Hey guys,

So, the current Meta is mechanised. Lots of Mech IG, Mech Blood Angels, MSU Razorback spam lists around. I want to know, exactly what is it that puts Mechanised lists ahead of infantry lists?

I would also like to know what rules would have to change / be introduced in make Infantry preferable?

Thanks

Mobility, survivability, and firepower. That tactical squad of yours is going to move 6 inches a turn, or up to 12 on a good roll. For a paltry 35 points more, it can now move a foot every turn guaranteed, and it's in a vehicle that is often small enough to get cover. Inside this vehicle they're also immune to small arms fire, and any sort of ordnance weapon that would normally paste them will at worst blow up their cheap transport. Now if you're doing something like a Razorback spam list, now you've got those same benefits but with a big gun on top that can do some serious damage.

The vehicle damage table just needs to be reworked. Infantry on foot shouldn't exactly be preferable, but it should be equally viable. I think that vehicles exploding should cause more damage to the crew inside. This topic has come up in previous threads, and the idea for a more punishing rule has ranged from every squad member taking a S6 AP2 hit to more reasonable things, like merely upping the strength of the explosion by a point or two.

You could re-introduce some of 4th's restrictions on transports. In 4th, if your vehicle suffered a Penetrating hit (of any kind) the occupants were forced to immediately disembark (and I think took a pinning test). If the vehicle was blown up with them inside, they were automatically Entangled (which was identical to Pinning, except Fearless units were not immune).

Transports were much-less used in 4th, because of rules like the above, and because they cost more points (Rhino with standard equipment was 58, as opposed to 35 now).

In 3rd transports were absolutely amazing- they cost more, but they were functionally all Assault Vehicles.

GW went overboard toning them down going from 3rd to 4th, then overboard again going from 4th to 5th in making them better and cheaper.

How did you get rhino's for 58 pts? My dark angel codex was the first codex released for 4th and it has rhinos at 35 pts.

IndigoJack wrote:How did you get rhino's for 58 pts? My dark angel codex was the first codex released for 4th and it has rhinos at 35 pts.

4th edition was released in 2004. Dark Angels was released in 2007 near the end of 4th edition and is structured like a 5th edition codex. In the 4th edition Space Marine codex published in 2005 rhinos had a base cost of 50 points and users typically bought extra armor and smoke launchers for 8 more points.

Honestly, I like transports as they are, and a lot of frequently suggested nerfs might provide some small semblance of balance for MEQ's, but would utterly ruin T3 4+/5+ armies (try holding an objective outside a transport for up to 3 turns with a unit of Fire Warriors as opposed to a Tactical Squad) or would make mechanization completely worthless (e.g. re-introducing 4E vehicle/transport rules, remember why *nobody* used rhino's or chimeras back then as actual *transports*?) or would make gun tanks totally pointless as well (and gun tanks by and large aren't the problem).


There's a few issues with infantry and the way the game works really. In most other games, infantry have a lot more options than just move/shoot assault. They can dig in/reinforce their positions, spot for heavy weapons, actively hide, engage in electronic warfare, create or remove obstaces such as wire/mines/etc. In Flames of War for instance, try killing off a unit of Veteran infantry that decided to dig in inside a woods with anything other than an assault force to literally overrun their position, it'll take you the entire game to kill off 7 stands ("models"). 40k has few-to-none of these things.

The much greater importance that 40k places on assaults and close combat than other games is also an issue. In most other games CC is a last resort or something to clear entrenched infantry from a position, you don't run up and whack tanks with an axe or fight a melee brawl in an open field. The protection that transports give from assaults is important. If footslogging infantry could do something like "stand to repel" and gain Counterattack in exchange for not moving or shooting or something, that would help quite a bit.



I've always like the idea of exploding tanks being more dangerous, but something like pass an Init test for each model inside and within the explosion radius or take a wound no saves would be preferable to something with a straight Strength value (otherwise you get a situation like 4E where Perils ID'd farseers but did 1 wound to Librarians). Explosions right now really do nothing scary to anyone except GEQ armies and quite often even then they aren't too bad, and for the most part might as well not even happen to the guys crawling on the tank whacking at it.

Yup. DA was the first codex with cheaper Rhinos. Before that Rhinos were 50pts base for every codex that got them, 5pts for Extra Armor, 3pts for Smoke Launchers, 1pt for a Searchlight. 58pts was humorously referred to as "factory standard" or "MSRP".

ah right, I stand corrected.

would make gun tanks totally pointless as well (and gun tanks by and large aren't the problem).

Actually they had some better rules, such as the fact that S6 and under were counted as defensive weapons and could be fired on the move with the primary.

In most other games CC is a last resort or something to clear entrenched infantry from a position, you don't run up and whack tanks with an axe or fight a melee brawl in an open field.

In most games one of the units isn't going to be a Daemon from the evil gods that can pick up a tank and crush it in between his two hands. I would love to use blood thirsters again rather than heralds of tzeentch!

Vaktathi wrote:
There's a few issues with infantry and the way the game works really. In most other games, infantry have a lot more options than just move/shoot assault. They can dig in/reinforce their positions, spot for heavy weapons, actively hide, engage in electronic warfare, create or remove obstaces such as wire/mines/etc. In Flames of War for instance, try killing off a unit of Veteran infantry that decided to dig in inside a woods with anything other than an assault force to literally overrun their position, it'll take you the entire game to kill off 7 stands ("models"). 40k has few-to-none of these things.

Yeah, 40k would be a lot better if you could dig in
In all seriousness though what could you add to infantry that wouldn't make the game way complicated and slow? Removal of terrain is too complex, as a lot of people just don't play with things like barbed wire or small military-style obstacles. The game itself is a lot more operatic than WW2 games.
One thing I'd love to see in general is a huge increase in small arms range. The idea of a futuristic weapon having a range of 20 feet is just silly, outside of specialist weapons (thinking meltagun). But certainly bolters/lasguns should be at least 48" in range. It seems at the the moment that "standard" weapons are hardly ever used at all. I could quite easily win a game as guard without shooting a single las weapon. That seems weird.

Joey wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:
There's a few issues with infantry and the way the game works really. In most other games, infantry have a lot more options than just move/shoot assault. They can dig in/reinforce their positions, spot for heavy weapons, actively hide, engage in electronic warfare, create or remove obstaces such as wire/mines/etc. In Flames of War for instance, try killing off a unit of Veteran infantry that decided to dig in inside a woods with anything other than an assault force to literally overrun their position, it'll take you the entire game to kill off 7 stands ("models"). 40k has few-to-none of these things.

Yeah, 40k would be a lot better if you could dig in
In all seriousness though what could you add to infantry that wouldn't make the game way complicated and slow? Removal of terrain is too complex, as a lot of people just don't play with things like barbed wire or small military-style obstacles. The game itself is a lot more operatic than WW2 games.
One thing I'd love to see in general is a huge increase in small arms range. The idea of a futuristic weapon having a range of 20 feet is just silly, outside of specialist weapons (thinking meltagun). But certainly bolters/lasguns should be at least 48" in range. It seems at the the moment that "standard" weapons are hardly ever used at all. I could quite easily win a game as guard without shooting a single las weapon. That seems weird.

You do relize that its 5 feet for every inch righ? They stole that thing from the first incarnation of D&D

well the things that need bringing back from 4th i think are

Penetrating hit=forced disembarkation,with all the perils that forces (think valkeries/vendettas)
Str6 defensive weapons.. ok not this one, but str5 is think is what it should be
thats all from 4th

now what should be introduced
i agree with the sugestion of I test or take 1 wound, no AS, but cover is allowed (if applicable)
the sugestion that a certain amount of glance and pens auto kill certain tanks (land raiders need immunity from this lol, would make them worth the 250pts)

Well you could do a form of sudo structure points:

Where vehicle X has 10 hull points, and for every shaken and stunned said vehicle loses a hull point, and when a vehicle loses all of it's hull points, it becomes wrecked

Joey wrote:

Yeah, 40k would be a lot better if you could dig in

It was just an example of a mechanic that in other games of roughly similar size that makes footslogging infantry very effective that 40k doesn't have. Not seeing why it was such a terrible idea...

Formosa wrote:well the things that need bringing back from 4th i think are

Penetrating hit=forced disembarkation,with all the perils that forces (think valkeries/vendettas)

Nobody would play mech again under these rules, nobody played them under 4th except the skimmer armies that couldn't be penetrated. Hell, at my last tournament, I'd have de-meched my opponents in two of three games on the first turn without destroying the transports with this rule back in effect.

Just making pinning more likely to go off (or automatic) after an explosion could help make mech a bit less prevalent - making the crater dangerous terrain might make folks a bit more nervous as well.

Hollowman wrote:Just making pinning more likely to go off (or automatic) after an explosion could help make mech a bit less prevalent - making the crater dangerous terrain might make folks a bit more nervous as well.

I'd definitely like to see automatic pinning after an explosion. Seems silly to have your tank completely destroyed, and you just hop on out and hot-foot it to the enemy.

Ribon Fox wrote:You do relize that its 5 feet for every inch righ? They stole that thing from the first incarnation of D&D

A) More recent incarnations of D&D do 5'/inch. Older editions did 10'/inch (dungeon) or 10 yards/inch (outdoor).
B) 40k doesnt have a ground or time scale.

Joey wrote:

Hollowman wrote:Just making pinning more likely to go off (or automatic) after an explosion could help make mech a bit less prevalent - making the crater dangerous terrain might make folks a bit more nervous as well.

I'd definitely like to see automatic pinning after an explosion. Seems silly to have your tank completely destroyed, and you just hop on out and hot-foot it to the enemy.

You likely wouldn't just sit there dumbfounded next to a destroyed vehicle however, you get away from it as fast as you can because the enemy may still be shooting at it/around it and there may still be more unexploded stuff inside.

Actually, that may be something cool, make wrecked vehicles have a chance to explode after being wrecked (since they're likely still burning), in addition to making vehicle explosions more threatening.

Just make it 1d3 automatic casualties, and the unit is pinned. Not, "Takes a pinning test." just pinned automaticly. Doesn't matter if they are fearless or not. Auto-pin. No saves or toughness rolls on explosion, just a simple remove 1d3 models.

I like th Inia test one, simply becuase i imagine super fast
Deldar and Eldar jumping out or flipping of shrapnel or whaterver and guard going .... oh gawd.. it even works for the inia 2 orks as if that tank goes boom and few guys die... hur hur hur, and necrons get back up anyway... everything else has a fair chance

Formosa wrote:well the things that need bringing back from 4th i think are

Penetrating hit=forced disembarkation,with all the perils that forces (think valkeries/vendettas)

I have a better counter. Vehicle explosion results just kill the unit inside. Have you ever seen what happens to a vehicles crew when it actually explodes? They disappear. Wrecks force them out of the vehicle as they normally do, except they have to take a pinning check. If they pass they have to retest. Their ride is smoking right next to them after all.

I read all of these things about bringing back the auto-disembark from a penetrating hit and hugely increasing the damage of explosions/vehicle wrecks and I can't help but feel all these people play SM armies. Half of these suggestions would be absolutely god-awful for squishier armies.

Sure, auto-disembark doesn't sound that bad when you have MEQ stats. Try being a 5+/6+ save Dark Eldar riding in an open-topped AV10 vehicle and see how fun that rule sounds.

Honestly, I think it makes more sense to buff the utility of infantry rather than trying to nerf vehicles. None of this cross-edition gak where the effectiveness of entire army archetypes and metagames are nerfed based on the mood of the rules writers at the time.

I do agree with auto-pinning on an explode result and the like, because that just makes sense as opposed to turning every vehicle into a cardboard box lightly surrounding a fragile nuclear warhead.

auto pinning makes sense. i also think that guya inside a vehicle when it goes boom ahouls take more of a hit. open topped vehicles not so much. (because there is room to jump clear. not so in a closed tank) i would also like to see infantry get a bit better. things like:

- able to "dig in'" - they get +1 cover save but can not move. takes 1 turn movment to dig in, or get out of that posistion, and no starting the game dug in.

- ability to "stand and shoot" or react to charges like in whfb. give the guys getting charged more options then just standing there waiting for a curb stomping.

however they should also face some restrictions. CC vrs vehicles should be riskier. i think if a CC wrecks a vehicle, it auto explodes with a str = to the str of the hit that wrecked it. also things like melta bombs and grenades should be riskier as well.
as for the effects a vehicle suffers when it explodes, have you ever been near a detonating vehicle? it generally spells all kinds of badness for anyone even remotly close. vehicle explosion results should be larger AOEs and hit harder. i like the init check to "duck" otherwise its shrapnel or debris to the face.

finally i think vehicle speed should affect its damage. faster vehicles are harder to hit, let alone score a decent hit on. but if they are hit, it generally causes a massive problem (knock a wheel off your car going 10kph... likley just grind to stop. do it at 60-70-kph and its barrel roll time.)

Im honestly on the fence about it. When my orks already have a hard time being mechanized (trukks die to bolter fire, and you only get so many cover saves from a KFF), The rules are already pretty harsh in my department. Honestly though i dont want everyone else having ramshackle (basically suggested above). kinda makes orks, orks.

What i feel needed the change was the cost overall. 35pts for a trukk that dies when breathed on is fine, but the cost of a BA razorback by using assult troops sans jetpack is just rediculously cheap. I often feel that my trukk should cost 10 pts base in comparison to that. 35 pts for a drop pod that guarantees a successful deepstrike I also question. The thing already allows the deepstrike of units that normally cant, so why are we guaranteeing the land that they make (unless its off the board. ) why not make that cost extra.

Really I think the rules in general are fine (but i do agree with pinning tests suggested, but pinning as a rule needs to be fixed in general) its that overall costs make you a fool not to choose armor vs footslogging troops in comparison. I say make it to where it costs the same to buy one unit or 2-3 trukks and players can decide quantity vs quality at that point.

Really you could implement 2-3 rules tops and make the game very effective for both foot slogging troops and heavy tank use, it would still be simple and would have pro's and cons for both sides but not op in anyway

Vehicle explodes: models take a leadership test upon fail they stay with the tank and roll to save wounds, on pass run D6" directly backwards from the tank.

vehicle wrecked: Unit takes a leadership test to disembark, on a pass move D3" backwards, they can shoot/assault (maybe D6? i dunno). on a failed leadership they stay in the transport till they can disembark on their next turn, however they can move/shoot/assault as normal that turn.

infantry: May take a leadership test (or maybe another test like initiative?) to "go to ground" (like necromunda rules). Unit that has "gone to ground" has cover save 4+ and +1BS (i'm not sure about the BS but i think it would be good as you are stabaling your gun and whatnot).

as an additional option in the codex you may buy defensive mines for 3pts to a troops squad? and may deploy said mines after going to ground. (i'm thinking a defensive maneuver so tanks just don't roll over the top of you and pancake your brains out) if a tank chooses to roll over anyway, it has to roll for a s5 hit? i dunno, i'm sure you can think of something.

So there are 3 rules that i think will make both sides play alot more evenly when chooesing between mech and footslog, neither is bad or op...and the mines are perhaps a special weapon or just don't use them at all.

what do you think? viable and fair for both sides or op somewhere? maybe tweak it for more equality?

