Does AP need changing in 10th

[Ultramarine1999]

I was having a discussion with friends today about AP in 40k right now and we realised that small arms fire can go even beyond AP-4 territory, and it's just made me think has it gotten a little out of hand? (I wasn't quite sure where to post this so if I have posted this in the wrong place my apologies) I'm just interested to see what people think. 

[WrathOfTheLion]

I think AP, and in general the way ranged weapons interact with units has gotten pretty out of hand.

 

There's a few instances of this - we have AP breaching through armor saves, mechanics for ignoring invulnerable saves on top of that, and the worst in my opinion, mechanics to make hits automatically wound.

 

To me, I think the AP/armor system of the 8th/9th era has panned out as the most problematic section of the way the game works. I don't know exactly what the way to replace it would be, but if they were to do something new, this is the main segment I'd say needs redone.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Small arms fire should cap out at AP2 max.

[Nephaston]

The way shooting works in both 30k2.0 and Boarding Actions has me somewhat hopeful that GW might introduce the rule that the shooting sequence ends once a unit ceases to be visible, because I don't believe them willing to just carpet-nerf AP like that unless we go back to Indices.

 

At least that way no unit can be wiped just because of an errant leg or slightly less than optimal movement, even if the larger problem remains ignored.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Nephaston
plural

[The Unseen]

Scaling AP as a system works, IF you can keep your developers from blowing the thing open with power creep. GW did not. It started way back with the marine book when a basic troop unit could get AP-2 on bolt rifles, and its accelerated since then. The way AP, Saves, and Cover interact with each other... are not great and I would look there first myself. Being in cover against low-ap fire when you have a good save is really really useful if it keeps your save from degrading, but doesn't actually help vs high ap fire. (A marine in cover without AoC against plasma is still saving on 5s compared to 6s in the open, and it just doesn't matter enough, despite being twice as effective, you still only have 1/3 chance of success) Low save units receive a huge bonus vs no AP if they get into cover, and against high AP they may as well be mooning the enemy.

 

But the old way 40k did it where cover granted invulnerable saves had the opposite problem, guardsmen in cover were just as tough as marines in cover, they both got a 5++ vs everything if it went through their armor; so for the marine, the difference between cover and not only mattered if they had ranged AP capable of blowing through the armor, AND was still reducing his effective save by a ton, going from a 3+ to a 5+ on an expensive model feels really bad.  I think GW made a mistake by having hit modifiers capped at -1 rather than fixing the problem when you hit 7+. Go with a bolt action style where if you need a 7+ you hit on a 6 and then roll the dice again to hit a target; either a flat value like on a 4+ or have it scale inversely to the old bs chart, you need a 7, so you need a 6 followed by a 2+, an 8 requires a 6 then a 3+, etc. This would require a complete rewrite, and would mean that units with native to-hit penalties would have to be costed at a premium for their new durability increase. But it could work. Nobody wants unhittable eldar flyers again, but to-hit penalties scale based on the opponents bs skill, which at this point is pretty much only 3+ and 4+ other than characters. I think the only faction with easy access to hitting on 2s without modifiers is Custodes, and they could be balanced around it pretty easily, and they don't have all that much ranged killing power, and then you just have to make orks work around to-hit penalties.

 

Being in a bush should make you harder to hit, but not harder to hurt. Being behind a wall should make you harder to hit AND/OR harder to hurt, and being behind a custom built fortification should make it *very* difficult to hit you.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

AP, Hit, Strength/Toughness, Shots and Damage are all kind of out of wack right now. Wounds don't really mean what they used to unless you have damage reduction or a FNP, and it isn't only an AP problem. Having gotten in a few games as Daemons where my Khorne often have a 4+ against everything I'm coming to realize it's just, a lot. Too many shots at too high a strength doing too much damage with too many ways to influence the numbers. Consider that the one thing added in 9th that still seems to be a good move is Obscuring Terrain, and that's a rule that literally makes it so you can't shoot some of the time. 

 

I don't think we need to go back to hit charts or anything necessarily, but if we're going to keep playing 8E style we do need to tone lethality back quite a bit. Less AP, less wild strength, fewer rerolls, damage measured with 3 on the high side, and less damage reduction. Then things can still die but armor might begin to matter again over special rules. I have absolutely no idea how to make those changes without heavy consolidation and a lot of salt though. Things are so far along.

