What's wrong with Walkers?

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**Gunzhard**

In my gaming group we have a small home-brew FAQ going...

Dreadnoughts get a 5+ invulnerable. It's not much, but it helps.

The reasoning is, if "tactical dreadnought" armour has a 5+ then actual dreadnought armour should too right?

**kronk**

NoPoet wrote:
They seem to have numerous advantages over infantry and the rules seem to indicate that infantry supported by appropriately armed walkers would be a very effective partnership. Is it purely because of the vehicle damage rules that people don't like walkers? I can't see any other reasonpeople wouldn't take them.

The vehicle damage rule allows a dreadnought to die from a single lascannon or melta gun shot that would only take a wound off an MC like a Daemon Prince or GMS like the gak Tau run around with.

They just aren't survivable.

**SemperMortis**

Gunzhard wrote:
In my gaming group we have a small home-brew FAQ going...

Dreadnoughts get a 5+ invulnerable. It's not much, but it helps.

The reasoning is, if "tactical dreadnought" armour has a 5+ then actual dreadnought armour too should right?

That actually makes really good sense, which is probably why GW rules writers never did it.

**Martel732**

Even worse than the one-shot thing, which is now very rare, is that AP 4 weapons can glance them out easily. And those same weapons struggle against almost every MC in the game.

**pm713**

Martel732 wrote:
SHW are still crap compared to GMCs, though. Or even MCs, really. How many feths do your DKs give about melta weapons? Zero, that's how many.

With how much you complain about Melta I would've thought Walkers don't care either.

**Martel732**

pm713 wrote:
Martel732 wrote:
SHW are still crap compared to GMCs, though. Or even MCs, really. How many feths do your DKs give about melta weapons? Zero, that's how many.

With how much you complain about Melta I would've thought Walkers don't care either.

No one is dumb enough to bring them where I play. MCs, GMCs are the alpha and omega. Even Imperials are stupid to bring dreads when they can bring TWC allies and get units of MCs. There was the one guy with 3 IKs that had the gonads to complain about how much melta my BA list had. But yes, in general, melta sucks because low ROF sucks.

**Lanrak**

Whats wrong with under used unit X, in 40k?

Basically its in a game where the rules are decided by people who do not care about the game,(GW sales department, ) and written for people who do not play, or do not care about the rules, beyond making the new releases sound cool..

**master of ordinance**

Well, Walkers are essentially MC's with:
Less wounds
No saves
Less attacks
The chance of being oneshot by low AP weapons
The inability to use the 'toe in cover' mechanic
The unique privilege of losing fighting capabilities whenever the enemy gets more than the minimal 'to wound' roll
No 'Move through cover' rules
No 'Smash' or 'Stomp' attacks
The same, or higher, points cost

Sure, what is not to love?

**generalchaos34**

you could go to "fix" walkers with either giving them an armor save (say a 3+, that way they are still vulnerable to anti tank weapons) or give them smash or remove smash from MCs

edit: come to think about it, any vehicle could get an "armor save" that is dependent on the addition of the different armor values, so like a 14/13/10 = 37 would get a 2+, 33-36 would get a 3+, the rest a 4+

**morganfreeman**

Xerics wrote:
4th edition skimmers were godly though...

Skimmers yes, but it as disturbingly easy to explode the bulk of transport vehicles.

**Tarvitz77**

Arson Fire wrote:
Tarvitz77 wrote:

As an aside, tyranid monstrous creatures tend to be toughness 6, so they've no cause to be scared of a dreadnought. I would expect him to cause about 2 wounds and then get scrapped in short order. In fact, that's another thing that is a problem with walkers. As vehicles, they can be shaken, disarmed and exploded among other things. Monstrous creatures obviously can't.

I disagree, most TMCs have plenty of cause to be scared of dreadnoughts.
S5/6 isn't worth much vs AV12, and nothing vs the AV13 variants. Particularly given that most TMCs only have 3 attacks.
Smash gives them a single attack, usually with a 50% chance to miss (barring tyrants and trygons, all TMCs are WS3). If it hits and pens then, barring a lucky 6, you have dealt a hull point. Lets hope you also manage to hit it in the next two turns of combat...
Meanwhile the dread gets something like 4 attacks, hitting on 3+ and wounding on 2+. Tearing through the TMCs wounds.

The only ones that the dreadnought needs to worry about are carnifexes, due to their high strength, and haruspexes (which you will never see anyone take), due to armorbane.

That's a good point actually. I kind of was thinking about carnifexes, but there are obviously lots of other tyranid monstrous creatures besides that.

Still, not much chance of being ID'd by a dreadnought. Should give time for another bug to help them out.

**DoomMouse**

Surprised no one's mentioned soul grinders yet - they're a pretty decent walker with AV13, 4HP and a 5+ invul, particularly in the forgehost formation with their re-rolls to hit and wound.

Skitarii dragoons are very nice as well - only 45pts with boosted speed/run, innate 5+ cover, AV11, outflank and a very decent melee attack on the charge.

Maulerfiends make it into many KDK lists too (but there'd need to be a few of them to make them worthwhile)

I'd say there's nothing inherently wrong with walkers, the individual ones just need to be priced appropriately. People would take dreadnoughts more if they were arond 20pts cheaper

**G00fySmiley**

DoomMouse wrote:
Surprised no one's mentioned soul grinders yet - they're a pretty decent walker with AV13, 4HP and a 5+ invul, particularly in the forgehost formation with their re-rolls to hit and wound.

Skitarii dragoons are very nice as well - only 45pts with boosted speed/run, innate 5+ cover, AV11, outflank and a very decent melee attack on the charge.

