As a new player since 1 year, there's something I came to realize about W40k : the necessity of vehicules in game, their low-point value in game, and finally, their high cost value money-wise outside of the game. Seriously, let's take this exemple : I make a simple 1k points list for World Eaters (let's use the price of GW online store). It come to114.50 US for Kharn and 2 Zerkers box (to make 3 squad of 8). Now let's add 3 Rhinos. The total price is 233.00 US, which is a little more than the double ! Seriously, how is it that vehicules which are so damn low on points cost so much ? Just 3 rhinos are already by themselves costly ! No wonder everyone play BA DoA and GK termies. Should GW lower their prices on vehicules or should they make them less important game-wise (example : making them point heavy or more easy to shoot than infantry) ? What's your opinion on this matter ?

Vehicles need to carry more risk to the occupants.

In 4th edition transports were death boxes, they were really easy to kill and you lost most of the guys if it blew up. this made tanks not so great so a lot of people did not use them.

Of course everyone wondered why armies in the year 40,000 were walking everywhere. It made no sense. At the same time GW was upset that no one was buying their expensive vehichle box sets, so out comes 5th edition, and it's largely all about mech.

Overall the gameplay is better with vehichles, it is more expensive, but there are still viable foot lists so you havve options. the hobby is expensive with large start up costs. it's just the way it is.

Pony_law wrote:In 4th edition transports were death boxes, they were really easy to kill and you lost most of the guys if it blew up. this made tanks not so great so a lot of people did not use them.

Of course everyone wondered why armies in the year 40,000 were walking everywhere. It made no sense. At the same time GW was upset that no one was buying their expensive vehichle box sets, so out comes 5th edition, and it's largely all about mech.

Overall the gameplay is better with vehichles, it is more expensive, but there are still viable foot lists so you havve options. the hobby is expensive with large start up costs. it's just the way it is.

Which army have still viable foot list (except GK and BA) ? Just out of curiosity.

Anyone who complains about vehicles is usually frustrated that their super-1337 4th ed. army can't handle 5 rhinos, 2 predators and a rifleman. They're fine in-game, really. bring more missile launchers, tesla destructors, bolt of tzeentch, whatever S7-8 stuff you can spam.

SnaleKing wrote:Anyone who complains about vehicles is usually frustrated that their super-1337 4th ed. army can't handle 5 rhinos, 2 predators and a rifleman. They're fine in-game, really. bring more missile launchers, tesla destructors, bolt of tzeentch, whatever S7-8 stuff you can spam.

I respectfully request you to re-read the thread. No one is stating they can't handle the transports, only that they hurt the metagame and tend to create less enjoyable games.

Would you rather play a battle with troops all over the field, and all that elite, heavy support and fast attack all around, or a game where each player deploys around 7 razorbacks and a few other things.

Course demons don't have transports, and they get their bums red having to deal with them.

Well, I don't have a problem with vehicles in and of themselves, I just have a problem with "transporthammer", where literally everything is shoved into a metal box all game and thats it. That get's boring to me. Some lists aren't so bad, like Ork battlewagon lists and IG tank lines, but seeing nothing but army after army of space marines with nothing but 7 rhinos/razorbacks with their respective occupants gets boring. The "leafblower" style of playing isn't much better, but that's mainly due to everyone and their brother thinking that's the only way you can play IG and win.

This may be due to the fact that most of the people at my store have marine armies though, so I'm definitely biased.

Long story short, I hate staring at nothing but rhinos all friggin day.

juraigamer wrote:Vehicles need to carry more risk to the occupants.

^This, at the very least it might make soft armies leave them so at least they won't all die when it blows up.

I don't think the problem is with the vehicles themselves but more with the vehicle rules.

There should be more risk for the units inside.

juraigamer wrote:Vehicles need to carry more risk to the occupants.

I agree with that. It's to ridiculous for Berzerkers to be in a vehicle that just exploded and maybe lose only like two guys.


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MrMoustaffa wrote:Well, I don't have a problem with vehicles in and of themselves, I just have a problem with "transporthammer", where literally everything is shoved into a metal box all game and thats it. That get's boring to me. Some lists aren't so bad, like Ork battlewagon lists and IG tank lines, but seeing nothing but army after army of space marines with nothing but 7 rhinos/razorbacks with their respective occupants gets boring. The "leafblower" style of playing isn't much better, but that's mainly due to everyone and their brother thinking that's the only way you can play IG and win.

This may be due to the fact that most of the people at my store have marine armies though, so I'm definitely biased.

Long story short, I hate staring at nothing but rhinos all friggin day.

The other problem is that it causes the whole army to move up fast as ****. It's like Chaos Space Marines just became Tyranids or something like that.

Transports are too cheap, but I'd say heavy vehicles aren't potent enough, specifically blast vehicles. They either need to be more accurate or deny cover saves.

Direct ordanance in the current rules is nearly always a waste of points. You have a large potential damage but it's mathematically pretty weak. More often than not they will fail to justify their points cost by a large margin.

I'm sure there are exceptions though. The Demolisher makes up for it somewhat by having such a high strength. ID and wound eveything on 2s, penetrating LRs on 5s and 6s is sweet. But that's all it has, it's still rubbish at killing MEQ or hordes, as are most blast vehicles.

Vehicles speed up the game immensely - try playing an all-foot game in less than 3 hours.

It is not he value of the vehicle in points that makes this edition seems silly.

I think most people have the problem pegged already.

They are just to useful.

Heres a few ideas to tone them down for everyone.

1. If they made TRANSPORTS move 6" then D6 Extra that would help slow them down just a tad. BloodAngels and Orks can roll 2D6 and choose the highest D6.

2. Vehicles fail a difficult terrain test on a 5+. A slight more risk of damaging the vehicle if barreling over terrain.

3. All occupants take a Str 4 Auto hit if the vehicle explodes. Saves are granted on a 5+ regardless of armour value. Str3 against Open topped 4+ regardless of Armour value.


4. Units within a vehicle do not count for holding an objective. The unit must be outside to guard or maintain it.

These I think are subtle enough not to break the game mechanics.. but still make people think a litte more than usual.

^^^^^^

Those would certainly hit Eldar hard if the codex isn't modified

It'd hit IG hard as well, but I think it would hit marines really hard, and that may or may not be a good thing. For a guard player, the rules you give make it where his guys are more likely to survive inside an exploding vehicle than to take their chances outside (we would get an armor save, as opposed to almost never getting it outside), so they probably wouldn't change their playstyle of bringing tons of transports, same thing for orks. Space marines, on the other hand, are getting a WORSE save, so they'd be more likely to hoof it.

While I think those potential rules are a good start, they're biased in a way that makes them better for some armies than others. Not saying you did that intentionally, just what i'm noticing. I do agree however, when a chimera EXPLODES and I rarely loose more than 3 guys, something isn't right with the rules

Transporthammer is so fething boring after the first three games, let alone an entire gakking edition!

$$$-wise I think vehicles are about right. Rules-wise they're a huge mess... Transports are too damn cheap for their overall effectiveness, being able to still count as scoring while sitting safely inside your metal bawkes is plain idiotic, and mainline battle tanks are just poop.
Add to this mess that some armies don't have ready access to 'oodles of accurate S7/8+ ap1 firepower, and some games turn into a plain rock/paper/scissors result. (Daemons, Orks & 'Nids really hate dealing with transports at range!)

Overall I'm hoping that 6th ed;
a) makes transports a bit more dangerous for their passengers. Nothing insane like 4th, but at least make players think twice before just sitting inside rhinos all game and popping some melta shots on the fly all game.

b) NO MORE SCORING FROM INSIDE YER DAMN BAWKES!!! Dumbest thing ever imho.

c) bring 'defensive weapons' back upto S5 as the very least! Now battle tanks can keep up and keep firing alongside the transports, so it's a bit eaiser to chase them down. (especially for getting side shots on the squisher armour values!)

d) perhaps bring the cost of transports like the rhino & razorback up by 5-10pts each. Even at 45 or 50pts before upgrades, that's a decent buy for a tactical squad to get from point 'A' to point 'B'.
BA's just need their transports completely re-costed because they're waaaaaay too cheap for their added benifits. (especially the sheer stupidity of being able to take 5-man assault squads w/out jump packs, add a meltagun and get a 'free' twin asscan/las+plasma/twin-lascannon option to top it off)

Just my 2 cents worth.

Khornate25 wrote:

Pony_law wrote:In 4th edition transports were death boxes, they were really easy to kill and you lost most of the guys if it blew up. this made tanks not so great so a lot of people did not use them.

Of course everyone wondered why armies in the year 40,000 were walking everywhere. It made no sense. At the same time GW was upset that no one was buying their expensive vehichle box sets, so out comes 5th edition, and it's largely all about mech.