[Special Officer Doofy]

The free AP given out to everything (that started with combat doctrines in space marine codex #2 of 8th) is the main reason this edition started to get bonkers. They wanted marines to seem elite so they gave Primaris marine main gun and things like chain swords -1ap then with the second codex gave them another -1ap with the combat doctrines. -2ap is kind of alot for the base infantry gun (unless that's the armies thing like thousand sons), then they started balancing out the codexes after marines #2 from 8th in 9th with the arms race. That's how we ended up with termagants with S5 -1ap guns. By making marine weapons better AND giving them doctrines, they had to spread the love to the other factions. With all the extra strength and ap on everything, T4 meant nothing over T3 and suddenly 3+ power armor save started to feel like a catachan guards unzipped vest... *cough armor of contempt was needed cough*

 

The core rules for 9th are amazing and the best I've ever played in 25+ years. The codex creep and arms race though is what ruined the edition. That's why I'm so curious to what 10th will bring. Without indexes to nerf most wargear at once, how will they do it? They can't just roll codexes out every 4-6 weeks that just nerf the faction and expect people to get excited and buy it. I don't think the AP system needs to change, I think wargear ap values need to change (be lowered again). 

 

My biggest wish is Death Guard lose their -1T debuff aura which is near pointless and their -1D to get their 5+++ back. Mortarion already had the debuff built in and they nerfed the strength of death shroud terminators, mower bloat drones and flail marines and terminators to compensate for it (which is all of death guards best melee anyways).

[MARK0SIAN]

The ‘To wound’ table, the volume of shots, the number of rerolls, the AP system and the damage of those shots are all part of a package (some of which have gotten way out of hand) that have made the game too lethal and they need seriously toning down. 
 

In terms of the AP system specifically, the current method disproportionately disadvantages armies with good armour saves that pay a lot for them and rely on them for their durability. Taking a marine from a 3+ to a 4+ or 5+ is much more valuable than taking a guardsman from a 5+ to a 6+ for example. Yet the same weapon accomplishes each of those feats the same with the way AP works. 
 

The proliferation of AP on weaponry has also meant that there are very few weapons where units will get their full save, which again is worse for armies with good armour saves. Armour of Contempt was an attempt to address this issue but it’s now gone.

 

The current AP system is something of a blunt tool. Using this system it is impossible to make a weapon’s AP good at wiping guardsmen or Orks for example without also making it good against marines or Custodes.
 

I don’t think you can fix this AP system without looking at that whole package I mentioned at the start of the post. If less shots were made and less of them were getting through as wounds in the first place and they weren’t causing as much damage then the current AP system wouldn’t be as punishing for armies with good armour. However that is not the case so If they’re not going to look at that then the only thing that I can realistically suggest is a return to the binary system used in 7th edition and Heresy. 

[Reskin]

3 hours ago, The Unseen said:

Scaling AP as a system works, IF you can keep your developers from blowing the thing open with power creep. GW did not. It started way back with the marine book when a basic troop unit could get AP-2 on bolt rifles, and its accelerated since then. The way AP, Saves, and Cover interact with each other... are not great and I would look there first myself. Being in cover against low-ap fire when you have a good save is really really useful if it keeps your save from degrading, but doesn't actually help vs high ap fire. (A marine in cover without AoC against plasma is still saving on 5s compared to 6s in the open, and it just doesn't matter enough, despite being twice as effective, you still only have 1/3 chance of success) Low save units receive a huge bonus vs no AP if they get into cover, and against high AP they may as well be mooning the enemy.

 

But the old way 40k did it where cover granted invulnerable saves had the opposite problem, guardsmen in cover were just as tough as marines in cover, they both got a 5++ vs everything if it went through their armor; so for the marine, the difference between cover and not only mattered if they had ranged AP capable of blowing through the armor, AND was still reducing his effective save by a ton, going from a 3+ to a 5+ on an expensive model feels really bad.  I think GW made a mistake by having hit modifiers capped at -1 rather than fixing the problem when you hit 7+. Go with a bolt action style where if you need a 7+ you hit on a 6 and then roll the dice again to hit a target; either a flat value like on a 4+ or have it scale inversely to the old bs chart, you need a 7, so you need a 6 followed by a 2+, an 8 requires a 6 then a 3+, etc. This would require a complete rewrite, and would mean that units with native to-hit penalties would have to be costed at a premium for their new durability increase. But it could work. Nobody wants unhittable eldar flyers again, but to-hit penalties scale based on the opponents bs skill, which at this point is pretty much only 3+ and 4+ other than characters. I think the only faction with easy access to hitting on 2s without modifiers is Custodes, and they could be balanced around it pretty easily, and they don't have all that much ranged killing power, and then you just have to make orks work around to-hit penalties.

