I have played about 10 games in the 6th edition so im still relatively new, but i play vanilla marines and generally play very well but i have been feeling like besides the land raider everything else gets destroyed on the first turn and is just waste of points. I have been playing lots of horde armies lately even horde marines and i feel like 6 space marines is worth alot more than persay a predator that will probably blow up turn 1 or 2? obviously everyone is different and there are many strategies but does anyone else feel like tanks are going bye bye and air support is taking over..?

thoughts are appreciated

Meh, wait until your opponent brings a basilisk or a helldrake or something. You'll wish you had your vehicles then.

While I don't think that tanks overall got weaker, I'd say that low-AV ones did lose a bit, and high-AV ones gained a bit. As such, we're seeing a race to the top for AV values at my FLGS, which means that people are taking more anti-tank weapons, which means that low-AV armies are just screwed that much harder.

I usually run 3 rhinos, and they usually blow up turn 1. Lucky if they make it turn 2. I am getting a Land Raider, but still using 2 rhinos. I'll see how it goes.

I do feel the same, but I didn't play much in 5th edition, so I can't compare.

Kinda. One of my biggest complains is that 6th edition is clearly made so that every player has to buy a $70 (give or take) flyer in order to be even slightly competitive.

I'm actually planning on shelving my havocs for predators.

In most of the games I've played with havocs, my opponent will pay some attention to them and they fall over dead. Kind of like what I do to long fangs, oddly enough.

While I lose 25% of my guns, I'm planning on switching to a predator platform as they have better durability. AV13 is extremely hard to dislodge at range.

 Ailaros wrote:
Meh, wait until your opponent brings a basilisk or a helldrake or something. You'll wish you had your vehicles then.

While I don't think that tanks overall got weaker, I'd say that low-AV ones did lose a bit, and high-AV ones gained a bit. As such, we're seeing a race to the top for AV values at my FLGS, which means that people are taking more anti-tank weapons, which means that low-AV armies are just screwed that much harder.

Which hurts SM other than Land Raiders. But then again, that feeds the money machine. Your SM Preds and Razorbacks are getting wasted too fast? Buy this $70 Land Raider, maybe two, and you will be all set.

Tanks are hilariously easy to kill in 6th, often requiring half or less the average number of shots to destroy they'd require in 5th. AV12 vehicles for instance would need an "always on" alternating 3+/4+ cover save to equal their survivability (in terms of average number of enemy attacks needed to destroy them) *in the open* under 5th against something like an Autocannon or Krak missile.

Granted cover saves are easier to get in 6th but they're more typically 5+ sv's than 5th's 4+, and getting cover wasn't exactly hard in 5th.

To say nothing of the fact that a unit with krak grenades will practically auto-kill any non-walker/rear AV10 vehicle (95% of vehicles in the game) if they get into it and it doesn't matter if it's a flat out moving Holofield Falcon or a stationary Ork Trukk.



Some will counter that this has been somewhat balanced with tanks not being able to be silenced by a glancing hit, but quite often they're simply dead instead of silenced, especially 2 HP vehicles.

It is difficult to feel positive about tanks in 6th edition.

IDK, me and my IG buddies get tanked every game.

 Mad4Minis wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Meh, wait until your opponent brings a basilisk or a helldrake or something. You'll wish you had your vehicles then.

While I don't think that tanks overall got weaker, I'd say that low-AV ones did lose a bit, and high-AV ones gained a bit. As such, we're seeing a race to the top for AV values at my FLGS, which means that people are taking more anti-tank weapons, which means that low-AV armies are just screwed that much harder.

Which hurts SM other than Land Raiders. But then again, that feeds the money machine. Your SM Preds and Razorbacks are getting wasted too fast? Buy this $70 Land Raider, maybe two, and you will be all set.

Except that Land Raiders aren't very good.

why dont you think land raiders arent good?

I think it really depends on the vehicle. As Ailaros has said, high AV things have gotten better as they are still hard to pen at range and now glances won't prevent them from shooting. Also, artillery pieces that don't need line of sight are always nice. You can keep them from getting shot while you snipe out banners, ignore defense lines and hunt for characters.

I just brought a 10 vehicle list to TSFT in Seattle and did reasonably well with it. The key I found is not to mix and match. If you're going mech, go all mech. If you have some vehicles and some infantry people can use the appropriate gun to kill the appropriate target. Anti-personnel weapons kill your troops while anti-vehicle weapons kill your vehicles. If you're all meched up, your opponent can't use all his anti-horde weapons. In deployments like hammer and anvil your opponent has to slog pretty far to get his melta weapons to bear (just stay away from the sides where outflankers can come from).

Plus with everyone going all in on infantry, a lot of people aren't ready for 10+ vehicles. If you bring 3 rhinos in a mostly foot list, those are just 3 easy kill points and guaranteed first blood.

SMMSjosh14 wrote:
why dont you think land raiders arent good?

Slow, expensive, not enough firepower.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Tanks are hilariously easy to kill in 6th, often requiring half or less the average number of shots to destroy they'd require in 5th. AV12 vehicles for instance would need an "always on" alternating 3+/4+ cover save to equal their survivability (in terms of average number of enemy attacks needed to destroy them) *in the open* under 5th against something like an Autocannon or Krak missile.

Granted cover saves are easier to get in 6th but they're more typically 5+ sv's than 5th's 4+, and getting cover wasn't exactly hard in 5th.

To say nothing of the fact that a unit with krak grenades will practically auto-kill any non-walker/rear AV10 vehicle (95% of vehicles in the game) if they get into it and it doesn't matter if it's a flat out moving Holofield Falcon or a stationary Ork Trukk.



Some will counter that this has been somewhat balanced with tanks not being able to be silenced by a glancing hit, but quite often they're simply dead instead of silenced, especially 2 HP vehicles.

It is difficult to feel positive about tanks in 6th edition.

I actually feel very positive about tanks in 6th edition . . . then again I play Tau. Tau tanks have a 2+/3+ cover save that is on almost all the time, ignore all terrain and hit first during assaults if upgraded properly.

AV 13 is not hilariously easy to kill at range. Especially with people packing autocannons and plasma. No one wants to cough up for lascannons. This is speaking as an imperial. Obviously, dark lances and railguns will do the job.

Personally, I find that my auto/las predators perform much better than my BA 5 man dev units. I basically have quit using devastators, due to immobility and vulnerability to small arms fire.

Martel732 wrote:
AV 13 is not hilariously easy to kill at range.

+1. AV:13 and 14 really stand out. Below that it's rather pathetic, but hey, that's what an ADL is for.

Well your standard land raider is a transport armed with some of the longest range anti-tank weapons in the SM codex. So you either run it forward and waste the range or you sit back and waste the transport capacity. Either way you aren't using a capability that you paid points for to its fullest effect.

The crusader isn't as bad because you can put a larger terminator squad in it and its weapons are more conducive to its role. But it is still more than double the cost of a dakka pred with only a marginal increase in firepower. Unless you are running terminators to the front, get 2 preds.

And then there was the redeemer... For starters, the model is so big that you almost have to waste potms to fire your 2 flame templates at different targets because there's no way to get them on the same target most of the time. The biggest problem is the fact that its main weapons system is a flame template. So you drive forward and plan to shoot, disembark, then assault. So you are counting on 2 flame templates to clear off enough table space to place your squad inside more than 1" away from enemy models. Good luck with that...

So now our redeemer is in a situation where it can either unload its squad or shoot, but not both. So half of the capability that you paid for is, as with the standard raider, wasted.

So as you can see, the only way to use a land raider where you are going to be able to use its full range of abilities every turn is the crusader taxi of doom. Otherwise you are paying points for something that you aren't using.

Yeah, I don't get it either. It has two twin-linked lascannons and a multimelta, and can split fire, and can keep a squad of scoring units safe with 4HP of all-around AV14.

Sounds like a hell of a deal to me.

CrowSplat wrote:
Well your standard land raider is a transport armed with some of the longest range anti-tank weapons in the SM codex. So you either run it forward and waste the range or you sit back and waste the transport capacity. Either way you aren't using a capability that you paid points for to its fullest effect.

I would keep my scout/tactical squad inside it during the game, then pop them out late game to grab that objective the land raider has been sitting on.

That will keep the squad alive and not helldrake food. Nom Nom Nom

 labmouse42 wrote:

CrowSplat wrote:
Well your standard land raider is a transport armed with some of the longest range anti-tank weapons in the SM codex. So you either run it forward and waste the range or you sit back and waste the transport capacity. Either way you aren't using a capability that you paid points for to its fullest effect.

I would keep my scout/tactical squad inside it during the game, then pop them out late game to grab that objective the land raider has been sitting on.

That will keep the squad alive and not helldrake food. Nom Nom Nom

Except most people don't play against chaos marines all the time. and for the price of that land raider you could just buy another tac squad in a rhino. Or for a little bit more, a razorback, which can have a twin-linked lascannon and a mm.

I play with Tyranids so I'm never going to see the negative side of using AV units. I play roughly 80% of my games with IG players that LOVE to go Mech. Almost also full Mech. I'm talking 8-12 tanks, and 3 Vendetta coming off Reserves. He usually parking lots his army with LRBT and has 14 AV front and 13 AV Sides, with his Chimeras (5-6 usually) in the middle of this. He usually deploys perfect and I can never get a shot on anything less than AV13. This means, I almost have to run Zoanthropes with S10, Lances. With Hiveguard, I would need 5+ to glance, 6+ to pene... That's not realistic with 2 shots at 24". I cannot rely on that. If he gets to go first, I better hide my Zoanthropes, cause if he kills them, I practically lost. The only other way I can kill AV13 with nids (without using elite slots) is my MCs. Yay... I get smash S10 hits with reroll on the AP... but I have to get them to his tanks. And with 3 vendettas, 2-4 LRBT's, 1-2 Demolishers and 6 Chimeras with Melta/Plasma... they aren't going to make it.

I also played against a CSM player, he's relatively new to 6th, but he simply ran a lot of fast choice units and 3 rhinos with troops inside. Yes, I popped them with my 12 TL Devourer shots no problem, but I had to pop those instead of lighting up the marines with S6 shots. Rhinos are worth it, trust me. Stop looking at the negative.. Nancy! (Sorry I had to).

The point is, deploy better, use AV13/14 in your lists, or just run 5-6 rhinos and stop crying about how easy it is to pop them. Ailaros had it right. When you see basilisks and heldrakes... you'll want your Rhinos back. If someone ran Gunline and no Mech against my 2000 point list, I'd be so, so, so happy. Lol

Odd, I've found vehicles a lot more useful.
Maybe it's because I run Guard so I get lots of good options.
With the addition of the new Dark Angels power field, my mec guard have a new favorite ally.

Having a wall of heavy armor with a 4+ invul is pretty brutal.

-Matt

Giving assault terminators an assault range of 12" + 2D6 has utility against many lists. And when the crusader parks and shoots, some troops go bye bye. Yes, some lists own it, but what can you do in 6th?

Vehicles haven't gotten worse, they're differently fragile.

By that I mean things that weren't a threat before now need to be accommodated and other things that were previously a major issue are less of a concern.

I think perhaps you haven't changed your playing style very much from fifth, and that's the root cause of your issues. I wish I could offer advice on how to do things differently but I'm still working in that myself.

Are people playing games where AT guns besides plasma and autocannons are extinct entirely? Because I still see lascannons and meltaguns fairly routinely, along with lances and railguns and the like. Just because not everything is packing only meltaguns doesn't mean they aren't still quite common weapons.

 azreal13 wrote:
Vehicles haven't gotten worse, they're differently fragile.

By that I mean things that weren't a threat before now need to be accommodated and other things that were previously a major issue are less of a concern.

I think perhaps you haven't changed your playing style very much from fifth, and that's the root cause of your issues. I wish I could offer advice on how to do things differently but I'm still working in that myself.

They very definitely have gotten worse. They are significantly easier to kill, are practically auto-killed by the most common basic troops in the game in CC, and no longer can impact mission objectives in any way except specialized missions and only certain FoC slots, along with transports losing a whole ton of utility and smoke launchers becoming less useful.

They gained only in that glancing hits do not roll on a table and can get cover easier.

And on "stunned" they can still snap fire. Important to remember with tanks that they kick harder then 5th until they die.

 Niiai wrote:
And on "stunned" they can still snap fire. Important to remember with tanks that they kick harder then 5th until they die.

True, it's something, but that's not *much* more than in 5th (and depending on what the tank is armed with may not be useful at all, e.g. Vindicator, basic LRBT, Demolisher, Basilisk, etc), and very often then end up just being dead whereas in 5th they'd have lived a lot longer and kept trucking.

I'd argue it like this...

Better in 6th Edition

Fire support tanks (especially high AV fire support tanks)
Artillery
Fliers (obviously)

Worse in 6th Edition

Transports (especially low AV transports)
Assault Vehicles
Hydras
DE Vehicles
Low AV walker squadrons (Kanz and War Walkers)


Fire support tanks and Artillery both got better due to the removal of stun-locking. Transports got worse because of the rules regarding disembarking/embarking. Transport tactics as a whole, including the old Rhino Wall, have really taken a hit. DE vehicles took a huge hit.

Yes, vehicles got nerfed, but they needed it. I can't tell you how stupid it was to take out AV 10 in 5th because of the magic damage table. Can't roll a 5 or 6? You're boned!

Even still, transports still provide protection from blasts, templates, and small arms. People (like me) who invest in ranged antitank are lacking in other areas. (like HTH capability, like me) I have seen plenty of lists whose vast majority of firepower is 24" or less. You just never know what you will get.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Transports (especially low AV transports)

Transports got worse because of the rules regarding disembarking/embarking. Transport tactics as a whole, including the old Rhino Wall, have really taken a hit. DE vehicles took a huge hit.

You know, I've been using Rhinos for my CSM lately, and I'm starting to really dig em again.

The hit you take when they blow up probably wont do much. They are still so cheap it does not matter much if they do blow up.

What they do allow is for you to move a squad of marines 18" a turn, which is extremely useful when your trying to get linebreaker or an objective on turn 4.

They also allow you to do some fun blocking once your marines have departed. I've used 4 of them before to block a land raider for a turn.

You can also move up 12" on turn one by moving the rhino up 6" then moving 6" forward. This can put you in bolter range of most things.

The biggest drawback now with rhinos is its easy to give up first blood, and when your squad is 'stunned' from the rhino. Everything else is gravy.

This thread is bizarre. I find myself mech spamming with GK, and with IG, I'm feeling myself go more from foot lists to the chimera spam lists similar to 5th ed netlists. Either my local meta is skewed, or everyone elses is. Given that it's Adepticon planning season, I'm really hoping it's everyone elses.

Martel732 wrote:
Yes, vehicles got nerfed, but they needed it. I can't tell you how stupid it was to take out AV 10 in 5th because of the magic damage table. Can't roll a 5 or 6? You're boned!

Most AV10 vehicles are open topped (killing on a 4+, 6+ glancing under 5th), and have limited weapons (meaning you likely killed it after a few pens anyway even if you didn't roll a 5-6 due to stacking Weapon Destroyed/Immobilized results). It's also not hard to pen AV10 vehicles multiple times with what really is anti-infantry weaponry. If they were squadroned it was even worse, hell, under 5th, hit an AV10 open topped vehicle in a squadron with an AP1 weapon and you killed in on a 2+.