Zambro wrote:I want to know, exactly what is it that puts Mechanised lists ahead of infantry lists?

It's because of tournaments. Tournaments heavily bias towards armies that require the least amount of time to set up and play that take best advantage of criminally sparse terrain, and don't penalize people with KP, as that mission type is practically always diluted against other missions.

Tournaments are competitive environments, so when people look to build competitive lists, they copy tournament lists. Of course, there are lots of other types of competitive lists that aren't tailored specifically to tournament environments, but why bother thinking for yourself when you can just copy someone else's thinking for you?

Zambro wrote:I would also like to know what rules would have to change / be introduced in make Infantry preferable?

The rules are mostly fine as is. The only way foot lists become popular is if they start winning tournaments, and that will only happen when major tournaments change the way that they're run.

Or there would have to be a massed awakening to the fact that lists tailored to a certain environment aren't necessarily the most competitive for all environments, but that requires more nuance than most people can be bothered to consider.

I think that rather than having to choose between foot vs mechanized, it should be something in between. So units get transports because it provide X advantage, however, it also provides an Y disadvantage, which is why another unit is taken on foot to counter this disadvantage. Anyway, I'm waiting till 6th ed and the Chaos Legions codex, and if this ain't fixed, I'm going BA jump infantry (problem solved )

After a vehicle explodes or wrecks the occupants should scatter 1d6 inches

Ailaros wrote:
It's because of tournaments.

I often agree with you, and you may be half right here, but it isn't strictly the case. I know if my 10 Sternguard are on foot they'll never reach their target in one piece, or if they do it will be later in the game. People copying tournament lists may be one reason why mech is so prevalent, but it's not the only reason.

I don't know, I'd have to side with Ailaros n this one. Have you ever tried taking a 150 guardsmen to a 2 hour tournament round? It is not fun at all. The setup alone can be a big deal, and all that movement hurts how much you can do as well. The problem is you have to move those models so many times a turn. You've gotta move, run, possibly assault and maybe even consolidate if you win, and it takes time to move all those models.

Yes, there are guys that can do it no problem (theres a great article on this very forum that was very helpful when I started) but for your average player, they rarely have the patience or experience to do this fast enough for a tourney.

And thats not counting the fact that your opponent most likely be a mech'd marine player who can deliberately stall and "run the clock out" so to speak.

Brother SRM wrote:People copying tournament lists may be one reason why mech is so prevalent, but it's not the only reason.

Because people use mech lists in tournaments certainly isn't the only reason to use mech lists. If things were solely a matter of which style is more viable over all, though, there would only be a slight bias towards mech lists (because some old codices really can't do foot lists well). Why there is a sometimes rabid popularity for mech lists has little to do with mech lists being categorically better, and much more to do with the fact that they are categorically better in a particular set of circumstances, which people mistake for being better in general competitive play.

It's easy to see people placing well at nova and adepticon with mech lists and then make faulty conclusions about mech lists. Much easier than thinking things through more carefully.

Brother SRM wrote:

Ailaros wrote:
It's because of tournaments.

I often agree with you, and you may be half right here, but it isn't strictly the case. I know if my 10 Sternguard are on foot they'll never reach their target in one piece, or if they do it will be later in the game. People copying tournament lists may be one reason why mech is so prevalent, but it's not the only reason.

That is arguably because Sternguard Vets aren't very good in a footslogging list. If you'd build a footslogging marine list you'd either pod them or not include them. I run a BT list where the only vehicles are drop pods and I do just fine, but I usually don't have a lot of time left over in tournies, so there's certainly a problem for lists that are light on mech.

what confuses me more i think is seeing strong mech lists on tiny tables, they seem to be all about mobility and distance, closing the gap...but that is non existent on small tables...so why would you use such a list? is it the tournament influence? because there are enough easy ways to pop tanks and such and if you don't have to worry about surviving the walk... and well..lol at mech.

i do however think that mech lists are easy to play, are streamlined and the units themselves are powerful and resiliant making it a big attraction to people. but then thats the hole multiple factors thing cropping up.

still i am very surprised by this tournament influence

Ailaros wrote:It's because of tournaments. Tournaments heavily bias towards armies that require the least amount of time to set up and play that take best advantage of criminally sparse terrain, and don't penalize people with KP, as that mission type is practically always diluted against other missions.

Tournaments are competitive environments, so when people look to build competitive lists, they copy tournament lists. Of course, there are lots of other types of competitive lists that aren't tailored specifically to tournament environments, but why bother thinking for yourself when you can just copy someone else's thinking for you?

I think your 90% right here. If you look at most tournament winning lists they are mech based, but there are some foot lists that you do see. Blackmoor's draigowing and Reecius's draigowing come to mind. You can also run a decent SW foot GH spam list, BA DoA list or DA deathwing list.

What do those armies have in common? ~80 or less models. The ability to move and shoot. Shooting delivering the majority of punch. If a foot-based army does not match these criteria, it probably will not succeeed.

If your playing a 150 man guard army, or 180+ boy army, there is just not enough time to play the army in a timed game.

labmouse42 wrote:

Ailaros wrote:It's because of tournaments. Tournaments heavily bias towards armies that require the least amount of time to set up and play that take best advantage of criminally sparse terrain, and don't penalize people with KP, as that mission type is practically always diluted against other missions.

Tournaments are competitive environments, so when people look to build competitive lists, they copy tournament lists. Of course, there are lots of other types of competitive lists that aren't tailored specifically to tournament environments, but why bother thinking for yourself when you can just copy someone else's thinking for you?

I think your 90% right here. If you look at most tournament winning lists they are mech based, but there are some foot lists that you do see. Blackmoor's draigowing and Reecius's draigowing come to mind. You can also run a decent SW foot GH spam list, BA DoA list or DA deathwing list.

What do those armies have in common? ~80 or less models. The ability to move and shoot. Shooting delivering the majority of punch. If a foot-based army does not match these criteria, it probably will not succeeed.

If your playing a 150 man guard army, or 180+ boy army, there is just not enough time to play the army in a timed game.

This, precisely. The only reason I manage to finish games in time with my Templars is because I have loads of points invested in Terminators, lowering my model count substantially. Any more and there simply isn't enough time.

All this about horde foot being hard to move quickly is why I don't put too much stock in the power of spacing. Sure, spacing is a good way to save yourself from blasts and templates, but I find that lot of the time people don't get to space. When you are playing a horde of infantry, you have to make sure all your guys get set up quickly, and ensuring that all your guys are 2" away from one anouther is tough to keep track of. Not saying it isn't possible, but it's a good sight more tedious and difficult to space 150+ gaurdsmen or 180 orks then it is to space 5 marines or ten sterngaurd after they got shot out of their transport.

When I think of balancing foot versus mech, I usually think of the real life balance between foot and mech. Units on foot are, as you may have guessed, more fragile, slower, and can bring significantly less firepower to bear than armor. Armored units, however, generally are less tactically flexible, less maneuverable, and are more fragile than infantry in their own way.

Since armored units are larger, louder, and less fleet of foot, they can be easily picked out by dedicated AT weapons, unless properly husbanded and protected.

In terms of tactical flexibilty, there are a few factors. As stated, it's easier for infantry on food to utilize cover, and they can do so in multiple ways. For instance, a platoon of infantry can hole up in a ruined building to regroup/wait for an ambush/get their heads out of the fog of war and take stock/mend or evac casualties... You get the picture. A tank is going to have a hard time hiding ANYWHERE, period, and an even harder time getting to that hiding place unnoticed. Cover, for armor, is transient; in the IDF, armored warfare doctrine revolves around the use of small hills, which Israel/Palestine and the surround areas are FILLED with, as firing positions, which a tanker will use to fire from the top of, then roll back down to evade counterfire. But these situations aren't what you'd call stable cover; they are easily outflanked, and an enemy gunner can wait for a tank to crown if tries to fire from the same spot twice.

When you combine all these factors, it becomes kind of ironic; the MSU/Razorback spam has a modern-day equivalent in Armored Cavalry and, particularly, US Army Stryker Brigades. These units pair squad sized, 10-man units of infantry with a mother-vehicle armed with a support weapon (.50 cal machine gun, or automatic grenade launcher) and advanced communications and combat computer systems to create a single, cohesive unit that has the strategic speed and at least some of the staying and hitting power of Armored Cavalry units, but can disembark with the flexibility, maneuverability, and tactical capabilities of light infantry.

I don't think I have the game-knowledge to translate that into rules, but y'all are welcome to do with it what you may.

In 3rd edition transports weren't dedicated and took up force allocation slots.

Now a days most armies have criminally inexpensive transports which at worst will net you extra movement and protection from murderous shooting from a single squad. Provided you are Space Marines, for low save armies transports are actually a trade off. Guardians or Imperial Guard inside a transport that is exploded have no fun time at all, for Space Marines this is usually only a good way to disembark outside of your own turn so you can assault during your own turn. And 35 points is really nothing for a Rhino.

Not to mention that Fire Ports allow you to shoot recoil-less guns like missile launchers from inside a small metal box filled with your comrades which makes absolutely no sense what so ever.

There are two problems with going without mech. First off, no matter how weak a vehicle is, it always has a 'damage result save', so cheap transports are some of the most cost-effective survival bunkers in the game.

Also, most foot lists are horde lists and take a long time to play.

Not to mention that Fire Ports allow you to shoot recoil-less guns like missile launchers from inside a small metal box filled w

Technically they climb up into the firing port which is atop the vehicle, meaning the exhaust would be hitting against the top of the vehicle, rather than at the occupants (unless it was to big a hole)

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Not to mention that Fire Ports allow you to shoot recoil-less guns like missile launchers from inside a small metal box filled w

Technically they climb up into the firing port which is atop the vehicle, meaning the exhaust would be hitting against the top of the vehicle, rather than at the occupants (unless it was to big a hole)

That would still be not at ALL a good idea...

Mahtamori wrote:Not to mention that Fire Ports allow you to shoot recoil-less guns like missile launchers from inside a small metal box filled with your comrades which makes absolutely no sense what so ever.

Many rules "make absolutely no sense what so ever"

But The rules were not written to be "Real World" logical.

The rules are an abstract system used to simulate a battle.

What would happen in the real world has nothing to do with the RAW.

TermiesInARaider wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Not to mention that Fire Ports allow you to shoot recoil-less guns like missile launchers from inside a small metal box filled w

Technically they climb up into the firing port which is atop the vehicle, meaning the exhaust would be hitting against the top of the vehicle, rather than at the occupants (unless it was to big a hole)

That would still be not at ALL a good idea...

Seeing as the entire occupant's are equipped in power armor (Including the driver!) That can take a heavy flamer and still be able to not pierce it, I'm sure they don't find it as bad an idea as say, a chimera's firing ports.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

TermiesInARaider wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Not to mention that Fire Ports allow you to shoot recoil-less guns like missile launchers from inside a small metal box filled w

Technically they climb up into the firing port which is atop the vehicle, meaning the exhaust would be hitting against the top of the vehicle, rather than at the occupants (unless it was to big a hole)

That would still be not at ALL a good idea...

Seeing as the entire occupant's are equipped in power armor (Including the driver!) That can take a heavy flamer and still be able to not pierce it, I'm sure they don't find it as bad an idea as say, a chimera's firing ports.

Granted, but I'm still a little skeptical. If not the occupants, then I could still easily imagine that'd feth up the internal instruments and equipment.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
That is arguably because Sternguard Vets aren't very good in a footslogging list. If you'd build a footslogging marine list you'd either pod them or not include them. I run a BT list where the only vehicles are drop pods and I do just fine, but I usually don't have a lot of time left over in tournies, so there's certainly a problem for lists that are light on mech.

Are they footslogging largely or is it a mostly drop pod army? BT can footslog better than average Marines due to Righteous Zeal, but a drop pod Marine army can still work too. Kind of a strange middleground between mech and footslogging.

Also, I do want to point out in regards to tournaments, that Reecius took footdar to Adepticon and did fairly well with them, since everyone's expecting to fight meched up armies. Footdar also have some abilities and units that make that build work to their advantage, but they still were able to do well under a good general.

What about foot IG?

We have been talking alot about MEQ; with BT footslogging, DP marine lists and other types of MEQ. But the truth is, they all manage, whether they run it or drive.

GEQ, at T3 with 5+, on paper, wouldn't last too long. What would be needed in terms of a buff to make them better?

I do very much like the idea of 'digging in' to fortify a position and shoot with a benificial cover save. Would that overhaul the balance too much? Going to have to be some sort of limitation on it, right? Like takes a turn to dig in, and fight at I1 after getting charged, as they are preoccupied shooting etc?

Zambro wrote:What about foot IG?

We have been talking alot about MEQ; with BT footslogging, DP marine lists and other types of MEQ. But the truth is, they all manage, whether they run it or drive.

GEQ, at T3 with 5+, on paper, wouldn't last too long. What would be needed in terms of a buff to make them better?

I do very much like the idea of 'digging in' to fortify a position and shoot with a benificial cover save. Would that overhaul the balance too much? Going to have to be some sort of limitation on it, right? Like takes a turn to dig in, and fight at I1 after getting charged, as they are preoccupied shooting etc?

I'd say, something similar to those go-to-ground tactics, or the added flexibility that infantry have in other games, as mentioned above. Giving them a tougher statline seems just silly, but there's no reason not to give them abilities to make them tougher, or at least worth playing. More so than they are now, at any rate.

Mahtamori wrote:In 3rd edition transports weren't dedicated and took up force allocation slots.

Nope. It's worked just the same in 3rd-5th, ever since they introduced the Force Org chart. In 2nd edition and earlier they used percentages instead.

Many of the ideas proposed to only seem to do a bit to balance marines, then annihilate GEq. Auto pinning? Yeah, people hated this, but with the damage chart more deadly then, which made auto pinning pretty rough. Skimmers going fast and hull down vehicles, however, could only ever be glanced, so this lowered the likelyhood of them being penetrated and auto pinned. My DE list would suffer horribly if auto pinning or the 4e vehicle charts returned and I'd be forced to use no wyches at all, as they would then be worthless.

Up the strength of the explosion? Yeah, also mulches anything not in PA.

So what could be a bit more troublesome to Marines, but less so to GEq? How about something that scales with modelcount/cost?

On a 6, all passengers in the vehicle must take a Dangerous Terrain test. Simple, elegant, it's just as likely to kill a guardsman or a Dire Avenger as a Marine, but those models are far more available than a Marine, or god forbid a Termie.

The real downside to this is that the number of killed marines on average stays exactly the same, the number of Terminators goes up significantly, and the number of GEq deaths plummets, sadly only reinforcing Mech Guard and DE. I mean, great for me as a DE player, but I'm already doing all right. No need for me to get super cheesy.

I do remember that there were in fact 3 vehicle charts, with the one for Ordinance including the extra special gem: on a 6 the vehicle is destroyed and removed from the table and all passengers are lost, as the artillary shell punctured the hull before exploding. Perhaps we could add that step to the chart? The chart becomes 7 steps rather than 6, but the only way to get that result naturally would be on open topped vehicles or with AP1. Sadly, that nerfs the baJEEZUS out of DE and Orks, unless the open toped nature of the vehicle prevents the passngers from dying, and forces the unit to go to ground instead as they bail out of their vehicle.