 

Being in a bush should make you harder to hit, but not harder to hurt. Being behind a wall should make you harder to hit AND/OR harder to hurt, and being behind a custom built fortification should make it *very* difficult to hit you.

This is where the dislike reaction would come in handy, it’s a convoluted and extremely confusing method which no one wants to get into, let alone new people into the game.

 

2 hours ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

The free AP given out to everything (that started with combat doctrines in space marine codex #2 of 8th) is the main reason this edition started to get bonkers. They wanted marines to seem elite so they gave Primaris marine main gun and things like chain swords -1ap then with the second codex gave them another -1ap with the combat doctrines. -2ap is kind of alot for the base infantry gun (unless that's the armies thing like thousand sons), then they started balancing out the codexes after marines #2 from 8th in 9th with the arms race. That's how we ended up with termagants with S5 -1ap guns. By making marine weapons better AND giving them doctrines, they had to spread the love to the other factions. With all the extra strength and ap on everything, T4 meant nothing over T3 and suddenly 3+ power armor save started to feel like a catachan guards unzipped vest... *cough armor of contempt was needed cough*

 

The core rules for 9th are amazing and the best I've ever played in 25+ years. The codex creep and arms race though is what ruined the edition. That's why I'm so curious to what 10th will bring. Without indexes to nerf most wargear at once, how will they do it? They can't just roll codexes out every 4-6 weeks that just nerf the faction and expect people to get excited and buy it. I don't think the AP system needs to change, I think wargear ap values need to change (be lowered again). 

 

My biggest wish is Death Guard lose their -1T debuff aura which is near pointless and their -1D to get their 5+++ back. Mortarion already had the debuff built in and they nerfed the strength of death shroud terminators, mower bloat drones and flail marines and terminators to compensate for it (which is all of death guards best melee anyways).

 

1 hour ago, MARK0SIAN said:

The ‘To wound’ table, the volume of shots, the number of rerolls, the AP system and the damage of those shots are all part of a package (some of which have gotten way out of hand) that have made the game too lethal and they need seriously toning down. 
 

In terms of the AP system specifically, the current method disproportionately disadvantages armies with good armour saves that pay a lot for them and rely on them for their durability. Taking a marine from a 3+ to a 4+ or 5+ is much more valuable than taking a guardsman from a 5+ to a 6+ for example. Yet the same weapon accomplishes each of those feats the same with the way AP works. 
 

The proliferation of AP on weaponry has also meant that there are very few weapons where units will get their full save, which again is worse for armies with good armour saves. Armour of Contempt was an attempt to address this issue but it’s now gone.

 

The current AP system is something of a blunt tool. Using this system it is impossible to make a weapon’s AP good at wiping guardsmen or Orks for example without also making it good against marines or Custodes.
 

I don’t think you can fix this AP system without looking at that whole package I mentioned at the start of the post. If less shots were made and less of them were getting through as wounds in the first place and they weren’t causing as much damage then the current AP system wouldn’t be as punishing for armies with good armour. However that is not the case so If they’re not going to look at that then the only thing that I can realistically suggest is a return to the binary system used in 7th edition and Heresy. 

Finally, agreed. All we need is a nice balance update to weapon profiles, strength and damage and AP values.

 

how the heck is a grey knight (the most elite marines) running around with AP0 guns… I’ve got to use a stupid stratagem to get -1?!?!? Like come on..

 

Every other stuffin army gets high AP weapons handed to them like candy.

 

high Ap weapons should be reduced in capacity, we obviously need them in the game, but a whole unit should be able to carry them… looking at eradicators!

 

make them limited per unit, make them costed with a points value and pay for the upgrade. There’s loads of ways GW can start to balance weaponry.

 

and do away with army rules that modify the Ap of weapon… makes no sense anyway. Unless you were as mech tinkering with the weapon, how does an imperial fist get an extra AP on bolters… he’s modified his weapon?!?  That’s just one example off tue top of my head I can think of, but that atleast helps with balancing weapons. It’s the stacking buffs onto units that also goes hand in hand

[Karhedron]

Lethality has been dialled up too high in 9th edition IMHO. Too many high AP weapons is part of the problem for sure.