Overall the gameplay is better with vehichles, it is more expensive, but there are still viable foot lists so you havve options. the hobby is expensive with large start up costs. it's just the way it is.

Which army have still viable foot list (except GK and BA) ? Just out of curiosity.

IG
Tau
Orks
hard to manage, and you have to be creative, but Eldar.

However, 2 and 4 i agree with wholeheartedly. Those affect all forces equally, and would be fair for everyone. However, number 1 would essentially be giving lumbering behemoth (the leman russ movement rule, minus the whole ordnance bit) to every vehicle in the game, which would buff the leman russ quite a bit. And as an IG player, i can safely say the last thing that tank needs is a buff, its scary enough as is.

Edit: I'm talking to Millisim by the way

People are talking about how expensive vehicles are $$$ wise, and they are somewhat costly, but they're HUGE compared to the infantry, and they aren't really that over expensive.

Tau Piranha: 30CAD
Tau Battlesuit: 29.75 CAD

A WHOLE QUARTER DIFFERENCE?!?!

Points to money ratio is much in favour of the piranhas.
Also, land-raider points to money ratio is comparable to that of a tac squad SOOOOOOO.

I greatly dislike the idea that scoring units inside transports would need to be outside them. Eldar are neither numerous enough nor robust enough to weather damage whilst on an objective, whereas marines most definately are; what you're essentially suggesting is that squishy armies make themselves prone to fire from armies that can take a beating.

How can Eldar really compete if their troops are forced to be in the open? Guardians can get 20 models per squad, but add in that EML platform and the Conceal or Embolded Warlock you need, and it's costing you 210-220pts for a T3 Ld8 squad with a majority save of 5+ and only a single weapon with greater than 12" range, that misses half of the time.

Jetbikes aren't amazing for objective camping.

Rangers are okay thanks to essentially having Stealth, or Stealth+ if upgraded to Pathfinders, but each Pathfinder costs 24pts and pretty much dies if touched by a flamer or anything that ignores cover, since most of it will ignore the 5+ AS anyway.

Dire Avengers get a maximum of 10 models, with a range of 18".

You've also got to consider Dark Eldar, who are the same but lack even Rangers. Warriors are essentially Guardians but with better BS, longer range and a better Ld with a Sybarite, and Wyches are wasted sitting on an objective.

Then you have Tau, who can get lots of Kroot, but they're BS3 and only T3 Ld7, with no armour save. FWs get a maximum of 12, and get Ld8 if they have a Shas'Ui. They can regroup if he has a bonding knife, but they're still T3 and relatively expensive, with no way of defending against units that get close.

Orks are okay, since they're Fearless in numbers, and T4, but flamers will still bugger them sideways; however, Nobs can be taken as troops with a Warboss, and they're tough enough to hold an objective, but you're wasting their potential.

Necrons seem okay thanks to Immortal spam and the fact that they can just stand up again and again, and also T4 Ld10 across the board.

The vast majority of Imperial armies are fine, since they're T4 with Ld9 thanks to mandatory sergeants, ATSKNF allowing them to avoid running off the board from a bad round of shooting, plus 3+ saves everywhere and a range of weaponry that allows them to shoot at units they would otherwise be out of range against; no idea about SoB though.

IG seem alright because of huge squad sizes, Ld9 Commissars, summary execution, stubborn, and Get Back Into the Fight!

It would be exceedingly hard to balance such a mechanic when there's a large divide, with "Armies that can survive outside transports" on one side, and "Armies which cannot survive outside transports" on the other.

There's also the fact that players could simply hide until the end of the game, and spill the troops out then, which pretty much renders the change absolutely pointless, and gives a huge advantage to the player going second; not only does he get the last turn for objective grabbing, he can also stay inside his transports longer than you can.

Spamming of any kind is problematic for the game, be it vehicles or units. One notices the issue with transports more due to most squads in a codex having access to just one transport option and that option is undercosted for what you get.

Foot slogging lists can be viable, but it is generally an up hill battle when facing against a heavily meched opponent. Increases in game point sizes and a decrease in unit costs also make foot slog lists more difficult to play in the typical tournament style 2 to 3 hour time frame. Those who say bring more s7/s8 to the field.. I ask how can I do that when at least 25% of the codex/codices have little to nothing in reliable mid to long range s7/s8 firepower that can be spammed? As a Sister of Battle player my only competitive way to play is multiple small elite/fast attack with Immolator/Rhinos galore. Woe to me if my opponent is fielding a like army because I may be able to pop the enemy transports, but no way can my ladies survive the retribution aimed at me due to having to get so close. Things get even worse when using such a method gives me a greater KP total than IG..

I would prefer if they return to an earlier method of point costing in the codex. Bring the base price of transports/units up to help mitigate the MSU/transport spam that is prevalent and make upgrades cheaper. As things stand some options (both wargear and units) are a no brainer. Be it a no brainer for 'not worth it' or a no brainer for 'must have'.

Khornate25 wrote:

Pony_law wrote:In 4th edition transports were death boxes, they were really easy to kill and you lost most of the guys if it blew up. this made tanks not so great so a lot of people did not use them.

Of course everyone wondered why armies in the year 40,000 were walking everywhere. It made no sense. At the same time GW was upset that no one was buying their expensive vehichle box sets, so out comes 5th edition, and it's largely all about mech.

Overall the gameplay is better with vehichles, it is more expensive, but there are still viable foot lists so you havve options. the hobby is expensive with large start up costs. it's just the way it is.

Which army have still viable foot list (except GK and BA) ? Just out of curiosity.

Dark Eldar have several brutal and almost broken footlists. IG can put down some severe hurt with a blob army supported by heavy weapons. Space Wolves can also do some serious damage with an all foot army.

Vehicles seem broken until you run into a well built/played foot army.

Although I will agree that a few vehicles can come off and downright broken the first time you fight them - Vendettas and Razorwings being two big names of hated flyers. Vendettas probably being the most hated thing in the game.

Necron transports are expensive, one ghost ark is 10 points more expensive then three rhinos and our night scythe is just 5 points cheaper (115 and 100 respectively.) For what they do though I'd say they are worth the cost whenever I use them.

Not sure about the idea of can't score when in a vehicle, I'd say Something along the lines that a transport with troops has to be in 2" / 1" instead of 3" to contest / control an objective unless it is open topped. This is so objectives inside buildings unless it is in the ground floor can't be contested by guys hiding in a transport.

Maybe add something like a -1 to all save throws for guys inside an exploding vehicle (not open topped) to a maximum of 6+, This way your 2+/2++ with 3+ feel no pain has to roll 3+/3++ or 4+ for FnP, but orks still get their chance at 6+ saves

I think with a lot of things in the game the balance lies between what we had in 4th and what he have now. I largely like the vehicles rules, simplistic as they may be, but having your transport explode should be a little more dangerous to the people inside than some bolter fire.

I don't really give a toss about the vehicle spamming that is so common these days. I think of it as a challenge to deal with.

I voted GW should lower the prices of vehicles simply because I'm a cheapskate

Really, It's a few armies that I care about for being too vehicle spammy; to be specific: IG. I like how vehicles are atm, its just that IG's vehicles were poorly thought out.

Khornate25 wrote:

Pony_law wrote:In 4th edition transports were death boxes, they were really easy to kill and you lost most of the guys if it blew up. this made tanks not so great so a lot of people did not use them.

Of course everyone wondered why armies in the year 40,000 were walking everywhere. It made no sense. At the same time GW was upset that no one was buying their expensive vehichle box sets, so out comes 5th edition, and it's largely all about mech.

Overall the gameplay is better with vehichles, it is more expensive, but there are still viable foot lists so you havve options. the hobby is expensive with large start up costs. it's just the way it is.

Which army have still viable foot list (except GK and BA) ? Just out of curiosity.

orks if you dont mind playing longer games lol and nids obviously

juraigamer wrote:

SnaleKing wrote:Anyone who complains about vehicles is usually frustrated that their super-1337 4th ed. army can't handle 5 rhinos, 2 predators and a rifleman. They're fine in-game, really. bring more missile launchers, tesla destructors, bolt of tzeentch, whatever S7-8 stuff you can spam.

I respectfully request you to re-read the thread. No one is stating they can't handle the transports, only that they hurt the metagame and tend to create less enjoyable games.

Would you rather play a battle with troops all over the field, and all that elite, heavy support and fast attack all around, or a game where each player deploys around 7 razorbacks and a few other things.

Course demons don't have transports, and they get their bums red having to deal with them.

Oh, I didn't say anyone was saying they couldn't handle them: I was explaining why vehicle "spam" isn't bad for the game.

