For most of 8th, I hated that all of the balance changes (Or nearly all of them) came in the form of stacking special rules on top of special rules and lowering point costs of units.
With 9th, I'm actually loving that GW looks much more willing to make proper changes to the stat lines of both units and weapons, making them actually worth their points, more expensive in points but better in rules.
I know many people calls this stat creep, etc... and I can see that reasoning. In my mind, I believe this is the right way to fix the game instead of making it a race to the bottom.
Of course, in my opinion, to make it perfect, alongside buffing the statlines of both models and weapons they should cut a lot of those extra sinergies and bonuses that units receive (like doctrines, the proliferance of rerroll auras, etc...) that make the game more complicated and are extremely difficult to balance.
So, whats your opinion about this? Do you like the stat changes? Would you prefer for stats to remain the same and just make things cheaper, or leave stats and points the same and remove special rules? Or maybe you want everything, etc...!
Take a look at warmachine and see how much they liked it. Now unlike pp, GW has a large base that doesn't care about rules but I bet after a year or two of continuous monthly updates people will be burnt out. Constant changes, erratas, and faqs are a massive turn off for me but if that's your thing then you as strong willed as the most hardcore wm player.
I don't care if they're balanced but I don't want less special rules, why fight the bloat at this point.
I like special rules because they make the armies more akin to the lore and different to the others, but I agree that nowadays some armies have a lot of them and it should be arranged.
I like the way GW is taking, but I don't like that this enormous change is made army by army, for me, that only play one Xenos army, 9th edition is not here yet and is not going to be until I get my codex. My hype has fallen down.
Irkjoe wrote: Take a look at warmachine and see how much they liked it. Now unlike pp, GW has a large base that doesn't care about rules but I bet after a year or two of continuous monthly updates people will be burnt out. Constant changes, erratas, and faqs are a massive turn off for me but if that's your thing then you as strong willed as the most hardcore wm player.
I don't care if they're balanced but I don't want less special rules, why fight the bloat at this point.
But that has nothing to do with stat changes? I mean, it is nothing new for 9th. In 8th we have had a TON of faqs, chapter approveds, codex, and balance changes. I actually prefer that, but probably because I'm used to videogames and constant balance changes are expected.
My problem is that GW makes you pay for them.
Denegaar wrote: I like special rules because they make the armies more akin to the lore and different to the others, but I agree that nowadays some armies have a lot of them and it should be arranged.
I like the way GW is taking, but I don't like that this enormous change is made army by army, for me, that only play one Xenos army, 9th edition is not here yet and is not going to be until I get my codex. My hype has fallen down.
Yeah, that sucks. I play Adeptus Custodes, Tau and Dark Angels, and in 8th I stopped playing Dark Angels and started playing Custodes when marines became OP. Now Custodes are OP so I play Tau But it will suck for most codex to come probably in maybe 1-2 years of facing two wound marines and imperials with buffed weapons. And then, the last batch of codex will face being "obsolete" in less than a year when 10 rolls around.
Updating Codex by Codex can be fine when changes are small, but now is not acceptable. When some armies are hugely updated to play into a practically "new" game, everyone should be on par. At least an Index or something similar.
Depends how it plays out. Willingness to change what doesn't work is good, but I'm not sure how many babies are going out the window with the bathwater yet.
That said, more should have been done upfront, it a Ravening Hordes booklet. Parceling it out over time is going to suck for everyone in the middle and end of the process.
I think the substantial stat and weapon changes are good for the game and long over due. However if they release stuff in a piecemeal way, it’s going to create even worse imbalance until everyone gets their new codex.
They updated weapons in 8th too when a Codex released, at least for Xenos. I guess we'll see if they're willing to do that in 9th repeatedly or if it's just a big shake up for Imperial and Chaos weaponry that now stays the same up to 10th Edition.
Willingness? Sure, it's nice. Absolutely idiotic, well poisoning rollout of the first change? It was complete
There should be LESS W2 in the game, not more, 90% of the D2 weapons (which in most cases got that stat for gamey, fluff breaking reasons, looking at you IG handheld gatling and GSC banged together colts) should immediately go back to D1, elite, tough infantry should be rare and not as common as chips, and anti-infantry guns shouldn't double up as best vehicle killers in the game. Period.
What will happen with this change is that thanks to stupid D2 proliferation W2 will feel like W1 did before, while rendering armies saddled with W2 garbage due to points costs not taking into account their paper "durability" (it was already case with Primaris against some armies in 8th) while at once rendering armies that didn't get their own round of D2 creep completely pointless because they are rock to W2 paper and can't even really count on D2 scissors not slicing through them too in most cases. Then we will see W2 creep into W3 to "fix" the above incompetency, rinse and repeat.
I don't know, maybe GW can pull this off, but seeing man behind this change is the clown who gutted Codex: DW (which took special skill, given making it garbage 5 times in a row while copy-pasting 95% of the contents took real talent) and a lot more besides in past editions I won't be holding my breath.
I like the idea that they have taken a serious look at the game and decided to make changes to rebalance the game. We just need to hope it is more than a bunch of changes to weapons. The armies need more comprehensive changes to go along with those changes. We have hints that there are such changes coming, but did they go big enough on them?
Problem is that 40k reached the limit of the scope for a D6 game a good few editions ago and fudging the numbers now wont really fix that, and the intent of maintaining interest via dribbling out info nuggets has gone somewhat poorly
I like it because GW historically leaves statlines alone, even to their own detriment (e.g. models that don't sell because of bad rules), which can leave those units behind the curve and in many cases unusable competitively.
On the other hand, if they nerf your favourite unit when they shake things up, you won't be happy - especially if it wasn't that great beforehand
Irbis wrote: Willingness? Sure, it's nice. Absolutely idiotic, well poisoning rollout of the first change? It was complete
There should be LESS W2 in the game, not more, 90% of the D2 weapons (which in most cases got that stat for gamey, fluff breaking reasons, looking at you IG handheld gatling and GSC banged together colts) should immediately go back to D1, elite, tough infantry should be rare and not as common as chips, and anti-infantry guns shouldn't double up as best vehicle killers in the game. Period.
What will happen with this change is that thanks to stupid D2 proliferation W2 will feel like W1 did before, while rendering armies saddled with W2 garbage due to points costs not taking into account their paper "durability" (it was already case with Primaris against some armies in 8th) while at once rendering armies that didn't get their own round of D2 creep completely pointless because they are rock to W2 paper and can't even really count on D2 scissors not slicing through them too in most cases. Then we will see W2 creep into W3 to "fix" the above incompetency, rinse and repeat.
I don't know, maybe GW can pull this off, but seeing man behind this change is the clown who gutted Codex: DW (which took special skill, given making it garbage 5 times in a row while copy-pasting 95% of the contents took real talent) and a lot more besides in past editions I won't be holding my breath.
I'm not sure you appreciate the stratification this allows.
W2 creates a desire for D2, which is less efficient versus W1.
A twin heavy bolter does 1.3 to a T7 3+ for 30 points. A multimelta does 3.1 for 25. A TAC does 1.3 for 40.
Multimelta is clearly the winner. THB in second.
A THB does 2.7 to Primaris. Multimelta is 2.2. TAC is 2.7, but 10 extra points.
THB wins vs W2. MM in second for point efficiency.
And finally I'm sure you could see that the TAC would be the clear winner vs GEQ with THB second.
The other end of this is how armies can field these weapons and the cost of those platforms.
Irbis wrote: Willingness? Sure, it's nice. Absolutely idiotic, well poisoning rollout of the first change? It was complete
There should be LESS W2 in the game, not more, 90% of the D2 weapons (which in most cases got that stat for gamey, fluff breaking reasons, looking at you IG handheld gatling and GSC banged together colts) should immediately go back to D1, elite, tough infantry should be rare and not as common as chips, and anti-infantry guns shouldn't double up as best vehicle killers in the game. Period.
What will happen with this change is that thanks to stupid D2 proliferation W2 will feel like W1 did before, while rendering armies saddled with W2 garbage due to points costs not taking into account their paper "durability" (it was already case with Primaris against some armies in 8th) while at once rendering armies that didn't get their own round of D2 creep completely pointless because they are rock to W2 paper and can't even really count on D2 scissors not slicing through them too in most cases. Then we will see W2 creep into W3 to "fix" the above incompetency, rinse and repeat.
I don't know, maybe GW can pull this off, but seeing man behind this change is the clown who gutted Codex: DW (which took special skill, given making it garbage 5 times in a row while copy-pasting 95% of the contents took real talent) and a lot more besides in past editions I won't be holding my breath.
I'm not sure you appreciate the stratification this allows.
W2 creates a desire for D2, which is less efficient versus W1.
A twin heavy bolter does 1.3 to a T7 3+ for 30 points. A multimelta does 3.1 for 25. A TAC does 1.3 for 40.
Multimelta is clearly the winner. THB in second.
A THB does 2.7 to Primaris. Multimelta is 2.2. TAC is 2.7, but 10 extra points.
THB wins vs W2. MM in second for point efficiency.
And finally I'm sure you could see that the TAC would be the clear winner vs GEQ with THB second.
The other end of this is how armies can field these weapons and the cost of those platforms.
Kind of makes those five heavy bolters on a quad sponson guard super heavy look nice doesn't it? As long as you can keep it away from all that high strength high AP firepower they're adding in.
I like this change. I've been saying for a while that one of the problems with 8th was that they didn't change the stats for older units and weapons to work with the new rules. It looks like they're finally addressing that. Hopefully we'll start seeing anti-tank weapons being used against tanks instead of anti-heavy infantry weapons, which instead will be best against actual heavy infantry. We'll have to see what else they change, things like those guard super heavys will need some help, maybe make them T9. We'll see.
Going to be nice throwing those 2W Chosen and Warp Talons into intercessors too.
Stat inflation doesn't have a good history in wargames. It especially doesn't have a good history when it's done piecemeal, army by army, on a rotation.
If they were going to redo stats, the logical, least problematic thing to do would have been to do it all at once at the start of the edition. Doing it piecemeal has the potential to be an absolute disaster, and at best it will be merely very disruptive.
And let's be clear: this is stat inflation. It isn't a rebalancing. Every single change we've seen so far is inflationary, and their PR spin is also 100% on the "this will be more powerful! that will be more powerful! everything will be more powerful!" inflationary train.
And the idea this is necessary to create a stroner rock-paper-scissors dynamic is odd. The game doesn't need stronger rock-paper-scissors. That just exacerbates skew lists and increases the changes that match-ups are determined by comparing lists rather than by who plays the better game on the table. What 40k did not need was even more emphasis placed on list-building and skewing.
Obviously we need to wait and see how it shakes out. But this has all the hallmarks of a balance disaster. It's the sort of thing that an extremely competent company might be able to pull off. It's not something a company with a track record like GW's is likely to nail.
Ever since they changed the wounding chart and how AP works, it was actually stupid they didn't change anything in 8th. However, this is one of the times I'll give GW praises on taking that risk. HOWEVER, inflating EVERYTHING keeps everything even. Look at D2 Heavy Bolters as a sign of probably having unintended consequences. Personally I'm predicting it to be a baaaaaad move.
It's funny how people lose their crap for this w2/d2 change. I think it's great that there's a better distinction between humans/superhumans/uberhumans.
Also funny because nobody knows the big picture yet. Vehicles might be getting wound bumps across the board for all we know to make heavy bolters less appealing as anti-tank etc.
What I do agree with is that it's a huge sweeping change and they should errata each faction's statlines at the same time codex Space Marines lands (they might even do this, who knows?) It's unbearable for xenos to be left waiting for their respective codex for who knows how long before being able to compete.
yukishiro1 wrote: Stat inflation doesn't have a good history in wargames. It especially doesn't have a good history when it's done piecemeal, army by army, on a rotation.
If they were going to redo stats, the logical, least problematic thing to do would have been to do it all at once at the start of the edition. Doing it piecemeal has the potential to be an absolute disaster, and at best it will be merely very disruptive.
And let's be clear: this is stat inflation. It isn't a rebalancing. Every single change we've seen so far is inflationary, and their PR spin is also 100% on the "this will be more powerful! that will be more powerful! everything will be more powerful!" inflationary train.
And the idea this is necessary to create a stroner rock-paper-scissors dynamic is odd. The game doesn't need stronger rock-paper-scissors. That just exacerbates skew lists and increases the changes that match-ups are determined by comparing lists rather than by who plays the better game on the table. What 40k did not need was even more emphasis placed on list-building and skewing.
Obviously we need to wait and see how it shakes out. But this has all the hallmarks of a balance disaster. It's the sort of thing that an extremely competent company might be able to pull off. It's not something a company with a track record like GW's is likely to nail.
It isn't across the board inflation. It also often comes with point increases. To say something is inflation without talking about the other end of it is disingenuous.
It also is not cyclical as your words seem to imply ("on a rotation") or do you think once they're done they'll put marines to 3 wounds?
I don't think it practical for sweeping structural changes out of the gate, because stratagems, wl traits, etc matter. This isn't a clean state like 8th. A lot of prior material exists and pretending they could update everything without breaking several armies is kind of absurd.
Weazel wrote: It's funny how people lose their crap for this w2/d2 change. I think it's great that there's a better distinction between humans/superhumans/uberhumans.
Also funny because nobody knows the big picture yet. Vehicles might be getting wound bumps across the board for all we know to make heavy bolters less appealing as anti-tank etc.
What I do agree with is that it's a huge sweeping change and they should errata each faction's statlines at the same time codex Space Marines lands (they might even do this, who knows?) It's unbearable for xenos to be left waiting for their respective codex for who knows how long before being able to compete.
Well, a lot of folks can't play right now, and have a lot of stress in their lives. We'll have to see where the chips fall with xenos.
Also funny because nobody knows the big picture yet. Vehicles might be getting wound bumps across the board for all we know to make heavy bolters less appealing as anti-tank etc.
We have some leaks for those now and no marine vehicles increased. I think one necron did? Either way - nothing down that avenue.
Still, by virtue of the current weapon costs even IF would find meltas useful. At this point I'm curious about lascannons.
I for one am glad that they've readjusted the baseline. Yes Astartes bumped to 2 differentiates them from reg humans even more, I hope that boys get the bump as well. Warriors being t5 w RP makes them feel like an unyielding menace, I cant wait to see what the do to nids.
I like it, two super factions (Chaos and Imperium) using an incredible amount of the same weapons makes implementation a difficult task, releasing all codexes at the same time was never going to happen I think. At best we could have gone back to the index model and have the Indexes for Chaos, Imperium and Astartes come out at the same time and then have Xenos release either next year or over the course of the next two years. I definitely think 9th was released 6 months early, a beta 9th edition running from Feburary to August would have been a great idea, let a wider pool of players test out the massive list of changes and suggest new ones before sending things to the printers. Did frag missiles need a change perhabs? WIth Devastator Doctrine they are not too bad, but they needed 2 damage a lot more than heavy bolters did, at least it will be more obvious when I tell people why they should use krak against MEQ.
Cynista wrote: I like it because GW historically leaves statlines alone, even to their own detriment (e.g. models that don't sell because of bad rules), which can leave those units behind the curve and in many cases unusable competitively.
On the other hand, if they nerf your favourite unit when they shake things up, you won't be happy - especially if it wasn't that great beforehand
There are no bad rules, only bad pts. Why spam Infantry Squads when you can spam Warhound Titans? Well, because you cannot spam as many Warhound Titans as you can Infantry Squads. It doesn't matter if a unit has the most amazing rules, perfect for the meta, all the right abilities and stats, if it is twice as expensive as what it is worth it will see little use, that counts for a screening unit with bad stats and a killy unit with amazing stats. Who said that Infantry Squads needed better stats in 8th? So why did multi-meltas and firstborn need it? There are two good answers, either because the unit did not perform in a fluffy manner, Marines turned from punching bags of mid 8th to glass cannons in late 8th and now they're going to become both durable and killy which is more fluffy than making them ever cheaper. The second good answer is because the weapon was not fun to use, your Devastator Marines pops out from a Rhino, gets -1 to hit and makes two hits, 1 wound goes through and does 4 damage. That unit could have been standing in the back and firing lascannons being safer and not suffering the -1 to hit for moving and firing a heavy weapon. Going from Heavy 1 to Heavy 2 seems like too big a change given that 8th suffered a lot with some armies being too killy and I would have preferred multi-meltas being cheaper such that the question wasn't whether to hit on 4+ with AP-4 or 3+ with AP-3 with a lascannon, but instead the question was whether to have a cheaper more aggressive unit or try to protect a more expensive defensive unit. Now multi-meltas will become expensive suicide weapons.
I'll take stats creep over stratagem/doctrine creep any day of the week. About time those stats got a makeover, they've been stagnant for how many decades now?
The purpose of giving 2W to some armored infantries like old marines is to reduce the spam of mid strenght weapons which are currently good against anything: troops, elites and tanks.
If damage is going up to these kind of weapons, like heavy bolters, they'd be even more common and outlcass the anti tank even more than now.
If wounds on vehicles and mosters are also going up, by a significant percentage, it could have been a good move. But it's not gonna happen, the sad reality is that weapons like heavy bolters will double their effectiveness against vehicles, which is extremely bad game design.
I think they should emphasize the difference between shooting at a roughly human-ish target and shooting at a vehicle more. Like, having a HB do D2 against infantry and D1 against vehicles or something like that.
Overall I prefer altered stats to stratagem bloat though.
Racerguy180 wrote: I for one am glad that they've readjusted the baseline. Yes Astartes bumped to 2 differentiates them from reg humans even more, I hope that boys get the bump as well. Warriors being t5 w RP makes them feel like an unyielding menace, I cant wait to see what the do to nids.
I wish Warriors were T5, but that's just Immortals.
Esmer wrote: I think they should emphasize the difference between shooting at a roughly human-ish target and shooting at a vehicle more. Like, having a HB do D2 against infantry and D1 against vehicles or something like that.
Overall I prefer altered stats to stratagem bloat though.
