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

Vehicle rule make it so one shot can kill them or massed small arms fire to fix them they need a save of some sort

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

Because Godzilla hammer 40k.

Wraithknights ruin everything.

GMCs are just so much better, with all their special rules.

For Orks, the Killa Kans are too slow, die too easily, and run away because of special rules that actually make them worse rather than better.

*orkanauts lacks dakka and are way overcosted compared to other armies GMCs.

It depends. Highly competitive rate them bad due to low output od damage versus points and survivalbility versus points. Hull points make gunning down walkers easy.

However in matches where not everyone spams the best stuff they have their place. Any Tyranid monstrous creature fears a Dreadnought with power fist.

Slow for a vehicle, lack of saves, vehicle damage table makes them weakened from damage, and completely hosed by grav and melta weapons. AV is nice but it basically acts as toughness. Also vehicle rules make it more difficult to get cover saves so walking through ruins isn't going to cut it unless there is actually 25% obstruction from the terrain between the walker and what is trying to shoot it.

Traditio wrote:

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

Because Godzilla hammer 40k.

Wraithknights ruin everything.

This has nothing to do with wraith Knights. That comment doesn't fit and explains nothing. Walkers have problems with regular infantry let alone a no other elites fast attack or heavy support. Do you play?

 eskimo wrote:
Any Tyranid monstrous creature fears a Dreadnought with power fist.

And so will stomp it into the ground before it has a chance to use it...

Hull Points simply make most walkers too fragile.

 insaniak wrote:

 eskimo wrote:
Any Tyranid monstrous creature fears a Dreadnought with power fist.

And so will stomp it into the ground before it has a chance to use it...

Hull Points simply make most walkers too fragile.

Hasn't stomp being changed to 1 attack made that match up a little riskier for MCs now though?

 Pilau Rice wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 eskimo wrote:
Any Tyranid monstrous creature fears a Dreadnought with power fist.

And so will stomp it into the ground before it has a chance to use it...

Hull Points simply make most walkers too fragile.

Hasn't stomp being changed to 1 attack made that match up a little riskier for MCs now though?

D3 stomps

Pain4Pleasure wrote:

 Pilau Rice wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 eskimo wrote:
Any Tyranid monstrous creature fears a Dreadnought with power fist.

And so will stomp it into the ground before it has a chance to use it...

Hull Points simply make most walkers too fragile.

Hasn't stomp being changed to 1 attack made that match up a little riskier for MCs now though?

D3 stomps

Darn, I was thinking of Smash attack sorry! But I guess my question still had a point

I was using ' stomp' in a generic sense...

Walkers (actually vehicles in general) have become too weak in the game. If it doesn't have a 3+ or 5++ save its pretty much worthless. They also move just as slow as a standard infantry. What really needs to happen is increase walker and MC speed to 9" instead of 6" and get rid of the hull point system as we know it. Make only penetrations remove a hull point and let glances roll on pen chart -3.

 insaniak wrote:
I was using ' stomp' in a generic sense...

Sorry, but still. If my DP went up against a Dreadnought I would be a bit worried. He could fudge his attack and then get ID. I wouldn't have had second thought about getting into cc with a Dread in 6th.

Way to easy to kill, no real challenge to glance to death.

You have to take 2-3 to ensure one makes it across the board, even a super casual player knows they are a poor investment.

At least with vehicles, they can move 12", more if they Flat Out.

Walkers are restricted to Infantry like movement, can be tarpitted and all in all, have all the downsides of infantry, but none of the upsides (such as an armour save, toe in cover save, weapons are useless, etc etc)

A couple of things are wrong with walkers:

They're vehicles, so they have no armour save and it is more difficult to get them a cover save.
They generally have the weak rear armour that all other vehicles do. This, combined with the fact that walkers generally want to advance and crush things, means it's easy for them to get shot in the back and die even more easily.
They're not usually characters, so when they do reach assault, the plucky sergeant with the meltabomb can cause them great harm while they smash mooks in to the ground.

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

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

Essentially they're MC's...but don't get armor saves, usually have crappier stats than MC's, have worse mobility than many MC's (no flying/jump/jet walkers), can be insta-killed or crippled through the damage table in ways MC's cannot, and usually are costed at similar prices to more effective MC's.

They combine all the fun of foot slogging infantry across the board with the exciting vehicle dmg table rules and they can't use the toe in cover rule.

What is not to like.

The best non SHV walker in the game I would say is the Eldar War Walker. 2 Heavy weapons of choice, can upgrade to make +3" run range, 5++ save with battle focus so I can Move shoot and then run behind something after shooting. If it does get hit it will fold like a lawn chair. with its AV 10 all around and open topness.

 Xerics wrote:
Make only penetrations remove a hull point and let glances roll on pen chart -3.

Just wanted to point out that this would effectively make Necron Triarch Stalkers immune to glances. Not that my Necrons would mind, but I don't really need another reason for people to complain about me being OP . I've always advocated for a rule stating that vehicles may only be destroyed by a penetrating hit, but vehicles reduced to 0 HP have AV of all sides reduced by -1 (Or maybe treat them as open-topped instead. +1 to damage chart or +2 if the vehicle was already open-topped).

 Xerics wrote:
The best non SHV walker in the game I would say is the Eldar War Walker. 2 Heavy weapons of choice, can upgrade to make +3" run range, 5++ save with battle focus so I can Move shoot and then run behind something after shooting. If it does get hit it will fold like a lawn chair. with its AV 10 all around and open topness.

Yes, the Eldar get the best infantry, jump infantry, jetpack infantry, bike, transport, monstrous creature, arguably flyer, and walker in the game.

We are aware.

Just waiting for them to come out with the eldar FMC, beast, and cavalry unit to dominate those unit types as well.

The vehicle rules make no sense when compared to the other rules in 40K. Infantry have clear rules about line of sight and movement. When infantry shoot, you roll above a target number directly related to your BS. You then roll to wound, again, directly comparing the strength of your weapon to the toughness of the target. Finally, the target may/may not get a save. If enough models are removed, you may have to take a leadership test.

Compare to vehicles- vehicles have unique movement rules that are totally different from infantry. They have their own unique line of sight rules, they have weapon arc restrictions, what they fire and how they fire both depend on how they moved. Cover is different for vehicles, and assault is different with vehicles. Finally, damage is totally different for vehicles. For infantry, it's roll to hit, roll to wound, take a save. For shooting at a vehicle, it's roll to hit. Then roll to wound- but it's a different roll to wound, compared to a Armor Value, and your roll is modified by certain other factors. If I equal or exceed that AV value of the vehicle, it loses a hull point. THEN you get to roll on the Armor Penetration table, which is modified by the AP value of your gun. That Armor Table can do nothing, or it can catastrophically blow up, not only destroying your vehicle, but infantry nearby as well. You can destroy a vehicle by removing all it's hull points without ever damaging the vehicle. Damage affects how a vehicle acts in the game and requires you to keep track of not only the damage, but how the damage effects the vehicle (unlike infantry, where you at most have to keep track of wounds).

The vehicle rules are a total disconnect from the rest of the game. Walkers occupy this weird area of kind of infantry, kind of a vehicle. It basically gets all the weaknesses of both, with no real advantages. Walker effectiveness is reduced as it takes damage, whereas a monstrous creature is 100% effective until it loses it's last wound. Consequently, walkers suffer greatly in this edition.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Xerics wrote:
The best non SHV walker in the game I would say is the Eldar War Walker. 2 Heavy weapons of choice, can upgrade to make +3" run range, 5++ save with battle focus so I can Move shoot and then run behind something after shooting. If it does get hit it will fold like a lawn chair. with its AV 10 all around and open topness.