 

Take plasma guns, it used to be that including one in a squad was a good idea for dealing with tough infantry and light vehicles but relatively few squads could take more than one. Now Marines can field Hellblasters where everyone is packing plasma (3-shot in some cases). And ironically, they aren't even considered a particularly competitive unit.

[Cleon]

For me the wound system is a serious part of the problem. For example, say I have a boltgun (str 4, the specific version doesn't really matter). I have exactly the same chance to take a wound off a Predator (t7, 3+) as I do an aggressor (t5 3+) and GW wonder why no one takes tanks....

 

At this point I'd say either give up on the 'everyone can wound everything' and go back to the old 4, 5, 6, 6, no chance table or let people wound on 6s out the top of that chart, but make them then have re-roll successes (also for the love of the Emperor tone down the re-roll auras and buffs everywhere, we don't need weapons to be reliable, we need them to fail occasionally so something can live).

 

As for armour - definitely remove Marines extra ap doctrines and every other army wide AP buff AND then half the AP of all weapons but make cover a point of save that can be removed by just a half if you have it. (so what is currently AP1 could negate cover, but can't scratch actual armour).

 

e.g. :
Current AP, Marine save, Marine Save in cover

0                 3+                 2+
1                 3+                 3+
2                 4+                 3+
3                 4+                 4+

4                 5+                 4+

[Orange Knight]

It absolutely needs changing, or at the very least significantly getting toned down. 

 

GW will not be able to fix the problem with gradual updates, and FAQs and Erratas are completely out of hand. The games as is with the most recent matched-play rules only vaguely resembles what the rulebook outlines.

 

We need a whole new edition, with the various factions rules being penned in the same time frame so that we don't have the issue of creep.

[Stealth_Hobo]

12 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

Lethality has been dialled up too high in 9th edition IMHO. Too many high AP weapons is part of the problem for sure.

 

Take plasma guns, it used to be that including one in a squad was a good idea for dealing with tough infantry and light vehicles but relatively few squads could take more than one. Now Marines can field Hellblasters where everyone is packing plasma (3-shot in some cases). And ironically, they aren't even considered a particularly competitive unit.

Yeah, pretty much everything needs to be toned down. Your example reminded me of Gladiator Reaper. That thing can pump out 32 shots by itself. That's pretty ridiculous and it isn't even considered a great choice. I can't think of anything that put out that amount of shots in the older editions that I played. Also, 2-wound marines don't feel that tough as many armies just can pack more multi-wound guns.

9th edition is Special Rules: The Edition. Every army depends on stacking as many special rules onto units as possible for both offence and defence. Radically reduce the amount of those rules and you lower the lethality the game has, not the mention the rules bloat. Of course, weapon stats also need some adjustment.

Interesting to see how 10th will look like.

[AenarIT]

Higher lethality allows for larger armies to be fielded while at the same time playing 5 turns in 2:30h. 
Lower lethality means that more models remain on the table as the game progresses, slowing it down. If people can't reliably play out 5 turns in that timeframe, the standard game size get smaller, resulting in less miniatures on the board. Does GW want to sell less miniatures? 

Think back to the 5th ed times, or even before: how many models were in your average army?
How many models are you fielding in a 2000 pts army now instead?

Edited January 14, 2023 by AenarIT

[Captain Idaho]

I can't see how GW can tone down the game without an edition change that radically alters the rules for a Codex reset. Otherwise the new Codex books would actually represent simpler and weaker mechanics against their peers, resolving only once each faction has received their "weaker" Codex.

 

Essentially we're in a position the core rules need to change sufficiently that the Codex books are invalid.

 

Unless of course GW releases all the Codex books at once.

Edited January 14, 2023 by Captain Idaho

[MARK0SIAN]

53 minutes ago, AenarIT said:

Higher lethality allows for larger armies to be fielded while at the same time playing 5 turns in 2:30h. 
Lower lethality means that more models remain on the table as the game progresses, slowing it down. If people can't reliably play out 5 turns in that timeframe, the standard game size get smaller, resulting in less miniatures on the board. Does GW want to sell less miniatures? 

Think back to the 5th ed times, or even before: how many models were in your average army?
How many models are you fielding in a 2000 pts army now instead?

