I've been thinking a lot about the nature of invulnerable saves, armour saves and cover saves in 8th Edition and how AP works with negative modifiers.
In my own experience, a large majority of the time high AP weapons are rendered useless as the things they are firing against often have an invulnerable save.
For clarity, an invulnerable save is a flat save that is both unaffected by AP of aweapon, nor cover modifiers. By this, an invunerable save is essentially a minimum value. Ie, a SM Terminator, with a 2+ save, will always pass on a roll of 5+ (value of its Invul) regardless of AP or cover.
I find this slightly unbalanced as it renders high AP far less valuable against ideal targets, as models with strong saves often have an invulnerable to boot (Terminators, characters and Custodes, for example). What this means is that a weapon such as Meltagun (Str 8, AP-5 in Tactical Doctrine) is exactly as to inflict damage as a Krak Missile (Str 8 AP-2 base), and the extra AP on the Meltagun is entirely worthless. Against many units with invulnerables, have -1 or -10 on the weapon is no different and I feel this needs to change in order to make high AP more useful, particularly in melee.
On the other hand I very much enjoy the simple rules on Cover Save in this edition - a flat +1. I feel as though the invulnerable save mechanic could go a similar route.
My proposal is thus
Any model with an invulnerable save rule has their gear reworded as follows.
"This model receives +X modifier to saving throw rolls. This bonus is not cumulative with the bonus of cover. This model always passes a saving throw on an unmodified roll of 6 regardless or modifiers."
How much bonus should each model receive?
In my humble opinion -
Anything currently granting a 6++ would now give +0 to save values.
Anything currently granting a 5++ (such as Terminator Armour) would now give +1 to save values.
Anything currently granting a 4++ would (Iron Halo, etc) grant +2 to save values.
Anything currently granting a 3++ would grant +3 to saving throws
Anything with a 2++ (ie, Makari) would get +4
Etc.
How would this affect real world examples?
Let's take Terminators as a baseline.
Having a 5++, Terminators would now be saving on a 2+ vs AP-1, while vs a Lascannon at AP-3, they'd actually be saving on a 4+ (2+ with -3 becoming a 5+, then becoming a 4+ with Invul), making them more durable vs both low and high AP, but rewarding the high AP weapon for its high AP.
A 2+/3++ model, say, Terminator with Stormshield, would now have +3 to its save instead. This means that Lascannons and Power Swords will still be going up against a 2+ save, Meltaguns and Chainfists will be going against a 3+ save. A meltagun or chainfist in the relevant doctrine will be going up against a 4+ save. Tyranid Monstrous Rending Claws hitting the rend (-6 AP) will be going up against a 5+ save.
This has some kinks obviously, but I think my idea has merit both in buffing the units with invulnerable save as well as making high AP weapons more valuable in a meta where many, low AP shots are much more valuable than a single high AP. I believe giving the rule of auto-passing on 6s means that in the rare circumstance when a model gets hit with a super high AP weapon vs a low armour invulnerable model, means its still balanced for those units that jcurrently have a 6+ save - things like Deff Skullz Orks and Tyranid gaunts with the BoB adaptation for a 6+ save, able basically means they are unaffected by this change. Something like a Genestealer will be on a natural 4+ save, so better against Lasguns, Boltguns, etc, slightly worse vs AP-2 weaoons (say, Tactical Doctrine Intercessors). This would then make the extended carapaces (4+ Sv base) better options for them in some cases.
I also think making in not stack with cover will encourage these kinds of units to venture more effectively into the open, and thus be exposed to more kinds of weaponry. Where those with a 6++ (or +0 under my proposal) will be netter in cover, and unchanged, those with a 5++ or better will get nothing from cover, encouraging elite units like Terminators, Custodes, and the like to venture into the open like they should be.
I'm somewhat in agreement with this. It's pretty ridiculous when some piece of weaponry that costs an absolute fortune to field and has S10 -4 gets shrugged by an invulnerable save, and the way they work now has completely changed the game. Basically, invuln saves are God, and if you don't have them, you're probably playing something not worth its points.
Tau players would hate this though as its really the invulns on their shield drones that keep their good stuff alive. Being able to modify those would cause big problems for them--and by that, I mean bring their lists into some semblance of fairness.
Roberts84 wrote: I'm somewhat in agreement with this. It's pretty ridiculous when some piece of weaponry that costs an absolute fortune to field and has S10 -4 gets shrugged by an invulnerable save, and the way they work now has completely changed the game. Basically, invuln saves are God, and if you don't have them, you're probably playing something not worth its points.
Tau players would hate this though as its really the invulns on their shield drones that keep their good stuff alive. Being able to modify those would cause big problems for them--and by that, I mean bring their lists into some semblance of fairness.
It was a match against Tau that inspired this. Drones completely aside for a moment, the fact that my Lascannons had a 50/50 chance to damage his Ghostkeels IF it wounds and IF it hits, struck a chord. What's the point in bringing super powerful weaponry if they do no better against their "optimal target" than cheaper, weaker weapons.
Drones are their own thing entirely and would need a whole other thread, but the same holds against other targets and armies.
Roberts84 wrote: I'm somewhat in agreement with this. It's pretty ridiculous when some piece of weaponry that costs an absolute fortune to field and has S10 -4 gets shrugged by an invulnerable save, and the way they work now has completely changed the game. Basically, invuln saves are God, and if you don't have them, you're probably playing something not worth its points.
Tau players would hate this though as its really the invulns on their shield drones that keep their good stuff alive. Being able to modify those would cause big problems for them--and by that, I mean bring their lists into some semblance of fairness.
It was a match against Tau that inspired this. Drones completely aside for a moment, the fact that my Lascannons had a 50/50 chance to damage his Ghostkeels IF it wounds and IF it hits, struck a chord. What's the point in bringing super powerful weaponry if they do no better against their "optimal target" than cheaper, weaker weapons.
Drones are their own thing entirely and would need a whole other thread, but the same holds against other targets and armies.
Not really. It's really just Tau cheese that creates this problem. Space marines armies pay a lot for their invulnerables when it comes to troops at least, shields aren't cheap. The good invulnerable saves space marines armies have are usually warlord traits and/or relics which go on characters. You'll pay for them one way or another. Tau drones are not like that...they cost a pittance and you can field a bazillion of them. 10 points for a 4+ invulnerable is ridiculous especially when you've got ghostkeels running stealth drones along side them which are ten wounds -1 to hit with enough weaponry to table a squad for less than 100 points.
I agree with you, it is ridiculous. They're honestly not much less broken than IH pre-nerf were.
JNAProductions wrote: So, Daemons now get a 5+, affected by AP meaning they're (in practice) only gonna get a 6+?
And I now need AP-4 to make a Storm Shield Terminator drop to a 3+?
No. You can argue that Invulns are too prevalent, but this solution basically only works for some Imperium armies.
This, pretty much.
A broad stroke of the invuln nerf brush would cause carnage to too many armies, rendering some of them pointless. I'm building a BA list man. We're already pretty gimped. A flat change to to invulnberables would render BA almost useless.
There's a simpler fix; reduce the number of drone Tau can take.
You also run into some weird issues. Like Imperial Guard Company/Platoon Commanders, 5+ save, 5++ save. This would effectively give them a 4+ save; actually making them better in some cases against small arms fire, and significantly worse against weapons that currently they could save against.
I am in agreement with the general sentiment that Invulnerable saves are much too common; and feel many should be changed/removed entirely. Damage reduction or simply more wounds is probably a better alternative in many cases I think.
I think, as others have suggested, the solution is to limit Invulnerable saves - both in terms of the models that have them and also the actual save value.
To be honest, I think where invulnerable saves work best is when models - particularly fragile models - have them instead of armour saves (or instead of any armour save worth a damn). So stuff like Farseers, Warlocks, Mandrakes, Harlequins, etc.
The reason invulnerable saves work on these models is because they don't significantly distort what weapons these models are vulnerable to. They will always get their save, but the fact that their save is only 4++ (at best), combined with their relatively low Toughness value, means that they are still highly vulnerable to weight of fire.
Where I think Invulnerable saves don't work is when they're applied to models like Knights (or other vehicles) with lots of wounds and excellent armour saves. The reason they cause problems here is because they completely upset the dynamic when it comes to what weapons these units should be vulnerable to. These are exactly the targets that weapons like Meltaguns should be effective against, but the presence of invulnerable saves mean that the high AP of these weapons is typically wasted, as most of it is negated by the model's Invulnerable Save.
Put simply, I think the game really needs to move away from protecting big models with 4++ (or even 3++) Invulnerable Saves. If they really need to be more survivable, just give them more wounds.
In general, I think 3++ saves should be a lot rarer than they currently are (if they even need to be present at all), and 2++ saves simply should not exist in any form.
vipoid wrote: I think, as others have suggested, the solution is to limit Invulnerable saves - both in terms of the models that have them and also the actual save value.
To be honest, I think where invulnerable saves work best is when models - particularly fragile models - have them instead of armour saves (or instead of any armour save worth a damn). So stuff like Farseers, Warlocks, Mandrakes, Harlequins, etc.
The reason invulnerable saves work on these models is because they don't significantly distort what weapons these models are vulnerable to. They will always get their save, but the fact that their save is only 4++ (at best), combined with their relatively low Toughness value, means that they are still highly vulnerable to weight of fire.
Where I think Invulnerable saves don't work is when they're applied to models like Knights (or other vehicles) with lots of wounds and excellent armour saves. The reason they cause problems here is because they completely upset the dynamic when it comes to what weapons these units should be vulnerable to. These are exactly the targets that weapons like Meltaguns should be effective against, but the presence of invulnerable saves mean that the high AP of these weapons is typically wasted, as most of it is negated by the model's Invulnerable Save.
Put simply, I think the game really needs to move away from protecting big models with 4++ (or even 3++) Invulnerable Saves. If they really need to be more survivable, just give them more wounds.
In general, I think 3++ saves should be a lot rarer than they currently are (if they even need to be present at all), and 2++ saves simply should not exist in any form.
I think canoptek wraiths fly under the radar a bit. For 360 points you can kit 6 of them out to be lethal in melee and they have a 3+ invulnerable save. 18 wounds is a LOT to chew through with a 3+ invulnerable....getting rid of them will pretty much require all your army's firepower, concentrated, with above average rolls. And you can't just ignore them either.
JNAProductions wrote:So, Daemons now get a 5+, affected by AP meaning they're (in practice) only gonna get a 6+?
And I now need AP-4 to make a Storm Shield Terminator drop to a 3+?
No. You can argue that Invulns are too prevalent, but this solution basically only works for some Imperium armies.
This. Your proposal would do some very unpleasant things to my wyches, harlies, and daemons. There should maybe be fewer invulns on big stuff in the game, and there are maybe too many 3+ invuls present in certain armies, but the proposed change would be very harsh on armies that use invulns as their primary save.
Roberts84 wrote:
I think canoptek wraiths fly under the radar a bit. For 360 points you can kit 6 of them out to be lethal in melee and they have a 3+ invulnerable save. 18 wounds is a LOT to chew through with a 3+ invulnerable....getting rid of them will pretty much require all your army's firepower, concentrated, with above average rolls. And you can't just ignore them either.
On paper, I agree with this sentiment. However, to my knowledge necrons aren't going around winning a bunch of tournaments, so nerfing one of their better units probably isn't necessary right now. Also, as a newly-awoken 'cron player, my experience has been that wraiths actually die at a respectable pace provided you're just shooting them with small arms fire. Tossing plasma and lascannons at them is rendered inefficient by their toughness and invuln saves, but a steady flow of strength 3, 4, and 5 attacks will eat through them relatively efficiently. Wraiths are pricey enough that you feel every loss, and they have to cross the table to reach you. Granted, they cross the table quite quickly, and they are quite durable.
Necrons are one of those armies that's hard to amend without making them either terrible or utterly bananas OP. It's probably necessary to rebuild at least some of their core strategies from the ground up...but I guess then they wouldn't really be crons.
I think Necrons are still good. Well, they're nowhere near as bad as something like GS cult anyway. Probably the reason they don't turn up in tournaments more is because there's simply so many space marines armies, and law of averages just means space marines are going to be overrepresented vs everything. That and Necs are pretty slow overall. They still have some excellent units: Immortals, scarabs, destroyers. Warriors are pretty ordinary, I'll say that.
I'm OK with wraiths staying as they are, but yeah, they are pretty amazing.
I think canoptek wraiths fly under the radar a bit. For 360 points you can kit 6 of them out to be lethal in melee and they have a 3+ invulnerable save. 18 wounds is a LOT to chew through with a 3+ invulnerable....getting rid of them will pretty much require all your army's firepower, concentrated, with above average rolls. And you can't just ignore them either.
Wraiths are also a unit that has changed considerably in theme and design.
Back in 3rd, they were basically modified Necron Warriors with clawed hand and long tails in place of legs. They were still T4, single-wound models but they had 12" moves and 3++ saves.
Whilst it probably could have used a little refinement, I actually really liked that design. As with Destroyers, I liked the idea of Necrons being mutable, and I know I wasn't the only one who would have liked to see a Wraith Lord.
However, from 5th onwards the design of Wraiths changed completely and they instead became these Canoptek machines, rather than augmented Warriors. However, they retained their phasing abilities - including their 3++. And then as the game progressed they ended up with additional toughness and more wounds, such that instead of being T4 W1 they ended up as T5 W3.
Much as I like the 'phasing' idea, I think they're now really pushing it for models that should have 3++ saves.
Frankly, given that their design has been changed completely, I think they really could have dropped the phasing thing (including its invulnerable save) altogether.
To generate a better effect, I think you'd have to do two things:
Give units without armour an armour value (Harlequins, demons etc)
Make invulnerable saves ignore X pts of AP
IE A warlock has 3+ armour an rune armour (2). This means that it subtracts 2 from the ap of attacks, requiring ap3 or more to affect their save value.
Anything that affects armour values will have a disproportionate affect on units without a normal save, so you'd have to give them one to get it to work
Hellebore wrote:To generate a better effect, I think you'd have to do two things:
Give units without armour an armour value (Harlequins, demons etc)
Make invulnerable saves ignore X pts of AP
IE A warlock has 3+ armour an rune armour (2). This means that it subtracts 2 from the ap of attacks, requiring ap3 or more to affect their save value.
Anything that affects armour values will have a disproportionate affect on units without a normal save, so you'd have to give them one to get it to work
That's a fun mechanic, but I think it works better as a unique mechanic on specific units rather than as a blanket replacement for the current invuln rules. It doesn't make a ton of sense for plague bearers and wyches to suddenly have 4+ (or whatever) armor saves that then get modified by their invuln-granting special rules, and you'd be creating a lot of work with an end goal of having many units land basically where they are now (but with more steps involved).
But swapping out a terminator armor invuln save for a special rule that ignores the first point or two of AP? That could be cool.
Invulnerable saves and ward saves have worked this way from the earliest days of Warhammer. Why is it that they don't serve their function now when they, seemingly, worked in past editions?
Your opponent paid for an upgrade to get that invul, he could have cheapened out or taken an upgrade to his offensive output, but chose to pay extra to not get blasted apart by high AP weaponry. Invulns are working as intended from a crunch perspective, making sure that high-AP weaponry aren't dominating. Invulns are working as intended from a fluff perspective, they are protecting against the heaviest types of ordnance. Considering how prevalent thunderhammers have been this edition, I find the statement that high-AP melee weapons need to be better to be weird. What has suffered this edition is high-AP high-Strength weapons' ability to destroy vehicles compared to previous editions, but the effect of invulnerable saves on this development is small compared to them being much tougher overall, even more so against low-AP weapons. With Assault Doctrine it takes 3 times as many attacks to destroy a Rhino with Space Marine combat knives this edition.
High AP weapons are still good for lots of stuff. Leman Russes, Repulsors, Centurions, Aggressors, Mek Guns, Flyers. There was a time when Predators and Hammerheads were viable as well. There are also lots of units where the invuln is an option and not a given, if Sororitas aren't in range of buffs they got a negligible 6++, Impulsors and Ghostkeels need to buy their invuln as an upgrade. Units with a 2+/5++ almost never benefit, AP-4 weapons are very rare and if they become too bad because relatively many units in the game have invulns GW can lower the price. If anything needs changing it's Terminators getting a 4++ regardless of which armour variant they wear, give the Cataphractii 3++ and rebalance pts. That makes the benefit of Terminators over Centurions and Aggressors way more clear, these are the guys with the invulns.
Roberts84 wrote: Not really. It's really just Tau cheese that creates this problem. Space marines armies pay a lot for their invulnerables when it comes to troops at least, shields aren't cheap. The good invulnerable saves space marines armies have are usually warlord traits and/or relics which go on characters. You'll pay for them one way or another.
Shields are absolutely too cheap, 2 pts for a 3++ is absurd.
vict0988 wrote: Your opponent paid for an upgrade to get that invul, he could have cheapened out or taken an upgrade to his offensive output, but chose to pay extra to not get blasted apart by high AP weaponry. Invulns are working as intended from a crunch perspective, making sure that high-AP weaponry aren't dominating. Invulns are working as intended from a fluff perspective, they are protecting against the heaviest types of ordnance. Considering how prevalent thunderhammers have been this edition, I find the statement that high-AP melee weapons need to be better to be weird. What has suffered this edition is high-AP high-Strength weapons' ability to destroy vehicles compared to previous editions, but the effect of invulnerable saves on this development is small compared to them being much tougher overall, even more so against low-AP weapons. With Assault Doctrine it takes 3 times as many attacks to destroy a Rhino with Space Marine combat knives this edition.
High AP weapons are still good for lots of stuff. Leman Russes, Repulsors, Centurions, Aggressors, Mek Guns, Flyers. There was a time when Predators and Hammerheads were viable as well. There are also lots of units where the invuln is an option and not a given, if Sororitas aren't in range of buffs they got a negligible 6++, Impulsors and Ghostkeels need to buy their invuln as an upgrade. Units with a 2+/5++ almost never benefit, AP-4 weapons are very rare and if they become too bad because relatively many units in the game have invulns GW can lower the price. If anything needs changing it's Terminators getting a 4++ regardless of which armour variant they wear, give the Cataphractii 3++ and rebalance pts. That makes the benefit of Terminators over Centurions and Aggressors way more clear, these are the guys with the invulns.
Roberts84 wrote: Not really. It's really just Tau cheese that creates this problem. Space marines armies pay a lot for their invulnerables when it comes to troops at least, shields aren't cheap. The good invulnerable saves space marines armies have are usually warlord traits and/or relics which go on characters. You'll pay for them one way or another.
Shields are absolutely too cheap, 2 pts for a 3++ is absurd.
Yeah but you're gonna be taking them with a hammer pretty much always, and they're only an option for a very limited number of units, notably vets which are overpriced to begin with and are 1 wound squishies. A vet with a shield and a hammer is 36 points unless I'm mistaken, which is a big sink for something that is definitely going to die pretty quickly @ 1 wound. There's better ways to spend points.You could use a shield with a sword or whatever but that would be pretty pointless, Terminators are a thing of the past now too, horrifically expensive and there's no value at all spending points on a hammer and shied for termies. Pretty much a shield is only an auto-take on smash captains.
Roberts84 wrote: Not really. It's really just Tau cheese that creates this problem. Space marines armies pay a lot for their invulnerables when it comes to troops at least, shields aren't cheap. The good invulnerable saves space marines armies have are usually warlord traits and/or relics which go on characters. You'll pay for them one way or another.
Shields are absolutely too cheap, 2 pts for a 3++ is absurd.
Yeah but you're gonna be taking them with a hammer pretty much always, and they're only an option for a very limited number of units, notably vets which are overpriced to begin with and are 1 wound squishies. A vet with a shield and a hammer is 36 points unless I'm mistaken, which is a big sink for something that is definitely going to die pretty quickly @ 1 wound. There's better ways to spend points.You could use a shield with a sword or whatever but that would be pretty pointless, Terminators are a thing of the past now too, horrifically expensive and there's no value at all spending points on a hammer and shied for termies. Pretty much a shield is only an auto-take on smash captains.
If you are giving hammers to all your Vets you are making a mistake, give them combi-bolters or chainswords. You can give the Champion and in special circumstances one other dude a better weapon, certainly not all. Hammers are only overcosted if you take lots of them, they are already a competitive option on Intercessor Sergeants, the pricing system needs a discount option for units that take an option on all the guys so you can have your thematic all-shield/hammer or shield/sword units or you can pay a premium if you just have 3/4 with shields to tank lascannons. Vets are overcosted because they are an Elites choice and Vanguard Detachments aren't too great in terms of command benefits, once Deathwatch get PA their Vets will most likely be great again. I don't think Company Veterans are *that* terrible, what's problematic for them is firstborn transports not being viable in competitive SM, you can probably still them work. All-thunder-hammers on a 1W unit needs to come down 5-10 pts per model, but you are not really working within the system as it is when you take a crazy loadout like that. You can also take both mobility options for Reivers or take flamers on a unit in a Drop Pod, the system doesn't baby you, but if you somehow find a way to deliver those 16 thunderhammer attacks then it's going to delete half a Knight (300 pts vs your 150) and only lose a couple of guys in return and if you take the extra range chapter tactic the flamers can actually shoot after coming out from a Drop Pod.
I do think some invulnerable saves should work as a modifier, like units that are adept at dodging enemy attacks should be -1 to hit, not 5++.
vict0988 wrote: Your opponent paid for an upgrade to get that invul, he could have cheapened out or taken an upgrade to his offensive output, but chose to pay extra to not get blasted apart by high AP weaponry.
Except that the vast majority of invulnerable saves in the game aren't upgrades, they're just standard wargear.
Roberts84 wrote: Not really. It's really just Tau cheese that creates this problem. Space marines armies pay a lot for their invulnerables when it comes to troops at least, shields aren't cheap. The good invulnerable saves space marines armies have are usually warlord traits and/or relics which go on characters. You'll pay for them one way or another.
Shields are absolutely too cheap, 2 pts for a 3++ is absurd.
Yeah but you're gonna be taking them with a hammer pretty much always, and they're only an option for a very limited number of units, notably vets which are overpriced to begin with and are 1 wound squishies. A vet with a shield and a hammer is 36 points unless I'm mistaken, which is a big sink for something that is definitely going to die pretty quickly @ 1 wound. There's better ways to spend points.You could use a shield with a sword or whatever but that would be pretty pointless, Terminators are a thing of the past now too, horrifically expensive and there's no value at all spending points on a hammer and shied for termies. Pretty much a shield is only an auto-take on smash captains.
If you are giving hammers to all your Vets you are making a mistake, give them combi-bolters or chainswords. You can give the Champion and in special circumstances one other dude a better weapon, certainly not all. Hammers are only overcosted if you take lots of them, they are already a competitive option on Intercessor Sergeants, the pricing system needs a discount option for units that take an option on all the guys so you can have your thematic all-shield/hammer or shield/sword units or you can pay a premium if you just have 3/4 with shields to tank lascannons. Vets are overcosted because they are an Elites choice and Vanguard Detachments aren't too great in terms of command benefits, once Deathwatch get PA their Vets will most likely be great again. I don't think Company Veterans are *that* terrible, what's problematic for them is firstborn transports not being viable in competitive SM, you can probably still them work. All-thunder-hammers on a 1W unit needs to come down 5-10 pts per model, but you are not really working within the system as it is when you take a crazy loadout like that. You can also take both mobility options for Reivers or take flamers on a unit in a Drop Pod, the system doesn't baby you, but if you somehow find a way to deliver those 16 thunderhammer attacks then it's going to delete half a Knight (300 pts vs your 150) and only lose a couple of guys in return and if you take the extra range chapter tactic the flamers can actually shoot after coming out from a Drop Pod.
I do think some invulnerable saves should work as a modifier, like units that are adept at dodging enemy attacks should be -1 to hit, not 5++.
No plans on running any vets. As I say, there's better ways to spend the points. And the point remains, 3+ invulnerables in space marines armies aren't cheap, and they are situational. A Grey Knights Paladin squad will delete 10 Vanguard vets before they do anything the vast majority of the time.