Yes, the Eldar get the best infantry, jump infantry, jetpack infantry, bike, transport, monstrous creature, arguably flyer, and walker in the game.

We are aware.

Just waiting for them to come out with the eldar FMC, beast, and cavalry unit to dominate those unit types as well.

The thing I was getting at is that even though its the best non SHV walker in the game it still isn't used competitively.

Walkers are vehicles, and vehicles are terrible this edition thanks to the introduction of hull points and no saving throw.

Imagine what it would be like if MCs were T6-T10, immune to poison but had no saving throws, had a chance to die instantly and took extra damage from some weapon types. That is what vehicles are now.

In 4th Ed. vehicles (especially transports and their passengers) were a bit too vulnerable. So GW let the pendulum swing way too far and made them far too strong in 5th Ed. So to fix THAT they made them really weak again in 6th where they remain to this day. Tragically, there are still people waiting for GW to 'fix' things at some point.

Not sure why, exactly.

4th edition skimmers were godly though...

 Tarvitz77 wrote:

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

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

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

GW fixed Walkers in how Superheavy Walkers work, which is closer to a monster yet still vehicle-like. They just failed to scale that down to fit regular Walkers (although the Skitarii Walkers seem to be "fixed"). Of course, some people hate how SHWs work, so there's that.

SJ

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

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

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

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

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

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

They just aren't survivable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

pm713 wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sure, what is not to love?

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

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

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

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

Arson Fire wrote:

 Tarvitz77 wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stomp I agree with, fleet not so much.

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

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

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

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

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

Walkers should NOT get stomp.

It is not the solution.

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

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

 Ashiraya wrote:
Walkers should NOT get stomp.

It is not the solution.

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

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Walkers should NOT get stomp.

It is not the solution.

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

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

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

Sure, what is not to love?

Pretty much this.

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

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Walkers should NOT get stomp.

It is not the solution.

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

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

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

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

In my opinion...

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

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

Waiting for 7.5 edition...

I would not mind to give Walkers Stomp.

What i dislike is that Stomp is not locked to the CC.

If i could only hit the units that are actualy in CC Stomp would be much better. Its just crazy that a Model that is locked in CC can hit anything up t 15" away.

How is this going to happen? Jumping mystericaly around the board and then again in the position it started this kind of 'dance' ?

So in my opinion Stomp with a 3" template and no scatter would be much better. Heck even removing the 6 result and replace it with a S10 ap1 would be better. if you want with the addition of capping any possible save to a 6 or 5+.

It is the Hull points which make Walkers useless. Walkers tend to have roughly ~1AV less than equivalent costed tanks (Predator AV13, Dreadnought AV12). This makes them really easy to glance to death. Especially as smaller walkers often have just 2 hull points.

Walkers have never really been CC monsters, remember that in 5th edition Monstrous Creatures had Armourbane in EVERY attack. And back then Dreadnoughts had just 2 attacks. However Grenades only hit them at 6+, making them quite dangerous to Infantry. Nowadays Walkers are easy to kill with Grenades.

You could make their stomp D3 attacks with the strength on the stomp damage table perhaps? D3 large blasts would be stupidly powerful though - that's one of the things that makes super heaves so good

I was thinking of giving them one stomp, making them Small Blasts, and have them roll on the Stomp table, but with a -1 to the roll.

It's only small blasts - Large Blast stomp is unique to the Warlord Titan (thank god).

The problem is that the monstrous creature rules were originally written with Tyranids in mind. In the original scheme of things, they were a fair trade-off with walkers:

Monstrous Creature:
Pro
Has an armour save so not worried about S7-8 fire as much as a dreadnought
Fights at full effect until destroyed
Cannot be taken out in one shot.

Cons
Easily wounded by S5-6 attacks
Can be occasionally wounded by S4 attacks from accompanying squad members


Walker
Pro
Immune to S4-5 weapons
Hard to damage with S6 weapons
Nead to roll a 'kill' to actually destroy

Cons
Easy to reduce its fighting capability
Can theoretically be one-shot-killed



The biggest problem is the preponderance over the last edition of T7+ and 2+ save monstrous creatures - which essentially become immune to the high rate of fire S6-8 weapons (scatter laser to krak missile) which are supposed to be the answer to that unit type.

Plus, as noted, so many of them got given jump unit type, and even the ones which were historically jump became flyers.


It's interesting to note that in Horus Heresy games, where the monstrous creature is hard to get (essentially limited to the odd daemon ally or battle automata which have serious limitations on useability), the dreadnought still exists as the scary stompy thing of choice. However, even there, the Contemptor is the 'base model' (AV13, 5++, 3HP), and the assault walker is the Leviathan (AV13, 4++, 4HP).

Hull points should bring an Armour save of some sort. Like someone said, AV essentially works like Toughness in terms of "armour penetration roll".

AV10 acts like T6 with the added downsides that :
1) You don't get an Armour Save
2) Any "To Wound" roll over the minimum required is likely to result in your vehicle being debuffed.
3) No abuse to the cover saves, for some reason.

I don't think Walkers are half bad as people make them, but they're not big stompy killy robots. I play Raven Guard and regularily field a Ravenhawk Assault Group and it's quite annoying for the opponent when there are 10 Sternguards and a Dreadnought in his line.

Regarding the lack of mobility, well they work like Vehicle Infantry, so if you want them mobile you need a transport, deep strike, infiltrate, scout or Outflank. The Helbrute formation that gave them Deep Strike is pretty cool for that. Dreadnoughts in Pods are still interesting.

But yeah, they are completely outclassed by MCs, just for being vehicles. They should either have a Save or the removal of Hull Points altogether with glances rolling on the damage table.

GreyCrow wrote:
Hull points should bring an Armour save of some sort. Like someone said, AV essentially works like Toughness in terms of "armour penetration roll".

AV10 acts like T6 with the added downsides that :
1) You don't get an Armour Save
2) Any "To Wound" roll over the minimum required is likely to result in your vehicle being debuffed.
3) No abuse to the cover saves, for some reason.

I don't think Walkers are half bad as people make them, but they're not big stompy killy robots. I play Raven Guard and regularily field a Ravenhawk Assault Group and it's quite annoying for the opponent when there are 10 Sternguards and a Dreadnought in his line.

Regarding the lack of mobility, well they work like Vehicle Infantry, so if you want them mobile you need a transport, deep strike, infiltrate, scout or Outflank. The Helbrute formation that gave them Deep Strike is pretty cool for that. Dreadnoughts in Pods are still interesting.

But yeah, they are completely outclassed by MCs, just for being vehicles. They should either have a Save or the removal of Hull Points altogether with glances rolling on the damage table.

The best part about this is that this is exactly what we had in 5th edition. There were no hull points and glances had a separate table from penetrations. People complained too much about vehicles being too hard to kill and they were overpowered... so we got hull points... this is one you can't blame on GW as they did exactly what we wanted. made vehicles less indestructible.

Unfortunately the pendulum swung too far, and they went from too hard to kill, to too easy to kill. You thought it would have been addressed with 7th, but I guess not.

 Xerics wrote:

GreyCrow wrote:
Hull points should bring an Armour save of some sort. Like someone said, AV essentially works like Toughness in terms of "armour penetration roll".

AV10 acts like T6 with the added downsides that :
1) You don't get an Armour Save
2) Any "To Wound" roll over the minimum required is likely to result in your vehicle being debuffed.
3) No abuse to the cover saves, for some reason.

I don't think Walkers are half bad as people make them, but they're not big stompy killy robots. I play Raven Guard and regularily field a Ravenhawk Assault Group and it's quite annoying for the opponent when there are 10 Sternguards and a Dreadnought in his line.