Transport rules only got worse for assault armies I think.

 Nitros14 wrote:
Transport rules only got worse for assault armies I think.

Only in regards to disembarking. Stunned results carry over to disembarking infantry, cannot hold or even contest while embarked, etc.

I've found my Landspeeders have gotten better from 5th to 6th. They can now Jink those few bolter shots that Glance them, and don't get wrecked on an immbolized result.

They are rather strong for long ranged fire support. Hopefully they drop to Codex: Dark Angel costs when the new Vanilla Marine book comes out. (Or Black Templar, but that's being a little greedy! )

Rhinos are good for Searchlights (since half the games now are Night Fighting turn 1) and the ability to hoof it across the board. Shine your Searchlight on some enemy tank, have Vindicator/Lascannon/Speeders blow it up. I use 3 Rhinos, and have all 3 light up 3 different targets, you usually do a decent amount of damage turn 1, especially against armies that don't get searchlights (and they go first!). They are a support tank and a decent transport. The only time they are a liability is Purge the Alien. However, I can live with them being a liability on 1/6 games.

Vindicators got stronger this addition with the change to how blast templates work against vehicles. Not to mention the general reduction of cover saves (Forests), it's a lot easier to score a kill on a tank now. I can't tell you the number of times I've blown up a Land Raider turn one and then shelled the contents with my second Vindicator. Or, in combination with Null Zone, how many Paladins/Assault Terminators/Special Characters/Daemon Princes/Necron Lords they've put down.

High AV walkers got stronger, too, since they are no longer limited to 2 weapons on the move. They can now fire everything when they move, and for Forgeworld's Contemptor Dreadnought(s), that's just peachy for Marine players.

The tanks that got weaker this addition are probably Rhinos (but who cares, they are 35pts) and any other non-AV13 Walker/Tank.

If you are using Predators, put them behind an Aegis Line. Vindicators, depending on the army, either Reserve them or make good use of terrain on the board so that you can approach. Land Raiders are decent/bad depending on your meta.

For non-Marine Factions, Like before, anything non-AV13 is weak. Well, except for long range fire support tanks, as that'll generally put them out of range of Plasma Guns or any special weapon people tote. Still Autocannon range, but generally the light armored ones have jink. And if you are AV12 with a jink, even better!

Meh my DE vehicles have always been fragile so they still work just fine.

Id say if your tanks are getting destroyed 1st turn you need to learn the value of cover and deploy your units better.

There's a ton of cover denying weapons/abilities in the game, and the average cover save has become less effective. Alpha strikes are more effective than ever, especially by the time you've gotten a whittled a tank down a couple HP's and it's on its last HP and never have to worry about a damage chart, just meeting the "to-wound" value.

Martel732 wrote:Even still, transports still provide protection from blasts, templates, and small arms. People (like me) who invest in ranged antitank are lacking in other areas. (like HTH capability, like me) I have seen plenty of lists whose vast majority of firepower is 24" or less. You just never know what you will get.

And now they have a serious mobility advantage. In 5th, it was 12" vs 6+D6". Now it's 18" vs. 6+D6". That's pretty huge.

Whatever you want to say about how vehicles are worse now compared to vehicles in 5th, it's nothing compared to the nerf to foot lists compared to foot lists in 5th, or assault armies compared to assault armies in 5th.

What nerfs were there to foot armies in 5th compared with 4th?

Part of the problem with assault armies in 6th is that nerfs to vehicles, they can't adequately cross and engage without having to sit on their butts for a turn getting shot at.

I personally find that most tanks fall under 3 categories , 1ºs Transports , low priority , good for a First blood case , kill one ignore the rest,glance to dead with HB/Auto cannons, 2º Tanks that get close like vindicators ,Land Raiders and MM/HF Land Speeders ,those can cause some damage and are best to deal quickly, they are a priority target for my lascannons , 3º and last Long Range type Tanks like TFC or triple las predators, they can be a treat if left lose , infiltrate some scouts (with stormtalons for marines) with appropriate equipment or drop pod/Deep strike some troops .

The real problem is that killing the tanks will shift the focus from other targets ,they may have been made easier to kill but they still take some time to kill and can dish out a good amount of damage before they are killed and use for 1 to 3 turns of fire-power to kill that could be occupied somewhere else .

The only real back-draw imo is that assault out of the tanks that have been pointed out.

They actually on average require much less firepower to kill, usually roughly half the amount of time/shots that they used to, making it faster/easier to engage the other targets.

Even though my leman Russes can die much faster than they ever did in 5th, they're also doing far more damage than they did. Back in 5th, my local player base was very good at stunlocking tanks into submission since every player seemed to have a space wolf with as many longfangs as possible.

Even if my Leman russ only lived to turn 3, I'd much prefer it lives to turn 3 and shoot every turn, than live till the end of the game and only fire once. Now that stunlocking is much harder to do, I love my russes. Could care less about assault units getting my tanks because that's what bubblewrap is for. Deepstriking units can be a pain as well, but that's a problem IG has in general that isn't really related to vehicles.

And since our transports are tougher and able to be taken in larger numbers than other armies, we do much better even with transport spam than other armies can. But then again we're IG, we're SUPPOSED to be the army that has the best tanks.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

DE Vehicles
Low AV walker squadrons (Kanz and War Walkers)

DE vehicles actually are a lot better these days. Other than being transports, which you already mentioned as being nerfed a lot. Ravagers use to get stunned or weaponed destroyed, even blown up all the time on glances. No more. With paper thin armor, raiders still have 3 hull points. You know how many times a raider goes down on account of hull points? Not many. With the night shield they rarely get dakkaed to death and thus usually take concerted effort from real AT to take out. Even better they dont have to spend 10 points to get the 5++. In most cases they only need to move.

All walkers got worse. Even AV13 walkers can now suffer from meltabombs and haywire grenades. You know how long a walker lasts against firedragons or wyches in close combat? 1 one turn, doesnt even get to strike.

Honestly, unless people only ever got hit with glances, you're tanks probably aren't *that* much less stunlocked, and if they're hitting vehicles often enough to ensure that, they're likely being dead instead of shaken/stunned.

Bubblewrap isn't always viable (depends highly on build), and lets be honest, it's not hard to force a path through a unit of guardsmen, especially with 6E wound allocation.

This is of course to say nothing of the fact that not all tanks are "sit in the far corner and shoot things" tanks, stuff like Hellhounds, Armored Sentinels, Chimeras, Vindicators, etc.

Exergy wrote: You know how many times a raider goes down on account of hull points? Not many. With the night shield they rarely get dakkaed to death and thus usually take concerted effort from real AT to take out.

Mathematically, this doesn't make much sense. Raiders, unless being shot at by lots of AP1/2 stuff, should go down to HP's quite often, more often to HP's in fact.

An S7 autocannon will take about 50% less shots to kill a Raider with 3HP and a 5+ invul through HP's than it will through an "explodes!" result, needing about 18 BS3 autocannon shots to kill through a penetrating Explodes and 12.5 to kill through HP loss.

An S6 Multilaser should take about half as many hits to take down an AV11 3HP 5+invul Ravager will take half as many shots of average to kill through HP loss than to kill on a penetrate.

It's not unless you start tossing stuff like lascannons and meltaguns at them does it become more economical to go for Explodes results than HP.

Vaktathi wrote:Part of the problem with assault armies in 6th is that nerfs to vehicles, they can't adequately cross and engage without having to sit on their butts for a turn getting shot at.

Yeah, cross-field charges became more dangerous for mech armies, but they became flat-out suicidal for foot lists.

Welcome to a world of worse cover, focus fire, precise shots, by-model cover, and taking casualties from the front. And that's to say nothing of horde armies that were also assualt-based. You don't see slugga tides or power blobs anymore for very, very good reasons.

Really, the only things that can survive much out in the open any more are terminators and... you got it, vehicles, especially of the AV13+ variety.

Plus, it's a utitlity thing. Yeah, transports got easier to blow up, but they can't get stunned or take immobilized results from glances anymore, and they can move 6" faster. Tanks' shooting is no longer shut down by glances. Even if a vehicle dies a little faster now, they are able to actually accomplish their missions faster as well, moreso than the increased speed of their demises.

I plan on running a pretty mech list for my 2k army,

3 preds
1 LR
2 rhino

not really that worried about armor being weak when you have enough of it.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Honestly, unless people only ever got hit with glances, you're tanks probably aren't *that* much less stunlocked, and if they're hitting vehicles often enough to ensure that, they're likely being dead instead of shaken/stunned.

Bubblewrap isn't always viable (depends highly on build), and lets be honest, it's not hard to force a path through a unit of guardsmen, especially with 6E wound allocation.

This is of course to say nothing of the fact that not all tanks are "sit in the far corner and shoot things" tanks, stuff like Hellhounds, Armored Sentinels, Chimeras, Vindicators, etc.

When every list in your area spammed missiles like it was going out of style, and they only need one glance to shut up a tank, trust me, I saw lots of stun locking. They'd just glance each tank once, then focus on killing your troops.

In 6th though, I'm seeing less missile launchers, and even where they're plentiful, they can never silence my tank unless they can glance it 3 times in a row (which is harder than it looks) I think I could count the number of times I've been "stunlocked", even for just a turn, on one hand, and those were against DE players spamming the heck out of lances. Missile launchers are a joke to Leman Russes now, unlike in 5th, where they were extremely annoying, and could even cripple a tank if they were lucky.

Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, cross-field charges became more dangerous for mech armies, but they became flat-out suicidal for foot lists.

Welcome to a world of worse cover, focus fire, precise shots, by-model cover, and taking casualties from the front. And that's to say nothing of horde armies that were also assualt-based. You don't see slugga tides or power blobs anymore for very, very good reasons.

And the mech assault armies aren't really any more common (at least competitively), unless they are, as you said, AV13+ or TEQ's.

Plus, it's a utitlity thing. Yeah, transports got easier to blow up, but they can't get stunned or take immobilized results from glances anymore, and they can move 6" faster.

Can't hold/contest objectives at all, disembarking troops still affected by shaken/stunned,

Tanks' shooting is no longer shut down by glances.

They're often dead instead is the problem.

Even if a vehicle dies a little faster now, they are able to actually accomplish their missions faster as well, moreso than the increased speed of their demises.

the problem is that they don't die "a little faster", it's that, especially for medium vehicles, they die a whole lot faster.

MrMoustaffa wrote:
When every list in your area spammed missiles like it was going out of style, and they only need one glance to shut up a tank, trust me, I saw lots of stun locking. They'd just glance each tank once, then focus on killing your troops.

On Chimeras? Sure, but then they'd still be penetrating more than glancing, so stunlocking under 6th wouldn't be tremendously different. However, where before 15 missiles from 3 long fang units on average were killing 1 tank, now they'll likely be killing 2 through HP's. Against LRBT's, on average they'd glance once, if lucky twice, so that shouldn't have been a huge factor.

In 6th though, I'm seeing less missile launchers, and even where they're plentiful,

largely because they're notably less effective against most targets relative to other weaponry. That's a rather unique condition specific to the missile launcher.

Missile launchers are a joke to Leman Russes now, unlike in 5th, where they were extremely annoying, and could even cripple a tank if they were lucky.

On a 1/6 chance, they weren't much scarier in 5th either.

Man, I totally agree. I lose tanks literally every turn.

Then again, I do play an Armored Battlegroup...

But on a serious note, I haven't noticed that much of a difference in how fast my tanks die. That would probably be because Tau Railguns are almost always going to shoot my Russ before my Chimeras, so naturally the Chimeras last longer. HP have added a very unique aspect to fighting tanks. With HPs my opponents can see which tank is about to die, and usually shoot the tank with the least, even if other tanks are clearly about to wreck something important. They want the kill so bad after working so hard to crack AV14

I play ig. I felt the pain first game I played. I could care less about being able to shoot longer before dying. Because now I die after a turn as opposed to castling and shooting 3 turns then moving on objectives the last two rounds and pray I drive close enough to drop my guys off before being popped. Small arms fire rips apart transports now too.

The biggest problem is that transports got a big nerf. Proper tanks didn't get a big hit because av 13/14 is still solid and now they can shoot consistently. And the problems with the transport nerf is that some armies rely on their transports as armor (ig) where as marines really don't need them to be effective.

This is what we get when fluff bunnies and casual players squeal loud enough and long enough. And gamesworkshop doesn't know how to balance anything so there you have it.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Are people playing games where AT guns besides plasma and autocannons are extinct entirely? Because I still see lascannons and meltaguns fairly routinely, along with lances and railguns and the like. Just because not everything is packing only meltaguns doesn't mean they aren't still quite common weapons.

 azreal13 wrote:
Vehicles haven't gotten worse, they're differently fragile.

By that I mean things that weren't a threat before now need to be accommodated and other things that were previously a major issue are less of a concern.

I think perhaps you haven't changed your playing style very much from fifth, and that's the root cause of your issues. I wish I could offer advice on how to do things differently but I'm still working in that myself.

They very definitely have gotten worse. They are significantly easier to kill, are practically auto-killed by the most common basic troops in the game in CC, and no longer can impact mission objectives in any way except specialized missions and only certain FoC slots, along with transports losing a whole ton of utility and smoke launchers becoming less useful.

They gained only in that glancing hits do not roll on a table and can get cover easier.

Changes to glancing in 6th have roughly doubled the number of shots my Russes get off before they're popped. You can't dismiss an extra 2 turns of firepower, often the first two turns, as some sort of minor buff.

Mechanised IG in sixth edition is pimp.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Missile launchers are a joke to Leman Russes now, unlike in 5th, where they were extremely annoying, and could even cripple a tank if they were lucky.

On a 1/6 chance, they weren't much scarier in 5th either.

But if you get that 6 you then have a 5/6 chance of stopping the tank from shooting next turn, and even that one bad result permanently immobilizes it. In 5th you could spam a ton of shots and hope for a suppressing glance, but in 6th all you do is take off a hull point and the tank keeps shooting. Suppression is no longer possible, you NEED melta/lascannons/etc, the single-role tank killers you really don't want to have to bring instead of multi-role weapons like MLs and plasma.

Anyway, in 6th it's simple:

Against melta/lascannons/etc there's no change. You're probably dying to an "explodes" result before HP loss is a factor, and the chances of that result are the same as in 5th.

Against assault there's no change. Technically you go from being hit in a 4+ to a 3+ (few tanks could reduce it to a 6 without giving up shooting), but in 5th you were still screwed if anything more threatening than a single tactical marine got to assault your tank. Moving the average result from "almost certainly dead" to "massively overkilled" is not a meaningful change, it just lets assault players laugh at how they removed 15 HP in a single charge.

Against other weapons it balances out. Tanks die faster, but are more likely to function effectively until they die instead of being suppressed and useless until someone finally rolls a 5+ on the damage table.


So, it all depends on how you look at it. If your tanks are there to kill stuff or deliver a unit they got better. If your tanks are there to be a 7-turn bunker on an objective they got worse. But for units like the Leman Russ 6th is an improvement over 5th.