I do agree there needs to be some kind of modifier that allows really expnseive, high strength high AP weaponry to get around 3+ shrugs. It might be possible to have strength affect invulns the way AP modifiers affect saving throws.
Roberts84 wrote: No plans on running any vets. As I say, there's better ways to spend the points. And the point remains, 3+ invulnerables in space marines armies aren't cheap, and they are situational. A Grey Knights Paladin squad will delete 10 Vanguard vets before they do anything the vast majority of the time.
I do agree there needs to be some kind of modifier that allows really expnseive, high strength high AP weaponry to get around 3+ shrugs. It might be possible to have strength affect invulns the way AP modifiers affect saving throws.
Fair enough on not running Vets, you haven't actually made a point about INVULNS being expensive, you've made a point that THUNDERHAMMERS are expensive. No one squad is invincible, 5 Paladins cost more than 5 Veterans. 5 stormshield Veterans can survive an amazing amount of melta/powerfist attacks. In your "everybody takes thunderhammers on everybody" world the Paladins should be terrible. 96 vs 104 pts for 4 chainswords vs 4 stormshields. Assuming a chainsword is worth 1 pt then it's 92 vs 104, that's 13% more pts for 50% more durability against AP-1 100% more durability against AP-2, 150% against AP-3, 200% against AP-4/-5.
Mortal wounds already exist, the only thing that isn't working with regards to saves is terrain and suppressing fire/going to ground missing from the game but the latter two are hard to reimplement in the framework of 8th.
vict0988 wrote: Your opponent paid for an upgrade to get that invul, he could have cheapened out or taken an upgrade to his offensive output, but chose to pay extra to not get blasted apart by high AP weaponry.
Except that the vast majority of invulnerable saves in the game aren't upgrades, they're just standard wargear.
I was addressing OP's problem of facing a Ghostkeel, which is completely silly in the first place, what's broken isn't a 4++ against lascannons, it's the 2+ lookout sir the Drones get to make and then they get to shrug on 5+++. A 3+ 4++ is not that amazing, I don't know why people feel entitled to ignore saves with their lascannons, I pay for AP-5 and only get to use it under very rare circumstances. I suspect maybe OP just wanted tougher Terminators, that can be done in other ways, like updating their invulnerable rule to fit with the new edition, by improving it by 1 or further improving their W characteristic or adding one to Terminator Toughness. Terminators should not be super tough to lasguns, tough to heavy bolters and then get completely wasted by melta, the fluff says they have a forcefield that protects them against melta, so lasguns ineffective, heavy bolters and melta somewhat effective, but no weapon should perfectly remove them, with the exception of mortal wounds, the great equalizer.
I was addressing OP's problem of facing a Ghostkeel, which is completely silly in the first place, what's broken isn't a 4++ against lascannons, it's the 2+ lookout sir the Drones get to make and then they get to shrug on 5+++.
Ah okay. I thought you were speaking more generally about Invulnerable Saves.
Regarding Drones, I can understand them protecting smaller models, but having them able to intercept shots for units the size of small buildings seems rather silly.
vict0988 wrote: I don't know why people feel entitled to ignore saves with their lascannons, I pay for AP-5 and only get to use it under very rare circumstances.
To be fair, I'm not sure that's a good thing. Like I said earlier, there seems to be a real issue with big, multi-wound units with 2+ armour saves also getting invulnerable saves. So weapons like meltas, which are supposed to be most effective against those targets, actually end up with a lot of extra AP that doesn't actually do anything.
I think giving big units more wounds rather than invulnerable saves would go a long way to balancing things out and making it that meltaguns serve an actual purpose.
Canadian 5th wrote: Invulnerable saves and ward saves have worked this way from the earliest days of Warhammer. Why is it that they don't serve their function now when they, seemingly, worked in past editions?
I think you missed the point. Its not that they don't work, its that they are handed out to too many models and render the weapons designed to combat those models, less effective than cheaper weapons.
I'm of the belief that most of the large models with invulnerable should just have more wounds and or toughness instead. Not all of course though, some are fine.
Roberts84 wrote: No plans on running any vets. As I say, there's better ways to spend the points. And the point remains, 3+ invulnerables in space marines armies aren't cheap, and they are situational. A Grey Knights Paladin squad will delete 10 Vanguard vets before they do anything the vast majority of the time.
I do agree there needs to be some kind of modifier that allows really expnseive, high strength high AP weaponry to get around 3+ shrugs. It might be possible to have strength affect invulns the way AP modifiers affect saving throws.
Fair enough on not running Vets, you haven't actually made a point about INVULNS being expensive, you've made a point that THUNDERHAMMERS are expensive. No one squad is invincible, 5 Paladins cost more than 5 Veterans. 5 stormshield Veterans can survive an amazing amount of melta/powerfist attacks. In your "everybody takes thunderhammers on everybody" world the Paladins should be terrible. 96 vs 104 pts for 4 chainswords vs 4 stormshields. Assuming a chainsword is worth 1 pt then it's 92 vs 104, that's 13% more pts for 50% more durability against AP-1 100% more durability against AP-2, 150% against AP-3, 200% against AP-4/-5.
Mortal wounds already exist, the only thing that isn't working with regards to saves is terrain and suppressing fire/going to ground missing from the game but the latter two are hard to reimplement in the framework of 8th.
vict0988 wrote: Your opponent paid for an upgrade to get that invul, he could have cheapened out or taken an upgrade to his offensive output, but chose to pay extra to not get blasted apart by high AP weaponry.
Except that the vast majority of invulnerable saves in the game aren't upgrades, they're just standard wargear.
I was addressing OP's problem of facing a Ghostkeel, which is completely silly in the first place, what's broken isn't a 4++ against lascannons, it's the 2+ lookout sir the Drones get to make and then they get to shrug on 5+++. A 3+ 4++ is not that amazing, I don't know why people feel entitled to ignore saves with their lascannons, I pay for AP-5 and only get to use it under very rare circumstances. I suspect maybe OP just wanted tougher Terminators, that can be done in other ways, like updating their invulnerable rule to fit with the new edition, by improving it by 1 or further improving their W characteristic or adding one to Terminator Toughness. Terminators should not be super tough to lasguns, tough to heavy bolters and then get completely wasted by melta, the fluff says they have a forcefield that protects them against melta, so lasguns ineffective, heavy bolters and melta somewhat effective, but no weapon should perfectly remove them, with the exception of mortal wounds, the great equalizer.
Paladins are three wound models that have a lot more survivability in general due to GK's special rules and psychic. It's also not possible to take shields on them, which might be fair because if you could gak could get real very fast. So really, we're talking terminators and Vanguard vets that will be using shields, as well as smash captains. Really of those three options only the smash captain is a competitive choice. Honestly, I'm yet to see any evidence that Vets can take an amazing mount of anything which is why nobody uses them, and if they do, they're using SS to protect the bulk of the vets which are kitted out dual wielding (I personally think dual claws are the best). If you're not taking a hammer with a shield vet, those vets aren't really going to be fulfilling their purpose, which is kill team units. At the end of all things, one wound is one wound; a slight survivability improvement on bugger all is still bugger all. It isn't hard to fail 3+ saves. Vets need to be bumped up to two wounds to become competitive. They're just OK with shields against low output high AP weaponry but utterly useless against hordes, or high output low AP attacks.
Anyway, the point is space marines don't have access to cheap invulnerable saves the way Tau do, and they don't have anything like as many of them.The amount of drones Tau can take needs to be limited.
Martel732 wrote: A dodge save. Which is ignored by templates and blasts.
Other daemons can get a daemon save, with different rules. But no flat unmodifiable saves.
Things like iron halos should not function vs anti-tank weaponry.
A dodge save? You mean like jink on units like ravenwing bikers? Which is represented as an invulnerable save? And we don't have templates anymore.
The entire point of an invulnerable save is that it provides a save that ignores ap. If they don't work against anti tank what's the point? Why not just have an armour save and drop the points?
Canadian 5th wrote: Invulnerable saves and ward saves have worked this way from the earliest days of Warhammer. Why is it that they don't serve their function now when they, seemingly, worked in past editions?
I think you missed the point. Its not that they don't work, its that they are handed out to too many models and render the weapons designed to combat those models, less effective than cheaper weapons.
I'm of the belief that most of the large models with invulnerable should just have more wounds and or toughness instead. Not all of course though, some are fine.
That doesn't fix the problem at all if you do it in a way that keeps the models at a similar toughness as they are now and is a nerf to large swathes of units if you just, as an example, double the wounds on a model with 4++ invuln. Also, how does this fix anything, and why should we ignore both fluff and rules precedence to make this change?
Martel732 wrote: For them, some kind of dodge save that doesn't work vs templates and blasts.
What does this 'fix' aside from you nerfing the kinds of units your subpar army lists lose against?
Martel732 wrote: A dodge save. Which is ignored by templates and blasts.
Other daemons can get a daemon save, with different rules. But no flat unmodifiable saves.
Things like iron halos should not function vs anti-tank weaponry.
A dodge save? You mean like jink on units like ravenwing bikers? Which is represented as an invulnerable save? And we don't have templates anymore.
The entire point of an invulnerable save is that it provides a save that ignores ap. If they don't work against anti tank what's the point? Why not just have an armour save and drop the points?
Weapons that used to be templates would ignore dodges.
"If they don't work against anti tank what's the point? Why not just have an armour save and drop the points?"
Because the ion screen of an IK should something vs AT guns, whereas an iron halo should not. But that something would be something like damage reduction, not an all or nothing roll.
Martel732 wrote: A dodge save. Which is ignored by templates and blasts.
Other daemons can get a daemon save, with different rules. But no flat unmodifiable saves.
Things like iron halos should not function vs anti-tank weaponry.
A dodge save? You mean like jink on units like ravenwing bikers? Which is represented as an invulnerable save? And we don't have templates anymore.
The entire point of an invulnerable save is that it provides a save that ignores ap. If they don't work against anti tank what's the point? Why not just have an armour save and drop the points?
Weapons that used to be templates would ignore dodges.
"If they don't work against anti tank what's the point? Why not just have an armour save and drop the points?"
Because the ion screen of an IK should something vs AT guns, whereas an iron halo should not. But that something would be something like damage reduction, not an all or nothing roll.
They're both force fields, iron halos being relics from the Crusade era generally, and therefore of greater potency. Say they didn't work against anti tank, how would you represent that in game terms?
Also, what about invuls provided by being lucky such as deathskulls or Makari?
Edit:
Ach, you edited while I was replying. Ok, why doesn't the damage reduction work for iron halos? And doesn't that just bring us back to massed low damage weapons working best against invuls?
Only vs IKs in this case. It would be a large undertaking, but GW has made AP past -2 very low value. And AP -1 and -2 are way too powerful vs expensive units.
As for iron halo, it would be fully functional vs plasma pistol, partial vs plasma gun, and not work at all vs plasma cannon. For example.
Martel732 wrote: Only vs IKs in this case. It would be a large undertaking, but GW has made AP past -2 very low value. And AP -1 and -2 are way too powerful vs expensive units.
As for iron halo, it would be fully functional vs plasma pistol, partial vs plasma gun, and not work at all vs plasma cannon. For example.
This appears to be yet another thread where you call for nerfs to units you personally don't like without any reasonable suggestion as to what could change to make things more balanced. If you're going to whine make a venting thread if you want to propose rules do something thinking and make some rules.
I believe I explained myself in the previous post. If that's whining, I think its safe to ignore you. It has nothing to do with my army because I don't pay for AP in my army for the most part. For the reasons I just outlined above. -2 is almost always enough. I want lascannons and meltaguns to be worth taking.
Martel732 wrote: Only vs IKs in this case. It would be a large undertaking, but GW has made AP past -2 very low value. And AP -1 and -2 are way too powerful vs expensive units.
As for iron halo, it would be fully functional vs plasma pistol, partial vs plasma gun, and not work at all vs plasma cannon. For example.
So you want knights to be impervious to small arms fire? That make them an even stronger skew army than they already are. Kill all the anti tank and they can pick off everything else at their leisure.
And why just knights and not other LOW? You planning on trading your ba for knights?
Martel732 wrote: Only vs IKs in this case. It would be a large undertaking, but GW has made AP past -2 very low value. And AP -1 and -2 are way too powerful vs expensive units.
As for iron halo, it would be fully functional vs plasma pistol, partial vs plasma gun, and not work at all vs plasma cannon. For example.
This appears to be yet another thread where you call for nerfs to units you personally don't like without any reasonable suggestion as to what could change to make things more balanced. If you're going to whine make a venting thread if you want to propose rules do something thinking and make some rules.
Some things do scream out for the Nerf bat, but overall, most things are reasonably balanced IMO. Iron hands was gross and needed whittling back, I think Tau fall into that bracket too currently. One only needs to look at the sheer amount of wounds and invulnerables they have to know that they're way off kilter in relation to everything else. Rather than change the dynamics of the game, I personally it's better to amend units and abilities.
Martel732 wrote: Only vs IKs in this case. It would be a large undertaking, but GW has made AP past -2 very low value. And AP -1 and -2 are way too powerful vs expensive units.
As for iron halo, it would be fully functional vs plasma pistol, partial vs plasma gun, and not work at all vs plasma cannon. For example.
So you want knights to be impervious to small arms fire? That make them an even stronger skew army than they already are. Kill all the anti tank and they can pick off everything else at their leisure.
And why just knights and not other LOW? You planning on trading your ba for knights?
It's just an example of what the ion screen COULD do instead of an all or nothing roll. Instead of rendering AT guns useless vs their intended targets. You are reading too much into this. I realize this will largely require a massive rewrite.
For the purposes of this discussion, we are assuming that unmodifiable saves are out of the question.
So what do we have that these normally represent?
Speed: dodges
Energy fields: iron halos et Al
Super healing: regen
Reinforced armour: terminators
I think you could cover these the following ways:
Dodge: modifiers to hit rolls ie dodge (1) -1 to hit
Energy fields/reinforced armour: roll to ignore attack, use field strength vs attacking AP. IE my field (3) vs AP (2), success on a 3+. Field (2) vs AP (3), 5+ success.
Regeneration: give the unit more starting wounds or have them reduce the number of wound they take from a single hit by 1 to minimum 1.
Roberts84 wrote: Some things do scream out for the Nerf bat, but overall, most things are reasonably balanced IMO. Iron hands was gross and needed whittling back, I think Tau fall into that bracket too currently. One only needs to look at the sheer amount of wounds and invulnerables they have to know that they're way off kilter in relation to everything else. Rather than change the dynamics of the game, I personally it's better to amend units and abilities.
I agree with this take. Nerf the units that are an issue, not the underlying mechanic which isn't broken on most models in the game.
Roberts84 wrote: Some things do scream out for the Nerf bat, but overall, most things are reasonably balanced IMO. Iron hands was gross and needed whittling back, I think Tau fall into that bracket too currently. One only needs to look at the sheer amount of wounds and invulnerables they have to know that they're way off kilter in relation to everything else. Rather than change the dynamics of the game, I personally it's better to amend units and abilities.
I agree with this take. Nerf the units that are an issue, not the underlying mechanic which isn't broken on most models in the game.
I played ranked Arena in WOW for quite a few years, so Meta changes and imbalances aren't new to me. Unlike 40K, if your class got gimped because of a patch, there was nothing you could do about it until that changed, you just had to change your arena partner to do what you could. In 40k, dice rolls means you've always got a shot at least regardless of the Meta.
The unforseen flow-on effects of changes to game mechanics are always more disastrous than changes to abilities and perks. I can't remember which season it was, but at some point in WOTLK the game changed dramatically, and the result was that burst damage was mandatory for DPS units. I played a DOT damage class, and that was basically the end of it--I had to respec, and no longer enjoyed my class at all because it was no longer viable to play it the way I wanted. I quit shortly after.
Roberts84 wrote: Some things do scream out for the Nerf bat, but overall, most things are reasonably balanced IMO. Iron hands was gross and needed whittling back, I think Tau fall into that bracket too currently. One only needs to look at the sheer amount of wounds and invulnerables they have to know that they're way off kilter in relation to everything else. Rather than change the dynamics of the game, I personally it's better to amend units and abilities.
I agree with this take. Nerf the units that are an issue, not the underlying mechanic which isn't broken on most models in the game.
It is, though. All the token 5++ break high AP weapons. There's no way I'm paying what GW is asking for AP the way the game works.
Roberts84 wrote: Some things do scream out for the Nerf bat, but overall, most things are reasonably balanced IMO. Iron hands was gross and needed whittling back, I think Tau fall into that bracket too currently. One only needs to look at the sheer amount of wounds and invulnerables they have to know that they're way off kilter in relation to everything else. Rather than change the dynamics of the game, I personally it's better to amend units and abilities.
I agree with this take. Nerf the units that are an issue, not the underlying mechanic which isn't broken on most models in the game.
It is, though. All the token 5++ break high AP weapons.
You still have to make the saves. I used WOW as an example just now. In that game, there were no dice. If your class was broken, there was no recourse, you were just boned until things got better with a patch, which might not have happened. It is annoying that invulns often make expensive high AP units pointless, but here's also no guarantee that they will. It depends on the dice. I suppose what I'm saying is, be thankful for small mercies.
There definitely needs to be different keywords on saves like <dodge>, <force field>, etc. That way phase weapons only ignore force fields, not dodges. And force fields that are small can be overpowered by large weapons. I would just make terminators 1+ armor where 1 always fails. That way, -1 AP doesn't halve their save.
Martel732 wrote: There definitely needs to be different keywords on saves like <dodge>, <force field>, etc. That way phase weapons only ignore force fields, not dodges. And force fields that are small can be overpowered by large weapons. I would just make terminators 1+ armor where 1 always fails. That way, -1 AP doesn't halve their save.
While I like the idea of 1+ or 0+ stats, currently, if they were implemented, that would give Terminators an effective 2++.
Ignore that interpretation. It's absurd. Absurd results are to be ignored. The three TOs I've talked to refuse to follow that interpretation for example. We all know how it's SUPPOSED to work. A comment in some GW document doesn't change this.
Martel732 wrote: Ignore that interpretation. It's absurd. Absurd results are to be ignored. The three TOs I've talked to refuse to follow that interpretation for example.
There's only one thing in the game that can achieve a 1+ stat, and that's a Succubus under the effects of the improve WS combat drug.
And in that case? It's fine. But for an armor save? Hell no. You'd have to change a LOT to make 1+ stats work, since anything less than 1 is treated as a 1, which is required for Plasma to work properly.
Martel732 wrote: There definitely needs to be different keywords on saves like <dodge>, <force field>, etc. That way phase weapons only ignore force fields, not dodges. And force fields that are small can be overpowered by large weapons. I would just make terminators 1+ armor where 1 always fails. That way, -1 AP doesn't halve their save.
That would make them more resilient to everything except -4 or better, with -4 having the same effectiveness as now. Not that I'm complaining as I run terminators.
Martel732 wrote: I believe I explained myself in the previous post. If that's whining, I think its safe to ignore you. It has nothing to do with my army because I don't pay for AP in my army for the most part. For the reasons I just outlined above. -2 is almost always enough. I want lascannons and meltaguns to be worth taking.
Your explanation lacks detail and doesn't really address the reason WHY such a larger undertaking is worth looking at rather than fixing units that are currently over performing.
Roberts84 wrote: I played ranked Arena in WOW for quite a few years, so Meta changes and imbalances aren't new to me. Unlike 40K, if your class got gimped because of a patch, there was nothing you could do about it until that changed, you just had to change your arena partner to do what you could. In 40k, dice rolls means you've always got a shot at least regardless of the Meta.
The unforseen flow-on effects of changes to game mechanics are always more disastrous than changes to abilities and perks. I can't remember which season it was, but at some point in WOTLK the game changed dramatically, and the result was that burst damage was mandatory for DPS units. I played a DOT damage class, and that was basically the end of it--I had to respec, and no longer enjoyed my class at all because it was no longer viable to play it the way I wanted. I quit shortly after.
I raided in WotLK but never did much PvP because Arcane Mages weren't never great at it, except for one quickly reverted patch, and I didn't enjoy the way Frost or Frost Fire played.
"Your explanation lacks detail and doesn't really address the reason WHY such a larger undertaking is worth looking at rather than fixing units that are currently over performing."
Because the game has too many false choices under the current AP system. Melta is never a good choice, for example. As I said, you are vastly overpaying for any AP -3 or above.
Maybe invulnerables should have an overload value. If the str of the hit is above the overload value then no invulnerable save (or perhaps -1 or something if too harsh). Dodge type saves and daemonics could have no overload value.
Refractor fields that IG have could be 5+ save overload Str 8
Conversion fields (Iron Halos, Rosarius etc) could be 4+ save overload Str 9
Just an idea. Most invulnerables should not help if hit be a Volcano Cannon.
Martel732 wrote: It is, though. All the token 5++ break high AP weapons. There's no way I'm paying what GW is asking for AP the way the game works.
Most models with a token 5++ aren't things you should shoot a high AP weapon at. For the other stuff, they should be tough/shielded/lucky enough to shrug off some hits and keep trucking because that's what the game is designed around.
Tygre wrote: Maybe invulnerables should have an overload value. If the str of the hit is above the overload value then no invulnerable save (or perhaps -1 or something if too harsh). Dodge type saves and daemonics could have no overload value.
Refractor fields that IG have could be 5+ save overload Str 8
Conversion fields (Iron Halos, Rosarius etc) could be 4+ save overload Str 9
Just an idea. Most invulnerables should not help if hit be a Volcano Cannon.
That's kind of what I'm going for. But str is not quite detailed enough. Iron halo should block plasma pistol all day. But not the plasma gun from an executioner repulsor.
Martel732 wrote: It is, though. All the token 5++ break high AP weapons. There's no way I'm paying what GW is asking for AP the way the game works.
Most models with a token 5++ aren't things you should shoot a high AP weapon at. For the other stuff, they should be tough/shielded/lucky enough to shrug off some hits and keep trucking because that's what the game is designed around.
I disagree with that design. And I shouldn't shoot high AP weapons at terminators? Okay. Or IKs? Okay. Things shouldn't be shrugging off things like lascannons and multimeltas as they do with invulns. Players are paying for that to NOT happen with those weapons.
Tygre wrote: Maybe invulnerables should have an overload value. If the str of the hit is above the overload value then no invulnerable save (or perhaps -1 or something if too harsh). Dodge type saves and daemonics could have no overload value.
Refractor fields that IG have could be 5+ save overload Str 8
Conversion fields (Iron Halos, Rosarius etc) could be 4+ save overload Str 9
Just an idea. Most invulnerables should not help if hit be a Volcano Cannon.
Why shouldn't a unit protected by a refractor field be protected from a near miss, represented by making a save, from a Volcano Cannon while their fellows, the ones that failed their saves, get vaporized as the blast overwhelms their defenses?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: I disagree with that design. And I shouldn't shoot high AP weapons at terminators? Okay.
The most efficient weapons profile to shoot at terminators with is something that wounds on a 2, has some AP, and D2. So overcharged plasma weapons work well, as do stalker bolt rifles, etc. You shouldn't be shooting lascannons and krak missiles at termies, those go into vehicles and monsters.
Tygre wrote: Maybe invulnerables should have an overload value. If the str of the hit is above the overload value then no invulnerable save (or perhaps -1 or something if too harsh). Dodge type saves and daemonics could have no overload value.
Refractor fields that IG have could be 5+ save overload Str 8
Conversion fields (Iron Halos, Rosarius etc) could be 4+ save overload Str 9
Just an idea. Most invulnerables should not help if hit be a Volcano Cannon.
Why shouldn't a unit protected by a refractor field be protected from a near miss, represented by making a save, from a Volcano Cannon while their fellows, the ones that failed their saves, get vaporized as the blast overwhelms their defenses?
Not all near misses are the same. And that should be determined by WEAPON not the force field.
Automatically Appended Next Post: "The most efficient weapons profile to shoot at terminators with is something that wounds on a 2, has some AP, and D2. So overcharged plasma weapons work well, as do stalker bolt rifles, etc. You shouldn't be shooting lascannons and krak missiles at termies, those go into vehicles and monsters."