The downside of THAT suggestion is the already flooded field of Melta weapons in the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mannahnin wrote:

Mahtamori wrote:In 3rd edition transports weren't dedicated and took up force allocation slots.

Nope. It's worked just the same in 3rd-5th, ever since they introduced the Force Org chart. In 2nd edition and earlier they used percentages instead.

Transports just happened to be MORE "dedicated" than they are now, allowing you to transport ONLY the unit you bought it for.

True.

I liked the suggestion earlier about instead of S3/S4 hits, a unit in an Exploded transport just loses d3 models automatically.

This would be brutal to terminators and other elite units, and to the last couple of guys from a squad hiding in a transport to preserve and kp/hold an objective.

It would hurt expensive squads like SM more than cheap guys like guard, but SM are more durable and can survive better outside transports anyway.

It would also discourage leaving a solo character in a transport just to hide and use radius effects (like BA Sang Priests and SM Librarians or SW Runepriests). It would also discourage putting uber non-IC characters (like Mephiston) in transports.

^Thanks, that was mine. Only problem I see is that now things like orks in battlewagons arn't really effected. Str 3 ap- kills about 5-6 orks while d3 just kills half that at best. On one hand, you could increase to a d6 for higher transport space vehicles, but the only transports i can think of with higher then 12 spaces are LR crusaders and battlewagons. Balances orks, but really hurts crusaders, so much people might quit taking them. Also, really is a way to specialized rule. I suppose there isn't too much you can do about that.

Zambro wrote:What about foot IG?

We have been talking alot about MEQ; with BT footslogging, DP marine lists and other types of MEQ. But the truth is, they all manage, whether they run it or drive.

GEQ, at T3 with 5+, on paper, wouldn't last too long. What would be needed in terms of a buff to make them better?

I do very much like the idea of 'digging in' to fortify a position and shoot with a benificial cover save. Would that overhaul the balance too much? Going to have to be some sort of limitation on it, right? Like takes a turn to dig in, and fight at I1 after getting charged, as they are preoccupied shooting etc?

Paging Ailaros back to the thread, Ailaros to the thread

All they need to stick around are numbers, cover, and Commissars. With enough men there will still be some left alive (generally those with the big guns), and with Commissars they generally won't run. I do like the idea of infantry being able to "dig in" as opposed to the Go to Ground ability. It works in Flames of War, which is more or less 15mm World Warhammer II, so I don't see why it couldn't work in 40k also.

Yeah, foot guard are fine. When you bring more guys than they brought bullets, and have 4+ or 2+ cover saves and are stubborn rerollable Ld in close combat, they're fine enough already.

The only thing I'd like is if heavy weapons teams went back to being two models again, so that they couldn't be instantly killed by S6 weapons.

So long as you've got the time and patience to create one, and have the time to deploy, move, and actually think about what you're doing (so, not a 2,000 point game in 2.5 hours), and actually has the proper amount of terrain, foot guard does just fine.

Mannahnin wrote:True.

I liked the suggestion earlier about instead of S3/S4 hits, a unit in an Exploded transport just loses d3 models automatically.

This would be brutal to terminators and other elite units, and to the last couple of guys from a squad hiding in a transport to preserve and kp/hold an objective.

It would hurt expensive squads like SM more than cheap guys like guard, but SM are more durable and can survive better outside transports anyway.

It would also discourage leaving a solo character in a transport just to hide and use radius effects (like BA Sang Priests and SM Librarians or SW Runepriests). It would also discourage putting uber non-IC characters (like Mephiston) in transports.

Yeah here are some pictures that lend to my argument of the crew being pretty much whacked when a vehicle explodes. Do you know why? See below. When a vehicle explodes everyone inside DIES. Don't give a damn about your space marines' armor. When that much shrapnel is flying they will be toast.

WARNING! Mature content. If you click the spoiler link then follow the links below and are offended it's your own damn fault. WARNING!

Hikaru-119 wrote:

I liked the suggestion earlier about instead of S3/S4 hits, a unit in an Exploded transport just loses d3 models automatically.

This would be brutal to terminators and other elite units, and to the last couple of guys from a squad hiding in a transport to preserve and kp/hold an objective.

It would hurt expensive squads like SM more than cheap guys like guard, but SM are more durable and can survive better outside transports anyway.

That idea isn't bad. I don't think we need to see those pictures though; I was expecting human hamburger in them and was about to report your post, but I think we all understand that when a vehicle gets wrecked the doors don't just fall off it.

Honestly, if they made it so that any unit that disembarked because their transport was wrecked or exploded automatically fail a pin check, it would assuage most of the good reasons some people don't like transports.

Hikaru-119 wrote:When a vehicle explodes everyone inside DIES. Don't give a damn about your space marines' armor. When that much shrapnel is flying they will be toast.

And then you realize that The rules were not written to be "Real World" logical.

The rules are an abstract system used to simulate a battle.

What would happen in the real world has nothing to do with the RAW.

They write the rules the way they do with game balance in mind.

Hikaru-119 wrote:I liked the suggestion earlier about instead of S3/S4 hits, a unit in an Exploded transport just loses d3 models automatically.

Then you would have to reduce the points on units like Paladins, Terminators, veterans etc.

Hikaru-119 wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:True.

I liked the suggestion earlier about instead of S3/S4 hits, a unit in an Exploded transport just loses d3 models automatically.

This would be brutal to terminators and other elite units, and to the last couple of guys from a squad hiding in a transport to preserve and kp/hold an objective.

It would hurt expensive squads like SM more than cheap guys like guard, but SM are more durable and can survive better outside transports anyway.

It would also discourage leaving a solo character in a transport just to hide and use radius effects (like BA Sang Priests and SM Librarians or SW Runepriests). It would also discourage putting uber non-IC characters (like Mephiston) in transports.

Yeah here are some pictures that lend to my argument of the crew being pretty much whacked when a vehicle explodes. Do you know why? See below. When a vehicle explodes everyone inside DIES. Don't give a damn about your space marines' armor. When that much shrapnel is flying they will be toast.

So your argument is founded in that it'd be more realistic that people inside just die, but at the same time ignores the fact that Power Armour (not to mention Terminator Armour) is designed to withstand shrapnel and fire and explosions.

Hell, that suggestion would actually BUFF transports for Orks and Imperial Guard, and I'm not sure that's what everyone wants.

Yeah here are some pictures that lend to my argument of the crew being pretty much whacked when a vehicle explodes. Do you know why? See below. When a vehicle explodes everyone inside DIES. Don't give a damn about your space marines' armor. When that much shrapnel is flying they will be toast.

Yes because power armor, which can resist most things, such as shrapnel from a frag missle, the heavy flamer (Which cooks at a higher rate than the standard promethium fuel setup of a standard fuel engine in 40k) Do you know what it takes to directly pierce a space marine armor?

A direct krak missle shot. This is using an Anti-Tank vehicle to get past space marine armor. Unless that missle penetrates and hits a marine, they are not going to DIE that easy!

Power armor is not tissue paper here. They will die at times, some things will get through, but an automatic death from shrapnel and leaking burning fuel? Yeah no. Not to mention this would buff Mech-Guard up to even higher levels.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Yeah here are some pictures that lend to my argument of the crew being pretty much whacked when a vehicle explodes. Do you know why? See below. When a vehicle explodes everyone inside DIES. Don't give a damn about your space marines' armor. When that much shrapnel is flying they will be toast.

Yes because power armor, which can resist most things, such as shrapnel from a frag missle, the heavy flamer (Which cooks at a higher rate than the standard promethium fuel setup of a standard fuel engine in 40k) Do you know what it takes to directly pierce a space marine armor?

A direct krak missle shot. This is using an Anti-Tank vehicle to get past space marine armor. Unless that missle penetrates and hits a marine, they are not going to DIE that easy!

Power armor is not tissue paper here. They will die at times, some things will get through, but an automatic death from shrapnel and leaking burning fuel? Yeah no. Not to mention this would buff Mech-Guard up to even higher levels.

No, power armour stops weaker projectiles two thirds of the time...yet the chance of them dying in an explosion is one in six. Go figure.
I like the idea of a dangerous terrain check. It a)nerfs marines without killing off guard and b)gives a decent chance of taking out a sargant/special weapon.

DeathReaper wrote:Then you would have to reduce the points on units like Paladins, Terminators, veterans etc.

Why? Marines walking out of their destroyed vehicles is exactly the problem. Guard, Orks, Dark Eldar, Tau and even Eldar take major casualties from having their transports blown up, Marines don't. Razorbacks and rhinos are all over the place because there simply is no drawback. And I wouldn't fear for all those TEQ - a landraider is not easily exploded. It would be better to flat-out kill 1/3 of the unit, rather than a fixed value. 1d3 is ridiculous for an ork or guard transport exploding. Maybe it would be enough to simply disallow armor saves(and thus, FNP) to have all armies have an equal drawback on their transports.

Jidmah wrote:

DeathReaper wrote:Then you would have to reduce the points on units like Paladins, Terminators, veterans etc.

Why? Marines walking out of their destroyed vehicles is exactly the problem. Guard, Orks, Dark Eldar, Tau and even Eldar take major casualties from having their transports blown up, Marines don't. Razorbacks and rhinos are all over the place because there simply is no drawback. And I wouldn't fear for all those TEQ - a landraider is not easily exploded. It would be better to flat-out kill 1/3 of the unit, rather than a fixed value. 1d3 is ridiculous for an ork or guard transport exploding. Maybe it would be enough to simply disallow armor saves(and thus, FNP) to have all armies have an equal drawback on their transports.

But then it'd not be an equal drawback in the sense that it'd punish MEQ transports more, as opposed to the current version where it punishes GEQ more.

I don't understand how it's not an equal drawback. Both units takes wounds based on their toughness and number, like they do now. If your toughness is 3, you lose 2/3s of your unit, if your toughness is 4, you lose half, if your toughness is 5, you lose 1/3. Unless you have a multi-wound unit inside, of course.

A chimera would kill 7 guardsmen out of 10 (before: 4)
A wave serpent would kill 7 dire avengers out of 10 (before: 3)
A trukk would kill 4 boyz out 12 (before: 4)
A battlewagon would kill 7 boyz out of 20 (before: 6)
A rhino would kill 5 marines out of 10 (before: 1)
A land raider would kill 3 terminators out of 8 due to invul saves (before: 1)

In any case, the marines come out of their transport with a still functional unit, while T3 armies get nothing but leftovers. I think open topped should go back to S4 explosions to make things more fair, boosting ork casuatlies to 6 and 10.

If it were a flat 1/3:
A chimera would kill 3 guardsmen out of 10 (before: 4)
A wave serpent would kill 3 dire avengers out of 10 (before: 3)
A trukk would kill 4 boyz out 12 (before: 4)
A battlewagon would kill 6 boyz out of 20 (before: 6)
A rhino would kill 3 marines out of 10 (before: 1)
A land raider would kill 3 terminators out of 8 (before: 1)

For some fine tuning I'd say suffer a wound for every three models, only invul saves allowed, to not completely screw over multi-wound models and characters, but I think it gets closer to the way it should be. Also, almost guaranteed losing two terminators from an exploding landraider is risk enough.

In any case, sitting inside a transport would finally become a risk, for marines as well, not just for everyone else.

To clarify, what I posted about was losing 1D3 models or disallowing armour saves. MEQ cost more on a per model basis and also pay more for the 3+ armour save (or 2+ in the case of Terminators). Losing 1D3 Terminators hurts infinitely more than losing 1D3 Boyz.

Simpler, each model in a transport that explodes must make a check against it's toughness or suffer a wound, no armor saves allowed.

T3 armies would lose about 1/2 and T4 armies would lose about 1/3. More importantly there is a decent chance of losing. Special weapons, characters and the like.

TBH I think it would be realistic and cinematic to apply armor to the result but game effects sometimes need to come first.

Also, I think that shaken and stunned results should apply to the passengers if they disembark while the vehicle is still shaken or stunned.

A toughness check is the same as a S3 AP2 hit.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:To clarify, what I posted about was losing 1D3 models or disallowing armour saves. MEQ cost more on a per model basis and also pay more for the 3+ armour save (or 2+ in the case of Terminators). Losing 1D3 Terminators hurts infinitely more than losing 1D3 Boyz.

Disallow armour saves, allow invulnerable saves. No one wants to see termies obliterated by an exploding Land Raider, but MEQ would take the hit.

Except MEQ armies pay more in proportion than GEQ do - 10 point guardian dying half the time vs 18 point tac marine dying 1/3 the time, gives you a death per point of 5 vs 6 - you are already punishing MEQs more than GEQs, and TEQs have it worse: 40 point GKT gives a death cost of 17 points, 3 times that of a guardian.

Very imbalanced, as youve just made vehicles more dangerous when a MEW or TEW than GEQ!

Jidmah wrote:A toughness check is the same as a S3 AP2 hit.

Yes and No. It has the same odds to cause a wound, sure. However as it is a check that each model would make rather than a hit and wound there is no way to use wound allocation rules to prevent it from being taken against a specific model.

That is what makes it scary.

Other cutting down the mechanized thought - melta should always roll 2D6 for penetration, not just at half range.

Joey wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:To clarify, what I posted about was losing 1D3 models or disallowing armour saves. MEQ cost more on a per model basis and also pay more for the 3+ armour save (or 2+ in the case of Terminators). Losing 1D3 Terminators hurts infinitely more than losing 1D3 Boyz.

Disallow armour saves, allow invulnerable saves. No one wants to see termies obliterated by an exploding Land Raider, but MEQ would take the hit.

This actually makes the most sense to me, since Terminators are possibly some of the only guys who would have a decent chance of surviving a vehicle getting blown up around them.

A guardian is T3 though, so he is actually dying 2/3 * 1/2 = 1/3 of the time, while a marine would die1/2*1/3 = 1/6 of the time from an explosion and a terminator 1/2*1/6 = 1/12 of the time. So GKT are actually exactly as expensive as guardians when it comes to survival against explosions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Jefffar wrote:

Jidmah wrote:A toughness check is the same as a S3 AP2 hit.

Yes and No. It has the same odds to cause a wound, sure. However as it is a check that each model would make rather than a hit and wound there is no way to use wound allocation rules to prevent it from being taken against a specific model.

That is what makes it scary.

That might actually be a solution. Potentially losing your special guys is a decent drawback for marines.

Other cutting down the mechanized thought - melta should always roll 2D6 for penetration, not just at half range.

How does that help Xenos armies at all?

Jidmah wrote:A guardian is T3 though, so he is actually dying 2/3 * 1/2 = 1/3 of the time, while a marine would die1/2*1/3 = 1/6 of the time from an explosion and a terminator 1/2*1/6 = 1/12 of the time. So GKT are actually exactly as expensive as guardians when it comes to survival against explosions.