I wish more people would go mechless army lists. It'd make games so much easier....

-.-

I run 5 Trukks, 2 Battlewagons lists fairly regularly and I don't see that big a difference between now and Fifth. Something to consider is 75% of all games you will be either be going first, have night fighting cover saves, or both. So most of the time you will get cover from alpha strike or get to alpha strike your opponents AT. I feel like now I don't always have to take a KFF to keep trukks from dying turn one. and It's crazy easy to put three looted wagons behind an ADL. Armour 11 with a 4+ cover save can be a lot harder to kill than you'd think.

I use to run mech orks in 3rd and 4th and they would die to a harsh breeze. I'm finding that in 6th my vehicles last a lot better in 6th them back then. Mech did need to brought down a peg from 5th as it was way too overpowered. I like the way mech works now I think its strong enough to be effective but weak enough not to be too overpowered. If you are struggling to use your mech effectivly try some new tactics.

BA AV13 spam list still can probably do very well, havent try them this edition though.
Now a Cruising BA Predator can fire 2 LCs and snap shot the AC!

Also because BA are fast if they move 6" they can fire everything.

Sinji wrote:
Also because BA are fast if they move 6" they can fire everything.

yea, that's great since 5th, but cruising firing 2 weapons and 1 snap shot is a good buff especially for the Baal Preds. Now HB sponsons are better investments.

Yeah that NF half the time (or more, I tend to roll on the Strategic table with the Night Fight option) does make a big difference in survivability at range. When I play Tau I always equip my Railgun units with a Blacksun Filter for that very reason.

Overall, in my games I do see enemy armor dying faster than it did before, while on the flip side my tanks have tended to be useful later into the game and are having a bigger impact on the game than they were before. Though the combination of Jink and Shrouded is probably the most responsible for that added effect.

Saythings wrote:
I play with Tyranids so I'm never going to see the negative side of using AV units. I play roughly 80% of my games with IG players that LOVE to go Mech. Almost also full Mech. I'm talking 8-12 tanks, and 3 Vendetta coming off Reserves. He usually parking lots his army with LRBT and has 14 AV front and 13 AV Sides, with his Chimeras (5-6 usually) in the middle of this. He usually deploys perfect and I can never get a shot on anything less than AV13. This means, I almost have to run Zoanthropes with S10, Lances. With Hiveguard, I would need 5+ to glance, 6+ to pene... That's not realistic with 2 shots at 24". I cannot rely on that. If he gets to go first, I better hide my Zoanthropes, cause if he kills them, I practically lost. The only other way I can kill AV13 with nids (without using elite slots) is my MCs. Yay... I get smash S10 hits with reroll on the AP... but I have to get them to his tanks. And with 3 vendettas, 2-4 LRBT's, 1-2 Demolishers and 6 Chimeras with Melta/Plasma... they aren't going to make it.

I also played against a CSM player, he's relatively new to 6th, but he simply ran a lot of fast choice units and 3 rhinos with troops inside. Yes, I popped them with my 12 TL Devourer shots no problem, but I had to pop those instead of lighting up the marines with S6 shots. Rhinos are worth it, trust me. Stop looking at the negative.. Nancy! (Sorry I had to).

The point is, deploy better, use AV13/14 in your lists, or just run 5-6 rhinos and stop crying about how easy it is to pop them. Ailaros had it right. When you see basilisks and heldrakes... you'll want your Rhinos back. If someone ran Gunline and no Mech against my 2000 point list, I'd be so, so, so happy. Lol

Parking lots you say.... Mawlocs I say....

I can relate to both sides of this argument. I play both IG and SW. Armor saturation is clutch to utilizing tanks in 6th. I don't really think that Rhinos and other AV11 and below transports are very viable anymore. For My Space Wolves, Drop Pods have become the go-to transport. They are much more reliable now. On the other end of the spectrum, heavily mechanized armies that have some serious AV12+ armor saturation can be hard to drop. Most people just don't have the volume of anti-tank fire. Imperial Guard armies with 10 tanks can be a pain. There's the 4 Land Raider Crusader with 4+ invulnerable cheesyness. I think that tanks, as a general category did take more losses than gains, in 6th, but it's not that bad. I like tailoring new lists for new editions.

i use 2 Las sponson Acannon preds in my chaos force i find them very durable ifi have the points ill throw a vindicator in

 michaelcycle wrote:
I could care less about being able to shoot longer before dying.

How much less could you care?


In general, I have to say I like 6th ed vehicle rules more than those of the 5th. Yes, it was a nerf to the tanks, but that's okay. However, one thing I dislike is how easy vehicles are to kill in close combat, that just doesn't seem right. Bunch of guys with grenades shouldn't be able to blow up a main battle tank just like that.

 Crimson wrote:

 michaelcycle wrote:
I could care less about being able to shoot longer before dying.

How much less could you care?

LOL! Man I only just manage to control myself every time I see that awful phrase, thanks for making me chuckle.

If you don't care about how long you're shooting and thus contributing what exactly do you want from you're vehicles? Sit there looking pretty while they're stun locked each turn?

Something I've noticed in play is that my opponents who are having the worst luck with tanks are the ones trying to use transports as MBT. I think it's been skewing opinions, kind of a "my auto-pwn button doesn't work anymore? Then it purely sucks because it isn't auto-pwn!"

Rhinos are only dead if they are your only armor. Drop pods, to me, force early game commitments and I can't adjust to enemy movements as well.

Thinking to my battles against tanks in 6th Edition, the common issue my opposition seems to have is I hit the tanks early and hit them hard with my Rail-guns and missile pods at the start then later deep strike fusion blasters in close.

If I were playing Imperium we could say Lasguns and Krak missiles at range with dropped in Meltas and Multimeltas and have a similar sort of impact.

Now while my opponents still play all the lovely metal boxes that the Imperium uses, they also tend to put expensive stuff in their lists. Things like deathstar units, flyers, land raiders and nemesis deathknights. The result is that even early on in the game, I have a surplus of tank killing weapons and rip apart the LRs, Predators and Vindicators very quickly leaving only AV 11 to face a mass of ST 7, 8 and 10. The results are rarely pretty for them and I have a footslogging enemy to deal with.

So what are the counters to this, aside from abandoning tanks altogether.

1) Lots of big LOS blocking terrain. Hide those tanks from view as long as possible before you are ready to use them.

2) Take out the tank killers. I admit broadsides are tough to kill now that you can't arrive from reserves and assault in the same turn, but Devastators and Longfangs go down just as easy as they used to.

3) More tanks. Yes I can peel off a land raider a turn. But I can only deal with a couple of anything else in a turn unless the dice totally fall in my favor. If I have to shoot up a half dozen Razorbacks and a platoon of Predators, some of those Razorbacks are going to get in close where some angry dudes in power armour can jump out and wreck my gak.

How about this: don't use death stars and present multiple targets with distributed firepower.

Besides, Tau are pretty much the gold standard for killing tanks anyway.

If you don't care about how long you're shooting and thus contributing what exactly do you want from you're vehicles? Sit there looking pretty while they're stun locked each turn?

I want to have a terribly annoying wall packed full of melta guns and plasma guns you really have to struggle with to get to the soft insides. Not a 1 turn use armor save I just paid 50 points for per unit. What little firepower chimeras have never hits anyhow.

 michaelcycle wrote:
I play ig. I felt the pain first game I played. I could care less about being able to shoot longer before dying. Because now I die after a turn as opposed to castling and shooting 3 turns then moving on objectives the last two rounds and pray I drive close enough to drop my guys off before being popped. Small arms fire rips apart transports now too.

The biggest problem is that transports got a big nerf. Proper tanks didn't get a big hit because av 13/14 is still solid and now they can shoot consistently. And the problems with the transport nerf is that some armies rely on their transports as armor (ig) where as marines really don't need them to be effective.

This is what we get when fluff bunnies and casual players squeal loud enough and long enough. And gamesworkshop doesn't know how to balance anything so there you have it.

I really hate to be a jerk, but this post comes off as really missing the point on the vehicle change. So you can't just sit back for 3-4 turns bunkered in vehicles where my enemy can't hurt you, too bad. I apologize for singling you out, but lets be honest, a simple transport with AV11 or AV12 armor should not be able to shrug off lascannons or missiles for any amount of time.

In a transport you SHOULD have to utilize cover to its fullest and you SHOULD need to make the enemy choose between popping a cheap transport and shooting at a higher threat, higher armor vehicle.

If you want something to shrug off high str, low ap, anti armor weapons (barring melta, because almost nothing can take melta to the face) then you should be rolling heavy AV13/AV14.

Transports get troops where they need to go and protect said troops from anti troop weapons. Anything beyond that is a blessing from the Emperor (or whatever heathen idols you filthy heretics and xenos worship )

6th has brought a watershed change to how i play vehicles, so perhaps this advice will help.

Small transports are dead, and 6th edition killed them. Bringing those rhinos and chimeras out of cover at all will result in them dying horribly a good portion of the time, as glancing hits are easy to come by against av 11 or 12, and all the heavy ordinance that people pack into their lists seldom has a better target the first turn anyway. Having to keep them 'in' cover as was suggested negates their only advantage, the fact that they are faster than the infantry riding inside.

So you should instead consider deepstriking lists, outflanking lists, and/or some other method to get troops from point A to point 'kill-stuff-now' with a minimum of fuss. Fliers are good for this too. (especially the necron variety)

The above said, i've still had decent luck with dreadnoughts, razorbacks, and other light (cheap) vehicles sporting long-ranged weaponry. These you can easily keep in cover and still expect to do their thing, just don't count on them as transports and you should be fine.

Small transports are hardly dead. They still protect from small arms fire and templates and blasts.

Deep striking requires reserving, which is usually a disaster as you piecemeal yourself. I love it when people reserve.

Rhinos are cheap and enemy armies do not have unlimited amounts of anti-tank fire. Sure, they are going to die, but they are so cheap its well worth it.

Why doesn't the enemy have anything better to shoot at? If you reserve as little as possible (flyers) they should be faced with almost all of your list. Do you comprehend how *many* Chimeras the IG can throw at you? Cover is only 5++, and have triple the hulls works much better.

Tanks are fine. Fielded properly, they do what they are supposed to do: heavy firepower and bullet-shield/magnets. However, the same people who want every codex to have an MTG-like lock on the game are usually the same ones who figure a tank is safe everywhere on the field.

Its called tactics. Start using them.

Tanks are pretty much useless here, but only because we have a Tau inflation (that I am a proud part of)

If I get the first turn, Mr. Tau, my BA still get 24" closer to you. That's not useless. Any rail gun or plasma rifle shooting a tank is not shooting something that I care about.

Martel732 wrote:Small transports are hardly dead. They still protect from small arms fire and templates and blasts.

Deep striking requires reserving, which is usually a disaster as you piecemeal yourself. I love it when people reserve.

Rhinos are cheap and enemy armies do not have unlimited amounts of anti-tank fire. Sure, they are going to die, but they are so cheap its well worth it.

Why doesn't the enemy have anything better to shoot at? If you reserve as little as possible (flyers) they should be faced with almost all of your list. Do you comprehend how *many* Chimeras the IG can throw at you? Cover is only 5++, and have triple the hulls works much better.

Figure i'll address a few of the above:
Protection from small arms fire means very little if the transport doesn't ever make it into small arms fire range. Ditto, templates. Blasts tend towards stuff that can pop AV 11, so that one is hit or miss, if you'll pardon the expression.

If you are going to deepstrike (and i do recommend doing so) there are plenty of options that will insure most of your stuff comes in on the second turn. (if not the first). Why take deepstriking units and do nothing to support them? Failing anything which gives you a bonus to it; your units still stand a 2/3rds chance of coming in each time you roll for them which is hardly 'piecemeal'.

Because your stuff is all in metal boxes? Sure you may have 100 models on the army list but if they are mostly in tin cans those vehicles are going to bear the brunt of the initial assault unless you presented a more tempting target elsewhere. All the incidental krak missile, rail gun, eldrich lance, etc fire is going to be aimed at blunting your advance across the board so many of those vehicles are never going to make it to their intended destination.

Peregrine wrote:
But if you get that 6 you then have a 5/6 chance of stopping the tank from shooting next turn, and even that one bad result permanently immobilizes it.

All true. But quite often you may have taken multiple hits in a turn, and now instead of just sitting around for a turn, it's dead instead. And it's not like tanks don't still have penetrating hits inflicted on them with great frequency.

In 5th you could spam a ton of shots and hope for a suppressing glance, but in 6th all you do is take off a hull point and the tank keeps shooting.

Assuming a single glance.

Suppression is no longer possible

It's still entirely possible, you just need a pen to do it. Many weapons will penetrate much more often than they'll glance (e.g. Autocannons vs AV10/11, Lascannons vs anything but AV14, etc)

Anyway, in 6th it's simple:

Not quite so much.

Against melta/lascannons/etc there's no change. You're probably dying to an "explodes" result before HP loss is a factor, and the chances of that result are the same as in 5th.

Yes, but having *TWO* overlapping kill systems drastically reduces the average life expectancy. For instance, the chance to kill a Leman Russ with a Lascannon by penetrating and rolling a 5/6 hasn't changed, you still need an average of 18 hits. However, because of HP's, you only need an average of 9 hits to kill through HP's alone, only half what it takes for a penetrating kill. Taken together, since the system is "If X *OR* Y is met" this means you actually need an average of about 7-8 hits before one or the other has been met as a non-mutually exclusive kill system, meaning we've reduced the average number of lascannon shots needed on average to kill that Leman Russ by less than half, almost a third.

Against assault there's no change.

There's actually quite a very large change, cripplingly so.

Technically you go from being hit in a 4+ to a 3+ (few tanks could reduce it to a 6 without giving up shooting)

Anything Fast could, but it was an option either way for everything that no longer exists now as a tactical alternative.

, but in 5th you were still screwed if anything more threatening than a single tactical marine got to assault your tank.

A 10man squad with krak grenades hits a 6" or less moving vehicle under 5th. 5 hits, 1.66 pens, 0.55 kill results, in other words, in other words, a slightly higher than 50/50 average result to kill with straight average rolling.

Under 6th, you only get 0.37 kill results, but inflict an average of 3.33 hull points in HP damage. This means that, while the chance to kill through a Damage Table result is reduced to about 2/3rd's of what it was, with straight average rolling you'll kill the tank, even with somewhat below average rolling you'll likely still kill it.

Moving the average result from "almost certainly dead" to "massively overkilled" is not a meaningful change, it just lets assault players laugh at how they removed 15 HP in a single charge.

No, it's gone from "slightly worse than a coin flip odds" with the option (if you move over 6") to swing it massively in your favor, to "assured destruction with no mitigation" as long as they don't roll total crap.

Against other weapons it balances out. Tanks die faster, but are more likely to function effectively until they die instead of being suppressed and useless until someone finally rolls a 5+ on the damage table.

Except that the suppression mechanic still exists, all that's changed is glancing hits which against most AT guns are a minority of hits.

The only time your tanks will be firing more often is if your opponent is doing a single glance a turn and nothing more and not bringing bigger guns to bear. That's it. That's the only time you'll really get more mileage out of them. That's a relatively niche condition even under previous editions.