What if weapons had two profiles, shot at squishy stuff and shot at tank. A heavy bolter kind of a weapon could do more damge to infantry models or bikers, but if you shot it at a tank you would just be chipping the paint.
At the same time a lascannon or MM with is anti tank beam of death would do huge damage to tanks, it would also do huge damge to a single infantry men.
This could help with flashing out options like plasma pistols, or add real difference to melee weapons. A power sword or power fist could be really different from a relic blade or chain fist, and those would yet again be different from Lightning claws. And this could be different for other factions too, maybe buzzsaws and ork claws should be different in more then one being superior in all situations.
Esmer wrote: I think they should emphasize the difference between shooting at a roughly human-ish target and shooting at a vehicle more. Like, having a HB do D2 against infantry and D1 against vehicles or something like that.
Overall I prefer altered stats to stratagem bloat though.
What if weapons had two profiles, shot at squishy stuff and shot at tank. A heavy bolter kind of a weapon could do more damge to infantry models or bikers, but if you shot it at a tank you would just be chipping the paint.
At the same time a lascannon or MM with is anti tank beam of death would do huge damage to tanks, it would also do huge damge to a single infantry men.
This could help with flashing out options like plasma pistols, or add real difference to melee weapons. A power sword or power fist could be really different from a relic blade or chain fist, and those would yet again be different from Lightning claws. And this could be different for other factions too, maybe buzzsaws and ork claws should be different in more then one being superior in all situations.
Alternatively, and hear me out here, what if tanks used an entirely different profile from infantry?
What if, instead of wounding against toughness, they instead had an 'armour value' (we'll call it AV for short), which weapons had to overcome in order to even have a chance of damaging them.
And instead of having wounds, maybe there could be a table (perhaps modified by the AP of the weapon) to see what effect damage has on them.
What if, instead of wounding against toughness, they instead had an 'armour value' (we'll call it AV for short), which weapons had to overcome in order to even have a chance of damaging them.
I don't know sounds confusing, plus am not sure people would want demon princes or hellbruts be only hurt by anti tank weapons. Could create an enviroment where everyone spams that one most efficient anti tank weapon, and God help those who wouldn't have access to it vide SoB and plasma.
Small stuff would be hard to balance too, no idea what AV a bike or jetbike would suppose to have. It is t5-6 with a few wounds, if it just had an AV, suddenly a cpt on a bike would be much weaker, then a captin with a jump jet. One would have 5-6 wounds, while the other could be blown up by a lucky shot from a scatter laser of a heavy bolter.
I don't think GW would want an imbalanced stats like that in their game.
Alternatively, and hear me out here, what if tanks used an entirely different profile from infantry?
What if, instead of wounding against toughness, they instead had an 'armour value' (we'll call it AV for short), which weapons had to overcome in order to even have a chance of damaging them.
And instead of having wounds, maybe there could be a table (perhaps modified by the AP of the weapon) to see what effect damage has on them.
I don't know, I vastly prefer vehicles now than how they were pre 8th edition, the transition between AV to W and save for vehicles was a well appreciated step forward IMHO. I think they could simply go up in wounds considering that many weapons are gaining better damage values, and be ok.
A single shot that manages to bypass saves and destroys or just cripples a vehicle making it useless is a thing of the past which I'm extremely relieved it doesn't exist anymore.
What if, instead of wounding against toughness, they instead had an 'armour value' (we'll call it AV for short), which weapons had to overcome in order to even have a chance of damaging them.
I don't know sounds confusing, plus am not sure people would want demon princes or hellbruts be only hurt by anti tank weapons. Could create an enviroment where everyone spams that one most efficient anti tank weapon, and God help those who wouldn't have access to it vide SoB and plasma.
Small stuff would be hard to balance too, no idea what AV a bike or jetbike would suppose to have. It is t5-6 with a few wounds, if it just had an AV, suddenly a cpt on a bike would be much weaker, then a captin with a jump jet. One would have 5-6 wounds, while the other could be blown up by a lucky shot from a scatter laser of a heavy bolter.
I don't think GW would want an imbalanced stats like that in their game.
Karol, this is how vehicles worked prior to 8th edition.
I think a broad rebalancing of gun damage and hit points could allow more design space.
So I think going to elite infantry having 2 wounds makes a lot of sense. Not least because once you go past about 15ish points per wound which isn't incredibly fragile, unless it starts having something stupid like T7, 2+/5++(and even then mortal wounds exist). If you want to throw bling on a unit to give it offensive power, you need to throw on wounds and protection to give it defensive power as well, so the unit is roughly balanced offensively and defensively for the points.
As said though, the problem is that everything has to stretch at the same time. And GW hates doing that. Partly this is inevitable, because GW want to sell *more stuff* - rather than go "here's an edition, see you in 3 years" - but really its because I don't think there is one guy in the middle with a *rough* vision of how every army, every unit and every weapon should function.
So in practice, you are likely to get a meta where vehicles and monsters are bad, because of a proliferation of 2 wound weapons and weird over-buffs to MMs and other guns. Which could theoretically be resolved by giving vehicles and monsters loads more wounds to compensate, but at least from the leaks we have seen that has not been done. So it may start being done in the codexes released in 2021, which will in turn exacerbate the near inevitable creep. (For the equivalent development in 8th, just look at how many "new" units started ignoring the heavy -1 to hit if you move penalty, or got a 5++/6+++ seemingly for free etc.)
But the principle doesn't bother me. Just worried about execution. Also think some elite Xenos - especially Eldar - may end up being screwed, as their infantry continue the slide to being an "expensive horde" army.
I don't know, I vastly prefer vehicles now than how they were pre 8th edition, the transition between AV to W and save for vehicles was a well appreciated step forward IMHO. I think they could simply go up in wounds considering that many weapons are gaining better damage values, and be ok.
A single shot that manages to bypass saves and destroys or just cripples a vehicle making it useless is a thing of the past which I'm extremely relieved it doesn't exist anymore.
I was mainly speaking tongue in cheek.
My main point, though, is that GW initially made vehicles more like infantry, but now they've brought their heavy infantry so close to vehicles that we have to consider going back to the old system just so that weapons designed to kill heavy infantry won't also shred vehicles.
The problem of split profiles is one of scale in the game. A typical 40k army doesn't really have too much variety going on in it and as has been seen multiple times, especially during the time when knights were introduced into the game, playing against an enemy that negates most of your army is just bad feelings all around.
Games that do that, say, Apocalypse and Epic Armageddon, can do so with impunity because there is a greater level of abstraction as well as threat saturation going on at the battlefield. Unless you massively screw up in list construction, deployment as well as maneuver, you should have enough tools at hand to at least try and counter your opponent's forces. And even there you can do something against unoptimal targets, like assault them: if you don't have enough gun to bring that titan down, swamp it in bodies
I don't know, I vastly prefer vehicles now than how they were pre 8th edition, the transition between AV to W and save for vehicles was a well appreciated step forward IMHO. I think they could simply go up in wounds considering that many weapons are gaining better damage values, and be ok.
A single shot that manages to bypass saves and destroys or just cripples a vehicle making it useless is a thing of the past which I'm extremely relieved it doesn't exist anymore.
I was mainly speaking tongue in cheek.
My main point, though, is that GW initially made vehicles more like infantry, but now they've brought their heavy infantry so close to vehicles that we have to consider going back to the old system just so that weapons designed to kill heavy infantry won't also shred vehicles.
More wounds and actually moving Toughness values to 9 or even beyond 10 would be enough. I agree that harlequin or Dark Eldar vehicles with T5 and 6 wounds are very close to infantry now, but there's enough space to adjust accordingly. You don't need a different kind of system for vehicles, we had that prior to 8th and at least in 6th and 7th it didn't work.
I like the concept of adjusting statlines to take into account how changes to the core rules affect things - like removing the caps on S and T - but I'm not keen on the piecemeal implementation, not the timing of it.
Ideally, I think I'd've preferred to see 8th delayed for a year to implement v1 of these stat changes, possibly with an initial Death Guard release in 7th edition (to be followed up on with the 8th core box). Spend that time rejiggering stats so that armies feel like they should, and also testing whether weapon changes have unforeseen impacts (does a D2 Heavy Bolter with 3 shots suddenly get used as an anti-vehicle weapon, for example).
Ideally, you'd probably want to start the process off with a big three-dimensional model with "Cost", "Survivability" and "Damage potential" as the axes, and plot out roughly where each existing unit should sit. Once the relative measures are in place, build the stats out from there - where should SM Terminators sit relative to Crisis Suits or Tyranid Warriors, for example?
If I'd been in charge, I wouldn't've gone with WS and BS being n+ scores, as it makes no sense that a Conscript is as likely to hit a Gretchin in melee as it is a Bloodthirster or Hive Tyrant, for example. I like the idea I've seen on here for some form of Evasion stat to compare BS to, while WS still faces off against WS. Even if you still get rid of Initiative, it allows for more points of variation between unit - and allows for speed as a defense.
I like it. I hope it carries into erratas as it gives them far more scope in making balance changes rather than just adding/removing points or tweaking special rules
Blackie wrote:Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.
The purpose of giving 2W to some armored infantries like old marines is to reduce the spam of mid strenght weapons which are currently good against anything: troops, elites and tanks.
If damage is going up to these kind of weapons, like heavy bolters, they'd be even more common and outlcass the anti tank even more than now.
If wounds on vehicles and mosters are also going up, by a significant percentage, it could have been a good move. But it's not gonna happen, the sad reality is that weapons like heavy bolters will double their effectiveness against vehicles, which is extremely bad game design.
S5 means they'll be wounding most vehicles on 5s and AP-1 means the vast majority of vehicles will be saving on 4s, so you better be bringing a lot of heavy bolters.
wuestenfux wrote:
Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.
Heavy bolters will be redesigned to kill 2W Marines outright.
Yes, this is how I see it. Mid strength 2D weapons for killing marines, but if you want to kill vehicles you need something bigger, like all those improved melta weapons.
I'm happy about the changes to original marines (2W) and the heavy bolter (D2).
Generally reworking statlines is something I'm in favour of if it makes the game interesting and better reflects the fluff. I just hope that it isn't limitited to Power Armour and other changes are brought in too, and the points are adjusted accordingly.
I'd like to see heavy flamers going back to the same stats as regular flamers just with bigger range and more shots than regular flamers. Like it was back int he day with a bigger template. It never made sense to me that being able to shoot your flame thrower over a larger area somehow made the flames "more burny".
As for Heavy bolters, isn't it supposed to be a larger caliber bolter? so a bigger round packed with more explosives should be more desructive. Higher strength and damage reflects this, but I would have reduced the number of shots to 2. AFAIK bolter weapons aren't supposed to be super high rate of fire like assault rifles, i thought that was autoguns and that weapon family.
More distinction between types of weapons and what they are good at is a good thing I think.
Blackie wrote:Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.
The purpose of giving 2W to some armored infantries like old marines is to reduce the spam of mid strenght weapons which are currently good against anything: troops, elites and tanks.
If damage is going up to these kind of weapons, like heavy bolters, they'd be even more common and outlcass the anti tank even more than now.
If wounds on vehicles and mosters are also going up, by a significant percentage, it could have been a good move. But it's not gonna happen, the sad reality is that weapons like heavy bolters will double their effectiveness against vehicles, which is extremely bad game design.
S5 means they'll be wounding most vehicles on 5s and AP-1 means the vast majority of vehicles will be saving on 4s, so you better be bringing a lot of heavy bolters.
wuestenfux wrote:
Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.
Heavy bolters will be redesigned to kill 2W Marines outright.
Yes, this is how I see it. Mid strength 2D weapons for killing marines, but if you want to kill vehicles you need something bigger, like all those improved melta weapons.
I agree. Claiming heavy bolters will become the best anti-tank in the game is utter hyperbole.
I'm happy about the changes to original marines (2W) and the heavy bolter (D2).
Well, I'm happy with the changes too.
It makes my oldschool Marines playable, in particular my BA army based on jump packs.
No more renaissance Primaris.
Interestingly enough, a str 5, -1 ap, 2D burst 3 heavy bolter is equivalent in damage to a str 7, -1 ap, 2D burst 2 autocannon at fighting a t7 3+ save target (like a rhino) . The heavy bolters are superior at targets less than t7 and will be stronger at higher than t7. With this change to heavy bolter, there is no target an autocannon is the preferred weapon.
kinginyello wrote: Interestingly enough, a str 5, -1 ap, 2D burst 3 heavy bolter is equivalent in damage to a str 7, -1 ap, 2D burst 2 autocannon at fighting a t7 3+ save target (like a rhino) . The heavy bolters are superior at targets less than t7 and will be stronger at higher than t7. With this change to heavy bolter, there is no target an autocannon is the preferred weapon.
Autocannons are still superior vs T6, so Carnifexes and Ravagers iirc. A pretty narrow band.
I'm just happy GW realized that the main problem with 8th edition was that nothing died fast enough, and are determined to address it by increasing the deadliness of ranged weapons, which everyone knows were hugely underpowered in 8th edition. I cannot tell you how many times my opponent and I were frustrated in an 8th edition game by the way our armies would exchange fire with one another and only 3/4 of each army was removed by T2. Talk about unimpressive!
It's also great GW realized that the faction suffering most from not having powerful enough weapons was Space Marines. These poor guys were so pathetic in 8th edition - an imperial fists list would alpha my army and only destroy 2/3s of it on the first turn, the poor dears. What a joke!
Wonderful to have a gaming company with its pulse so firmly on the balance of the game, giving us the changes players want.
Esmer wrote: I think they should emphasize the difference between shooting at a roughly human-ish target and shooting at a vehicle more. Like, having a HB do D2 against infantry and D1 against vehicles or something like that.
Overall I prefer altered stats to stratagem bloat though.
What if weapons had two profiles, shot at squishy stuff and shot at tank. A heavy bolter kind of a weapon could do more damge to infantry models or bikers, but if you shot it at a tank you would just be chipping the paint.
At the same time a lascannon or MM with is anti tank beam of death would do huge damage to tanks, it would also do huge damge to a single infantry men.
This could help with flashing out options like plasma pistols, or add real difference to melee weapons. A power sword or power fist could be really different from a relic blade or chain fist, and those would yet again be different from Lightning claws. And this could be different for other factions too, maybe buzzsaws and ork claws should be different in more then one being superior in all situations.
Alternatively, and hear me out here, what if tanks used an entirely different profile from infantry?
What if, instead of wounding against toughness, they instead had an 'armour value' (we'll call it AV for short), which weapons had to overcome in order to even have a chance of damaging them.
And instead of having wounds, maybe there could be a table (perhaps modified by the AP of the weapon) to see what effect damage has on them.
Blackie wrote: Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.
The purpose of giving 2W to some armored infantries like old marines is to reduce the spam of mid strenght weapons which are currently good against anything: troops, elites and tanks.
If damage is going up to these kind of weapons, like heavy bolters, they'd be even more common and outlcass the anti tank even more than now.
If wounds on vehicles and mosters are also going up, by a significant percentage, it could have been a good move. But it's not gonna happen, the sad reality is that weapons like heavy bolters will double their effectiveness against vehicles, which is extremely bad game design.
People said the same thing about IF and it just didn't become the dominant force. Especially with the increasing opportunity to face armies that ignore AP1/2.
Previously we paid 20 for HB sponsons on a Predator. Now we pay 30. 100% more effective vs vehicles, 50% more cost.
Lascannon sponsons dropped 10 points, but we don't know what its changes will be, but I'd guarantee it being better than HBs at taking on vehicles.
I agree. Claiming heavy bolters will become the best anti-tank in the game is utter hyperbole.
Who said it's the best anti tank in game?
I just think that is too good against tanks. Of course meltas are better in cracking armors but now you need half heavy bolter shots to kill a tank. Take drukhari: no one used to field dark lances in 8th because D2 on dis cannons make them quite effective against anything. Now meltas have improved but heavy bolters (and maybe even assault cannons assuming they jump to D2 as well, which I don't know about) being twice as good as before against tanks means that a TAC list doesn't need tons of dedicated anti tank weapons as mid-strenght weapons could finish the job quite well. Vehicles with 5-8W become very vulnerable to heavy bolters and similars but they'd still be priced like they could tank twice the shots from those weapons.
I want to like D2 on mid strenght weapons that used to be D1, but I can't unless vehicles and mosters get +30-50% of their wounds. To me also sounds silly that heavy bolters become D2 to counter 2W marines, as the majority of heavy bolter platforms belongs to the same faction of SM. Unless many other xenos armies are going to get +1W on many infantry models.
Not to mention that the SM player gets the flexibility of having weapons that are fairly good against anything while other players have to wait months if not years to see their weapons improved. And by the time they got their buffs SM are about to get a second round of buffs. But I don't want to go off thread, I just wish vehicles and mosters could be more resilient than how they were in 8th and early 9th while GW's aim seems to be in the opposite direction, making them squishier instead.
Lascannon sponsons dropped 10 points, but we don't know what its changes will be, but I'd guarantee it being better than HBs at taking on vehicles.
True, but lascannons won't be better against infantries, that's my point. HB will be better against both infantries and vehicles, making the very versatile. Too versatile IMHO.
Adding wounds to infantry while kicking up the lethality of guns is compressing the spectrum, not expanding it. What is good against vehicle is naturally going to become better against infantry if infantry go to 2W, and anything good at killing 2W-4W, T4-5 infantry is going to be pretty decent at killing T6-7, W10 vehicles too.
It's not really clear where all these changes are really going besides "make everything except possibly elite infantry die even faster than it already did."
I like that they're changing things up and bringing previously outdated units/weapons up to the modern game standards. My issue is that they aren't doing it across the board, all at once like they did with the Chapter Approved at the beginning of 8th.
I'm currently waiting until I see full points values and stat changes for all my armies before I even attempt to make an army list or purchase any models. Knowing the armies I like to play, that could take well over a year.
On HBs - I see the point - but I don't think the maths supports it on multimeltas because they are insane.