They shouldn't be. That's the whole point. A krak missile or lascannon should leave a smoking crater not bounce off a 5++. Low rate of fire weapons are paying for reliability, and they pay for this independent of enemy list. Invluns given out willy nilly and for close to nothing destroy this reliability.
Martel732 wrote: Not all near misses are the same. And that should be determined by WEAPON not the force field.
A near miss that can be saved by a 5++ is determined more by how near the miss was than by the weapon being fired.
For example, a near-miss with a bullet might be by a millimeter, a near miss by a grenade might be a couple of meters and a wall between you and it, a near miss from a nuke might be kilometers and being in an underground carpark. In all cases, we're looking at the results not the cause of said result.
They shouldn't be. That's the whole point. A krak missile or lascannon should leave a smoking crater not bounce off a 5++.
"The heretic's krak missile skipped off the surface of Brother Galtus's Iron Halo and detonated in the ruins behind him sending up a cloud of smoke and debris. As the fallout from the explosion rained down over him he said a silent prayer at the fact that the missile hadn't hit his shield square on and vaporized him."
Martel732 wrote: It doesn't make for good game choices to me, regardless of narrative reasoning. -1 and -2 are too powerful, and -3 and above are too weak.
They really aren't weak they're just specialized. Forcing something to use a 5++ instead of a 2+ still has a lot of value even if some shots get saved.
Krak missiles should be skipping off iron halos. That's my whole point.
I know there will be little support for any large changes. I'll just continue to not pay for high AP weapons. I might as well throw all may melta units in the garbage can. I guess that's fine with GW.
I know there will be little support for any large changes. I'll just continue to not pay for high AP weapons. I might as well throw all may melta units in the garbage can.
Don't do that. Just send them to me.
A quick paint stripping and a fresh coat of midnight blue and they'll be melting loyalist tanks in no time. Which they're still quite good at btw.
I know there will be little support for any large changes. I'll just continue to not pay for high AP weapons. I might as well throw all may melta units in the garbage can.
High AP weapons aren't useless. Melta is worse than it was but still works against the targets it's supposed to, there are just more efficient options at the moment.
I know there will be little support for any large changes. I'll just continue to not pay for high AP weapons. I might as well throw all may melta units in the garbage can.
Don't do that. Just send them to me.
A quick paint stripping and a fresh coat of midnight blue and they'll be melting loyalist tanks in no time. Which they're still quite good at btw.
Useless without list tailoring. I'd use melta if I could tailor. But a blind foe? Into the garbage can. Or maybe acetone. I'd enjoy acetoning a bunch of useless GW minis.
I know there will be little support for any large changes. I'll just continue to not pay for high AP weapons. I might as well throw all may melta units in the garbage can.
High AP weapons aren't useless. Melta is worse than it was but still works against the targets it's supposed to, there are just more efficient options at the moment.
Yes, they are useless for what you pay for them. They are never a good choice in a blind situation. They only viable with list tailoring, which I don't do. Melta would have to be a lot cheaper to be even considered.
Automatically Appended Next Post: So... I'm guessing you guys are list tailoring?
Martel732 wrote: Yes, they are useless for what you pay for them. They are never a good choice in a blind situation. They only viable with list tailoring, which I don't do. Melta would have to be a lot cheaper to be even considered.
Perhaps, perhaps not. It depends on the meta at the time and what you expect to face in a given day's gaming session.
So... I'm guessing you guys are list tailoring?
I intend to play competitively so I'll build lists focused on that meta and the threats that I expect to face. I can't tailor to each list I may face but I can build a list that can handle the main categories of expected issues.
Martel732 wrote: Yes, they are useless for what you pay for them. They are never a good choice in a blind situation. They only viable with list tailoring, which I don't do. Melta would have to be a lot cheaper to be even considered.
Perhaps, perhaps not. It depends on the meta at the time and what you expect to face in a given day's gaming session.
So... I'm guessing you guys are list tailoring?
I intend to play competitively so I'll build lists focused on that meta and the threats that I expect to face. I can't tailor to each list I may face but I can build a list that can handle the main categories of expected issues.
In fairness, I haven't come across an expensive unit I'd prefer meltas on over its other options yet. It's not that they are bad, it's just that they're not the best value. Only part of this is due to invulnerable saves however. A lot of it has to do with the fact they are low output in terms of shots. It's kind of the same problem lascannons face. Can't wound if you don't hit, and this is compounded by how many bonuses to saving throws etc there are in the game across so many different armies.
Martel732 wrote: So... I'm guessing you guys are list tailoring?
Not my style. Rules change. Where would I be if I had thrown out all my warp talons before Faith and Fury and ca2019 made them great for Night Lords? Plus it's always good to have options for fun. You need to stop expecting everything to be op just to be effective. A squad of combi melta chosen dropping in a dreadclaw can ruin a lr or executioner's day. Running the same list all the time is boring.
Martel732 wrote: So... I'm guessing you guys are list tailoring?
Not my style. Rules change. Where would I be if I had thrown out all my warp talons before Faith and Fury and ca2019 made them great for Night Lords? Plus it's always good to have options for fun. You need to stop expecting everything to be op just to be effective. A squad of combi melta chosen dropping in a dreadclaw can ruin a lr or executioner's day. Running the same list all the time is boring.
Just finished re-reading Red Tithe. Night Lords are seriously badass, if they aren't the most lethal of the heretic forces I don't know what is. Fought the Carcharodons to pretty much draw.
Martel732 wrote: So... I'm guessing you guys are list tailoring?
Not my style. Rules change. Where would I be if I had thrown out all my warp talons before Faith and Fury and ca2019 made them great for Night Lords? Plus it's always good to have options for fun. You need to stop expecting everything to be op just to be effective. A squad of combi melta chosen dropping in a dreadclaw can ruin a lr or executioner's day. Running the same list all the time is boring.
Trust me. My bar is NOT OP. I'm used to scrabbling for mediocrity. Melta is a total fail in 8th ed. I'd never pay what they charge for it. I doubt melta will ever be good again because its not a primaris weapon.
"It's not that they are bad, it's just that they're not the best value."
If they're not good value, they're bad. That's what being a poor value means.
Martel732 wrote: So... I'm guessing you guys are list tailoring?
Not my style. Rules change. Where would I be if I had thrown out all my warp talons before Faith and Fury and ca2019 made them great for Night Lords? Plus it's always good to have options for fun. You need to stop expecting everything to be op just to be effective. A squad of combi melta chosen dropping in a dreadclaw can ruin a lr or executioner's day. Running the same list all the time is boring.
Trust me. My bar is NOT OP. I'm used to scrabbling for mediocrity. Melta is a total fail in 8th ed. I'd never pay what they charge for it. I doubt melta will ever be good again because its not a primaris weapon.
"It's not that they are bad, it's just that they're not the best value."
If they're not good value, they're bad. That's what being a poor value means.
Ehhhh...not really. I mean there's 'meh', and then there's 'You couldn't pay me to take it'. Terminators are a rule-out if you want a shot at winning in a competitive game, for example. I mean, I'd be far happier about taking a melta on something than a bunch of cataphractii termies. The Corvus Blackstar is pretty godawful too, sadly. Beautiful model.
Martel732 wrote: There's no reason to take melta anything at its current cost.
Not strictly true. They have a lot of value in overwatch especially if you have a perk granting hits on 5+ during. Pretty solid choice on attack backs too actually, given you're going to be at half range pretty much guaranteed. Melta isn't as good as Plasma but it's not a dumpster fire either. I do agree with you that it's too expensive though.
Roberts84 wrote: Paladins are three wound models that have a lot more survivability in general due to GK's special rules and psychic. It's also not possible to take shields on them, which might be fair because if you could gak could get real very fast. So really, we're talking terminators and Vanguard vets that will be using shields, as well as smash captains. Really of those three options only the smash captain is a competitive choice. Honestly, I'm yet to see any evidence that Vets can take an amazing mount of anything which is why nobody uses them, and if they do, they're using SS to protect the bulk of the vets which are kitted out dual wielding (I personally think dual claws are the best). If you're not taking a hammer with a shield vet, those vets aren't really going to be fulfilling their purpose, which is kill team units.
GKs don't have any defensive abilities, they have defensive psychic powers, but what makes them tougher than Iron Hands Terminators is their extra wound on the profile.
At the end of all things, one wound is one wound; a slight survivability improvement on bugger all is still bugger all. It isn't hard to fail 3+ saves. Vets need to be bumped up to two wounds to become competitive. They're just OK with shields against low output high AP weaponry but utterly useless against hordes, or high output low AP attacks.
No, a wound isn't a wound you silly goose, it matters what T, Sv, invul and other abilities the unit has and that changes how much the unit is worth, there's a reason why a 6+ Sv Ork is 7 pts and a 3+ SvCSM is 11 pts, neither is worth 300 pts like a model with 20+ wounds, but one is still waaaay tougher than the other and deserves to be more pts for that reason. Shields are absolutely crucial on models that can take them, with the possible exception of Captains if they aren't meant for frontline smashing, with shields the units are much better because of how little you pay.
Anyway, the point is space marines don't have access to cheap invulnerable saves the way Tau do, and they don't have anything like as many of them.The amount of drones Tau can take needs to be limited.
Space Marines can spam invulns, all it takes is the will to do it. Space Marines are more elite than Tau, their guys with invulns can actually do damage unlike Drones. Shield Drones being OP does not make shields any less of an auto-include on units that can take them. Just like if all Battlesuit models were 100% more expensive they'd all be trash, but you'd still run Shield Drones to protect them so they'd be an auto-include if you did include those units which might be horrible at base, but in combination with Shield Drones they'd be less horrible overall.
Martel732 wrote: "Your explanation lacks detail and doesn't really address the reason WHY such a larger undertaking is worth looking at rather than fixing units that are currently over performing."
Because the game has too many false choices under the current AP system. Melta is never a good choice, for example. As I said, you are vastly overpaying for any AP -3 or above.
If there was no resistance to melta they might just be another 100% pts, no need to change underlying game systems when a pts drop fixes things and if your whole game-wide change might be ruined by yet another pts increase, the Necrons have several great AP-4/-5 options in their roster. Melta is good against a Rhino or Land Raider, less good against a Daemon vehicle because that Daemon vehicle is magical and doesn't follow real-world physics.
Martel732 wrote: So many invulns being in the game keeps them out of my lists entirely. I don't think the Necron -4/-5 weapons are very good, either. 5++ ruins them.
99% of tournament Necron lists disagree. Put (combi-)meltas down to (2+)5 pts and they become amazing against units with or without invuls.
Roberts84 wrote: Paladins are three wound models that have a lot more survivability in general due to GK's special rules and psychic. It's also not possible to take shields on them, which might be fair because if you could gak could get real very fast. So really, we're talking terminators and Vanguard vets that will be using shields, as well as smash captains. Really of those three options only the smash captain is a competitive choice. Honestly, I'm yet to see any evidence that Vets can take an amazing mount of anything which is why nobody uses them, and if they do, they're using SS to protect the bulk of the vets which are kitted out dual wielding (I personally think dual claws are the best). If you're not taking a hammer with a shield vet, those vets aren't really going to be fulfilling their purpose, which is kill team units.
GKs don't have any defensive abilities, they have defensive psychic powers, but what makes them tougher than Iron Hands Terminators is their extra wound on the profile.
At the end of all things, one wound is one wound; a slight survivability improvement on bugger all is still bugger all. It isn't hard to fail 3+ saves. Vets need to be bumped up to two wounds to become competitive. They're just OK with shields against low output high AP weaponry but utterly useless against hordes, or high output low AP attacks.
No, a wound isn't a wound you silly goose, it matters what T, Sv, invul and other abilities the unit has and that changes how much the unit is worth, there's a reason why a 6+ Sv Ork is 7 pts and a 3+ SvCSM is 11 pts, neither is worth 300 pts like a model with 20+ wounds, but one is still waaaay tougher than the other and deserves to be more pts for that reason. Shields are absolutely crucial on models that can take them, with the possible exception of Captains if they aren't meant for frontline smashing, with shields the units are much better because of how little you pay.
Anyway, the point is space marines don't have access to cheap invulnerable saves the way Tau do, and they don't have anything like as many of them.The amount of drones Tau can take needs to be limited.
Space Marines can spam invulns, all it takes is the will to do it. Space Marines are more elite than Tau, their guys with invulns can actually do damage unlike Drones. Shield Drones being OP does not make shields any less of an auto-include on units that can take them. Just like if all Battlesuit models were 100% more expensive they'd all be trash, but you'd still run Shield Drones to protect them so they'd be an auto-include if you did include those units which might be horrible at base, but in combination with Shield Drones they'd be less horrible overall.
Martel732 wrote: "Your explanation lacks detail and doesn't really address the reason WHY such a larger undertaking is worth looking at rather than fixing units that are currently over performing."
Because the game has too many false choices under the current AP system. Melta is never a good choice, for example. As I said, you are vastly overpaying for any AP -3 or above.
If there was no resistance to melta they might just be another 100% pts, no need to change underlying game systems when a pts drop fixes things and if your whole game-wide change might be ruined by yet another pts increase, the Necrons have several great AP-4/-5 options in their roster. Melta is good against a Rhino or Land Raider, less good against a Daemon vehicle because that Daemon vehicle is magical and doesn't follow real-world physics.
I can't believe that's your argument. Naturally a wound isn't just a wound due to strength/ toughness etc but that simply proves my point further, because outside of shield captains, you're only going to be putting shields on terminators and vets which are T4. Obviously having a 3+ on a Paladin ( can't be done) or or a Wraith is a way, way bigger deal than something like a Vanguard vet, because all a vet needs to do is fail one save and it's hosed of the board. A paladin or a wraith with a 3+ is an enormously bigger problem.
Honestly, you would only have a valid point to make if it were possible stick a 3+ invuln on high wound, high toughness models, and in space marines armies you can't. No such models exist to my knowledge--at least not without a relic or warlord trait. Name one elite or troop choice with more than two wounds that can take a stormshield in a space marines list. Get back to me because I'll definitely be running whatever they are.
Seriously, it's starting to feel like you're senselessly hating on SM armies.
Roberts84 wrote: I can't believe that's your argument. Naturally a wound isn't just a wound due to strength/ toughness etc but that simply proves my point further, because outside of shield captains, you're only going to be putting shields on terminators and vets which are T4. Obviously having a 3+ on a Paladin ( can't be done) or or a Wraith is a way, way bigger deal than something like a Vanguard vet, because all a vet needs to do is fail one save and it's hosed of the board. A paladin or a wraith with a 3+ is an enormously bigger problem.
Honestly, you would only have a valid point to make if it were possible stick a 3+ invuln on high wound, high toughness models, and in space marines armies you can't. No such models exist to my knowledge--at least not without a relic or warlord trait. Name one elite or troop choice with more than two wounds that can take a stormshield in a space marines list. Get back to me because I'll definitely be running whatever they are.
Seriously, it's starting to feel like you're senselessly hating on SM armies.
YOU said a wound is a wound, that going from a 3+ to a 3+/3++ is no big difference, it is a RELATIVELY big difference, no it doesn't make them worth 300 pts each, which is not what I said, but 2/10 pts relative to their base cost makes stormshields an auto-include on most units. You don't need to become as tough as a Knight for a toughness upgrade to be worthwhile, do you think using a Stratagem to get a 4++ on Craftworld Guardians is useless because they're vulnerable anyway? No, because it massively increases their defences, it's about RELATIVE cost and RELATIVE durability, same thing with Necron Tomb Blades you can pay 2 pts for +1 Sv, it doesn't make them into Knights but it does make them a lot more durable RELATIVE to their baseline stats. Stop being silly we don't play in fantasy land how much a unit costs before and costs after compared to how tough it is before and after is what matters, stormshields are amazing for 2 pts. I don't hate on Space Marines, I just think stormshields are undercosted. We're in an invul whining thread, complaining invuls are everywhere, well guess what? When the units with invulns are OP, when the options that give invulns are OP, invulns become popular. If Repulsors and lightning claws are better than Leviathans and stormshields then melta becomes better.
Roberts84 wrote: I can't believe that's your argument. Naturally a wound isn't just a wound due to strength/ toughness etc but that simply proves my point further, because outside of shield captains, you're only going to be putting shields on terminators and vets which are T4. Obviously having a 3+ on a Paladin ( can't be done) or or a Wraith is a way, way bigger deal than something like a Vanguard vet, because all a vet needs to do is fail one save and it's hosed of the board. A paladin or a wraith with a 3+ is an enormously bigger problem.
Honestly, you would only have a valid point to make if it were possible stick a 3+ invuln on high wound, high toughness models, and in space marines armies you can't. No such models exist to my knowledge--at least not without a relic or warlord trait. Name one elite or troop choice with more than two wounds that can take a stormshield in a space marines list. Get back to me because I'll definitely be running whatever they are.
Seriously, it's starting to feel like you're senselessly hating on SM armies.
YOU said a wound is a wound, that going from a 3+ to a 3+/3++ is no big difference, it is a RELATIVELY big difference, no it doesn't make them worth 300 pts each, which is not what I said, but 2/10 pts relative to their base cost makes stormshields an auto-include on most units. You don't need to become as tough as a Knight for a toughness upgrade to be worthwhile, do you think using a Stratagem to get a 4++ on Craftworld Guardians is useless because they're vulnerable anyway? No, because it massively increases their defences, it's about RELATIVE cost and RELATIVE durability, same thing with Necron Tomb Blades you can pay 2 pts for +1 Sv, it doesn't make them into Knights but it does make them a lot more durable RELATIVE to their baseline stats. Stop being silly we don't play in fantasy land how much a unit costs before and costs after compared to how tough it is before and after is what matters, stormshields are amazing for 2 pts. I don't hate on Space Marines, I just think stormshields are undercosted. We're in an invul whining thread, complaining invuls are everywhere, well guess what? When the units with invulns are OP, when the options that give invulns are OP, invulns become popular. If Repulsors and lightning claws are better than Leviathans and stormshields then melta becomes better.
But vets and Terminators aren't OP. If they are so good, why aren't the represented in competition? Terminators are terrible units! Vanguard Vets are mediocre at best and never even appear in competitive lists. If everything is relative, then the survivability granted by a storm shield is also relative to ultimate effect it has on the unit it is put on, and the value of the unit to which it is applied. A vet with a storm shield isn't OP and neither is a terminator. They're both still bad WITH a 3+.Putting a 3+ on a bad unit doesn't make it a good unit. It just makes it slightly less bad. How are you not understanding this?
Roberts84 wrote: I can't believe that's your argument. Naturally a wound isn't just a wound due to strength/ toughness etc but that simply proves my point further, because outside of shield captains, you're only going to be putting shields on terminators and vets which are T4. Obviously having a 3+ on a Paladin ( can't be done) or or a Wraith is a way, way bigger deal than something like a Vanguard vet, because all a vet needs to do is fail one save and it's hosed of the board. A paladin or a wraith with a 3+ is an enormously bigger problem.
Honestly, you would only have a valid point to make if it were possible stick a 3+ invuln on high wound, high toughness models, and in space marines armies you can't. No such models exist to my knowledge--at least not without a relic or warlord trait. Name one elite or troop choice with more than two wounds that can take a stormshield in a space marines list. Get back to me because I'll definitely be running whatever they are.
Seriously, it's starting to feel like you're senselessly hating on SM armies.
YOU said a wound is a wound, that going from a 3+ to a 3+/3++ is no big difference, it is a RELATIVELY big difference, no it doesn't make them worth 300 pts each, which is not what I said, but 2/10 pts relative to their base cost makes stormshields an auto-include on most units. You don't need to become as tough as a Knight for a toughness upgrade to be worthwhile, do you think using a Stratagem to get a 4++ on Craftworld Guardians is useless because they're vulnerable anyway? No, because it massively increases their defences, it's about RELATIVE cost and RELATIVE durability, same thing with Necron Tomb Blades you can pay 2 pts for +1 Sv, it doesn't make them into Knights but it does make them a lot more durable RELATIVE to their baseline stats. Stop being silly we don't play in fantasy land how much a unit costs before and costs after compared to how tough it is before and after is what matters, stormshields are amazing for 2 pts. I don't hate on Space Marines, I just think stormshields are undercosted. We're in an invul whining thread, complaining invuls are everywhere, well guess what? When the units with invulns are OP, when the options that give invulns are OP, invulns become popular. If Repulsors and lightning claws are better than Leviathans and stormshields then melta becomes better.
But vets and Terminators aren't OP. If they are so good, why aren't the represented in competition? Terminators are terrible units! Vanguard Vets are mediocre at best and never even appear in competitive lists. If everything is relative, then the survivability granted by a storm shield is also relative to ultimate effect it has on the unit it is put on, and the value of the unit to which it is applied. A vet with a storm shield isn't OP and neither is a terminator. They're both still bad WITH a 3+.Putting a 3+ on a bad unit doesn't make it a good unit. It just makes it slightly less bad. How are you not understanding this?
That just means the other options need buffs that are as big or bigger than the nerfs shields need to get, destroy the crutch and build the unit back up from scratch. Same thing with Shield Drones that also need to be changed. "But without my silly Shield Drones my Suits are horrible." I don't care, nerf the Drones buff the suits.
Roberts84 wrote: I can't believe that's your argument. Naturally a wound isn't just a wound due to strength/ toughness etc but that simply proves my point further, because outside of shield captains, you're only going to be putting shields on terminators and vets which are T4. Obviously having a 3+ on a Paladin ( can't be done) or or a Wraith is a way, way bigger deal than something like a Vanguard vet, because all a vet needs to do is fail one save and it's hosed of the board. A paladin or a wraith with a 3+ is an enormously bigger problem.
Honestly, you would only have a valid point to make if it were possible stick a 3+ invuln on high wound, high toughness models, and in space marines armies you can't. No such models exist to my knowledge--at least not without a relic or warlord trait. Name one elite or troop choice with more than two wounds that can take a stormshield in a space marines list. Get back to me because I'll definitely be running whatever they are.
Seriously, it's starting to feel like you're senselessly hating on SM armies.
YOU said a wound is a wound, that going from a 3+ to a 3+/3++ is no big difference, it is a RELATIVELY big difference, no it doesn't make them worth 300 pts each, which is not what I said, but 2/10 pts relative to their base cost makes stormshields an auto-include on most units. You don't need to become as tough as a Knight for a toughness upgrade to be worthwhile, do you think using a Stratagem to get a 4++ on Craftworld Guardians is useless because they're vulnerable anyway? No, because it massively increases their defences, it's about RELATIVE cost and RELATIVE durability, same thing with Necron Tomb Blades you can pay 2 pts for +1 Sv, it doesn't make them into Knights but it does make them a lot more durable RELATIVE to their baseline stats. Stop being silly we don't play in fantasy land how much a unit costs before and costs after compared to how tough it is before and after is what matters, stormshields are amazing for 2 pts. I don't hate on Space Marines, I just think stormshields are undercosted. We're in an invul whining thread, complaining invuls are everywhere, well guess what? When the units with invulns are OP, when the options that give invulns are OP, invulns become popular. If Repulsors and lightning claws are better than Leviathans and stormshields then melta becomes better.
But vets and Terminators aren't OP. If they are so good, why aren't the represented in competition? Terminators are terrible units! Vanguard Vets are mediocre at best and never even appear in competitive lists. If everything is relative, then the survivability granted by a storm shield is also relative to ultimate effect it has on the unit it is put on, and the value of the unit to which it is applied. A vet with a storm shield isn't OP and neither is a terminator. They're both still bad WITH a 3+.Putting a 3+ on a bad unit doesn't make it a good unit. It just makes it slightly less bad. How are you not understanding this?
That just means the other options need buffs that are as big or bigger than the nerfs shields need to get, destroy the crutch and build the unit back up from scratch. Same thing with Shield Drones that also need to be changed. "But without my silly Shield Drones my Suits are horrible." I don't care, nerf the Drones buff the suits.