I like to play against mech spam. I lovelovelove the challenge, rather than just eating all my opponent's delicious infantry. Anytime I see a foot list with only 1-2 vehicles (surprisingly common), I kind of sigh to myself. "Another guy who couldn't afford 6 rhinos. This'll be over quick."

Mech spam armies? NOW we're talking! Tzeentch chariots, GO! Bolt of tzeentch love for everyone!

I like playing games where my opponent challenges me, and only vehicle/transport heavy armies can do that.

The main problem with transports IMO is that in 5E meta lists, transports are not really used as transportation vehicles anymore but rather as additional heavy support choices (which allows one to make super-mech lists). This in turn has shifted the game dynamic to a more vehicle central game.

Personally I think the core vehicle rules need to be overhauled to make them less effective. The spearhead supplement rules could also be re-adjusted (with alternate vehicle rules) to allow for mech based games if people still desire them.

Make them less useful but same price.

Brother SRM wrote:I think with a lot of things in the game the balance lies between what we had in 4th and what he have now. I largely like the vehicles rules, simplistic as they may be, but having your transport explode should be a little more dangerous to the people inside than some bolter fire.

I think that is because they do not want IG infantry squads being wiped from the table instantly, and because they do not want 1 shot to be enough to destroy an entire squadron of vehicles.

We need more vehicles, not less! This is 40k, not fantasy. Walkers and Vehicles are the exciting and cool thing about this game system..

Armies like razorspam are more realistic and unified looking than those horrible half mech half foot lists of 3rd and 4th edition.

I wouldn't mind Mech Spam as much if thier wasn't so much hype of the melta to counter them. Maybe in the next edition they'll actually give tanks that are designed to hunt tanks that extra +1 on the Penetration Chart from their turreted weapon.


And it's not really the vehicles that are the problem, it's the counters and the mentality of the players with the counters.

Everything gets shoved through the 'Can it kill a vehicle' filter way too often, even the units that aren't designed to kill them, and are immediately discarded if it can't meet the lofty theory-hammer requirements.

I guess I'm just annoyed. That's why I don't post any IG lists on Dakka anymore becuase I'll get the 'Don't take that, Melta's are better' or 'Vendetta can do that in spades' crap.

Something needs to change up the blandness a bit, especially in the counter department.

Vehicles are great, and should be a focus of 40k, with a few changes:

- Transports should function as transports, not scoring gunboats. Give points each turn for holding an objective and make the troops have to get out of the box to do it.
- It should be easier for a WS 9 unit to hit a moving vehicle in CC than a WS 2 unit.
- A vehicle explodes into flaming shards and leaves a smoking crater in the ground, and the passengers are hit with the 40k equivilant of a stubbed toe? Really?

Maelstrom808 wrote:Vehicles are great, and should be a focus of 40k, with a few changes:

- Transports should function as transports, not scoring gunboats. Give points each turn for holding an objective and make the troops have to get out of the box to do it.
- It should be easier for a WS 9 unit to hit a moving vehicle in CC than a WS 2 unit.
- A vehicle explodes into flaming shards and leaves a smoking crater in the ground, and the passengers are hit with the 40k equivilant of a stubbed toe? Really?

@ your first point, this is not a good idea.

Any non-meq army would just instantly and irrecoverably be a massive fail. Guardsmen getting out of their vehicle? great, they'll get wrecked by shooting right away. Same for firewarriors, pathfinders, eldar etc.

I don't agree. My campaign group has always made it where the men must get out to hold objectives. Our guard and tau players have never had a problem. A objective/building/town is never held unless boots are on the ground. Adapt and over come.

Maelstrom808 wrote:- It should be easier for a WS 9 unit to hit a moving vehicle in CC than a WS 2 unit.

I'm not so sure, since WS represents skill in opposed close combat, not necessarily the ability to attach AT grenades to a moving vehicle. Naturally this is less the case with things like power fists, but the enforced low initiative represents the difficulty of moving that weapon quickly, so by rights it should be extra hard for them to swing in time. Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to pass an initiative test to hit vehicles moving over a certain speed.

Why yes, I do play Dark Eldar, why do you ask?

I have said on occasion that ap 1 hits that destroy a vehicle need to cause the explosion to be +1 STR, but that would just cause more melta spam... so it's not the best fix.

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:Vehicles are great, and should be a focus of 40k, with a few changes:

- Transports should function as transports, not scoring gunboats. Give points each turn for holding an objective and make the troops have to get out of the box to do it.
- It should be easier for a WS 9 unit to hit a moving vehicle in CC than a WS 2 unit.
- A vehicle explodes into flaming shards and leaves a smoking crater in the ground, and the passengers are hit with the 40k equivilant of a stubbed toe? Really?

@ your first point, this is not a good idea.

Any non-meq army would just instantly and irrecoverably be a massive fail. Guardsmen getting out of their vehicle? great, they'll get wrecked by shooting right away. Same for firewarriors, pathfinders, eldar etc.

Actually, my group play tested this quite a bit and it worked quite nicely. You have to pay a little more attention to how you place your objectives and defend them, but there are plenty of ways to keep non-meq troops safe on an objective.

htj wrote:

Maelstrom808 wrote:- It should be easier for a WS 9 unit to hit a moving vehicle in CC than a WS 2 unit.

I'm not so sure, since WS represents skill in opposed close combat, not necessarily the ability to attach AT grenades to a moving vehicle. Naturally this is less the case with things like power fists, but the enforced low initiative represents the difficulty of moving that weapon quickly, so by rights it should be extra hard for them to swing in time. Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to pass an initiative test to hit vehicles moving over a certain speed.

Why yes, I do play Dark Eldar, why do you ask?

I could see that working as well. I just think the flat auto/4+/6+ is a very poor system.

GW made a solution to slow armies too. It's called deep strike. Only the thing is, games not allowing this rule means tyranid players (that have no other means of transport.) have to pay for it.
And if you wanted to make a brood tougher by enlargening it have fun walking it accross the battle feild.

kshaw2000 wrote:GW made a solution to slow armies too. It's called deep strike. Only the thing is, games not allowing this rule means tyranid players (that have no other means of transport.) have to pay for it.
And if you wanted to make a brood tougher by enlargening it have fun walking it accross the battle feild.

Trying to validate deep striking with Tyranids is a really bad example. Maybe Drop Podding Dreadnoughts or Sternguard or... Anything really in the Space Marine Codex... Sigh... R.I.P Harkoni Warhawks...

Like a lot of the above people I think that transports:
* should be more expensive point-wise so that you actually make a proper choice between enough bodies and their metal boxes to carry them in. Some armies just have them as auto-include.
* should hurt more when they explode
* all be fast and have assault ramps to compensate.

In short, every army should have access to transports to make delivery of troops fast and useful, but it should have big risks to compensate. Your transport blowing up when you are rushing at the enemy should result in more than a few scratches.

I'm not so sure, since WS represents skill in opposed close combat, not necessarily the ability to attach AT grenades to a moving vehicle. Naturally this is less the case with things like power fists, but the enforced low initiative represents the difficulty of moving that weapon quickly, so by rights it should be extra hard for them to swing in time. Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to pass an initiative test to hit vehicles moving over a certain speed.

A khorne bloodthirster should realistically be able to grab that thing, and fling it..Of course It'd still be able to knock it hard on an I test too.

My main problem is, I want to play chaos daemons, but the meched up 5th edition is absolutely HORRIBLE for CD. I don't want to play 4 heralds with 3 tzeentch princes over everything else, since my MC's can keep up, but cant hit the vehicles, nor can even the elite stuff that can hit it hard do much against things that move.

I'm not so sure, since WS represents skill in opposed close combat, not necessarily the ability to attach AT grenades to a moving vehicle. Naturally this is less the case with things like power fists, but the enforced low initiative represents the difficulty of moving that weapon quickly, so by rights it should be extra hard for them to swing in time. Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to pass an initiative test to hit vehicles moving over a certain speed.

A space Marine should be more likely to hit a vehicle than a conscript.

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:

I'm not so sure, since WS represents skill in opposed close combat, not necessarily the ability to attach AT grenades to a moving vehicle. Naturally this is less the case with things like power fists, but the enforced low initiative represents the difficulty of moving that weapon quickly, so by rights it should be extra hard for them to swing in time. Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to pass an initiative test to hit vehicles moving over a certain speed.

A space Marine should be more likely to hit a vehicle than a conscript.

This would still work, as the Space Marine has a higher initiative than the conscript.

Vehicles and transports I think are fine in terms of cost/survivability right now, though the vehicle rules in general could use an overhaul. The bigger issue is that infantry, unlike every other game out there, doesn't have any mechanics for hiding, digging in, spotting, etc. they can just move/shoot/assault and that's it.

I like that the option for competitive vehicle spam is there now, options are never a bad thing.