Vs T7/3+
HB:
3*2/3*1/3*1/2=1/3. 2 damage=2/3 wounds.
MM 2*2/3*2/3=8/9. 3.5 damage=3.111 wounds. In half range, 5.5 average damage = 4.8888 wounds.
So ignoring points, an MM does 4.666 times as much damage to a vehicle as a heavy bolter. Or 7.35 times as much in 12". Which seems... sufficient. Basically the MM has been buffed to the point where you take it on any platform you can unless the points are raised to an onerous level.
Which as you can see is, far closer.
Make it versus T8, and the lance is down to 1.16 - scarcely better than the disintegrator. Given the superior utility of the dissie, and the lower chance of achieving nothing, its not really surprising they have been favoured.
The argument is probably over a lascannon - which, as said, seems set to become a bit crap if its left on current rules.
Lascannon:
1*2/3*2/3*5/6=0.37. 0.37*3.5=1.29. So a bit under twice as good as the HB on a T7/3+ target.
Throw on a 3+5++ though,
Las:
1*2/3*2/3*2/3=8/27*3.5=1.037.
HB same as before at 0.66.
Which possibly isn't a big enough variation.
Conclusion:
MM is busted. Lascannon is looking a bit sad. Dark lances suck.
Dark (and bright) lances have always been iffy weapons.
Even their special rule against vehicles (back with AV) was 50% fail, 16% glance and only 33% pen. Unless you were going against lower AV, and then you wanted more shots anyway.
Tyel wrote: On HBs - I see the point - but I don't think the maths supports it on multimeltas because they are insane.
Vs T7/3+
HB:
3*2/3*1/3*1/2=1/3. 2 damage=2/3 wounds.
MM 2*2/3*2/3=8/9. 3.5 damage=3.111 wounds. In half range, 5.5 average damage = 4.8888 wounds.
So ignoring points, an MM does 4.666 times as much damage to a vehicle as a heavy bolter. Or 7.35 times as much in 12". Which seems... sufficient. Basically the MM has been buffed to the point where you take it on any platform you can unless the points are raised to an onerous level.
Which as you can see is, far closer.
Make it versus T8, and the lance is down to 1.16 - scarcely better than the disintegrator. Given the superior utility of the dissie, and the lower chance of achieving nothing, its not really surprising they have been favoured.
The argument is probably over a lascannon - which, as said, seems set to become a bit crap if its left on current rules.
Lascannon:
1*2/3*2/3*5/6=0.37. 0.37*3.5=1.29. So a bit under twice as good as the HB on a T7/3+ target.
Throw on a 3+5++ though,
Las:
1*2/3*2/3*2/3=8/27*3.5=1.037.
HB same as before at 0.66.
Which possibly isn't a big enough variation.
Conclusion:
MM is busted. Lascannon is looking a bit sad. Dark lances suck.
The issue isn't that the new HB is better than the New MultiMelta, it's that both have seen massive improvement in damage output while vehicals have seen 0 durability increase.
Yeah I sure remember everyone complaining that nothing died fast enough in 8th.
Esentially these changes without points changes for everyone are going to make vehicals horifficly overcosted.
^It's now easier to hide vehicles, vehicles ignore movement penalties for shooting and vehicles can shoot into the close combat they're in. So, while not getting strictly tougher they do have some new advantages.
Insectum7 wrote: ^It's now easier to hide vehicles, vehicles ignore movement penalties for shooting and vehicles can shoot into the close combat they're in. So, while not getting strictly tougher they do have some new advantages.
Vehicles don't get cover saves any more, so strictly speaking, they're even squishier than they were in 8th, not more resilient. Also anything that relied on a -2 or more to hit is way squishier, too. And that's even before the new round of weapon inflation we're seeing in October.
GW seems to think a good game is one where everything is in a binary state of either "can't be shot" or "dead."
kinginyello wrote: Interestingly enough, a str 5, -1 ap, 2D burst 3 heavy bolter is equivalent in damage to a str 7, -1 ap, 2D burst 2 autocannon at fighting a t7 3+ save target (like a rhino) . The heavy bolters are superior at targets less than t7 and will be stronger at higher than t7. With this change to heavy bolter, there is no target an autocannon is the preferred weapon.
Autocannons are still superior vs T6, so Carnifexes and Ravagers iirc. A pretty narrow band.
A narrow band where it falls the majority of monsters, light vehicles, and flyers.
yukishiro1 wrote: Vehicles don't get cover saves any more, so strictly speaking, they're even squishier than they were in 8th, not more resilient. Also anything that relied on a -2 or more to hit is way squishier, too. And that's even before the new round of weapon inflation we're seeing in October.
GW seems to think a good game is one where everything is in a binary state of either "can't be shot" or "dead."
It was so rare to ever see vehicles in cover barring an army trait. Few vehicles relied on stacking multiple negatives and got spammed, but marine rerolls negated most of it anyway.
It brings so much more resilience to hide a vehicle turn 1 and then move it out to shoot without penalty than a -2 would ever confer.
kinginyello wrote: Interestingly enough, a str 5, -1 ap, 2D burst 3 heavy bolter is equivalent in damage to a str 7, -1 ap, 2D burst 2 autocannon at fighting a t7 3+ save target (like a rhino) . The heavy bolters are superior at targets less than t7 and will be stronger at higher than t7. With this change to heavy bolter, there is no target an autocannon is the preferred weapon.
Autocannons are still superior vs T6, so Carnifexes and Ravagers iirc. A pretty narrow band.
A narrow band where it falls the majority of monsters, light vehicles, and flyers.
We don't know that auto cannons are staying the same. They could be getting a profile change as well.
bingo, I'd much rather have something hidden t1, then drawing the opposing units out by baiting them. you might be surprised what you can do.
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Daedalus81 wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote: Vehicles don't get cover saves any more, so strictly speaking, they're even squishier than they were in 8th, not more resilient. Also anything that relied on a -2 or more to hit is way squishier, too. And that's even before the new round of weapon inflation we're seeing in October.
GW seems to think a good game is one where everything is in a binary state of either "can't be shot" or "dead."
It was so rare to ever see vehicles in cover barring an army trait. Few vehicles relied on stacking multiple negatives and got spammed, but marine rerolls negated most of it anyway.
It brings so much more resilience to hide a vehicle turn 1 and then move it out to shoot without penalty than a -2 would ever confer.
You could hide things in 8th easily too assuming you were using the competitive rule that literally everyone used that made the first floor of ruins opaque. Everybody used big L blockers and those let you hide vehicles roughly as easily as you can now - the only exception was really tall stuff, most vehicles could hide no problem. You could also outrange stuff much more easily in 8th than in 9th with the bigger board. All in all it was easier in competitive 8th to keep a vehicle from being shot T1 than it is in competitive 9th, unless you pay the points to put it in reserve.
But like I said, GW seems to think the proper way for the game to be played is for units to either be "you can't shoot this at all" or "dead."
Dark (and bright) lances have always been iffy weapons.
Even their special rule against vehicles (back with AV) was 50% fail, 16% glance and only 33% pen. Unless you were going against lower AV, and then you wanted more shots anyway.
yukishiro1 wrote: All in all it was easier in competitive 8th to keep a vehicle from being shot T1 than it is in competitive 9th, unless you pay the points to put it in reserve.
First floor blocking doesn't block as well as obscure - especially when the opponent has a height advantage. L-blockers were fine for when they actually existed. And no one really opted to shove behind terrain with a vehicle that was going to take a penalty especially when stacking penalties was possible. The particular deployment changes in CA19 had a lot to say about how that shook out as well.
That's nice, I dunno what it has to do with my statement though. It was just as easy, probably easier, to avoid having your vehicles shot at turn 1 in competitive 8th than competitive 9th, unless you pay the CP to reserve them. And if your vehicles were being shot at in 8th, they were more likely to have cover than they are now, and harder to hit as well.
Vehicles now die quicker than they ever have. And that'll only go up again once they inflate the stats of imperium weaponry. The game is getting more and more killy, not less.
Racerguy180 wrote: bingo, I'd much rather have something hidden t1, then drawing the opposing units out by baiting them. you might be surprised what you can do.
Any plan that is based upon your opponents making mistakes is a very bad plan.
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Insectum7 wrote: ^It's now easier to hide vehicles, vehicles ignore movement penalties for shooting and vehicles can shoot into the close combat they're in. So, while not getting strictly tougher they do have some new advantages.
Going to be honest given most of them have had price increases for those advantages, while they arnt seeing any stat changes or points reductions to take into acount the increased lethality of weapons, they objectively are getting worse in october than they were and thats going to be even worse than they were in 8th and frankly massed infantry was more common than massed vehicals/monster in 8th. IMHO 9th is going to become a very poorly balanced game for probably the first year or more.
I read what you wrote, it just didn't refute what I wrote in any way. It was as easy or easier to avoid having your vehicle shot at in competitive 8th than it is in competitive 9th (unless you had super tall vehicles and a bad deploy map), and in 8th, they had greater protection from terrain and modifiers. These are just facts, and nothing you wrote refuted any of them.
The fact that you might not have done it because you preferred to let your vehicle be blown off the table T1 than take a -1 to hit from moving (which almost every faction had a way to avoid) was probably bad tactics on your part, but it doesn't change the fact that it was just as easy to avoid having your vehicle shot at. You've spent a lot of time arguing that vehicles are better in 9th because they're more deadly, which is true - but they're also even squishier, and the fact that they are deadlier doesn't refute the fact that they're squishier.
9th is a more deadly edition than 8th was, especially for vehicles. They are both deadlier and more vulnerable, like pretty much everything in the game. GW apparently thought the problem with 8th was that it wasn't easy enough to wipe anything off the board that you could get LOS to.
Racerguy180 wrote: bingo, I'd much rather have something hidden t1, then drawing the opposing units out by baiting them. you might be surprised what you can do.
Any plan that is based upon your opponents making mistakes is a very bad plan.
I didnt say I plan for them to make mistakes, but I will always position so I can take advantage wherever the opportunity arises.
I'm just happy GW realized that the main problem with 8th edition was that nothing died fast enough,
Nice that you've mentioned it.
Increasing the wounds of Tacticals and whatnot will make units more survivable and when the game ends after 5 turns, Marines will hardly loose the whole army.
I'm just happy GW realized that the main problem with 8th edition was that nothing died fast enough,
Nice that you've mentioned it.
Increasing the wounds of Tacticals and whatnot will make units more survivable and when the game ends after 5 turns, Marines will hardly loose the whole army.
Yeah because it taking the same amount of HB to to kill a tactical squad as their APC they ride in makes perfect sense.
Not to mention that doesn't really help other factions who are certainly not benifiting from any of those statline increases.
I'm just happy GW realized that the main problem with 8th edition was that nothing died fast enough,
Nice that you've mentioned it.
Increasing the wounds of Tacticals and whatnot will make units more survivable and when the game ends after 5 turns, Marines will hardly loose the whole army.
Yeah because it taking the same amount of HB to to kill a tactical squad as their APC they ride in makes perfect sense.
Not to mention that doesn't really help other factions who are certainly not benifiting from any of those statline increases.
Heavy bolters counter the wound increase of Tacticals.
But my shuriken weapons will then be twice as week against Tacticals.
In general, changing stats around is a good idea because the design space at the moment is very limited. It however is something that's best done in one go, where all armies are changed at once. Additionally, it's important to keep a proper focus on things. Anti-infantry weapons becoming better at anti-tank has to be compensated somehow. Especially in a game where there already is a need for so much antitank that taking just a few vehicles means that they get killed right at the start.
On eeeeeeeeeeeeveryyyyyyyyyy siiiiiiiingle model in the army! Leading to great fun balance for EVERYONE!
In general, there are all these extra rules, but fundamentally, they add nothing to the game. They just add a pile of bloat that doesn't fundamentally alter the game experience. I sincerely hope that these things will be getting cut and won't be added to all other armies. There already is more than enough to remember about what's going on as it is.
Dark (and bright) lances have always been iffy weapons.
Even their special rule against vehicles (back with AV) was 50% fail, 16% glance and only 33% pen. Unless you were going against lower AV, and then you wanted more shots anyway.
They've never been useful enough.
What was the other 1%?
Rounding. Do you need the explanation of why 1/6s have fractions when turned into percentages?
On eeeeeeeeeeeeveryyyyyyyyyy siiiiiiiingle model in the army! Leading to great fun balance for EVERYONE!
In general, there are all these extra rules, but fundamentally, they add nothing to the game. They just add a pile of bloat that doesn't fundamentally alter the game experience. I sincerely hope that these things will be getting cut and won't be added to all other armies. There already is more than enough to remember about what's going on as it is.
You could cut bolter discipline entirely, greatly nerf doctrines to be more in line with Sisters of Battle Rites, and then add a few more restrictions like the Captain+Lieutenant Restriction and with an appropriate price bump to everything getting hugely boosted stats marines would be just fine.
But I doubt it. Every marine army will continue to benefit from no less than six army-wide special rules, and marine players will shriek about how they need those to be competitive even after comprehensive datasheet boosts.
kinginyello wrote: Interestingly enough, a str 5, -1 ap, 2D burst 3 heavy bolter is equivalent in damage to a str 7, -1 ap, 2D burst 2 autocannon at fighting a t7 3+ save target (like a rhino) . The heavy bolters are superior at targets less than t7 and will be stronger at higher than t7. With this change to heavy bolter, there is no target an autocannon is the preferred weapon.
Autocannons are still superior vs T6, so Carnifexes and Ravagers iirc. A pretty narrow band.
A narrow band where it falls the majority of monsters, light vehicles, and flyers.
We don't know that auto cannons are staying the same. They could be getting a profile change as well.
If they did, what would they do? +1 damage? What's funny about that is the HB would still equal the AutoC vs T8. Incedentally they'd also equal the Assault Cannon. I hate the current wound chart.
kinginyello wrote: Interestingly enough, a str 5, -1 ap, 2D burst 3 heavy bolter is equivalent in damage to a str 7, -1 ap, 2D burst 2 autocannon at fighting a t7 3+ save target (like a rhino) . The heavy bolters are superior at targets less than t7 and will be stronger at higher than t7. With this change to heavy bolter, there is no target an autocannon is the preferred weapon.
Autocannons are still superior vs T6, so Carnifexes and Ravagers iirc. A pretty narrow band.
A narrow band where it falls the majority of monsters, light vehicles, and flyers.
We don't know that auto cannons are staying the same. They could be getting a profile change as well.
If they did, what would they do? +1 damage? What's funny about that is the HB would still equal the AutoC vs T8. Incedentally they'd also equal the Assault Cannon. I hate the current wound chart.
You and me both. Maybe +1 damage and +1 AP? Not sure.
kinginyello wrote: Interestingly enough, a str 5, -1 ap, 2D burst 3 heavy bolter is equivalent in damage to a str 7, -1 ap, 2D burst 2 autocannon at fighting a t7 3+ save target (like a rhino) . The heavy bolters are superior at targets less than t7 and will be stronger at higher than t7. With this change to heavy bolter, there is no target an autocannon is the preferred weapon.
Autocannons are still superior vs T6, so Carnifexes and Ravagers iirc. A pretty narrow band.
A narrow band where it falls the majority of monsters, light vehicles, and flyers.
We don't know that auto cannons are staying the same. They could be getting a profile change as well.
If they did, what would they do? +1 damage? What's funny about that is the HB would still equal the AutoC vs T8. Incedentally they'd also equal the Assault Cannon. I hate the current wound chart.
You and me both. Maybe +1 damage and +1 AP? Not sure.
I'm betting it'll be exactly the same. See, real space marines, and by that I mean loyalist space marines, don't really use REGULAR autocannons anymore, they use special "ironhail" or "suppressomundolicious" autocannons, which are heavy 2 Strength 7 ap-2 d2 and Heavy 3 strength 7 ap-1 d2 respectively. Meaning they don't have to worry about looking bad next to heavy bolters.
It's only those armies that are stuck with the totally different and much less good for reasons REGULAR autocannon that have to deal with this problem. In other words, peasants.
Problem I have with the wound increases is that it is now more efficient (in terms of units destroyed) to shoot your small arms at a Predator tank than at a Tactical Squad.
It takes 120 bolter hits to kill the tactical squad, and 99 bolter hits to kill a Predator.
We have entered an age when, if I want to destroy the enemy army, it is better to shoot my small arms at tanks and my heavy weapons at infantry.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Problem I have with the wound increases is that it is now more efficient (in terms of units destroyed) to shoot your small arms at a Predator tank than at aTactical Squad.
It takes 120 bolter hits to kill the tactical squad, and 99 bolter hits to kill a Predator.
We have entered an age when, if I want to destroy the enemy army, it is better to shoot my small arms at tanks and my heavy weapons at infantry.
I was always under the impression that, pound for pound, marine tanks favored speed and maneuverability over raw defensive power, which was where Guard tanks tended to be better. Rhinos were primarily for getting squads to where they needed to go quickly rather than defending the squad inside like a chimera, because marines wear walking tank armor.
I'm assuming of course that you're talking about a fully loaded up 170pt predator and comparing to a 10-man tactical squad. To add another point of comparison, it takes 210 bolter hits to down a Leman Russ tank, which moves 1/2 the speed the predator does during typical combat and does less damage.
Right, but there's favoring speed and maneuverability, and then there's "more vulnerable to small arms than the infantry".
Almost every other wargame makes even the lightest armor armored against small arms. It's typically how they differentiate between armored vehicles and softskin vehicles - resistance to small arms fire.
Not only does 40k not make that distinction (woo landspeeder) but also it is actively better now to shoot bolters at a Predator than a Tactical Squad, if your concern is just destroying the enemy. It's literally more efficient to engage a tank with an AK-47 than it is to engage infantry with an AK-47, to put this in modern terms.
Fold in the ease of infantry getting cover compared to the ease of a tank getting cover and it's even worse.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Right, but there's favoring speed and maneuverability, and then there's "more vulnerable to small arms than the infantry".