You make an excellent point but I think they’ve taken it too far. I know we can’t have a lore accurate game where a marine shrugs off a hundred lasgun shots and effortlessly butchers a Guard squad, with a marine captain who can then effortlessly butcher 10 of those marines followed by a Custodian who can butcher 10 of those captains etc. But the models do need to bear some resemblance to their hardiness in the lore and at the moment they just don’t, and the proliferation of AP and the system itself is a big part of that. 
 

We also seem to run into more and more situations where I can only sum it up with:

 

“What’s the point in even rolling the dice?” 
 

By that I mean units or models have been been given (or are able to be given via stratagems etc) such lethal stats/buffs/weapons/volume of attacks etc that the outcome of them attacking anything is pretty much predetermined. There’s no point in even rolling the dice. 
 

Take Angron for example. I know he’s absolutely meant to be a killing machine! However, Looking at his stats that we’ve seen, if he gets into base contact with the vast majority of things in the game then rolling the dice to see what happens is just wasting everyone’s time. You might as well just remove the other model and move on. 
 

This is not isolated either. Take some of the pre-nerf Votann stuff that was analysed. You may as well have had a rule saying “If this model/unit targets anything below X Toughness and Y Wounds then don’t roll, the target is automatically hit and destroyed.”

 

I’d hate to get to a stage where the dice just don’t matter, but sadly the creep in lethality means we will get there sooner rather than later.

 

As I said before, AP is only one component of that and it all needs addressing but it DOES need addressing.

[Evil Eye]

I feel like the armour modifier system itself is fine. Dates back to 2E after all, so it's not a new thing, and it's less frustrating IMO than saves just being flat out ignored. The problem is literally that AP-1 is thrown on absolutely everything. If used properly, it'd actually result in a less lethal, more fun game- but the way it's implemented in conjunction with everything else is terrible.

 

My answer would be to keep the AP system but severely scale back the use of AP modifiers on weapons (small arms are almost exclusively AP - ) and generally focus on making the game less lethal. I'd also say it'd help if the game was balanced around smaller game sizes "on average" to begin with, like how 4th was balanced around 1500 as the standard, but GW wants you to buy loads and loads of models so that's not likely to change soon.

[AenarIT]

1 hour ago, MARK0SIAN said:

You make an excellent point but I think they’ve taken it too far. I know we can’t have a lore accurate game where a marine shrugs off a hundred lasgun shots and effortlessly butchers a Guard squad, with a marine captain who can then effortlessly butcher 10 of those marines followed by a Custodian who can butcher 10 of those captains etc. But the models do need to bear some resemblance to their hardiness in the lore and at the moment they just don’t, and the proliferation of AP and the system itself is a big part of that. 
[...]

I agree.
I just wanted to point out how there might be a commercial interest behind the rules. Just like WHFB progressively became a bloated game requiring large collections to be played. 40K is not there yet, imho.
Other games/modes like Kill Team and now Boarding Actions offer a good starting point for newer players, so GW might consider 40K as the big game where it's perfectly fine to require players to have a lot of models on the table. And the way to speed the game up enough for people to play 5 turns in 2:30h is to make it very killy (or very bland).

Edited January 14, 2023 by AenarIT

[Orange Knight]

1 hour ago, Captain Idaho said:

I can't see how GW can tone down the game without an edition change that radically alters the rules for a Codex reset. Otherwise the new Codex books would actually represent simpler and weaker mechanics against their peers, resolving only once each faction has received their "weaker" Codex.

 

Essentially we're in a position the core rules need to change sufficiently that the Codex books are invalid.

 

Unless of course GW releases all the Codex books at once.

 

This is exactly the issue they find themselves in.

 

They can't spend 2 years releasing books that nerf each faction one after another. And they also can't just drop another errata that changes the profile of every weapon and alters every stratagem across all the books. At this point why do we even hold on to these books? 

 

I think we need 10th edition that launches with 4 Index books (same as 8th), or even better - free rules in PDF format we can download until the codex books are released.

 

At this point the AP creep is only one of the problems. The focus on stratagems that exist to bypass rules and limitations, and the mission design also need to be reworked.

 

I realised something about the most recent balance update. Whilst it did make Astartes, as an example, a lot more viable, it also absolutely crippled vehicles. Why would I ever take a tank now that all the cheap infantry can stock up on free Meltas, Plasmas and Las Cannons? GW are now focused on this idea of creating a balanced win rate between factions, but the individual internal balance of each codex is worse than ever!