Because guardians are over-priced.
A veteran squad will lose 4.4 members on average, or 31 points. A terminator squad of 8 will lose 0.6, or 26.6 points. MEQ will lose 1.6, or 26.6 points.
On top of this, the veterans will have to take a pinning test AND a morale test, assuming there are any alive. MEQ will only have to take the pinning test.
So veterans are more likely to die, and are probably going to be useles after they disembark due to being pinned/fleeing/dead, wheras if marines pass the initial pinning check they'll probably be okay.

Jidmah wrote:

Jefffar wrote:Other cutting down the mechanized thought - melta should always roll 2D6 for penetration, not just at half range.

How does that help Xenos armies at all?

Eldar and Tau both use Melta weapons, not sure on others.

I believe that the current mech meta came about due to vehicles being much harder to glance kill with 5th ed.

As far as time required to play in tournaments, that could be easily solved, but not necessarily cheaply.

Timers. In a 2k tournament, you each get 60 minutes total. When you run out of time, you don't get to do anything. The best way to monitor this is through the use of chess clocks or timers.

imweasel wrote:I believe that the current mech meta came about due to vehicles being much harder to glance kill with 5th ed.

As far as time required to play in tournaments, that could be easily solved, but not necessarily cheaply.

Timers. In a 2k tournament, you each get 60 minutes total. When you run out of time, you don't get to do anything. The best way to monitor this is through the use of chess clocks or timers.

You may as well outright ban horde armies, which I'm sure no one wants.

And the guys playing horde armies run out of time on the third turn while the guy with GK gets to play five or six.

Joey wrote:You may as well outright ban horde armies, which I'm sure no one wants.

Or the horde armies learn somehow to play faster. I don't know what the solution is, but is it equally fair my opponent gets to play 1.5 hours while I get .5?

That doesn't seem 'friendly'.

Jefffar wrote:Eldar and Tau both use Melta weapons, not sure on others.

Eldar have exactly one unit with melta weapons, and all other xenos armies have none outside of some funky HQ options. None of them can field them in vast amounts like the IoM can.

imweasel wrote:

Joey wrote:You may as well outright ban horde armies, which I'm sure no one wants.

Or the horde armies learn somehow to play faster. I don't know what the solution is, but is it equally fair my opponent gets to play 1.5 hours while I get .5?

That doesn't seem 'friendly'.

It's completely fair.
Unless you have the mental attitude of a 4 year old, I don't see why the period of your own special little allotted time is important?
I don't mind waiting for my opponent to move his horde models. It's much less irritating than someone who spends about 2 minutes agonising over the placement of every single unit.

imweasel wrote:

Joey wrote:You may as well outright ban horde armies, which I'm sure no one wants.

Or the horde armies learn somehow to play faster. I don't know what the solution is, but is it equally fair my opponent gets to play 1.5 hours while I get .5?

That doesn't seem 'friendly'.

If you both get your turns done with time to spare I don't see the problem. The problem now though is that there's simply no way to play a horde army in most tournaments, no matter how fast you are. "Get better", which is what you indirectly just said, is not a very friendly attitude either.

Joey wrote:

imweasel wrote:

Joey wrote:You may as well outright ban horde armies, which I'm sure no one wants.

Or the horde armies learn somehow to play faster. I don't know what the solution is, but is it equally fair my opponent gets to play 1.5 hours while I get .5?

That doesn't seem 'friendly'.

It's completely fair.
Unless you have the mental attitude of a 4 year old, I don't see why the period of your own special little allotted time is important?
I don't mind waiting for my opponent to move his horde models. It's much less irritating than someone who spends about 2 minutes agonising over the placement of every single unit.

QFT. I could care less if someone has to move 180 boyz, so long as he's not deliberately dragging it out. It's a legitimate build, and it shouldn't be penalized or stigmatized for being what it is; a lot of fething dudes.

Zambro wrote:Hey guys,

So, the current Meta is mechanised. Lots of Mech IG, Mech Blood Angels, MSU Razorback spam lists around. I want to know, exactly what is it that puts Mechanised lists ahead of infantry lists?

I would also like to know what rules would have to change / be introduced in make Infantry preferable?

Thanks

Mech IG is nothing new I've been doing it for the last 5 years except before this latest codex you used the Grenadiers doctrine which allowed you to take stormtroopers as regular troop selections and could bring dedicated transports. Now you just take veterans and bring an extra special weapons. Same concept.

I Personally run a mechanized force because that is what attracted me to IG in the first place; their vast motor-pool.

I also run MEchanized over infantry because its easier to manage the units and I dont have to paint a ton of guys. I'd rather 30-40 vets and some chimeras over 100 infantry.

imweasel wrote:

Joey wrote:You may as well outright ban horde armies, which I'm sure no one wants.

Or the horde armies learn somehow to play faster. I don't know what the solution is, but is it equally fair my opponent gets to play 1.5 hours while I get .5?

That doesn't seem 'friendly'.

There are no shortcuts allowed in 40k for moving a horde unit, doing it sloppily can and will cost you the game, and there is only so fast you can move a model without knocking over stuff.

In order to move a lot faster, GW would need to legalize shortcuts, like measuring the corner models of a mob and then moving all others per eye-measure. As long as template and blast weapons are as dangerous as they are now, no one in their right mind would ever use regiment basese.

imweasel wrote:I don't know what the solution is.

Don't play in tournaments.

Tournaments have certain limitations (like, say, trying to find enough terrain to have 100 simultaneous games of 40k), that makes them, in my opinion worse games of 40k. Were the 40k rules and codices balanced for fast, terrainless play, that had jumbled up combinations of missions, that would be fine, but because they're not, certain armies are just always going to have an advantage in a world of sloppiness and shortcuts.

Which is why for my competitive fix, I look to league play. When you space the games out over a few months, rather than a few days, you can actually play the game as it was intended to be played and when ranking and cash prizes are on the table, you still certainly play your best.

Jidmah wrote:

Jefffar wrote:Eldar and Tau both use Melta weapons, not sure on others.

Eldar have exactly one unit with melta weapons, and all other xenos armies have none outside of some funky HQ options. None of them can field them in vast amounts like the IoM can.

heat lances

My analysis was on the "toughness check or wound with no armour saves" idea, which is a hideous, hideous imbalance. You've made it so that it is more cost effective to take boyz as marines when ti comes to surviving a vehicle.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

Jidmah wrote:

Jefffar wrote:Eldar and Tau both use Melta weapons, not sure on others.

Eldar have exactly one unit with melta weapons, and all other xenos armies have none outside of some funky HQ options. None of them can field them in vast amounts like the IoM can.

heat lances

My analysis was on the "toughness check or wound with no armour saves" idea, which is a hideous, hideous imbalance. You've made it so that it is more cost effective to take boyz as marines when ti comes to surviving a vehicle.

Eldar have Fire Dragons. 16ppm with a melta standard on BS4 models. Elite slot.

DE have Heat Lances. 18" range Melta Lance that's only S6. It can be mounted on Jetbikes (1 out of every three, and 34ppm on the ones that get it,) Scourges, 34ppm on Jump Infantry models, 2 out of every 5. Both of those are in FA and severely overcosted compared to other, more survivable options. You can also take a TL Heat Lance on the Talos in Heavy Support, but that is inefficient compared to the Ravager, (though more survivable.) DE don't need Melta weapons in general, as we have cheap and abundant lances to make up for shoddy toughness.

Tau have Fusion Blaster, which are exactly the same as melta weapons in every respect, and can be twinlinked. These are, however, mounted on models with a T4 and 2 wounds, but still suck in CC and are taken in 3 man squads. These also take up an elite slots. You could also put them in Stealth suits, one of every 3 in the squad, but thats less efficient. Additionally there are Piranhas, and they are less efficient still. Any time Tau are using Fusion Blasters at their max effect, you can be sure you are about to lose that squad. This might also be true of Eldar, except that they can often wipe out the contents of a vehicle with other shooting or CC. DE can also jump away (since their effective range is 9" instead of 6") on the jetbikes and be safe, or countercharge or deluge the occupants with fire. Tau have no assault option, and would need to place a rather significant amount of fire dedicated to that location to ensure the safetly of those suits. When one considers the alternative - S10 AP1 (Usually TL) from 72" with the ability to remove cover inherant in the army, FB are a poor substitute. Given how rare our Railguns are, though... Tau use what they can get.

As for Orks or Daemons, I have no idea, but I was fairly certain that Nids have no melta option, given that they rely on MC close combat to get 2d6 AP.

Likely the only thing that would balance things out is a return to a 3rd ed type damage table, increasing the odds of vehicle destruction to previous levels, but leaving the costs of transports low.

imweasel wrote:

Joey wrote:You may as well outright ban horde armies, which I'm sure no one wants.

Or the horde armies learn somehow to play faster. I don't know what the solution is, but is it equally fair my opponent gets to play 1.5 hours while I get .5?

That doesn't seem 'friendly'.

So your solution is lliterally telling horde players "Suck it up, play faster."

Wow.

Chess clock time controls work because each player gets exactly the same stuff, so obviously they get the same times because it isn't going to take either side any longer to move his pieces. If you can play your triple landraider list in 10 min. per turn, then great. It'll take you 1 hr. to play six turns. So the game is exactly the same for you, but you just took the horde players turn and sliced it to bits, without any subtraction to you. So your forcing your opponant to scramble about and not space his minis, trying to get done fast, while you sit and calmly watch him after moving 3-9 tanks and rolling a few handfuls of dice. "Oh, looks like you ran out of time bro.. Shame, i still have 35 min left.."

That doesn't seem very "friendly" to me.

loota boy wrote:

So your solution is lliterally telling horde players "Suck it up, play faster."

Wow.

Chess clock time controls work because each player gets exactly the same stuff, so obviously they get the same times because it isn't going to take either side any longer to move his pieces. If you can play your triple landraider list in 10 min. per turn, then great. It'll take you 1 hr. to play six turns. So the game is exactly the same for you, but you just took the horde players turn and sliced it to bits, without any subtraction to you. So your forcing your opponant to scramble about and not space his minis, trying to get done fast, while you sit and calmly watch him after moving 3-9 tanks and rolling a few handfuls of dice. "Oh, looks like you ran out of time bro.. Shame, i still have 35 min left.."

That doesn't seem very "friendly" to me.

No worse than your solution of "Suck it up, cause I play slower."

Or more accurately:

"Oh, looks like you ran out of time bro because I took 3-4 times more time than you got."

Joey wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Yeah here are some pictures that lend to my argument of the crew being pretty much whacked when a vehicle explodes. Do you know why? See below. When a vehicle explodes everyone inside DIES. Don't give a damn about your space marines' armor. When that much shrapnel is flying they will be toast.

Yes because power armor, which can resist most things, such as shrapnel from a frag missle, the heavy flamer (Which cooks at a higher rate than the standard promethium fuel setup of a standard fuel engine in 40k) Do you know what it takes to directly pierce a space marine armor?

A direct krak missle shot. This is using an Anti-Tank vehicle to get past space marine armor. Unless that missle penetrates and hits a marine, they are not going to DIE that easy!

Power armor is not tissue paper here. They will die at times, some things will get through, but an automatic death from shrapnel and leaking burning fuel? Yeah no. Not to mention this would buff Mech-Guard up to even higher levels.

No, power armour stops weaker projectiles two thirds of the time...yet the chance of them dying in an explosion is one in six. Go figure.
I like the idea of a dangerous terrain check. It a)nerfs marines without killing off guard and b)gives a decent chance of taking out a sargant/special weapon.

I like this idea as well. May need to be tweaked some, but the biggest problem with transports is that they're just free ablative wounds for the units inside, to help keep the sarge and special weapons alive. Nobody uses their regular foot troops, and they'll take wounds on the scrubs every. single. time.

Forcing saves on the special weapons and sergeants in any form is very important if you want to balance out transports. Right now, we can just take the wounds on the regular soldiers (unlesss you rolled REALLY bad). When you force the saves on all units, it makes it scarier. All the sudden it goes from "whoop de doo, lost 3 scrubs" to "oh crap, I could lose my meltaguns".

Maybe alter the dangerous terrain check so that more than a 1 causes a wound? For example, on a 1 or 2 unit takes a wound. obviously there needs to be a tweak to balance it across armies, but right now I think almost anything would be an improvement to what we have now.

Also, to all the guys saying "they've got power armor, only thing that can kill that is anti tank weapons" two things.

1. If that's true, how come we can kill marines with bolters, shootas, chainswords, heck even laspistols? If these guys only died to anti tank weapons, nobody would play anything but space marines. The armor has weak spots, and most of the time these guys dont even seem to bother wearing their helmets, so I'm sure an exploding vehicle can kill at least a few of them.

2. If you just blew up a vehicle, odds are you used an ANTI TANK WEAPON. If that weapon managed to pierce the hull and destroy the vehicle, I'm pretty sure it's hitting a few marines inside as well. Someone mentioned there used to be a special rule for ordnance weapons that on a 6, the vehicle didn't just explode, it killed all the occupants inside, and I think this might be an interesting addition. There are several weapons in the game that are supposed for anti armor but are ordnance blast weapons. Right now, no one will use them because they're more likely to scatter than hit, but if you have a chance of completely killing the unit inside with them I think that'd do a lot to help get them shooting at vehicles again. People would finally have reasons to aim vehicles like vindicators and Leman Russes at vehicles for reasons besides "nothing better to shoot at".

1. If that's true, how come we can kill marines with bolters, shootas, chainswords, heck even laspistols? If these guys only died to anti tank weapons, nobody would play anything but space marines

And if the only type of damage Ignored the armor of the units inside, nobody would take anything but GEQ. They have to be allowed to account for saves or else nobody will use anything but GEQ (And TEQ is right out) as losing 80+ points each time while guard loses like 20-40 points pushes it into anti-meq territory. Aka, not balanced.

2. If you just blew up a vehicle, odds are you used an ANTI TANK WEAPON. If that weapon managed to pierce the hull and destroy the vehicle, I'm pretty sure it's hitting a few marines inside as well.

Depends on the weapon? Krak missle? No, it's force was used on the outer shell.

Ordenence weapons? Yes certainly, those pack far more force than a Krak missle

AP2 and below weapons? Also yes, because those weapons are directly penetrating the vehicle and melting through with their force.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Except MEQ armies pay more in proportion than GEQ do - 10 point guardian dying half the time vs 18 point tac marine dying 1/3 the time, gives you a death per point of 5 vs 6 - you are already punishing MEQs more than GEQs, and TEQs have it worse: 40 point GKT gives a death cost of 17 points, 3 times that of a guardian.

Very imbalanced, as youve just made vehicles more dangerous when a MEW or TEW than GEQ!

That's kind of the idea. Presently the costs of transports combined with the durability of marines means that MEQs gain a disproportionate benefit from buttoning up in cheap transports. GEQs and the like suffer brutally from S4 or even S3 (DE) vehicle explosion, but Marines largely don't care. Losing d3 models would largely be ignored by a unit of Orks, but once they're OUT of the darn thing you can shoot the suckers. This kind a tweak to the core rules could make a positive change in the overall game environment without having to bump up the price of rhinos and razors in every SM book.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

2. If you just blew up a vehicle, odds are you used an ANTI TANK WEAPON. If that weapon managed to pierce the hull and destroy the vehicle, I'm pretty sure it's hitting a few marines inside as well.