Additionally, against a competent opponent concentrating fire or multi-weapon AT units, chances are often that you'll simply be dead instead of disabled for a turn.

On top of that, they have no ability to affect mission objectives at all anymore, even with embarked infantry units.

So, it all depends on how you look at it. If your tanks are there to kill stuff or deliver a unit they got better. If your tanks are there to be a 7-turn bunker on an objective they got worse. But for units like the Leman Russ 6th is an improvement over 5th.

Again, only if you're talking about taking 1 glancing hit a turn and nothing else, even then it's debateable because they likely won't be there towards the end of the game as often.

Leman Russ tanks also got hit with Heavy, which, you'd think would be nice, but since GW retained the restrictions on Ordnance weapons, makes the basic and primary heavy models significantly less useful on top of that

 Neorealist wrote:

Martel732 wrote:Small transports are hardly dead. They still protect from small arms fire and templates and blasts.

Deep striking requires reserving, which is usually a disaster as you piecemeal yourself. I love it when people reserve.

Rhinos are cheap and enemy armies do not have unlimited amounts of anti-tank fire. Sure, they are going to die, but they are so cheap its well worth it.

Why doesn't the enemy have anything better to shoot at? If you reserve as little as possible (flyers) they should be faced with almost all of your list. Do you comprehend how *many* Chimeras the IG can throw at you? Cover is only 5++, and have triple the hulls works much better.

Figure i'll address a few of the above:
Protection from small arms fire means very little if the transport doesn't ever make it into small arms fire range. Ditto, templates. Blasts tend towards stuff that can pop AV 11, so that one is hit or miss, if you'll pardon the expression.

If you are going to deepstrike (and i do recommend doing so) there are plenty of options that will insure most of your stuff comes in on the second turn. (if not the first). Why take deepstriking units and do nothing to support them? Failing anything which gives you a bonus to it; your units still stand a 2/3rds chance of coming in each time you roll for them which is hardly 'piecemeal'.

Because your stuff is all in metal boxes? Sure you may have 100 models on the army list but if they are mostly in tin cans those vehicles are going to bear the brunt of the initial assault unless you presented a more tempting target elsewhere. All the incidental krak missile, rail gun, eldrich lance, etc fire is going to be aimed at blunting your advance across the board so many of those vehicles are never going to make it to their intended destination.

Deep striking large amounts of forces is a poor scheme. A 2/3 chance ensures nothing, so you are indeed piecemealing your army. I imagine the comeback to this is the aegis comm uplink. However, the portion of your list that starts on the board is going to take it in the face badly while waiting for the miracle deep strikes to happen. When the deep strikers do show up, they often get one turn of shooting and then assaulted in the face. If you use drop pods, the stuff that has to start rolling on turn 2 by definition can't be there on turn 1 to support. The turn 1 guys will likely already be in HTH when the turn 2 guys show up. They can't shoot into said HTH fights. You get dismantled piecemeal.

If they shoot at my metal boxes with troops, then they are not shooting my metal boxes with guns. I'm fine with that, because if I shoot their shooters, while their shooters are shooting my transports, I can just proceed to win the ensuing shoot out and mobility is not as important.

As an Ork player I have been feeling the changes in my games. I face DE fairly often Tyranids and of course marines of all types. Not only have I noticed my battle wagons popping allot faster but when they do I am losing half of the boys inside now. I think DE got hit in that respect as well. Battle wagons are notoriously easy to get side shots on and lances don't need even need to open topped giving a + on the damage chart but still inflicting st4 hits just hurt a little to much. People are bringing allot more melta and ap2 weapons now days to deal with terminators and that does not help either. I really don't like that a vehicle moving flat out can be hit just as easily as anything else in cc either that one just seemed wrong to me as well. It's made me change my game up allot and how I move around the table but I no longer look at my vehicles with any confidence what so ever that they will achieve their purpose which is what really kinda bothers me the most I know it's all chance but just from the games I have played they just don't perform their duty more often than not. I would probably feel different if I actually counted on those units to shoot something but again I play orks so ya can't really rely on them for that unless it's a dakka jet.

Martel732 wrote: Deep striking large amounts of forces is a poor scheme. A 2/3 chance ensures nothing, so you are indeed piecemealing your army. I imagine the comeback to this is the aegis comm uplink. However, the portion of your list that starts on the board is going to take it in the face badly while waiting for the miracle deep strikes to happen. When the deep strikers do show up, they often get one turn of shooting and then assaulted in the face. If you use drop pods, the stuff that has to start rolling on turn 2 by definition can't be there on turn 1 to support. The turn 1 guys will likely already be in HTH when the turn 2 guys show up. They can't shoot into said HTH fights. You get dismantled piecemeal.

If they shoot at my metal boxes with troops, then they are not shooting my metal boxes with guns. I'm fine with that, because if I shoot their shooters, while their shooters are shooting my transports, I can just proceed to win the ensuing shoot out and mobility is not as important.

You appear to have a hypothetical cheap to field army that can shoot and assault well, and can buy cheap vehicles in which to do so as well. Which one is that again? as most armies are 2 out of 3 of those at best. I'd suggest sticking with the theme of a specific army type when addressing my points. (you appeared to have chosen guard for this purpose from your previous posts right up until you said that you'd assault stuff coming out of drop pods with impunity...)

The stuff you tend to bring in for a deepstriking list are your long-ranged support elements. The stuff that you can put in cover and that doesn't need to move around much to do it's thing. Then you drop pod (or what have you) your forward elements to shoot at targets of opportunity (typically the enemies long-ranged support elements as they tend to give the best cost-per-action taken) and give your opponent a much more immediate threat than your long-ranged support units. It actually works pretty well if the dice don't absolutely hate you on reserve rolls and scatter.

I guess it depends a lot on which army is deep striking as well. But in general, I think deep striking and reserves suck hard.

Reserves used to be good, when you could throw your entire army in reserve to ignore turn 1 entirely if you went second, however this was only reliable if you had an astropath or hive commander, something of that variety. Now you lose the game if at any point you don't have anything on the board.

I did that a lot as guard too. Wasting a turns means my sardine cans ignore a turn of stunned or shaken, maybe even destroyed. That's huge, making a typically 5 turn game into a 4 turn game. The longer I can hide in my cars the better since a 5+ save is a joke. Marine players can squeal about their razor back rhino spam lists getting nerfed but I'm tired of hearing it. You get a 3+ you should be foot slogging - guard and dark eldar need transports.

My friend would reserve everything in his dark eldar list unless he went turn one so he could get a nice salvo of dark lance fire before his paper planes were wrecked turn 2 or 3. A viable tactic for paper planes. Now de are lucky if their cars last beyond the first turn.

While the low AV vehicles are crap they still serve a vital purpose - protecting the squad inside. Also rhinos, razorbacks and chimeras still block LOS and can be kept relatively alive for one turn by popping smoke.

Now if we are going to expect a Razorback to stand up as well as a true tank, we are going to be sorely disappointed. If we look at it that I can have two razorbacks instead of one predator, it is not so bad.

The best thing in 6th is the bonus that the LR, LR demolisher and any other large blast template got... Since only the template has to touch a tank, we are talking S 8 hits on anything... Including 3 rhinos side-by-side!!!

Rhinos are really only for shooting units, and should be transporting such.

Tanks actually got better this edition, no longer could a stray glance immobilize, weapon destroy or shake/stun your vehicle.

You need to saturate your tanks or take 1-2 very high AV ones. If you simply take a rhino or two, they are not going to do much.

Reserving your entire army in 5th was a good way to hand your opponent an easy victory. Reserves have never been good, because they are a strategic concept, not a tactical one. In 40K, you want stuff shooting and drawing fire from turn 1. It also doesn't help that you can instagib your own unit when deep striking and you are basically stuck in place after you do it. It sucks and always has.

Martel732 wrote:
Reserving your entire army in 5th was a good way to hand your opponent an easy victory. Reserves have never been good, because they are a strategic concept, not a tactical one. In 40K, you want stuff shooting and drawing fire from turn 1. It also doesn't help that you can instagib your own unit when deep striking and you are basically stuck in place after you do it. It sucks and always has.

I cannot disagree more. I ran a null deployment IG army in 5th edition and not only was it amazingly effective, it was fun as hell.

It wasn't hot gak because it maximized the number of turns it spent shooting. It was hot gak because it minimized the opponent's opportunities to shoot and assault friendly units while maximizing the effectiveness of your shooting through location alone - it put you in the right place, at the right time, to do damage. It did, however, have the benefit of 3+ T2 reserve rolls and nearly half of the army was capable of outflanking or deep striking.


Now that they've boned full reserve armies, playing IG isn't nearly as much fun for me anymore to be honest.

Another thing I'd note is that close combat isn't actually as bad for vehicles as it initially looks.

Now, as then, you automatically hit vehicles that didn't move, and when vehicles moved a little bit, they got hit on 4's, and are now hit on 3's. Not the hugest deal in the world. Yeah, it's a lot easier to hit tanks that moved really far in the previous movement phase, but I can count on one hand the number of times that actually happened in 5th ed. I mean, seriously, good luck catching a skimmer in close combat. They can move way faster than you can, and can always stay out of threat range.

Meanwhile, krak grenades are now 50% less likely to wreck a vehicle with a penetrating hit, and frag grenades can't hurt vehicles AT ALL now. I definitely glanced rhinos to death in 5th, something I can't do now with my swarm of guardsmen.

Add to that the fact that there are specific buffs to vehicles against assaults (like being able to overwatch against dudes who assault your transport), and that assault in general is much, much worse than it was in 5th, (so you're not even all that likely to have stuff that CAN assault your tanks anymore), and, if anything, tanks got relatively BETTER against assault than they were in 5th ed.

And the anecdotal evidence I have supports that. I took out a couple dozen vehicles in close combat in 5th, and haven't even gotten close to this yet in 6th, and I certainly saw my fair share of S8 powerfists taking down vehicles in 5th, and I've yet to see that happen even once in 6th. Your tanks can't be killed by powerfists anymore if 6th ed has forced everyone to stop taking powerfists.

 juraigamer wrote:
Rhinos are really only for shooting units, and should be transporting such.

Tanks actually got better this edition, no longer could a stray glance immobilize, weapon destroy or shake/stun your vehicle.

That's the only thing they gained, that doesn't mean they got better.

The average number of shots required to kill most vehicles is roughly halved in most cases, and a tiny number of glances will kill any tank without ever having to bother with the damage table, they are practically auto-killed in CC with no mitigation, they cannot even contest mission objectives even with embarked infantry, transport state affects embarked infantry, smoke launchers became less functional, etc.

There's no way tanks are better this edition.

 Ailaros wrote:
Another thing I'd note is that close combat isn't actually as bad for vehicles as it initially looks.

Now, as then, you automatically hit vehicles that didn't move, and when vehicles moved a little bit, they got hit on 4's, and are now hit on 3's. Not the hugest deal in the world.

It kinda is, especially in conjunction with HP's.

Yeah, it's a lot easier to hit tanks that moved really far in the previous movement phase, but I can count on one hand the number of times that actually happened in 5th ed. I mean, seriously, good luck catching a skimmer in close combat. They can move way faster than you can, and can always stay out of threat range.

It happened all the time in 5th ed, Not everything is a Starengine Fast Skimmer, a lot of time it was just the difference of moving 6" or 7". It's not like the game doesn't have Bikes, Cavalry, Jump Infantry, Flying creatures, etc, and average and max charge distances have increased with 6E.

Meanwhile, krak grenades are now 50% less likely to wreck a vehicle with a penetrating hit, and frag grenades can't hurt vehicles AT ALL now. I definitely glanced rhinos to death in 5th, something I can't do now with my swarm of guardsmen.

You don't need to kill it on a pen. HP's will do it for you. Even rolling below average, a 10man squad with krak grenades will inflict enough HP damage to kill any 3HP rear AV10 tank without ever having to roll on a damage chart no matter how far it moved.

And while basic guardsmen can't hurt them (at least without paying 1ppm), Veterans certainly can.

Add to that the fact that there are specific buffs to vehicles against assaults (like being able to overwatch against dudes who assault your transport),

Which, unless you have an embarked infantry unit with template weapons, isn't likely to do much of anything, especially as the tanks cannot overwatch.

and that assault in general is much, much worse than it was in 5th, (so you're not even all that likely to have stuff that CAN assault your tanks anymore),

It's entirely possible, I see it happen almost every game. Just because you can't outflank and assault from the board edge doesn't mean you'll never see tank assaults.

and, if anything, tanks got relatively BETTER against assault than they were in 5th ed.

In what possible way?

In every way the rulebook lays out, tanks are significantly easier, practically auto-killed, by anything that gets into them with even half-hearted AT ability.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 juraigamer wrote:
Rhinos are really only for shooting units, and should be transporting such.

Tanks actually got better this edition, no longer could a stray glance immobilize, weapon destroy or shake/stun your vehicle.

That's the only thing they gained, that doesn't mean they got better.

The average number of shots required to kill most vehicles is roughly halved in most cases, and a tiny number of glances will kill any tank without ever having to bother with the damage table, they are practically auto-killed in CC with no mitigation, they cannot even contest mission objectives even with embarked infantry, transport state affects embarked infantry, smoke launchers became less functional, etc.

There's no way tanks are better this edition.

Yes way. Tanks got a hell of a lot better. The average mech will get an extra couple of turns of shooting due to not being glance-locked - for free. Turn 2/3 mech is a hell of a lot scarier dakka-wise than it used to be.

BryllCream wrote:
Yes way. Tanks got a hell of a lot better. The average mech will get an extra couple of turns of shooting due to not being glance-locked - for free. Turn 2/3 mech is a hell of a lot scarier dakka-wise than it used to be.

This assumes they only inflict a single glancing hit and nothing else. That's it. That is the only time you'll get that. That's a hugely minority case, most weapons being turned on tanks will inflict pens at least as often, if not more, than glances, and if they're doing more than one glance the tanks likely dead or nearly there.


So yeah, if all your opponent does is glance (not pen) each tank exactly once, you'll get more shooting early on. That's not the reality of the game of 40k in the vast majority of cases.

 Mad4Minis wrote:
Kinda. One of my biggest complains is that 6th edition is clearly made so that every player has to buy a $70 (give or take) flyer in order to be even slightly competitive.

I object, a CSM army could just bring loads of missile launchers with the flakk upgrade - they'd be capable of massacring hordes, munching on tanks, and firing so many flakk missiles into the air that your flyer goes down on turn 1 or 2 (whichever it arrives). This kind of tactic is quite easy to accomplish too - In a maxed FoC you could fit: three havoc squads, each with 4 ML, six ten-man CSM units with a ML each (for a total of 18 ML's) and then just bring whatever else you want (maybe a flying daemon prince to F*** your s*** up in the air?).

EDIT: You could also just use shooty orks (which are surprisingly valid now), the huge rate of fire that normally makes up for their poor BS allows them to just point a few lootaz at the sky, and knock down the fliers, and then proceed to do the same thing to all ground targets.

and then there's the usual MEQ option of decking out your infantry units with a ton of heavy weapons, and watching your enemy cry as he lascannons down one man at a time, while you sit 48" away, blasting at everything in sight.

 NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Reserving your entire army in 5th was a good way to hand your opponent an easy victory. Reserves have never been good, because they are a strategic concept, not a tactical one. In 40K, you want stuff shooting and drawing fire from turn 1. It also doesn't help that you can instagib your own unit when deep striking and you are basically stuck in place after you do it. It sucks and always has.

I cannot disagree more. I ran a null deployment IG army in 5th edition and not only was it amazingly effective, it was fun as hell.

It wasn't hot gak because it maximized the number of turns it spent shooting. It was hot gak because it minimized the opponent's opportunities to shoot and assault friendly units while maximizing the effectiveness of your shooting through location alone - it put you in the right place, at the right time, to do damage. It did, however, have the benefit of 3+ T2 reserve rolls and nearly half of the army was capable of outflanking or deep striking.


Now that they've boned full reserve armies, playing IG isn't nearly as much fun for me anymore to be honest.

I'm still doubtful, but it's really a moot point with the changes in 6th. Please reserve as much as you like and I'll have fun trying to table you every turn for the autowin.

More to the point, I think people just got used to the protection of the magic damage table from 5th. I hated AV 11 and AV 10 in 5th edition, and even though I frequently use mech, I welcome the HP system. This system does not make tanks useless at all. Only if you construct bad lists.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Tanks are pretty much useless here, but only because we have a Tau inflation (that I am a proud part of)

Im seriously considering starting Tau. I havent played since 3rd edition, and Ive always been a SM or CSM player...but I think i want something new this time.

Tau have made off like a bandit via 6th edition and its' attendant FAQs. So you should be pleased with that switch.

Notably, the pre-measuring distances is nice for all the ranged weapons, the overwatch is nice for all the ranged weapons (not so much for assault-ier armies, which against tau is practically everyone), Being able to add nightvision to just about any squad (which is very handy in 6th edition as there is much more potential nightfighting going on), and their vehicles are now sturdier than a land-raider due to the unbiquitous presence of distruption pods on all of them for practically nothing.

All in all i cannot think of a single thing they do worse in 6th than they did in 5th, and many new benefits to them across the board.

 Neorealist wrote:
Tau have made off like a bandit via 6th edition and its' attendant FAQs. So you should be pleased with that switch.

Notably, the pre-measuring distances is nice for all the ranged weapons, the overwatch is nice for all the ranged weapons (not so much for assault-ier armies, which against tau is practically everyone), Being able to add nightvision to just about any squad (which is very handy in 6th edition as there is much more potential nightfighting going on), and their vehicles are now sturdier than a land-raider due to the unbiquitous presence of distruption pods on all of them for practically nothing.

All in all i cannot think of a single thing they do worse in 6th than they did in 5th, and many new benefits to them across the board.

How about moving across the table to take and hold an objective?

Sure, pure shot out they got better, but that alone doesn't win missions.

-Matt

 Neorealist wrote:
Tau have made off like a bandit via 6th edition and its' attendant FAQs. So you should be pleased with that switch.

Notably, the pre-measuring distances is nice for all the ranged weapons, the overwatch is nice for all the ranged weapons (not so much for assault-ier armies, which against tau is practically everyone), Being able to add nightvision to just about any squad (which is very handy in 6th edition as there is much more potential nightfighting going on), and their vehicles are now sturdier than a land-raider due to the unbiquitous presence of distruption pods on all of them for practically nothing.

All in all i cannot think of a single thing they do worse in 6th than they did in 5th, and many new benefits to them across the board.

I saw that in another Dakka thread, where the OP showed what had improved, stayed the same or got worse. Almost nothing got worse, with a good number of things getting better.

Oh no, not the firewarrior argument again. Yes, Tau have issues storming entrenched troops. However, my friend has a Tau army and his plan A is just to table via shooting, making troops a non sequitur. It works surprisingly well; his opponent will actually be trying to claim objectives and he's just trying to reduce enemy models to zero from a safe distance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To attempt to stay on subject, Tau tanks with disruption pods are quite nice indeed. I just with the Devilfish had a little more variety of weapons available.

HawaiiMatt wrote:How about moving across the table to take and hold an objective?

Sure, pure shot out they got better, but that alone doesn't win missions.

-Matt

Actually it works surprisingly well, you should try it. As for how they claim objectives? Usually in my experience on the 5th turn in a devilfish that i can't seem to kill regardless of how much i shoot at it.

Small squads of troops that are just ballast essentially until that very turn. The rest of the resident tau players' army usually just does it's best to decimate anything that is a big threat to his minimal troop choices long before it can engage them via superior firepower.

And that is objective missions, on pure kill point missions he doesn't even have to do that, just stands off and cleans off anything that comes close, again through superior firepower.

Sure they suck in close combat. But you know what? most of the time you never get there...

i really dont notice anything on av13/14 vehicles getting nerfed. Theyre a pain in the butt to deal with at range. Since im orks, if i get close theyre dead due to Pklaw spams, problem is getting there.

AV10-12 just feels like a waste. Only reason i still run battlewagons is because with multiple BWs + some trukks you can hide that av12 side pretty easily for awhile.
Ive started hating trukks because its literally free first blood. I almost never have any terrain to hide them behind thats in the neutral zone (middle board) so its either camp on my side hoping hes dumb enough to come close or zoom across and hope he rolls bad.

I ran some Deffdreads last game just because i had some spare slots and not enough points to take anything else. Av12 got penned first time they got shot at and wrecked. I had them to guard my Lootas from deepstrikes - all they did was soak up some damage since they died instantly and it was only 6-8 shots firing at them with Str6-7 levels.

AV 10-12 still does it's job. Especially AV 12; it's the break point for lances.

Vaktathi wrote:And while basic guardsmen can't hurt them (at least without paying 1ppm), Veterans certainly can.

And what about all those other units in the game that can't take krak grenades (or for which it would be stupid to)? I used to see plenty of vehicles taken down with frag grenades and even stikkbombs.

Vaktathi wrote:Just because you can't outflank and assault from the board edge doesn't mean you'll never see tank assaults.

You won't see them if you don't see assault armies. If you've got people running foot assault hordes in 6th, then your opponents have much more serious problems.

Like how a basilisk is more durable than a russ when it can't be shot at (out of LOS), likewise all vehicles are more durable against assault when there's nothing to assault them.

Vaktathi wrote:Which, unless you have an embarked infantry unit with template weapons, isn't likely to do much of anything, especially as the tanks cannot overwatch.

Clearly you've never killed anything out of assault range with overwatch before.

Vaktathi wrote: Even rolling below average, a 10man squad with krak grenades will inflict enough HP damage to kill any 3HP rear AV10 tank without ever having to roll on a damage chart no matter how far it moved.

And those same 10 krak grenades would chump the hell out of the tank in 5th ed as well. 6th didn't significantly change the outcome.

Vaktathi wrote:It happened all the time in 5th ed, Not everything is a Starengine Fast Skimmer, a lot of time it was just the difference of moving 6" or 7". It's not like the game doesn't have Bikes, Cavalry, Jump Infantry, Flying creatures, etc, and average and max charge distances have increased with 6E.

vehicles of all types have always been faster than infantry. Clearly you've never tried to catch a skimmer in close combat either.

Meanwhile, things like jump infantry could always catch them. Once again, 6th ed hasn't added anything new.

And this, I think, is what's really going on here. It's not that vehicles got worse, it's that you're just now finally starting to realise how weak vehicles have always been. You probably had a way overinflated opinion of them in 5th, and now that the bubble has burst, you're way overreacting in the other direction.

Vehicles got only a little tougher from 4th to 5th (other than skimmers), and they're about the same from 5th to 6th. It's only your perceptions that have really changed here.

CSM definately feel the pain with the vehicle rules and transports. I started an army with my friend, wanting to focus on close combat, but its very very hard now, combining the various small CC nerfs with the rhino nerfs. Basically, the earliest charge is on T3, but the odds of that are very low if your opponent is somewhat competent (moving back, destroying the rhino, heck even getting first turn). Unless of course he is a full CC army as well.

Yes, rhino's can go 18" in a turn, half the time the rhino's get blown up first turn, or if they do make it to midfield the marines get focused fired during the unit's "taking a break" turn after getting out of the rhino. Also the landraider option for CSM is significantly weaker. It seems like the Huron infiltrate tactic is the only solid one these days.

I think assault CSM would have been fine if they could make their rhino's open-topped or assault vehicle for XX points, but it was not to be. Yes, the army can still work, but it just seems so much easier to spam shooty marines or plague marines.

Ailaros wrote:
And what about all those other units in the game that can't take krak grenades (or for which it would be stupid to)? I used to see plenty of vehicles taken down with frag grenades and even stikkbombs.

Really? Plenty? I find that difficult to believe. Damaged occasionally? Sure. Killed? Um...probably not, at least not without having inflicted severe damage to the vehicle already beforehand and you're just finishing it off.

On average, with a tank moving less than 6", against a vehicle with rear AV10 (95%+ of the vehicles in the game) and say, two guns, you'd need an average of 144 grenade attacks to result in 72 hits, 12 glances, and then 4 Weapon Destroyed/Immobilized results. You'd need an average of 432 attacks against a tank moving 6.00000001" or more.

Not much of a loss there.


Now with HP's, frags don't do anything, but units with S4 base only need 27 attacks on average regardless of speed.

Quite a radical change.

They were a minimal issue in 5th, because unless they did so many glancing hits that you cut through all the guns and immobilization it usually wasn't an issue, at least not any more than basic S4 attacks were. An incredibly minor thing at best in 5E that was usually desperation as units relying on them generally weren't exactly the greatest threats in the first place.

You won't see them if you don't see assault armies. If you've got people running foot assault hordes in 6th, then your opponents have much more serious problems.

Anything running basic troops with either S4+ or that come with krak grenades standard (the majority of armies in the game and the vast majority of armies on the table will routinely be engaging in them still.

They don't need to be assault units or assault armies to have this capability, bog standard troops in the majority of armies in the game will relatively effortlessly destroy tanks in assault even with below average rolls because everything has krak grenades at this point. In fact, you're more likely to kill a tank with a 9 man krak grenade assault than you will with two meltaguns if you're at that range.

Like how a basilisk is more durable than a russ when it can't be shot at (out of LOS), likewise all vehicles are more durable against assault when there's nothing to assault them.

All it takes is a squad of common Troops for most armies to get into your deployment zone, they don't have to be assault specialists to be an incredibly lethal threat to vehicles, they just need Krak grenades which are standard issue for every MEQ army, SoB's, at least one IG troop unit and available to others, and equivalents are generally available for other races or they've got common troops that are quite strong themselves.

Clearly you've never killed anything out of assault range with overwatch before.

That's a red-herring and you know it. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying in the overwhelmingly vast majority of situations it is highly unlikely given that you're hitting on 6's with a very limited number of weapons.

And those same 10 krak grenades would chump the hell out of the tank in 5th ed as well. 6th didn't significantly change the outcome.

As I already showed several pages back, yes it does.

I'll repost the math again because it was apparently missed.

Vaktathi wrote:A 10man squad with krak grenades hits a 6" or less moving vehicle under 5th. 5 hits, 1.66 pens, 0.55 kill results, in other words, in other words, a slightly higher than 50/50 average result to kill with straight average rolling.

Under 6th, you only get 0.37 kill results, but inflict an average of 3.33 hull points in HP damage. This means that, while the chance to kill through a Damage Table result is reduced to about 2/3rd's of what it was, with straight average rolling you'll kill the tank, even with somewhat below average rolling you'll likely still kill it.

This is all just for a tank moving 6" or less, if you moved over 6" in 5E, you'd only get 0.185 Destroyed results (about so 1 in every 5.4 rounds of combat), while under 6th the equation doesn't change based on speed and you're still all but assured an auto-kill.

vehicles of all types have always been faster than infantry. Clearly you've never tried to catch a skimmer in close combat either.

Again, red herring, let's avoid those.

As I stated in my previous post that you quoted, not everything is a Star-engine 36" moving skimmer. A Bike, Cavalry or Jump infantry unit often won't have too much trouble reaching a running tank.

On top of that, usually, at least in a decent sized game on a regular table, after the first turn or two there's enough stuff in enough places that finding a reachable location that's completely out of harms way isn't by any means possible, especially if playing against an opponent that isn't running a Deathwing/Paladin style army, you can't always just zoom somewhere and not be within a possible 18-24" of something.

Sometimes you can, great, you've avoided CC, but running simply isn't an "always there" option and if caught the tanks are simply far too easily killed without any real ability to attempt to mitigate.

Meanwhile, things like jump infantry could always catch them. Once again, 6th ed hasn't added anything new.

Except now they have longer average and max charge distances, and vehicles are far more vulnerable to those assaults, so yes, 6E has changed things.

And this, I think, is what's really going on here. It's not that vehicles got worse, it's that you're just now finally starting to realise how weak vehicles have always been. You probably had a way overinflated opinion of them in 5th, and now that the bubble has burst, you're way overreacting in the other direction.

Lets leave the bad attempts at psycho-analysis out of this shall we?

Vehicles got only a little tougher from 4th to 5th (other than skimmers)

Against shooting they got way tougher, no glancing kills and penetrating kill potential reduced by 33%, along with cover (most usually 4+) became available where before it was just a 50/50 chance to downgrade a pen to a glance, and penetrating hits no longer auto-stunned if they failed to kill. Huge difference there, it's why tracked tanks were practically extinct under 4th for most people and Skimmers were everywhere, and then suddenly tracked tanks were popular in 5th.

Now, they did get easier to kill in CC, true, but the drastic increase in shooting survivability made a whole lot of difference and you could still mitigate a lot of it through movement.

The problem in 6th is that they drastically decreased survivability in both areas.

and they're about the same from 5th to 6th. It's only your perceptions that have really changed here.

No, they are not in any way the same, they require significantly fewer shots to destroy from most weapons as I've already shown in this thread, usually on the order of half, and are even more hideously vulnerable to CC. In no way can they be said to be "about the same" as 5th.

Lets take this example from the last page

Vaktathi Page 3 of this thread wrote: For instance, the chance to kill a Leman Russ with a Lascannon by penetrating and rolling a 5/6 hasn't changed, you still need an average of 18 hits. However, because of HP's, you only need an average of 9 hits to kill through HP's alone, only half what it takes for a penetrating kill. Taken together, since the system is "If X *OR* Y is met" this means you actually need an average of about 7-8 hits before one or the other has been met as a non-mutually exclusive kill system, meaning we've reduced the average number of lascannon shots needed on average to kill that Leman Russ by less than half, almost a third.

Or lets look at an Autocannon vs AV12

Under 5th vs AV12.

1/6 hits penetrate, 1/3 destroy. An average of 18 hits required.

Under 6th vs AV12

1/6 hits penetrate, 1/6 destroy, an average of 36 shots required to kill through an explodes result.
1/3 hits glance or penetrate, 9 hits required to destroy through HP's.

So right off the bat, just through HP's, we need half as many shots. Add in the stackable 1/36 chance to kill and you're talking an even lower average.



As such, there is no way the claim that vehicles are "about the same from 5th to 6th" holds water. 6th edition very intentionally went out if its way to reduce vehicle lifespan and survivability.