I just think it needs to be balanced out in the rules by giving larger-sized squads some benefit of their own.

Perhaps a bonus to morale checks in combat resolution equal to how many models you outnumber the opponent by? It should only apply against models with the same or smaller base size though, and never against monstrous creatures or vehicles.

Or the ability to shoot at 1 target per 5 models in a squad? You'd still have to maintain coherency within the squad, so your targets couldn't be too far apart, and the ability would of course be lost when you start taking casualties.

htj wrote:

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:

I'm not so sure, since WS represents skill in opposed close combat, not necessarily the ability to attach AT grenades to a moving vehicle. Naturally this is less the case with things like power fists, but the enforced low initiative represents the difficulty of moving that weapon quickly, so by rights it should be extra hard for them to swing in time. Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to pass an initiative test to hit vehicles moving over a certain speed.

A space Marine should be more likely to hit a vehicle than a conscript.

This would still work, as the Space Marine has a higher initiative than the conscript.

Alright then, a kroot should be more likely to hit a vehicle than a guardsmen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaktathi wrote:Vehicles and transports I think are fine in terms of cost/survivability right now, though the vehicle rules in general could use an overhaul. The bigger issue is that infantry, unlike every other game out there, doesn't have any mechanics for hiding, digging in, spotting, etc. they can just move/shoot/assault and that's it.

Well digging in=g2g

I like vehicles a lot, but I think they'd be a lot more balanced if they just made two changes:

- A unit cannot hold or contest an objective whilst they are inside a vehicle.

- Change Vehicle Destroyed: Explodes to Auto hit, S5 AP- Rending (Still having the -1S for open topped ect).


I think this would reasonable a reasonable risk:reward taking the current point costs and benefits into account.

Transports and tanks give a number of advantages to the game and GW.

Faster Gameplay.
Instead of placing down 60+ marines, your placing down 5 rhinos/razorbacks. This means that deployment is considerably faster, and the first few turns where your just moving a truuk, or serpent are faster as your moving just one model.

This means that its possible to have a game done in 2 hours. Its simply a matter of moving models. If an ork player has 3 battlewagons and 6 truuks, they can move thier army in 9 different motions of picking up thier arm and putting it down. In comparison, a 180+ green tide list takes 20* as long to do the same thing.


More Sales.
GW is in business to sell models. When they made transports exceptionally effective and exceptional cheap (in game terms, not $$$ terms) it increased their sales. Now when you buy a unit of marines, GW expects you to fork out money for a rhino/razorback.

I would be very surprised to see GW regress to earlier editions where vehicles were ineffective, thus causing less models to be sold. If anything thier going to be more progressive in their model selling by making expensive models more effective (ie, vendetta)


Unique Feel.
Do you know what the big difference is when you walk by a warmachine table and a warhammer table? The warhammer table is covered in tanks. The warmachine has infantry and some walkers.
The vehicles in 40k provide that epic, unique feel that other games cannot provide. When you walk by a warhammer table, you see this battle with tanks, infantry, fliers and walkers. Reducing the effect of this makes the game of 40k much less cool.

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:Alright then, a kroot should be more likely to hit a vehicle than a guardsmen.

Why's that? A guardsman is an extensively trained soldier, they would be quite good at attaching a grenade to a moving vehicle. Successfully and effectively striking a vehicle that's moving at speed is a different ability than tackling an enemy combat in melee. It would be more reliant on speed of movement and quickness of reaction than skill in melee combat, and there is a stat for that - being initiative. We may have to agree to disagree on this one.

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:
Well digging in=g2g

really, it's diving for full concealment within cover more than anything else. It's not really digging in or actively going to ground.

For instance, in Flames of War, when Infantry Dig In, they are then considered in bulletproof cover. Functionally what that means is that weapons have to pass a firepower test to hurt them, the closest thing to relate to 40k would mean that they'd basically have to roll equal to or higher on their AP to inflict a wound. When they go to ground, they are at -1 to hit. This all means that dug in infantry in Flames of War is a nightmare to dislodge from a position. While mechanized troops have lots of maneuverability and firepower and whatnot, trying to remove dug-in infantry out of a woods where they've stuck in is one of the hardest things in the game to do, you generally have to try and clear them out in bloody and costly assaults.

40k has no equivalent, cover saves aren't really the same thing, and thus mechanized infantry of course have a great advantage.

Vaktathi wrote:

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:
Well digging in=g2g

really, it's diving for full concealment within cover more than anything else. It's not really digging in or actively going to ground.

For instance, in Flames of War, when Infantry Dig In, they are then considered in bulletproof cover. Functionally what that means is that weapons have to pass a firepower test to hurt them, the closest thing to relate to 40k would mean that they'd basically have to roll equal to or higher on their AP to inflict a wound. When they go to ground, they are at -1 to hit. This all means that dug in infantry in Flames of War is a nightmare to dislodge from a position. While mechanized troops have lots of maneuverability and firepower and whatnot, trying to remove dug-in infantry out of a woods where they've stuck in is one of the hardest things in the game to do, you generally have to try and clear them out in bloody and costly assaults.

40k has no equivalent, cover saves aren't really the same thing, and thus mechanized infantry of course have a great advantage.

Well g2g in cover works differently, but has a similar effect: shooting is very, very ineffective for dislodging them, with cover ignoring blasts, flamer and assaults being preferrable, at the cost of not being able to shoot while doing so. Kroot g2g in forest is especially nasty, with up to 35 models with 2+ saves

I voted to make them cheaper price wise, more useful, and more expensive points wise

Personally I think they are just fine as they are. Most vehicles can die very easily. When I play Guard or Sisters I expect to lose most or all my vehicles in game unless I get lucky with my Shield of Faith saves on my Sisters. Vehicles die so easily in hth its not even funny. I don't really see a problem. When my Sisters or Guard have a vehicle blow up they typically lose enough models, being T 3 and in a close topped ride means I take wounds at S 4. So I am looking at saving 6 wounds for a squad of 10 so I am typcially losing some models and making a pinning test. The only change I would make is make that exploded crater dangerous as well as difficult just like a wreck.

I think the real issue was the total knee jerk reaction to 4th ed death boxes that has lead to carhammer 40k: hide in the metal box edition (aka 5th edition). Combine this with the ability to find a 4+ cover save and transports get a little OOT. I don't want to see mech get completely boned over in 6th edition but I want to see it toned down. In this edition if you are not bringing a mech army you may as well almost not play and that is not fun. I want to see a mix of different armies on the table. I want to walk into a game store and see a mech army, a foot army, a hybrid army, a jumper army, etc. Not just mech.

I agree with the other posters that troops in a vehicle should not count as scoring. I don't think it would cripple the more fragile units out there, you can still park your vehicle in front of the objective, then get out of LOS behind it. Now you're safe...until the outflankers and deepstrikers come in. This is where objective placement will come into play.

Put objectives where it's dangerous to deep strike, or make sure there is terrain where outflankers might show up, or put yourself in the center of the table, etc.

This way people can still use their vehicles, but those of us without them (Daemons, Tyranids) will have something to eat without being forced to take our relatively few str 8+ options. I hate having to take 6 hive guard every list...I should be able to diversify more than that.

Vaktathi wrote:

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:
Well digging in=g2g

really, it's diving for full concealment within cover more than anything else. It's not really digging in or actively going to ground.

For instance, in Flames of War, when Infantry Dig In, they are then considered in bulletproof cover. Functionally what that means is that weapons have to pass a firepower test to hurt them, the closest thing to relate to 40k would mean that they'd basically have to roll equal to or higher on their AP to inflict a wound. When they go to ground, they are at -1 to hit. This all means that dug in infantry in Flames of War is a nightmare to dislodge from a position. While mechanized troops have lots of maneuverability and firepower and whatnot, trying to remove dug-in infantry out of a woods where they've stuck in is one of the hardest things in the game to do, you generally have to try and clear them out in bloody and costly assaults.

40k has no equivalent, cover saves aren't really the same thing, and thus mechanized infantry of course have a great advantage.

Holy cow... I really like the sound of this.

htj wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:
Well digging in=g2g

really, it's diving for full concealment within cover more than anything else. It's not really digging in or actively going to ground.

For instance, in Flames of War, when Infantry Dig In, they are then considered in bulletproof cover. Functionally what that means is that weapons have to pass a firepower test to hurt them, the closest thing to relate to 40k would mean that they'd basically have to roll equal to or higher on their AP to inflict a wound. When they go to ground, they are at -1 to hit. This all means that dug in infantry in Flames of War is a nightmare to dislodge from a position. While mechanized troops have lots of maneuverability and firepower and whatnot, trying to remove dug-in infantry out of a woods where they've stuck in is one of the hardest things in the game to do, you generally have to try and clear them out in bloody and costly assaults.