Again, shields would only be a problem if you could put them on something with high toughness and/or wounds. They're simply not a problem as things stand right now. and they're not in the same ballpark as shield drones. It's just not a useful comparison to make.
- Units like Terminators with 5++ saves isn't an issue*. The reason is that these shouldn't be ideal targets for Meltaguns in the first place. Yes, they have 2+ saves but they're also infantry models with just 2 wounds apiece. Meltas should really be about burning through tanks and monsters, with 'Heavy Infantry' being very much secondary targets. Hence, I don't think it's an issue that meltas aren't efficient against them.
- Vehicles and Monsters with 2+ or 3+ saves should not have invulnerable saves. The reason is that these are the targets melta is supposed to be designed to bring down. These are what meltas pay for extra AP against.
*Note: I don't think Storm Shields in their current form should be a thing, but that's a separate issue to the melta thing.
Hellebore wrote: For the purposes of this discussion, we are assuming that unmodifiable saves are out of the question.
So what do we have that these normally represent?
Speed: dodges
Energy fields: iron halos et Al
Super healing: regen
Reinforced armour: terminators
I think you could cover these the following ways:
Dodge: modifiers to hit rolls ie dodge (1) -1 to hit
Energy fields/reinforced armour: roll to ignore attack, use field strength vs attacking AP. IE my field (3) vs AP (2), success on a 3+. Field (2) vs AP (3), 5+ success.
Regeneration: give the unit more starting wounds or have them reduce the number of wound they take from a single hit by 1 to minimum 1.
Agreed regarding Dodge but shouldn't Regeneration be about healing wounds afterwards, rather than preventing them?
Also, in your system, would the Energy Field save be taken instead of an armour save or would it be an extra save on top of it?
Doesn't change the fact that armies like Drukhari and Daemons exist. Those alone would make me dump melta. Even if the opposing army has good targets, the opportunity cost on melta is very high. At least lascannons can reach most of the board.
Martel732 wrote: Doesn't change the fact that armies like Drukhari and Daemons exist. Those alone would make me dump melta. Even if the opposing army has good targets, the opportunity cost on melta is very high. At least lascannons can reach most of the board.
Okay then, let's turn this around - in your view, what would make Melta worth taking?
I mean, people definitely took a lot of meltas back in 5th. And I'm pretty sure they saw use up to and including 7th (as in, they're not one of the elements of the game that have been consistently awful, regardless of edition).
So what change(s) would you like to see that would make Meltas viable in 8th?
Martel732 wrote: Doesn't change the fact that armies like Drukhari and Daemons exist. Those alone would make me dump melta. Even if the opposing army has good targets, the opportunity cost on melta is very high. At least lascannons can reach most of the board.
Okay then, let's turn this around - in your view, what would make Melta worth taking?
I mean, people definitely took a lot of meltas back in 5th. And I'm pretty sure they saw use up to and including 7th (as in, they're not one of the elements of the game that have been consistently awful, regardless of edition).
So what change(s) would you like to see that would make Meltas viable in 8th?
Not the one you're asking, but a bonus to-wound would be good, and more in-line with what it used to do.
If Melta got +2 to-wound when in half-range, it'd still wound Termis on 2+, but now it's ALSO wounding Knights and Russes on a 2+, if you manage to hit half-range.
Edit: A penalty to Invulns doesn't make sense in all cases. It works for Terminators or Captains, but not Harlequins (who are just plain not there) or Daemons (who literally ignore the rules of reality).
Both of those ideas sound workable. Wouldn't be op as it requires getting within 6 so no good straight out of ds. Might actually involve some of that "strategy" stuff.
"Edit: A penalty to Invulns doesn't make sense in all cases. It works for Terminators or Captains, but not Harlequins (who are just plain not there) or Daemons (who literally ignore the rules of reality)."
That's why invulns need to be typed, but that's more complicated.
I probably still wouldn't use them, but I'd at least consider it. That's how bad they are right now. 5++ and 4++ just kill low rate of fire weapons no matter what bells and whistles we tack on.
Martel732 wrote: I probably still wouldn't use them, but I'd at least consider it. That's how bad they are right now. 5++ and 4++ just kill low rate of fire weapons no matter what bells and whistles we tack on.
Which is an issue with Melta targets having an Invuln, not Invulns in general.
A squad of 5 Tactical Marines (I know, suboptimal choice, but still) with one Meltagun firing all their weapons at a Leman Russ, a 4++ Knight, and a squad of Bloodletters, do...
1.17 (Melta)+.30 (Bolters)=1.47 damage to a Leman Russ
.58 (Melta)+.30 (Bolters)=.88 damage to a 4++ Knight
.37 (Melta)+2.37 (Bolters)=2.74 damage to Bloodletters
It's only the Invuln-having BIG target that's a standout there.
Errr... sorta. It's not just melta. Take hellblasters. Their schtick is the -4 AP. This is wasted against so many targets that its never worth paying for them. Basically, as I said, AP -1 and -2 are OP because of what units pay for good armor saves and AP -3 and up are all overcosted because of invuln proliferation.
Martel732 wrote: Errr... sorta. It's not just melta. Take hellblasters. Their schtick is the -4 AP. This is wasted against so many targets that its never worth paying for them. Basically, as I said, AP -1 and -2 are OP because of what units pay for good armor saves and AP -3 and up are all overcosted because of invuln proliferation.
Terminators in cover need the whole AP-4.
Centurions take the whole AP-4, cover or not.
Sanguinary Guard too.
Most Marines not in cover take the whole AP-4 too.
Leman Russes, Land Raiders, Repulsors...
And, in addition to that, you're not paying SOLELY for AP-4. You're paying for Plasma-a high Strength, good AP, 2 Damage weapon.
But the AP is a big part of it. And it just doesn't come up enough to be a realistic choice. And getting the "whole thing" still suffers from diminishing returns. -3 is a lot better value than -4+ for this reason. But still overcosted. The first two points of AP are very valuable, and then there's a huge, huge dropoff. GW charges like its the opposite.
Martel732 wrote: But the AP is a big part of it. And it just doesn't come up enough to be a realistic choice. And getting the "whole thing" still suffers from diminishing returns. -3 is a lot better value than -4+ for this reason. But still overcosted. The first two points of AP are very valuable, and then there's a huge, huge dropoff. GW charges like its the opposite.
That's a point issue, then, not an inherent issue.
Are you also gonna complain that there's models with 4+ or worse armor? You don't get the whole value of AP-4 against them either.
They are another reason to never bring AP -4 to me. At least for what GW charges for it. Price is always inherent to the issue. Make something cheap enough, and it will be used. The list of units where AP -3 or greater is actually desirable and useful is pretty short. Then stack on what GW charges for it.
Martel732 wrote: But the AP is a big part of it. And it just doesn't come up enough to be a realistic choice. And getting the "whole thing" still suffers from diminishing returns. -3 is a lot better value than -4+ for this reason. But still overcosted. The first two points of AP are very valuable, and then there's a huge, huge dropoff. GW charges like its the opposite.
I agree about AP having diminishing returns.
However, we're still talking about a weapon that would be S8 AP-5 Dd6 and which also wounds almost anything on 2s in half-range and rolls 2d6 and takes highest on the damage dice.
I think that would be well worth the current cost, honestly. There are very few weapons in the entire game (let alone ones available to basic infantry) that can wound Knights and Monsters on 2s.
I get that Invulnerable Saves are a thing (though as I've already argued, units like Knights shouldn't have them to begin with), but even then those invulnerable saves are basically the only possible defence against meltas in melta-range - as they wound on 2s and ignore armour entirely.
"I think that would be well worth the current cost, honestly. There are very few weapons in the entire game (let alone ones available to basic infantry) that can wound Knights and Monsters on 2s."
Not really because of poor rate of fire. 14 pts for a meltagun is just nuts. This underscores just how crappy single shot weapons are in 8th. We can bolt on as many rules as we want, they are still bad.
-4ap works pretty well. My fellblade's ae shells feth up leman russes and executioner tanks quite well, and my chainclaw contemptor is my army's all time mvp.
Gadzilla666 wrote: -4ap works pretty well. My fellblade's ae shells feth up leman russes and executioner tanks quite well, and my chainclaw contemptor is my army's all time mvp.
Except it doesn't in the general case. If I could guarantee these targets, I'd agree. But blind? No reason to pay. Not when AP -1 and -2 almost always do work. The assault bolter is a better value vs IKs than almost any AT gun. That's such a huge problem.
Gadzilla666 wrote: -4ap works pretty well. My fellblade's ae shells feth up leman russes and executioner tanks quite well, and my chainclaw contemptor is my army's all time mvp.
Except it doesn't in the general case. If I could guarantee these targets, I'd agree. But blind? No reason to pay.
Leman Russes and executioner tanks are pretty common, as are tanks with similar toughness and armour saves. Exactly what do you plan for when you make a TAC list?
Depends on how assaulty I want my list to be. But I usually assume my targets have a 5++ at least. Doing otherwise invites disaster because of GW pricing on AP.
Depends on how assaulty I want my list to be. But I usually assume my targets have a 5++ at least.
So, your pure infantry lists with little shooting and no anti tank that you're always complaining about losing with? Think maybe you should try something else? Like some dreadnoughts or one of those fething floating tanks?
Depends on how assaulty I want my list to be. But I usually assume my targets have a 5++ at least.
So, your pure infantry lists with little shooting and no anti tank that you're always complaining about losing with? Think maybe you should try something else? Like some dreadnoughts or one of those fething floating tanks?
Stephen Box wins with it. But that's against elite castle meta. I'm dealing with a mix of hordes and marines atm. It's really hard to build BA against both. Bottom line is that compared to vanilla, BA don't shoot worth a damn. I use more shooting than Box, btw. There's a huge split in the BA community about shooting. I think bolter inceptors are really good now, for example.
I realize now that BA entire game is wrap and trap. Nothing else matters. That's my take away from top player battle reports. So I guess in that sense, invulns don't matter to BA that much. Unless its something like Wulfen, in which case BA just lose.
Ah, so a problem with your particular meta. Don't know what to say to that. But if for some inconceivable reason I was to ever play ba I'd get a libby dread. A dreadnought that can fly seems pretty fething good. Of course all I know for sure about them is how to kill them.
I was really hoping the top BA players had deeper insight, but it's really about jamming opponent into their corner and wrap and trap. I have no idea how they fight Tau once they run out of fire warriors.
Martel732 wrote: I was really hoping the top BA players had deeper insight, but it's really about jamming opponent into their corner and wrap and trap. I have no idea how they fight Tau once they run out of fire warriors.
They win on points by holding objectives, like most armies do.
Martel732 wrote: That's trivially true and not a useful observation.
Your army is 52% win rate, does well at tournaments, has options for diverse list building and here you are whining because you don't want to use the tools your army has. Given that you don't like wrap and trap, don't like how your army plays, and don't want to win based on holding objectives what else did you expect this board to say to you?
I didn't say anything about not wanting to hold objectives. I said it was a trivial observation.
The "tools" you refer to are a gimmicky unintended consequence of the movement rules and fall back rules interacting. It's lame and stupid and I hate myself every time I do it in a game. Yet, the other choice is be shot off the table like a chump. Please stick to invulns.
This only came up because I said I plan for everything to have a 5++ or better. I think that's the prudent way to plan.
Martel732 wrote: I didn't say anything about not wanting to hold objectives. I said it was a trivial observation.
The "tools" you refer to are a gimmicky unintended consequence of the movement rules and fall back rules interacting. It's lame and stupid and I hate myself every time I do it in a game. Yet, the other choice is be shot off the table like a chump. Please stick to invulns.
Then play a different army or take a break from the fething game. Don't suggest that things which don't require changes be changed wholesale because of your poor play and lack of willingness to use the rules as they exist handicap your lists.
As for the invulns you've yet to make a workable suggestion. On one hand, you claim that it 'doesn't make sense' for some models to shrug off hits even though both rules-wise and narratively invulnerable saves can always be justified. On the other, you claim that you hate GW fluff and that you hate yourself for playing the game and that somehow this, and fething meltas of all things, justify removing invulnerable saves. Then to top it all off, you want bespoke rules for at least 3 types of saves and for every weapon that could possibly interact with them even though, by your own admission, you haven't the faintest clue where to start building said rules so that they actually do what you want them to.
Try posting something that's worth discussion rather than derision and I'll engage with it right now all I see is from you is which makes me
EDIT: Planning for every model to have a 5++ save when, as a point of fact, many common models don't have such a save is poor planning. Not bringing the right tools for the job is likely what's costing you the games you constantly whine about losing.
Martel732 wrote: Then quit reading my posts. And quit replying to them. I was having a fine conversation with JNA.
Who also told you that AP-4 is fine... Also, try responding to the content of my post rather than ignoring what I've said. I'll even give you a numbered list so you can go point-by-point in addressing my questions.
1) Given that a 5++, of any type, working against even the heaviest weapons, can be fluffed as near misses, misfires, the shell not going off, etc. why do you feel that certain types of saves "don't make sense" against certain weapons?
2) Why do you feel like making sweeping changes to the game at a core level makes more sense than buffing AP-4 and better weapons?
3) What is your intention with these changes, more specifically, what are you hoping to buff and what are you looking to nerf? Please include a representative example of which units/models you'd change, and which compensating buffs you intend to give to give to options that aren't currently over performing.
4) Show an example of the rules text you'd like to see included on datasheets using your new save and weapons rules.
5) Address the cases where players who are winning games while bringing AP-4 weapons and explain why they're wrong for doing so when they're winning and you, seemingly, aren't.
EDIT: Given that you apparently want to suggest rules but not actually write rules so we can discuss them, how is one supposed to engage with your arguments? Are we all supposed to pat you on the back for your vague suggestions or are we supposed to take your vague suggestions and turn them into actual rules proposals for you?
I think that the issue with invulnerable saves is that they are being used as a patch for a system which is not built for such a range of toughness and save.
For example, a terminator has what is known as "Tactical Dreadnaught Armour". It's dreadnaught armour for infantry. and yet, Dreadnaughts have a 3+ save and a terminator has a 2+. despite the fact that the dreadnaughts armour is clearly thicker.
Toughness is a difference, as are wounds, but with only 5 saves to choose from, there aren't enough to reflect the range of armour available. You have to go from a bare-chested ork to an imperial bunker, but the bunker is only 5x harder to get through the armour of than the ork? not really a good scale.
So to reduce the "weakness" of some big things, they added invulns, which were only ever meant for smaller things. and that has spiralled out of control. A knight should never have had an invulnerable save - increased toughness or wounds, perhaps, but not the save.
some bloke wrote: I think that the issue with invulnerable saves is that they are being used as a patch for a system which is not built for such a range of toughness and save.
For example, a terminator has what is known as "Tactical Dreadnaught Armour". It's dreadnaught armour for infantry. and yet, Dreadnaughts have a 3+ save and a terminator has a 2+. despite the fact that the dreadnaughts armour is clearly thicker.
Toughness is a difference, as are wounds, but with only 5 saves to choose from, there aren't enough to reflect the range of armour available. You have to go from a bare-chested ork to an imperial bunker, but the bunker is only 5x harder to get through the armour of than the ork? not really a good scale.
So to reduce the "weakness" of some big things, they added invulns, which were only ever meant for smaller things. and that has spiralled out of control. A knight should never have had an invulnerable save - increased toughness or wounds, perhaps, but not the save.
An idea I had for Ion Shields is to make them each a pool of wounds.
So a regular Knight's Ion Shields might have 4 wounds at T7 4+, and they have three of them. Each one comes back on a 5+ at the start of the controlling player's turn, and you have to beat down the shields before you hit the Knight itself.
Armigers could have 2 wound shields at T6 4+.
some bloke wrote: I think that the issue with invulnerable saves is that they are being used as a patch for a system which is not built for such a range of toughness and save.
For example, a terminator has what is known as "Tactical Dreadnaught Armour". It's dreadnaught armour for infantry. and yet, Dreadnaughts have a 3+ save and a terminator has a 2+. despite the fact that the dreadnaughts armour is clearly thicker.
Toughness is a difference, as are wounds, but with only 5 saves to choose from, there aren't enough to reflect the range of armour available. You have to go from a bare-chested ork to an imperial bunker, but the bunker is only 5x harder to get through the armour of than the ork? not really a good scale.
So to reduce the "weakness" of some big things, they added invulns, which were only ever meant for smaller things. and that has spiralled out of control. A knight should never have had an invulnerable save - increased toughness or wounds, perhaps, but not the save.
An idea I had for Ion Shields is to make them each a pool of wounds.
So a regular Knight's Ion Shields might have 4 wounds at T7 4+, and they have three of them. Each one comes back on a 5+ at the start of the controlling player's turn, and you have to beat down the shields before you hit the Knight itself.
Armigers could have 2 wound shields at T6 4+.
some bloke wrote: I think that the issue with invulnerable saves is that they are being used as a patch for a system which is not built for such a range of toughness and save.
If this is the case, why have invulnerable and ward saves existed from the earliest days of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k?
Toughness is a difference, as are wounds, but with only 5 saves to choose from, there aren't enough to reflect the range of armour available. You have to go from a bare-chested ork to an imperial bunker, but the bunker is only 5x harder to get through the armour of than the ork? not really a good scale.
A range of 6 saves (No save, and 2+ to 6+) and toughness values commonly running from 3 to 8 that already gives us 36 different profiles to represent how hard to kill a model is. With invulnerable saves in the mix (None, 3++ to 6++) that brings the total to 180 profiles. Then add in 5+++ and 6+++ saves and that gives us 540 potential profiles. This is without considering adding additional wounds to a model.
When you consider the game as a series of interlinked systems and understand that both armor and toughness represent how difficult it is to damage a model you find that, even without adding wounds, there is more than a 5x difference between an ork boy and a bunker..
So to reduce the "weakness" of some big things, they added invulns, which were only ever meant for smaller things. and that has spiralled out of control. A knight should never have had an invulnerable save - increased toughness or wounds, perhaps, but not the save.
We could give the vehicles back armor values that make them immune to broad categories of weapons, slap hull points on them, and bring back regenerating void shields for Titans if you would prefer that? This would tend to favor skew lists that bring lots of AV 13 and 14, kill off your anti-tank weapons, and then laugh as you fail to damage them which is why we have the current system.
JNAProductions wrote: An idea I had for Ion Shields is to make them each a pool of wounds.
So a regular Knight's Ion Shields might have 4 wounds at T7 4+, and they have three of them. Each one comes back on a 5+ at the start of the controlling player's turn, and you have to beat down the shields before you hit the Knight itself.
Armigers could have 2 wound shields at T6 4+.
So literally void shields from the apocalypse rules of editions past? What does this solve and how do you intend to balance what will be a massive nerf to Knights which are already fairly balanced in the current meta?
Martel732 wrote: That's trivially true and not a useful observation.
Your army is 52% win rate, does well at tournaments, has options for diverse list building and here you are whining because you don't want to use the tools your army has. Given that you don't like wrap and trap, don't like how your army plays, and don't want to win based on holding objectives what else did you expect this board to say to you?
Ehhhh....Blood Angels are pretty weak right now TBH. They're nowhere near as gimped as GSC but as far as space marines armies go, yeah....not amazing. Ironically the main reason for this is a general lack of survivability. They do their best work in Melee yet they have extremely limited options when it comes to mitigating damage.
It seems like a lot of people have ideas to 'fix' invulnerable saves even though none of you have proven why they need fixing. So how about we start there by answering a few key questions.
1) What fundamentally is the issue with invulnerable saves?
1a) Are these issues isolated to a few problem units or are they a systemic flaw?
1b) Are there other rules already in place that mitigate or otherwise deal with these problems?
2) What your suggestion is, how it fixes these flaws, and how you intend to balance the units that were changed to make them viable after these changes?
2a) A list of potential unintended consequences of these changes?
3) What effect these changes will have on game complexity and the pace of play?
4) A summary of why these changes are more effective than making changes within the rules as they currently exist?
5) A picture of a giraffe so this list isn't so serious.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Roberts84 wrote: Ehhhh....Blood Angels are pretty weak right now TBH. They're nowhere near as gimped as GSC but as far as space marines armies go, yeah....not amazing. Ironically the main reason for this is a general lack of survivability. They do their best work in Melee yet they have extremely limited options when it comes to mitigating damage.
So why are they still on top tables at major tournaments?
Canadian 5th wrote: It seems like a lot of people have ideas to 'fix' invulnerable saves even though none of you have proven why they need fixing. So how about we start there by answering a few key questions.
1) What fundamentally is the issue with invulnerable saves?
1a) Are these issues isolated to a few problem units or are they a systemic flaw?
1b) Are there other rules already in place that mitigate or otherwise deal with these problems?
2) What your suggestion is, how it fixes these flaws, and how you intend to balance the units that were changed to make them viable after these changes?
2a) A list of potential unintended consequences of these changes?
3) What effect these changes will have on game complexity and the pace of play?
4) A summary of why these changes are more effective than making changes within the rules as they currently exist?
5) A picture of a giraffe so this list isn't so serious.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Roberts84 wrote: Ehhhh....Blood Angels are pretty weak right now TBH. They're nowhere near as gimped as GSC but as far as space marines armies go, yeah....not amazing. Ironically the main reason for this is a general lack of survivability. They do their best work in Melee yet they have extremely limited options when it comes to mitigating damage.
So why are they still on top tables at major tournaments?
I don't like them because they don't differentiate different mechanisms sufficiently and invalidate expensive, low ROF, high AP weapons. Assault bolters should not be better vs IK than multimeltas. But they are.
BA have won a couple tournaments. Some argue they are top tier, but even those people admit they are hideously difficult to pilot and rely completely on wrap and trap. I think they are only top tier in an elite castle meta. They are as gakky vs hordes as they have ever been.
Martel732 wrote: I don't like them because they don't differentiate different mechanisms sufficiently and invalidate expensive, low ROF, high AP weapons. Assault bolters should not be better vs IK than multimeltas. But they are.
BA have won a couple tournaments. Some argue they are top tier, but even those people admit they are hideously difficult to pilot and rely completely on wrap and trap.
A MultiMelta does close to double the damage of an Assault Bolter if both are at 18" and the Knight has a 4++.
But the bolter has so many other uses is my point. Also, the assault bolter is losing nothing, While the MM is losing 3 points of AP. It's far better to sandpaper down units like IK than try to force though big shots. So why bring those weapons? Also, for its cost. the MM needs to do a LOT more than double damage vs its intended target.
Martel732 wrote: I don't like them because they don't differentiate different mechanisms sufficiently and invalidate expensive, low ROF, high AP weapons. Assault bolters should not be better vs IK than multimeltas. But they are.
BA have won a couple tournaments. Some argue they are top tier, but even those people admit they are hideously difficult to pilot and rely completely on wrap and trap. I think they are only top tier in an elite castle meta. They are as gakky vs hordes as they have ever been.
Oh--there's no way BA are top tier. Forget about it. RG and IH should romp them 9/10 times, to say nothing of space marines armies.
I'm building mine to be killy but survivable. No Librarian Dread is par of that, it's a trap IMO.
I don't have completely up to date results given that Covid-19 has paused the events we'd normal gather data from but they were top 10 in popularity as recently as the week of Feb 26th:
This site only shows the winning list but the fact that they were 8th in popularity before falling off suggests that people see them as tournament viable.
Martel732 wrote: But the bolter has so many other uses is my point. Also, the assault bolter is losing nothing, While the MM is losing 3 points of AP. It's far better to sandpaper down units like IK than try to force though big shots. So why bring those weapons?
That's by design... One weapon is a specialist anti-tank weapon, the other is a general-purpose weapon.
It's also intentional that weapons which aren't traditionally anti-tank work against armor to prevent something like a Titan or Landraider from being immune to lists once their anti-tank weapons have been removed. Do we want to go back to literally unkillable tank hordes?
I don't have completely up to date results given that Covid-19 has paused the events we'd normal gather data from but they were top 10 in popularity as recently as the week of Feb 26th:
This site only shows the winning list but the fact that they were 8th in popularity before falling off suggests that people see them as tournament viable.