[WrathOfTheLion]

3 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

 

This is exactly the issue they find themselves in.

 

They can't spend 2 years releasing books that nerf each faction one after another. And they also can't just drop another errata that changes the profile of every weapon and alters every stratagem across all the books. At this point why do we even hold on to these books? 

 

I think we need 10th edition that launches with 4 Index books (same as 8th), or even better - free rules in PDF format we can download until the codex books are released.

 

At this point the AP creep is only one of the problems. The focus on stratagems that exist to bypass rules and limitations, and the mission design also need to be reworked.

 

I realised something about the most recent balance update. Whilst it did make Astartes, as an example, a lot more viable, it also absolutely crippled vehicles. Why would I ever take a tank now that all the cheap infantry can stock up on free Meltas, Plasmas and Las Cannons? GW are now focused on this idea of creating a balanced win rate between factions, but the individual internal balance of each codex is worse than ever!

I completely agree with what you're saying, they can't spend a release cycle just nerfing weapons, it just doesn't and cannot work with their marketing model.

 

The only thing they could do without resetting everything is like at the beginning of 9E when the SM codex came out, the weapon profiles contained in that book were propagated elsewhere. So as they did it then, it may be feasible for them to drop an errata to update the profile of all the weapons.

 

That said, dropping the AP a bit may not even be that important. Things like turning off damage mitigation (shutting down Death Guard for instance), turning off invulnerable saves, auto wounding on hits completely bypassing the entire wound save mechanic all increase lethality or counter defensive bonuses without being part of an AP increase. An example - guard autowounding on 6's to hit, or Votann with their judgment tokens completely bypass the defensive bonuses granted to Deathwing Terminators and no AP was involved in that occurring.

[Jings]

I'm in the "consolidate previous and current AP rules" camp. Give weapons an AP value ala 3-7th, with a modifier. If a Heavy Bolter would be AP4(-1), then against units that have a current Save value of 4+ or higher, reduce that save by -1. Plasma Gun with AP2(-3), shoots a Terminator, then 2+ saves would require a 5+. Invuls should then be balanced as AP Limiters for units that have armour saves. 

 

AP as modifiers, I think, works, and could add a lot of granularity to the game but now how it's implemented currently. Saves, including cover systems and accuracy modifiers, need a large rework to integrate these systems in a more elegant way. 

[MoshJason]

I'd argue that the main issue with the AP system is just that it's being used to much - it's actually really easy to understand, and effective, but if a the most frequently occuring model (a Primaris Marine) has an Ap -2, that really screws with the system. 

 

Marine Bolters and Chainswords, should be dropped back to Ap -, that way their doctrines still feel special for the AP-1, without totally invalidating some armies saves. 

 

Basic Weaponry (ie, Troops) should rarely have anything more than AP - on it, with some rare exceptions, and I honestly think that would solve the problem. AoContempt did a really good job of making Marines and Sisters finally feel right - but made a lot of AP -1 weapons feel garbage - part of the issue is a lot of weapons need rebalancing and the AP needs to scale back down slightly. Why should a Gaunt have an AP -1 weapon when they are super basic horde infantry?

 

Let's not make 40k go back to the "spend more time looking up rules than playing" of 7th edition. 

Edited January 14, 2023 by MoshJason

[Valkyrion]

Hello, dead horse, I'm about to flog you again.

 

The biggest problem in the game is rerolls. Do away with every single reroll regardless of source and you immediately reduce the lethality of everything whilst simultaneously speeding up every phase - from trying to make sure a unit is within 6" of your reroll characters, to rerolling a bunch of multi shot weapons to hit, then again to wound.

 

Having vast amounts of high lethality weapons isn't a bad thing in and of itself - this is a futuristic wargame after all - but the sheer number of dice that are rolled in any given interaction is what needs toning down the most.

 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

It needs to be toned down at the very least.

AP-1 should be for anti-elite infantry weapons

AP-2 for anti-light vehicles and small monsters

AP-3+ for heavy vehicles and large monsters

 

so imho heavy bolters, multi lasers, krak grenades/missiles assault cannons etc AP-1

plasma guns, autocannons, etc AP-2

melta, lascannons, etc AP-3 or higher

 

standard issue weapons on troops should not have any AP.

 

Edited January 14, 2023 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Emperor Ming]

 

Unless there's an edition reset, tweaks to the current system are the only reality