No, they're not the same, because they were kinda silly in 5th. I penetrated the same rhino with multiple lascannon hits and just kept getting stunned :(

i dont see how you can say they didnt change much from 5th to 6th. The sheer fact that HP is now in there changed it big time, not to mention the other changes.

Like Martel said, you can pen the crap out of something and it would never die cuz you couldnt roll a boom to save your life. Now, all you need is 2-4 glances/pens regardless of wtf you rolled and its done for.

I think the HP thing is logical, but i wish the Exploded result was only available to AP1-2 weapons. Its so damn annoying to have my 4HP BW get 1shotted cuz something managed to find my AV12 and pen it and got lucky 5+.

The problem with HP's is that now, in terms of the way you kill them, vehicles are now fragile MC's with no saves (except whatever cover can be wrangled up) that can be crippled or suffer ID on most attacks that can hurt them, and can't interact with mission objectives most of the time, instead of a unique unit type.

People seem to always reference Rhino's when expressing their frustration with vehicles in 5E, that vehicle in particular seems to have been much of the problem for most people. I don't recall people bitching about Hellhounds or Wave Serpents or Looted Wagons or Hammerheads for instance. Instead of simply fixing what was wrong with the Rhino, GW instead opted for a blanket reworking of all vehicles, treating them as if they were all 35pt Rhino's when they were, in fact, not.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The problem with HP's is that now, in terms of the way you kill them, vehicles are now fragile MC's with no saves (except whatever cover can be wrangled up) that can be crippled or suffer ID on most attacks that can hurt them, and can't interact with mission objectives most of the time, instead of a unique unit type.

People seem to always reference Rhino's when expressing their frustration with vehicles in 5E, that vehicle in particular seems to have been much of the problem for most people. I don't recall people bitching about Hellhounds or Wave Serpents or Looted Wagons or Hammerheads for instance. Instead of simply fixing what was wrong with the Rhino, GW instead opted for a blanket reworking of all vehicles, treating them as if they were all 35pt Rhino's when they were, in fact, not.

I had a problem with Kanz too, to be honest.

Wayyyy too survivable in 5th.

Well, also being a 35pt AV11 model, it would seem there is a connection

 Vaktathi wrote:

BryllCream wrote:
Yes way. Tanks got a hell of a lot better. The average mech will get an extra couple of turns of shooting due to not being glance-locked - for free. Turn 2/3 mech is a hell of a lot scarier dakka-wise than it used to be.

This assumes they only inflict a single glancing hit and nothing else. That's it. That is the only time you'll get that. That's a hugely minority case, most weapons being turned on tanks will inflict pens at least as often, if not more, than glances, and if they're doing more than one glance the tanks likely dead or nearly there.

I have no idea what armies you're playing against that you seem to regard glancing hits as an exotic rarity. I mainly play against hybrid armies with mech guard, and it's very noticable how much more dangerous las preds and Vindicators are in 6th.

 BryllCream wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

BryllCream wrote:
Yes way. Tanks got a hell of a lot better. The average mech will get an extra couple of turns of shooting due to not being glance-locked - for free. Turn 2/3 mech is a hell of a lot scarier dakka-wise than it used to be.

This assumes they only inflict a single glancing hit and nothing else. That's it. That is the only time you'll get that. That's a hugely minority case, most weapons being turned on tanks will inflict pens at least as often, if not more, than glances, and if they're doing more than one glance the tanks likely dead or nearly there.

I have no idea what armies you're playing against that you seem to regard glancing hits as an exotic rarity. I mainly play against hybrid armies with mech guard, and it's very noticable how much more dangerous las preds and Vindicators are in 6th.

I'm not saying they're an exotic rarity, I'm saying they are an exception, in most cases, if an opponent is shooting at something, you're usually not just going to have a single glancing hit and nothing else, especially against an opponent capable of concentrating fire.

Does it happen? Sure, of course. Is it par for the course? No. Is it an exception? Yes. The vast majority of the time, vehicles will not simply be taking one glancing hit and nothing else in a turn. If they do, are they better off than in 5th? Yes, they can still operate effectively whereas before they couldn't. But penetrations will still kill or cripple the vehicle and multiple successful armor penetration rolls will of course leave the tank dead, and in most cases you're either just as likely to get a pen if not moreso as compared to a glance.

It is only in the singular case of an otherwise intact (i.e. it hasn't already taken hits) vehicle taking a single glancing hit that you're really going to be better off than under 5th.

If the tank is taking multiple hits, penetrations or has otherwise already lost hull points, (combined each of these conditions are considerably more common than the condition of a single glancing hit and nothing else on an otherwise untouched vehicle), no, 6th is very noticeably worse.

thats why sisters vehicles or tau vehicles dont feel this as badly because their vehicles have a save without terrain or another unit. As do CSM stuff, why i dont know. Even if its just a 5+ thats a major bonus since mojority of vehicles dont have anything at all.

Only some CSM vehicles do, the three Heavy Support walkers and the Flyer (as they're "Daemon Engines"), and aside from the flyer, they're rather mediocre for the most part. None of the "Space Marine"-ey vehicles get the 5+ Invul.

As a whole, I would disagree with you OP. I have had great success with vehicles in 6th Ed. I prefer to think of them as more of a distraction while my infantry do the work.

Do you support your tanks with Infantry? I never let my tanks run around alone without an infantry squad following on a flank or using them as cover. I've watched my opponent move a weapon into range(that should at a minimum disable my vehicle), and fire at my vehicle and have it do little to nothing. My return fire from the vehicle or the infantry that come out of the woodwork from behind the tank usually(not always) discouraged my opponent from doing stuff like that. It depends on your situation. A tank draws a lot of attention, and it will get destroyed eventually. It's just what you do with it while it is on the table. Don't get discouraged; refine your tactics and be smart about maneuvering your vehicles, given your tactical situation. If you play an opponent that you know whats to knock out your tank, do everything you can to make him pay for it.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

BryllCream wrote:
Yes way. Tanks got a hell of a lot better. The average mech will get an extra couple of turns of shooting due to not being glance-locked - for free. Turn 2/3 mech is a hell of a lot scarier dakka-wise than it used to be.

This assumes they only inflict a single glancing hit and nothing else. That's it. That is the only time you'll get that. That's a hugely minority case, most weapons being turned on tanks will inflict pens at least as often, if not more, than glances, and if they're doing more than one glance the tanks likely dead or nearly there.

I have no idea what armies you're playing against that you seem to regard glancing hits as an exotic rarity. I mainly play against hybrid armies with mech guard, and it's very noticable how much more dangerous las preds and Vindicators are in 6th.

I'm not saying they're an exotic rarity, I'm saying they are an exception, in most cases, if an opponent is shooting at something, you're usually not just going to have a single glancing hit and nothing else, especially against an opponent capable of concentrating fire.

Does it happen? Sure, of course. Is it par for the course? No. Is it an exception? Yes. The vast majority of the time, vehicles will not simply be taking one glancing hit and nothing else in a turn. If they do, are they better off than in 5th? Yes, they can still operate effectively whereas before they couldn't. But penetrations will still kill or cripple the vehicle and multiple successful armor penetration rolls will of course leave the tank dead, and in most cases you're either just as likely to get a pen if not moreso as compared to a glance.

It is only in the singular case of an otherwise intact (i.e. it hasn't already taken hits) vehicle taking a single glancing hit that you're really going to be better off than under 5th.

If the tank is taking multiple hits, penetrations or has otherwise already lost hull points, (combined each of these conditions are considerably more common than the condition of a single glancing hit and nothing else on an otherwise untouched vehicle), no, 6th is very noticeably worse.

Just because something is not enemic, or even majority, doesn't mean it's insignificant. The very fact that a dozen or so posters in this thread have testified that they're getting far more firepower out of their tanks before they die than they did in 5th - essentially, vehicles in 6th are stronger than they were in 5th. Except in your games where a miss-print in your rulebook has apparently made glancing hits non-existant.

Again, you're claiming I'm saying something that I'm not. I'm not saying that glancing hits are nonexistent. I have no idea where on earth you are getting that from.

I am saying that the singular positive aspect in this regard with 6E is only applicable under a minority condition that against most attacks is only one of many (often much more likely) outcomes, and that in all the other scenario's, 6E leaves you a lot worse off and shown the math to prove it.

What's so hard about that?

I'm not going to argue over what someone on the internet claims their experiences are because I have no way of validating them and in any single game anything can happen.

I will however argue from the position of the actual odds and averages and what one should see typically happen in most cases.

Thus far nobody has actually countered the those or the points I've put forward, only tried to say the problem doesn't exist or re-phrase my arguments into something they aren't.



So again, against penetrating hits, or multiple hits of either kind, or with vehicles that have already suffered any kind of damage, or anything related to close combat and mission objectives, 6E isn't doing much for vehicles.

Only under the singular condition of single glancing hits against intact vehicles are they coming out ahead.

Are you going to offer something that will show that this state is in fact so common as to eclipse the others in its utility and frequency? If not, then saying that vehicles are better off overall under 6E cannot be taken as a true statement as the other conditions (sometimes individually and without a doubt collectively) are more frequent and more punitive.

Solid points Vakathi.

I'm none too pleased with the way that vehicles were handled in 6th, because it has made tanks one of the weaker unit types in the game. I like the concept of Hull Points, but their execution leaves a lot to be desired. Meanwhile, Monstrous Creatures are functionally better in most every way (though to be fair, vehicles usually get bigger guns, at the price of being rather fragile by comparison).

Yes, the more expensive transports got hosed. I'm not talking Chimera, here, its still pretty cheap. The wave serpent, in particular, needs revamped in the new Eldar codex. We won't discuss the hosing the Falcon got.

A couple of people have said that the Land Raider is not worth taking, due to being very expensive, and costing a lot.

I would just like to point out that it is actually viable as a distraction/suicide unit. Fill it up with a meaty CC squad, and speed over to the enemy at 12" per turn. Your enemy will most likely panic ("Oh sh*t, here comes an AV 14, lascannon-toting, terminator transporting tank killer!"). He will fire his heavy weapons at it in the hopes of destroying it, while you move your other forces unhindered.

The terminators or other unit will be well protected, and may make it into CC. The raider may actually survive, and be able to unleash two twin-linked lascannons and the twin heavy bolters.

On top of that, if you're facing orks, they will have a bloody hard time getting through the AV 14, and if they attempt to Pklaw spam you, just put up a wall of cheap things to bog down the ladz (such as cultists, or plague marines).

While you are all arguing about just tanks on their own, you could do with factoring in the other units - 40k isn't just a tank battle.

IMO light vehicles, dark eldar ones in particular, haven't changed all that much, I mean, I think my raiders are actually better off than they were in fifth. I usually saw them shot down turn two from a stray glance, now I can get right up into my enemies face with my troops before the inevitable wrecking/exploding of my transports, I will admit though, the explosions do take out a significant number of troops when they do explode (lost a whole squad of wyches because my raider blew up). Venoms are primarily distractions for me due to the price, and if people don't take the bait, well, anything with toughness has a bad day, I think everyone needs to work in some redundant units this edition, making sure that you have more than one unit to use against specific targets, tanks including.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Again, you're claiming I'm saying something that I'm not. I'm not saying that glancing hits are nonexistent. I have no idea where on earth you are getting that from.

I am saying that the singular positive aspect in this regard with 6E is only applicable under a minority condition that against most attacks is only one of many (often much more likely) outcomes, and that in all the other scenario's, 6E leaves you a lot worse off and shown the math to prove it.

You haven't. Don't pretend that you've provided empirical evidence when you've done no such thing. You're not the government.

Okay, I'm reading this thread. What's the exact problem here? Vehicles of any AV can now be killed by an additional mechanism. This makes them easier to kill. No more magic table protection.

A partial trade off is that the tanks are harder to suppress while they live. So this means they will be shooting more compared to 5th while they live, but die sooner. Of course, your opponent still needs payloads to get through whatever AV we are talking about. Sure, you can glance LRs to death with MLs, but if you are shooting MLs at my LR, I'm probably winning the fight.

Vehicles got net weaker in 6th, but they really, really needed it. I'm not sure we needed the assault nerf, but that's a different topic really.

 BryllCream wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Again, you're claiming I'm saying something that I'm not. I'm not saying that glancing hits are nonexistent. I have no idea where on earth you are getting that from.

I am saying that the singular positive aspect in this regard with 6E is only applicable under a minority condition that against most attacks is only one of many (often much more likely) outcomes, and that in all the other scenario's, 6E leaves you a lot worse off and shown the math to prove it.

You haven't. Don't pretend that you've provided empirical evidence when you've done no such thing. You're not the government.

Huh?

This a completely nonsensical reply, and instead of attempting to actually take issue with any of my reasoning, you're just saying "you can't do that" without actually showing any fault in my reasoning, math, or attempting to counter any arguments put forth.



We can look at a wide variety of weapons and mathematically prove it. Unless you're talking about slinging nothing but multilasers at AV12 or the like.



For instance, lets look at an Autocannon against AV12

We have two shots, that gives us a total of

Barring instances where we completely fail to hit or at least meet the AV with all hits, we have a number of possible outcomes.

We have the possibility of any combination of both shots managing to do something in the form of 2 glances/2pens/1 glance+1 pen (total of a 1/9 chance for in total), or the possibility of a single pen or a single glance. The possibility of a penetrating hit or multiple hits when combined are notably greater than the chance of a single glancing hit.

Lets look at a Lascannon vs AV12

We can only get one result either way due to only having a single shot, but we penetrate 50% of the time, and glance only 16.666% of the time. For every single glancing hit this means we have 3 penetrating hits.


And this is all assuming only one gun is being shot at a target and not multiple guns, and we're not even getting into if the tank has already taken HP damage.

You don't need to be the US Government to figure this out...

Martel732 wrote:
Okay, I'm reading this thread. What's the exact problem here? Vehicles of any AV can now be killed by an additional mechanism. This makes them easier to kill. No more magic table protection.

A partial trade off is that the tanks are harder to suppress while they live.

Again, only really under a minority of circumstances, while they're easier to kill than they've ever been before.

Vehicles got net weaker in 6th, but they really, really needed it. I'm not sure we needed the assault nerf, but that's a different topic really.

The question is, did they go too far, and was it necessary on the scale that it happened or was it just a couple problem vehicles?

You're making a general point and using maths in a specific case to "prove" it. You can't do that.

I may as well claim that power armour is useless because plasma can penetrate it.

 BryllCream wrote:
You're making a general point and using maths in a specific case to "prove" it. You can't do that.

Would you care to provide a counter-example to prove me wrong? We can talk about using multi-lasers against AV12, or Krak missiles against AV14, sure, but I think most people would agree that such shots are again, a minority of cases.

Do *YOU* have any specifics to prove my general point wrong?

I may as well claim that power armour is useless because plasma can penetrate it.

If everything were armed with plasma weapon yes it would be. Given that plasma weaponry is generally limited specialist weaponry, it's not.

However, Autocannons and Lascannons are amongst the most common brought to bear against such vehicles, and only takes into account a single such weapon (not multiples) being brought to bear, and as such are far more appropriate in determining the viability of AV12 than plasma is in determining the viability of power armor.