Martel732 wrote: But the bolter has so many other uses is my point. Also, the assault bolter is losing nothing, While the MM is losing 3 points of AP. It's far better to sandpaper down units like IK than try to force though big shots. So why bring those weapons?
That's by design... One weapon is a specialist anti-tank weapon, the other is a general-purpose weapon.
It's also intentional that weapons which aren't traditionally anti-tank work against armor to prevent something like a Titan or Landraider from being immune to lists once their anti-tank weapons have been removed. Do we want to go back to literally unkillable tank hordes?
Dude according to that Data, BA just squeaked into 10th spot a couple of times in a couple of comps. That's not much more than statistical noise given how strong SM/ Imperium armies are in general and probably just comes down to styles making fights in the particular meta of those comps.
I'm building a BA list right now, and if I wanted to win a lot I wouldn't be. There's far more competitive options but my philosophy is to play what you like. Always has been. That said, I do think people are making the same old mistakes with them, foremostly treating them like a melee Kamikaze force and spending far too many points on DC, HQ for the DC, and burning through CP and psychic to get the Librarian dreadnought into range so it can possibly kill something then get immediately tabled.
Roberts84 wrote: Dude according to that Data, BA just squeaked into 10th spot a couple of times in a couple of comps. That's not much more than statistical noise given how strong SM/ Imperium armies are in general and probably just comes down to styles making fights in the particular meta of those comps.
I'm building a BA list right now, and if I wanted to win a lot I wouldn't be. There's far more competitive options but my philosophy is to play what you like. Always has been. That said, I do think people are making the same old mistakes with them, foremostly treating them like a melee Kamikaze force and spending far too many points on DC, HQ for the DC, and burning through CP and psychic to get the Librarian dreadnought into range so it can possibly kill something then get immediately tabled.
They're taking out the Kamikaze part by tripointing. If they can't do that for some reason, it's back to Kamikaze. Getting close in 8th is basically suicide in 8th without tripionting.
Invulns factor into a few BA woes, primarily in the form of Wulfen, Grotesques, and Bullgryns. These units stop BA assault cold, and BA players basically have no counter except stay away. This isn't the point of my critique about invulns, though.
Roberts84 wrote: Dude according to that Data, BA just squeaked into 10th spot a couple of times in a couple of comps. That's not much more than statistical noise given how strong SM/ Imperium armies are in general and probably just comes down to styles making fights in the particular meta of those comps.
I'm building a BA list right now, and if I wanted to win a lot I wouldn't be. There's far more competitive options but my philosophy is to play what you like. Always has been. That said, I do think people are making the same old mistakes with them, foremostly treating them like a melee Kamikaze force and spending far too many points on DC, HQ for the DC, and burning through CP and psychic to get the Librarian dreadnought into range so it can possibly kill something then get immediately tabled.
Yes. 10th place. Watch you just linked was most played factions, of which they are the 8th most played. Not a ranked list of comp winners. In that BA came 10th.
Roberts84 wrote: Yes. 10th place. Watch you just linked was most played factions, of which they are the 8th most played. Not a ranked list of comp winners. In that BA came 10th.
That's a top table result, is it not? Or do you not consider a top-10 list in a large field to be a top result?
some bloke wrote: I think that the issue with invulnerable saves is that they are being used as a patch for a system which is not built for such a range of toughness and save.
If this is the case, why have invulnerable and ward saves existed from the earliest days of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k?
Because it used to be that:
A: if you brought a lasgun to shoot a wraithlord, it didn't work.
B: if you brought a lasgun to shoot a landraider, it didn't work.
Big things were immune to small-arms - they didn't need to have umpteen wounds to chip off, and so didn't need invulnerable saves to make them more resistant to anti-tank weapons.
Toughness is a difference, as are wounds, but with only 5 saves to choose from, there aren't enough to reflect the range of armour available. You have to go from a bare-chested ork to an imperial bunker, but the bunker is only 5x harder to get through the armour of than the ork? not really a good scale.
A range of 6 saves (No save, and 2+ to 6+) and toughness values commonly running from 3 to 8 that already gives us 36 different profiles to represent how hard to kill a model is. With invulnerable saves in the mix (None, 3++ to 6++) that brings the total to 180 profiles. Then add in 5+++ and 6+++ saves and that gives us 540 potential profiles. This is without considering adding additional wounds to a model.
When you consider the game as a series of interlinked systems and understand that both armor and toughness represent how difficult it is to damage a model you find that, even without adding wounds, there is more than a 5x difference between an ork boy and a bunker..
Firstly, nothing has less than a 6+ now (IIRC) so there's really only 5. With a sliding scale created by cover and AP, it is justifiable to have AP8+ or AP-3+ and have it useable.
Yes, there actually is more of a difference between a bunker and a boy, but the armour save scale seems so small, and so clunky. It always used to be that 5+ or worse was useless, and 3+ or better was king. there will always be a poit where the save goes from useful to useless. having only 5 to choose from makes it so, so clunky. They could easily have added things like:
Long range - firing over 1/2 range gives +1 to saves
Point Blank - firing within 6" gives +1 to AP and ignores cover
etcetera. If you have a 1+ or better, you reroll, like the old fantasy Ballistic Skill chart for 7+ to hit. IE if you have a 1+, you reroll rolls of a 1 and on a 6, it passes. 0+ means on a 5 or 6, it passes. and so on. Long range combat gets less killy. Getting close can make lasguns deadly, but makes combat easier. more grit, less "everyone's a winner" It's not a school sports day, it's a war.
So to reduce the "weakness" of some big things, they added invulns, which were only ever meant for smaller things. and that has spiralled out of control. A knight should never have had an invulnerable save - increased toughness or wounds, perhaps, but not the save.
We could give the vehicles back armor values that make them immune to broad categories of weapons, slap hull points on them, and bring back regenerating void shields for Titans if you would prefer that? This would tend to favor skew lists that bring lots of AV 13 and 14, kill off your anti-tank weapons, and then laugh as you fail to damage them which is why we have the current system.
I likes AV and facings. The game had a better feel to it back then. I loved getting the rear shots on vehicles. But I doubt we're going back, as the goal is an easier resolution to the points which made people argue - scatter direction, vehicle facings, line of sight for a specific gun. All gone, and all nonsense. Even the model designers realise it - why else would repulsors have guns on the back?
I would prefer to see a better use of the variable save system than this deluge of exceptions to it. make things invulnerable by making them invulnerable, and give them some downsides for it - like how vehicles could get immobilised, and had firing arcs.
JNAProductions wrote: An idea I had for Ion Shields is to make them each a pool of wounds.
So a regular Knight's Ion Shields might have 4 wounds at T7 4+, and they have three of them. Each one comes back on a 5+ at the start of the controlling player's turn, and you have to beat down the shields before you hit the Knight itself.
Armigers could have 2 wound shields at T6 4+.
So literally void shields from the apocalypse rules of editions past? What does this solve and how do you intend to balance what will be a massive nerf to Knights which are already fairly balanced in the current meta?
It's not about nerfing or improving things, per se- it's the fact that a power field o na knight should not behave in the same way as a stormshield on a terminator. You would expect the knights one to be more difficult to get through. Having to get through the fields to hurt the knight would be a much more interesting mechanic than "did a load of damage, but then he saved it with his invuln". "I did a load of damage, took some wounds off him, but then the shields flickered back to life" is a much more dramatic and fun system. Though it would necessitate massed firepower to hurt a knight. They could have a wounds drop to compensate.
Martel732 wrote: They're taking out the Kamikaze part by tripointing. If they can't do that for some reason, it's back to Kamikaze. Getting close in 8th is basically suicide in 8th without tripionting.
You have to use the rules of the game to win at the game.
Martel732 wrote: They're taking out the Kamikaze part by tripointing. If they can't do that for some reason, it's back to Kamikaze. Getting close in 8th is basically suicide in 8th without tripionting.
You have to use the rules of the game to win at the game.
Even a gamey unintended accident? feth that. Sorry, a gamey unintended accident that is the ONLY thing that stops shooting lists from easy tablings? Yeah, feth that. Watch GW get rid of tripointing in 9th but keep fall back.
Hellebore wrote: For the purposes of this discussion, we are assuming that unmodifiable saves are out of the question.
So what do we have that these normally represent?
Speed: dodges
Energy fields: iron halos et Al
Super healing: regen
Reinforced armour: terminators
I think you could cover these the following ways:
Dodge: modifiers to hit rolls ie dodge (1) -1 to hit
Energy fields/reinforced armour: roll to ignore attack, use field strength vs attacking AP. IE my field (3) vs AP (2), success on a 3+. Field (2) vs AP (3), 5+ success.
Reg same wayeneration: give the unit more starting wounds or have them reduce the number of wound they take from a single hit by 1 to minimum 1.
Agreed regarding Dodge but shouldn't Regeneration be about healing wounds afterwards, rather than preventing them?
Also, in your system, would the Energy Field save be taken instead of an armour save or would it be an extra save on top of it?
With the field idea, you'd roll it after a failed save. I mean technically we should all be rolling saves before wound rolls due to the nature of being injured, but we don't so using the current paradigm, you'd roll this after a failed save.
As AP affects it, the field degrades against high penetration in the same way your toughness is worse against high strength. But as it interacts with armour it becomes a reinforcement to it rather than just a separate save
With regard to regen, it's currently kind of a second save on individual wounds rather than hits (as in armour and invulnerable saves ignore a hit and all the wounds it causes, while those resilience rules are rolled against each wound individually?).
You could apply the same field rule here as well, but have it against individual wounds instead. Or you can just say that units are able to withstand more punishment and this just have more wounds, it doesn't make a huge mechanical difference.
Any roll a d6 and get a wound back rules are basically invulnerable saves written differently.
some bloke wrote: Because it used to be that:
A: if you brought a lasgun to shoot a wraithlord, it didn't work.
B: if you brought a lasgun to shoot a landraider, it didn't work.
Big things were immune to small-arms - they didn't need to have umpteen wounds to chip off, and so didn't need invulnerable saves to make them more resistant to anti-tank weapons.
This change was intentional to prevent skew lists from dominating the way they did in earlier editions.
Firstly, nothing has less than a 6+ now (IIRC)
Demons that only get a 5++ save have an effective null armor save.
Yes, there actually is more of a difference between a bunker and a boy, but the armour save scale seems so small, and so clunky. It always used to be that 5+ or worse was useless, and 3+ or better was king. there will always be a poit where the save goes from useful to useless. having only 5 to choose from makes it so, so clunky. They could easily have added things like:
Long range - firing over 1/2 range gives +1 to saves
Point Blank - firing within 6" gives +1 to AP and ignores cover
The goal of 8th edition was to simplify the game, this is the opposite of that...
I likes AV and facings. The game had a better feel to it back then. I loved getting the rear shots on vehicles. But I doubt we're going back, as the goal is an easier resolution to the points which made people argue - scatter direction, vehicle facings, line of sight for a specific gun. All gone, and all nonsense. Even the model designers realise it - why else would repulsors have guns on the back?
Should I show you pictures of real tanks that have had rear-facing weapons?
It's not about nerfing or improving things, per se- it's the fact that a power field o na knight should not behave in the same way as a stormshield on a terminator.
Purely in terms of game mechanics why should this be the case?
Having to get through the fields to hurt the knight would be a much more interesting mechanic than "did a load of damage, but then he saved it with his invuln". "I did a load of damage, took some wounds off him, but then the shields flickered back to life" is a much more dramatic and fun system
The current system can already be interpreted as that being the case though. A made save is a shot that was caught by a void shield, a failed save went through a gap or dropped a shield so that a follow-up shot could score a hit.
If we wanted a change, start Knights off with a better invulnerable save, but have it drop off as they get bracketed. So a Knight may start with a 4++ at full health, then drop to a 5++ at the middle bracket, and then a 6++ when it's nearly dead. It's more elegant than having a second set of wound profiles and could fit within the current system with minimal changes being made.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: Even a gamey unintended accident? feth that. Sorry, a gamey unintended accident that is the ONLY thing that stops shooting lists from easy tablings? Yeah, feth that. Watch GW get rid of tripointing in 9th but keep fall back.
It. Is. A. Game.
Everything about it is gamey and abstracted. If you don't like it find a new game.
Martel732 wrote: They're taking out the Kamikaze part by tripointing. If they can't do that for some reason, it's back to Kamikaze. Getting close in 8th is basically suicide in 8th without tripionting.
Invulns factor into a few BA woes, primarily in the form of Wulfen, Grotesques, and Bullgryns. These units stop BA assault cold, and BA players basically have no counter except stay away. This isn't the point of my critique about invulns, though.
Well, here's how I plan on mitigating this to an extent (the real problem with BA is that they are the best examples of glass canons in all of space marines however).
10x sanguinary guard with a sanguinary ancient (power fists/angelus) for hit rerolls and wound rerolls of 1)
The sanguinor ( extra attacks)
Brother Corbulo ( extra attacks for everything within 6 on 6's, can revive/heal twice per round and can reroll one of his dice)
Chaplain dread ( 1+ S to everything within six, can cast litanies for extra strength and attacks). It's a character and can't be targeted, gets a 5+ FNP, and a 6+ FNP. It's a real PITA to clear, far more survivable than the Librarian dreadnought and it's cheaper.
Pros: Very survivable
Cons: Slower.
More points sunk into survivable models, no points sunk into DC which are expensive for one-wound models and are just gambling. Sanguinary guard are the best units BA have by far.
Hellebore wrote: With the field idea, you'd roll it after a failed save. I mean technically we should all be rolling saves before wound rolls due to the nature of being injured, but we don't so using the current paradigm, you'd roll this after a failed save.
As AP affects it, the field degrades against high penetration in the same way your toughness is worse against high strength. But as it interacts with armour it becomes a reinforcement to it rather than just a separate save
With regard to regen, it's currently kind of a second save on individual wounds rather than hits (as in armour and invulnerable saves ignore a hit and all the wounds it causes, while those resilience rules are rolled against each wound individually?).
You could apply the same field rule here as well, but have it against individual wounds instead. Or you can just say that units are able to withstand more punishment and this just have more wounds, it doesn't make a huge mechanical difference.
Any roll a d6 and get a wound back rules are basically invulnerable saves written differently.
Hellebore wrote: With the field idea, you'd roll it after a failed save. I mean technically we should all be rolling saves before wound rolls due to the nature of being injured, but we don't so using the current paradigm, you'd roll this after a failed save.
As AP affects it, the field degrades against high penetration in the same way your toughness is worse against high strength. But as it interacts with armour it becomes a reinforcement to it rather than just a separate save
With regard to regen, it's currently kind of a second save on individual wounds rather than hits (as in armour and invulnerable saves ignore a hit and all the wounds it causes, while those resilience rules are rolled against each wound individually?).
You could apply the same field rule here as well, but have it against individual wounds instead. Or you can just say that units are able to withstand more punishment and this just have more wounds, it doesn't make a huge mechanical difference.
Any roll a d6 and get a wound back rules are basically invulnerable saves written differently.
How is this any better than what we have already?
The original premise was that ap is less powerful because invulnerable saves ignore it. Within this premise then, any solutions should hinge on ap always having an effect. Ergo, fields are opposed by AP
Martel732 wrote: Evidently nothing is better to you and the current game is perfect.
No, I've posted several questions asking for detailed responses as to why these large and difficult to implement changes are worth looking. Thus far nobody has answered them and so I'm left asking, is this the best you have?
----
It seems like a lot of people have ideas to 'fix' invulnerable saves even though none of you have proven why they need fixing. So how about we start there by answering a few key questions.
1) What fundamentally is the issue with invulnerable saves?
1a) Are these issues isolated to a few problem units or are they a systemic flaw?
1b) Are there other rules already in place that mitigate or otherwise deal with these problems?
2) What your suggestion is, how it fixes these flaws, and how you intend to balance the units that were changed to make them viable after these changes?
2a) A list of potential unintended consequences of these changes?
3) What effect these changes will have on game complexity and the pace of play?
4) A summary of why these changes are more effective than making changes within the rules as they currently exist?
Canadian 5th wrote: If we wanted a change, start Knights off with a better invulnerable save, but have it drop off as they get bracketed. So a Knight may start with a 4++ at full health, then drop to a 5++ at the middle bracket, and then a 6++ when it's nearly dead. It's more elegant than having a second set of wound profiles and could fit within the current system with minimal changes being made.
So void shields without stopping mortal wounds? It could work, but I'd start them at 5++, they have a stratagem if they want better.
I don't really think invulnerable saves are a problem. That's what death hex is for.
IMO invulnerable saves aren't the issue, it's all the force multipliers. If there weren't invulnerable saves in the game as it stands now the army that went first would probably win every time because it would table too many of its opponent's models for them to be able to recover. That's already the case a lot of the time.
Canadian 5th wrote: If we wanted a change, start Knights off with a better invulnerable save, but have it drop off as they get bracketed. So a Knight may start with a 4++ at full health, then drop to a 5++ at the middle bracket, and then a 6++ when it's nearly dead. It's more elegant than having a second set of wound profiles and could fit within the current system with minimal changes being made.
So void shields without stopping mortal wounds? It could work, but I'd start them at 5++, they have a stratagem if they want better.
I was trying to not nerf them unduly, so I'd start them at 4++ and make it so the stratagem put their shields back up a level.
No more giraffe?
People weren't answering the first 4 questions, I figured maybe the bonus question was scaring them off.
I see the point that having extra profiles for the shields could easily become overcomplex and too bookkeepingy.
I do think that the power field fro ma stormshield should be different from the void shields of a knight. And I loce the idea of overloading a knights shields, so would suggest perhaps:
1: the knights invuln starts at 2++, but degrades each time it is used. So if you fire 6 shots at it, then it saves the first with a 2++, second on a 3++, etc. It only degrades when it passes, so if you fail the 2++, you still have it. This resets at the start of the knights turn.
This would give them a decent initial survivability, but one which can actually be tactically dealt with instead of just a permanat 3++ "nuh-uh!" to all your powerful attacks.
This makes me think, perhaps invulns can be made the same, in a way.
So invulnerable saves have a "charge", and basically, if you fail a save, you can instead tank it with your invuln. Invulns recharge on your turn.
EG: A stormshield is an invulnerable save with 2 charges. A terminator is shot with a lascannon, and fails his save. The lascannon rolls a 3 for damage, which is reduced to 1 by the stormshield. Assuming he survives to his turn, the stormshield recharges, meaning he has lost 1 wound and has 2 charges left.
Alternative way to do it:
An invulnerable save has a charge of 3. a terminator is hit by a lascannon and fails his save. He elects to use his stormshield. The lascannon rolls 4 damage, which is reduced by 3. The stormshield cannot be used until his next turn.
Another terminator is shot by another lascannon. He fails his save, and also uses his stormshield. The lascannon rolls a 1, the damage is reduced by 3, and the stormshield cannot be used again until his next turn. in this case, it is regarded as "wasted".
This would have to be a different thing entirely, as it would not work for Daemons and other armies who rely entirely on invulns, but for armies who use invulns as backup, this mechanic could be a viable alternative to separate the 2 "types" of invuln.
You could have a "Charge" and "Strength" of invuln. So a stormshield would have 1 charge and strength 3, meaning once per turn it reduces incoming damage by 3, declared before damage rolls. Daemons would have Charge 2 and strength 1, meaning that they would need to be targeted by damage 2 weapons to start hurting them. Basic weapons need to kill 3 charges per Daemon to bring one down.
These would have to be done akin to wounds, so once one starts to get hurt, all wounds are allocated to him.
What do you think? I'm actually quite pleased with the idea, for one I was making up as I went along!
some bloke wrote: I see the point that having extra profiles for the shields could easily become overcomplex and too bookkeepingy.
I do think that the power field fro ma stormshield should be different from the void shields of a knight. And I loce the idea of overloading a knights shields, so would suggest perhaps:
1: the knights invuln starts at 2++, but degrades each time it is used. So if you fire 6 shots at it, then it saves the first with a 2++, second on a 3++, etc. It only degrades when it passes, so if you fail the 2++, you still have it. This resets at the start of the knights turn.
This would give them a decent initial survivability, but one which can actually be tactically dealt with instead of just a permanat 3++ "nuh-uh!" to all your powerful attacks.
So shoot lasguns at Knights, termies, or what have you and then nail them with the good stuff. This is not a fix, it's a huge nerf that creates even worse gamey situations.
some bloke wrote: I see the point that having extra profiles for the shields could easily become overcomplex and too bookkeepingy.
I do think that the power field fro ma stormshield should be different from the void shields of a knight. And I loce the idea of overloading a knights shields, so would suggest perhaps:
1: the knights invuln starts at 2++, but degrades each time it is used. So if you fire 6 shots at it, then it saves the first with a 2++, second on a 3++, etc. It only degrades when it passes, so if you fail the 2++, you still have it. This resets at the start of the knights turn.
This would give them a decent initial survivability, but one which can actually be tactically dealt with instead of just a permanat 3++ "nuh-uh!" to all your powerful attacks.
So shoot lasguns at Knights, termies, or what have you and then nail them with the good stuff. This is not a fix, it's a huge nerf that creates even worse gamey situations.
Ok, so you can chip the 2++ off the knight. Then it's a 3++, and it has a 3+ save, so vs lasguns, it doesn't use the invuln, so doesn't degrade it.
You would have to use AP-1 to chip the 3++ down, AP-2 to chip the 4++ down, and so on, and even then it's not a guarantee as it has to pass to lose it. So you might fire an AP-2 weapon at the knight to line up your big gun, and it fail, take 1-2 damage, then the big gun fires and the shield holds. Still got decent defence, but not some weird barrier which shrugs off everything 2/3 f the time, all the time.
What do you think to my ideas of completely changing it from being a save at all?
some bloke wrote: Ok, so you can chip the 2++ off the knight. Then it's a 3++, and it has a 3+ save, so vs lasguns, it doesn't use the invuln, so doesn't degrade it.
You would have to use AP-1 to chip the 3++ down, AP-2 to chip the 4++ down, and so on, and even then it's not a guarantee as it has to pass to lose it. So you might fire an AP-2 weapon at the knight to line up your big gun, and it fail, take 1-2 damage, then the big gun fires and the shield holds. Still got decent defence, but not some weird barrier which shrugs off everything 2/3 f the time, all the time.
What do you think to my ideas of completely changing it from being a save at all?
That's a lot of pointless bookkeeping to do something that could just be done by tying the invulnerable save to the number of wounds multi-wound models have left. For anything else, they likely have too few wounds for such differentiation to make a meaningful change.
Also, void shields are literally some weird barrier which can shrug off anything so long as it's online and covering the right space, so I'm not sure your change even works within the fluff...
This thread has probably gone on long enough. Anyway, the main greivance people have is expensive, low-shot weaponry getting shrugged by what is comparatively chaff due to cheap invulnerable saves. And I do agree, that sucks.
However, rather than completely re-tool the game, it's much smarter to simply adjust the weapons themselves by granting them special priveleges to counter this problem. We already have this in many instances, such as with the Grav Flux Bombard used by the leviathan dreadnought. Probably not a great example given that nobody uses them because dual storm cannon arrays are better in every situation, but the point remains, it can be done.
Give The weapons in question a rule against x targets that make them viable rather than just taking a machete to invulnerable saves.
Roberts84 wrote: This thread has probably gone on long enough. Anyway, the main greivance people have is expensive, low-shot weaponry getting shrugged by what is comparatively chaff due to cheap invulnerable saves. And I do agree, that sucks.
However, rather than completely re-tool the game, it's much smarter to simply adjust the weapons themselves by granting them special priveleges to counter this problem. We already have this in many instances, such as with the Grav Flux Bombard used by the leviathan dreadnought. Probably not a great example given that nobody uses them because dual storm cannon arrays are better in every situation, but the point remains, it can be done.
Give The weapons in question a rule against x targets that make them viable rather than just taking a machete to invulnerable saves.
No, the issue is BIG targets with invulns.
A Melta might be crap against Bloodletters (for its cost), but Bolters do just fine.