Almost every other wargame makes even the lightest armor armored against small arms. It's typically how they differentiate between armored vehicles and softskin vehicles - resistance to small arms fire.
Not only does 40k not make that distinction (woo landspeeder) but also it is actively better now to shoot bolters at a Predator than a Tactical Squad, if your concern is just destroying the enemy. It's literally more efficient to engage a tank with an AK-47 than it is to engage infantry with an AK-47, to put this in modern terms.
Fold in the ease of infantry getting cover compared to the ease of a tank getting cover and it's even worse.
Sure, if modern infantry wore super space armor it probably WOULD be more efficient to try and mess up the workings of a tank with a small arm.
But you are ignoring that every two wounds you cause against the tactical squad, 1 marine does die, taking 2 attacks and 2 bolter shots with him.
ITT:
Men wearing tank armor are less vulnerable than tanks wearing the same armor.
And yes, yes, every tactical marine that dies takes a bolter and 2 attacks with him, whatever whatever. That doesn't make it less silly in my mind, and while I recognize that's subjective, I'm just surprised no one else finds it silly at all.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ITT:
Men wearing tank armor are less vulnerable than tanks wearing the same armor.
And yes, yes, every tactical marine that dies takes a bolter and 2 attacks with him, whatever whatever. That doesn't make it less silly in my mind, and while I recognize that's subjective, I'm just surprised no one else finds it silly at all.
Oh I find it quite silly. You should genuinely not be able to kill a tank by firing small arms at it. It feels like a video game and you're just running down the heath bar. Having the old AV vehicle rules felt so much better. You knew that certain vehicles were just immune to certain weapons, and you'd have to worm your way around to get a shot against the side or rear. And then the Land Raider and Monolith had this great distinction of having AV 14 all around, so flanking them did nothing and you have to bring high-powered weapons to bear. It was great.
Plus, having hordes of dudes firing assault rifles at vehicles breaks immersion. It's not something anybody does in a realistic situation because you know you're just wasting ammunition. When I think of my elite Space Marines who are veterans of a hundred campaigns and their spraying and praying against a tanks front armor. . . it's a little sad. Bring back Assault Squads, Fire Dragons and Tank Bustas with an ability to pile Krak/Melta bombs on a tank after assaulting it and blow it up. That's how regular infantry should be handling a tank if they don't have heavy weapons, etc.
I mean if you curate your example loading a pretty fragile tank with a ton of expensive weaponry (Something that has been a bad idea nearly ... forever) yeah, Predators are more vulnerable than Tacticals armed with just bolters.
Galas wrote: I mean if you curate your example loading a pretty fragile tank with a ton of expensive weaponry (Something that has been a bad idea nearly ... forever) yeah, Predators are more vulnerable than Tacticals armed with just bolters.
Only in 8th did Predators have to start worrying about weapons with a Strength less than 7 coming from the front. Prior to that it had a 13 AV to the Rhinos 11. Now both are T7 3+, and the Predator gets a single extrra wound to differentiate it. The difference in durability is basically neglegible.
I believe all kind of tanks and vehicles should probably just have double the wounds they have right now with a increase in cost of something like 30-50%. But I doubt thats gonna happen. I don't find a problem with small arms shooting and plinking some wounds to vehicles.
Galas wrote: I believe all kind of tanks and vehicles should probably just have double the wounds they have right now with a increase in cost of something like 30-50%. But I doubt thats gonna happen. I don't find a problem with small arms shooting and plinking some wounds to vehicles.
Ignoring Ap -1 and AP -2 would accomplish much the same. That way small arms can still technically fish for wounds but it's much less likely and even things like autocannons and plasma would still give tanks their full save. This makes those mid-range weapons worse at tank hunting and forces people to bring proper anti-tank if they want to damage armor efficiently.
Galas wrote: I believe all kind of tanks and vehicles should probably just have double the wounds they have right now with a increase in cost of something like 30-50%. But I doubt thats gonna happen. I don't find a problem with small arms shooting and plinking some wounds to vehicles.
Ignoring Ap -1 and AP -2 would accomplish much the same. That way small arms can still technically fish for wounds but it's much less likely and even things like autocannons and plasma would still give tanks their full save. This makes those mid-range weapons worse at tank hunting and forces people to bring proper anti-tank if they want to damage armor efficiently.
Plasma is AP-3, Ap-4 if your a marine and AP-5 if you go maximum Chadmaris Hellblaster.
I like that they're changing stats. But I think they are doing so poorly.
The stat line should be doing "most of the heavy lifting," as GW promised in the previews for 8th edition. Special rules are for flavor and providing units with unique strengths, weaknesses, or tactical capabilities.
I've said it many times before, and will continue to do so until it is no longer true: the core of 40k is too shallow to allow for meaningful differences and choices, ergo, GW pastes special rules band-aids over everything. To make units and armies behave differently on the table, without bloat, means having more core rules they can interact with.
Ignoring AP-1/AP-2 is a clunky solution- really they should have made light vehicles (eg Rhinos) 3+ save, proper tanks 2+ save, and then superheavy vehicles or extremely tough ones could be 1+ save.
You should want to bring AT weapons because they're the ones with enough armor penetration to deal with the enemy armor, not because of some arbitrary rule that renders anything short of AP-3 equally effective.
ATM high AP is not valuable, and one of the two main reasons (the other being invulns everywhere) is because you don't need a lot of AP to mitigate a 3+ save.
The increase in wounds on heavy infantry and an increase in damage on weapons that specialize against them represents a greater stratification of roles. Making tanks be uniquely vulnerable to specifically anti-tank weapons seems a logical extension.
catbarf wrote: Ignoring AP-1/AP-2 is a clunky solution- really they should have made light vehicles (eg Rhinos) 3+ save, proper tanks 2+ save, and then superheavy vehicles or extremely tough ones could be 1+ save.
You should want to bring AT weapons because they're the ones with enough armor penetration to deal with the enemy armor, not because of some arbitrary rule that renders anything short of AP-3 equally effective.
ATM high AP is not valuable, and one of the two main reasons (the other being invulns everywhere) is because you don't need a lot of AP to mitigate a 3+ save.
The increase in wounds on heavy infantry and an increase in damage on weapons that specialize against them represents a greater stratification of roles. Making tanks be uniquely vulnerable to specifically anti-tank weapons seems a logical extension.
I would echo this and add that in most cases, the improved armour saves for vehicles should replace invulnerable saves. Particularly for heavily-armoured vehicles like Knights.
catbarf wrote: Ignoring AP-1/AP-2 is a clunky solution- really they should have made light vehicles (eg Rhinos) 3+ save, proper tanks 2+ save, and then superheavy vehicles or extremely tough ones could be 1+ save.
You should want to bring AT weapons because they're the ones with enough armor penetration to deal with the enemy armor, not because of some arbitrary rule that renders anything short of AP-3 equally effective.
ATM high AP is not valuable, and one of the two main reasons (the other being invulns everywhere) is because you don't need a lot of AP to mitigate a 3+ save.
The increase in wounds on heavy infantry and an increase in damage on weapons that specialize against them represents a greater stratification of roles. Making tanks be uniquely vulnerable to specifically anti-tank weapons seems a logical extension.
I would echo this and add that in most cases, the improved armour saves for vehicles should replace invulnerable saves. Particularly for heavily-armoured vehicles like Knights.
I think I agree, and I especially like the idea that tough tanks being given a 1+ save that is unfailable. Land Raider? Monolith? 1+ save. That would put a Lascannon at a 4+ save and a Multimelta at a 5+. . . and a Lasgun at "F U for pointing that at me."
Galas wrote: I believe all kind of tanks and vehicles should probably just have double the wounds they have right now with a increase in cost of something like 30-50%. But I doubt thats gonna happen. I don't find a problem with small arms shooting and plinking some wounds to vehicles.
Ignoring Ap -1 and AP -2 would accomplish much the same. That way small arms can still technically fish for wounds but it's much less likely and even things like autocannons and plasma would still give tanks their full save. This makes those mid-range weapons worse at tank hunting and forces people to bring proper anti-tank if they want to damage armor efficiently.
Tanks ignoring the AP of Krak missiles and Autocannons is a way to fix the problem? I'll beg to differ.
If they decide they want to reduce the effectiveness of small arms against tanks, have it based on the Strength of the Weapon, not the AP value. Something like:
Armored Hull: Gain +1 Armor Save versus shooting attacks of weapons S5 or lower.
When 8th rolled around Land Raiders had been ignoring Autocannons for about the previous 20 years, and during that time a Krak Missile only Glanced Land Raiders on 6s.
alextroy wrote: ...If they decide they want to reduce the effectiveness of small arms against tanks, have it based on the Strength of the Weapon, not the AP value...
catbarf wrote: Ignoring AP-1/AP-2 is a clunky solution- really they should have made light vehicles (eg Rhinos) 3+ save, proper tanks 2+ save, and then superheavy vehicles or extremely tough ones could be 1+ save.
You should want to bring AT weapons because they're the ones with enough armor penetration to deal with the enemy armor, not because of some arbitrary rule that renders anything short of AP-3 equally effective.
ATM high AP is not valuable, and one of the two main reasons (the other being invulns everywhere) is because you don't need a lot of AP to mitigate a 3+ save.
The increase in wounds on heavy infantry and an increase in damage on weapons that specialize against them represents a greater stratification of roles. Making tanks be uniquely vulnerable to specifically anti-tank weapons seems a logical extension.
I would echo this and add that in most cases, the improved armour saves for vehicles should replace invulnerable saves. Particularly for heavily-armoured vehicles like Knights.
Armour saves and better toughness, so you need actual anti-tank weapons to destroy heavy armour. Stuff like knights and Land Raiders should be T9 2+, no invuls. It works. My Fellblade actually feels like a TANK.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Problem I have with the wound increases is that it is now more efficient (in terms of units destroyed) to shoot your small arms at a Predator tank than at a Tactical Squad.
It takes 120 bolter hits to kill the tactical squad, and 99 bolter hits to kill a Predator.
We have entered an age when, if I want to destroy the enemy army, it is better to shoot my small arms at tanks and my heavy weapons at infantry.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Problem I have with the wound increases is that it is now more efficient (in terms of units destroyed) to shoot your small arms at a Predator tank than at a Tactical Squad.
It takes 120 bolter hits to kill the tactical squad, and 99 bolter hits to kill a Predator.
We have entered an age when, if I want to destroy the enemy army, it is better to shoot my small arms at tanks and my heavy weapons at infantry.
148 for a predator
148 * .666 * .333 * .333 = 10.9 wounds
The premise is also ridiculous when a tank can be at 36 to 48" where bolters are 24".
The 99 shot number may come off of factoring in Captain/Lieutenant rerolls. You're also assuming he's talking about a 5-man Tactical squad and not a 10-man Tactical squad.
The 99 shot number may come off of factoring in Captain/Lieutenant rerolls. You're also assuming he's talking about a 5-man Tactical squad and not a 10-man Tactical squad.
Why would he use rerolls against one target, but not the other? 5 tacs cost 90 points now. 10 would be 180 and the math would still be off. A predator without guns is 90. If you want to add guns to the predator we can see how well the heavy bolters do while regular bolters plink on it.
Insectum7 wrote: His math was Bolt Rifles or Bolters in Tactical Doctrine, vs a 10 man Tac squad. No rerolls.
120 x .666 x .5 x .5 = 19.98
99 x .666 x .333 x .5 = 10.97
So he's comparing a unit with a base cost that is double and making no allowance for what the predator's weapons have to say about it. And we're talking about a unit the cost of the predator standing still for 5 rounds while a predator sits in range to get shot by them. As if that is somehow some indication of the predator not being tough versus small arms. Similarly 45 HB shots kills 10 Tacs, but leaves the predator on 1 wound.
There's a million ways we can cut this and it's why mathhammer will always be just a tool.
Insectum7 wrote: His math was Bolt Rifles or Bolters in Tactical Doctrine, vs a 10 man Tac squad. No rerolls.
120 x .666 x .5 x .5 = 19.98
99 x .666 x .333 x .5 = 10.97
So he's comparing a unit with a base cost that is double and making no allowance for what the predator's weapons have to say about it. And we're talking about a unit the cost of the predator standing still for 5 rounds while a predator sits in range to get shot by them. As if that is somehow some indication of the predator not being tough versus small arms. Similarly 45 HB shots kills 10 Tacs, but leaves the predator on 1 wound.
There's a million ways we can cut this and it's why mathhammer will always be just a tool.
Mathhammer tells me that you can kill a Predator with bolters now, when in pre 8th you couldn't even harm it unless you were shooting at the rear armor. Mathhammer tells me that a single round of firing at the Predator with 10 Bolt Rifles is more effective than firing one Lascannon at it under the 8th-9th paradigm, meaning that it's more effective for my marines to fire hundreds of rounds at the tank, than to fire a dedicated anti-tank weapon at the tank. Can you tell me how many 5.56 rounds it takes to 'kill' an M2 Bradley?
Let's not try and compare a bolter to 5.56 or any other useless "real life" comparison people want to make.
If you think bolters are more effective then by all means go all bolters and let us know how it works out. Just don't stand there and tell us you're making a fair comparison when you put up a single gun against a whole squad.
Daedalus81 wrote: Let's not try and compare a bolter to 5.56 or any other useless "real life" comparison people want to make.
Why shouldn't the game have some grounding in the effects of real weapons? Or, why shouldn't the effectiveness against targets be more variable by target type?
Lasguns are equivalent to Autoguns, which are equivalent to modern assault rifles, which are not shot at tanks because they're really ineffective against them, and you'd be wasting ammunition. But in the game those lasgun shots can actually do meaningful damage.
If you think bolters are more effective then by all means go all bolters and let us know how it works out. Just don't stand there and tell us you're making a fair comparison when you put up a single gun against a whole squad.
Oh I'm aware that the Lascannon is valuable. But in your example 9-man squad the Bolters wind up averaging more damage than the Lascannon, absolutely illustrating my point.
I think new stats are a good idea for some stuff, to make it differ from other profiles. But it needs to happen to all armies at the same time. And GW should lower the amount of army wide rules st least for SM.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Problem I have with the wound increases is that it is now more efficient (in terms of units destroyed) to shoot your small arms at a Predator tank than at a Tactical Squad.
It takes 120 bolter hits to kill the tactical squad, and 99 bolter hits to kill a Predator.
We have entered an age when, if I want to destroy the enemy army, it is better to shoot my small arms at tanks and my heavy weapons at infantry.
Yeah, I agree. Solution would be very simple: give tanks an appropriate amount of wounds and give anti tank weapons an appropriate amount of damage. If marines are 2W and HB are D2 then Predator could be 20-24 W while Lascannons and Meltas (the first anti tank weapons that came to my mind) could average D5-6 on every hit that manages to bypass saves.
In general, there are all these extra rules, but fundamentally, they add nothing to the game. They just add a pile of bloat that doesn't fundamentally alter the game experience.
Bolter discipline and doctrines add a lot actually.
Given the lack of clarity as to the size of the Tactical squad - and whether anything like Doctrines, Bolter Discipline, etc, were factored in - I think it is entirely understandable that people thought the calculations were wrong.
It was a 10 man tactical squad and I said hits, not shots (given that BS is the same regardless of target).
Vs a predator: 99 hits is 33 wounds and 11 past saves.
Vs 10 man tactical squad: 120 hits is 60 wounds is 20 past saves.
If I am interested in killing units (rather than points efficiency) with my small arms, the better choice is to shoot them at tanks. That's fething hilarious.
If you are interested in winning the game, you would bring less bolters and more weapons that kill things faster. You'd also kill the ObSec Tac Marines to keep them from scoring the primary objective rather than worry about the Predator.
Everything in the game isn't about what is the most efficient kill. It's about what it the most important kill.
Daedalus81 wrote: Let's not try and compare a bolter to 5.56 or any other useless "real life" comparison people want to make.
Why shouldn't the game have some grounding in the effects of real weapons? Or, why shouldn't the effectiveness against targets be more variable by target type?
Lasguns are equivalent to Autoguns, which are equivalent to modern assault rifles, which are not shot at tanks because they're really ineffective against them, and you'd be wasting ammunition. But in the game those lasgun shots can actually do meaningful damage.
If you think bolters are more effective then by all means go all bolters and let us know how it works out. Just don't stand there and tell us you're making a fair comparison when you put up a single gun against a whole squad.
Oh I'm aware that the Lascannon is valuable. But in your example 9-man squad the Bolters wind up averaging more damage than the Lascannon, absolutely illustrating my point.
The game isn't even grounded in reality for mechanics. You really want to choose to die on the hill that Bolters harming Predators isn't realistic? We have Infantry that can move faster than vehicles and armies that do everything they want to before the opposing army responds, and your problem is Bolters harming vehicles?
Daedalus81 wrote: Let's not try and compare a bolter to 5.56 or any other useless "real life" comparison people want to make.
Why shouldn't the game have some grounding in the effects of real weapons? Or, why shouldn't the effectiveness against targets be more variable by target type?
Lasguns are equivalent to Autoguns, which are equivalent to modern assault rifles, which are not shot at tanks because they're really ineffective against them, and you'd be wasting ammunition. But in the game those lasgun shots can actually do meaningful damage.
If you think bolters are more effective then by all means go all bolters and let us know how it works out. Just don't stand there and tell us you're making a fair comparison when you put up a single gun against a whole squad.
Oh I'm aware that the Lascannon is valuable. But in your example 9-man squad the Bolters wind up averaging more damage than the Lascannon, absolutely illustrating my point.
The game isn't even grounded in reality for mechanics. You really want to choose to die on the hill that Bolters harming Predators isn't realistic? We have Infantry that can move faster than vehicles and armies that do everything they want to before the opposing army responds, and your problem is Bolters harming vehicles?
What hill am I dying on? The hill where not every weapon should be able to hurt every target? The game functioned quite nicely for 30 years with common anti-infantry weapons often being completely unable to damage most vehicles.
But go ahead and argue for grinding health bars down if you want.