Regarding the lack of mobility, well they work like Vehicle Infantry, so if you want them mobile you need a transport, deep strike, infiltrate, scout or Outflank. The Helbrute formation that gave them Deep Strike is pretty cool for that. Dreadnoughts in Pods are still interesting.

But yeah, they are completely outclassed by MCs, just for being vehicles. They should either have a Save or the removal of Hull Points altogether with glances rolling on the damage table.

The best part about this is that this is exactly what we had in 5th edition. There were no hull points and glances had a separate table from penetrations. People complained too much about vehicles being too hard to kill and they were overpowered... so we got hull points... this is one you can't blame on GW as they did exactly what we wanted. made vehicles less indestructible.

I think you are mistaken. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a glancing table in 5th, and it was just a -2 modifier to the damage roll on a glance.
In 4th ed there was a damage table for glances and pens.

 Griddlelol wrote:
Unfortunately the pendulum swung too far, and they went from too hard to kill, to too easy to kill. You thought it would have been addressed with 7th, but I guess not.

7th was just a cash grab there were not enough changes to make it worth buying.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Walkers should NOT get stomp.

It is not the solution.

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

A nerfed stomp, yeah, sure, I am fine with that.

Just not the SHW version.

Of course not. That would be absurd.
In the late WHFB, there was a both monsters and monstrous infantry could stomp. Its just that monsters had a better version called a thunder stomp.

A concept like that could easily be applied to 40k.

A funny result to accentuate the Vehicle Damage table vulnerability from one of the games I played had it where I destroyed the gun of the enemy Helbrute on turn 1, and then it just turned into a walking post that couldn't do anything but block line of sight for some of my units until it hoped it could get into range to charge. That never happened, as my dread landed an explode result from firing its Multi-Melta and now that Helbrute had 0 contribution to the battle itself. We just joke around about how useless the Helbrute is rather than act like its a threat.

If walkers could move farther, charge farther, and get an armor save (I'd argue a 2+ for dreads if Termies get 2+) based on how we play at the moment, then the walkers would feel more useful. But as it stands, being able to just look at the thing with a psyker and melta beam-ing it to death before it gets to do anything really leaves something to be desired about justifying their existence...

Giving Walkers a save, more attacks and some form of smash would go an awfully long way to making them viable again.

I wouldn't address walkers until the general miserable state of vehicles has been addressed and THEN see if walkers are still bad. Giving them base 9" move wouldn't be crazy though.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Giving Walkers a save, more attacks and some form of smash would go an awfully long way to making them viable again.

Smash alone makes sense. A Triarch Stalker is AP- but a Riptide is AP2. dafaq.

 KingCorpus wrote:
In my opinion...

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

Love your list... we actually add the 5++ in my group as a house-rule. And I seem to remember that Dreadnoughts did actually have Move Through Cover back in the day, or am I just crazy?
I also like the '4 hullpoints' but even if everything else but this changed, I'd be happy.

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

Don't worry Xerics it is coming very soon, but only for Eldar armies. See what happens in 40K is that fanboys are writing your Eldar codex, then when they get yelled at by everyone for writing a biased OP codex from hell what they do is take the biggest offending unit (IE Transports with Shields) and nerf it, but not horribly, just enough to make it relatively balanced in the game. And after they do that they spend the rest of the time working on the codex buffing EVERYTHING ELSE. So whats going to happen for Eldar in 8th edition is that Scat Bikes are going to go back to 1 per 3 (Because GW does listen to its fanbase) and then they are going to buff the hell out of the war walker, making it a giant mobile gun platform with more durability then most MCs.

Im calling it, thats my prediction for 8th edition.

SemperMortis wrote:

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

Don't worry Xerics it is coming very soon, but only for Eldar armies. See what happens in 40K is that fanboys are writing your Eldar codex, then when they get yelled at by everyone for writing a biased OP codex from hell what they do is take the biggest offending unit (IE Transports with Shields) and nerf it, but not horribly, just enough to make it relatively balanced in the game. And after they do that they spend the rest of the time working on the codex buffing EVERYTHING ELSE. So whats going to happen for Eldar in 8th edition is that Scat Bikes are going to go back to 1 per 3 (Because GW does listen to its fanbase) and then they are going to buff the hell out of the war walker, making it a giant mobile gun platform with more durability then most MCs.

Im calling it, thats my prediction for 8th edition.

As somebody who has played Eldar since 5th let me just throw out there that back then on their 4th edition codex the space elves were all of the bads and one of the worse codexes out there. they have not always been good, but the 6th edition codex did make them amazing and the number of elder players soared, what you are seeing is what happens when models sell well. GW gave a good update, sold a lot of models and then updated the codex because they sold a lot of models, finally something maybe competing with space marines sales (admittedly they went overboard with the WK and scatterlasers more than 1 in 3 bikes)

war walkers as they are now though are a decent example of what walkers should be able to do.

 G00fySmiley wrote:


As somebody who has played Eldar since 5th let me just throw out there that back then on their 4th edition codex the space elves were all of the bads and one of the worse codexes out there. they have not always been good, but the 6th edition codex did make them amazing and the number of elder players soared, what you are seeing is what happens when models sell well. GW gave a good update, sold a lot of models and then updated the codex because they sold a lot of models, finally something maybe competing with space marines sales (admittedly they went overboard with the WK and scatterlasers more than 1 in 3 bikes)

war walkers as they are now though are a decent example of what walkers should be able to do.

Eldar were far from awful in 4th, they were merely a bit weak but also how they were supposed to be. A lot of the Eldar fluff - with regards to combat - depicts how their many different specializations and aspects work in concert with one another. Each having substantial weaknesses / roles which they cannot cover, but then having those gaps filled into by the next unit type and the one after them. So on and so forth. Essentially an army of specialists who together are capable of taking on all challenges, with no real jack-of-all-trades fighters.

This is very much what the 4th ed codex looked like, but what the Eldar codex has never been outside of it. The Eldar codex from 4th ed felt weak because, for the first time ever (and since), Eldar weren't able to spam a couple of godly units and skull-feth everything they came across. They fulfilled their racial fantasy, and as a result were strong (but not the best) in the hands of a player who understood them and average in everyone elses.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:


As somebody who has played Eldar since 5th let me just throw out there that back then on their 4th edition codex the space elves were all of the bads and one of the worse codexes out there. they have not always been good, but the 6th edition codex did make them amazing and the number of elder players soared, what you are seeing is what happens when models sell well. GW gave a good update, sold a lot of models and then updated the codex because they sold a lot of models, finally something maybe competing with space marines sales (admittedly they went overboard with the WK and scatterlasers more than 1 in 3 bikes)

war walkers as they are now though are a decent example of what walkers should be able to do.

Eldar were far from awful in 4th, they were merely a bit weak but also how they were supposed to be. A lot of the Eldar fluff - with regards to combat - depicts how their many different specializations and aspects work in concert with one another. Each having substantial weaknesses / roles which they cannot cover, but then having those gaps filled into by the next unit type and the one after them. So on and so forth. Essentially an army of specialists who together are capable of taking on all challenges, with no real jack-of-all-trades fighters.

This is very much what the 4th ed codex looked like, but what the Eldar codex has never been outside of it. The Eldar codex from 4th ed felt weak because, for the first time ever (and since), Eldar weren't able to spam a couple of godly units and skull-feth everything they came across. They fulfilled their racial fantasy, and as a result were strong (but not the best) in the hands of a player who understood them and average in everyone elses.

Pretty much this. The only time Eldar where ever "Weak" was when they actually had internal balance and the players had to actually think when it came to list building. They still had the most powerful codex, Eldar players just sucked at using it.

Wasn't the 4th ed Eldar book the one with the Harlequins that had night-fighting, rending and can ignore cover on the charge?
Or Falcons that were pretty hard to take down thanks to the skimmer rules? Wasn't the Eldar codex the one that broke fourth ed, as it took advantage of 4th ed's core mechanics, such as the consolidate into combat rule that banshees and harlequins abused regularly?