* I haven't seen a good argument presented for why the current invulnerable save mechanic needs to be "fixed." Saying that too many things have invulnerable saves doesn't necessarily mean that the mechanic needs to be changed. If you feel a raider or forgefiend are too durable due to their 5+ invuls, present reasons why, and come up with a solution to fix them specifically. My wyches and harlies would probably rather have their 4+ invuls than a -1 to hit modifier.
* The early posts seemed to mostly have terminators in mind. If the main goal is to help out terminators, well, we haven't had a thread about that in five minutes.
* If you wanted a mechanic to reduce a knight's invuln as it takes damage, I'd suggest having the invul only degrade at the end of a given phase. that way you don't have to do your d3 damage attacks one at a time just in case the first one rolls a 3 and lowers the knight's save. Plus, this would create a mechanic vaguely similar to Ghazkull's that allows you to make progress in killing a big thing during a given turn but increases the likelihood that it will be around for more than a single turn.
* @Vipoid: While I very much DO NOT want armor facings to come back for normal vehicles, I agree that knights (if they *must* be a thing in normal 40k) could stand to be slightly more complicated. I could see giving them a 6" line with its center touching the knight's base (represented by a token probably) that indicates the direction the knight's shield is facing. If your entire shooting unit can draw a line from their bases without passing over that line, they can ignore your invul (or treat is as 1 lower than normal)?
Roberts84 wrote: This thread has probably gone on long enough. Anyway, the main greivance people have is expensive, low-shot weaponry getting shrugged by what is comparatively chaff due to cheap invulnerable saves. And I do agree, that sucks.
However, rather than completely re-tool the game, it's much smarter to simply adjust the weapons themselves by granting them special priveleges to counter this problem. We already have this in many instances, such as with the Grav Flux Bombard used by the leviathan dreadnought. Probably not a great example given that nobody uses them because dual storm cannon arrays are better in every situation, but the point remains, it can be done.
Give The weapons in question a rule against x targets that make them viable rather than just taking a machete to invulnerable saves.
Piling more special rules onto weapons to counter other special rules is not the way to go. I think there are two problem areas with invulnerables: big targets that are already very tough with an invulnerable layered on top and, to a much lesser extent, 3+ or better invulnerables that are spammable on infantry models. I think the latter is more of an issue of how frustrating it feels to play against rather than balance. The former problem is better solved by removing invulnerables from the offending units, IMO. You could make them degrade as well, which is a good middle ground because it ties into an existing mechanic.
The problem with any of these solutions is they are consequences of the ridiculous lethality in 40k right now and to truly fix them I think you'd need a substantial change in philosophy for the game. The biggest problem, IMO, is that GW were too lazy at the start of 8th and didn't take the opportunity to more radically change the stats on weapons and units. If we had anti-tank weapons with Strengths in the 14-18 range we'd be much better able to differentiate between anti-tank and anti-personnel weapons.
* I haven't seen a good argument presented for why the current invulnerable save mechanic needs to be "fixed." Saying that too many things have invulnerable saves doesn't necessarily mean that the mechanic needs to be changed. If you feel a raider or forgefiend are too durable due to their 5+ invuls, present reasons why, and come up with a solution to fix them specifically. My wyches and harlies would probably rather have their 4+ invuls than a -1 to hit modifier.
Personally, I don't think the core mechanic needs to be changed - I just think it needs to be scaled back. I'm not convinced that 3++ saves should even exist at all, let alone at the current levels. Ignoring all effects of an attack 2/3 of the time, regardless of the AP of the attack, just seems like poor design to me.
Wyldhunt wrote: My wyches and harlies would probably rather have their 4+ invuls than a -1 to hit modifier.
That's fair.
From a flavour perspective, I did like Martel's idea of different save types (Dodge, Force Field etc.). However, I think that would be better suited to a much smaller scale game, with more focus on individual models. I think it would require too much rewriting otherwise - especially since since AP is a core part of all weapons (so having so many saves that ignore it outright would be rather odd).
Out of interest, though, would you prefer a -1 to hit to the 6++ that Wyches currently get outside of combat?
* If you wanted a mechanic to reduce a knight's invuln as it takes damage, I'd suggest having the invul only degrade at the end of a given phase. that way you don't have to do your d3 damage attacks one at a time just in case the first one rolls a 3 and lowers the knight's save.
I'll confess to being a bit iffy about that. Because it also means that if you're 1 or 2 wounds shy of lowering a Knight's shield, it's then guaranteed another entire turn with its shield at full strength. Not sure that would be a good thing.
* @Vipoid: While I very much DO NOT want armor facings to come back for normal vehicles, I agree that knights (if they *must* be a thing in normal 40k) could stand to be slightly more complicated. I could see giving them a 6" line with its center touching the knight's base (represented by a token probably) that indicates the direction the knight's shield is facing. If your entire shooting unit can draw a line from their bases without passing over that line, they can ignore your invul (or treat is as 1 lower than normal)?
As I said earlier, I actually much prefer the idea of Knight shields working like a T7 model that you have to reduce to 0 wounds before you can start putting wounds on the Knight (rather than an Invulnerable save). Perhaps Knights could forgo firing one or more of their heavier weapons to recharge their shields?
"I haven't seen a good argument presented for why the current invulnerable save mechanic needs to be "fixed." Saying that too many things have invulnerable saves doesn't necessarily mean that the mechanic needs to be changed. "
They make weapons too hard to cost and create false choices. In my view.
Martel732 wrote: "I haven't seen a good argument presented for why the current invulnerable save mechanic needs to be "fixed." Saying that too many things have invulnerable saves doesn't necessarily mean that the mechanic needs to be changed. "
They make weapons too hard to cost and create false choices. In my view.
Any game that has math involved will have 'false-choices' and even with these issues the only example you ever seem to give is melta weapons, which could be fixed with a unique special rule. Is it not preferable to buff a couple of weak options and nerf some strong ones rather than overhaul the entire system?
Melta was an example. I'm referring to any low rate of fire weapon that depends on AP. I don't use lascannons, either for the same reason.
I'd prefer the game was completely rewritten. So of course I'm going for solutions that upend the status quo. The current system is too swallow, and the issues of invulns highlights this.
"Any game that has math involved will have 'false-choices"
I disagree with this. At a minimum, it can be minimized. GW doesn't even try.
Martel732 wrote: Melta was an example. I'm referring to any low rate of fire weapon that depends on AP. I don't use lascannons, either for the same reason.
You're objectively wrong to not use lascannons and meltas.
Here's a GT winning list that uses meltas which you call unusable:
EL: Imagifier: Heroine in the Making, Relic: Book of St. Lucius, Tale of the Stoic, Warlord Trait: 5. Indomitable Belief
EL: Imagifier: Tale of the Stoic
How about you reply to the ones I've given first, there are even full battle reports about the games they were involved in. You might even learn how to win a game!
So you refuse to look at tournament winning lists the use melta weapons, which you say aren't competitive, because you don't like the person posting them? You won't detail your proposed rules changes because you aren't getting paid? You don't use your army right because you feel wrap and trap is gamey?
Mind if I ask what you do actually do with your hobby time?
You've made your position clear. I've made mine clear. These changes will likely never happen, so you get your way by default. Next time I move, melta models are probably getting trashed. This includes painted attack bikes, but GW has made them useless.
Martel732 wrote: You've made your position clear. I've made mine clear. These changes will likely never happen, so you get your way by default. Next time I move, melta models are probably getting trashed. This includes painted attack bikes, but GW has made them useless.
What I do is none of your business.
So you have no answer to the question of why meltas showed up in a GT winning list then?
Martel732 wrote: You win the internet debate. Congrats. Move on. And don't reply to my posts anymore.
Here lies Martel. A testament to never giving a solid answer to a question that could be ignored and never reading a reply that might correct his poor assumptions.
invulnerable saves are a poor way to increase units durability in an already poor armor save system.
let me explain.
it's one of the few mechanics we should dump in the trash with 9th edition.
armor save is already a poor mechanic to simulate various resilience against weapons.
But on the other hand it's fairly simple at the first glance: roll a dice, avoid damage.
And hard to master since it involves percentage over percentage wich is not exactly intuitive.
In the worst exemple possible: you roll to determine the number of attacks, roll to hit, roll to pass toughness, roll for armor save, roll for dmg, roll for fnp.
that's a gak-ton of rolls and many of them are unecessary and time consuming.
Now include various modificators, rerolls and and stratagems and it's a nightmare to predict the outcome outside mathammer.
Idealy we should have a roll for the attacker and a roll for the defender.
thus, both player are active during the phase.
Armor save increase a model durability by increment of 16,6%.
+16% for cover, -33% for ap2 weapon etc.
This can already be simulated by "armor wounds" working as ablative wounds you recover at the end of the phase.
6+ save is one armor point for 6 wounds , bypassed by ap1, one more armor point in cover...
The problem with this solution: you have to multiply by 6 every wound characteristic in the game and do the same thing for every damage output.
16% is a very little margin to work around and lead to verry odd results.
if only they had chosen d10...
amor points works, it's simple, it's the same system without rolls.
Now for the invulnerable save.
In this already overcomplicated (but working) system you introduce an unmodifiable save you can pick over your armor save if this one is better.
there is only one way to bypass this save: mortal wounds.
What do you want to simulate with this?
4++ armor with lesser amor save is simply +50% durability barring mortal wounds.
You nullify all the weapon AP system with it just give them more wounds.
as exemple: terminators.
2w, 2+ armor, 5++.
the only way to use 5++ is facing ap 4+
You gain 16% durability against ap 4, 33% against ap5.
it's even worst if they are in cover.
seriously give them three wounds get rid of invulnerable, adjust the price and call it a day.
the only smart use of invulnerable save is the specific invulnerable save in close combat or against shooting.
it's very smart beacause it simulate a weakness/resilience without the need of weapon skill chart .
imperial knights durability is good exemple.
in the old 40k rule system imperial knight should have a very weak weapon skill and initiative making him far easier to deal with in close combat.
In our mordern 40k system he just need an invulnerable save specificaly against shooting to achieve this.
One other thing wich is dumb with invulnerable save.
The way i understand invulnerable save it should be an increased durability against all odds except the most letal weapons of 40k.
your invulnerable save wont help against a lucky lasgun shot but you can survive a barrage from a sunfury plasma anihilator.
invulnerable mechanic should be: reroll saves, ignore/lessen ap/dmg until a certain treshold.
ignoring small arm fire, mitigating moderatly dangerous weapons and leting you die from titanic/heroic threats.
I'll be honest, a lot of the "solutions" I've seen proposed here seem to be a case of 'the rich get richer'. As in, models that have good armour saves *and* Invulnerable Saves get to be even stronger, whilst models like Harlequins, Farseers, Warlocks, Succubi, Archons etc. who rely purely on Invulnerable Saves for protection get to lose their only defence.
Roberts84 wrote: I'm somewhat in agreement with this. It's pretty ridiculous when some piece of weaponry that costs an absolute fortune to field and has S10 -4 gets shrugged by an invulnerable save, and the way they work now has completely changed the game. Basically, invuln saves are God, and if you don't have them, you're probably playing something not worth its points.
Tau players would hate this though as its really the invulns on their shield drones that keep their good stuff alive. Being able to modify those would cause big problems for them--and by that, I mean bring their lists into some semblance of fairness.
At least it will buff Terminators - Tempestus Lambdan Lions make an already crazy AP-2 hotshot lasgun, AP-3 which turns their 2+ into a 5+/++, the increased Sv would make them more survivable on a 4+...
It even supports the weapons that 'Ignore Invulnerable saves' - the bonus is simply not counted in those cases.
BaconCatBug wrote: Invulnerable Saves should simply be an "ignore AP" modifier. You get to ignore AP but not boost the save like cover does.
A Terminator would have, for example, a Ignore AP value of 2, so gets to ignore the first 2 points of AP. AP-2 becomes AP0, AP-3 becomes AP-1, etc.
And this is exactly what I meant.
Terminators get a big buff, Farseers, Succubi, Harlequins et al. lose their defence entirely.
Why? Just set their "armour" save to their old invulnerable save and give them an AP ignore of 5 or 6. The only downside is you can't intentionally let your dudes die by using a worse "armour" save. This could be fixed by making the ignore ap "up to" or optional.
The only models I can thinkof, off the top of my head, that have a better Invulnerable save than "Armour" save are Archons and Makari. For the shadowfield just add a rule changing the "armour" save and AP ignore when the shadowfield fails.
Part of thr issue also sounds very much like it's tied up in the over abundance of things that have crazy AP and such because of the number of invulnerable saves, but that crazy ap means armour si worthless so you need and invulnerable meaning apa is back to being handed out like candy, it's a circular argument of GW's own making.
Ice_can wrote: Part of thr issue also sounds very much like it's tied up in the over abundance of things that have crazy AP and such because of the number of invulnerable saves, but that crazy ap means armour si worthless so you need and invulnerable meaning apa is back to being handed out like candy, it's a circular argument of GW's own making.
I don't know if this has been proposed before in this almost 200-post thread, but...
Could we fix some of the problems with invulnerable saves by removing all invulnerable saves from the game and replacing them with a Feel No Pain mechanic? This way, some of the damage from that krak missile can still get through the Space Marine Captain's iron halo, but is somewhat mitigated. (E.g.: the kinetic energy is absorbed, but the Captain still gets seared from the explosion just two feet away from his face.)
If a model used to have both an invulnerable save and a Feel No Pain, they simply get an improved FNP.
-Guardsman- wrote: I don't know if this has been proposed before in this almost 200-post thread, but...
Could we fix some of the problems with invulnerable saves by removing all invulnerable saves from the game and replacing them with a Feel No Pain mechanic? This way, some of the damage from that krak missile can still get through the Space Marine Captain's iron halo, but is somewhat mitigated. (E.g.: the kinetic energy is absorbed, but the Captain still gets seared from the explosion just two feet away from his face.)
If a model used to have both an invulnerable save and a Feel No Pain, they simply get an improved FNP.
.
That would probably fix certain problems, but it would create other weirdness. A harlequin with a FNP instead of an invul is suddenly much more vulnerable to something like a lascannon (more likely to wound than a bolter, more damage means better chance of bypassing FNP). Which seems odd given that the harlie's invul save is a representation of his agility and holosuit making him hard to land a hit on. Similarly, a wych's dodge save probably shouldn't be less effective against the slow, clunky power fist than against a duelist's power sword.
-Guardsman- wrote: I don't know if this has been proposed before in this almost 200-post thread, but...
Could we fix some of the problems with invulnerable saves by removing all invulnerable saves from the game and replacing them with a Feel No Pain mechanic? This way, some of the damage from that krak missile can still get through the Space Marine Captain's iron halo, but is somewhat mitigated. (E.g.: the kinetic energy is absorbed, but the Captain still gets seared from the explosion just two feet away from his face.)
If a model used to have both an invulnerable save and a Feel No Pain, they simply get an improved FNP.
.
In short, no.
This is a massive nerf to models with invulnerable saves due to the fact that an invulnerable save stops all damage coming at the model if it succeeds. Using FnP you need to roll versus each point of damage that isn't saved. Thus even a 2+++ FnP save is worse than a 3++ save against any weapon that deals 3 or more damage.
-Guardsman- wrote: I don't know if this has been proposed before in this almost 200-post thread, but...
Could we fix some of the problems with invulnerable saves by removing all invulnerable saves from the game and replacing them with a Feel No Pain mechanic? This way, some of the damage from that krak missile can still get through the Space Marine Captain's iron halo, but is somewhat mitigated. (E.g.: the kinetic energy is absorbed, but the Captain still gets seared from the explosion just two feet away from his face.)
If a model used to have both an invulnerable save and a Feel No Pain, they simply get an improved FNP.
.
In short, no.
This is a massive nerf to models with invulnerable saves due to the fact that an invulnerable save stops all damage coming at the model if it succeeds. Using FnP you need to roll versus each point of damage that isn't saved. Thus even a 2+++ FnP save is worse than a 3++ save against any weapon that deals 3 or more damage.
In short, yes. Invulns need a nerf, as GW has deemed to hand them out like candy and invalidate high AP as a concept in the game.
-Guardsman- wrote: I don't know if this has been proposed before in this almost 200-post thread, but...
Could we fix some of the problems with invulnerable saves by removing all invulnerable saves from the game and replacing them with a Feel No Pain mechanic? This way, some of the damage from that krak missile can still get through the Space Marine Captain's iron halo, but is somewhat mitigated. (E.g.: the kinetic energy is absorbed, but the Captain still gets seared from the explosion just two feet away from his face.)
If a model used to have both an invulnerable save and a Feel No Pain, they simply get an improved FNP.
.
That would probably fix certain problems, but it would create other weirdness. A harlequin with a FNP instead of an invul is suddenly much more vulnerable to something like a lascannon (more likely to wound than a bolter, more damage means better chance of bypassing FNP). Which seems odd given that the harlie's invul save is a representation of his agility and holosuit making him hard to land a hit on. Similarly, a wych's dodge save probably shouldn't be less effective against the slow, clunky power fist than against a duelist's power sword.
They use invuln to represent too many things. Consequently, too many invulns and no reason to bring high AP weapons.
Riptides would still be dumb. A 2+ armor save with an extra bonus of +3 to its save means even with dark eldar heat lances he still gets a 4+ save. It's a little better but nowhere near enough. I'd rather just spam mortal wounds at that point. Also heat lances aren't ideal weapons in general but good job at an attempt to make them suck less.
Roberts84 wrote: Necrons are one of those armies that's hard to amend without making them either terrible or utterly bananas OP. It's probably necessary to rebuild at least some of their core strategies from the ground up...but I guess then they wouldn't really be crons.
I think Necrons are still good. Well, they're nowhere near as bad as something like GS cult anyway. Probably the reason they don't turn up in tournaments more is because there's simply so many space marines armies, and law of averages just means space marines are going to be overrepresented vs everything. That and Necs are pretty slow overall. They still have some excellent units: Immortals, scarabs, destroyers. Warriors are pretty ordinary, I'll say that.
I'm OK with wraiths staying as they are, but yeah, they are pretty amazing.
Part of it is simply that the wacked Necron durability with a dozen nerf bats while simultaneously making 8th edition probably the most lethal environment the game has ever had. Its a poor combination.
Wraiths simply stand out for having escaped it and being a reasonably effective close combat platform in an army that largely has utterly terrible combat units. (whether hampered by speed, effectiveness or cost. Or, like flayed ones, all three)
JNAProductions wrote: SOME invulns need a nerf. Knights could stand with a nerf, or at least losing their invuln.
Not all invulns.
Most of them. Otherwise, why pay for AP? IKs are one culprit, but daemons and Drukhari are just as guilty. At least the IK invuln needs a relic to invalidate thunderhammers.
At this point, I'd prefer to remove invulns and implement force fields with fake wounds.
An easy way to do this would be to have invulns degrade (by some strategems involving an ap-4 weapon being used on them) by 1++ till the end of phase.
For example, you might shoot knights's 4++ invuln with a melta and spend the command points, and turn it back to a 5++ invlun for that phase. Follow on shots from plasma are suddenly more scary! Call it the "overload effect".
Also, you could put in a rule that if the strength of a weapon is x2 higher than the toughness of the model, that weapon ignores 1++ of an invuln defense. So follow on s8 shots on a t4 captain with a 4++ rosarius become 5++ (melta strat) and then 6++ (overload effect) Suddenly melta isn't such a bad deal to sprinkle aroudn the army a bit.
So if you went all out on a bunch of 4++ bullygrn with a demolisher cannon and a squad of meltas, you could 1) use the melta strat to drop the invuln to 5++ and then 2) use the high power demolisher s10 to make the shields function as 6++.
You couldn't do the same to a knight -- its hard to find s16 weapons lying around, but you could easily do the same to an t3 eldar guy if you were shooting him with orbital lance guns from a knight castellan. Similarly, a thunderhammer could have better odds of pounding its way past such a shield, but not against such a shield on a t8 levi- dreadnaught with a 3++ shield.
Point is, it gives you a broad range of possible shield effects while making some of the more egregious examples a bit less crazy. Heavy bolters shooting s3 3++ shields don't phase them -- but start playing your melta across the guy, he starts to worry about his shield overloading.
I actually think knights are pretty vulnerable even with their fancy schmancy 4++ shield rotation -- its the relics and warlord traits being passed out like candy that makes the knights able to give 3 of the big knights extra defense -- and then soup in some admech to give the third one cover from canticles for the first 2 rounds.
3 knights with 5++? Kinda easy.
3 knights with 4++, 4++ (rotated) and 2+armor + cover canticle?
Much harder!
A FOURTH knight would be almost unprotected by comparison, cause you can pick between 2 that are counting on having the rotated shield for defense. Just blow up the one the enemy doesn't rotate, no biggy.
Dukeofstuff wrote: I actually think knights are pretty vulnerable even with their fancy schmancy 4++ shield rotation -- its the relics and warlord traits being passed out like candy that makes the knights able to give 3 of the big knights extra defense -- and then soup in some admech to give the third one cover from canticles for the first 2 rounds.
3 knights with 5++? Kinda easy.
3 knights with 4++, 4++ (rotated) and 2+armor + cover canticle?
Much harder!
A FOURTH knight would be almost unprotected by comparison, cause you can pick between 2 that are counting on having the rotated shield for defense. Just blow up the one the enemy doesn't rotate, no biggy.
Even as it stands most competitive lists have the firepower to blow a 4++ Knight off the board in a turn and possibly even have enough left to put a dent into the next one as well.
Dukeofstuff wrote: An easy way to do this would be to have invulns degrade (by some strategems involving an ap-4 weapon being used on them) by 1++ till the end of phase.
For example, you might shoot knights's 4++ invuln with a melta and spend the command points, and turn it back to a 5++ invlun for that phase. Follow on shots from plasma are suddenly more scary! Call it the "overload effect".
Also, you could put in a rule that if the strength of a weapon is x2 higher than the toughness of the model, that weapon ignores 1++ of an invuln defense. So follow on s8 shots on a t4 captain with a 4++ rosarius become 5++ (melta strat) and then 6++ (overload effect) Suddenly melta isn't such a bad deal to sprinkle aroudn the army a bit.
So if you went all out on a bunch of 4++ bullygrn with a demolisher cannon and a squad of meltas, you could 1) use the melta strat to drop the invuln to 5++ and then 2) use the high power demolisher s10 to make the shields function as 6++.
You couldn't do the same to a knight -- its hard to find s16 weapons lying around, but you could easily do the same to an t3 eldar guy if you were shooting him with orbital lance guns from a knight castellan. Similarly, a thunderhammer could have better odds of pounding its way past such a shield, but not against such a shield on a t8 levi- dreadnaught with a 3++ shield.
Point is, it gives you a broad range of possible shield effects while making some of the more egregious examples a bit less crazy. Heavy bolters shooting s3 3++ shields don't phase them -- but start playing your melta across the guy, he starts to worry about his shield overloading.
Neat ideas there, but most of that only makes sense against invulns that represent forcefields. Being a higher strength probably shouldn't matter against invulns representing holograms , for instance.
They use invuln to represent too many things. Consequently, too many invulns and no reason to bring high AP weapons.
Eh. I feel like that's a slightly misleading statement. You could make things that are invulns not invulns, but the mechanic you'd substitute for them would probably warrant a thread in its own right. Going back to harlequins, invul saves do a pretty okay job of representing their durability against something like a lascannon or plasma. AP shouldn't matter there.
Maybe there should be fewer invulns on things that high AP weapons are meant to work against, but there are plenty of things with invuls that AP shouldn't matter against, right? Better AP probably shouldn't help you kill a daemonette, for instance.
There are I think 5 types of effect that are often represented by an invulnerable save:
Super reflexes
Energy fields
Regenerative ability
Warp energy
reinforced armour (terminators)
Of those only really energy fields and warp energy (ala daemons) really seem to warrant invulnerable saves.
Super reflexes should be a negative to hit, or a max chance to hit (ie they can never be hit on better than a 5+)
Regenerative power could just be regaining wounds in the next round
reinforced armour could be ignoring X AP
Part of the issue is that a) GW keeps creating lots of units or armies that have 'hard to hurt for various reasons' in their background and b) invulnerable saves are a simple catchall to cover a lot of them.