It was stupid that some weapons just couldn't harm some units. It was neither realistic nor balanced.
A lasgun hurting a vehicle once every 36 hits is not a problem.
It's terrible for game balance when certain units just can't harm other units at all. Invincible units are neither fun to play nor play against. It rewards skew too much and shifts even more of the game to list-building rather than actually playing. Nobody enjoys a game where you reveal lists and discover your opponent has hard counters to your stuff and the game is essentially over before it starts.
yukishiro1 wrote: It was stupid that some weapons just couldn't harm some units. It was neither realistic . .
Source?
The source is we don't have Lasguns or Bolters and this is a game.
We have fists, knives and handguns. Handguns are equivalent to stub guns or autopistols. Assault rifles are Autoguns, which are equivalent to Lasguns. We have shotguns, so does the game. What are you going to do with your handgun/shotgun/assault rifle to an Abrams at 20 yards?
Daedalus81 wrote: Let's not try and compare a bolter to 5.56 or any other useless "real life" comparison people want to make.
Why shouldn't the game have some grounding in the effects of real weapons? Or, why shouldn't the effectiveness against targets be more variable by target type?
Lasguns are equivalent to Autoguns, which are equivalent to modern assault rifles, which are not shot at tanks because they're really ineffective against them, and you'd be wasting ammunition. But in the game those lasgun shots can actually do meaningful damage.
If you think bolters are more effective then by all means go all bolters and let us know how it works out. Just don't stand there and tell us you're making a fair comparison when you put up a single gun against a whole squad.
Oh I'm aware that the Lascannon is valuable. But in your example 9-man squad the Bolters wind up averaging more damage than the Lascannon, absolutely illustrating my point.
The game isn't even grounded in reality for mechanics. You really want to choose to die on the hill that Bolters harming Predators isn't realistic? We have Infantry that can move faster than vehicles and armies that do everything they want to before the opposing army responds, and your problem is Bolters harming vehicles?
What hill am I dying on? The hill where not every weapon should be able to hurt every target? The game functioned quite nicely for 30 years with common anti-infantry weapons often being completely unable to damage most vehicles.
But go ahead and argue for grinding health bars down if you want.
The game functioned? LOL good one. You mean the game where if you managed to get 10 guys next to a tank all ten of them would use grenades and not suffer any harm from it? Because THAT was somehow realistic? The game where you could already infinitely glance a vehicle to death outside one edition and where hitting AV10 in the rear with Bolters was already easy to begin with? Where you argue grinding health bars are bad but the damage table before was already very all or nothing?
The hill you're choosing to die on is a pretty bad one.
yukishiro1 wrote: It was stupid that some weapons just couldn't harm some units. It was neither realistic . .
Source?
The source is we don't have Lasguns or Bolters and this is a game.
We have fists, knives and handguns. Handguns are equivalent to stub guns or autopistols. Assault rifles are Autoguns, which are equivalent to Lasguns. We have shotguns, so does the game. What are you going to do with your handgun/shotgun/assault rifle to an Abrams at 20 yards?
Yeah and it was already possible to punch a tank to death, so your point is?
yukishiro1 wrote: A lasgun hurting a vehicle once every 36 hits is not a problem.
1 in 18 hits, actually.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's terrible for game balance when certain units just can't harm other units at all. Invincible units are neither fun to play nor play against. It rewards skew too much and shifts even more of the game to list-building rather than actually playing. Nobody enjoys a game where you reveal lists and discover your opponent has hard counters to your stuff and the game is essentially over before it starts.
Conversely, diluting the specialization of weaponry makes for a more bland game, devalues the strategy involved in deploying the right weapon for the right purpose, and makes it much easier to min-max. Case in point, mid-S high-volume weapons like Disintegrators rule for anti-tank, because you don't actually need a high-strength high-AP shot to threaten armor, so a higher volume of weaker shots works better.
Given that the entire point of skew is to min-max into certain unit composition to minimize the amount of viable weaponry that can be used against it, as long as skew has no downsides the only way to beat skew through weapon design is to homogenize weapons entirely. In any well-designed system, there's no problem with skew lists being resistant to a good chunk of the enemy's weapons so long as there are commensurate penalties associated with it.
We see this already with Knights: Most low-strength weaponry is nigh-worthless against them. It would change very little if Knights were made outright immune to lasguns. However, in 9th, their inability to hold objectives is a huge downside. You don't want to skew into all-Knights, because all-Knights doesn't have the tools you need to win.
The right way to beat skew isn't to genericize weapons so that there's less difference between anti-infantry and anti-tank, it's to provide associated strengths and weaknesses that make skew intrinsically weaker than combined-arms.
@Slayer
Guardsmen with Strength 3 could not punch a tank to death.
Understanding that the game has some abstractions, the idea that a squad could assault a vehicle with Grenades, plant the grenades in weak points, and dive for cover before detonating the bombs, makes perfect sense.
But you're avoiding the question. What are you going to do to a tank at 20 yards with an Assault Rifle, Shotgun or Handgun?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The game functioned? LOL good one. You mean the game where if you managed to get 10 guys next to a tank all ten of them would use grenades and not suffer any harm from it? Because THAT was somehow realistic? The game where you could already infinitely glance a vehicle to death outside one edition and where hitting AV10 in the rear with Bolters was already easy to begin with? Where you argue grinding health bars are bad but the damage table before was already very all or nothing?
The hill you're choosing to die on is a pretty bad one.
Model contact representing 'close combat' rather than assuming they are literally standing with their noses touching the hull is a reasonable abstraction. Giving explosive rocket rifles the ability to (possibly) inflict light damage when firing on the weakest points of the lightest vehicles seems reasonable. All-or-nothing tank destruction is far closer to how AFVs work in the real world (armor penetration generally means a mission kill, even if not a hard-kill) than a slowly degrading health bar.
I mean, there were some real issues with how vehicles were implemented in prior editions, but it's weird that you've chosen a list of total non-issues as gotchas.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Yeah and it was already possible to punch a tank to death, so your point is?
In what edition prior to 8th could S3 Guardsmen punch a AV10+ vehicle to death?
yukishiro1 wrote: It was stupid that some weapons just couldn't harm some units. It was neither realistic . .
Source?
Everything has weaknesses. Maybe you shoot off an antenna? The shot hits between the slats of the tread and stops it? Happens to go right through a view portal? Hits a spot that's already been weakened? All these things become more likely the closer the person firing is, which isn't represented in GW's ruleset; according to GW, a lasgun fired from point blank range is just as dangerous as one fired at 24".
The game abstracts all these factors with a wounds characteristic and a strength characteristic. But if you're talking about reality it is simply wrong to say that small arms fire can't damage tanks.
yukishiro1 wrote: A lasgun hurting a vehicle once every 36 hits is not a problem.
1 in 18 hits, actually.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's terrible for game balance when certain units just can't harm other units at all. Invincible units are neither fun to play nor play against. It rewards skew too much and shifts even more of the game to list-building rather than actually playing. Nobody enjoys a game where you reveal lists and discover your opponent has hard counters to your stuff and the game is essentially over before it starts.
Conversely, diluting the specialization of weaponry makes for a more bland game, devalues the strategy involved in deploying the right weapon for the right purpose, and makes it much easier to min-max. Case in point, mid-S high-volume weapons like Disintegrators rule for anti-tank, because you don't actually need a high-strength high-AP shot to threaten armor, so a higher volume of weaker shots works better.
Given that the entire point of skew is to min-max into certain unit composition to minimize the amount of viable weaponry that can be used against it, as long as skew has no downsides the only way to beat skew through weapon design is to homogenize weapons entirely. In any well-designed system, there's no problem with skew lists being resistant to a good chunk of the enemy's weapons so long as there are commensurate penalties associated with it.
We see this already with Knights: Most low-strength weaponry is nigh-worthless against them. It would change very little if Knights were made outright immune to lasguns. However, in 9th, their inability to hold objectives is a huge downside. You don't want to skew into all-Knights, because all-Knights doesn't have the tools you need to win.
The right way to beat skew isn't to genericize weapons so that there's less difference between anti-infantry and anti-tank, it's to provide associated strengths and weaknesses that make skew intrinsically weaker than combined-arms.
If someone is shooting lasguns at your tank you're winning. There's already enough differentiation there. There's no need to make the tank completely immune.
As you noted, the problem is not with lasguns, it's with mid-strength, mid-AP, high volume weapons coming out as good or better than low volume high S high AP weapons. Making a tank immune to lasguns isn't going to change the fact that disintegrators are better than dark lances.
Tyran wrote: All or nothing may be realistic, but it wasn't good system.
There is a reason most games have health bar mechanics rather than all or nothing health mechanics.
Disagree, the Armor system was a fine system. It's just designed to be less predictable, and some people are more comfortable with predictable, while other people prefer mechanics that provide harder delineation between weapons/armor.
yukishiro1 wrote: It was stupid that some weapons just couldn't harm some units. It was neither realistic . .
Source?
Everything has weaknesses. Maybe you shoot off an antenna? The shot hits between the slats of the tread and stops it? Happens to go right through a view portal? Hits a spot that's already been weakened? All these things become more likely the closer the person firing is, which isn't represented in GW's ruleset; according to GW, a lasgun fired from point blank range is just as dangerous as one fired at 24".
The game abstracts all these factors with a wounds characteristic and a strength characteristic. But if you're talking about reality it is simply wrong to say that small arms fire can't damage tanks.
Do professional soldiers spend clips of ammunition firing at MBTs with their battle rifles?
Because I do it all the time in the game. Why? Because it's waaay more effective than it should be.
Tyran wrote: All or nothing may be realistic, but it wasn't good system.
There is a reason most games have health bar mechanics rather than all or nothing health mechanics.
Disagree, the Armor system was a fine system. It's just designed to be less predictable, and some people are more comfortable with predictable, while other people prefer mechanics that provide harder delineation between weapons/armor.
The armor system was crap because it made vehicles into an entirely different game and was specially glaring when compared to monsters.
Tyran wrote: All or nothing may be realistic, but it wasn't good system.
There is a reason most games have health bar mechanics rather than all or nothing health mechanics.
Disagree, the Armor system was a fine system. It's just designed to be less predictable, and some people are more comfortable with predictable, while other people prefer mechanics that provide harder delineation between weapons/armor.
The armor system was crap because it made vehicles into an entirely different game and was specially glaring when compared to monsters.
The vehicle system looked like it had issues because Monsters became problematic, you mean.
AT firepower was required to engage high Armor targets. Makes perfect sense.
yukishiro1 wrote: It was stupid that some weapons just couldn't harm some units. It was neither realistic nor balanced.
A lasgun hurting a vehicle once every 36 hits is not a problem.
It's terrible for game balance when certain units just can't harm other units at all. Invincible units are neither fun to play nor play against. It rewards skew too much and shifts even more of the game to list-building rather than actually playing. Nobody enjoys a game where you reveal lists and discover your opponent has hard counters to your stuff and the game is essentially over before it starts.
Some units not being able to harm others is fine for balance. Problems arise when the game provides no ways to interact with enemy models other than shooting or punching them.
It is not a balance problem. It is a design problem.
Tyran wrote: All or nothing may be realistic, but it wasn't good system.
There is a reason most games have health bar mechanics rather than all or nothing health mechanics.
Disagree, the Armor system was a fine system. It's just designed to be less predictable, and some people are more comfortable with predictable, while other people prefer mechanics that provide harder delineation between weapons/armor.
The armor system was crap because it made vehicles into an entirely different game and was specially glaring when compared to monsters.
I think the writing was on the wall for armour values when the riptide came out and they made it a monster because the vehicle rules would have made it non-viable as a walker... (the wraithknight too, but IIRC that was later and at least it had the wraithlord as a sort of precedent)
Tyran wrote: All or nothing may be realistic, but it wasn't good system.
There is a reason most games have health bar mechanics rather than all or nothing health mechanics.
Disagree, the Armor system was a fine system. It's just designed to be less predictable, and some people are more comfortable with predictable, while other people prefer mechanics that provide harder delineation between weapons/armor.
The armor system was crap because it made vehicles into an entirely different game and was specially glaring when compared to monsters.
I think the writing was on the wall for armour values when the riptide came out and they made it a monster because the vehicle rules would have made it non-viable as a walker... (the wraithknight too, but IIRC that was later and at least it had the wraithlord as a sort of precedent)
Right, but the problem wasn't with the Vehicle rules, the problems were on the Monster rules.
Monsters could only take a single Wound from even weapons like Lascannons.
Monsters could get a 4++ for even just touching cover.
And that's not even touching giving the Riptide the ability to have a 3++
Ultimately for me if you were going to resurrect old-style armor values with facings, you'd have to do 2nd ed style damage results (although not quite as convoluted).
The big issue (for me, anyway) with the old damage table was that it didn't scale linearly at all. It was fine for a light vehicle hit with a lascannon to explode in a one-shot Kaboom, but pretty universally unsatisfying to have that happen to a land raider, leman russ or monolith. Pretty silly and immersion-breaking too - not every vehicle used by every faction in the game has like, a critical central fuel source that if you hit it the whole thing goes kablooey, that's kind of a holdover from historical WW2 games where tanks in the 1940s worked like that.
Similiarly, not every vehicle had "crew" - hence the whole Wraithknight thing.
You'd have to create a "damage results" table for each vehicle - or at least, create a few template ones and apply them to various vehicles as a general rule - and make them less devastating the heavier and beefier the vehicle/monster is meant to be.
That'd be way cooler to me than just having a boring old hit point bar even with a degrading profile. But I'm more of a simulationist wargamer at heart.
Tyran wrote: All or nothing may be realistic, but it wasn't good system.
There is a reason most games have health bar mechanics rather than all or nothing health mechanics.
Disagree, the Armor system was a fine system. It's just designed to be less predictable, and some people are more comfortable with predictable, while other people prefer mechanics that provide harder delineation between weapons/armor.
The armor system was crap because it made vehicles into an entirely different game and was specially glaring when compared to monsters.
The vehicle system looked like it had issues because Monsters became problematic, you mean.
AT firepower was required to engage high Armor targets. Makes perfect sense.
And monster don't have high armor? Why should they get a different system?
Or Terminators, they also have high armor.
It never made any sense, you cannot have a game in which almost everyone uses one system, and then somehow mount a completely different system on it.
Insectum7 wrote: ^I'd be all for modifying it a bit to handle larger vehicles better. Ditto on a simpler version of the 2nd Ed style.
I would also like to see a lot more simulationist elements return to 40k. If I had my way, the game would still have scatter shot weaponry that could accidentally hit your own men, much more involved morale and command rules, and more abstracted line of sight and terrain rules to reflect things that aren't possible to be physically on the board, like models posed jumping off a rock doing a spin-kick not always having to be 10 feet off the ground and instead they could maybe be hiding behind something.
The armor system was crap because it made vehicles into an entirely different game and was specially glaring when compared to monsters.
That's a little harsh, I think.
The system certainly had it's issues, but I don't actually think it was much of an issue until late-5th or the beginning of 6th onwards.
In general, I think most races had enough ways to take on vehicles (with one or two exceptions - looking at you, Dark Eldar). However, IMO there were two major issues that developed over the last few editions prior to 8th:
1) Misuse of the 'Monster' type. Until late 5th, Monsters were generally decent but in no way overwhelming. They typically had 4 wounds at most, and generally had either a 3+ armour save or a 5+ invulnerable. Almost never did a monster get both. What's more, while some did have ranged attacks, they tended to be primarily melee-beasts, and so had to get within optimal range for plasma and meltaguns in order to be effective. Even the new, shiny Tyranid
beasts that the 5th edition codex brought were still just 6 wounds with 3+ armour and no invulnerable saves.
But then came Tau and GKs. Suddenly, you had """monsters""" rocking 2+ armour saves and invulnerable saves as well. Suddenly you had monsters with incredible mid-long range firepower, which easily out-ranged the melta and plasma that would normally be effective against them. This was clearly done just to sell the new models by giving them the 'stronger' type, as both were quite obviously vehicles and should have been classified as such. But sadly all restraint went out of the window and the problem only got worse after that.
2) Knights. Knights changed everything because suddenly you could have an entire army that was outright immune to anything below S7. Lasguns? Useless. Bolters? Useless. Heavy Bolters? Useless. Poison? Useless. Even stuff like Multilasters, Scatter Lasers and Disintegrators were largely or completely ineffective. This was a key change because in the past small-arms always had something to shoot at, even if you had to pop open a transport to get at it. Now you could face armies where your small and even mid-strength arms were literally worthless. This was also a situation that didn't need to exist, but GW were determined to turn 40k into Mechwarrior. And even with the change of system, the stench of Imperial Knights still hangs over the game, as their mere existence pressures armies towards cramming in as much anti-tank as possible.
Denegaar wrote: I like special rules because they make the armies more akin to the lore and different to the others, but I agree that nowadays some armies have a lot of them and it should be arranged.
I like the way GW is taking, but I don't like that this enormous change is made army by army, for me, that only play one Xenos army, 9th edition is not here yet and is not going to be until I get my codex. My hype has fallen down.
I think in a perfect world, the character and uniqueness of a unit would be expressed through it's stats rather than extra special rules. Admittedly that's very difficult with the current stat model!
What I dislike about special rules is the creation of artificial synergy, for example there is nothing synergistic between Archons and Ravagers apart from a rule saying that one gets better with the other standing next to it.
I prefer when synergys arise naturally out of the unit roles, for example if Gargoyles presented a deadly threat to isolated enemy units, that encourages the enemy to group up to cover each other. The enemy then present a juicy target for Warriors with barbed stranglers.
If GW are revamping unit stats, then I they've got an oppotunity to create some cool natural synergies with that.
1) Misuse of the 'Monster' type. Until late 5th, Monsters were generally decent but in no way overwhelming. They typically had 4 wounds at most, and generally had either a 3+ armour save or a 5+ invulnerable. Almost never did a monster get both. What's more, while some did have ranged attacks, they tended to be primarily melee-beasts, and so had to get within optimal range for plasma and meltaguns in order to be effective. Even the new, shiny Tyranid beasts that the 5th edition codex brought were still just 6 wounds with 3+ armour and no invulnerable saves.