Here, let me play the world's smallest violin in reponse to the claims that Eldar back then were weak.

It still wasn't as absurd as the newer books though.

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

Making them more powerful just makes them more of a glass cannon. It's just their resilience that needs attention.

 KingCorpus wrote:
In my opinion...

Walkers EVERY SINGLE ONE base 4 attacks, not just daddys favorites

Doesn't really make sense for Sentinels or Warwalkers to have a bunch of attacks.


Adding a save would be the 'easy' fix to most walkers... but, honestly, I'd still rather just see them turned into MCs and be done with it.

I don't think giving Walkers an armour save would do it. They would still be glanced to death effortlessly.

 Xerics wrote:

The best part about this is that this is exactly what we had in 5th edition. There were no hull points and glances had a separate table from penetrations. People complained too much about vehicles being too hard to kill and they were overpowered... so we got hull points... this is one you can't blame on GW as they did exactly what we wanted. made vehicles less indestructible.

Thing is, in 4th edition vehicles other than Skimmers sucked bigtime. So they made vehicles harder to kill in 5th. Now, this was not a problem as long as you had 4th edition Codeci. But at the same time, GW began to release army books where vehicles were dramatically cheaper than in 4th edition books. For example, Rhino's base cost dropped from 50 to 35 points, Chimera dropped from 70 points to 55 or so etc.

So basically, they saw a problem and fixed it twice, swinging the pendulum too much into other direction. If they had just introduced ONE of those fixes, vehicles would have been totally fine in 5th Edition.

The problem was the transports. Nobody thought Russ tanks or Hammerheads or Dreads or Land Raiders were too hard to kill. The problem was that rhinos stuffed with assault units didnt care at all about 5/6 glancing results and 3/6 penetrating results. Had they kept the 5E system but had some effect on passengers like 7E does, then it wouldnt have been so bad

But, as usual, GW went out of their way to find the least appropriate solution.

Yeah, but the mass transport phenomenon was made worse by Codex design where Dedicated Transports were suddenly much cheaper. Of course it is easier to build 10+ vehicle parking lot when every vehicle costs 15-20 points less (Of course in present edition they're free....).

5th edition was only edition where Land Raider was sometimes useful. That's one thing I miss.

Yeah now theyre just free

Some transports needed the price fix, Chimeras were painfully overcosted in their older 3.5E book even in the first year or so of 5E before they got updated, id been hoping to see them at 65pts with side AV11, they came in at 55 with side AV10 instead. The Rhino going to 35 was probably a bit much, but would have been workable had Stunned/Shaken potentially impacted passengers methinks. Another issues was that cover was ubiquitously 4+, and thus smoke launchers had the same issues then that Jink does now, in that they were a bit too capable for no appreciable impact on things like Rhinos.

Give walkers

9" movement
+D3" charge range
5+ invuln
Move through cover
Smash
A weaker single blast template stomp

Make all wannabe MCs/GMCs (pretty much all Giant robots in spaaaaccee *cough Tau and Eldar *cough* ) walkers and all is right between walkers and MCs

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah now theyre just free

Some transports needed the price fix, Chimeras were painfully overcosted in their older 3.5E book even in the first year or so of 5E before they got updated, id been hoping to see them at 65pts with side AV11, they came in at 55 with side AV10 instead. The Rhino going to 35 was probably a bit much, but would have been workable had Stunned/Shaken potentially impacted passengers methinks. Another issues was that cover was ubiquitously 4+, and thus smoke launchers had the same issues then that Jink does now, in that they were a bit too capable for no appreciable impact on things like Rhinos.

Yea that's a good point, 4+ cover was just a bit much. I don't think they really meant it that way, it is just how everyone interpreted cover rules in 5E.
Of course 5th edition was Razorback edition towards the end. At least with Rhinos they don't shoot much.

Yeah....the razorbacks got really silly, particularly with the GK books and 5pt psyammo on assault cannons and insanely min/maxable cheap troops to unlock those Razorbacks, coupled with wound allocation gimmicking deathstar paladins got real silly

If they make vehicles super survivable in 8th Gladius is gunna become ungodly stupid with free razorbacks everywhere...

 Xerics wrote:
If they make vehicles super survivable in 8th Gladius is gunna become ungodly stupid with free razorbacks everywhere...

I'm already losing to Gladius, so why would I care?

Generally speaking, I don't think it's as much a problem of resilience as it is mobility. Half of the advantage of vehicles in general is the speed they can put on as the situation demands.

Walkers had a lot of love back in 4th edition, where fewer people took mechanised troops as standard, and then the extra firepower or CC punch was really appreciated. Now they tend to get left behind by the rest of the army, which is all well and good for a Contemptor Mortis with Lascannons, but terrible for a ol'-fashioned Dreadnought with a Power Fist because it'll just never get to use it.

Drop Pods can help immensely, but they still mean that your walker has to sit around for a full turn picking its nose while the enemy level every available gun at it. This is why the overall tougher Forge World Dreadnoughts are more popular than the MKV ones (which is a shame, because I really like my boxy, ugly, stubby Dreads).

Basically, Walkers need a talent; something to make them the superior choice in certain situations. Move Through Cover as standard would be one, while nerfing the Monstrous Creature rule would lessen the gap a bit (Riptides don't need Smash or Fear, for instance).

But, frannkly, if you want to take walkers then nothing should stop you. People at my club are gradually becoming more comfortable with the idea that you can take an army that's a mid-point between powerful, fun and balanced, so I have been seeing more walkers recently. It's just a matter of attitude.

well dreadnuaghts i feel should be more badass, being salty old warriors with tons of experience, maybe some special rules for hand to hand or shooting depending on the faction,
the invulnerable save like a contempt or would be nice to

sentinals on the other hand should be easy to kill but maybe they should move a little faster, or gain some ambush, tank hunter special rules

I actually found another walker that is actually pretty decent. Soul Grinders from CSM perform as long range heavy weapons platforms and anti air platforms. If you really want to make him melee you can give him a warpsword for S6 AP3 5 attacks at I4 stock or use his powerfist for S10 AP2 5 attacks at I1. 6 attacks on the charge with 4 HP, ignores shaken and stun results on a 2+ and 13 front armor will make most units cry. He isn't a character tho so you can't call out that plucky sergent with the powerfist...

It would almost make sense to pile walkers and monstrous creatures in together - lets face it a carnifex is basically just a biological dreadnought with lots of teeth!

 Xerics wrote:
I actually found another walker that is actually pretty decent. Soul Grinders from CSM perform as long range heavy weapons platforms and anti air platforms. If you really want to make him melee you can give him a warpsword for S6 AP3 5 attacks at I4 stock or use his powerfist for S10 AP2 5 attacks at I1. 6 attacks on the charge with 4 HP, ignores shaken and stun results on a 2+ and 13 front armor will make most units cry. He isn't a character tho so you can't call out that plucky sergent with the powerfist...

Eh, as an anti-air platform he works, but his BS is meh (3), he only gets three shots, and it's S7 AP4. He's basically a worse Quad Gun. I really only like him as faster walker, as Slaanesh will give him +3" to his run move and fleet. Long range is also iffy, as that BS3 hurts his Large Blast and it's Ordnance, meaning he's snap shots on anything else.