Depends on the weapon? Krak missle? No, it's force was used on the outer shell.

Ordenence weapons? Yes certainly, those pack far more force than a Krak missle

AP2 and below weapons? Also yes, because those weapons are directly penetrating the vehicle and melting through with their force.

Well, I'm pretty sure most dedicated anti tank missles do not simply explode on the outside of a vehicle to damage it. Most use shaped charges that burn through the armor and kill the crew inside or damage critical vehicle components. So yes, even they would be able to kill a marine. Plus, if it made it through the hull, it's probably hitting something important (ammunition, fuel lines, power sources, etc) However, that can easily be explained away by saying "oh our missles are different". But I'll stand by the fact that if that missle could kill a marine in the open with a direct hit, and it's knocked out a rhino, odds are it's hurting the guys inside as well.

One possible option would be to make a penetrating hit also be resolved against a unit inside. That way, say I pinned your rhino with three autocannon shots. That wouldn't be a big deal, your marines would probably be fine. But if I penned with a Leman russ Battlecannon, you'd risk losing the entire unit as well as the vehicle. And if someone got a lucky pen with something like a bolter or flamer, they'd do almost nothing as well, to represent some weak ricochets just bouncing around in the cab and being stopped by armor. Could be an interesting rule to implement. Basically make it where the amount of penetrating hits is the same against the unit. One melta shot wouldn't be as scary, but that demolisher cannon is going to REALLY hurt. Saves would be applied normally i.e. you can get armor saves, invulns, provided the weapon doesn't cancel them out, but no cover save for the unit inside (its a round going off inside a cramped space, you're not getting cover)

EDIT: Realized first idea was terrible, put in a better one.

But to get back on topic, if we want the mech based meta to ease up a bit, you NEED to make having transports be a risk. The main reason everyone takes them is because there is almost no risk whatsoever (especially with marines) Oh, my transport blew up? Whoop de doo, I lose 3 scrubs. Oh, my transport wrecked? Thanks for the free disembark action. Both of those quotes are word for word ones I've heard at my store, and the guys were being serious. And before you say these guys are noobs, these are guys who regularly place well in tourneys like adepticon and 'ard boys, not to mention cleaning out local tournaments with little difficulty.

Whether it's auto pinning, forcing wounds on Sarge's/special characters/special weapons/etc. , or just making it where armies suffer more casualties, it's all for the same purpose. Putting units in transports needs to have pros and cons. It should not be viewed as a 35 bunker that is a must buy with no drawbacks.

Other good ideas I've seen in the past was denying units in transports from having the option to capture objectives, forcing them to disembark, or perhaps even not allowing transports to contest.

I'm still relatively new to the game, so obviously my ideas are not going to be perfect, but I think most people will agree that something needs to be done if we want to shake up the meta a bit.

All of the ideas have been pretty bad so far.

I do not see anything that is wrong with the current system.

Could it use a few tweaks? Maybe.

is it a workable system as is? Yes.

If it is not broken, do not fix it.

(Or Wait a few months for 6th, there is bound to be a few tweaks in 6th ed.)

You know, as counterintuitive as this may seem, I think perhaps things should start out by making transpors BETTER. Back in the day, taking a transport gave you a serious benefit - it let you move twice as fast as regular infantry. For this serious benefit, you payed a serious cost, both in points and in risk.

Since 5th ed has come out (and its corresponding codices), What do you really gain by putting a unit in a transport? Not much. That 2x movement rate turned into a basically the same movement rate in which you got to shoot your guns after you disembarked. With there being no real gain to mounting up, there became no real cost, either in risk or in points. As such, transports wound up in the very strange role of being an efficient fire support system, which wound up just sitting in giant parking lots. Having transports allow you to take mini HS slots in your Troops choice I don't think was ever actually intended in the first place, but once this started happening, they just had to roll with it.

As such, I'd like to see transports get better and, most importantly, actually be incentivized to transport stuff around, rather than just sitting around plinking. Once they had something making them actually worth doing other than sitting around, eating a krak missile and dying unceremoniously, then you'd be able to actually assign some risk to them.

For example, say that they made it so that vehicles all became universally 6" faster, and tank shock was changed so that instead of merely pushing units out of the way, you pushed them out of the way and inflicted an immediate dangerous terrain check on everyone in the squad, and units inside weren't effected by damage to the vehicle (other than wrecked or explosions), but on the other hand, if a vehicle is wrecked or exploded, any unit still inside is just lost, straight away.

In this hypothetical, a player would actually have to make a real decision whether to keep a squad in a can, or whether to disembark, and would make it so that if a squad was embarked in a transport, the transport would actually behave as a transport. Furthermore, it would create a substantially different play style than foot lists.

Not saying that the above example is the best way to do it, but I think the biggest problem with mech lists is that most transports are flimsy, relatively useless, and bland, which is why you barely have to pay anything to take most of them. If we assume that the starting point is where we are now, and try to make tiny changes to it, we'll still have the basic problems that we have with mech lists now. Something more fundamental in shift is in order.

I haven't played enough to comment on the metagame or offer alternative systems, but this discussion has made me want to try out box-spam with my footmarines army.
It sounds pretty fun, in a hooray-I-won-again sort of way, but I don't think I'd use it often if it's as cheesy and prevalent as it seems.

Nagashek wrote:Eldar have Fire Dragons. 16ppm with a melta standard on BS4 models. Elite slot.

Remember the exactly one unit I mentioned? Do you think you should balance the entire eldar codex around fire dragons being the only valid option in your elite slot?

DE have Heat Lances. 18" range Melta Lance that's only S6. It can be mounted on Jetbikes (1 out of every three, and 34ppm on the ones that get it,) Scourges, 34ppm on Jump Infantry models, 2 out of every 5. Both of those are in FA and severely overcosted compared to other, more survivable options. You can also take a TL Heat Lance on the Talos in Heavy Support, but that is inefficient compared to the Ravager, (though more survivable.) DE don't need Melta weapons in general, as we have cheap and abundant lances to make up for shoddy toughness.

So, how does buffing something completely overcosted and useless for dark eldar help balance vehicles?

As for Orks or Daemons, I have no idea, but I was fairly certain that Nids have no melta option, given that they rely on MC close combat to get 2d6 AP.

None of them have any melta options, unless you count the weirdboy as melta weapon. So buffing melta range does absolutely nothing for them - which was my original point.


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DeathReaper wrote:If it is not broken, do not fix it.

I think all but you have agreed on it being broken.

I have read all 4 pages, and have yet to understand a single complaint. They have not been clear.

Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

The only other thing I could see would be to totally overhaul the whole system to make it more like Battletech.

DeathReaper wrote:I have read all 4 pages, and have yet to understand a single complaint. They have not been clear.

Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

The only other thing I could see would be to totally overhaul the whole system to make it more like Battletech.

Hehe, as much as i'd love to see titans in main games I doubt people would be able to afford most of them without some serious conversions.

Unless you are more referring to its damage charts, its heat buildup and it's various other tidbits that would change vehicles down completely.

DeathReaper wrote:I have read all 4 pages, and have yet to understand a single complaint. They have not been clear.

Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

The only other thing I could see would be to totally overhaul the whole system to make it more like Battletech.

I'm already partly there with my 10 difrent types of sentinel based walkers

DeathReaper wrote:Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

So, I'm not a big mech hater by any stretch of the imagination, but Redbeard said something recently that struck me. One of the most obnoxious things about mech lists is that they provide you with relative immunity to close combat. You have to spend one turn shooting at the transport with meltaguns, or one turn charging the transport, and then have to eat a turn of shooting before you can charge the stuff inside. If close combat is supposed to be a big part of the game, then having a practically free upgrade that causes very serious problems for assault-based armies (the problem of time) doesn't make much sense. In fact, it makes about as much sense as psychic powers being something that is either completely neturalized, or is something that can't be defended against at all.

That and, as I mentioned before, the conflict of purpose. Taking transport-based armies should incentivize a player to move around a lot. It turns out that with a few exceptions (like eldar), taking an all-transport army winds up encouraging the player to just sit still and do absolutely nothing except roll dice in the shooting phase. Not only does this seem a conflict of purpose, but the games that I've watched between two all-mech gunline parking lots have bored me to tears.

I'm not against mech armies in principle, but I think that they could be cleaned up a bit. I feel like foot lists and close combat both really hit the sweet spot with 5th ed rules, but vehicles in general, and transports in specific were somewhat more poorly designed than they were in 4th, or at least didn't get better at the same rate as other stuff.

DeathReaper wrote:I have read all 4 pages, and have yet to understand a single complaint. They have not been clear.

Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

The only other thing I could see would be to totally overhaul the whole system to make it more like Battletech.

The problem is, that marines get disproportional cheap transport with no drawbacks whatsoever, where any other army does not. So taking transports is an absolute no-brainer for marines, where all other armies have to sacrifice unit size and/or risk non-trivial casualties when the transport explodes. As no one wants to simply take the transports away from marines (because a dozen of red rhino chassis on the table look awesome and fit the fluff), we are searching for a way to tune down vehicles just far enough that the don't becaume an auto-include with every tactical squad, but rather a viable option. Just like putting boyz in a trukk or battlewagon is an option, not mandatory.

If you claim that 40k is supposed to be vehicle based, the tyranid and daemon codex flat out prove you wrong.

It's been by and large ignored by everybody, but worth pointing out here - if you play with anything like the proper amount of terrain on a board, you'll have to take dangerous terrain tests very often with most/all of your chimeras. It's often over-looked in favour of "DERP CHIMERAS ARE OP DERP", but if I I want my chimeras where they're going to be useful, I will have to move them into dangerous terrain - essentially every time a chimera moves,there's a 1 in six chance of it being immobilised and completely useless.
Assuming I have to take 2 dangerous terrain tests a turn, that's an immobilised chimera by turn 3, 2 by turn 6.

Of course you can get unlucky and have 2 chimeras fail them right when you were about to park them up to a Land Raider and Melta it to death.

You only ever take one dangerous terrain test, no matter how many minefields you are crossing.

Jidmah wrote:You only ever take one dangerous terrain test, no matter how many minefields you are crossing.

Per move I think Joey means, so the chimera will each separate game turn take another test if it moves over dangerous terrain again.

Jidmah wrote:You only ever take one dangerous terrain test, no matter how many minefields you are crossing.

You take one dangerous terrain test if, at any point of your movement, you go over difficult terrain. Not "minefields".
That wall? Dangerous terrain. All area terrain? Dangerous terrain.

Joey wrote:

Jidmah wrote:You only ever take one dangerous terrain test, no matter how many minefields you are crossing.

You take one dangerous terrain test if, at any point of your movement, you go over difficult terrain. Not "minefields".
That wall? Dangerous terrain. All area terrain? Dangerous terrain.

I was naming minefields because they are the most dangerous terrain, IRL.

The point was, that if you drive over a wall, you can as well drive through a mine field, a river, a ruin, some barbed wire and over a dead gretchin with a single test.

Jidmah wrote:

Joey wrote:

Jidmah wrote:You only ever take one dangerous terrain test, no matter how many minefields you are crossing.

You take one dangerous terrain test if, at any point of your movement, you go over difficult terrain. Not "minefields".
That wall? Dangerous terrain. All area terrain? Dangerous terrain.

That's not what the rules say.

I don't have the rulebook on me (at work) but I'm pretty sure that vehicles treat difficult terrain as dangerous terrain?

I misread your post and edited mine, you were faster at replying than I was at editing

Do you think some sort of compromise might be in order?

Perhaps on an explosion, everyone just takes an armor save? I.E. it auto wounds everyone in side the vehicle.

Just add this one thing to what happens when a vehicle explodes. If they take enough casualties, both a pinning and morale test is required.

I don't know if this is enough or to far...

imweasel wrote:
Just add this one thing to what happens when a vehicle explodes. If they take enough casualties, both a pinning and morale test is required.

This is already the case (Unless I've been playing it all wrong for years, which is possible )

I think we need more damage to the passengers in an exploding vehicle, but ultimately the rules for transports are fine as is. I think the bigger issue is the low cost of transports, especially for Marines is the biggest reason for hordes of Metal Boxes running up the table.

Perhaps, but that makes themed Mech Armies (like ASL or Elysians) very hard to run.

That's the catch, ultimately. Either we wind up with transports being too inexpensive and dominating the game or we wind up with them being too expensive and certain lists become infeasible.

Now perhaps I am jaded to low cost transports as my army's transport generally costs more than the squad inside it (without upgrades on the transport I might add), but if an upgrade is a force multiplier, it should be such a small fraction of the squad in cost (ie Rhinos and razorbacks can be bought for the cost of less than 3 of the guys who ride in them).

Jefffar wrote:That's the catch, ultimately. Either we wind up with transports being too inexpensive and dominating the game or we wind up with them being too expensive and certain lists become infeasible.

Now perhaps I am jaded to low cost transports as my army's transport generally costs more than the squad inside it (without upgrades on the transport I might add), but if an upgrade is a force multiplier, it should be such a small fraction of the squad in cost (ie Rhinos and razorbacks can be bought for the cost of less than 3 of the guys who ride in them).

Agreed, it's not the vehicle rules so much as it is the low price of transports in certain Codices. Try playing razorspam Black Templars and see if transports are so OP, for example.

Tell me about it.

Our local has Eldar, Marines, Necron and Tau - guess which one is most likely to have a bunch of transports?

If the problem is transports and not vehicles as a whole, why not let certain weapons (like flamethrowers and some psykers power) be able to attack embarked units directly?

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

DeathReaper wrote:I have read all 4 pages, and have yet to understand a single complaint. They have not been clear.

Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

The only other thing I could see would be to totally overhaul the whole system to make it more like Battletech.

Hehe, as much as i'd love to see titans in main games I doubt people would be able to afford most of them without some serious conversions.

Unless you are more referring to its damage charts, its heat buildup and it's various other tidbits that would change vehicles down completely.

I was referring to the BattleTech Damage sheets and how they work the damage.

Though that would really require a overhaul of the whole vehicle system as to hit numbers would have to be modified etc.

I don't really think there is anything wrong with the way vehicles work in 5th edition. I think cover for vehicles needs to be less forgiving (just because half of a Land Raider is behind cover, I'm not half as likely to hit it? It's as big as a barn and half of a barn is still a huge ing target!!!!!!). I think vehicles should only get cover saves if they are 75% concealed.

Also, I don't mind the way vehicle explosions work in 5th. MEQ survives the explosions much more often but they tend to cost more (although not enough more IMO) so they should survive more. SM vehicles should cost more also. They are practically free compared to other codex's transports! If Mech Guard loses a transport, that squad is pretty much boned, but if Mech MEQ loses one, it's pretty much a negligible loss. However, if GW wants to make the game more realistic, everyone in the transport should die when it explodes. I don't care about power armor or terminator armor because shrapnel and fire aren't what kills people in an explosion. It's the pressure wave that kills people and armor has exactly no effect on that, so even terminators would be just as susceptible as a guardsman or an ork to an explosion.