Monsters were generally crap, with GK and Tau being the exception by being broken.
yukishiro1 wrote: It was stupid that some weapons just couldn't harm some units. It was neither realistic . .
Source?
Everything has weaknesses. Maybe you shoot off an antenna? The shot hits between the slats of the tread and stops it? Happens to go right through a view portal? Hits a spot that's already been weakened? All these things become more likely the closer the person firing is, which isn't represented in GW's ruleset; according to GW, a lasgun fired from point blank range is just as dangerous as one fired at 24".
The game abstracts all these factors with a wounds characteristic and a strength characteristic. But if you're talking about reality it is simply wrong to say that small arms fire can't damage tanks.
yukishiro1 wrote: A lasgun hurting a vehicle once every 36 hits is not a problem.
1 in 18 hits, actually.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's terrible for game balance when certain units just can't harm other units at all. Invincible units are neither fun to play nor play against. It rewards skew too much and shifts even more of the game to list-building rather than actually playing. Nobody enjoys a game where you reveal lists and discover your opponent has hard counters to your stuff and the game is essentially over before it starts.
Conversely, diluting the specialization of weaponry makes for a more bland game, devalues the strategy involved in deploying the right weapon for the right purpose, and makes it much easier to min-max. Case in point, mid-S high-volume weapons like Disintegrators rule for anti-tank, because you don't actually need a high-strength high-AP shot to threaten armor, so a higher volume of weaker shots works better.
Given that the entire point of skew is to min-max into certain unit composition to minimize the amount of viable weaponry that can be used against it, as long as skew has no downsides the only way to beat skew through weapon design is to homogenize weapons entirely. In any well-designed system, there's no problem with skew lists being resistant to a good chunk of the enemy's weapons so long as there are commensurate penalties associated with it.
We see this already with Knights: Most low-strength weaponry is nigh-worthless against them. It would change very little if Knights were made outright immune to lasguns. However, in 9th, their inability to hold objectives is a huge downside. You don't want to skew into all-Knights, because all-Knights doesn't have the tools you need to win.
The right way to beat skew isn't to genericize weapons so that there's less difference between anti-infantry and anti-tank, it's to provide associated strengths and weaknesses that make skew intrinsically weaker than combined-arms.
If someone is shooting lasguns at your tank you're winning. There's already enough differentiation there. There's no need to make the tank completely immune.
As you noted, the problem is not with lasguns, it's with mid-strength, mid-AP, high volume weapons coming out as good or better than low volume high S high AP weapons. Making a tank immune to lasguns isn't going to change the fact that disintegrators are better than dark lances.
Use spoiler tags for massive quotes please
The biggest issue I've found with the current rules, specifically the wounding chart is, Toughness values are way too low.
Getting +1 to wound and reroll wounds means you can have Agressors with their insane output, stacked with +1 to wound and rerolls are better vrs T7 than anti tank weapons.
Same with VotLW all these +1 to wound melarky just devalued T stats way too much, it wouldn't be half the issue it currently is if vehicals started at T10.
1) Misuse of the 'Monster' type. Until late 5th, Monsters were generally decent but in no way overwhelming. They typically had 4 wounds at most, and generally had either a 3+ armour save or a 5+ invulnerable. Almost never did a monster get both. What's more, while some did have ranged attacks, they tended to be primarily melee-beasts, and so had to get within optimal range for plasma and meltaguns in order to be effective. Even the new, shiny Tyranid beasts that the 5th edition codex brought were still just 6 wounds with 3+ armour and no invulnerable saves.
Monsters were generally crap, with GK and Tau being the exception by being broken.
I think it was the combination of speed, 2+ armour, built-in Invulnerable save, and strong ranged weapons that did it. You could get shooty MCs in 4e (but they were slow and couldn't get an Inv), and fast MCs (but they were melee-focused), and armoured MCs (but they were slow and expensive), but the closest you could get to the whole package was a Flyrant with Warp Field, which was 1/army, only had a 6++, cost 150pts before guns, and the guns you could get were utter crap by comparison to anything you could put on a Riptide or a Dreadknight.
Insectum7 wrote: Do professional soldiers spend clips of ammunition firing at MBTs with their battle rifles?
Because I do it all the time in the game. Why? Because it's waaay more effective than it should be.
Professional soldiers also don't deliberately suicide into things in order to get points awarded at the start of the next battle turn. Nor do they take turns with the enemy moving, shooting, and fighting. Nor do they allow the enemy they are engaged with in hand-to-hand combat to back up while they stay rooted to the spot, so the enemy's friends can draw an easy bead on them.
If there was no cost to shooting at a tank with their battle rifles because it was a free action - no risk, unlimited ammo, no downside - you can bet they would.
The game is a game. It functions in abstractions. But you were the one who brought up the realism angle and argued it wasn't possible for small arms fire to harm tanks, which just isn't true.
yukishiro1 wrote: ...The game is a game. It functions in abstractions. But you were the one who brought up the realism angle and argued it wasn't possible for small arms fire to harm tanks, which just isn't true.
It isn't about realism, it's about verisimilitude. We've been trained by real life to expect small arms to be ineffective against tanks, so when you show us a rifleman shooting at a tank we're left thinking "Wait, what? Why is it a tank if you can't make it impervious to rifle fire?"
Suspension of disbelief is subjective, and people may interpret this differently, but I would observe that if other peoples' immersion is/isn't broken by something they're not "wrong" and you can't prove them wrong by arguing about it.
I didn't say that. If in his conception of reality rifles shouldn't be able to harm tanks that's a subjective opinion I'm not going to argue with except to say I disagree. But that is different than saying rifles can't harm tanks. That's just objectively wrong.
The reason people don't shoot rifles at tanks is because they don't want to die and there are better ways to fight a tank on foot, not because it's inherently impossible to damage a tank with a rifle. But because the game doesn't simulate any of those other ways and because game models don't care about dying, they will make different choices than real humans.
"It's not realistic" isn't a great argument at the best of times, but it's especially unconvincing when, well, it actually is realistic.
you're insane if you think a rifle is going to damage a modern main battle tank in any meaningful fashion.
there are reasons armor has to be wary of dismounted infantry in the real, and it has nothing to do with their rifles and everything to do with the explosives and anti-tank weapons they carry.
yukishiro1 wrote: I didn't say that. If in his conception of reality rifles shouldn't be able to harm tanks that's a subjective opinion I'm not going to argue with except to say I disagree. But that is different than saying rifles can't harm tanks. That's just objectively wrong.
The reason people don't shoot rifles at tanks is because they don't want to die and there are better ways to fight a tank on foot, not because it's inherently impossible to damage a tank with a rifle. But because the game doesn't simulate any of those other ways and because game models don't care about dying, they will make different choices than real humans.
"It's not realistic" isn't a great argument at the best of times, but it's especially unconvincing when, well, it actually is realistic.
More importantly- Does small arms fire being able to damage tanks improve gameplay?
gigasnail wrote: you're insane if you think a rifle is going to damage a modern main battle tank in any meaningful fashion.
there are reasons armor has to be wary of dismounted infantry in the real, and it has nothing to do with their rifles and everything to do with the explosives and anti-tank weapons they carry.
It's not worth arguing with someone who's simply wrong. 15 seconds of googling would show you that modern small arms fire can indeed damage tanks in various ways. Are you going to blow a hole straight through the armor? No, of course not. But the game functions in abstractions. You can think of a lasgun that takes a wound off a tank as hitting a comms array, damaging a tread, going through a view portal, striking a chink in the armor that had already been damaged by something else, damaging an externally mounted sponson weapon, etc etc.
yukishiro1 wrote: I didn't say that. If in his conception of reality rifles shouldn't be able to harm tanks that's a subjective opinion I'm not going to argue with except to say I disagree. But that is different than saying rifles can't harm tanks. That's just objectively wrong.
The reason people don't shoot rifles at tanks is because they don't want to die and there are better ways to fight a tank on foot, not because it's inherently impossible to damage a tank with a rifle. But because the game doesn't simulate any of those other ways and because game models don't care about dying, they will make different choices than real humans.
"It's not realistic" isn't a great argument at the best of times, but it's especially unconvincing when, well, it actually is realistic.
More importantly- Does small arms fire being able to damage tanks improve gameplay?
Definitely. "It's not realistic" is usually a bad argument in a game where armies take turns moving, shooting, and assaulting one another with perfect decorum.
But it's especially bad when the argument for realism isn't even actually realistic.
The armor system was crap because it made vehicles into an entirely different game and was specially glaring when compared to monsters.
The armor system was good with average 3rd-5th edition firepower. Then GW started to increase rate of fire and some killyness in combat in any faction and suddenly vehicles became paper things. Regular units could use redundancy, invuln, FNP but not vehicles. This in addition to the already existing mechanics that let vehicles lose their weapons, become immobilized, not be able to fire, etc... made vehicles worthless.
It's not the fact that a few monsters were way harder to kill than vehicles, it's the fact that any TAC list could kill several vehicles in one turn with average shooting at some point. If monsters didn't exist in 7th vehicles would still have been too squishy.
8th edition changes were needed, the only other solution would have been to reduce killyness from any faction by a lot, like 60/70% probably. But too many people love super buffed dudes or mega killy things, more than resilient things so this solution was impossible to impose.
In 3rd and 5th editions, which I still play sometimes, vehicles work well with the old AV system and there's a lot of them in my lists.
I do think the biggest 40k faultline is between people who thought 5th was the greatest edition ever and want to go back there, and people who think 5th sucked and don't want to touch it with a barge poll.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's not worth arguing with someone who's simply wrong. 15 seconds of googling would show you that modern small arms fire can indeed damage tanks in various ways. Are you going to blow a hole straight through the armor? No, of course not. But the game functions in abstractions. You can think of a lasgun that takes a wound off a tank as hitting a comms array, damaging a tread, going through a view portal, striking a chink in the armor that had already been damaged by something else, damaging an externally mounted sponson weapon, etc etc.
So, things that could maybe be covered by a Glancing Hit in the old system, but don't actually make the next lascannon hit more likely to mission-kill the entire vehicle, and which would likely never actually destroy the vehicle. Those random little pinging rifle hits also, despite supposedly achieving mission-degradation damage, have exactly zero effect on the target vehicle until it reaches half its hit points. A hit point system that can be substantially degraded by rifle fire is just not a very good representation of how tanks operate.
Also, it looks like 15 seconds of Google gave you an idea of what Hollywood thinks infantry can do to WW2-era tanks, not what they actually could do, let alone to modern MBTs. An Abrams does not have open vision slits nor can it be detreaded or de-commed by rifle fire. I know 40K is closer to Hollywood-WW2 than to modern reality, but just saying.
Oh I'm aware that the Lascannon is valuable. But in your example 9-man squad the Bolters wind up averaging more damage than the Lascannon, absolutely illustrating my point.
The point you should be aware of is that those models who did "more" cost 144 points. The Lascannon TAC cost 33 points and did 72% of the damage for 23% of the cost.
If I am interested in killing units (rather than points efficiency) with my small arms, the better choice is to shoot them at tanks. That's fething hilarious.
This was a solved problem in 40k in 1999.
Then do it. Take all Intercessors versus all dreads and vehicles. Let us know how it goes.
Tyel wrote: I do think the biggest 40k faultline is between people who thought 5th was the greatest edition ever and want to go back there, and people who think 5th sucked and don't want to touch it with a barge poll.
I agree fully
4th/5th was glorious - but nostalgia does bring it out
yukishiro1 wrote: I didn't say that. If in his conception of reality rifles shouldn't be able to harm tanks that's a subjective opinion I'm not going to argue with except to say I disagree. But that is different than saying rifles can't harm tanks. That's just objectively wrong.
The reason people don't shoot rifles at tanks is because they don't want to die and there are better ways to fight a tank on foot, not because it's inherently impossible to damage a tank with a rifle. But because the game doesn't simulate any of those other ways and because game models don't care about dying, they will make different choices than real humans.
"It's not realistic" isn't a great argument at the best of times, but it's especially unconvincing when, well, it actually is realistic.
So by your own admission, infantry spraying lots of bullets at a tank is NOT realistic, even if you could potentially damage optics, etc. However, the game encourages me to do it because as has been shown, the effective Anti-Armor fire from a squads basic weapons is actually more than that of the dedicated anti-armor weapon the specialist carries. You think that's modeled well in game terms?
Oh I'm aware that the Lascannon is valuable. But in your example 9-man squad the Bolters wind up averaging more damage than the Lascannon, absolutely illustrating my point.
The point you should be aware of is that those models who did "more" cost 144 points. The Lascannon TAC cost 33 points and did 72% of the damage for 23% of the cost.
Don't care. Once on the table I'm not comparing points, I'm looking at ways to remove threats. The small arms are averaging more damage to the vehicle than the dedicated anti-armor weapon.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's not worth arguing with someone who's simply wrong. 15 seconds of googling would show you that modern small arms fire can indeed damage tanks in various ways. Are you going to blow a hole straight through the armor? No, of course not. But the game functions in abstractions. You can think of a lasgun that takes a wound off a tank as hitting a comms array, damaging a tread, going through a view portal, striking a chink in the armor that had already been damaged by something else, damaging an externally mounted sponson weapon, etc etc.
So, things that could maybe be covered by a Glancing Hit in the old system, but don't actually make the next lascannon hit more likely to mission-kill the entire vehicle, and which would likely never actually destroy the vehicle. Those random little pinging rifle hits also, despite supposedly achieving mission-degradation damage, have exactly zero effect on the target vehicle until it reaches half its hit points. A hit point system that can be substantially degraded by rifle fire is just not a very good representation of how tanks operate.
Also, it looks like 15 seconds of Google gave you an idea of what Hollywood thinks infantry can do to WW2-era tanks, not what they actually could do, let alone to modern MBTs. An Abrams does not have open vision slits nor can it be detreaded or de-commed by rifle fire. I know 40K is closer to Hollywood-WW2 than to modern reality, but just saying.
Just to clarify their is also terminology called mission/soft kill and terminal/hard kill, (think that's the corrext verbiage but it's been a while)
Massed assualt rifle and HMG fire did achive mission kills on challenger and Abrams tanks in Iraq. What they didn't achieve was terminal/hard kill aka the vehicle was usually still operating just was no longer considered to be combat effective.
40k doesn't make ant distinction between those.
I would definitely agree that vehicals do feel excessively vulnerable to small arms with rerolls and +1's due to GW sticking to D6's and not really rebaselining the stats like thet should have done at the start of 8th but that's the design teams issue not so much a realism issue.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's not worth arguing with someone who's simply wrong. 15 seconds of googling would show you that modern small arms fire can indeed damage tanks in various ways. Are you going to blow a hole straight through the armor? No, of course not. But the game functions in abstractions. You can think of a lasgun that takes a wound off a tank as hitting a comms array, damaging a tread, going through a view portal, striking a chink in the armor that had already been damaged by something else, damaging an externally mounted sponson weapon, etc etc.
So, things that could maybe be covered by a Glancing Hit in the old system, but don't actually make the next lascannon hit more likely to mission-kill the entire vehicle, and which would likely never actually destroy the vehicle. Those random little pinging rifle hits also, despite supposedly achieving mission-degradation damage, have exactly zero effect on the target vehicle until it reaches half its hit points. A hit point system that can be substantially degraded by rifle fire is just not a very good representation of how tanks operate.
Also, it looks like 15 seconds of Google gave you an idea of what Hollywood thinks infantry can do to WW2-era tanks, not what they actually could do, let alone to modern MBTs. An Abrams does not have open vision slits nor can it be detreaded or de-commed by rifle fire. I know 40K is closer to Hollywood-WW2 than to modern reality, but just saying.
I'll take your word on the Abrams (I don't think it's entirely correct, but it doesn't matter), but 40k vehicles do have vision slits, they do have exposed treads, and they do have exposed comm arrays. I'm not interested in arguing about it with people who throw around accusations about just watching Hollywood movies. The fact is that rifle fire can damage the sorts of tanks you see portrayed in 40k. If someone wants to disagree with that I'm not going to argue with them, it's as pointless as arguing with someone who insists 2+2=5. The internet gives everyone the tools they need to see that just isn't right, and if they want to believe it anyway, I'm not going to waste time arguing about it.
The reason they just plink off a wound is because the game is an abstraction. If you want to go back to vehicle damage tables and glancing hits that's one argument, but it's got nothing to do with the debate as to whether lasguns should be able to harm tanks within the damage system we have now. Right now, the only way to simulate a las gun hitting a tread or going through a vision slit or taking out a comms array is to count that as a wound. Just like falling back in this game happens with one side calmly moving backwards while the unit they were just fighting hand to hand stands there rooted to the spot, unable to do anything at all as they're blown off the table.
Tyel wrote: I do think the biggest 40k faultline is between people who thought 5th was the greatest edition ever and want to go back there, and people who think 5th sucked and don't want to touch it with a barge poll.
What about the ones that don't make much of distinction between 3rd/4th/5th/6th?
yukishiro1 wrote: The reason they just plink off a wound is because the game is an abstraction. If you want to go back to vehicle damage tables and glancing hits that's one argument, but it's got nothing to do with the debate as to whether lasguns should be able to harm tanks within the damage system we have now. Right now, the only way to simulate a las gun hitting a tread or going through a vision slit or taking out a comms array is to count that as a wound. Just like falling back in this game happens with one side calmly moving backwards while the unit they were just fighting hand to hand stands there rooted to the spot, unable to do anything at all as they're blown off the table.
Yes, just plinking off a wound is an abstraction of damage- but since the whole point of abstractions is to simplify complex concepts into playable game terms, having basic infantrymen be unable to harm vehicles and thereby forced to disengage is a far better abstraction of reality than encouraging them to stand their ground and volley fire at MBTs.