Why don't walkers have saves actually? Could represent them moving to get a better angle to take the incoming shot, or doing what tanks can't do and sort of side stepping out of the way. Granted it can't be great due to their toughness, but there's a lot of room to get walkers functioning better instead of simply keeping them the same edition after edition as the game changes without them.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Xerics wrote:
I actually found another walker that is actually pretty decent. Soul Grinders from CSM perform as long range heavy weapons platforms and anti air platforms. If you really want to make him melee you can give him a warpsword for S6 AP3 5 attacks at I4 stock or use his powerfist for S10 AP2 5 attacks at I1. 6 attacks on the charge with 4 HP, ignores shaken and stun results on a 2+ and 13 front armor will make most units cry. He isn't a character tho so you can't call out that plucky sergent with the powerfist...

Eh, as an anti-air platform he works, but his BS is meh (3), he only gets three shots, and it's S7 AP4. He's basically a worse Quad Gun. I really only like him as faster walker, as Slaanesh will give him +3" to his run move and fleet. Long range is also iffy, as that BS3 hurts his Large Blast and it's Ordnance, meaning he's snap shots on anything else.

It's also from Chaos Daemons, not CSM.

CSM have the Defiler which is more expensive and worse.

 EnTyme wrote:

 Xerics wrote:
Make only penetrations remove a hull point and let glances roll on pen chart -3.

Just wanted to point out that this would effectively make Necron Triarch Stalkers immune to glances. Not that my Necrons would mind, but I don't really need another reason for people to complain about me being OP . I've always advocated for a rule stating that vehicles may only be destroyed by a penetrating hit, but vehicles reduced to 0 HP have AV of all sides reduced by -1 (Or maybe treat them as open-topped instead. +1 to damage chart or +2 if the vehicle was already open-topped).

You need some sort of cumulative damage. Hull points became nessisary because there were certain vehicles(holo skimmers particular) that just wouldnt die. There were dumb rules that made all hits glancing if they moved, and even without, without some nice luck you could through 30 Krak missiles(made to kill light vehicles) at a Rhino and not get an explodes or wrecked result.

Something like where after losing all hull points vehicles get a extra damage counter. For each extra damage counter you add 1 to the pen table.
Glance a rhino 6 times, it still runs, but pen it and add 4 to the damage table.
Glance a LR 4 times, it still runs but pen it and add 1 to the damage table.

 Exergy wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

 Xerics wrote:
Make only penetrations remove a hull point and let glances roll on pen chart -3.

Just wanted to point out that this would effectively make Necron Triarch Stalkers immune to glances. Not that my Necrons would mind, but I don't really need another reason for people to complain about me being OP . I've always advocated for a rule stating that vehicles may only be destroyed by a penetrating hit, but vehicles reduced to 0 HP have AV of all sides reduced by -1 (Or maybe treat them as open-topped instead. +1 to damage chart or +2 if the vehicle was already open-topped).

You need some sort of cumulative damage. Hull points became nessisary because there were certain vehicles(holo skimmers particular) that just wouldnt die. There were dumb rules that made all hits glancing if they moved, and even without, without some nice luck you could through 30 Krak missiles(made to kill light vehicles) at a Rhino and not get an explodes or wrecked result.

Something like where after losing all hull points vehicles get a extra damage counter. For each extra damage counter you add 1 to the pen table.
Glance a rhino 6 times, it still runs, but pen it and add 4 to the damage table.
Glance a LR 4 times, it still runs but pen it and add 1 to the damage table.

Just use Bolt Actions vehicle damage rules.

 Exergy wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:

 Xerics wrote:
Make only penetrations remove a hull point and let glances roll on pen chart -3.

Just wanted to point out that this would effectively make Necron Triarch Stalkers immune to glances. Not that my Necrons would mind, but I don't really need another reason for people to complain about me being OP . I've always advocated for a rule stating that vehicles may only be destroyed by a penetrating hit, but vehicles reduced to 0 HP have AV of all sides reduced by -1 (Or maybe treat them as open-topped instead. +1 to damage chart or +2 if the vehicle was already open-topped).

You need some sort of cumulative damage. Hull points became nessisary because there were certain vehicles(holo skimmers particular) that just wouldnt die. There were dumb rules that made all hits glancing if they moved, and even without, without some nice luck you could through 30 Krak missiles(made to kill light vehicles) at a Rhino and not get an explodes or wrecked result.

That was in 4th edition. In 5th skimmers were no different from other vehicles.
5th edition vehicle rules would have been fine if it wasn't for silly cheap Dedicated Transports in 5th edition Codeci.

Walkers do not need a fix. What is needed it overall vehicle fix combined with remotely sensible Codex design without gross weapons and units like HYMPs and unkillable MC's. Unfortunately, this is much more laborous way to fix things so good bet is it won't be done.

Walkers being so mobile and actually responsive to their attackers should have added reflex dodges to their profile as a USR. Something like 4++ because they're able to side step raise an arms shield, tilt and what have you. They should also be able to fire all their weapons without restriction, including things like Artillery or Ordinance if equip with them. they're specialized units that currently fit no meta where as they're rules are terribly thought out and newer rules were forged specifically to sell newer models while making them as a generic Type, useless.

 Xerics wrote:
I actually found another walker that is actually pretty decent. Soul Grinders from CSM perform as long range heavy weapons platforms and anti air platforms. If you really want to make him melee you can give him a warpsword for S6 AP3 5 attacks at I4 stock or use his powerfist for S10 AP2 5 attacks at I1. 6 attacks on the charge with 4 HP, ignores shaken and stun results on a 2+ and 13 front armor will make most units cry. He isn't a character tho so you can't call out that plucky sergent with the powerfist...

The Soul Grinder would go at I3, not I1, since walkers ignore unwieldy (unless this is an ITC errata?). But that's almost the same as I1 anyway in most cases, but you would still get a chance to knock the block off of the sergeant anyway.

The issue with giving walkers saves is what do you do with ones that have saves now? Improve the save? Give a different rules? Lower their cost?

pm713 wrote:
The issue with giving walkers saves is what do you do with ones that have saves now? Improve the save? Give a different rules? Lower their cost?

Relatively few have saves, and those typically are invul saves that could probably overlap with armor just fine without much adjustment.

That said, I think it'd be better to go back to a 5E damage table with 7E damage results (e.g. being Stunned still allows snapshots, vehicle passengers must test against Ld if their transport is shaken) for vehicles all around, walkers included. This would render the silly "death by a thousand cuts" issue that vehicles have now, while retaining a meaningful kill system that emphasis heavy anti-tank guns over multi-shot spam weaponry, without having to worry too much about saves. The bigger issue I think is that firepower in general has also exploded to the point where even this may not work the way it once did

IMO, 6th edition vehicle rules would have been fine if all vehicles had 1 more HP.

In 5th edition Walkers were durable, but there MC's rolled 2d6 armour penetration for every attack, so Dreads were usually dead meat vs monstrous creatures.

 Exergy wrote:
You need some sort of cumulative damage. Hull points became nessisary because there were certain vehicles(holo skimmers particular) that just wouldnt die. There were dumb rules that made all hits glancing if they moved, and even without, without some nice luck you could through 30 Krak missiles(made to kill light vehicles) at a Rhino and not get an explodes or wrecked result.

Something like where after losing all hull points vehicles get a extra damage counter. For each extra damage counter you add 1 to the pen table.
Glance a rhino 6 times, it still runs, but pen it and add 4 to the damage table.
Glance a LR 4 times, it still runs but pen it and add 1 to the damage table.

Before we switched to 2nd ed we were playing around with rough system where HP's were doubled, pens cause 2HP's. Also some tweaks here and there(especially boosted vanquisher cannon) and some vechile by vechile tweaking of HP's +-1 after doubling.

Worked all right for us. Vechiles weren't glanced to death quite as bad. Orks had bit trouble with russes though.

Then we simply decided that why patch 7th when 2nd ed is much better from the get go and with smaller patches than 7th ed needed we can get it even better!