Vaktathi wrote:

imweasel wrote:
Just add this one thing to what happens when a vehicle explodes. If they take enough casualties, both a pinning and morale test is required.

This is already the case (Unless I've been playing it all wrong for years, which is possible )

No you have it right. I was simply expanding on my 'everyone takes a wound' thing.

bmoleski wrote:I don't really think there is anything wrong with the way vehicles work in 5th edition. I think cover for vehicles needs to be less forgiving (just because half of a Land Raider is behind cover, I'm not half as likely to hit it? It's as big as a barn and half of a barn is still a huge ing target!!!!!!). I think vehicles should only get cover saves if they are 75% concealed.

Also, I don't mind the way vehicle explosions work in 5th. MEQ survives the explosions much more often but they tend to cost more (although not enough more IMO) so they should survive more. SM vehicles should cost more also. They are practically free compared to other codex's transports! If Mech Guard loses a transport, that squad is pretty much boned, but if Mech MEQ loses one, it's pretty much a negligible loss. However, if GW wants to make the game more realistic, everyone in the transport should die when it explodes. I don't care about power armor or terminator armor because shrapnel and fire aren't what kills people in an explosion. It's the pressure wave that kills people and armor has exactly no effect on that, so even terminators would be just as susceptible as a guardsman or an ork to an explosion.

Wait, how does armour not protect you from the pressure wave? I'm genuinely curious.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

bmoleski wrote:I don't really think there is anything wrong with the way vehicles work in 5th edition. I think cover for vehicles needs to be less forgiving (just because half of a Land Raider is behind cover, I'm not half as likely to hit it? It's as big as a barn and half of a barn is still a huge ing target!!!!!!). I think vehicles should only get cover saves if they are 75% concealed.

Also, I don't mind the way vehicle explosions work in 5th. MEQ survives the explosions much more often but they tend to cost more (although not enough more IMO) so they should survive more. SM vehicles should cost more also. They are practically free compared to other codex's transports! If Mech Guard loses a transport, that squad is pretty much boned, but if Mech MEQ loses one, it's pretty much a negligible loss. However, if GW wants to make the game more realistic, everyone in the transport should die when it explodes. I don't care about power armor or terminator armor because shrapnel and fire aren't what kills people in an explosion. It's the pressure wave that kills people and armor has exactly no effect on that, so even terminators would be just as susceptible as a guardsman or an ork to an explosion.

Wait, how does armour not protect you from the pressure wave? I'm genuinely curious.

kinda like imploding under pressure maybe? i'm thinking submarines nd stuff...not that we have them in 40k, but you know pressure nd what not

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Wait, how does armour not protect you from the pressure wave? I'm genuinely curious.

Armor will protect you from penetrations, it will often transmit the full power of a blast however.

Same way a tank can be relatively intact after being hit by an HE shell but everyone inside is unconscious or dead from the concussion.

A blast concussion from a heavy ordnance weapon likely won't result in any penetration of a Space Marine's armor for instance, but every organ in his body may liquified (and nothing in SM fluff says anything about their organs really being reinforced in any way, just that they have backups of some). Happens quite often with blasts, people will appear externally relatively fine, but internally everything has been pulped such that when they do an Xray it looks like one big slushy mass instead of a collection of distinct, individual organs, and such blast concussion will transmit right through armor.

bmoleski wrote:I don't really think there is anything wrong with the way vehicles work in 5th edition. I think cover for vehicles needs to be less forgiving (just because half of a Land Raider is behind cover, I'm not half as likely to hit it? It's as big as a barn and half of a barn is still a huge ing target!!!!!!). I think vehicles should only get cover saves if they are 75% concealed.

Also, I don't mind the way vehicle explosions work in 5th. MEQ survives the explosions much more often but they tend to cost more (although not enough more IMO) so they should survive more. SM vehicles should cost more also. They are practically free compared to other codex's transports! If Mech Guard loses a transport, that squad is pretty much boned, but if Mech MEQ loses one, it's pretty much a negligible loss. However, if GW wants to make the game more realistic, everyone in the transport should die when it explodes. I don't care about power armor or terminator armor because shrapnel and fire aren't what kills people in an explosion. It's the pressure wave that kills people and armor has exactly no effect on that, so even terminators would be just as susceptible as a guardsman or an ork to an explosion.

There are fluff examples of Powe Armor and Terminators doing their thing in space and at ocean depths. I think that pressure problems are not as bad for them as you might hope.

Likewise, passengers and crew have been pulled alive from the wreckage of vehicles that exploded in real life as well. Not many, for sure, but enough that automatic death to all on board not entirely reasonable, especially in a game of superhumans, aliens, high technology and space magic.

Another thought on transports, at least Marine transports, do they hold too many? I can see 10 normal folks in a Chimera or Rhino, but 10 power armor clad Giants? No way! I think a Rhino should max out at 8 power armor models instead of 10.




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Vaktathi, it used to be common practice to use blast weapons as anti-tank weapons, but that process died out over the last few decades. The reason is that newer armors were much more resistant to these type weapons than previous armor. A full body rigid suit of power armour could be made highly blast resistant.

Those with flexible or non full body armor like flak armor and carapace armor would have little or no defense though. So if you want an AP value for being in an exploding vehicle, I suggest 4. Or perhaps just make everyone reroll the successful save.

Seeing as both Grimaldus and Mephiston have clawed their way out of cathedral-sized buildings collapsing on them, I'm not too sure about the pressure argument.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Seeing as both Grimaldus and Mephiston have clawed their way out of cathedral-sized buildings collapsing on them, I'm not too sure about the pressure argument.

There's also the fact they can go into the deep sea's without much issue, not to mention that a terminator was stepped on by a titan, and still survived (Lucky invulnerable save!)

Mannahnin wrote:Yup. DA was the first codex with cheaper Rhinos. Before that Rhinos were 50pts base for every codex that got them, 5pts for Extra Armor, 3pts for Smoke Launchers, 1pt for a Searchlight. 58pts was humorously referred to as "factory standard" or "MSRP".

I still pay for my searchlights. . . Why must BA pay for searchlights when the bloody necrons get to induce night fighting on my turns!


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ZebioLizard2 wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Seeing as both Grimaldus and Mephiston have clawed their way out of cathedral-sized buildings collapsing on them, I'm not too sure about the pressure argument.

There's also the fact they can go into the deep sea's without much issue, not to mention that a terminator was stepped on by a titan, and still survived (Lucky invulnerable save!)

That termy had to make it sometime, that was just the perfect time.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Seeing as both Grimaldus and Mephiston have clawed their way out of cathedral-sized buildings collapsing on them, I'm not too sure about the pressure argument.

There's a big difference between a building collapse, being deep underwater, and a blast wave both in terms of speed, concentration, and pressure, and both characters have a fair bit of plot armor. Hell, Mephiston is portrayed in game as being tougher than a Daemon Prince borne of a Chaos Space Marine Lord.

Vaktathi, it used to be common practice to use blast weapons as anti-tank weapons, but that process died out over the last few decades. The reason is that newer armors were much more resistant to these type weapons than previous armor.

Typically these were HEAT weapons designed around shaped charges that relied on a jet of molten metal to penetrate the hull, which modern armor has become very adept at either disrupting the formation of said jet (ERA) or negating it's penetrative capabilities (Chobham). Hit a tank directly with a 100lb 155mm HE artillery shell (1.5-2x the mass of most 120mm shells) however and if you don't take the turret clean off of its ring the crew will likely require hospitalization if nothing else (such guns however generally are divisional level artillery and not typical AT guns). While not exactly a great modern example, in WW2 IS-2 tanks and especially ISU-152's would often engage Panther tanks quite effectively even though they couldn't penetrate the armor effectively at range but the sheer explosive power of their HE shell was enough to inflict severe concussive harm on the occupants or quite often tear the turret right off the turret ring and toss it a dozen meters from the hull.

A full body rigid suit of power armour could be made highly blast resistant.

To a degree yes, however the pressures experienced from say, a nearby cannon blast or grenade explosion that may be highly resistable are as nothing (literally several thousand times less powerful) next to the detonation of an enclosed vehicle and being inside said vehicle. Recognizable body parts are generally not recoverable from the latter.

Those with flexible or non full body armor like flak armor and carapace armor would have little or no defense though. So if you want an AP value for being in an exploding vehicle, I suggest 4. Or perhaps just make everyone reroll the successful save.

I'd be fine with the latter honestly, however the former would really just be far too MEQ-lenient and GEQ-punitive to be a good game mechanic, as exploding transports would be death to anything that wasn't a marine and marines already probably have too much "get out of jail free" cards in such areas.

Everyone debating on this topic seems to be coming from a non-tyranid and non-daemon perspective.

As a Tyranid player, my main issue is that I have very little shooting that is reliable against vehicles (Hive guard, T-fexes, Zoans), so we rely on assaulting them. I personally have no problem with the gun-vehicles. It's definetely transports and the fact that I probably am going to have to assault it to kill it that ruins the game for us.

Many of the ideas that have come up would be fine, but for an assault based army what we need is that units disembarking from a wrecked/exploded vehicle must pile into close combat with the unit that wrecked/exploded the vehicle.

We need a 160pt carnifex or 200 pt trygon to open vehicles. They assault a 35 pt rhino, and then get roflstomped by missles and melta the turn after. We make trades like that for 6 turns and lose...who would have guessed?

No tyranid player wants to be forced into using 9 hive guard every game...

Lysenis wrote:I still pay for my searchlights. . . Why must BA pay for searchlights when the bloody necrons get to induce night fighting on my turns!

All the xenos players feel sympathetic. It's much easier for us not having this option for a cost as huge as 1pt.
And inducing night fight on Necron turn only by Necron player would be much better mechanic.

Lysenis wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Yup. DA was the first codex with cheaper Rhinos. Before that Rhinos were 50pts base for every codex that got them, 5pts for Extra Armor, 3pts for Smoke Launchers, 1pt for a Searchlight. 58pts was humorously referred to as "factory standard" or "MSRP".

I still pay for my searchlights. . . Why must BA pay for searchlights when the bloody necrons get to induce night fighting on my turns!

Because Mat Ward. There was no real reason that anyone can come up with.

Macok wrote:

Lysenis wrote:I still pay for my searchlights. . . Why must BA pay for searchlights when the bloody necrons get to induce night fighting on my turns!

All the xenos players feel sympathetic. It's much easier for us not having this option for a cost as huge as 1pt.
And inducing night fight on Necron turn only by Necron player would be much better mechanic.

I see what your doing there. Most new xeno codices get Keen Senses so its not as dibilitating, I was responding to what Rhinos were in 4th ed where they still bought searchlights and Smoke.

As a Tyranid player, my main issue is that I have very little shooting that is reliable against vehicles (Hive guard, T-fexes, Zoans), so we rely on assaulting them. I personally have no problem with the gun-vehicles. It's definetely transports and the fact that I probably am going to have to assault it to kill it that ruins the game for us.

Assault based damage charts for MC's would be far nicer (Rip open the top, nom nom the nice innards as a 6 would be hilarious) , I find that one of my main issues when I use daemons (Barely) is actually hitting the damn things when trying to smack them on 6's with a Bloodthrister.

Vaktathi wrote:I'd be fine with the latter honestly, however the former would really just be far too MEQ-lenient and GEQ-punitive to be a good game mechanic, as exploding transports would be death to anything that wasn't a marine and marines already probably have too much "get out of jail free" cards in such areas.

Rerolling armour saves sounds reasonable enough, it threatens MEQ without completely wiping them like AP2 would and it gives you a reason to still take transports if you're marines. On the other hand it'd make GEQ take even more casualties.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:I'd be fine with the latter honestly, however the former would really just be far too MEQ-lenient and GEQ-punitive to be a good game mechanic, as exploding transports would be death to anything that wasn't a marine and marines already probably have too much "get out of jail free" cards in such areas.

Rerolling armour saves sounds reasonable enough, it threatens MEQ without completely wiping them like AP2 would and it gives you a reason to still take transports if you're marines. On the other hand it'd make GEQ take even more casualties.

Still better than simply getting no saves while marines still get theirs, and I'm ok with explosions causing more damage, they really should be scarier to everything, passengers and those nearby.

Vaktathi wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:I'd be fine with the latter honestly, however the former would really just be far too MEQ-lenient and GEQ-punitive to be a good game mechanic, as exploding transports would be death to anything that wasn't a marine and marines already probably have too much "get out of jail free" cards in such areas.

Rerolling armour saves sounds reasonable enough, it threatens MEQ without completely wiping them like AP2 would and it gives you a reason to still take transports if you're marines. On the other hand it'd make GEQ take even more casualties.

Still better than simply getting no saves while marines still get theirs, and I'm ok with explosions causing more damage, they really should be scarier to everything, passengers and those nearby.

I guess we are agreed then; rerolling successful saves it is! Now, to make GW accept our truth!

Lol, if only XD

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Jefffar wrote:That's the catch, ultimately. Either we wind up with transports being too inexpensive and dominating the game or we wind up with them being too expensive and certain lists become infeasible.

Now perhaps I am jaded to low cost transports as my army's transport generally costs more than the squad inside it (without upgrades on the transport I might add), but if an upgrade is a force multiplier, it should be such a small fraction of the squad in cost (ie Rhinos and razorbacks can be bought for the cost of less than 3 of the guys who ride in them).

Agreed, it's not the vehicle rules so much as it is the low price of transports in certain Codices. Try playing razorspam Black Templars and see if transports are so OP, for example.

Absolutely! Except that fixing the cost of transports takes several years as new codices are released. If you change the transport rules in the main rulebook to make them a bit less awesome, you can potentially solve the problem across the board in one fell swoop.

We can debate HOW to change them as much as we like and reasonably disagree, but a change to the core rules is a lot quicker and more efficient than the point cost fix. In the change from 4th to 5th they made transports much more durable and effective, and they simultaneously started making them cheaper in the codices, a trend which has continued. Doing both clearly was an overcompensation for them being a bit underpowered in 4th. Making their rules a little worse OR raising their prices a bit would both be good ways to make them more balanced. But tweaking the rules can be done in one shot.

Right, but cost isn't something that's strictly limited to points. Cost can also come in the form of risk, which is something that a core rule book can certainly address.

Ideally, there would never be points cost fixing in codices at all, but rather everything of the same class costing the same and then the core rules changing their use across the board.

Wait, how does armour not protect you from the pressure wave? I'm genuinely curious.

Try putting on a chain mail shirt and then see how it protects you from getting hit by a car, as opposed to a sword being swung much faster than the car is driving.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Seeing as both Grimaldus and Mephiston have clawed their way out of cathedral-sized buildings collapsing on them, I'm not too sure about the pressure argument.

IIRC Mephiston wasn't even wearing armor the first time a building collapsed on him...

AlmightyWalrus wrote:I guess we are agreed then; rerolling successful saves it is! Now, to make GW accept our truth!

I really like that solution. It's absurdly elegant and simple.

Jidmah wrote:

Wait, how does armour not protect you from the pressure wave? I'm genuinely curious.