40k has no equivalent, cover saves aren't really the same thing, and thus mechanized infantry of course have a great advantage.

Holy cow... I really like the sound of this.

But if we pepper the entire game with mechanics like those, it will eventually return to that dark time called second edition, where games never finished, ever. Somewhere, there is a gamer still stuck in turn 2 of a second edition game, who shall not know victory until his game finishes in 8ed.

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:But if we pepper the entire game with mechanics like those, it will eventually return to that dark time called second edition, where games never finished, ever. Somewhere, there is a gamer still stuck in turn 2 of a second edition game, who shall not know victory until his game finishes in 8ed.

Yes and no. I think there's a balanced ground between the super streamlined 3rd ed. and the characterful madness that was 2nd ed., something that's been worked towards in 4th and 5th. Infantry at the moment are very basic and very vulnerable. I'd like to see them become more integral to the gameplay. Reducing down some of the more time consuming elements, such as (IMHO) TLoS and replacing them with more abstract, faster systems would allow for this kind of mechanic to be integrated with less slowdown to play time.

Ponits - price ratio is all over the place.
The only things that matter to cost (money wise) is size and material.

Your getting a large model, just because its around 50 points doesent mean it should be stupidly cheap.


A while ago thoughy, GW did have an offer in which they included a troop choice + a transport at a slight discount.


However, i dont see why you say people dont use them that often.
Most of my local gamers hammer tanks when they get the chance, including a BA player who runs 6 razors, 3 baals and 3 vindi's.
Cost is cost, its allways been there for transports.

However, rules change like the wind, so they get buffed / nerfed in time.

Khornate25 wrote:
Which army have still viable foot list (except GK and BA) ? Just out of curiosity.

Necrons, Orks, Tyranids, Space Wolves, Sisters of Battle, and Imperial Guard.

Reecius would probably try and convince you of Eldar, but I just don't agree.

Dark Eldar can't function as a foot army and Tau can't function at all. Space Marines are a maybe.

I don't think vehicles or transports in particular are too strong it's that infantry outside of transports are too vulnerable, which is an issue for how armor, cover, and ap interact more than how transports work. Penetrating hits should maybe hit the unit inside the transport as well as rolling on the damage table, it always seemed odd to me that three lascannons lancing apart a rhino just blow a hot breath at the 10 guys inside that take up most of the interior space. Otherwise transports are fine, if maybe a little undercosted for some armies.

htj wrote:

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:But if we pepper the entire game with mechanics like those, it will eventually return to that dark time called second edition, where games never finished, ever. Somewhere, there is a gamer still stuck in turn 2 of a second edition game, who shall not know victory until his game finishes in 8ed.

Yes and no. I think there's a balanced ground between the super streamlined 3rd ed. and the characterful madness that was 2nd ed., something that's been worked towards in 4th and 5th. Infantry at the moment are very basic and very vulnerable. I'd like to see them become more integral to the gameplay. Reducing down some of the more time consuming elements, such as (IMHO) TLoS and replacing them with more abstract, faster systems would allow for this kind of mechanic to be integrated with less slowdown to play time.

Vulnerable?

Infantry are the scariest thing vehicles will ever see. Melta, ML, Powerfist, crisis weaponry, railguns...vehicles are good, but not enough to make infantry weak. Except maybe with the guard, str 10 ap2 LBT is ridiculous.

Viable Foot slogging army: Deathwing, Draigowing.

Transports are a lot more viable in this edition. But there are ways to counter them. my personal fave is my 2000 pt deathwing 16 krak missles a turn plus 6 lascannons and 6 Autocannons. Bring on the METAL BAWKSES! FEWLS!

I don't care i'll blow them all away.

The old system of size groups was aweful! TLoS is good. Its just people seem to want to pick holes in the rules by saying a hand is not targetable because it is not an arm. RAI I believe hands and feet should be allowed.

If the targetable features were more clearly defined it would be fine.

So, one of the things that I think people are missing is that it's not just vehicles that are spammable, here.

5th ed made a lot of changes which, in conjunction with some codex changes along the way, actually made it possible to spam stuff. Yes, this means vehicle spam, but this also means foot horde spam, drop pod spam, etc. Because 5th ed made transports viable again, and because 5th ed encourages spam, it's really 5th ed's fault that we have vehicle spam.

If the rules changed so that things were more like 4th ed (when I scarcely ever saw spam, even in ork armies), then we'd have less spam, vehicle or otherwise.

Make more things suck won't solve the issues of the game. The problem is that many armies are too weak not that the best armies are too strong.

I think that the biggest problem with transport-hammer is that it really benefits shooty armies and generalist units at the expense of assault armies with specialist units.

To me, assault is far more interesting that shooting. Assaults are decisive. They force movement, there are a lot of factors that go into a successful assault; the placement of ICs and special weapons, the consideration of subsequent rounds and what else might show up. Stuff that you need to think about for a few turns while setting up the assaults.

Shooting, on the other hand, gives me a meh reaction in general. Can you make good target priority choices - and after that, it's largely about how the dice roll.

Transport-hammer seriously weakens an assault army. Rather than charge men, you're stuck charging a 30 point box. If it moved, you're unlikely to hit it, and even if you kill it, you're unlikely to have prevented the men inside it from shooting you up the following turn. If you have to assault a vehicle to remove it, you know, with 100% certainty, that you'll get shot the next turn.

That would be okay, if the cost of the vehicle was commensurate with the cost of the assault unit. But they're so cheap, that you're trading 200 points for 30. That's not viable, and, as a result, there are very few competitive builds that don't have to dedicating resources to shooting tanks, even those which would be more thematic without this need (tyranids and daemons come to mind).

This has nothing to do with these armies being weak or strong, but the base mechanic that puts only a marginal effect on a unit when its transport is destroyed. You simply cannot trade a unit for a 30 point box and expect to have an even chance.

Well, you might say, that's what its like in the far future. Attacking a tank with a sword is dumb. Well, yes, that's true. And yes, it does seem dumb. But the established storyline allows for armies without guns to be effective by virtue of them just popping out of the warp, or having so many bodies that you can't just drive away. And the game doesn't.



The second part of the game design that I don't like is the elevation of generalists over specialists. If you're playing a game where an enemy can be in tanks or can be on foot, you need to pack ways to deal with tanks, and ways to deal with men. Imperial and Marine armies tend to be generalist in nature - you get guys with anti-vehicle weapons in the same unit as guys with anti-infantry weapons.

But Xenos armies tend towards specialist units. Eldar Fire Dragons are awful against men, and Dire Avengers can't hurt boxes. Other Xenos armies are designed the same way. Fire Warriors really can't threaten tanks, orks are now organized into specialist units (flash gitz, tankbustas, lootas, burnas, etc), Tyranid troops are largely anti-infantry, with a few elite choices left to deal with vehicles, and so on.

Well, if transports are so good that everyone is in one, specialist units that aren't designed to kill vehicles are left with little to do, and, because the nature of the army requires that you have some of each, a canny opponent can focus on killing your anti-vehicle specialists, and then have free reign with their vehicles.

This issue pretty much means that anti-infantry specialists are a thing of the past in competitive list design. There is just too much chance that they'll be left with nothing to do. In 4th, when you expected to see men outside of vehicles, you'd see Howling Banshees on the table. You'd see Heavy Bolters make their way into lists. I cannot remember the last time I saw someone field Heavy Bolters - they're just irrelevant in a game of boxes.

Maybe 4th ed was too harsh to vehicles (or their passengers), but the pendulum definitely swung too far. Between lowered prices, increased survivability, and lesser penalties for passengers on destruction, transports became far far too good to ignore, and whole swathes of units became relegated to the shelf as they had no anti-vehicle capabilities. That's not good design in my opinion.

captain collius wrote:Viable Foot slogging army: Deathwing, Draigowing.

Transports are a lot more viable in this edition. But there are ways to counter them. my personal fave is my 2000 pt deathwing 16 krak missles a turn plus 6 lascannons and 6 Autocannons. Bring on the METAL BAWKSES! FEWLS!

I don't care i'll blow them all away.

Deathwing, Draigowing, orks, foot guard, suit-heavy tau...

Plenty of lists do not even need transports.

Redbeard wrote: whole swathes of units became relegated to the shelf as they had no anti-vehicle capabilities. That's not good design in my opinion.

Yeah, this would be my real gripe, I suppose. Every army comes with small arms (or counts-as small arms like heavy bolters on chimeras, etc.) making every list, by default, somewhat good against infantry models, but the only way to be good against vehicles is with upgrades. This means that there's basically no reason to take upgrades that aren't good against vehicles unless you have a lot of horde players at your FLGS or something.