We need to drop HP's and go back to the good old 5th edition damage charts. These days autocannons are better tank killers than lascannons in most cases and this stupidity - And I quote Vaktathi here "Death by a thousand cuts" system is really not working as is plain for all to see. Sadly, thanks to the stupidity that was the Rhino in 5th edition, people are still scared away by the 'unkillable tanks' fright when in reality it was just the Rhino and the usual Eldar skimmer dickery that really broke the game then.

So we trade one bad system for another?

And the Chimera, which was worse than the Rhino. But it was bad on any low AV vehicle. Oh, and war walkers! The horror.

pm713 wrote:So we trade one bad system for another?

Actually, unless you where an idiot and refused to bring any dedicated AT weapons, the system was rather balanced. But no, whining "l33t" players and Timmies would bring little or no AT and then scream when they where unable to counter a Leman Russ (not insinuating or accusing - I actually had this happen to me. Little Timmy brought no ranged AT beyond a solitary ML in a Tactical squad and then screamed and raged about how I was 'cheating' and 'not playing right' and 'being unfair' and 'bullying' when my solitary Leman Russ massacred his units as they tried to charge across open ground towards me).

Martel732 wrote:And the Chimera, which was worse than the Rhino. But it was bad on any low AV vehicle. Oh, and war walkers! The horror.

War walkers, sure. But the Chimera? As I recall it was not able to remobilise itself after being immobilised and its side armour was so pathetic (as it is now) that it just folded and died to any flank shots. Hell, small arms fire would cripple it.

The Chimera was relatively easy to neutralize. Its infantry didnt want to get out if they could at all help it, and it usually wanted to shoot itself, so any glance or pen would largely silence it at least for one turn unless the infantry chose to expose themselves. The big thing with the Chimera was being able to just get a huge number of individually-weak hulls on thr field to overwhelm an opponents AT to keep the fun stuff alive.

 master of ordinance wrote:
We need to drop HP's and go back to the good old 5th edition damage charts. These days autocannons are better tank killers than lascannons in most cases and this stupidity - And I quote Vaktathi here "Death by a thousand cuts" system is really not working as is plain for all to see. Sadly, thanks to the stupidity that was the Rhino in 5th edition, people are still scared away by the 'unkillable tanks' fright when in reality it was just the Rhino and the usual Eldar skimmer dickery that really broke the game then.

Eldar skimmers weren't so powerful in 5th (Wave Serpent was good but not broken). Dark Eldar skimmer spam was quite powerful however.
If we went back to 5th edition Vehicle damage rules and added 10-15 points to cost of every Dedicated Transport costing under 80 points, it would be fine.

 master of ordinance wrote:

pm713 wrote:So we trade one bad system for another?

Actually, unless you where an idiot and refused to bring any dedicated AT weapons, the system was rather balanced. But no, whining "l33t" players and Timmies would bring little or no AT and then scream when they where unable to counter a Leman Russ (not insinuating or accusing - I actually had this happen to me. Little Timmy brought no ranged AT beyond a solitary ML in a Tactical squad and then screamed and raged about how I was 'cheating' and 'not playing right' and 'being unfair' and 'bullying' when my solitary Leman Russ massacred his units as they tried to charge across open ground towards me).

Martel732 wrote:And the Chimera, which was worse than the Rhino. But it was bad on any low AV vehicle. Oh, and war walkers! The horror.

War walkers, sure. But the Chimera? As I recall it was not able to remobilise itself after being immobilised and its side armour was so pathetic (as it is now) that it just folded and died to any flank shots. Hell, small arms fire would cripple it.

I saw IG lists table people and a lot of that was heavy weapon fire from Chimeras. You couldn't get on their sides because there was a wall of them. And you weren't crippling anything in 5th with glancing hits.

Remember, no snapshots in 5E, so glance the chimera once and it was either silent for the next turn, lost a weapon, or immobilized.

The big thing with Rhinos was that they didnt care about shooting, so unlezz you immobilized or killed them, they still did their job.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Remember, no snapshots in 5E, so glance the chimera once and it was either silent for the next turn, lost a weapon, or immobilized.

The big thing with Rhinos was that they didnt care about shooting, so unlezz you immobilized or killed them, they still did their job.

It was damn near impossible to suppress the number of Chimeras I saw in 5th. One game, there were 18 I think.

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Remember, no snapshots in 5E, so glance the chimera once and it was either silent for the next turn, lost a weapon, or immobilized.

The big thing with Rhinos was that they didnt care about shooting, so unlezz you immobilized or killed them, they still did their job.

It was damn near impossible to suppress the number of Chimeras I saw in 5th. One game, there were 18 I think.

yes, I ran lists like that sometimes, but then you relied on numbers with no particulary powerful or capable units, your whole army would be a CCS or two, and four infantry platoons in chimeras. Lots of *stuff*, but in terms of long range firepower it was barely matching the MEQ killing output of two 10man Scatterbike squads of today across the entire army (assuming nobody moved and they all had LoS). The whole gunline might kill a squad and a half of marines in an "alpha strike". The bigger thing was the infantry carried special weapons of the command squads, and if you could target and burn those down, then the rest of the army was fairly easy to deal with.

The big kick in the balls was the Vendetta. Scouting up, dropping infantry in melta doublepen turn 1, and hitting another target with the triple lascannons and then having a Russ toss a battlecannon at whatever popped out. *That* was the true cheese of that army.

pm713 wrote:
The issue with giving walkers saves is what do you do with ones that have saves now? Improve the save? Give a different rules? Lower their cost?

Honestly, yeah, just improve it. Why not? MCs get to effectively act like giant Can Openers to Vehicles, Walkers should get some protection from MCs. If that means Soul grinders have 3++ and Dreads have a 4++ naturally so be it. MCs generally soak up higher dmg from more potent weapons with higher str than any Vehicles could... Walkers should be given a "Metabolic Boost" so to speak and be given defensive prowess.

I remember when I used to take Bright lances on every Wave Serpent and Falcons were actually useful for popping open tanks. Now the only time I take bright lances is on Vypers and Wraithlords during Apoc games to get some more damage on those titans. Everything else gets a scatter laser or star cannon.

A return to 5th edition would be a step backwards IMO. At the time the only army that could field large numbers of vehicles was IG. However, now, just about every army out there can field multiples of every single vehicle they have AND gain benifits for having large amounts of them. Returning to the world of difficult to destroy vehicles will also return to games of parking lots as opposed to boots on the ground.

Now, I don't think the current status of HPs is correct either, I play Tau, and if I want to be even slightly competitive, I'm required by the rules of the game to field nothing but riptides (which I only ever bought one of the standard ones, and one of each forge world one because I liked the models) and missile sides (which I hate the look of compared to the far improved looking railside). This wouldn't be an issue if all I played were games against like minded friends, but sadly, outside of local tournaments I don't get time to play much, and I go to the tournaments because I can guarantee three games in one day.

What this means is I don't get to use what I liked most about Tau when I got into them, Crisis Suits and Hammer Heads. Sure Crisis Suits are good, but the book has far better options for "competitive" lists, and my HHs have been parked for two years now.

What we need is to meet in the middle. Make Tanks viable again, but not nearly immortal. Yes, land raiders should be tough to destroy with anything less than an anti-tank weapon, same with super heavies, and dedicated heavy tanks, but weaker dedicated transports should drop to concentrated fire similar to how they do now.

I don't have the answer, but vehicles in general are broken and I don't think anyone will disagree with that statement.

Nocturus wrote:
A return to 5th edition would be a step backwards IMO. At the time the only army that could field large numbers of vehicles was IG. However, now, just about every army out there can field multiples of every single vehicle they have AND gain benifits for having large amounts of them. Returning to the world of difficult to destroy vehicles will also return to games of parking lots as opposed to boots on the ground.

