a game already deadly even deadlier? 

 

Oh yeah.

[Valkyrion]

 

 

Or is this just making a game already deadly even deadlier? 

 

Oh yeah.

 

 

  There's something...off....about this edition that I don't remember feeling before about any other edition that I was attentive to, and I can't quite place what it is. 

As much as we (or I) talk about damage tables, AP, rerolls and the like, I haven't yet found the source of the feeling of wrongness I have for this edition. 

I thought the disjointed damage system might be it, but it's not. 

 

I don't think I'm totally wrong though. The screamer killer and thunder hammer terminators should be mullering hordes as much as taking down Knights. 

[phandaal]

 

I don't think I'm totally wrong though. The screamer killer and thunder hammer terminators should be mullering hordes as much as taking down Knights. 

 

 

Would be nice to have a Thunder Hammer swing through and bash more than one chaff mob per hit.

 

Just hesitant to add even more things to make the other guy sigh, pick up their models without using them, and wonder why they bothered showing up in the first place.

[Valkyrion]

 

 

I don't think I'm totally wrong though. The screamer killer and thunder hammer terminators should be mullering hordes as much as taking down Knights. 

 

 

Would be nice to have a Thunder Hammer swing through and bash more than one chaff mob per hit.

 

Just hesitant to add even more things to make the other guy sigh, pick up their models without using them, and wonder why they bothered showing up in the first place.

 

 

Yeah, fair enough, that's a good point, but that's happening anyway.

I hate being a 'yebbut' kinda guy, but I did suffer a situation where my 3 remaining THSS terminators hit only 3 times against hormagaunts. So only 3 dead. 9 dead would have killed the unit, and we both kinda cinematically agreed that would have happened, but the rules as presented meant I was trying to hit him on his turn, they survived and good rolls did for me. Meh, it's the rules, it is fine, but my THSS terminators aren't playing whack a mole bink bank bonk, they are smashing and flailing and fighting with great vengeance and furious anger. 

 

It's all bad rolls and so on, but my one terminator should be allowed to kill 3 of anything once, instead of one thing three times. 

[Tyriks]

I think that would further skew game balance instead of fixing anything. It would make high damage weapons even better than they already are and many are too good as it is. Leave them some weaknesses!

[Halandaar]

Things have to have trade-offs, right? If Thunder Hammers could just sweep away three models per hit then they would be better anti-infantry weapons than Lightning Claws. All it would achieve is making high-damage weapons even more dominant in the game than they already are.

 

Besides, even if you wanted more stuff to be more versatile (which I would argue is already half the problem with a lot of units int he game), we don't need a new mechanic for this. There are already weapons with split profiles (see Avatar of Khaine's "Piercing Strike" and "Sweeping Blow" attacks profiles as an example) which achieve this much more elegantly, because you can tune the strength, AP and damage of each "mode" separately.

[Closet Skeleton]

Traditionally morale was used to kill extra models. A Dreadnought only had like 2 attacks but could wipe out a squad since they would lose combat and get cut down.

 

Not Terminators though, who couldn't sweeping advance.

 

Screamer killers have a morale debuff so they aren't limited to causing 11 casualties at all.

 

33 wounds for a 120 point model is nothing. 6 Incubi can do 66 wounds for 108 points (44 if you ignore the extra damage on 6s to wound which if you're talking about one shotting a warhound titan you can't). The new Tyranid monsters just seem weird because their melee attack output is similar to that which a unit of their points would get, which in turn is a further evolution of dreadnoughts going from that measely 2 attacks to 4 back in 7th ed.

 

 

Things have to have trade-offs, right? If Thunder Hammers could just sweep away three models per hit then they would be better anti-infantry weapons than Lightning Claws. All it would achieve is making high-damage weapons even more dominant in the game than they already are.

High strength weapons aren't dominant, multi shot ones are. No one took high strength weapons at all until damage started being boosted over 8th ed's unreliable d6.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Closet Skeleton

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I've been very anti things that I consider too powerful (S14 weapons, multi shot high S, D, AP etc) and I've been focusing on things like the Tyrannofex, Railgun and so on that can do 30 wounds a turn, as unlikely as it may be.

So I want to look at the opposite and see if it may work as a mechanic in the future - high damage weapons vs hordes.

 

Technically, a Screamer Killer can do 33 damage on the charge, which seems outrageous for a ~120 point model. It's highly unlikely, but nevertheless still possible.

However, that same Screamer Killer can also only kill 11 of anything else south of 4 wounds on the charge, which I think is unfair in the opposite direction - it should come up against a horde of gretchin or conscripts and be able to kill every single one, should the dice roll favourably.

 

So, I propose splash damage for certain weapons and certain units;

Any ranged weapon with a rate of fire of 3 or greater, and all melee weapons, do damage to the entire unit, where applicable.

So a Heavy Bolter hitting Cultists 3 times is 6 dead, not just 3, because they are D2 weapons. A Land Speeder Vengeance can, at best, kill 6 termagants. It should be able to kill 12 or even 18 if you supercharge, for instance.

The underlined is the most important, IMO, because CC probably needs a boost in general.

 

Or you could limit it to things that are only Blast or that hit automatically, like Heavy Flamers. It'd need tweaking, definitely.