You can definitely see how 5th ed made this possible:

- when vehicles are wrecked, you no longer lose guys, and when they explode you don't practically lose the squad, and automatically fail a pinning check.

- vehicles now get real cover saves rather than pen -> glance of the old hull down rules.

- you can no longer destroy a vehicle on a glancing hit.

- you can pop smoke or gain SMF with a scouting unit before the game begins

Yeah, they also did stuff that made foot horde spam viable (like giving them the ability to run and have intervening units give cover saves), and I'd disagree that it's impossible to run an assault army (they just, as you note, need to be able to bring meltaguns, or be in a list that also brings long-range anti-tank, etc.).

That said, I guarantee you'd see a lot more heavy bolters if they were able to wreck rhinos in their own right like they used to, and if wrecking said rhino meant anything more than "oh, I guess now I'll just have to run there now, what a bother".

There is another point I haven't seen crop up: That the survivability and power that a vehicle brings for the cost completely makes every other unit type obsolete. Jump infantry only travel as fast as vehicles and yet they are just as vulnerable as footsloggers and simply cannot bring as much firepower, and worse is that you pay MORE for the jump pack than you would pay for a normal squad in a vehicle. Bikes have the exact same problem, and cavalry are even slower (they only get that extra speed in an assault). Artillery is forced to stand still to even fire any weapon and they die to a glance. Monstrous Creatures fair better because they often have several wounds attached to them, but anything that can easily wipe out vehicles can do even better to MCs.

Milisim wrote:

2. Vehicles fail a difficult terrain test on a 5+. A slight more risk of damaging the vehicle if barreling over terrain.

I agree perfectly with everything you said but this: it's still a tank ffs, maybe introduce tank traps into the game or something similar?

phantommaster wrote:

Milisim wrote:

2. Vehicles fail a difficult terrain test on a 5+. A slight more risk of damaging the vehicle if barreling over terrain.

I agree perfectly with everything you said but this: it's still a tank ffs, maybe introduce tank traps into the game or something similar?

They already exist. We use them all the time. Just get tank traps and call them impassable terrain to vehicles, difficult for infantry.

On topic, complaining about vehicles not being destructive enough is a bit meh. An exploded result atm means I can kiss goodbye to at least half my squad, plus a pinning test, plus a leadership test. Extending damage/pinning to wrecked would do nothing to MEQ, as exploded does atm, and just make life a bit harder for guard.
Personally I would rather pay more for my transports than simply never see my men on the board at all. Making transports more destructive doesn't do much anyway, since after a shooty squad is unseated it's basically useless anyway, and an assault squad doesn't care.

I think if you just gave some more consequences to vehicles it would balance the game more. As it sits now, an exploding vehicle is a slap on the wrist and a wreck is just a minor inconvenience. Make it where you actually have to decide whether or not to put a unit in transport, instead of just auto include, and I would be happy. Make a wreck dangerous to occupants (it did wreck after all, right now its just a forced disembark) and make explosions actually scary for occupants. i think that would go a long way to help balance out the transport spam

Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, they also did stuff that made foot horde spam viable (like giving them the ability to run and have intervening units give cover saves), and I'd disagree that it's impossible to run an assault army (they just, as you note, need to be able to bring meltaguns, or be in a list that also brings long-range anti-tank, etc.).

It's not impossible to run an army with assault elements, or, even with that as the main goal... for some codexes and themes. For example, Blood Angels do very well because of their melta guns and pistols in their units.

Try running a themed Nurgle daemon list... In 4th ed, this was a viable army. Plaguebearers were slow, but hard to kill. Great Unclean Ones and Daemon Princes could handle a few vehicles. Epidemius racked up a tally, and by the end of the battle, your little 1-wound models were rolling things. I remember the last Adepticon under 4th ed and there were several nurgle-only daemon armies in attendance. One of the team entries finished 11th of 80 that year, so it was far from an uncompetitive theme. 5th edition - it's unplayable. You simply cannot get people out of their boxes.

Joey wrote:
On topic, complaining about vehicles not being destructive enough is a bit meh. An exploded result atm means I can kiss goodbye to at least half my squad, plus a pinning test, plus a leadership test. Extending damage/pinning to wrecked would do nothing to MEQ, as exploded does atm, and just make life a bit harder for guard.

Personally I would rather pay more for my transports than simply never see my men on the board at all. Making transports more destructive doesn't do much anyway, since after a shooty squad is unseated it's basically useless anyway, and an assault squad doesn't care.

Making transports more destructive balances the trade. You've got a squad, I dunno, melta vets, in a 55 point chimera. Your total investment is 155 points. I've got a winged khorne daemon prince - same cost. You get to shoot at me with all your guns as I approach. You scoot your vehicle so I need 4+ to hit, while hitting me with 2 meltas the turn before I assault you. I get six swings, three are likely to hit, probably scoring at least two pens. If I'm lucky, I roll a 5 or a 6, and I kill 55 points of yours. You have a Ld test, sure, but you know your melta guys aren't going to be the ones who die, so on your turn, you're hitting me with another two melta shots (of 3 fired) - odds are pretty good that I'm dying here, between the shooting as I approach and the meltas the turn before and after I kill the tank. Net effect - I lose 155 to your 55. If you were auto-pinned, like in 4th, then my guy either requires the rest of your army to get involved, or gets a turn to go after your guardsmen on foot.

And all that assumes that I actually killed the tank - otherwise you get to shoot me another turn and I have to try again. The combination of me having to get to your vehicle, having to manage to get a result on the table, and you still getting to whack me right back, all for a pittance of points, is why we see the sorts of armies that we saw in the Adepticon Championships this year. Most of the Grey Knight players fielded Razorbacks with a minimal squad of guys in them for a total of roughly 65 points. A full third of the finals featured this approach.

I don't think that these types of lists are fun. They're good, sure. But I like a wargame to feel more like a wargame, and not a game of car wars. Something needs to give.

I'd say they probably should be harder to kill, and cost more points, and be more lethal to their occupants (I mean for crying out loud, the tank you are in just EXPLODED)
Price wise in the store, they should cost less however.

- you can no longer destroy a vehicle on a glancing hit.

Well with melta being the primary anti-tank in the game right now, and it being ap1...

Luke_Prowler wrote:There is another point I haven't seen crop up: That the survivability and power that a vehicle brings for the cost completely makes every other unit type obsolete.

You haven't seen it crop up because it isn't true.

There are plenty of foot lists out there that are very competitive, especially out of the rules-twisted tournament environment. Vehicle spam may be common, but it has nothing to do with being the only viable army type.

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:Well with melta being the primary anti-tank in the game right now, and it being ap1...

It's not the same, though. Back in the day, meltaguns didn't NEED to get into the 6" range like they do now. If a meltagun only glanced, that wasn't so big of a deal because it still wrecked the vehicle 1/3 of the time. Now, you really need to get closer.

More importantly, though, it made it so that there was a class of weapons that were anti-tank AND anti-infantry, whereas the current rules make a vast majority of weapons good against one, but not the other.

MrMoustaffa wrote:I think if you just gave some more consequences to vehicles it would balance the game more.

Right, and it doesn't need to be vehicle destroyed results either. Currently, the missions are set up so that if your vehicle is killed, a big majority of the time it doesn't matter, strategically. KP was designed to counter this, but it doesn't do a good job, and tournaments are TERRIBLE about this, often doing things like having three mission types being run simultaneously. If I'm preparing for Adepticon, and I know that the person who wins a game is the one who does best two out of three of the three missions in the rulebook, I'd be foolish not to just let my opponent have the KP part in the bag while I build the rest of my army around trouncing my opponent on the other two.

I mean, for how crappy the system was, even victory points handled this. People would be more averse to crowding a bunch of flimsy boxes into their lists if there was some real penalty for having them killed. Not to say we should go the VP way again, but we certainly could have missions that actually introduce a little bit of balance, rather than allowing for people to spam (vehicle or otherwise) without serious risk or consequence.

Khornate25 wrote:
Which army have still viable foot list (except GK and BA) ? Just out of curiosity.

guard, run the blob platoon formations and you can have a gak-ton of infantry on the board... also the obligatory Ork and Nid lists
Personally, I don't think the meta is affected all that much as by and large, the large majority of vehicles I see are AV 10-11 on the sides and rear, which basically any MEQ can take out without much problem (assuming either very lucky rolls, or wargear options/upgrades) So, I honestly think that unless GW was producing more vehicles with standard AV 13-14 armor THEN there may be a problem, but as the large portion of transports are relatively low armored, it really isnt much of a problem for most armies to handle, either in shooting or CC


Had a game just last week against one of the resident wolf players... he commented after the game that it was one of the more entertaining games he had had in some time, because when he saw me putting down 11 Chimera transports onto my corner of the table, and 3 more Leman Russ tanks he didn't know how he was gonna handle all that armor... neither one of us list tailored, and so we each had to come up with tactics to deal with each others stuff, and for many folks out there, that is a large aspect of what makes the game fun.