IMO the bigger problem is a). If they didn't keep doing it then it wouldn't seem like a problem.
Hellebore wrote: There are I think 5 types of effect that are often represented by an invulnerable save:
Super reflexes
Energy fields
Regenerative ability
Warp energy
reinforced armour (terminators)
Of those only really energy fields and warp energy (ala daemons) really seem to warrant invulnerable saves.
Super reflexes should be a negative to hit, or a max chance to hit (ie they can never be hit on better than a 5+)
Regenerative power could just be regaining wounds in the next round
reinforced armour could be ignoring X AP
Part of the issue is that a) GW keeps creating lots of units or armies that have 'hard to hurt for various reasons' in their background and b) invulnerable saves are a simple catchall to cover a lot of them.
IMO the bigger problem is a). If they didn't keep doing it then it wouldn't seem like a problem.
I think it's a easier summary than even this:
1: You didn't hit them at all
2: something (warp energy, energy field etc) stopped the hit.
For "you didn't hit at all" - harlequins, the hologram thing mentioned earlier, assassins - it would make more sense for them to gain a "dodge" special rule.
Dodge(X+):
When a unit with the "dodge" special rule is hit by an attack, they may make their dodge saves immediately to cancel the hit. These saves are not affected by the AP of the weapon fired. For each save that is passed, one of the hits is discarded. EG Dodge (4+) means the unit cancels a hit on a saving throw of 4+. Other modifiers to saving throws (such as psychic powers, cover) apply as normal.
So you roll to hit them, then they roll to dodge, ignoring your weapons strength & AP (but, obviously, concerned by its rate of fire), and any failed attempts will hit them.
This adds a little bit of time, but not much different to the feel no pain rolls we have now, and suits the dodging aspect of the units. They also get to make a normal save afterward, if applicable.
"I rolled 10 hits"
"I dodged 4, so only 6 hits"
"I rolled 3 wounds"
"I saved 1, so 2 wounds"
This then leaves us free to modify "I have a magic shield/warp energy/lucky paint/force field" type invulns without it seeming wrong on units like harlequins and such.
1: You didn't hit them at all
2: something (warp energy, energy field etc) stopped the hit.
For "you didn't hit at all" - harlequins, the hologram thing mentioned earlier, assassins - it would make more sense for them to gain a "dodge" special rule.
Dodge(X+):
When a unit with the "dodge" special rule is hit by an attack, they may make their dodge saves immediately to cancel the hit. These saves are not affected by the AP of the weapon fired. For each save that is passed, one of the hits is discarded. EG Dodge (4+) means the unit cancels a hit on a saving throw of 4+. Other modifiers to saving throws (such as psychic powers, cover) apply as normal.
So you roll to hit them, then they roll to dodge, ignoring your weapons strength & AP (but, obviously, concerned by its rate of fire), and any failed attempts will hit them.
This adds a little bit of time, but not much different to the feel no pain rolls we have now, and suits the dodging aspect of the units. They also get to make a normal save afterward, if applicable.
"I rolled 10 hits"
"I dodged 4, so only 6 hits"
"I rolled 3 wounds"
"I saved 1, so 2 wounds"
This then leaves us free to modify "I have a magic shield/warp energy/lucky paint/force field" type invulns without it seeming wrong on units like harlequins and such.
That makes dodge a strictly better invulnerable save that's also somewhat slower to roll. This not only doesn't solve the issue that people against invulnerable saves have, that AP should matter, but it also slows the game down.
1: You didn't hit them at all
2: something (warp energy, energy field etc) stopped the hit.
For "you didn't hit at all" - harlequins, the hologram thing mentioned earlier, assassins - it would make more sense for them to gain a "dodge" special rule.
Dodge(X+):
When a unit with the "dodge" special rule is hit by an attack, they may make their dodge saves immediately to cancel the hit. These saves are not affected by the AP of the weapon fired. For each save that is passed, one of the hits is discarded. EG Dodge (4+) means the unit cancels a hit on a saving throw of 4+. Other modifiers to saving throws (such as psychic powers, cover) apply as normal.
So you roll to hit them, then they roll to dodge, ignoring your weapons strength & AP (but, obviously, concerned by its rate of fire), and any failed attempts will hit them.
This adds a little bit of time, but not much different to the feel no pain rolls we have now, and suits the dodging aspect of the units. They also get to make a normal save afterward, if applicable.
"I rolled 10 hits"
"I dodged 4, so only 6 hits"
"I rolled 3 wounds"
"I saved 1, so 2 wounds"
This then leaves us free to modify "I have a magic shield/warp energy/lucky paint/force field" type invulns without it seeming wrong on units like harlequins and such.
That makes dodge a strictly better invulnerable save that's also somewhat slower to roll. This not only doesn't solve the issue that people against invulnerable saves have, that AP should matter, but it also slows the game down.
I think the issue evolved somewhat, though I could be wrong:
1: started with players wanting AP to matter for invulns
2: Players asked "what about daemons" and "what about dodging"
It doesn't make sense for a high-AP weapon to be more difficult to dodge than a low-AP weapon. I suppose, in this case, the classic invulnerable save makes sense (actually, a direct "to hit" modifier would make the most sense, though).
I wonder if, perhaps, in order to speed the game up as well, you could transfer the 2 types of invuln ("you didn't hit" and "something stopped it") into modifiers to "to hit" and "to wound" rolls.
EG a 5++ "you didn't hit" would instead be -1 to hit.
a 3++ "something stopped it" would be -3 to wound
Granted this means that a knight wouldn't care about S4 or worse weapons with his invuln, but having a 4++ turn to "-2 to wound" would mean meltas (previously a 4+) would become a 6+. Then titan-killing weapons (S16 or so) will come into their own as being needed to regularly kill the bigger monsters.
"you didn't hit":
6++ = 6+++ fnp 5++ = -1 to hit
4++ = -2 to hit
3++ = -3 to hit
4++ = -4 to hit
(I reason that these saves tend to be much lower, I can't think of anything with a 3++ dodging save!)
"Something Stopped it"
6++ = -1 to wound
5++ = -2 to wound
4++ = -3 to wound
3++ = -4 to wound
2++ = -5 to wound
(this one can be more liberal due to 6's always wounding).
This reduces the number of dice needed, and keeps AP relevant, and makes strength the force which punches past an invulnerable save.
It's not quite the same as just increasing their toughness:
S4 Vs T4 = 4+ to wound
S10 vs T4 = 2+ to wound
S4 vs T5 = 5+ to wound
S10 vs T5 = 2+ to wound
S4 vs T4 with -1 to wound = 5+ to wound
S10 vs T4 with -1 to wound = 3+ to wound
S1000 vs T4 with -1 to wound = 3+ to wound
Slightly different, it's always relevant (As you never wound on less than a 2+, so -1 to wound will never be wounded on a 2+
Makari will only ever be wounded on a 6+
TH/SS termies would only ever be wounded on 5+, yikes... but AP will finish them off if you do wound them.
I actually really like this idea, now I've written it!
Oh I agree the system doesn't really work all that well, but that's because it has to account from Grots to Knights. If Flyers and LoW were removed from the game it would be a lot easier to balance with such a system.
The limitation of a D6 system is also an issue. My idea for my own system was to use D12s, and replace invulnerable saves with an Ignore AP characteristic.
True, but I assume if this system was implemented they would make a rule saying natural 6's always hit and natural 6's always wound.
Fair-but that then devalues STRENGTH.
If a 4++ inflicts a -3 to-wound, then a T8 Knight is wounded on 6s by anything S15 or less. And S16 only pushes that to 5s!
It also devalues TOUGHNESS. Why am I paying for T9 on my fellblade when it's easier to wound than said T8 knight against EVERYTHING?
It also means an impulsor with a shield dome is wounded by 6s by anything less than S14.
This would be worse than the current invulnerable system.
So give certain weapons "penetrating (X)" with X representing the invulnerable save it can defeat? So penetrating 4 would defeat any 4++ or weaker invul?
Could work. A way to bring back armourbane. I miss that rule.
Martel732 wrote: I don't think so. Invulns are undercosted. Melta would be perfectly fine with this rule.
Maybe. It would have to be a case to case basis. And if the weapon's penetration value defeats the target's invul then it still gets its standard armour save against the weapon's ap.
Blastaar wrote: Why not remove armor saves and AP altogether? Makes invulns special.
40K does currently have a lot of redundancy in its damage model. Armor save/AP is pretty self-explanatory, but the distinction between S-vs-T and D-vs-W seems arbitrary. I think it made a lot more sense when most things only had one wound, the number of wounds on any one model was pretty low, and Instant Death provided a mechanism for high-S weapons to remove multiple wounds at once.
It'd be a lot of work, but you could probably roll armor into Toughness and roll AP into Strength, leaving Wounds and Damage alone. Then it would be Toughness that defines how hard it is to inflict damage on something (with Strength being how likely a weapon is to inflict damage), with Wounds reflecting how much damage that thing can actually take (and Damage being how much damage the weapon actually does). At that point, yeah, stuff that gives you a flat chance to ignore damage (invulns would essentially be another flavor of FNP) would definitely feel special again.
BaconCatBug wrote: Ok so now my weapons have the same chance of wounding a Grot as it does an Imperial Knight? Seems fair. /s
No. Not at all.
He is suggesting removing the concept of Toughness. Having better armour and being tougher are not synonymous. Something can be extremely tough but be poorly armoured, and something can be extremely heavily armoured but not be tough. His proposal would make heavy armour low toughness the same as light armour high toughness.
It works in other games because, in general, most things are roughly the same scale and mostly infantry/powered armour/mechanised armour scale.. 40k has ballooned into including things like Baneblades, Knights and Flyers, and always included APCs, IFVs and MLBTs, so removing the concept of Toughness simply isn't viable.
Most larger scale games do away with this number of layers.
The EPIC armageddon system had a fixed roll to hit for each weapon based on how it affected infantry or vehicles.
You then made saves against that. It had 'ignore save' weapons in the form of macro weapons as well and It still had invulnerable saves and wounds, although they were restricted to larger vehicles or monsters.
BFG was even simpler, with a you needing to equal or exceed the target's armour score in order to hit them. But it dealt with almost every unit having multiple wounds and damage tracking.
IMO I think it's fine to have invulnerable saves working the way they do as long as they aren't over used, which they currently are.
Blastaar wrote: Why not remove armor saves and AP altogether? Makes invulns special.
40K does currently have a lot of redundancy in its damage model. Armor save/AP is pretty self-explanatory, but the distinction between S-vs-T and D-vs-W seems arbitrary. I think it made a lot more sense when most things only had one wound, the number of wounds on any one model was pretty low, and Instant Death provided a mechanism for high-S weapons to remove multiple wounds at once.
It'd be a lot of work, but you could probably roll armor into Toughness and roll AP into Strength, leaving Wounds and Damage alone. Then it would be Toughness that defines how hard it is to inflict damage on something (with Strength being how likely a weapon is to inflict damage), with Wounds reflecting how much damage that thing can actually take (and Damage being how much damage the weapon actually does). At that point, yeah, stuff that gives you a flat chance to ignore damage (invulns would essentially be another flavor of FNP) would definitely feel special again.
I'd be fine with FnP and invulns stacking (assuming invuln saves become much more rare) or just running with FnP only.
BaconCatBug wrote: Ok so now my weapons have the same chance of wounding a Grot as it does an Imperial Knight? Seems fair. /s
No.
Not at all.
He is suggesting removing the concept of Toughness. Having better armour and being tougher are not synonymous. Something can be extremely tough but be poorly armoured, and something can be extremely heavily armoured but not be tough. His proposal would make heavy armour low toughness the same as light armour high toughness.
It works in other games because, in general, most things are roughly the same scale and mostly infantry/powered armour/mechanised armour scale.. 40k has ballooned into including things like Baneblades, Knights and Flyers, and always included APCs, IFVs and MLBTs, so removing the concept of Toughness simply isn't viable.
The distinction between toughness and armor is pointless. How difficult something is to wound is really all that matters. Saves are an extra step in the resolution process that only exists because of IGOGUO, and giving players something "to do" during their opponent's turns. I have also been consistent in saying that superheavies/flyers/gargantuans/primarchs should be apocalypse-only units.
I think S and toughness need to scale differently. Some units SHOULD be unable to wound (or hit) others with S or Evasion far above their Bs, WS or weapon strength, so long as armies can still deal with them through strategy, teamwork, and appropriate units.
I think S and toughness need to scale differently. Some units SHOULD be unable to wound (or hit) others with S or Evasion far above their Bs, WS or weapon strength, so long as armies can still deal with them through strategy, teamwork, and appropriate units.
Eh. That sounds nice in theory, but the execution can be problematic. My opponent shows up with a vanilla IG list. He's got some anti-tank, some anti-infantry, a fair number of infantry, some tanks. Just a well-rounded list. Then I show up with an all knights list that can kill pretty much all of his anti-tank in a single turn and ignore the rest of his offense for the remainder of the game. I'm literally immune to his lasguns, and a lot of his other low-mid strength weapons are presumably only wounding me on a 6+. He can't do enough damage to actually fight me. He can only maybe throw bodies on objectives and hope that I roll poorly enough for him to win on objectives.
But I'd argue that isn't the game of 40k he signed up for; that's me punching him in the face for 6 game rounds and saying, "Congrats! You win!" if he's still conscious afterwards.
You can take "appropriate units" by leaning heavily into anti tank when building your list just in case you end up facing my knights. At which point you and everyone else taking the same approach end up ignoring huge chunks of their codex, and lists generally begin to look very samey. List diversity plummets.
"Strategy" and "teamwork," sound cool, and I'm all for hearing what those would look like mechanically. But currently? Playing smart against an enemy you're not allowed to hurt probably just looks like hiding behind terrain all game and then hoping your opponent rolls badly when you try to take objectives.
But again, I'm genuinely open to ideas on how what you're proposing would work. I like a lot of what you're saying. There's probably a way to get rid of the Save and AP stats and boost Toughness or Wounds by an appropriate amount to compensate. Especially if the end result isn't to end up with basically identical math to what we have now but instead to convey the fluff of untis in a game with a different level of lethality than what we have now.
Didn’t the previous poster say that they wouldn’t have super heavies/ lords of war etc in the game but only in larger scale ones like apocalypse? So facing an all knights wouldn’t be a thing in that case.
Also another way to fix that sort of miss match is with properly written missions. If you can score even without destroying your opponent then winning is possible.
Also tactics like tieing up knights in combat etc to prevent them shooting and not always letting them walk straight out of combat could also be explored to allow these sort of match ups to still work.
There are a number of ways to make the game viable without letting every model/weapon be able to damage everything else.
That doesn't matter. Wounding on 6s is not much better than not wounding at all. What's stupid is that assault bolters suffer less vs IKs than meltaguns.
Martel732 wrote: That doesn't matter. Wounding on 6s is not much better than not wounding at all. What's stupid is that assault bolters suffer less vs IKs than meltaguns.
Fancy that a vehicle's active defenses work best against anti-vehicle weapons... You must be equally upset that the real-life Iron Dome system doesn't shoot down handgun bullets but does shoot down rockets and mortar shells.
Where's the active defense system on most marine tanks? Or falcons? Or Hammerheads? Oh yeah, it's only certain units blessed with the magical invuln. Unfortunately its enough to wallpaper melta and rail guns.
Where's the active defense system on most marine tanks? Or falcons? Or Hammerheads? Oh yeah, it's only certain units blessed with the magical invuln. Unfortunately its enough to wallpaper melta and rail guns.
There are tons of reasons why a vehicle may not run an active defense system, especially one that either requires a relic or a ton of power to maintain. Besides, shouldn't you be happy that there are still vehicles that it's worth using melta or a railgun on?
I just said there are enough units and in fact, entire armies that render AP above -2 a poor gamble. Drukhari and daemons, and IKs come to mind. High AP weapons should be very effective vs targets like IKs, but game mechanics make it not so. So there's no real reason to bring them. At their current price point, anyway. Simply put, most lists don't have the points to throw away on weapons that won't get to use their primary feature at critical junctures.
"There are tons of reasons why a vehicle may not run an active defense system,"
But in this case, there is only one: the whim of GW. And their inability to grasp what spamming invulns into the game does to weapons that pay for reliability on low numbers of shots. Anything that can kill the units with invulns can kill the units without them, so why ever plan for units without invulns?
Martel732 wrote: Anything that can kill the units with invulns can kill the units without them, so why ever plan for units without invulns?
This is why you lose. You need to look at the big picture, examine the lists you face in detail, and see which units are actually useless and which ones you write-off unfairly before even trying them. Your issue is that you're not skilled enough to pilot a pro's list, but also don't seem to be creative enough to build a meta beating skew list for your local scene. That and you hate half the games models, rules, and skip rolls shaving your win percentage down even lower than your skill should have it at.
The cherry on top is that in spite of this you come here as if you have some wisdom the rest of us have missed in spite of getting told off in almost every thread you post in. Do you ever get sick of being wrong?
You're the one not looking at the big picture if you pay high prices for AP in 8th ed.
" write-off unfairly before even trying them."
I've got at least 25K of BA. I've tried everything in the inventory except for the two fliers we recently got added to our inventory. Both of which suck anyway. Melta was my go to in 5th. Then, in 6th/7th it got harder and harder to use with fewer returns. Now, in 8th, it's almost worse than useless because of how it inflates my costs per wound and has almost no return.
"hate half the games models, rules, and skip rolls shaving your win percentage down even lower than your skill should have it at."
Turns out I'm allowed to skip FNP rolls, so my opponent gets to bleed out my time that way, too. And I hate way more than half the models and rules.
Also being told off by the posters in these threads unsurprisingly doesn't mean much to me.
Oh, and I"m undefeated with Box's list on the virtual game board app. I just hate playing it. So I'm not going to anymore.
It's always been an element of the game that you pick your targets.
If you're facing a 3++, you don't waste good AP on them. I never fired plasmas at THSS temrinators, I fired small-arms.
Nowadays, with AP being variable instead of outright removing saves (which synergised with the invulnerables better than the current system does) you can waste more shots on an invuln - previously, AP3 or worse was as bad as AP- vs a TH/SS terminator, so you just ignored it and went with strength and volume of fire to get through its 2+. Now, with the tantalising tidbit of AP-1 dropping a termy to a 3+, it's like more weapons are a waste - AP-2 or better is wasted if they have a 3++.
so you shoot AP-2 or better at other things. I've not faced any lists where everything has an invuln (except daemons, but that's their thing, and 5++ isn't all that). don't point your big guns at the 3++ and you won't waste them.
good job not playing a list you don't enjoy. It's about the game, not the win.
Yes, but if I don't play that list, I don't win. Basically ever. BA are melee glass cannons, which means tripoint or die. And there's one build to rule them all to maximize tripoint. End of story. GW somehow added like a zillion rules to marines and BA but they are still somehow gak to play.
Of COURSE I don't waste the AP. But if I buy lascannons or meltas, I want to target large things with lots of wounds. If those targets are all proof in a given match vs those weapons, I have no targets for them. You mentioned demons, but Drukhari and IKs come to mind as well. And mother fething space wolves with SS spam. We can't have weapons actually work against our resident furries.
Martel732 wrote: Yes, but if I don't play that list, I don't win. Basically ever. BA are melee glass cannons, which means tripoint or die. And there's one build to rule them all to maximize tripoint. End of story. GW somehow added like a zillion rules to marines and BA but they are still somehow gak to play.
Of COURSE I don't waste the AP. But if I buy lascannons or meltas, I want to target large things with lots of wounds. If those targets are all proof in a given match vs those weapons, I have no targets for them. You mentioned demons, but Drukhari and IKs come to mind as well. And mother fething space wolves with SS spam. We can't have weapons actually work against our resident furries.
I can see how it might be frustrating to have a huge army and it be kinda crap (I have many thousands of points worth of orks, and my main meta in 7th was Eldar, so believe me when I say I feel your pain).
I think the things to focus on are that damage isn't mitigated by invulns, so perhaps look for higher ROF, Damage 2 or D3 weapons and disregard the AP - as you say, it's worthless!
SS spam is a crap thing to face - not going to argue - but do you know what's worse? Paying a lot of points for stormshields and instead facing every AP0 weapon all game. Invulns wasted.
I'm not going to say that BA aren't glass cannons, but if I were to play with them (with my limited knowledge) I would look to bring a pair of vindicators to blow chunks out of heavy units (wounding on 2 or 3+ and D6 damage with D6 shots, AP is all well and good but volume speaks... ...volumes). If you're on table-top simulator then you can try out all sorts of wacky combos to see what gets through the best. I've had a filler unit (single mek with kustom-mega-pistol) turn out to be a brilliant unit (deffskulls so rerolling hits/wounds/damage, with a 6++ and character protection, being jumped by a weirdboy to chase down anything trying to cling to life for another turn with his S8 pistol). he stayed in my lists for a few games!
I've found before that targeting things for overkill actually becomes more effective than targetting the unit you're "supposed" to shoot. My anecdote for this one is 3 smasha guns. They are meant to hunt tanks, but there were 5 sniper-primaris causing me grief. I shot them instead - almost guaranteed to wound (roll a 4+ on 2D6), D3 shots per gun with BS4+, I killed 4 of them, ridiculously easily. it was a far better result than targeting his massive tank (who might have lost some paintwork), and a lot more satisfying for me as a player.
Martel732 wrote: I really, really enjoy 6 inceptors with the FNP banner. But I don't think deviations from the formula will work.
But SS are 2 pts a piece. They are only limited by access. Think of it this way, your SS are forcing your opponent to use AP 0 on you.
wow, that's cheap.
All I can say is that if the meta is pushing massed 3++, push massed AP0.
another anecdote (oh, I'm full of them) is in a much older edition when grey knights were released and became akin to the emperor himself (5th, maybe?). Facing rerollable 2+ saves on 2 wound models with wound allocation shenanigans, as Orks (who had basically 0 AP2 ranged weapons). My normal tactics didn't work, trukk boys just died before they swung (ye olde days of initiative), weirdboys would explode trying to zzap them. And then I tried Burna boys in a battlewagon.
Needless to say, when I hit 6 of his guys with a template and he said "6 hits" and I said "no, actually that's... ...90 hits", he started to sweat a bit.
Next few games, I brought massed small-arms fire. Burnas, shootaboys, lootas for the vehicles - would you believe it, his deathstar started to get less and less points put into it.
If you find yourself regularly not using the AP you're paying for, it might be worth trying some lists which focus around decent ROF, strength and damage but mediocre AP, so you get 100% of the bang you paid for. I don't know BA all that well so I'm afraid I can't offer more specific advice!
"If you find yourself regularly not using the AP you're paying for, it might be worth trying some lists which focus around decent ROF, strength and damage but mediocre AP, so you get 100% of the bang you paid for. I don't know BA all that well so I'm afraid I can't offer more specific advice!"
This is exactly what I'm doing. But it renders all my models with meltaguns and such basically useless. My favorite heavy weapon is actually the accelerator autocannon on suppressors for this exact reason. I don't like having to avoid high AP weapons because GW can't stop handing out invuln like candy.
It's not just SS. Your typical AT gun sucks vs Drukhari boats and the like. Still wounds on a 3+, because its not S10, but loses most of its AP because 5++. Maybe in this case, the wounding is the bigger issue, but the 5++ is salt in the wound for sure. Then look around at all the 5++ that GW just haphazardly throws around.
Martel732 wrote: "If you find yourself regularly not using the AP you're paying for, it might be worth trying some lists which focus around decent ROF, strength and damage but mediocre AP, so you get 100% of the bang you paid for. I don't know BA all that well so I'm afraid I can't offer more specific advice!"
This is exactly what I'm doing. But it renders all my models with meltaguns and such basically useless. My favorite heavy weapon is actually the accelerator autocannon on suppressors for this exact reason. I don't like having to avoid high AP weapons because GW can't stop handing out invuln like candy.