So again, you're not actually providing anything that actually counters my arguments, you're just saying "no, you're wrong", without providing a compelling reason as to why. Lets see your analysis, lets see your numbers.

OK, so as a person who hasnt played since 3rd, and is just now reading the 6th rulebook, heres what Im coming off with:

Tactics and cover with vehicles is far more important than it used to be. I dont see this as a huge problem. It means you have to think more when you deploy and move your tanks than before. Again not a huge problem. Well, for most people.Those who counted on tanks as nigh destructible bastions that they could steam down the center of the battlefield shrugging off all fire will have to change their tactics.

Lascannons:
In the hands of Guard: 5th edition
'3' glances, 4+ pens with 5+ to destroy.
In 6th edition, that's the same.

The math is complicated. The sequence of hits matter, since a pen that comes before a glance has a different outcome than a pen that comes after two glances. Likewise, immobilizing and weapon destroying a tank change the damage table effects for remaining hits.

5th edition you could get unluckly and keep rolling "stunned" on the damage table. In 5th, it took a 5+ to get lucky with a golden bb (hit shot 1 kill).
In 6th with a lascannon, that's the same. But with autocannons, missile launchers, basically anything not AP1 or AP2, the chance of the 1 shot 1 kill is less. Half as much.

What did 6th edition do?
It increased the rate that damage effects wear down vehicles, while it reduced the rate that most weapons get a single lucky hit.

How about cover?
Against a single vehicle, I'd say 6th edition made it worse. Against an army, it's better. It's much easier to put 10 tanks in cover in 6th than it was in 5th.
It's also very easy to put 4-5 tanks in 4+ cover. It costs you 50 points, and it's called an Aegis Defensive Line. 5th edition had nothing like that. If you don't like that, you can take/ally with Dark Angels with cheap power fields.
With the change from 50% to 25%, suddenly waves of guardsmen can give cover to IG tanks.

Given that 5th edition gave a kill point for immobilized, it further skews comparisons between edtions.
If tanks are "useless" then in theory we should see a lack of tanks at the higher levels of competition, and tank-less armies dominating. I haven't seen that. What I have seen is as people go more infantry, my tanks (IG) are becoming better and better.


-Matt

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
You're making a general point and using maths in a specific case to "prove" it. You can't do that.

Would you care to provide a counter-example to prove me wrong? We can talk about using multi-lasers against AV12, or Krak missiles against AV14, sure, but I think most people would agree that such shots are again, a minority of cases.

Do *YOU* have any specifics to prove my general point wrong?

Am I going to provide an analysis of every single shooting weapon vs every armour value, then weight them by estimated popularity? No, I'm not going to do that.

Again, stop acting like you've made a point. You haven't.

Your hypothesis (that glancing hits are virtually non-existant) is unprovable. That doesn't automatically made it invalid but it is not provable in the sense that, say, "plasma guns are more effective per points than hot shot lasguns vs MEQ" is provable (or dis-provable).

Isn't it true that for most anti-tank fire scenarios, a glancing hit will occur 1:6 times for each hit? 1:6 is by definition a minority, but it is statistically significant.

 BryllCream wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 BryllCream wrote:
You're making a general point and using maths in a specific case to "prove" it. You can't do that.

Would you care to provide a counter-example to prove me wrong? We can talk about using multi-lasers against AV12, or Krak missiles against AV14, sure, but I think most people would agree that such shots are again, a minority of cases.

Do *YOU* have any specifics to prove my general point wrong?

Am I going to provide an analysis of every single shooting weapon vs every armour value, then weight them by estimated popularity? No, I'm not going to do that.

Again, stop acting like you've made a point. You haven't.

Your hypothesis (that glancing hits are virtually non-existant) is unprovable. That doesn't automatically made it invalid but it is not provable in the sense that, say, "plasma guns are more effective per points than hot shot lasguns vs MEQ" is provable (or dis-provable).

I don't think he has been saying that glancing hits don't happen he has been saying it's rare that you only get hit with one glancing hit and not more.

Not sure what is being argued here, but there is no question that if you have a lower armor value, you are much easier to kill because of hull points.

Why? I don't need difficult math to prove this. It's very simple. You will note that with AP2, the vehicle chart for penetrating hits is very similar to before. You will note that the vehicle chart for AP1 is also similar to before. You can't kill with a glance in 6th, but you couldn't kill with a glance in 5th either unless the gun was AP 1. (with the exception of sufficient weapon destroyed/immobilized)

We used to add in that sufficient immobilizes/weapon destroyed results added a small percentage of kills. We add in hull points instead now, and death from hull points happens quite often. On a predator, you need to roll immobilize/weapon destroyed 4 times in 5th edition to kill it. It has 3 hull points now. ANY 3 damaging hits will kill it. That includes glances, immobilizes, any thing that doesn't kill still eventually kills it.

Yes, non ap1 or ap2 weapons roll on a softer chart. But now ALL damage results damage a tank, regardless.
It used to be that only vehicle destroyed/wrecked results really mattered. That's not true anymore. Any result is a good result now.

 Mad4Minis wrote:
OK, so as a person who hasnt played since 3rd, and is just now reading the 6th rulebook, heres what Im coming off with:

Tactics and cover with vehicles is far more important than it used to be. I dont see this as a huge problem. It means you have to think more when you deploy and move your tanks than before. Again not a huge problem. Well, for most people.Those who counted on tanks as nigh destructible bastions that they could steam down the center of the battlefield shrugging off all fire will have to change their tactics.

The problem is that the level of firepower needed has reduced to the point where they're less survivable than in 4th ed in most instances and are practically auto-killed in CC by the basic troops of the majority of armies in the game.

And not all tanks are really designed to be sit back and hide gun tanks or cheap disposable boxes. We have stuff like Falcons, Hellhounds, etc that don't fit into either category and really don't see much of the benefits at all and get all the downsides.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Lascannons:
In the hands of Guard: 5th edition
'3' glances, 4+ pens with 5+ to destroy.
In 6th edition, that's the same.

The math is complicated. The sequence of hits matter, since a pen that comes before a glance has a different outcome than a pen that comes after two glances. Likewise, immobilizing and weapon destroying a tank change the damage table effects for remaining hits.

5th edition you could get unluckly and keep rolling "stunned" on the damage table. In 5th, it took a 5+ to get lucky with a golden bb (hit shot 1 kill).
In 6th with a lascannon, that's the same. But with autocannons, missile launchers, basically anything not AP1 or AP2, the chance of the 1 shot 1 kill is less. Half as much.

What did 6th edition do?
It increased the rate that damage effects wear down vehicles, while it reduced the rate that most weapons get a single lucky hit.

The problem is that, overall, HP's reduced vehicle lifespan by about half, that's a massive decrease.

How about cover?
Against a single vehicle, I'd say 6th edition made it worse. Against an army, it's better. It's much easier to put 10 tanks in cover in 6th than it was in 5th.
It's also very easy to put 4-5 tanks in 4+ cover. It costs you 50 points, and it's called an Aegis Defensive Line. 5th edition had nothing like that. If you don't like that, you can take/ally with Dark Angels with cheap power fields.
With the change from 50% to 25%, suddenly waves of guardsmen can give cover to IG tanks.

This requires a 50pt investment to get, increasing the cost of using vehicles, and becomes irrelevant for vehicles that don't want to/can't just sit way in the back and shoot across the board.

Given that 5th edition gave a kill point for immobilized, it further skews comparisons between edtions.

5th edition did not do this.

BryllCream wrote:
Am I going to provide an analysis of every single shooting weapon vs every armour value, then weight them by estimated popularity? No, I'm not going to do that.

You're not providing *ANYTHING*

Again, stop acting like you've made a point. You haven't.

When you want to actually poke a hole in it, then we can say so.

Your hypothesis (that glancing hits are virtually non-existant) is unprovable. That doesn't automatically made it invalid but it is not provable in the sense that, say, "plasma guns are more effective per points than hot shot lasguns vs MEQ" is provable (or dis-provable).

Again, you're either not getting or intentionally misrepresenting my argument. In every post I've said that single glancing hits happen. I'm not denying they single glancing hits happen. Let me repeat that since I apparently have to. I am not denying that vehicles will sometimes take single glancing hits. And for a third time, I am not denying that vehicles will sometimes take single glancing hits.

I *AM* saying that, far more often than not, a vehicle will be taking multiple hits and/or penetrating hits and/or already have HP damage over the course of a turn as opposed to a single glancing hit, and that under those circumstances, 6E is not advantageous to vehicles.

On what basis are you going to challenge the assertion that single glancing hits are as common or moreso than those other circumstances combined and not vice-versa?

Well, if you're talking about the viability of vehices because they aren't tough, it really depends on the vehicle, its role, and its armor value:

1. The rhino got hurt the most not only because it's more fragile, but also because you can't move 12" and disembark. Yes, you can move 6" disembark 6", but now that rhino isn't providing cover or support nearly as well. Also, it's a frontrow transport, meaning it gets exposed to more strength 4-7 firepower.

2. Backrow tanks are less affected. If you park it in a ruin, it has the same 4+ cover it did last edition, and glances don't turn off its firepower. They do eventually die in this edition, but in return they themselves are more destructive.

3. Landraider types. Front row high armor value type tanks I don't find get hull pointed out as much. If they do, its usually because of hth from thunderhammers. Why? Most guns strength 8 and up are not multishot guns. That, and when people bring melta to bear on a raider, people usually bring a lot.

4. Flyers. I hate flyers, the end.

Maybe if zero HP = Auto immobilized instead of Wrecked it wouldn't have been such a hard switch for everyone. Essentially you need at least one Pen to wreck or Explode a vehicle? Is it too early to talk about 7th edition?

No. Because then we are back to the magic table for kills. Screw that. Hull points are fine. The costs of transports and vehicles hard hit by this rule needs to be altered.

In reality, the codicies should not be physical books. They should be online forms so that GW can modify the point costs in real time as they monkey with the rules. You know, like Blizzard can do with Starcraft. GW could at least pretend its the 21st century. In this way, they could just price down the wave serpent, etc. And everyone could have a 6th edition codex as soon as 6th edition drops.

The issue with hull points is that for all intents and purposes they might as well just ditch AV entirely and move tanks to having a Toughness and Wounds stat. The damage table *was* their save. Having two overlapping kill mechanics is overkill.


Unfortunately, as to GW modifying rules, they have a longstanding and rather ironclad corporate policy against doing so dictated by management such that the development studio cannot

I'm sure that's the case. But for their game to be truly intellectually honest, they need real time updates for point values, not a $50 book every 5 years. When I really want to compete, I don't play this. I play Starcraft. Because it's much more fair.

Agreed, HP are very much like wounds. It's an imperfect fix, but this is a GW game, not an accurate armor simulator.

I get that it's a game, but if we're going to patch the system that made tanks tanks, then simply overlapping a wounds mechanic on a unit type designed with a random table in mind is simply going to get you the worst of all worlds and, as we have now, a very confused and awkward unit type that can't decide what it should be, and resulting awkwardness in gameplay.

If they were going to go with HP's, they should have ditched the damage table entirely and just given tanks an armor save, T value and Wounds instead. As is, we've functionally got a T value and wounds, but no save and what used to function as the "save" is now simply a chance to inflict ID or cripple before dying.

I've noticed the discussion has turned to "tanks are less survivable now" whereas OP's initial question was "are tanks useless?" I feel I should summarise what's been said.

I feel that whether they're less survivable, or not (although it certainly appears that they are, especially <AV13), they are still indeed extremely useful. Those turns that they lose an HP or two are not then spend sitting around stun locked, but contributing to damage.
They also have increased movement capabilities and sneaky tactics when using "flat-out."

So no, tanks aren't useless, but the way they are used has changed.>

Yeah, pretty much what Griddlelol said. *Useless* is a very strong word. I usually reserve that for things like BA techmarines and pyrovores.

Well, between becoming a whole lot more fragile and unable to survive in close proximity to enemy infantry, transports losing a ton of utility and imparting their "shaken/stunned" condition to passengers, and the removal of even the ability to contest objectives in the vast majority of instances, they've certainly lost a lot of their former utility and got a lot less useful.

Nothing is truly useless, but the relative value of vehicles is very noticeably less than it was in previous editions.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I get that it's a game, but if we're going to patch the system that made tanks tanks, then simply overlapping a wounds mechanic on a unit type designed with a random table in mind is simply going to get you the worst of all worlds and, as we have now, a very confused and awkward unit type that can't decide what it should be, and resulting awkwardness in gameplay.

If they were going to go with HP's, they should have ditched the damage table entirely and just given tanks an armor save, T value and Wounds instead. As is, we've functionally got a T value and wounds, but no save and what used to function as the "save" is now simply a chance to inflict ID or cripple before dying.

And I'm sure people would be thrilled to have a battle tank shot to pieces by hotshot lasguns.
The nice part about armor values is being totally immune to various levels of small arms fire.
With a toughness and armor save on tanks, you can't do that effect.

Hull points work fine. They prevent the endless shakes and stuns of previous editions without too much book keeping.

It's a hell of a lot better than 2nd edition. First hit, then roll to see where you hit, then roll to penetrate: Weapon Strength + D6 + variable die (D12 some times) and another die for each wound the weapon would cause, then subtract 1 for every 10" between you and the target. Once you penetrate, each location has it's own damage table.
It was fun enough for small games, but would be very tedious the size of games now.

-Matt

2nd edition shall not be spoken of. Ever. So sayeth the Emprah!

HawaiiMatt wrote:
And I'm sure people would be thrilled to have a battle tank shot to pieces by hotshot lasguns.
The nice part about armor values is being totally immune to various levels of small arms fire.
With a toughness and armor save on tanks, you can't do that effect.

That's why you give it a T value high enough that small arms fire won't bother it, an AV14 tank currently is roughly equivalent to T10 in terms of what weapons can effectively hurt it. You could always add in a special rule to address that or whatnot. But either way, effectively we're already there aside from the small arms issue.

Hull points work fine. They prevent the endless shakes and stuns of previous editions without too much book keeping.

I'd argue they don't work fine, as vehicles are easier to kill than they've ever been before, on top of losing tons of field utility. If that was an issue (you had just as much chance to pop on the first pen as to shake/stun it), then the real answer would be to adjust the damage table, not stack on another overlapping damage system and thing to have to keep track of.

That said, again, the damage table was effectively vehicles "save" aside from whatever cover they could grub up. Nobody seems to be suggesting that a Marine should just be dead after 3 wounds regardless of saves, why should tanks die after 3 hits if they don't fail their "save"?

It's a hell of a lot better than 2nd edition. First hit, then roll to see where you hit, then roll to penetrate: Weapon Strength + D6 + variable die (D12 some times) and another die for each wound the weapon would cause, then subtract 1 for every 10" between you and the target. Once you penetrate, each location has it's own damage table.
It was fun enough for small games, but would be very tedious the size of games now.

-Matt

2nd edition was a mess, yes, you also usually didn't have more than a couple tanks on the board, unlike now where I've seen boards with nearly 40 vehicles and triple digits worth of infantry (oh mech IG mirror matches...)