I think vehicles - from effect are about right. However - their cost is too cheap. 35 for a rhino? basically cost of 2 marines.
40 pts for a razorback? Excuse me TL heavy bolter and protection. Again too cheap. Chimera multi laser and heavy bolter/flamer for what 65? Again too cheap.

However, I expect Tau and Eldar vehicles to go cheap in the new edition and I know GW likes selling vehicles. The problem is there is zero incentive to play an on foot army except for maybe terminator builds. As an eldar player, I know you give up significant firepower to field a mech army however you gain in protection. For IG and marines, it is just too cheap to mount up everything.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Had a game just last week against one of the resident wolf players... he commented after the game that it was one of the more entertaining games he had had in some time, because when he saw me putting down 11 Chimera transports onto my corner of the table, and 3 more Leman Russ tanks he didn't know how he was gonna handle all that armor... neither one of us list tailored, and so we each had to come up with tactics to deal with each others stuff, and for many folks out there, that is a large aspect of what makes the game fun.

What did his army consist of?

I like the idea of adding infantry rules rather than nerfing vehicles. In order to not derail the thread, I started a new topic to discuss what they should be. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/445726.page

Eldarain wrote:

Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Had a game just last week against one of the resident wolf players... he commented after the game that it was one of the more entertaining games he had had in some time, because when he saw me putting down 11 Chimera transports onto my corner of the table, and 3 more Leman Russ tanks he didn't know how he was gonna handle all that armor... neither one of us list tailored, and so we each had to come up with tactics to deal with each others stuff, and for many folks out there, that is a large aspect of what makes the game fun.

What did his army consist of?

It was a 2k point game, and he took Bran Redmaw (?) (he's from one of the Imperial Armor books) a wolf priest and rune priest (am not 100% it was a wolf priest, could have been another form of HQ though), 4 Grey Hunters (2 in rhinos, 1 in Razorback as it was also only 6 men), a Land Speeder with Typhoon missiles and MM, thunderwolf cav, and a unit of long fangs in razorback.


For comparisons sake, I took Creed in CCS with Vox Caster, 2x sniper rifles and a chimera, 2 identical platoons: PCS with chimera/vox caster, 4 squads total with 1 commissar, 2 vox casters, 2 Grenade Launchers, 2 flamers and 4 chimera. 3 squadrons of Leman Russ: 1 with battle cannon, lascannon on the hull, and heavy bolter sponsons, 1 with battle cannon, HB, and HB sponsons, and 1 executioner with HB and plasma cannon sponsons.

in a 1500 point game you can take 8 deathstrikes and a primaris psyker and 2 bare bones vet squads.... could be fun... i really wanna try this now

I'd like to see a few minor rule changes

1) A glance is one under the AV value

2) Penetrating is still one over, but adds +1 to damage result

3) Explosion is Str 5 to people inside and causes -1 to pin test

Doesn't require massive rework, but certainly changes the game

Lobukia wrote:1) A glance is one under the AV value

Or, you know what, why not get rid of glancing hits altogether? If the result is equal or greater to the AV, it pens. That way you'd be able to actually take weapons other than missile launchers or meltaguns. If a heavy bolter regained its ability to hurt a rhino, then you wouldn't need to spam only the heaviest weapons anymore. It would also "fix" things like the brightlance. It wouldn't fix the main problem that redbeard was talking about, but this rule would actually reintegrate vehicles into the game better.

If you combined the "all glances pen" rule with something like getting rid of stunned results (or adding a result that's the opposite of shaken - temporarily can't move, but can still fire), you'd have tanks that would be immune until destroyed, but still destroyable by lighter weapons. Would make for a better system overall, regardless of mech spam.

I have 12 eldar tanks and 9 war walkers and 3 wraithlords and 6 vypers.

you mad?

juraigamer wrote:

SnaleKing wrote:Anyone who complains about vehicles is usually frustrated that their super-1337 4th ed. army can't handle 5 rhinos, 2 predators and a rifleman. They're fine in-game, really. bring more missile launchers, tesla destructors, bolt of tzeentch, whatever S7-8 stuff you can spam.

I respectfully request you to re-read the thread. No one is stating they can't handle the transports, only that they hurt the metagame and tend to create less enjoyable games.

Would you rather play a battle with troops all over the field, and all that elite, heavy support and fast attack all around, or a game where each player deploys around 7 razorbacks and a few other things.

Course demons don't have transports, and they get their bums red having to deal with them.

My nurgle army really doesn't care how many vehicles you have, they are going to slowly kill you anyway once all my daemon princes drop.

You all do realize if you want to make transports less useful its not necessary to change the rules or points of transports at all.

Play with more terrain.

More terrain= more cover for infantry= more saves= more protection

more terrain= less places vehicles can go without difficult/dangerous terrain tests.

More often than not most people play on boards that have significantly less than 25% terrain, you should really be playing on boards that have closer to 50% terrain coverage.

Ailaros wrote:

Lobukia wrote:1) A glance is one under the AV value

Or, you know what, why not get rid of glancing hits altogether? If the result is equal or greater to the AV, it pens. That way you'd be able to actually take weapons other than missile launchers or meltaguns. If a heavy bolter regained its ability to hurt a rhino, then you wouldn't need to spam only the heaviest weapons anymore. It would also "fix" things like the brightlance. It wouldn't fix the main problem that redbeard was talking about, but this rule would actually reintegrate vehicles into the game better.

If you combined the "all glances pen" rule with something like getting rid of stunned results (or adding a result that's the opposite of shaken - temporarily can't move, but can still fire), you'd have tanks that would be immune until destroyed, but still destroyable by lighter weapons. Would make for a better system overall, regardless of mech spam.

I like the sound of this, although it makes my raiders uncomfortable...

Terrain can also give more cover to vehicles as well. I play on a minimum of 25% terrain (sometimes up to 50% if we are feeling something different). Still does nothing for the mech environment. Mech armies still thrive. I don't think most of us want to see the pendulum swing back the other way entirely, we just want other styles of lists to hit the table and have a better chance. I know there are some good non mech armies but they are not as good as mech armies.

Vehicles will always be more durable than infantry. No one likes to see their expensive models die and so they buy the ones that will survive most often.

Str 4 can hurt only AV 10, but only 1 non vehicle is not affected by Str 4, which is the Wraithlord at T8. No other MC or Infantry can be immune to Str 4. Only 2 MCs other than the above can ignore Str 3 (C'tan and Talos/Cronos). Only griots have Srtr 2, so basically Str 3 can hurt everything bar a few tough creatures in the game and vehicles. Str 4 can hurt all but 1 model, and can't touch anything with higher AV than a Trukk or Land Speeder

Vehicles, the very lightest need Str 5 to destroy them, but AV 11 needs Str 6. 12 needs 7, meaning Plasma or Autocannons. 13 needs Str 8 to destroy it. This is above the Str of most CC attacks and only extremely heavy weapons or Melta can kill it. AV 14 needs Str 9 to one shot it.

I have 12 eldar tanks and 9 war walkers and 3 wraithlords and 6 vypers.

you mad?

Seeing as you can't even field all that, not really.

More often than not most people play on boards that have significantly less than 25% terrain, you should really be playing on boards that have closer to 50% terrain coverage.

Yes because giving the vehicles an entire 4++ save is worthwhile too, not to mention those who use barrage has a field day and grows more useful. Which infantry mostly does not have.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Khornate25 wrote:
Which army have still viable foot list (except GK and BA) ? Just out of curiosity.

Necrons, Orks, Tyranids, Space Wolves, Sisters of Battle, and Imperial Guard.

Reecius would probably try and convince you of Eldar, but I just don't agree.

Dark Eldar can't function as a foot army and Tau can't function at all. Space Marines are a maybe.

Really?

I play tau against ultramehrines and blast em of and i only use 1 hammerhead and 3 battlesuits i admit that they are small battles but it isn't impossible.

blaktoof wrote:You all do realize if you want to make transports less useful its not necessary to change the rules or points of transports at all.

Play with more terrain.

More terrain= more cover for infantry= more saves= more protection

more terrain= less places vehicles can go without difficult/dangerous terrain tests.

More often than not most people play on boards that have significantly less than 25% terrain, you should really be playing on boards that have closer to 50% terrain coverage.

I HATE heavy terrain, I like massive firing areas with around ~25% covern sometimes less. And area terrain is best, none of this LoS blocking bs.

admiral9 wrote:
I play tau against ultramehrines and blast em of and i only use 1 hammerhead and 3 battlesuits i admit that they are small battles but it isn't impossible.