Now, I don't think the current status of HPs is correct either, I play Tau, and if I want to be even slightly competitive, I'm required by the rules of the game to field nothing but riptides (which I only ever bought one of the standard ones, and one of each forge world one because I liked the models) and missile sides (which I hate the look of compared to the far improved looking railside). This wouldn't be an issue if all I played were games against like minded friends, but sadly, outside of local tournaments I don't get time to play much, and I go to the tournaments because I can guarantee three games in one day.

What this means is I don't get to use what I liked most about Tau when I got into them, Crisis Suits and Hammer Heads. Sure Crisis Suits are good, but the book has far better options for "competitive" lists, and my HHs have been parked for two years now.

What we need is to meet in the middle. Make Tanks viable again, but not nearly immortal. Yes, land raiders should be tough to destroy with anything less than an anti-tank weapon, same with super heavies, and dedicated heavy tanks, but weaker dedicated transports should drop to concentrated fire similar to how they do now.

I don't have the answer, but vehicles in general are broken and I don't think anyone will disagree with that statement.

Transports like Trukks, Rhinos, Raiders, etc are fine in that they get models from A to B and keep the models inside from bring shot until the transport itself dies. (trukks suffer from the issue that the guys inside said transport usually have paper thin defense so the inevitable explosion kills them). The issue with tanks as in combat vehicles is that the damage table completely shuts them down so any penetrating hits turn their shooting and/or destroy them outright plus every glance and pen takes off a HP. Compare to MCs which have armor saves and aren't diminished in their offensive power until they die and its clear why vehicles suffer. I honestly think having 3+ armor for all vehicles except skimmers and flyers having 4+ would help a lot. Help stop the high RoF high strength, gak AP weapons (gauss, scatter lasers, tesla, etc) from stripping HP off vehicles as easily while keeping the real AT weapons (krak missiles, melta, lascannons, railguns, etc) doing the same damage output. Auto cannon equivalent weapons would be good at forcing jinks from skimmers as they can bypass the armor save but aren't going to be as good against non skimmers which will have 3+ armor for protection.

Side note but I would disagree that Tau has to spam Riptides to be competitive but I do agree that the Hammerhead is really outdated in its capabilies for the points. The Ion head is quite good at killing Necrons all things considered but I rarely find the Rail head to be worth taking (despite how awesome it is in the fluff and in design).

 Vankraken wrote:

Side note but I would disagree that Tau has to spam Riptides to be competitive but I do agree that the Hammerhead is really outdated in its capabilies for the points. The Ion head is quite good at killing Necrons all things considered but I rarely find the Rail head to be worth taking (despite how awesome it is in the fluff and in design).

Also it doesn't help that Hammerhead's codex entry is crap with almost all 4th edition wargear options removed and unusable secondary weapon.
That's major reason why I quit Tau. I love Hammerheads and now they're unplayable.

Nocturus wrote:
A return to 5th edition would be a step backwards IMO. At the time the only army that could field large numbers of vehicles was IG. However, now, just about every army out there can field multiples of every single vehicle they have AND gain benifits for having large amounts of them. Returning to the world of difficult to destroy vehicles will also return to games of parking lots as opposed to boots on the ground.

Nobody is asking for difficult to destroy vehicles, people are asking for reasonably resilient vehicles. 5E vehicles were not immortal, nobody complained about Land Raiders, Hammerhads, Leman Russ tanks, Hellhounds, Fire Prisms, Dreadnoughts, Ravagers, Sentinels, Predators, etc. It wasn't a fundamental problem with vehicles in general.

Likewise, IG weren't the only army that could field large numbers of vehicles in 5E, and the only armies that can field more vehicles now than they could in 5E are through formations that give free stuff, which is a problem in and of itself that should be addressed and isn't a problem specific to vehicles, formations are just bad game design in general.




On another note, with regards to the Hammerhead, really, next to similar tanks in other armies, there's nothing wrong with the Hammerhead. For their cost and relative to equivalents like Predators or Fire Prisms or Leman Russ tanks, they're both very capable and very flexible, at least the Railgun iteration. The problem isn't that the Hammerhead itself is terrible, as a sub 150pt AV13 skimmer able to sport both a long range S10 anti-tank weapon and an anti-infantry pieplate in one platform on top of decent secondary weapons system. It's really very good next to its equivalents in other armies. It's a better tank hunter than a Vanquisher and a better infantry killer than a Dakkapred at the same time. The problem isn't fundamentally with the Hammerhead, it's that the non-vehicle MC and heavy infantry units are simply flat out more useful. A return of all 4E wargear and abilities wouldn't change that. Once 6E dropped, we saw Hammerheads disappear almost overnight even before the 4E options went away. Broadsides, Riptides, etc simply end up being both more cost effective and resilient.

True to a point, but at least old wargear made Hammerhead fun to play and modelled Tau techno-oriented way of war well. Nowadays it is just a floating Predator.

I played old Railhead in 6th and it worked okay. It was slightly less good than in 5th but playable.

Of course it is the Forgeworld 'Heads which really got screwed in the change. I bought Fusionhead turret, painted it up and got to use it in exactly 1 game before the rules changed to uselessness.

Evrryone forgets that walkers have HoW...

commander dante wrote:
Evrryone forgets that walkers have HoW...

But they never get to use it because they die before they can get into CC

SemperMortis wrote:

commander dante wrote:
Evrryone forgets that walkers have HoW...

But they never get to use it because they die before they can get into CC

not to mention ap- and unmodified str so... most SM pass and maybe they knock out a ORK or tervagaunt... woo

Really HoW is a special rule which should be removed from the game. It is fairly meaningless, slows down the game and way too easy to forget.

Says you. My S5 unconditional HoW on my Ashen Circle have won me combats.

KDK chariots have s7 HoW and they heal hull points when they wound a model with it. HoW is completely relevant to how they play.

Wait, my walkers have HoW? When did this happen?

I think walkers either need some kind of invul vs ranged weapons (like an imperial knight save but lower, like a 5+), or a price drop, or be immune to certain vehicle damage table rolls, or get +3 to movements. I haven't fielded killa kans or deff dreads since 5th edition--too slow and can't really shoot the things that threaten them very effectively.

 Vankraken wrote:

Nocturus wrote:
A return to 5th edition would be a step backwards IMO. At the time the only army that could field large numbers of vehicles was IG. However, now, just about every army out there can field multiples of every single vehicle they have AND gain benifits for having large amounts of them. Returning to the world of difficult to destroy vehicles will also return to games of parking lots as opposed to boots on the ground.

Now, I don't think the current status of HPs is correct either, I play Tau, and if I want to be even slightly competitive, I'm required by the rules of the game to field nothing but riptides (which I only ever bought one of the standard ones, and one of each forge world one because I liked the models) and missile sides (which I hate the look of compared to the far improved looking railside). This wouldn't be an issue if all I played were games against like minded friends, but sadly, outside of local tournaments I don't get time to play much, and I go to the tournaments because I can guarantee three games in one day.

What this means is I don't get to use what I liked most about Tau when I got into them, Crisis Suits and Hammer Heads. Sure Crisis Suits are good, but the book has far better options for "competitive" lists, and my HHs have been parked for two years now.

What we need is to meet in the middle. Make Tanks viable again, but not nearly immortal. Yes, land raiders should be tough to destroy with anything less than an anti-tank weapon, same with super heavies, and dedicated heavy tanks, but weaker dedicated transports should drop to concentrated fire similar to how they do now.

I don't have the answer, but vehicles in general are broken and I don't think anyone will disagree with that statement.