Try putting on a chain mail shirt and then see how it protects you from getting hit by a car, as opposed to a sword being swung much faster than the car is driving.

You're mixing things up.
1) Speed doesn't matter that much, momentum and kinetic energy are the keys.
2) Flexible armor unsurprisingly isn't too good against protecting from large area impact hits. They work by dissipating impact from concentrated hits to larger area.
3) Rigid armor does help a lot against any impact hit. Basically reason for this is that kinetic energy that without armor would be used to deform your body to mush is used to propel you away from the impact instead and to deform either your armor or whatever drove over you, depending on relative toughnesses of the materials.
4) Non-rigid, non-sealed armour doesn't help that much against pressure waves. Which work completely differently from normal impact damage, as far as damage to humans is concerned.

Anyway, pressure waves are completely different animals. And fully sealed rigid armour, like power armour with helmet on, protects extremely well against them. There are good, internally consistent arguments for making exploding transports causing AP5. But you can't make internally consistent arguments about AP2 internal explosions without having the exploding vehicle also cause huge amount of damage to large radius while exploding.

As for building collapses go, you can't use them for any pressure related arguments. There are always large empty cavities inside the collapsed building, if person gets lucky enough he doesn't get hit by falling debris at all. And damage caused by collapsing building is basically all impact damage from the debris. The "pressure" is really only weight of rubble on someone, not pressure in sense of explosion.

Luide wrote:

Jidmah wrote:

Wait, how does armour not protect you from the pressure wave? I'm genuinely curious.

Try putting on a chain mail shirt and then see how it protects you from getting hit by a car, as opposed to a sword being swung much faster than the car is driving.

You're mixing things up.
1) Speed doesn't matter that much, momentum and kinetic energy are the keys.

Momentum is speed times mass, how does speed not matter?
The idea was comparing a bolter round (small area) against a blast wave (large area).

2) Flexible armor unsurprisingly isn't too good against protecting from large area impact hits. They work by dissipating impact from concentrated hits to larger area.
3) Rigid armor does help a lot against any impact hit. Basically reason for this is that kinetic energy that without armor would be used to deform your body to mush is used to propel you away from the impact instead and to deform either your armor or whatever drove over you, depending on relative toughnesses of the materials.

Wearing plate mail doesn't help against getting hit by a car, either. Unless power armor can absorb infinite amounts of kinetic energy, the marine would still be crushed. The blast is also going to knock you against some part of the vehicle, another marine or the ground, so getting hit by a car would be roughly equivalent. Not in physics, but in principle.

Luide wrote:
Anyway, pressure waves are completely different animals. And fully sealed rigid armour, like power armour with helmet on, protects extremely well against them. There are good, internally consistent arguments for making exploding transports causing AP5.

No there aren't.
Most of these threads seem to ignore the fact that eldar/guard can take transports as well. If vehicle explosions were AP 5 I'd lose 6-7 vets whenever a chimera exploded...yeah, no.

Jidmah wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Seeing as both Grimaldus and Mephiston have clawed their way out of cathedral-sized buildings collapsing on them, I'm not too sure about the pressure argument.

IIRC Mephiston wasn't even wearing armor the first time a building collapsed on him...

There was some (Like 21) people pulled form the wrecks of the twin towers so it is possible, just highly unlikely.

Joey wrote:

Luide wrote:
Anyway, pressure waves are completely different animals. And fully sealed rigid armour, like power armour with helmet on, protects extremely well against them. There are good, internally consistent arguments for making exploding transports causing AP5.

No there aren't.
Most of these threads seem to ignore the fact that eldar/guard can take transports as well. If vehicle explosions were AP 5 I'd lose 6-7 vets whenever a chimera exploded...yeah, no.

I meant internally consistent as far as fluff is concerned. Obviously, game mechanically either STR 3-5 or automatically wound on 3+/4+ with saves allowed is better, because cost of the armor is taken into account when pricing models and that cost must be brought down if units inside transports don't benefit from them.

Armor doesn't work against a lot of things, including dangerous terrain, a failed death or glory, sweeping advances and perils of the warp. So basically, all game rule-induced casualties except explosions.

Jidmah wrote:

2) Flexible armor unsurprisingly isn't too good against protecting from large area impact hits. They work by dissipating impact from concentrated hits to larger area.
3) Rigid armor does help a lot against any impact hit. Basically reason for this is that kinetic energy that without armor would be used to deform your body to mush is used to propel you away from the impact instead and to deform either your armor or whatever drove over you, depending on relative toughnesses of the materials.

Wearing plate mail doesn't help against getting hit by a car, either. Unless power armor can absorb infinite amounts of kinetic energy, the marine would still be crushed.

Plate mail is only partially rigid, and if you had one that was strong enough not to deform too much, it would be huge help. Bruises are lot better than massive internal damage and broken bones.
And by fluff, power armour can withstand huge amounts of kinetic energy. Point being, if the energy is not enough to deform/crush the armor, the person inside takes only marginal damage compared to the damage he'd be taken without armor.

And do consider realworld use of armour in cases like this: Motorcycle helmets provenly work and same goes for on-impacts stiffening materials that hugely change the amount of injuries one takes in crash or when one falls from motorcycle. Same goes for backplates, energy needed to deform armour even slightly is magnitudes more than energy needed to defom bones and flesh.

The blast is als

Jidmah wrote:o going to knock you against some part of the vehicle, another marine or the ground, so getting hit by a car would be roughly equivalent. Not in physics, but in principle.

Accelerations involved by blast knocking you into things would be far smaller actually. As long as the armour stays intact, damage caused is basically same as is caused by someone throwing the power armoured marine against a wall. And hitting ground is not that bad, it's generally pretty soft compared to armour so it would just deform and form a crater, dissipating majority of the energy there.

When you drive over someone in power armour, it's not comparable to driving over someone who is not in armor. It is comparable to driving over heavily armoured smaller vehicle, with the occupant strapped in place and cushioned against impacts.

Tl;DR:
For internal consistency, if transport explodes with enough power to kill all marines inside it, effect to outside should be minimum of "everyone within 6" takes S8 AP3" hit. Area of effect should probably be larger. Main point is that any argument that "realistically everyone inside would die" is not nearly as some people think it is.

Anyway, more important thing is to have good game design and balance. Deathtrap transports like in 2e and 4e were just plain bad design.

I'm mostly with Luide as far as the physics go; but I don't really care about them from a rules/game balance perspective. What's more important is the balance. One can always find a retroactive fluff justification.

-------

Presently transports are too cheap and too good, and this has led to their proliferation and the nickname "transporthammer" for 5th. IMO this is one of 5th's few flaws. Making explosions a bit more dangerous to power-armored occupants would be one good way to rein that in a bit. We don't want to screw over Eldar, DE, Guard and Orks, though, as they already take substantial casualties in explosions so there's already a downside for them.

Would it be too harsh to say that quite simply the whole unit should just die if the transport is blown up? I mean, the crews automatically die so why not the rest of them?

Digging in for infantry could also be introduced and be quite simple. An infantry unit decides in the movement phase not to move, which could allow them to dig in, giving them a 4+ cover save against enemy fire, still allowing them to shoot (although the turn they dig in they count as moving, so can't fire heavy weapons .etc.) and causes them to count as being in cover when assaulted. However, theis also means they can't assault while dug in, and move half the turn that they stop being dug in

@ Luide
While the physics aspect is very interesting, I wouldn't translate anything ever mentioned in the WH40k to science. Depending on whats more cinematic at the moment, the same weapon is described as uselessly plonking off power armor, where at other times the exact same weapon manages to kill some evil guy in tactical dreadnought armor. When Thrakka (supposedly weighting about 40 tons) steps on a nob out of bad temper, he is crushed to green paste, while Yarrik survived being repeatedly stomped into the marble floor of hive hades. Plot armor is strong with warhammer40k, especially with the IoM.

A battlewagon can easily kill a marine or a rhino by running it over with something that's basically a barrel with spikes. A flame thrower or even heavy flamer are much more likely to kill marines than fluff suggests. Even the weakest weapons have a decent chance of killing a marine, suggesting that power armor, from a game perspective, is in fact not completely protecting its wearer.

One guy said something earlier, why not make everyone take an armor savable wound.

no strength hit, you just get an armor save for an exploded vehicle.

GEK lose 2/3
MEQ lose 1/3
TEQ lose 1/6

sounds pretty simple

RegulusBlack wrote:One guy said something earlier, why not make everyone take an armor savable wound.

no strength hit, you just get an armor save for an exploded vehicle.

GEK lose 2/3
MEQ lose 1/3
TEQ lose 1/6

sounds pretty simple

So I have a 2/3 chance of losing my sargent, and will probably lose two of my special weapons, as well as most of the rest of my squad, then take a pinning test (probably at Ld 7), then a morale test (also at Ld 7).
I should keep a tally of all these "yo let's knock mech guard out of the game" suggestions

I play mech guard, so im not trying to knock it out of the game, however when a vehicle, you know, kinda explodes, the results should be pretty catastrophic to any and all individuals inside.

but that was just me lending a suggestion.

Hearing a few ideas that are making me think here.

Each model suffers a wound on a 3+ (4+ if open topped) and must reroll successful armor saves. Invulnerable saves, FNP, etc count as normal.

So while the better armoured units come out ahead, but it still is pretty punishing to them (i.e. You will lose about 16/27 Guard in a Chimera, 10/27 Marines in a Rhino, 11/54 Terminators in a Raider, 1/2 the Avengers in a Wave Serpant or Firewarriors in a Devilfish, 35/54 Boyz in a Trukk). But also as each model has to roll to see if it takes a wound there is a real possibility of losing a special weapon or attached character.

I also think that Stunned and Shaken should affect the crew and passengers. Passangers that disembark while the vehicle is suffering one of these effects should immediately have to take a pinning test.

So is that enough of a downside to transports to make mechspam players give it another thought?

Why on earth have you guys accepted the basic premise that armored infantry should survive exploding transports "better" than unarmored infantry from a points cost basis?

Yes, armored units are generally more expensive. That means when they're receiving the benefits from transports (mobilitiy, extra "phase" of defense while popping the vehicle, etc) you, as a player, are benefitting from an effectiveness multiplier applied to that expensive unit. For the same price transport the guardsmen ride in. From a balance perspective, you're receiving a bigger benefit than the low price units.

Make the cost of using a transport proportional to the benefit. It's a multiplier, so make the cost a constant factor - pick some mechanism that results in a fixed percentage of the passenger unit dying. How you justify it's irrelevant.

TL;DR - kill one third of the embarked unit, regardless of type.

I think everybody is overthinking this. I say leave it as it is. There are armies out there who don't need to make it any worse. I feel that both Eldar and Sisters both would suffer greatly from any changes to these rules. Sisters already have enough of a handicap that we don't need to take away one of their strengths.

Orks lose 5/6

Please keep in mind all armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As is, we have a couple of profiles to think about:

Orks: T4 6+
GEQ: T3 5+
Eldar: T3 3+/4+
MEQ: T4 3+
TEQ: T4 2+

Any new rule should work out for all of those, no exception. If you do that, odd ones like scouts or plague marines would fit in all by themselves.

Okay, how about all models suffer a wound if they fail a Toughness check with a -1 modifier on the roll for open topped transports. This wound may be saved against as normal but if an armor save is used it must be rerolled.

+1, toughness is equal to or under - otherwise you made open topped worse....

Yeah, problem is that we want a rule that is slight nerf towards MEQ but doesn't hurt others.

AP2 damage is bad idea, it throws balance out of window. Terminators pay dearly for that 2+/5++ and the 3+ is costed for marines and aspect warriors. AP3/4/5/6 is also bad from balance point.

Re-roll succesfull saves is wonky mechanic, the amount it changes probabilities depends so much on origal target number. It does hurt TEQ and MEQ lot more than Orks, that I give.

Fixed to-wound number of 3+ (4+ in open-topped) would hurt MEQ, TEQ and Orks while keeping everyone else on same level.

Even something as small as requiring troops to disembark to score would have large effect in relative value of mech.

Or they could just change how shaken/stunned affect troops inside vehicles or revamp vehicle damage system some other way.
But GW being GW, I'm afraid 6th will be another edition of "Transports are deathtraps" just like 2nd and 4th were.

Edit: Jeffar you do realise that Toughness check or wound is S3 hit for all practical purposes? T3 take wound on 4+, T4 take wound on 5+ etc.

nosferatu1001 wrote:+1, toughness is equal to or under - otherwise you made open topped worse....

No a -1 modifier on the roll. So if that Ork in an open topped Transport rolls a 5 it gets reduced to 4 and he is safe.

Or, a Dangerous terrain test. roll a dice for each model in the transport and on a '1' they die.
Not only does it remove the unfair advantage that MEQ has in terms of armour saves over GEQ, but it would make sense, in terms of trying to get out of an exploding vehicle.

Having said that, im supprised that no one has suggested it. Its fair as its a standard roll for EVERYONE and is logical as the (now exploded) vehicle is dangerous

Having a better armour save is hardly unfair, MEQ pay for it. If anything your solution would be the unfair one as it'd make a 40 point terminator as resilient as a 3 point grot.

Again, the point is that DE, Elder, IG and Orks in transports really aren't a problem. They already either A) pay a reasonably expensive price for their transport, B) have open-topped transports which are easier to kill, and.or C) eat flaming death when their transport blows up as it is. It's the durable SM hiding in durable transports who are particularly out of whack at the present. So any tweak should hit the SM harder if balance is our goal.

Mannahnin wrote: It's the durable SM hiding in durable transports who are particularly out of whack at the present. So any tweak should hit the SM harder if balance is our goal.

Right, and besides this...

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Having a better armour save is hardly unfair, MEQ pay for it. If anything your solution would be the unfair one as it'd make a 40 point terminator as resilient as a 3 point grot.

...misses the point. Transports are a *multiplier*. They have a fixed cost (the price of the transport itself) and then they *multiply* the effectiveness of their passengers.

If a more expensive unit is riding in a transport, he's providing that player with more of an advantage than a less expensive unit in a transport. It's moving a more powerful unit faster, or protecting a more expensive unit from small arms fire, or providing a "free turn" of defense while the transport gets popped. The advantage is proportional to the cost of the passenger. So, the risk should be proportional to the cost of the passenger.

A dangerous terrain test is fine. Pinning the unit is fine. Some mix of these or other effects is fine. As long as it affects all passengers equally.

Or make the transports cost an appropriate amount of points.

Randall Turner wrote:

Mannahnin wrote: It's the durable SM hiding in durable transports who are particularly out of whack at the present. So any tweak should hit the SM harder if balance is our goal.

Right, and besides this...

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Having a better armour save is hardly unfair, MEQ pay for it. If anything your solution would be the unfair one as it'd make a 40 point terminator as resilient as a 3 point grot.

...misses the point. Transports are a *multiplier*. They have a fixed cost (the price of the transport itself) and then they *multiply* the effectiveness of their passengers.

If a more expensive unit is riding in a transport, he's providing that player with more of an advantage than a less expensive unit in a transport. It's moving a more powerful unit faster, or protecting a more expensive unit from small arms fire, or providing a "free turn" of defense while the transport gets popped. The advantage is proportional to the cost of the passenger. So, the risk should be proportional to the cost of the passenger.