 

Or is this just making a game already deadly even deadlier?

…so templates…just more evidence the old ways were superior

[BloodyB]

I would like my pie plates back please, even if only to get rid of stupid blast rules. I shouldn't have to sigh through my nose every time a Leman Russ score 1 shot on the initial d6 roll, only to miss on a 4+ to hit anyway. The same goes for knights, those things need the old blast templates back badly.

 

As it stands, I am just painting until 10th while avoiding using almost any vehicle whatsoever for all of my armies.

[ThePenitentOne]

The way the game seems to be played by most people who post, the day after you made said change, the internet would be on fire with "3+ Damage / Melee is OP and everything else is GAK"

 

And then every weapon in every army would either have to 3+ D or Melee.

 

The way people who post about the game play has changed as much or more than the game itself has changed.

 

And regarding Thunderhammers: Obviously a game is an abstraction of combat, but the idea that a giant hammer is a weapon with enough finesse to hit multiple opponents is laughable. But in my martial arts days, people used to say things like:

 

"I would love to see what happened if someone came at me with a baseball bat: I have to dodge exactly one strike which would be telegraphed from a mile away, and then I get to play my opponent's exposed ribs a like xylophone, launching 5-8 strikes in the time it takes the chump to recover from the follow-through. By the time he's ready to take a second swing, the jagged bone fragments from his floating ribs will already be turning his guts into tomato soup."

 

Now obviously, there's a little teenage bravado at work there, but the premise isn't flawed. A thunderhammer, by design is a weapon that gets one hit. Sure, it's a hit that can take down a load-bearing slab of reinforced concrete thats 18" thick, but it's still only one hit. And if you happen to miss, don't be surprised that the 105 pound elf who hasn't stood still since the battle began hits you sixteen times before you realize he's still there.

 

The same is true of super high-caliber single-shot weapons. The bullet might turn my head into a red smear, but it's still just one bullet. Want to take out me AND all my friends? Use blast weapons or high RoF weapons. It is literally why they exist.

Edited April 26, 2022 by ThePenitentOne

[Commander Dawnstar]

Age of Sigmar works a lot like this in that it applies all damage like Mortal Wounds (so excess is never lost), but then then AoS generally has considerably less damage flying about than 40k and far, far less reliable and powerful shooting.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

The way the game seems to be played by most people who post, the day after you made said change, the internet would be on fire with "3+ Damage / Melee is OP and everything else is GAK"

 

And then every weapon in every army would either have to 3+ D or Melee.

 

The way people who post about the game play has changed as much or more than the game itself has changed.

 

And regarding Thunderhammers: Obviously a game is an abstraction of combat, but the idea that a giant hammer is a weapon with enough finesse to hit multiple opponents is laughable. But in my martial arts days, people used to say things like:

 

"I would love to see what happened if someone came at me with a baseball bat: I have to dodge exactly one strike which would be telegraphed from a mile away, and then I get to play my opponent's exposed ribs a like xylophone, launching 5-8 strikes in the time it takes the chump to recover from the follow-through. By the time he's ready to take a second swing, the jagged bone fragments from his floating ribs will already be turning his guts into tomato soup."

 

Now obviously, there's a little teenage bravado at work there, but the premise isn't flawed. A thunderhammer, by design is a weapon that gets one hit. Sure, it's a hit that can take down a load-bearing slab of reinforced concrete thats 18" thick, but it's still only one hit. And if you happen to miss, don't be surprised that the 105 pound elf who hasn't stood still since the battle began hits you sixteen times before you realize he's still there.

 

The same is true of super high-caliber single-shot weapons. The bullet might turn my head into a red smear, but it's still just one bullet. Want to take out me AND all my friends? Use blast weapons or high RoF weapons. It is literally why they exist.

tbf there’s been plenty of examples through out history of a single projectile killing or injuring multiple closely packed targets. Old school cannons, a .50 cal along the lines of 50bmg, hell even .308 has the potential to over penetrate an unprotected person into another person, in fact that’s part of how the US wrote their MG doctrine for the m60 and later m240

 

So what would make sense to me would be something like this

Over penetration1-T3 and below this weapon generates extra hits on a to hit roll of 6 (hvy stubbers, HBs, punishers, etc.)

Over penetration2- same but T5 and below(autocannons, assault cannons etc.)

Over penetration3- T6 or 7 and below (vanquisher cannon, etc)

Edited April 26, 2022 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Leonaides]

Only really works when your enemy is stood in a nice column ready for your overpenetrating projectile to hit them one after another. That's why cannons developed grape and cannister shot, and why skirmish LINES came into being.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Only really works when your enemy is stood in a nice column ready for your overpenetrating projectile to hit them one after another. That's why cannons developed grape and cannister shot, and why skirmish LINES came into being.

weird how modern militaries still count on it if it doesn’t really work.

Old cannons developed grape and canister because they were more reliable, especially on soft ground where a cannon ball wouldn’t like bounce

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[MegaVolt87]

I find it ironic people want blast templets removed, yet advocate splash damage which is similar enough in principle. Pass though/ over penetration is a bit too complicated for an army level tabletop game, such a mechanic would be better in kill team, necromunda and zone mortallis where the model count is lower.