Transports like Trukks, Rhinos, Raiders, etc are fine in that they get models from A to B and keep the models inside from bring shot until the transport itself dies. (trukks suffer from the issue that the guys inside said transport usually have paper thin defense so the inevitable explosion kills them). The issue with tanks as in combat vehicles is that the damage table completely shuts them down so any penetrating hits turn their shooting and/or destroy them outright plus every glance and pen takes off a HP. Compare to MCs which have armor saves and aren't diminished in their offensive power until they die and its clear why vehicles suffer. I honestly think having 3+ armor for all vehicles except skimmers and flyers having 4+ would help a lot. Help stop the high RoF high strength, gak AP weapons (gauss, scatter lasers, tesla, etc) from stripping HP off vehicles as easily while keeping the real AT weapons (krak missiles, melta, lascannons, railguns, etc) doing the same damage output. Auto cannon equivalent weapons would be good at forcing jinks from skimmers as they can bypass the armor save but aren't going to be as good against non skimmers which will have 3+ armor for protection.

Side note but I would disagree that Tau has to spam Riptides to be competitive but I do agree that the Hammerhead is really outdated in its capabilies for the points. The Ion head is quite good at killing Necrons all things considered but I rarely find the Rail head to be worth taking (despite how awesome it is in the fluff and in design).

Giving all vehicles a save of some sort would be a good idea. 3+ for your more heavily armoured, to maybe 5+ for your ramshackle thrown together trucks. I, of course, see it being used badly, if GW did it, giving out 2+ armour to many of the loyalist tanks (and I think GW hands out 2+ saves far to much. 3+ is fine for most heavily armoured troops), but it could be a step in the right direction. It would certainly cut back on the damage out put from scatbikes and missile sides.

I think if they give out armor saves it should be based on the vehicles total armor value (F+S+R). The higher the number, the higher the save. I think the lowest is 30 as I can't think of any vehicles that have armor less than 10 on any side. The highest I think is the Warlord with like 42-45 or something like that. They could give that a 2+ for vehicles with 40+ armor. 3+ for 36-39. 4+ for 31-35, and 5+ for 30.

 Xerics wrote:
I think if they give out armor saves it should be based on the vehicles total armor value (F+S+R). The higher the number, the higher the save. I think the lowest is 30 as I can't think of any vehicles that have armor less than 10 on any side. The highest I think is the Warlord with like 42-45 or something like that. They could give that a 2+ for vehicles with 40+ armor. 3+ for 36-39. 4+ for 31-35, and 5+ for 30.

Except that vehicles with armor values of 40+ aren't worried about anything in the game pretty much that isn't Ap2 already And my AV10/10/10 trukkz aren't dying to Ap2 weapons they are dying to AP 4-6 weapons. So this doesn't really help all that much. I think a flat out 3+ save for Tanks and a 4+ for transports is fine. Or conversely you could make them an invul save which, then you would probably want to change the 2+ to at least a 3+ and maybe even a 4+.

I'd almost say give Ork Vehicles a 6+ invuln save. Odds are every hit you throw at them might just blow off a useless chunk of the vehicle due to extra gubbinz slapped on for no other reason that the Mek that built it thought it looked cool. I remember from EPIC that gargants were practically indestructible. Even blowing off the head and killing the controlling crew didn't actually remove it from being a threat...

Nocturus wrote:
I'd almost say give Ork Vehicles a 6+ invuln save. Odds are every hit you throw at them might just blow off a useless chunk of the vehicle due to extra gubbinz slapped on for no other reason that the Mek that built it thought it looked cool. I remember from EPIC that gargants were practically indestructible. Even blowing off the head and killing the controlling crew didn't actually remove it from being a threat...

That would be nice and fluffy and in almost no way, shape or form help ork vehicles survive. Well it would help in 1/6th of the situations but realistically ALL vehicles need help right now, with Open Topped Ork Vehicles just being a bit more garbage then most.

SemperMortis wrote:

Nocturus wrote:
I'd almost say give Ork Vehicles a 6+ invuln save. Odds are every hit you throw at them might just blow off a useless chunk of the vehicle due to extra gubbinz slapped on for no other reason that the Mek that built it thought it looked cool. I remember from EPIC that gargants were practically indestructible. Even blowing off the head and killing the controlling crew didn't actually remove it from being a threat...

That would be nice and fluffy and in almost no way, shape or form help ork vehicles survive. Well it would help in 1/6th of the situations but realistically ALL vehicles need help right now, with Open Topped Ork Vehicles just being a bit more garbage then most.

In no way shape or form was it MEANT to make them more powerful. Nice and fluffy was the goal. I remember playing against Orks in 2nd edition and laughing the whole time because of the ridiculous stuff like that, that would just randomly make the game go sideways. There is always that day that a truck loaded with boyz gets hit with a D weapon, and saves the hit on a 6, in this instance, only to unload its payload into the unsuspecting lines of the imperium/xenos/spiky imperium.

Nocturus wrote:



In no way shape or form was it MEANT to make them more powerful. Nice and fluffy was the goal. I remember playing against Orks in 2nd edition and laughing the whole time because of the ridiculous stuff like that, that would just randomly make the game go sideways. There is always that day that a truck loaded with boyz gets hit with a D weapon, and saves the hit on a 6, in this instance, only to unload its payload into the unsuspecting lines of the imperium/xenos/spiky imperium.

No.

"Nice and fluffy" is why orks are chalk full of d6 tables which read "on a 6 do decent damage, on a 5-2 do average damage, on a 1 kill this unit and any friendlies near by, and punch yourself in the balls.

The "nice and fluffy" rules may be great when you're on the other side of the table - when you know that the Ork player has equal chances of harming his own unit as doing any respectable damage to you it may be amusing - but as the ork player it's absurdly frustrating and patently terrible rules writing.

Orks are one of the armies which really suffers right now, they don't need more craptastic fluff rules which do nothing on the table top.

 morganfreeman wrote:

Nocturus wrote:



In no way shape or form was it MEANT to make them more powerful. Nice and fluffy was the goal. I remember playing against Orks in 2nd edition and laughing the whole time because of the ridiculous stuff like that, that would just randomly make the game go sideways. There is always that day that a truck loaded with boyz gets hit with a D weapon, and saves the hit on a 6, in this instance, only to unload its payload into the unsuspecting lines of the imperium/xenos/spiky imperium.

No.

"Nice and fluffy" is why orks are chalk full of d6 tables which read "on a 6 do decent damage, on a 5-2 do average damage, on a 1 kill this unit and any friendlies near by, and punch yourself in the balls.

The "nice and fluffy" rules may be great when you're on the other side of the table - when you know that the Ork player has equal chances of harming his own unit as doing any respectable damage to you it may be amusing - but as the ork player it's absurdly frustrating and patently terrible rules writing.

Orks are one of the armies which really suffers right now, they don't need more craptastic fluff rules which do nothing on the table top.

I don't see how my suggestion harms Orks in any way. It was fluffy, nice, benificial, and not over the top. I believe rules can be fluff, not fully random, and still fun. I agree Orks are a low tier army, but I am not a competitive player either, and I don't run the true meta in any of my lists, so my armies are not un-beatable by anyone including orks. I agree d6 tables are annoying when 5 out of 6 options are detrimental, and the last one isn't helpful either. In second edition, rules were fluffy, every army had a way to win, AND the game was fun. The problem was it was also very complex.

Looking at my Walkers there is one that really works; the Maulerfiend, and it has a lot of the benefits that are mentioned here, it has the 5++, the mobility, the ability to ignore some pens, and arguably some extra HP from IWND. Ithink giving all walkers those abilities might be overkill, but it shows that they are possible solutions.
I like the idea of giving many Walkers another HP, and more of them should be able to use the benefits they have, such as being able to fire an unlimited amount of weapons. the only walker I can think of that can really do this is probably the Defiler which can fire 4-5 Weapons per turn.