A dangerous terrain test is fine. Pinning the unit is fine. Some mix of these or other effects is fine. As long as it affects all passengers equally.

Seeing as the force multiplier is not a generic one size fits all multiplier due in part of all the various different types of vehicles, let's point out a few of them shall we?

Rhino: It's only use is getting from point A to point B, there's no use for them otherwise.

Chimera: More powerful gun platform, gives veterans a chance to fire all of it's special weapons out of the hatches.

Venoms: Provides a far more potent poison gun platform, that can carry 1-3 blaster wielders inside it, being both anti-infantry and Anti-tank.

Land Raider: Expensive gun platform that's main use is getting its crew from point A to point B.

The "Force multiplier" for marines is rather laughable, as all the vehicles for each of the GEQ units makes units with special weapons far better than standard marine equivalents, and the only real counter for this is the Razorback, and even than that's just using it's weapons over it.

You're joking, right? Rhinos have a lot more uses than just getting from point A to point B (though that's quite good), and the most obvious one is shielding them from enemy shooting and assault until they're disembarked.

Or make the transports cost an appropriate amount of points.

Sure. How many years does that take again? A lot? And leaves the problem extant until EVERY individual codex has been fixed. Not nearly as effective or efficient an approach, purely for logistical reasons.

You're joking, right? Rhinos have a lot more uses than just getting from point A to point B (though that's quite good), and the most obvious one is shielding them from enemy shooting and assault until they're disembarked.

Which is...Getting them from Point A to Point B.

Nope. It's shielding them from damage and giving them the charge if they want it, whether they're moving from point A to point B or not. The mobility is a separate advantage.

Indeed, the rhino could sit still and the Marines could fire their heavy weapons out of it.

They're much much better protected than the same unit of Marines on foot, even if neither unit is moving.

Therefore, better protection is different from mobility.

Indeed, the rhino could sit still and the Marines could fire their heavy weapons out of it.

Yes I'd be quite fearful of say, one tac heavy weapon fire, or two sternguard wasting their very good bolter shots while shooting with heavy weapons from inside a rhino, compared to a moving chimera chassis filled with meltavets.

And of course one glancing means they aint shooting at all either..

Therefore, better protection is different from mobility.

Yes, but there's not much one can do from inside a rhino, sure one to two missle/lascannon can be good, but anti vehicle will at least stun/shake the weak chassis, preventing that, and thus the movement to get them in prime position in order to use their mainstay weapons, or to head to an objective is a better use.

It's kinda why despite having things like battlewagons, the orks don't stuff loota's in it, and simply fire away from inside of it, because a single glance and you are not firing heavy weapons anymore, and now you just have a useless squad sitting off doing nothing.

Sure it's good help for objective sitting, but that's it, don't expect it's damage output to be anything but dismal unless the enemy cannot devote even a single glancing shot at it.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Indeed, the rhino could sit still and the Marines could fire their heavy weapons out of it.

Yes I'd be quite fearful of say, one tac heavy weapon fire, or two sternguard wasting their very good bolter shots while shooting with heavy weapons from inside a rhino, compared to a moving chimera chassis filled with meltavets.

And of course one glancing means they aint shooting at all either..

Therefore, better protection is different from mobility.

Yes, but there's not much one can do from inside a rhino, sure one to two missle/lascannon can be good, but anti vehicle will at least stun/shake the weak chassis, preventing that, and thus the movement to get them in prime position in order to use their mainstay weapons, or to head to an objective is a better use.

It's kinda why despite having things like battlewagons, the orks don't stuff loota's in it, and simply fire away from inside of it, because a single glance and you are not firing heavy weapons anymore, and now you just have a useless squad sitting off doing nothing.

Sure it's good help for objective sitting, but that's it, don't expect it's damage output to be anything but dismal unless the enemy cannot devote even a single glancing shot at it.

When the enemy charges into CC with TH/SS Terminators against your transport full of Sternguard, you'll be thankful you have it - because now you can combi-plasma/melta/hellfire round them just one more time, since they had to explode your transport before you can even be hurt.

Unit1126PLL wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Indeed, the rhino could sit still and the Marines could fire their heavy weapons out of it.

Yes I'd be quite fearful of say, one tac heavy weapon fire, or two sternguard wasting their very good bolter shots while shooting with heavy weapons from inside a rhino, compared to a moving chimera chassis filled with meltavets.

And of course one glancing means they aint shooting at all either..

Therefore, better protection is different from mobility.

Yes, but there's not much one can do from inside a rhino, sure one to two missle/lascannon can be good, but anti vehicle will at least stun/shake the weak chassis, preventing that, and thus the movement to get them in prime position in order to use their mainstay weapons, or to head to an objective is a better use.

It's kinda why despite having things like battlewagons, the orks don't stuff loota's in it, and simply fire away from inside of it, because a single glance and you are not firing heavy weapons anymore, and now you just have a useless squad sitting off doing nothing.

Sure it's good help for objective sitting, but that's it, don't expect it's damage output to be anything but dismal unless the enemy cannot devote even a single glancing shot at it.

When the enemy charges into CC with TH/SS Terminators against your transport full of Sternguard, you'll be thankful you have it - because now you can combi-plasma/melta/hellfire round them just one more time, since they had to explode your transport before you can even be hurt.

Or they just penetrate it with the raider's multi-melta shot with POTMS, and charge the troops at the now vulnerable sternguard, do you expect the enemy to be footslogging his TH/SS to your rhino, or maybe he'll just fire off a few lascannon shots from a standard landraider, his own anti-vehicle weapons, and the plethora of other options besides attempting a charge with TH/SS on a transport vehicle? Not to mention if you are sitting back with combi-plasma/melta just waiting for a chance like this, you aren't exactly using your sternguard to the fullest.

Not to mention that unlucky chance your sternguard are pinned, in which case they can't even shoot at all.

And even considering all this..It's just bolters against Terminator Armor, you'll likely kill 1-2, and than the hammers get you.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Indeed, the rhino could sit still and the Marines could fire their heavy weapons out of it.

Yes I'd be quite fearful of say, one tac heavy weapon fire, or two sternguard wasting their very good bolter shots while shooting with heavy weapons from inside a rhino, compared to a moving chimera chassis filled with meltavets.

And of course one glancing means they aint shooting at all either..

Therefore, better protection is different from mobility.

Yes, but there's not much one can do from inside a rhino, sure one to two missle/lascannon can be good, but anti vehicle will at least stun/shake the weak chassis, preventing that, and thus the movement to get them in prime position in order to use their mainstay weapons, or to head to an objective is a better use.

It's kinda why despite having things like battlewagons, the orks don't stuff loota's in it, and simply fire away from inside of it, because a single glance and you are not firing heavy weapons anymore, and now you just have a useless squad sitting off doing nothing.

Sure it's good help for objective sitting, but that's it, don't expect it's damage output to be anything but dismal unless the enemy cannot devote even a single glancing shot at it.

When the enemy charges into CC with TH/SS Terminators against your transport full of Sternguard, you'll be thankful you have it - because now you can combi-plasma/melta/hellfire round them just one more time, since they had to explode your transport before you can even be hurt.

Or they just penetrate it with the raider's multi-melta shot with POTMS, and charge the troops at the now vulnerable sternguard, do you expect the enemy to be footslogging his TH/SS to your rhino, or maybe he'll just fire off a few lascannon shots from a standard landraider, his own anti-vehicle weapons, and the plethora of other options besides attempting a charge with TH/SS on a transport vehicle? Not to mention if you are sitting back with combi-plasma/melta just waiting for a chance like this, you aren't exactly using your sternguard to the fullest.

Not to mention that unlucky chance your sternguard are pinned, in which case they can't even shoot at all.

And even considering all this..It's just bolters against Terminator Armor, you'll likely kill 1-2, and than the hammers get you.

Hey, if they want to spend their 250-point transport to kill my 35 point one, or any other of their plethora of AT options (all of which are expensive relative to the Rhino) then be my guest.

The point stands: A unit with a Rhino is more resilient than one without, especially if it forces the enemy to divert the firepower of an entire battletank to destroy the transport without perturbing the men inside. (Imagine what that crusader could do if the Sternguard DIDN'T have a rhino!)

What about you throw a dice for every unit in the transport exploding; on a 5 or 6 that units receives a wound without an armor save; This would affect MEQ and GEQ equally, while still providing an invul save to the heavy guys (such as termi/ HQ/ even nobs will feel it less due to their 2 wounds).

Plus, to this rule, if a unit is forced to get out of a transport in the enemy turn (so due to an explosion/wreck etc... made by an enemy fire/cc), all enemy units being at 2 inches of the former vehicle can decide to move till 6 inches to engage the outcomming unit in CC, even if the unit is out of LOS (due to a wreck blocking LOS of the outcomming unit, to prevent every exploit).

If there are no enemy units willing to engage the outcomming unit, or this happens outside the enemy turn, the outcomming unit can move to 3 inches wich after that is considered to be "to the ground" till the end of the upcomming turn (or same turn if it happens during your turn).

Those 3 rules would solve the transport problem while still making them attractive.

Might also help if Rhino's actually became open topped when they... I dunno... opened their top. Granted, that would only make RB's the even more obvious choice, but that's a matter of points disparity than anything.

Wouldn't mind a combination of 4th and 5th ed vehicle rules, myself. Reintroduce some of the 4th ed charts, leave the saves for cover, but in cases where the majority of the vehicle is covered, return the "Glances only" version of Hull Down. It always seemed odd to me that if one Heavy Bolter sponson or a Aether Sail tip was all that was visible on a vehilce the best I could hope for was a 4+ save to avoid a massive explosion from a direct hit. Make the vehicles more deadly to ride in, but mitigate that through use of terrain.

Then, perhaps have others have suggested, allow a "dig in" order" which is a move that allows you to "go to Ground" except that you can shoot from that location. Since you count as moving when you issue the order, only RF and Assault weapons may be fired the turn it happens. We may also rule that if you moved before hand, you may sacrifice your shooting phase to ding in instead, in much the same way that you can sacrifice shooting to run. It has the same negatives against charging as GTG does (IE, you lose the benefits of cover when charged by an enemy without grenades) and might even strike last against any charging enemy that has grenades, due to the disadvantaged position within a hole or other cover (and to reflect the traditional advantage of an assault in modern warfare: to dislodge dug in enemy troops) We could also perhaps add the benefit of a +1 to hit with ranged attacks for infantry models who have Dug In, to reflect the additional stability of being in a foxhole or the prone firing position. Only Infantry models on 25mm bases may use the "Dig In!" rule. Jump Infantry, due to their cumbersome jetpacks, gravity fields, wings, and other sources of short ranged flight are unable to dig in, using cover as temporary advantages only. Beasts lack the restraint needed to dig in, or are too large to take advantage of improved cover in a short amount of time.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Yes I'd be quite fearful of say, one tac heavy weapon fire, or two sternguard wasting their very good bolter shots while shooting with heavy weapons from inside a rhino, compared to a moving chimera chassis filled with meltavets.

Pop a chimera and the guys inside will a)die, b)take a pinning test, c)take a morale test, in that order. Unless the guard player gets lucky, those guys are out of the option.
Pop a rhino and the marines are completely fine (especially if they have FNP).
Having every single MEQ squad in a rhino means all that MEQ killing stuff you bought is pointless, making a huge chunk of your army obsolete until you manage to pop a Rhino.
3 Russes? Useful for popping rhinos, won't cause a scratch on the MEQ inside.
Plasma guns? Again, useful for popping Rhinos, but then you need something else to kill the guys who get out...assuming the 2/3 chance that you DON'T destroy it, of course.
Bottom line is, there are too many/too cheap transports for MEQ armies.

Pop a chimera and the guys inside will a)die, b)take a pinning test, c)take a morale test, in that order. Unless the guard player gets lucky, those guys are out of the option.

For 5+ points vs 15+ respectively, I'd say there's a good chance that explains it, along with the higher T and better armor save, people don't complain that SoB get the same save rate as space marines, even if they wound higher.

Having every single MEQ squad in a rhino means all that MEQ killing stuff you bought is pointless, making a huge chunk of your army obsolete until you manage to pop a Rhino.

Kinda the same for MEQ armies trying to pop vehicles on the other side with their weapons so their anti-infantry can fire at the innards.. I'm sorry but this is simple basic tactics.

3 Russes? Useful for popping rhinos, won't cause a scratch on the MEQ inside.

I miss the Ordnance chart too, but I dunno if they are bringing back separate charts or not.

Plasma guns? Again, useful for popping Rhinos, but then you need something else to kill the guys who get out...assuming the 2/3 chance that you DON'T destroy it, of course.

Buh? Plasma guns aren't good at killing MEQ? What?

Bottom line is, there are too many/too cheap transports for MEQ armies.

A chimera is 50+ points, it comes with multilaser, av12/10/10 frontal, and HB or HF sponsons, about 4 people can fire out of it.

A rhino is about 35 points, it comes with a stormbolter, av11/11/10, two people can fire out of it.

So why is the rhino undercosted again? Just because Space marines and Sisters of Battle can take it?

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Bottom line is, there are too many/too cheap transports for MEQ armies.

A chimera is 50+ points, it comes with multilaser, av12/10/10 frontal, and HB or HF sponsons, about 4 people can fire out of it.

A rhino is about 35 points, it comes with a stormbolter, av11/11/10, two people can fire out of it.

So why is the rhino undercosted again? Just because Space marines and Sisters of Battle can take it?

A Devilfish is 80 points, it comes with a burst cannon and two gun drones, AV12/11/10, nobody can fire out of it.

How are either of those two not undercosted?

A Town Called Malus wrote:

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

Bottom line is, there are too many/too cheap transports for MEQ armies.

A chimera is 50+ points, it comes with multilaser, av12/10/10 frontal, and HB or HF sponsons, about 4 people can fire out of it.

A rhino is about 35 points, it comes with a stormbolter, av11/11/10, two people can fire out of it.

So why is the rhino undercosted again? Just because Space marines and Sisters of Battle can take it?

A Devilfish is 80 points, it comes with a burst cannon and two gun drones, AV12/11/10, nobody can fire out of it.

How are either of those two not undercosted?

I'm not gonna apologize for that one, those and the Eldar Skimmers were made in an era when Skimmers were vastly more powerful than they were today. (Look up Tri-falcon Spam, alongside Fish of Fury, you'd never know Firewarriors were actually used to shoot things to good effect!)

That one's just edition changes showing that an army can be brought down with changes to certain rules.

Because they reflect the intent of designers to lower the cost of transports. Eldar and Tau transports, which haven't been adjusted since 4th ed (when skimmers also had additional benefits that have since been stripped by 5th ed rules) do not. Sadly if 6th nerfs transports, or raises their costs again, Tau and Eldar will have to suffer while those 5e books get their prices raised again. Likely though (read: hopefully) if transports get any nerfing the points cost will remain low to mitigate the down side. And then the additional hope that Tau and Eldar vehicles get adjusted soon.