If the game actually models the infinitesimally-low likelihood of a rifle actually doing something substantial to a vehicle, and keeps that separate and distinct from mission-kill damage inflicted by anti-tank fire, thus directly incentivizing infantry not to stick around due to the negligible chance that they'll accomplish anything useful, then that's fine. If it doesn't, then the best way to abstractly represent the fact that rifle-armed infantry have a snowball's chance in hell of harming a tank is to make those rifles simply not work against tanks.
Good abstraction is writing rules that accomplish the desired effect without having to tediously model it.
Bad abstraction is writing rules that have unrealistic/undesirable side effects as a result of their simplicity.
yukishiro1 wrote: I didn't say that. If in his conception of reality rifles shouldn't be able to harm tanks that's a subjective opinion I'm not going to argue with except to say I disagree. But that is different than saying rifles can't harm tanks. That's just objectively wrong.
The reason people don't shoot rifles at tanks is because they don't want to die and there are better ways to fight a tank on foot, not because it's inherently impossible to damage a tank with a rifle. But because the game doesn't simulate any of those other ways and because game models don't care about dying, they will make different choices than real humans.
"It's not realistic" isn't a great argument at the best of times, but it's especially unconvincing when, well, it actually is realistic.
So by your own admission, infantry spraying lots of bullets at a tank is NOT realistic, even if you could potentially damage optics, etc. However, the game encourages me to do it because as has been shown, the effective Anti-Armor fire from a squads basic weapons is actually more than that of the dedicated anti-armor weapon the specialist carries. You think that's modeled well in game terms?
Do you think that falling back is well modeled in the game? It's far harder for me to believe that someone you are engaged in hand to hand combat with simply lets you walk backwards calmly, standing there with a dumb look on their face while your friends blow them off the earth.
Do you think it's well modeled that a grot standing on an objective controls it against a full squad of terminators (unless they're grey knight or custodes terminators...)?
Do you think it's well modeled that the vehicle shooting in combat rules makes it smart to charge a tank with grots just to tie it up? Do you think it's well modeled that said tank can fire its lascannons at said grots while they are literally crawling all over the tank, far too close to actually be shot at with a weapon like a lascannon?
Do you think it's well modeled that units start the game within easy shooting distance of one another? What have they been doing before T1? Just chillin' until someone gives the signal that it's ok to start shooting?
We could come up with literally dozens of other examples of the way the game is modeled that are much more problematic from a perspective of realism than a lasgun occasionally being able to plink a wound off a vehicle.
The game is an abstraction. I think it works just fine that a squad of guardsmen shooting continuously at a tank an entire 5 game could plink off half its wounds. That doesn't strike me as vaguely unreasonable.
But again, then we're not getting into what's realistic, we're getting into your opinions of how the game should play. You think a lasgun shouldn't be able to harm a tank not because it is impossible in reality but because you think the chance is low enough that it should be modeled in game as impossible. That's a very different argument. It's the opposite of an argument from realism - it's an argument that we should disregard realism in favor of modeling what is probable rather than what is possible.
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catbarf wrote: having basic infantrymen be unable to harm vehicles and thereby forced to disengage is a far better abstraction of reality than encouraging them to stand their ground and volley fire at MBTs.
Disagree completely, but that's a disagreement over how the game should work that has nothing to do with reality. It is the opposite of a "this is unrealistic!" argument. It's a "yes this can happen in reality but even though it is possible in reality I want to make it completely impossible in the game because I think that makes the game work better."
Moving past the lasguns for just now, what about the Salamader Flamer Agressors that wound Tanks 50% of the time, that doesn't seem janky and some proper WTF moment to you?
I would say the issue isn't that they can it's that they can do so too easily.
Then, I dunno, educate yourself on the basic history of antitank warfare. Rifle fire stopped being relevant circa 1917.
yukishiro1 wrote: , but that's a disagreement over how the game should work that has nothing to do with reality. It is the opposite of a "this is unrealistic!" argument. It's a "yes this can happen in reality but even though it is possible in reality I want to make it completely impossible in the game because I think that makes the game work better."
No, this is absolutely still a disagreement over realism, you are just hyper-focusing on the possibility that a rifle can damage a tank and then making the mental somersault to 'and therefore it's better if a lasgun can get a MBT 1/12 closer to complete destruction'.
The reality of warfare is that infantry don't engage tanks with their basic rifles, even if there is a remote, extreme, tiny possibility that it might do something. There are two ways to represent this in-game:
1. Design for simulation, and let infantry take their shot, with a 0.001% chance of it inflicting a non-disabling hit on the target, such that any halfway competent player will not attempt to volley fire into tanks. This will earn you completely justified criticism from those that argue that it slows down the game for negligible effect.
2. Design for effect, accept the conceit that while technically possible it is not realistic for infantry to attempt to disable an AFV with rifles, and do not allow rifle fire to harm tanks.
Your position- that because it is remotely possible in reality for a rifle to inflict minor damage on a WW2-era tank, every rifle shot that hits one should have a 1/18 chance of dealing non-negligible damage- is neither realistic in its simulation (way too significant damage) nor realistic in its effects (Guardsmen are incentivized to stand and shoot, rather than scatter or bring AT weapons to bear).
Here's another abstraction: Most units cannot shoot in melee.
Is it physically impossible for the plasma gunner to engage a tank a kilometer away while a crazed berserkers tries to cave his skull in with an axe? No.
Is it a realistic abstraction to say that said plasma gunner is almost certainly going to be too preoccupied with dealing with said berserker to worry about shooting a tank way off in the distance? Absolutely.
We're still talking about realism, and it's still unrealistic for infantry to deal non-negligible damage to tanks. From a wargame perspective, we care far more about the realism of how units behave and what kind of damage they can inflict than rivet-counting simulation for its own sake, let alone the unrealism of translating winning-the-lottery unlikelihoods into common gameplay occurrences.
That's not my position. Please stop wasting everyone's time with straw men; it is the laziest way to argue. My position is that "realism" shouldn't determine how games work, especially not games based on UGOIGO where someone can fall out of combat with your unit and your unit has to just stand there and take their friends' shots straight to the face because they can move while you can't. I think infantry guns should be able to plink the odd wound off a tank for gameplay reasons, not realism reasons. I was only addressing realism to refute the objectively false statement made by someone else that it isn't possible for small arms fire to harm tanks. It is possible. There are documented cases of infantry fire disabling tanks as recently as the Iraq war. That's objective reality. So if you want to say "the chances are so small we should make it impossible in the game even though it's possible in reality" that fine - I disagree with the argument, but it's a subjective disagreement; what isn't fine is to say "it is physically impossible in reality," because that just isn't true.
The reality of warfare is that infantry squads don't sit on objectives if they know with 100% certainty they will be killed next turn in order to get the VPs this turn.
The reality of warfare is that infantry doesn't charge a tank, guaranteeing their deaths, in order to force it to shoot its lascannons at the squad next turn instead of at the nearby tank. And the reality of warfare is that the nearby tank will still be able to shoot at that tank, whether it has grots crawling on it or not.
The reality of warfare...we can go on and on.
If you made it so guardsmen couldn't shoot tanks, nothing at all would change in the game except they, well, wouldn't shoot at tanks. The guard squad isn't going to "scatter" (because it literally can't according to the game rules), it isn't going to withdraw. It's just going to sit there (or, more likely, charge the tank in combat to tie it up, another thing that is deeply unrealistic). It wouldn't model reality any better, and it wouldn't improve gameplay either. Allowing them some chance to do damage at least models the possibility that a squad in that situation will find something creative to do that can have some impact on the engagement.
modern tanks have 6" of ballistic glass over the 'vision slits', and you're not going to be damaging tracks or whatever you're going on about with small arms fire. just stop.
yukishiro1 wrote: That's not my position. Please stop wasting everyone's time with straw men; it is the laziest way to argue. My position is that "realism" shouldn't determine how games work, especially not games based on UGOIGO where someone can fall out of combat with your unit and your unit has to just stand there and take their friends' shots straight to the face because they can move while you can't. I think infantry guns should be able to plink the odd wound off a tank for gameplay reasons, not realism reasons. I was only addressing realism to refute the objectively false statement made by someone else that it isn't possible for small arms fire to harm tanks. It is possible. There are documented cases of infantry fire disabling tanks as recently as the Iraq war. That's objective reality. So if you want to say "the chances are so small we should make it impossible in the game even though it's possible in reality" that fine - I disagree with the argument, but it's a subjective disagreement; what isn't fine is to say "it is physically impossible in reality," because that just isn't true.
The reality of warfare is that infantry squads don't sit on objectives if they know with 100% certainty they will be killed next turn in order to get the VPs this turn.
The reality of warfare is that infantry doesn't charge a tank, guaranteeing their deaths, in order to force it to shoot its lascannons at the squad next turn instead of at the nearby tank. And the reality of warfare is that the nearby tank will still be able to shoot at that tank, whether it has grots crawling on it or not.
The reality of warfare...we can go on and on.
If you made it so guardsmen couldn't shoot tanks, nothing at all would change in the game except they, well, wouldn't shoot at tanks. The guard squad isn't going to "scatter" (because it literally can't according to the game rules), it isn't going to withdraw. It's just going to sit there (or, more likely, charge the tank in combat to tie it up, another thing that is deeply unrealistic). It wouldn't model reality any better, and it wouldn't improve gameplay either. Allowing them some chance to do damage at least models the possibility that a squad in that situation will find something creative to do that can have some impact on the engagement.
Dare to die corps, Order 227 , gallipoli the turks beeing Made aware by attatürk that they are Sent to die to Stop the advance...
And you are talking about a universe were ideological fanaticism is actually the rule rather then the exception.
yukishiro1 wrote: what isn't fine is to say "it is physically impossible in reality," because that just isn't true.
We've gotten away from the core of the argument, but I'll stand by this one: it is physically impossible, in reality, for rifle fire alone to damage, let alone mission-kill a modern MBT. Does not happen. Has never happened. If a wargame is attempting to model the reality of infantry combat, it is bad design to allow infantry fire to disable tanks, or even 'soften them up' for anti-tank fire. I would like you to cite your claim of MBTs being disabled by rifle fire in the Iraq War, because I suspect you have grossly misread or misremembered whatever you saw.
Leaving reality aside, as far as a game is concerned, the mechanics that allow lasguns to harm tanks are one example of a 'soft' damage system that de-emphasizes differences between unit classes and reinforces jack-of-all-trades weapons. The mechanisms for wounding and damaging vehicles lead to unintuitive outcomes that detract from the feeling of realism (verisimilitude) of the experience.
Random example: Stalker Bolt Rifles wound light vehicles on 5s, reduce them to a 5+ save by default, and inflict 2 damage. When played as Imperial Fists, on the first turn these weapons are reducing vehicles to 6+ saves for 3 damage apiece. Back when Iron Hands were dominating the meta, a runner-up was an Imperial Fists gunline with tons of Stalker Bolt Rifles that could actually take out tanks wholesale- something likely not intended by designers who pictured the SBR as a long-range anti-heavy-infantry weapon.
We're now seeing a similar problem with Heavy Bolters vs Autocannons. Since they both apparently do 2 damage and have the same AP, the rate of fire and strength are distinguishing factors- but the wounding system means the Heavy Bolters are just as likely to cause damage to tanks, but have 50% more shots.
I've never seen lasguns shoot a tank to death from full health. But the fact that it is possible points to a greater design problem than lasguns alone. I will absolutely argue that the gameplay benefits of being able to take whatever you want and still be able to meaningfully hurt tanks are outweighed by the detriment to verisimilitude that comes from Heavy Bolters now being legitimately able to plink tanks to death.
I don't see how your complaint about higher strength, higher AP weapons relates to the complaint that a lasgun can plink a wound off a tank. This is what it always comes back to: when people try to cite the gameplay damage caused by the fact that a lasgun can damage a tank, they always fall back on something else entirely.
It's complaining about the wrong thing. If you want to complain about stalker bolt rifles or heavy bolters complain about those; neither will be fixed by making lasguns completely unable to hurt tanks.
"Your unit simply can't harm mine in any way at all" is a feels bad moment. Feels bad moments are bad for a game. If someone's firing lasguns at your tanks you're already winning that trade and should be happy enough to be winning the trade, not complaining because they might have the nerve to actually plink a wound off for their efforts before being gunned down.
yukishiro1 wrote: ..."Your unit simply can't harm mine in any way at all" is a feels bad moment...
And my Titan getting shanked to death by a squad of dudes with knives isn't a feels-bad moment?
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yukishiro1 wrote: ...It wouldn't model reality any better, and it wouldn't improve gameplay either...
I'd argue that it would improve gameplay significantly if you had to take a broad spread of weapons to handle different kinds of targets instead of finding the one thing that's efficient against the most possible targets and spamming it.
I think the only way to deal with it is to give each weapon a stat vs infantry, and one vs tanks or monsters.
This would help with weapons feeling different, would remove the problem of lasguns or combat blades doing wounds to titans, while not invalidating the need for one or the other type of guns. We would not longer have the problems of plasma being better then melta at killing tanks, or sniper bolters being a threat to vehicles. At the same time a lascanon could do 12 damage to a single dude per squad, killing some really dead .
Karol wrote: I think the only way to deal with it is to give each weapon a stat vs infantry, and one vs tanks or monsters.
This seems like it would achieve the exact same thing as simply having different profiles for infantry and tanks/monsters, yet would require vastly more effort and take up far more space. .
yukishiro1 wrote: ..."Your unit simply can't harm mine in any way at all" is a feels bad moment...
And my Titan getting shanked to death by a squad of dudes with knives isn't a feels-bad moment?
Your knight (we're going to assume knight here, because the 40k rules aren't designed for and don't actually work for real titans; getting shanked by dudes is hardly the biggest of their problems) doesn't get shanked to death by a squad of dudes with knives, though. It just doesn't. It might have a wound or two taken off it, but that's it. It wouldn't die even if you just let them shank it all game without doing anything in return. If it got shanked to death it was because something else took off the first 22ish wounds, and if your titan is that close to death, it actually really doesn't become particularly unbelievable that the last little bit could be taken out by a guy with a knife, because at that point it's going to have massive holes blown all over it. Maybe one guy crawls up the battered hull and knifes the pilot because he's exposed? Maybe someone cuts through a critical cable that's been exposed? Etc etc.
Karol wrote: I think the only way to deal with it is to give each weapon a stat vs infantry, and one vs tanks or monsters.
This seems like it would achieve the exact same thing as simply having different profiles for infantry and tanks/monsters, yet would require vastly more effort and take up far more space. .
But it would remove the problem of weapons ment to be anti horde or anti meq being too good vs vehicles or monsters.
If the sniper bolter, is suppose to be a sniper weapon, then it should have a stat line that punishs infantry and a set of special rules that maybe helps it hurt characters, or that can be done through stratagems.
As someone else in the thread said, we shouldn't be running in to situation where all of the sudden the sniper rifle is also a prime anti tank weapon.
It would also help differentiate between weapons. The heavy bolter could have more shots and do more damage to infantry, while the AC be better vs tanks. And not, as again someone mentioned here, the heavy bolter out shining the clearly heavier weapon at anti tank.
And I say this in light of primaris getting their unit of primaris heavy bolter armed marines.
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Your knight (we're going to assume knight here, because the 40k rules aren't designed for and don't actually work for real titans; getting shanked by dudes is hardly the biggest of their problems) doesn't get shanked to death by a squad of dudes with knives, though
I have seen 15 BA scouts charge and heavily damage a knight crusader in a single turn of melee, multiple times.
I did actually routinely kill Knights with Daemonettes in 8th edition since they didn't get their invuln in combat. In fact a local Knight player still believes my Daemonettes are a greater threat to his knights than my Keepers and will prioritize larger Daemonette squads over my monsters.
That was impossible in earlier editions and so literally the definition of a Knight getting shanked to death by dudes with knives claws.
(20 Daemonettes, 61 attacks, 40 hits, just over a quarter of the Knight's health from models as strong as Guardsmen)
yukishiro1 wrote: I don't see how your complaint about higher strength, higher AP weapons relates to the complaint that a lasgun can plink a wound off a tank.
They both directly result from the same things: a vehicle stat profile that allows infantry rifles to fish for 6s and anti-infantry weapons to wound on 5s, with those vehicles saving 2/3 of the time at best.
If vehicles had 2+ saves, this would be less of a problem. Basic rifles would have their effectiveness halved, AP-1 weapons would be substantially less effective. Stalker bolt rifles would still be viable anti-tank and autocannons would be useless, but it'd be a step in the right direction.
If we used the pre-8th wound table (not even going back to the armor value system, literally just treating them like 7th Ed Monstrous Creatures), making heavy bolters only able to wound vehicles on 6s, stalker bolt rifles only able to wound light vehicles (T7), and lasguns unable to wound vehicles at all, then that would fix all three examples in one fell swoop.
The problem is not lasguns, or heavy bolters, or stalker bolt rifles. It's the mechanics they all share that make them each behave unintuitively against vehicles and gives rise to unexpected balance problems.
And if we want to talk about 'feels-bad' moments, having your tanks get shot off the board by bolt rifles is far more of a feels-bad moment than not getting to roll a bunch of lasgun shots that, in the end, will most likely do nothing except waste time.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's complaining about the wrong thing. If you want to complain about stalker bolt rifles or heavy bolters complain about those; neither will be fixed by making lasguns completely unable to hurt tanks.
I completely agree that vehicles should have 2+ saves. It's always struck me as odd that vehicles have the same armor as your typical armored infantrymen. That's a solution that would actually improve the gameplay experience instead of arbitrarily declaring certain units to be simply physically unable to harm others no matter what. That was bad before 8th and it was one of the best changes they made. If your plan is being undone by lasguns plinking wounds off tanks you need a better plan, not a new wound table. If you think specific weapons are too good at harming vehicles complain about those - though I'm not sure it's really a great complaint, a heavy bolter SHOULD be able to harm a tank, just like a disintegrator should. If they do it better than AT (which is not usually true, btw - it's usually just that they don't do it enough worse to be a big issue) that's because the weapons are badly statted.