Maulerfiends make it into many KDK lists too (but there'd need to be a few of them to make them worthwhile)

I'd say there's nothing inherently wrong with walkers, the individual ones just need to be priced appropriately. People would take dreadnoughts more if they were arond 20pts cheaper

just having the inv save is what makes many walkers useable ones without it just disappear too easy.

**CthuluIsSpy**

Yeah, a saving throw makes all the difference.
Its outstanding that GW didn't consider that when introducing hullpoints; if you introduce a wound like mechanic, you have to introduce saving throws to make it consistent with the rest of the damage mechanics.

**casvalremdeikun**

I think if they gave Walkers Stomp and Fleet baseline, it might help them out a little. Won't help their weakness to being glanced to death effortlessly though.

**CthuluIsSpy**

Stomp I agree with, fleet not so much.

On some walkers, sure, but other walkers are supposed to be slow, sluggish things.

Being glanced to death is a problem all vehicles share. Hopefully GW will hire competent writers for 8th ed to fix that.

**Arson Fire**

I hope by Stomp you actually mean Smash.
One of those is a reasonable thing for regular walkers to have.
The other might just make sentinel spam the dominant army.

**casvalremdeikun**

I mean stomp. And even with that walkers would still be overpriced.

**Arson Fire**

So you think that when a sentinel gets into combat it should have a chance to instantly remove any non-superheavy model up to 15" away?
Lol ok.

**Ashiraya**

Walkers should NOT get stomp.

It is not the solution.

**Vaktathi**

Yeah, I don't see a War Walker "stomping" anything the way a Titan can.

Really they just need to either go back to a 5E damage table, or make vehicles T/Sv units and drop the stupid "worst of both worlds" hybrid of both that vehicles are stuck with now.

**morganfreeman**

Ashiraya wrote:
Walkers should NOT get stomp.

It is not the solution.

Actually, giving Walkers a version of Stomp with fewer stomps (maybe just one) and no Everything-under-this-bit-dies result would go a long way. A huge issue with walkers is that a lot of them are supposed to be CC viable.. But with only a few attacks (5 at the top end) and average weapon skill (4-5) they're easily bogged down by tarpits. Which doesn't make sense, because a dreadnaught vs a bunch of ork boyz should involve the dread killing multiples of them per sweep of its CC weapon, as well as rampaging through the mob and stepping on them.

**casvalremdeikun**

morganfreeman wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
Walkers should NOT get stomp.

It is not the solution.

Actually, giving Walkers a version of Stomp with fewer stomps (maybe just one) and no Everything-under-this-bit-dies result would go a long way. A huge issue with walkers is that a lot of them are supposed to be CC viable.. But with only a few attacks (5 at the top end) and average weapon skill (4-5) they're easily bogged down by tarpits. Which doesn't make sense, because a dreadnaught vs a bunch of ork boyz should involve the dread killing multiples of them per sweep of its CC weapon, as well as rampaging through the mob and stepping on them.

Bingo. The point is, going toe to toe with even a Sentinel is bound to get someone stepped on. Probably not D3, but I think one stomp at reduced effectiveness might be a good idea.

**Trasvi**

master of ordinance wrote:
Well, Walkers are essentially MC's with:
Less wounds
No saves
Less attacks
The chance of being oneshot by low AP weapons
The inability to use the 'toe in cover' mechanic
The unique privilege of losing fighting capabilities whenever the enemy gets more than the minimal 'to wound' roll
No 'Move through cover' rules
No 'Smash' or 'Stomp' attacks
The same, or higher, points cost

Sure, what is not to love?

Pretty much this.

**Iron_Captain**

Walkers take everything that is bad about vehicles in this edition and make it even worse.
We need 5th edition vehicle rules back. Vehicles were too strong in 5th, but with all the new OP stuff introduced since then, most vehicles would likely still be not top-tier.

**Arson Fire**

casvalremdeikun wrote:
morganfreeman wrote:
Ashiraya wrote:
Walkers should NOT get stomp.

It is not the solution.

Actually, giving Walkers a version of Stomp with fewer stomps (maybe just one) and no Everything-under-this-bit-dies result would go a long way. A huge issue with walkers is that a lot of them are supposed to be CC viable.. But with only a few attacks (5 at the top end) and average weapon skill (4-5) they're easily bogged down by tarpits. Which doesn't make sense, because a dreadnaught vs a bunch of ork boyz should involve the dread killing multiples of them per sweep of its CC weapon, as well as rampaging through the mob and stepping on them.
Bingo. The point is, going toe to toe with even a Sentinel is bound to get someone stepped on. Probably not D3, but I think one stomp at reduced effectiveness might be a good idea.

Fair enough. Without the 'delete anything' result, and less range, stomp seems much more reasonable.

**ZergSmasher**

I would go for the idea of giving vehicles an armor save. And remove the Immobilize thing from Grav weapons. That is just dumb. Having it glance on a 6 is not that bad, but immobilization as well...sheesh (this coming from a DA player who loves to take grav weapons).

**KingCorpus**

In my opinion...

Walkers EVERY SINGLE ONE base 4 attacks, not just daddys favorites
5++
Move Through Cover (why is this not a thing??)
Ability to upgrade to a 4+ invul (Like the skitarii crabs)
Walkers get -1 to the vehicle damage charge/ cannot be shaken or stunned
4 Hullpoints

**Xerics**

Walkers would be pretty good with those buffs. War Walker with double scatter lasers, 4 hull points, 4 attacks (not that it would matter for the War Walker), ability to get a 4++, and still be able to move-shoot-run, and immune to shaken and stunned. I would take these in every army.

**Draco**

Waiting for 7.5 edition...