It's not just SS. Your typical AT gun sucks vs Drukhari boats and the like. Still wounds on a 3+, because its not S10, but loses most of its AP because 5++. Maybe in this case, the wounding is the bigger issue, but the 5++ is salt in the wound for sure. Then look around at all the 5++ that GW just haphazardly throws around.
I agree that invulns are too prevalent - no doubt in part due to the way AP-1 now affects 2+ saves, where they used to be nigh-invulnerable in their own right, outside of combat. The more things affect 2+ saves, the more invulns will be needed to compensate for things being easily killed by being reduced from a 3+ to a 5+ by basic AP.
As for Dark Eldar, their vehicles were always a waste for anti-tank weapons, and were best dealt with using autocannons and other mid-strength weapons.
I would recommend building some army lists which are completely outside of your regular approach - some people have a core of units which they auto-include in every army list, as they consider them to be the best value for their points. If this sounds like you, it might be worth shaking that up and seeing if it yields different synergies than your current lists.
The theory, if you play against the same players regularly, is that by not taking AP and instead taking volume of shots, you will start to get them thinking about droppng their invulns in favour of more bodies or better guns, and then your meltaguns (which you should probably have a couple of, not everything is invulnerable after all) will see a bit more utility.
it took a lot of losing for me to start winning with my orks vs eldar in 7th - I had a few games where I was simply testing units, rather than expecting a win (I think I actually won one as well, which was a bonus!). The game's changed a lot since then, and the meta has shifted, but the principle is still the same - half the game is making a list that works, the other half is applying it to your opponents army. you can lose a game at either stage, so if you hink y played the best game you could, it's time to look at your lists.
I don't play vs the same players, so that's not an issue.
I long ago benched every meltagun and multimelta I own. I'm just very unhappy this was necessary. This was obvious after a single game against IKs. The fact that these weapons are outright terrible vs IKs and T8 in general makes me so sad.
GW doesn't appear to be aware of the math of AP. The first two points of AP should be expensive, not the third and the fourth. But thats' not how they price weaponry.
Martel732 wrote: I don't play vs the same players, so that's not an issue.
I long ago benched every meltagun and multimelta I own. I'm just very unhappy this was necessary. This was obvious after a single game against IKs. The fact that these weapons are outright terrible vs IKs and T8 in general makes me so sad.
GW doesn't appear to be aware of the math of AP. The first two points of AP should be expensive, not the third and the fourth. But thats' not how they price weaponry.
yeah, they definitely didn't think through the ramifications. AP-1 is really quite powerful; AP5 never was.
I would still expect that meltaguns, with their 2D6 damage mechanic in half range, would still have something of a place facing high toughness models with lots of wounds... Really they should inflict an additional D3 mortal wounds when in half range, and boom, they would be nice AT weapons and reflect their fluff.
Good luck with reworking your lists, I really do recommend changing your army list up entirely to see if it helps at all - there's every chance it'll give you a massive loss, but it might give you more insights for different combos. It works for me with Orks. I play entirely different lists every time, with entirely different tactics, and get a fairly average W/D/L ratio. Helps me to think on my feet in games, I found. It might help you!
"would still have something of a place facing high toughness models with lots of wounds..."
They don't because after to hit, to wound, then invuln, they clear VERY little damage per shot. And you are paying a lot for each shot. Giving them mortals would be a huge bump up, I agree.
I'm not sure how much reworking there needs to be. Stephen Box has solved BA for the current meta. The choices seems to be use that kind of list or lose with BA. BA can't succeed at shooting because of their chapter tactic, and they can't sustain damage during the opponent's turn because of the cost of marine bodies. Mass tripointing is the only solution.
BaconCatBug wrote:He is suggesting removing the concept of Toughness.
I think you need to go and re-read the posts you're replying to, because nobody suggested removing toughness, we suggested removing armor saves and instead folding that into toughness, which has a lot more scope for variation than saves.
BaconCatBug wrote:Having better armour and being tougher are not synonymous. Something can be extremely tough but be poorly armoured, and something can be extremely heavily armoured but not be tough. His proposal would make heavy armour low toughness the same as light armour high toughness.
And in practice the difference doesn't actually mean much. High-S guns almost always have high AP, low-S guns almost always have low AP. The difference between shooting a high-S, low-AP weapon at a Marine versus a low-S, high-AP weapon is negligible- it statistically washes out. The edge cases where you have targets with high T but light armor and have the opportunity to engage with either low-S-high-AP or high-S-low-AP are few and far between, and in any case even if S and AP were consolidated, high-S-but-low-Dam and low-S-but-high-Dam would reflect those two niches. If something is supposed to be unarmored and easy to damage but take a lot of firepower to put down (like, I don't know, a Nurgle daemon), low T with a whole ton of wounds would cover that just fine, and be mechanically different from something with high T but one wound.
At this point it's chrome for the sake of chrome. We have a stat for measuring 'how hard something is to hurt', another stat for measuring 'how hard something is to hurt, but because of armor', and a stat for 'how much hurt a thing can withstand', and they all work mechanically differently. At least one of these three doesn't need to exist.
But it gets even better, because 40Kalready uses Toughness to represent different levels of armor in some cases- just look at all the vehicles with 3+ armor saves, but different Toughness values. A Leman Russ is certainly better-armored than a Chimera, but they both have the same 3+ save, and instead the difference is that a Russ is T8 and a Chimera is T7. The Russ is certainly a bigger, heavier vehicle that can take more damage, which is why it has significantly more Wounds, but the lower likelihood of taking damage to begin with is modeled through Toughness rather than Save.
So really we have two different concepts of what T and Sv represent, both occupying the same design space, with the logical difference between the two already being accounted for by the W characteristic.
Canadian 5th wrote:
Martel732 wrote: That doesn't matter. Wounding on 6s is not much better than not wounding at all. What's stupid is that assault bolters suffer less vs IKs than meltaguns.
Fancy that a vehicle's active defenses work best against anti-vehicle weapons... You must be equally upset that the real-life Iron Dome system doesn't shoot down handgun bullets but does shoot down rockets and mortar shells.
I must have missed where the real-world counter to Merkavas is to mass handgun bullets so as to circumvent Iron Dome.
catbarf wrote: I must have missed where the real-world counter to Merkavas is to mass handgun bullets so as to circumvent Iron Dome.
You have no clue what Iron Dome is, do you?
At any rate, how about we try tanks being defeated by midrange weapons! Did you know that ERA bricks can be countered by 20 - 30mm autocannon fire? How about Abrams having well known weak points where very outdated RPGs can mission kill them with a single shot? It sucks that sometimes real life weapons have flaws and that other times your better weapons get countered.
Just like how it sucked that the best armor penetration weapon available to British tank crews in late-WW2 couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, the devs should have fixed that one in a balance patch.
At any rate, bring the weapons that work against the foes you commonly face, leave the things that don't work on the shelf until they get rotated back in as the new hotness. It's the circle of GW, things rise and fall and rise again.
Martel732 wrote: "leave the things that don't work on the shelf until they get rotated back in as the new hotness."
Oh, I thought melta was fine, though? Because that's exactly what I'm doing. I just shouldn't have to.
You've literally been shown tournament winning lists that run melta and been dismissive of them...
If a weapon doesn't work for you, bench it until it gets changed and refine your list towards what works. That's how 40k has always worked in every edition. If you don't like it, as others have suggested, try chess or perhaps an online game that gets a balance patch every week or two. Or spend some serious time and brew your own fandex and try to get people to play against you with it, be the change you want to see, and all that nonsense.
Funny, I could ask you the same thing, seeing as you were talking about vehicle APS and then cited Iron Dome. Sounds like you got it mixed up with Trophy. And missed the sarcasm in my post.
Rest assured we are all very impressed by your Wikipedia military technology anecdotes. It was definitely relevant and necessary to illustrate the point that war isn't fair, regardless of that maxim's actual applicability to a toy soldier game, and while simultaneously ignoring the points relevant to the thread.
Martel732 wrote: "leave the things that don't work on the shelf until they get rotated back in as the new hotness."
Oh, I thought melta was fine, though? Because that's exactly what I'm doing. I just shouldn't have to.
You've literally been shown tournament winning lists that run melta and been dismissive of them...
If a weapon doesn't work for you, bench it until it gets changed and refine your list towards what works. That's how 40k has always worked in every edition. If you don't like it, as others have suggested, try chess or perhaps an online game that gets a balance patch every week or two. Or spend some serious time and brew your own fandex and try to get people to play against you with it, be the change you want to see, and all that nonsense.
I shouldn't have to bench it.
That list could have won in spite of melta as well. Single lists prove nothing.
catbarf wrote: Funny, I could ask you the same thing, seeing as you were talking about vehicle APS and then cited Iron Dome. Sounds like you got it mixed up with Trophy. And missed the sarcasm in my post.
Go back and read the post where I bring up Iron Dome. Which weapons do I bring up as being countered by it?
Ignoring the points relevant to the thread.
I've still yet to see a convincing argument for changing invulnerable saves when changing the weapons they supposedly invalidate is a far less drastic change that has the same end result.
Why is changing or removing invulns "flipping the table"?
Your melta fix is interesting, but now we have to do that for almost every high AP weapon. Why make a lot of changes when you can make one?
I mean, we can also just reduce the costs of these kinds of weapons tremendously.
We can also implement sides bars to lists.
We can do lots of things. But why we do have to do THOSE things and NOT nerf invuln saves?
"This assumes they're actually broken, which I've yet to see any actual evidence for."
My position is more mathematical than evidentiary. Unless you count the evidence of getting to melta range never paying off. But that anecdotal. There's also the problem that melta went from THE tank buster to being a joke. Maybe you don't care, but some of us do.
Maybe you're not aware but vs a T8 3+ vehicle, the kind I REALLY want to kill with melta, a marine clears 1.5 W on average. Add a 5++, and they clear one wound. One. That's after paying the points and staggering across an 8th ed battlefield with a 12" gun. feth GW.
Martel732 wrote: Why is changing or removing invulns "flipping the table"?
Mainly because it changes literally hundreds of unit entries which now need to be playtested and rebalanced.
Your melta fix is interesting, but now we have to do that for almost every high AP weapon. Why make a lot of changes when you can make one?
Yes and this is less of a change to the game than changing every unit with an invulnerable save.
My position is more mathematical than evidentiary. Unless you count the evidence of getting to melta range never paying off. But that anecdotal. There's also the problem that melta went from THE tank buster to being a joke. Maybe you don't care, but some of us do.
The usefulness of weapons has always changed from edition to edition. This change is a bit more drastic than some changes, but such is life.
Maybe you're not aware but vs a T8 3+ vehicle, the kind I REALLY want to kill with melta, a marine clears 1.5 W on average. Add a 5++, and they clear one wound. One. That's after paying the points and staggering across an 8th ed battlefield with a 12" gun. feth GW.
Just taking off an invuln won't save the single shot, high strength, variable damage weapons. Even without the invulnerable save I'd still rather pack plasma than melta because it's far more flexible and can never roll a 1 for damage.
I don't think I ever said that melta was perfect and exactly as good as it was in the past. My claim has always been that the proposed changes to invulnerables are a poor way to fix things and that even a weapon like a melta gun can have a place if used well.
You're right though, the single shot is awful even with invulns gone. So GW sabotaged their own AP rules.
The AP isn't the issue, it's always going to be better to have extra AP than not, the issue is that a single shot weapon that multiplies its damage after saves has too great a chance of just doing nothing and even the best hit it can land isn't going to pop a tank like it used to. There are still uses for these weapons, especially for something like a melta gun where it may be the best special weapon a unit has access to, but their niche is smaller than it was in editions of yesteryear.
Also, Martel, you've yet to show that Invulns are a universal issue.
Big, tough models with Invulns are problematic, because it devalues weapons meant specifically to deal with them.
Little models with Invulns, like Daemons or Harlequins, are still perfectly vulnerable to small arms fire-sure, it's inefficient to shoot a Lascannon at a Bloodletter, but it's pretty much just as inefficient to shoot it at a Cultist.
Martel732 wrote: "Big, tough models with Invulns are problematic"
That's my focus. AT guns in this game aren't AT guns.
I just don't think marine capts should be able to take melta to the face, either. Iron halos are stupid.
At least the cultists can't magically shrug it off. Makes no sense to me.
agreed that really, big tough models shouldn't have invulns. Their thing is lots of wounds and high toughness, and invulns shouldn't be there.
That, or they should lose their invuln as their stats degrade - knights going from 4++ to 5++ to 6++ as they degrade would be a way to reduce the issue.
IIRC Iron Halo's are a force field, so yeah, they should be able to take anything to the face, because the shot was stopped before it hit them - so technically, it never reached the face.
I wonder if Meltas would fit their beastly description and their power of old if they simply did 6 damage in half range. you still have to hit and get through the invuln i know, but you know it'll be worth it in half range.
Martel732 wrote: "Big, tough models with Invulns are problematic"
That's my focus. AT guns in this game aren't AT guns.
I just don't think marine capts should be able to take melta to the face, either. Iron halos are stupid.
At least the cultists can't magically shrug it off. Makes no sense to me.
agreed that really, big tough models shouldn't have invulns. Their thing is lots of wounds and high toughness, and invulns shouldn't be there.
That, or they should lose their invuln as their stats degrade - knights going from 4++ to 5++ to 6++ as they degrade would be a way to reduce the issue.
IIRC Iron Halo's are a force field, so yeah, they should be able to take anything to the face, because the shot was stopped before it hit them - so technically, it never reached the face.
I wonder if Meltas would fit their beastly description and their power of old if they simply did 6 damage in half range. you still have to hit and get through the invuln i know, but you know it'll be worth it in half range.
To be honest it's not invulnerable saves it's the wounding chart and a number of factors that mean more shots are always better.
Also everyone loves to claim Knights are the problem child like seriously most lists can lift 2 or more 400 point models of the table in one turn and you want to make them more easy to kill, like the game is overly leathal cranking it up to being able to kill roughly 60% of their list turn one is not good for the game, heck being able to kill 40% of their list or more in one turn I would argue isn't grrat either but in 8th loosing 30+% seems to be the expectation.
You hit invulnerable saves because of the design choices made at the start of 8th most marines now start at -2AP and -3AP on basic bolter troops a lascannon is -3AP and a knights thermal cannon AKA gaint titan killing melta weapon is AP-4 A Hellblaster can be magical walking around with AP-5 plasma FFS meaning it's not practical to say lets just ban invulnerable saves as your just saying no saves for vehicals ever.
Now if vehicals had 1+ or 2+armour saves or strength actually mattered (and someone hadn't had a fap attack writing plasma stats) it might be less of an issue but the way it is, invulnerable saves are necessary for vehicals against even basic marines now.
To be honest it's not invulnerable saves it's the wounding chart and a number of factors that mean more shots are always better.
Also everyone loves to claim Knights are the problem child like seriously most lists can lift 2 or more 400 point models of the table in one turn and you want to make them more easy to kill, like the game is overly leathal cranking it up to being able to kill roughly 60% of their list turn one is not good for the game, heck being able to kill 40% of their list or more in one turn I would argue isn't grrat either but in 8th loosing 30+% seems to be the expectation.
You hit invulnerable saves because of the design choices made at the start of 8th most marines now start at -2AP and -3AP on basic bolter troops a lascannon is -3AP and a knights thermal cannon AKA gaint titan killing melta weapon is AP-4 A Hellblaster can be magical walking around with AP-5 plasma FFS meaning it's not practical to say lets just ban invulnerable saves as your just saying no saves for vehicals ever.
Now if vehicles had 1+ or 2+armour saves or strength actually mattered (and someone hadn't had a fap attack writing plasma stats) it might be less of an issue but the way it is, invulnerable saves are necessary for vehicles against even basic marines now.
I agree that it would make sense for vehicles to have better than 2+ saves, and also for AP of anti-tank to scale appropriately (AP-4 to hunt a titan is somewhat meh!), and for a 1+ save or better to render the unit immune to damage.
That way people can keep the ability to glance light vehicles to death using lasguns, but they won't do squat to a titan - as they shouldn't!
I think the only way to reduce killiness in a game with such a scale range as 40k does now is to bring back redundancy. Make weapons stop hurting things with high enough toughness.
I personally feel that the maths would be easier to scale if we didn't have "double" or "half" involved in the mechanics, instead having t = S+1, 5+ to wound, T=S+2or3, 6+ to wound, T=S+4, cannot wound.
Similarly with armour saves - 1+ saves cannot be hurt. So if you want to hurt a terminator in cover, AP0 won't cut it. Or, make 1+ saves rerollable, or something.
Then vehicles can reduce their wound counts, and some weapons can reduce their damage, and leave weapons which do 3-6 damage as actually causing serious hurt to tanks.
I seriously think that there's an issue with the rules when infantry can stab a tank and actually have a chance of doing damage!
", because the shot was stopped before it hit them -"
I think personal force fields should have limits. Limits that end at AT guns to the face. Just because it's a "force field" doesn't mean it should treat everything the same.
Martel732 wrote: "Big, tough models with Invulns are problematic"
That's my focus. AT guns in this game aren't AT guns.
I just don't think marine capts should be able to take melta to the face, either. Iron halos are stupid.
At least the cultists can't magically shrug it off. Makes no sense to me.
agreed that really, big tough models shouldn't have invulns. Their thing is lots of wounds and high toughness, and invulns shouldn't be there.
That, or they should lose their invuln as their stats degrade - knights going from 4++ to 5++ to 6++ as they degrade would be a way to reduce the issue.
IIRC Iron Halo's are a force field, so yeah, they should be able to take anything to the face, because the shot was stopped before it hit them - so technically, it never reached the face.
I wonder if Meltas would fit their beastly description and their power of old if they simply did 6 damage in half range. you still have to hit and get through the invuln i know, but you know it'll be worth it in half range.
To be honest it's not invulnerable saves it's the wounding chart and a number of factors that mean more shots are always better.
Also everyone loves to claim Knights are the problem child like seriously most lists can lift 2 or more 400 point models of the table in one turn and you want to make them more easy to kill, like the game is overly leathal cranking it up to being able to kill roughly 60% of their list turn one is not good for the game, heck being able to kill 40% of their list or more in one turn I would argue isn't grrat either but in 8th loosing 30+% seems to be the expectation.
You hit invulnerable saves because of the design choices made at the start of 8th most marines now start at -2AP and -3AP on basic bolter troops a lascannon is -3AP and a knights thermal cannon AKA gaint titan killing melta weapon is AP-4 A Hellblaster can be magical walking around with AP-5 plasma FFS meaning it's not practical to say lets just ban invulnerable saves as your just saying no saves for vehicals ever.
Now if vehicals had 1+ or 2+armour saves or strength actually mattered (and someone hadn't had a fap attack writing plasma stats) it might be less of an issue but the way it is, invulnerable saves are necessary for vehicals against even basic marines now.
Yes. I want IKs to be easier to kill. AT guns should work on them and be valuable against them. They aren't. In fact, they are just about the worst weapons for engaging them. The whole point of an AT gun is a single shot that denies all saves, so its reliable.
Martel732 wrote: ", because the shot was stopped before it hit them -"
I think personal force fields should have limits. Limits that end at AT guns to the face. Just because it's a "force field" doesn't mean it should treat everything the same.
Martel732 wrote: "Big, tough models with Invulns are problematic"
That's my focus. AT guns in this game aren't AT guns.
I just don't think marine capts should be able to take melta to the face, either. Iron halos are stupid.
At least the cultists can't magically shrug it off. Makes no sense to me.
agreed that really, big tough models shouldn't have invulns. Their thing is lots of wounds and high toughness, and invulns shouldn't be there.
That, or they should lose their invuln as their stats degrade - knights going from 4++ to 5++ to 6++ as they degrade would be a way to reduce the issue.
IIRC Iron Halo's are a force field, so yeah, they should be able to take anything to the face, because the shot was stopped before it hit them - so technically, it never reached the face.
I wonder if Meltas would fit their beastly description and their power of old if they simply did 6 damage in half range. you still have to hit and get through the invuln i know, but you know it'll be worth it in half range.
To be honest it's not invulnerable saves it's the wounding chart and a number of factors that mean more shots are always better.
Also everyone loves to claim Knights are the problem child like seriously most lists can lift 2 or more 400 point models of the table in one turn and you want to make them more easy to kill, like the game is overly leathal cranking it up to being able to kill roughly 60% of their list turn one is not good for the game, heck being able to kill 40% of their list or more in one turn I would argue isn't grrat either but in 8th loosing 30+% seems to be the expectation.
You hit invulnerable saves because of the design choices made at the start of 8th most marines now start at -2AP and -3AP on basic bolter troops a lascannon is -3AP and a knights thermal cannon AKA gaint titan killing melta weapon is AP-4 A Hellblaster can be magical walking around with AP-5 plasma FFS meaning it's not practical to say lets just ban invulnerable saves as your just saying no saves for vehicals ever.
Now if vehicals had 1+ or 2+armour saves or strength actually mattered (and someone hadn't had a fap attack writing plasma stats) it might be less of an issue but the way it is, invulnerable saves are necessary for vehicals against even basic marines now.
Yes. I want IKs to be easier to kill. AT guns should work on them and be valuable against them. They aren't. In fact, they are just about the worst weapons for engaging them. The whole point of an AT gun is a single shot that denies all saves, so its reliable.
So you want to take the most already rediculously leathal edition and make 400-500 point models which most armies can already kill two of per turn and make them easier to kill so people can what kill 1500 points worth of an opponent list turn 1, your not asking for balance your just wanting tobmake entire armies unplayable.
Also FFS bloodangles shooting at vehicals, seriously WTAF it's the CC army which people win quite easily with thunderhammers and powerfists against vehicals and your complaining thag lascannons and melta suck?
Yes, things would have to be rebalanced. Don't care. It's stupid beyond all reason that AT guns don't function as AT guns. Give IKs more wounds. Make them cheaper. Just make AT guns effective vs their intended targets.
BA are CC bullies, not a CC army. I'm looking ahead for when the current lists won't work. They only work now because marine players are greedy and build in weakness to tripointing into their lists.
BaconCatBug wrote: Oh I agree the system doesn't really work all that well, but that's because it has to account from Grots to Knights. If Flyers and LoW were removed from the game it would be a lot easier to balance with such a system.
The limitation of a D6 system is also an issue. My idea for my own system was to use D12s, and replace invulnerable saves with an Ignore AP characteristic.
Why d12s and not 2d6 as with termies in the days of yore? d6s also afford the possibility of making doubles and certain combinations or sums do different stuff... say, one faction may favor 8s for instance, or hate 9s. There are different ways to make 8s or 9s and so with the reroll mechanic (that appears frankly overused) this could be useful game design.
Most armor is d6. Some armor is 2d6. With bad luck or offensive bonuses, a bolter might wound a teminator, but it will still pay to invest in assault cannons and melta guns. Vaporize power armor, and get a good chance of hurting a terminator.
About the original post and suggestion, why not both? Use involnerables for things like refractor fields, and use AP to push armor saves ionto the 2d6 range.
I am late to this thread and have not read every page so maybe this was proposed earlier.
For this matter, I suppose that dreadnoughts may have 3d6, and knights 4d6. This helps to stop guardsmen from wounding knights, unless with massed autocannon or melta fire... and heavy weapons platforms, tanks, and so on.
BaconCatBug wrote: Oh I agree the system doesn't really work all that well, but that's because it has to account from Grots to Knights. If Flyers and LoW were removed from the game it would be a lot easier to balance with such a system.
The limitation of a D6 system is also an issue. My idea for my own system was to use D12s, and replace invulnerable saves with an Ignore AP characteristic.
Why d12s and not 2d6 as with termies in the days of yore?
Because a) Bell Curves and b) Good luck making 15 or more saves on 2D6 in a reasonable timeframe.
D12's are the superior dice as they can represent 5 different dice types (6 if you're silly and consider the D1 a dice) and allow for a lot more variation. You can have different BS values between Fire Warriors and Crisis Suits, between Sisters of Battle/Scions and Space Marines. You can properly represent toughness on a more granular scale rather than everything clumping at T4 and T8.