Overall, I'd say its a good trade off, given that this is a game. Much better than 5th Ed.

If anything, its kind of forgiving in comparison to actual combat. Infantry is pretty simple, you're hit or your not; doesn't have to kill you, just needs to take you out of the fight. With vehicles, at least you don't have to worry about cargo inside of APCs/Transports from getting blasted to bits before the APC itself is destroyed. A high enough velocity hit could be enough to kill its occupants, without penetration. Or a penetrating shot that might not damage the tanks components rips through the hull and kills crew members. It becomes much more complex. Gotta look at the bright side of things!

 Vaktathi wrote:

Exergy wrote: You know how many times a raider goes down on account of hull points? Not many. With the night shield they rarely get dakkaed to death and thus usually take concerted effort from real AT to take out.

Mathematically, this doesn't make much sense. Raiders, unless being shot at by lots of AP1/2 stuff, should go down to HP's quite often, more often to HP's in fact.

An S7 autocannon will take about 50% less shots to kill a Raider with 3HP and a 5+ invul through HP's than it will through an "explodes!" result, needing about 18 BS3 autocannon shots to kill through a penetrating Explodes and 12.5 to kill through HP loss.

An S6 Multilaser should take about half as many hits to take down an AV11 3HP 5+invul Ravager will take half as many shots of average to kill through HP loss than to kill on a penetrate.

It's not unless you start tossing stuff like lascannons and meltaguns at them does it become more economical to go for Explodes results than HP.

HP and explode happen at the same time, thus if you are trying to kill a raider with say autocannons you cannot avoid getting explode results as well as hull point loss. Even if you think it only takes 12.5 shots to kill a raider, given random chance many times you will not get your 13 shots in. Often the first or second shot will hit, pen, and explode them. The first and second shot will never kill a raider due to hull points. Next we have the other damage results. If you get an immobilized/stun result, chances are that the raider and its contents are out of position and a good opponent will shoot something else to try and kill/stop live transports instead of stuck ones.

Also, unlike IG, a lot of armies do not have access to cheap mid strength weapons. When I am facing SM, the vast majority of armies out there, it is mostly str8+ weapons that pen often and often come with AP1-2.

Lets talk about hits, as glances and explodes, both need the same chance to hit. An autocannon will get .5 pens per hit, and .166 glances per hit. .66 of those pens will immobilize, stun, or explode the raider, causing the shooter to switch targets. Thus for one autocannon hit, you will get .333 results that lead you to change target, and .333 results that only take a hull point. More often than not you will get a result that causes you to switch target before you glance it to death, and that is with an autocannon hit. Plasma, missile launchers are skewed further towards explode, immobileizing, or exploding slightly. Melta and lascannons are skewed even majorly.

Ravagers I agree, I never said ravagers dont die to hull points. Being more valuable and harder to make useless(immobilelized and weapon destroyed they are still good, AV11 meams more glances than pens compared to AV10)

Martel732 wrote:
Isn't it true that for most anti-tank fire scenarios, a glancing hit will occur 1:6 times for each hit? 1:6 is by definition a minority, but it is statistically significant.

Well, what can hurt a Leman Russ? In my meta, lasguns and melta guns. If my russ is in range of a Melta gun, it's dead already. However against lascannons, they'll glance 50% of the time. So against the main source of stun-locking my Russes, 6th edition rules have doubled their shooting output.

It's like guard getting FNP 4+ on blobs. Sure it's not going to squat against many things, but against a large chunk it will be a huge boost. And this is for free, too.

 Vaktathi wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:
And I'm sure people would be thrilled to have a battle tank shot to pieces by hotshot lasguns.
The nice part about armor values is being totally immune to various levels of small arms fire.
With a toughness and armor save on tanks, you can't do that effect.

That's why you give it a T value high enough that small arms fire won't bother it, an AV14 tank currently is roughly equivalent to T10 in terms of what weapons can effectively hurt it. You could always add in a special rule to address that or whatnot. But either way, effectively we're already there aside from the small arms issue.

Hull points work fine. They prevent the endless shakes and stuns of previous editions without too much book keeping.

I'd argue they don't work fine, as vehicles are easier to kill than they've ever been before, on top of losing tons of field utility. If that was an issue (you had just as much chance to pop on the first pen as to shake/stun it), then the real answer would be to adjust the damage table, not stack on another overlapping damage system and thing to have to keep track of.

That said, again, the damage table was effectively vehicles "save" aside from whatever cover they could grub up. Nobody seems to be suggesting that a Marine should just be dead after 3 wounds regardless of saves, why should tanks die after 3 hits if they don't fail their "save"?

It's a hell of a lot better than 2nd edition. First hit, then roll to see where you hit, then roll to penetrate: Weapon Strength + D6 + variable die (D12 some times) and another die for each wound the weapon would cause, then subtract 1 for every 10" between you and the target. Once you penetrate, each location has it's own damage table.
It was fun enough for small games, but would be very tedious the size of games now.

-Matt

2nd edition was a mess, yes, you also usually didn't have more than a couple tanks on the board, unlike now where I've seen boards with nearly 40 vehicles and triple digits worth of infantry (oh mech IG mirror matches...)

40vehicles with 100+ infantry? You are exaggerating and then doubling the numbers pretending both players are mirroring lists. I usually see Mech IG with 10-12 vehicles and 65 to 75 infantry at 1800 points.
Are transports that leave cover easy to kill? Yes. But what do you expect from a ~35 point transport?
Do squads of men kill AV10 rear armor vehicles? Sure, on average they will. But you want to know what doesn't? A squad of 5. Try shooting the enemy before you drive right at them.

-Matt

Vehicles arent useless, they still offer things troops cant do n such.
But as Griddlelol said, the thread derailed to vehicles less survivable because thats their issue. They provide just as much punch/threat as before, but are silenced way easier. No idea how many times ive turn-1 popped something with rokkit koptas lol

"Well, what can hurt a Leman Russ? In my meta, lasguns and melta guns. If my russ is in range of a Melta gun, it's dead already. However against lascannons, they'll glance 50% of the time. So against the main source of stun-locking my Russes, 6th edition rules have doubled their shooting output"

The logic behind this is not quite right. When a lascannon hit s a leman russ, there are six possible outcomes, not two.

1-4 still do nothing, as they did in 5th

5 = glanced

6= penetrate

So, there are now 5 results that keep your russ shooting, instead of 4. This is NOT a 50% increase in anything. It's actually a 25% increase from 4 to 5 results.

The fact that rhinos are considerably easier to kill with small arms than in 5th doesn't really mean much for other mech, especially the guard. AV 14 is as solid as it ever has been, and AV12 is slightly weaker but still fairly tough. A BS4 lascannon has an 11% chance to kill it outright. I like those odds


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
"Well, what can hurt a Leman Russ? In my meta, lasguns and melta guns. If my russ is in range of a Melta gun, it's dead already. However against lascannons, they'll glance 50% of the time. So against the main source of stun-locking my Russes, 6th edition rules have doubled their shooting output"

The logic behind this is not quite right. When a lascannon hit s a leman russ, there are six possible outcomes, not two.

1-4 still do nothing, as they did in 5th

5 = glanced

6= penetrate

So, there are now 5 results that keep your russ shooting, instead of 4. This is NOT a 50% increase in anything. It's actually a 25% increase from 4 to 5 results.

They'll glance 50% of the time. I miss-worded my original sentance - "The chance of a Russ being stunned or worse has decreased 50%.". Which it has, from 1/3 to 1/6.

AV 12 is where the "glance it to death" wheels begin to fall off. It can still be done, but I have noticed AV 12 units have decent staying power.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

40vehicles with 100+ infantry? You are exaggerating and then doubling the numbers pretending both players are mirroring lists. I usually see Mech IG with 10-12 vehicles and 65 to 75 infantry at 1800 points.

I said nearly 40 infantry on a table, not exactly.

In a 2000pt game, you can fit in 3 mechanized platoons with 3 chimeras each, 2 CCS's in chimeras, 3 hydras and 3 vendettas for 17 (non-squadroned) vehicles and 85 infantry. Facing a similar list and you're talking ~35 tanks and ~150-180 infantry

Are transports that leave cover easy to kill? Yes. But what do you expect from a ~35 point transport?

Not everything is a 35pt transport, but there's a lot of stuff that got unfairly lumped in with them in terms of rules.

This bears repeating, not everything is a 35pt transport, but a lot of stuff is lumped in with the same rules.

Do squads of men kill AV10 rear armor vehicles? Sure, on average they will. But you want to know what doesn't? A squad of 5. Try shooting the enemy before you drive right at them/

Lets assume we're not completely stupid here and that, yes, we usually aim for that. However, even a 5man squad has roughly the same chance that a 10man squad would in 5th (and are infinitely better if we're talking about a vehicle moving over 6"), and it's not always possible to halve the number of models in a unit before they make it to your vehicle.

BryllCream wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Isn't it true that for most anti-tank fire scenarios, a glancing hit will occur 1:6 times for each hit? 1:6 is by definition a minority, but it is statistically significant.

Well, what can hurt a Leman Russ? In my meta, lasguns and melta guns. If my russ is in range of a Melta gun, it's dead already. However against lascannons, they'll glance 50% of the time. So against the main source of stun-locking my Russes, 6th edition rules have doubled their shooting output.

It's like guard getting FNP 4+ on blobs. Sure it's not going to squat against many things, but against a large chunk it will be a huge boost. And this is for free, too.

This is, of course, only looking at a single hit on an otherwise intact tank. If they put more lascannons into it, or if its already got HP damage, then you're a lot worse off than in 5th.

BryllCream wrote:The fact that rhinos are considerably easier to kill with small arms than in 5th doesn't really mean much for other mech, especially the guard. AV 14 is as solid as it ever has been, and AV12 is slightly weaker but still fairly tough. A BS4 lascannon has an 11% chance to kill it outright. I like those odds

Those odds didn't change between editions. that said, again, you're only looking at what one hit can do on an assumed full HP tank, which is not the full view of what your tanks will be facing.

He's right because to calculate the time it takes to kill any given tank, you must, in parallel, keep track of HP damage and odds of any given hit exploding it. This makes each calculation unique, but by definition, it will be fewer shots than in 5th since there are two ways for the tank to die. This is demonstrably true in every case.

Low AV vehicles have a different purpose than in 5th edition. Now I use my Rhinos fast as possible, 12" move then 6" flat out, usually with a Dozer and Dirge. It's pretty cheap and gets my Troops closer to where they need to be quickly. Or if I can Infiltrate them, I disembark the Troops, move the Rhinos forward to get the Dirges in range before my fast stuff assaults. The enemy can choose to fire at the stupid Rhino, or the deadly fast nasties on the way in.

Unfortunately I often have to use the Land Raider in a similar way for my Kharn, Terminators, and Berzerkers to be used effectively. That means it can't shoot til Turn 2 or 3 usually, and then it's in range of enemy melta weapons. So many points for pointlessness, but it's my only assault boat.

So I usually favor the cheaper low AV vehicles lately; they also make good cover for Nurgle Daemon Princes on the Swoop for lack of ruins. The Predators and Vindicators aren't too bad, but they don't seem to pack the whallop for the points that my Oblits or even Havocs do.

All that said, I've been getting a lot more mileage from my Daemons lately, they don't need transports. And my Guard Allies have long range firepower, so they don't need to move (hooray for Manticores and Bastion-breacher Medusas!)

I am thinking that if you want to use Rhinos, then you must be prepared that some will be blown up, and you will give up first blood fairly often. And for it to be truely effective, you probably need to saturate with enough armor on the field. Having only 2 to 3 Rhinos on the field is asking for all 3 to be a smoking wreck by the end of turn 1.

Landraider is actually not a bad choice these days because AV 14 is really good now. It still has vulnerabilities to melta of course. But then again, every vehicle is vulnerable to melta.

There are many ways to look at this but here is how i see it, in my humble opinion

1. the HP system although not perfect fixed the 5th edition madness.

2. Lower AV might have been nerfed slightly, however they haven't been consigned to the scrapheap either...

3. HPs have made vehicle use far more tactical than before- plus some folks seem to have forgotten that mech armies are still playable and yet seem to be taking less AT weapons...


Overall 6th is wierd in one respect as it moved things sideways in that vehicles were toned down not outright nerfed into oblivion, however at the same time its made many different types of list viable again... However what we must all remember is that a lot of the armies that worked in 5th still work but require a different tactical outlook to get the most out of them..

plus you can't really blame people for not changing their armies that much, ok they will evolve over time but the old adage applies 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'

One side effect of the HP rules are the amount of time my War Walkers stay on the table.
AV10 was never great, but seeing a squadron of 3 go down to a total of 6 shots was not fun.

Like i said before, i think they should remove the Exploded result unless using an AP1-2 weapon.
Someone else said it already, theres two methods that kill vehicles now and neither are avoided (except on a select few) without making the vehicle hide like a coward, thus not be able to do anything.

Explode result before wasnt that bad because it was the only real way to kill a vehicle. If youre going to give them HP values, let them actually use it. Rolling explode results on big weapons could contribute to being insta-pasted for vehicles.

I personally feel that tanks are still a good investment, but it all depends on what the dice decide I'm afraid. I very much doubt they're conning you into buying more expensive tanks. I bet if you played games with a limited number of heavy weapons it'd be quite fun. Adding a little more drama to your games with an unprecedented arrival of vehicles from reserve?

The vehicle rules are fine. One should only take them if you really need them. F.e. there's no point in putting your troops in transport if they are going to sit on objective on your backfield. You now take the transport when the unit can really utilize it.

Using transports to sit on objectives in the enemy's backfield, that's what DAVU was for.
Not any more.....

meh_ wrote:
The vehicle rules are fine. One should only take them if you really need them. F.e. there's no point in putting your troops in transport if they are going to sit on objective on your backfield. You now take the transport when the unit can really utilize it.

Thank you! I think this whole discussion could be parceled up for each and every army:

Guard: Tanks are not useless, they're also the heavy guns.

SM: Tanks are more useless than guard because y'all have Devastators for long range, drop pods and DS Termies for short range, and bikes for inbetween. Predators and Vindi's are great if they can survive. Either place them in cover or switch to BA who does them better.

Orks: a lot like SM's except that we can't DS as much so we're stuck with BW's as the most reliable transport. One of the many reason I switched to an all Bike/Loota list. Demons and Necrons, and everyone else laughs at Orky vehicles.

Basically, the game comes down to this: most games are objectives based. Camp on yours and try to take the opponents. DS on or near the opponents objective is more reliable than running a transport across the board especially as the game goes on.

The ideal transport would be one that is reserved 14 AV all around, and can put a scoring unit anywhere on the board the turn after it arrives. A fast Skimmer LR with Twin-linked whatever.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Like i said before, i think they should remove the Exploded result unless using an AP1-2 weapon.
Someone else said it already, theres two methods that kill vehicles now and neither are avoided (except on a select few) without making the vehicle hide like a coward, thus not be able to do anything.

Explode result before wasnt that bad because it was the only real way to kill a vehicle. If youre going to give them HP values, let them actually use it. Rolling explode results on big weapons could contribute to being insta-pasted for vehicles.

So what, a 6 on the table is wrecked and 7+ is explodes?