Tau REALLY shine under 1k. The hammerhead is just sick under 1k. If you bring it under 500 points, your friends should be allowed to break it over your head.

/uses hammerheads in 500 point matches.

Iur_tae_mont wrote:

admiral9 wrote:
I play tau against ultramehrines and blast em of and i only use 1 hammerhead and 3 battlesuits i admit that they are small battles but it isn't impossible.

Tau REALLY shine under 1k. The hammerhead is just sick under 1k. If you bring it under 500 points, your friends should be allowed to break it over your head.

/uses hammerheads in 500 point matches.

750 and 1000 are my favourite points levels for tau. Of course, they are still good at 1250. 1500 they fair well enough, but they really are not at their best. Above that, they are bad.

dreadfury101 wrote:in a 1500 point game you can take 8 deathstrikes and a primaris psyker and 2 bare bones vet squads.... could be fun... i really wanna try this now

Actually, you can only take 3 deathstrikes, as it's one per slot and they cannot be in squadron.

blaktoof wrote:You all do realize if you want to make transports less useful its not necessary to change the rules or points of transports at all.

Play with more terrain.

More terrain= more cover for infantry= more saves= more protection

more terrain= less places vehicles can go without difficult/dangerous terrain tests.

More often than not most people play on boards that have significantly less than 25% terrain, you should really be playing on boards that have closer to 50% terrain coverage.

Yeah, see, I thought that at first when I started playing horde IG. "Oh, there's cover everywhere! This'll be easy!" except in reality, it just makes vehicles that much worse. Now you've got a vehicle that's having cover block half the shots that make it through the armor. It may work well where you're at, but where I play, the mech players are very experienced, and they use the terrain to their advantage constantly. Plus, they bring dozer blades specifically so this will never be an issue for them.

If anything, cover spam makes it WORSE. I played a DE player, and even with a bare amount of terrain, he just hid his skimmers behind buildings half the game. When I had to move up to get shots on his vehicles, he tore my army a new one (although this was my first time playing DE, so I didn't really know what to expect).

Anyways, back on topic, vehicles DO need some sort of change, which I hope comes in 6th. Most aren't too bad, but the transports really don't carry any risks attached to them. They're pretty much auto includes in almost any army that has a decent one, and there are no "drawbacks" to taking them. They're dirt cheap, so they don't really hurt the amount of men you can put down. The explosion result is laughable, and most people are willing to risk the unit experiencing it, since it won't hurt any worse than if they get out. Not to mention wrecked just makes you disembark and that's it. I'm not saying make them deathtraps, but at least make it where if you've got guys in it, you should have to make a difficult decision between keeping them in or legging it. Maybe getting taming down firing ports, or just making damage results more dangerous for passengers, I don't know.

All I know is that there needs to be SOMETHING to make transports an actually difficult decision, instead of an instant buy. I want to see lists on the list forum where people are saying "well, I can bring a rhino, but if I do, then I can't do objective A. However, the rhino does let me do objective B." not just "hey guys here's my list, is there a way to trim 40pts so I can get another rhino in here?" I mean, when you see someone post a list without max transports, only to get the response "This isn't 4th edition, bring a real list next time." there is a problem with the game (No, I do not remember who said it, but it was on this forum)

TL;DR: Make it where there are pro's and cons to having transports, not just having them be the most awesome 40pt upgrade ever with almost 0 drawbacks.

I think the main problem is that so far in 5th edition, anti-infantry weapons have gotten extremely powerful while anti-vehicle weapons have kinda stayed the same level.

I mean look at all the new weapons and powers that are designed to just wipe out infantry then compare it to all the new stuff to take on tanks. I mean most people are still sticking to autocannons and missile launchers for anti-tank while my infantry now has to watch out manticores, colossus, jaws of wolf wolf, blood talon dreads, poisoned weapons, mindshackle scarabs, and much much more.

Even if you make vehicles easily to destroy I'm still going to take them because they are the only think keeping all the infantry weapons off my units.

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:

Iur_tae_mont wrote:

admiral9 wrote:
I play tau against ultramehrines and blast em of and i only use 1 hammerhead and 3 battlesuits i admit that they are small battles but it isn't impossible.

Tau REALLY shine under 1k. The hammerhead is just sick under 1k. If you bring it under 500 points, your friends should be allowed to break it over your head.

/uses hammerheads in 500 point matches.

750 and 1000 are my favourite points levels for tau. Of course, they are still good at 1250. 1500 they fair well enough, but they really are not at their best. Above that, they are bad.

I'm planning on going forgeworld when i go above 1500 or 2000. and if you have at least 1 full squad of broadsides and target locks are only like 5 points even if you hard wire them. You can easily crush mechhammer. 3 exploding chimeras per turn along with flanking missile pod/fusion blaster battlesuits.
And a fire warrior can still deal a punch.

It is doable you just need to like the army enough to think about tactics.

admiral9 wrote:

Je suis2 au hazard wrote:

Iur_tae_mont wrote:

admiral9 wrote:
I play tau against ultramehrines and blast em of and i only use 1 hammerhead and 3 battlesuits i admit that they are small battles but it isn't impossible.

Tau REALLY shine under 1k. The hammerhead is just sick under 1k. If you bring it under 500 points, your friends should be allowed to break it over your head.

/uses hammerheads in 500 point matches.

750 and 1000 are my favourite points levels for tau. Of course, they are still good at 1250. 1500 they fair well enough, but they really are not at their best. Above that, they are bad.

I'm planning on going forgeworld when i go above 1500 or 2000. and if you have at least 1 full squad of broadsides and target locks are only like 5 points even if you hard wire them. You can easily crush mechhammer. 3 exploding chimeras per turn along with flanking missile pod/fusion blaster battlesuits.
And a fire warrior can still deal a punch.

It is doable you just need to like the army enough to think about tactics.

I was talking codex. FW tau can go at any level with respectable strength.

Vehicles in 5e are big important parts of the game, but this was not always so. Back in the gritty days of 4e when glancing hits could still kill a vehicle and vehicles inflicted hits on their passengers when destroyed, transport vehicles were merely rolling deathtraps and nobody ever took them.

GW's attempt to bring transports back into the game was commendable (there's no excuse for having rules, models, or entire game mechanics for something that's useless), but they went too far this time; I'm hoping 6e finds a middle ground between 'vehicles suck' and 'help me I can't win with no vehicles'.

GW has never really achieved balance with tranports IMO. In 2e, tranports were deathtraps. Other vehicles were golden though.
3e, transports ruled
4e, transports were deahtraps
5e. transports have very few downsides

My guess is they will try to tone down transports, but I think if they want to succeed, they should look more at the vehicle damage mechanics than the actual "what happens if transport is destroyed" part.
Currently, it doesn't matter do you stun vehicle once or 10 times during turn...

But looking at their track record? I don't think they will succeed.

Deadshot wrote:Vehicles will always be more durable than infantry. No one likes to see their expensive models die and so they buy the ones that will survive most often.

Str 4 can hurt only AV 10, but only 1 non vehicle is not affected by Str 4, which is the Wraithlord at T8. No other MC or Infantry can be immune to Str 4. Only 2 MCs other than the above can ignore Str 3 (C'tan and Talos/Cronos). Only griots have Srtr 2, so basically Str 3 can hurt everything bar a few tough creatures in the game and vehicles. Str 4 can hurt all but 1 model, and can't touch anything with higher AV than a Trukk or Land Speeder

Vehicles, the very lightest need Str 5 to destroy them, but AV 11 needs Str 6. 12 needs 7, meaning Plasma or Autocannons. 13 needs Str 8 to destroy it. This is above the Str of most CC attacks and only extremely heavy weapons or Melta can kill it. AV 14 needs Str 9 to one shot it.

Its a similar arguement between Attack Bikes and Land Speeders. S4 needs 6's to glance but only need 2 weapon destroyed and an immobilised + extra to destroy. Whereas a bike gets a save. A Land Speeder need only be stunned and its useless for a turn.

AnomanderRake wrote:Vehicles in 5e are big important parts of the game, but this was not always so. Back in the gritty days of 4e when glancing hits could still kill a vehicle and vehicles inflicted hits on their passengers when destroyed, transport vehicles were merely rolling deathtraps and nobody ever took them.

GW's attempt to bring transports back into the game was commendable (there's no excuse for having rules, models, or entire game mechanics for something that's useless), but they went too far this time; I'm hoping 6e finds a middle ground between 'vehicles suck' and 'help me I can't win with no vehicles'.

Well, if those leaked rules were true...then the balance would be pretty solid. But even assuming they're right, GW would rewrite the rules after something like that getting out...so I guess this whole post is irrelevent...