Moving back to the pre-8th wound table would be a disaster after a whole edition balanced around the new table.
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Unit1126PLL wrote: I did actually routinely kill Knights with Daemonettes in 8th edition since they didn't get their invuln in combat. In fact a local Knight player still believes my Daemonettes are a greater threat to his knights than my Keepers and will prioritize larger Daemonette squads over my monsters.
That was impossible in earlier editions and so literally the definition of a Knight getting shanked to death by dudes with knives claws.
(20 Daemonettes, 61 attacks, 40 hits, just over a quarter of the Knight's health from models as strong as Guardsmen)
Daemonettes are nothing like dudes with knives (i.e. hand weapons). Daemonettes have massive AP on 6s, and that is a rule specifically designed to simulate their ability to cut through, well, any armor at all.
If your daemonettes had a normal S:U AP0 profile, they'd do all of 2.25 wounds to that knight.
Insectum7 wrote: Do professional soldiers spend clips of ammunition firing at MBTs with their battle rifles?
Because I do it all the time in the game. Why? Because it's waaay more effective than it should be.
Do professional soldiers shout “Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword”?
Do they take chainsaws shaped as axes and go running at the enemy?
I'm going to take a risk and say that the way models behave in 40k is very, very different from how professional soldiers behave.
yukishiro1 wrote: I didn't say that. If in his conception of reality rifles shouldn't be able to harm tanks that's a subjective opinion I'm not going to argue with except to say I disagree. But that is different than saying rifles can't harm tanks. That's just objectively wrong.
The reason people don't shoot rifles at tanks is because they don't want to die and there are better ways to fight a tank on foot, not because it's inherently impossible to damage a tank with a rifle. But because the game doesn't simulate any of those other ways and because game models don't care about dying, they will make different choices than real humans.
"It's not realistic" isn't a great argument at the best of times, but it's especially unconvincing when, well, it actually is realistic.
So by your own admission, infantry spraying lots of bullets at a tank is NOT realistic, even if you could potentially damage optics, etc. However, the game encourages me to do it because as has been shown, the effective Anti-Armor fire from a squads basic weapons is actually more than that of the dedicated anti-armor weapon the specialist carries. You think that's modeled well in game terms?
Do you think that falling back is well modeled in the game? It's far harder for me to believe that someone you are engaged in hand to hand combat with simply lets you walk backwards calmly, standing there with a dumb look on their face while your friends blow them off the earth.
Do you think it's well modeled that a grot standing on an objective controls it against a full squad of terminators (unless they're grey knight or custodes terminators...)?
Do you think it's well modeled that the vehicle shooting in combat rules makes it smart to charge a tank with grots just to tie it up? Do you think it's well modeled that said tank can fire its lascannons at said grots while they are literally crawling all over the tank, far too close to actually be shot at with a weapon like a lascannon?
Do you think it's well modeled that units start the game within easy shooting distance of one another? What have they been doing before T1? Just chillin' until someone gives the signal that it's ok to start shooting?
We could come up with literally dozens of other examples of the way the game is modeled that are much more problematic from a perspective of realism than a lasgun occasionally being able to plink a wound off a vehicle.
The game is an abstraction. I think it works just fine that a squad of guardsmen shooting continuously at a tank an entire 5 game could plink off half its wounds. That doesn't strike me as vaguely unreasonable.
But again, then we're not getting into what's realistic, we're getting into your opinions of how the game should play. You think a lasgun shouldn't be able to harm a tank not because it is impossible in reality but because you think the chance is low enough that it should be modeled in game as impossible. That's a very different argument. It's the opposite of an argument from realism - it's an argument that we should disregard realism in favor of modeling what is probable rather than what is possible.
You're missing the point. The fact that the game is an abstraction isn't up for debate, so you can save on keystrokes to that regard.
The debate is whether the abstractions function well from a game decision making perspective. When the squads basic rifles are more reliable at doing damage than the dedicated anti armor weapon, I have a problem.
But they aren't. You're saying 9 normal guns are more effective than one anti-tank gun. So basically your complaint is that the anti-tank gun isn't more than 9x as effective as the normal guns.
I'm taking your word on the math btw, I don't know what specific example you're referencing.
Orks vs Imperial Knights, 7th edition. There was nothing more aggravating, tedious , or hopeless in 40k-dome than playing a game where the models in your army that could deal with the enemy could be counted on one hand.
I could not care a lick about realism or "immersion", I'm fine with the sysyem as is as long as that never happens again.
Luke_Prowler wrote: Orks vs Imperial Knights, 7th edition. There was nothing more aggravating, tedious , or hopeless in 40k-dome than playing a game where the models in your army that could deal with the enemy could be counted on one hand.
I could not care a lick about realism or "immersion", I'm fine with the sysyem as is as long as that never happens again.
The problem there isn't with the old wounding chart but with gw creation an entire faction of super heavy vehicles and not giving all other factions the tools necessary to deal with them. Pure knights armies are automatically a skew list, if gw insists on making them a viable faction then they should make sure other factions have weapons that can interact with them and make those more accessible.
Luke_Prowler wrote: Orks vs Imperial Knights, 7th edition. There was nothing more aggravating, tedious , or hopeless in 40k-dome than playing a game where the models in your army that could deal with the enemy could be counted on one hand.
I could not care a lick about realism or "immersion", I'm fine with the sysyem as is as long as that never happens again.
You know what was really crappy about that situation? The fact that 7th made it so that @#$*ing TANKBUSTAS couldn't use more than one meltabomb in CC with a vehicle.
There was a lot wrong with that edition, but I still preferred the general AV rules over their current incarnation.
It is curious that in a thread that is about profile changes, people are so centered on base mechanics, which take decades to change if they ever do. I don't expect GW to touch the wounding chart in a very long time.
Luke_Prowler wrote: Orks vs Imperial Knights, 7th edition. There was nothing more aggravating, tedious , or hopeless in 40k-dome than playing a game where the models in your army that could deal with the enemy could be counted on one hand.
I could not care a lick about realism or "immersion", I'm fine with the sysyem as is as long as that never happens again.
The problem there isn't with the old wounding chart but with gw creation an entire faction of super heavy vehicles and not giving all other factions the tools necessary to deal with them. Pure knights armies are automatically a skew list, if gw insists on making them a viable faction then they should make sure other factions have weapons that can interact with them and make those more accessible.
Like, maybe, changing the wound chart so that everything has a theoretical change to hurt everything else, no matter how slim, with the side effect that mid-range weapons become more of a threat to heavily armored targets as well?
GW implemented the solution, you just don't like it for <reasons>.
P.S. You can now easily make entire armies of tanks too, if you want to.
Skew lists are powerful enough already, there is no reason to make them even more powerful by making it actually impossible for people to hurt stuff if they come up against a bad skew. Going back to the old wound chart would require repointing every single unit and weapon in the game, as well as changing the profiled on a lot of stuff that only has the T values it does because of the new chart (e.g. T5 plague marines really don't work on the old chart, not with the easy access to T6 with the psychic power)...for the grand benefit of making games even more likely to be won or lost at the list-building stage, rather than while actually playing? Seems like an awfully weird hill to want to die on. It doesn't improve anyone's game experience to know they've lost before they've even rolled a dice because the collection of miniatures they've taken don't stack up well against the ones the other guy has taken.
Luke_Prowler wrote: Orks vs Imperial Knights, 7th edition. There was nothing more aggravating, tedious , or hopeless in 40k-dome than playing a game where the models in your army that could deal with the enemy could be counted on one hand.
I could not care a lick about realism or "immersion", I'm fine with the sysyem as is as long as that never happens again.
The problem there isn't with the old wounding chart but with gw creation an entire faction of super heavy vehicles and not giving all other factions the tools necessary to deal with them. Pure knights armies are automatically a skew list, if gw insists on making them a viable faction then they should make sure other factions have weapons that can interact with them and make those more accessible.
Like, maybe, changing the wound chart so that everything has a theoretical change to hurt everything else, no matter how slim, with the side effect that mid-range weapons become more of a threat to heavily armored targets as well?
GW implemented the solution, you just don't like it for <reasons>.
P.S. You can now easily make entire armies of tanks too, if you want to.
Skew lists are powerful enough already, there is no reason to make them even more powerful by making it actually impossible for people to hurt stuff if they come up against a bad skew. Going back to the old wound chart would require repointing every single unit and weapon in the game, as well as changing the profiled on a lot of stuff that only has the T values it does because of the new chart (e.g. T5 plague marines really don't work on the old chart, not with the easy access to T6 with the psychic power)...for the grand benefit of making games even more likely to be won or lost at the list-building stage, rather than while actually playing? Seems like an awfully weird hill to want to die on. It doesn't improve anyone's game experience to know they've lost before they've even rolled a dice because the collection of miniatures they've taken don't stack up well against the ones the other guy has taken.
Who said I was willing to die on that hill? Letting lasguns fish for 6s to wound knights didn't solve the problem, it only created the side effect of letting those mid- strength mid-AP weapons threaten heavily armoured units. The better fix would have been giving more and better anti-tank weapons to armies like Orks instead of having them fish for those 6s. If you bring a list without any anti-tank weapons, when they are available to you, you're probably bringing your own skew list. The rules should encourage balanced TAC lists.
And the "reasons" many of us don't like the new wounding table is because we prefer a wargame, not a game that borrows heavily from ccgs and video games.
yukishiro1 wrote: It was stupid that some weapons just couldn't harm some units. It was neither realistic nor balanced.
Not realistic?
Ok, take your favorite assault rifle, as much ammo as you please, and go shoot up a modern main battle tank (Abrams, etc your choice). Come back & tell us all about it once you've caused any type of significant damage to it. Scouring the paint off it doesn't count.
Then repeat the experiment with an axe.....
yukishiro1 wrote: A lasgun hurting a vehicle once every 36 hits is not a problem.
Just absurdly unbelievable.
yukishiro1 wrote: It's terrible for game balance when certain units just can't harm other units at all. Invincible units are neither fun to play nor play against. It rewards skew too much and shifts even more of the game to list-building rather than actually playing. Nobody enjoys a game where you reveal lists and discover your opponent has hard counters to your stuff and the game is essentially over before it starts.
Hey, if you're bad at list building & don't bring AT weapons to a game where you're very likely to encounter tanks/knights/etc? Then you deserve to get rolled, you should feel bad, & ideally you'll learn to bring some AT next time.
You're welcome to your opinion re: the game needing more games won and lost at the list-building stage, more feel bad moments, and more people deserving to "get rolled" and "feel bad." Luckily, GW seems to agree with me, rather than with you.
yukishiro1 wrote: Like, maybe, changing the wound chart so that everything has a theoretical change to hurt everything else, no matter how slim, with the side effect that mid-range weapons become more of a threat to heavily armored targets as well?
So... is it that:
1. The change to the wound chart doesn't make infantry weapons suddenly able to seriously threaten tanks,
Or:
2. The change to the wound chart gave an army (Orks) without much access to anti-tank weapons the ability to go toe-to-toe with an all-heavy-tank-profile army and stand a fighting chance.
Because it can't be both. Either lasguns and shootas don't credibly threaten Knights and the change to the wound chart doesn't actually fix Orks, or lasguns and shootas now can credibly threaten Knights and, by extension, are actually legitimately a threat to tanks.
yukishiro1 wrote: You're welcome to your opinion re: the game needing more games won and lost at the list-building stage, more feel bad moments, and more people deserving to "get rolled" and "feel bad."
Honest to god question, have you ever played a WW2 historical or modern combat game? Literally anything involving combined arms that isn't 40k?
I never said anything about orks, who actually have a ton of S8 now. Are you confusing me with someone else? I wouldn't suggest trying to use shoota boys to shoot down knights, even with the new wound chart that's still a 6 and you need to be wounding on 5+ to really threaten anything. Boys are decent at killing T7 vehicles, though, whereas under the old chart they'd be totally ineffective.
Why would whether I've played WW2 historical games impact whether it's a good idea to have more 40k games determined in the list-building phase, and whether more people deserve to "get rolled" and "feel bad?" Why the constant need to try to make things personal? Can't you just discuss the topic without making it into a personal sniping contest?
yukishiro1 wrote: You're welcome to your opinion re: the game needing more games won and lost at the list-building stage, more feel bad moments, and more people deserving to "get rolled" and "feel bad." Luckily, GW seems to agree with me, rather than with you.
Is that really why you prefer the new wounding table? Or is it because, as you stated in the Land Raider thread, that you prefer large expensive models, most of which are what suffer the most from the change to the wounding table, are "more bad than good" in the game? Do you actually think the new wounding table is good for the game as a whole or do you just like the fact that it makes it easier for mid-strength mid-AP weapons, which are primarily carried by those smaller, cheaper units you prefer, to render those big models you don't like being in the game less relevant?
Do you prefer the new wounding table because it makes it easier to kill a Baneblade or knight without bringing actual anti-tank weapons?
yukishiro1 wrote: And the wound chart does encourage and reward balanced TAC lists.
It's been argued that it encourages spamming mid-strength, AP1-2, multishot weapons since those weapons are reasonable against every potential target. Harder limitations encourage diversity.
Heck, I spent most of 8th edition Lauding the Grav Cannon becasue of just that reason. It's better against infantry than the Heavy Bolter, and better against vehicles than a Lascannon. So there's less reason to bring either of those, and instead just spam Grav (and Plasma).
yukishiro1 wrote: I never said anything about orks, who actually have a ton of S8 now. Are you confusing me with someone else?
If you never said anything about Orks, then what on earth was this supposed to mean?
Luke_Prowler wrote:Orks vs Imperial Knights, 7th edition. There was nothing more aggravating, tedious , or hopeless in 40k-dome than playing a game where the models in your army that could deal with the enemy could be counted on one hand.
Gadzilla666 wrote:The problem there isn't with the old wounding chart but with gw creation an entire faction of super heavy vehicles and not giving all other factions the tools necessary to deal with them. Pure knights armies are automatically a skew list, if gw insists on making them a viable faction then they should make sure other factions have weapons that can interact with them and make those more accessible.
yukishiro1 wrote:Like, maybe, changing the wound chart so that everything has a theoretical change to hurt everything else, no matter how slim, with the side effect that mid-range weapons become more of a threat to heavily armored targets as well?
Did you not mean that changing the wound chart helped by giving Orks the tools needed to deal with Knights...?
yukishiro1 wrote: Why would whether I've played WW2 historical games
I'll take that refusal to answer as a 'no', which explains a lot about where you're coming from.
This isn't a snipe, this is trying to get at the heart of why you keep repeating weird statements about weapon/target specialization somehow meaning games are decided in listbuilding, that it means people deserve to 'get rolled', that it inevitably leads to 'feels bad'.
Because there are plenty of games out there where you actually need anti-tank weapons to take on tanks, and the guy who loads up on Panthers and Tigers is the guy who loses. You've already got a taste of this in 9th, with all-Knights lists being a pain in the ass to kill but trivially easy to beat on objectives.
A decent game has mitigating factors to reduce the impact of skew or, better yet, disincentivize it entirely. Old-40K had the FOC, but it also had other balancing elements as well. Every army had infantry that could take seriously dangerous grenades/meltabombs and viably kill tanks. Armor facings meant most vehicles were vulnerable to close assault and deep strike. Anti-tank weapons were significantly more threatening, and a single lascannon left on the board posed a serious threat to your vehicles. Target priority made focus-firing all the anti-tank weapons first much harder to do, and cover allowed infantry to become substantially durable against tank weapons. In HH, only infantry can actually score, so loading up on tanks without infantry to hold objectives is setting yourself up for a loss.
Historical wargames model armor's vulnerability in MOUT and terrain, making taking all-tanks suicide if you wind up in bocage or a city, and reinforce the concept of infantry holding ground by limiting the ability of armor to score. A Panther in a town square isn't an unassailable fortress that forces you to give up and repeat the words 'feeeels baaaad', it's a sitting duck for the squad's AT rifle grenades, the bazooka team moving up behind the buildings, the 3in gun hiding in some rubble, artillery support, air strikes, close assault with AT grenades, or ignoring entirely to go capture the objective while its transmission decides it's a day ending in 'Y' and breaks down. When you do successfully kill a tank, by using equipment you brought specifically to kill tanks, and employing effective anti-tank tactics, that is a feels good moment far beyond 'I'll just sit in cover and shoot the guns I brought anyways because anything works'.
In any remotely realistic game, tankers are fething terrified to operate without the support of infantry to scout ahead, clear out terrain, and provide close defense against enemy infantry. A skew list of all-tanks doesn't have to be explicitly prevented by the force organization system; it's inherently undesirable on a board with any sort of terrain. Core mechanics provide advantages and disadvantages to different unit types, and specialization/hard-counters means that an army of all scissors will lose to an army that's even a third rock. If the objective is in the middle of bocage, a Panzer company might as well give up before the game even starts.
The point being: The idea that the only way to prevent the game being dominated by vehicle skew lists is to ensure that anti-infantry weapons are still decently effective anti-tank is ridiculous, and anyone with experience with any of the systems that have directly addressed this problem knows this. There are so many ways to bring back specialization of weapons while simultaneously discouraging vehicle spam as a skew; with Knights we already have substantial evidence that making it difficult to score can be enough.
I've always killed vehicles with swords (Plague Bearers) or knifes (S4 vs rear armor of 10 meant wounding on 6s, the vehicle would get no Safe and usually only had 3 hull points).
So this is not a new problem. As I see it doctrines give too many weapons AP. If tanks die too easily again, give them more HP or better armor.
The other way would be Apokalypse style of changing the weapon profiles.
yukishiro1 wrote: And the wound chart does encourage and reward balanced TAC lists.
It's been argued that it encourages spamming mid-strength, AP1-2, multishot weapons since those weapons are reasonable against every potential target. Harder limitations encourage diversity.
Heck, I spent most of 8th edition Lauding the Grav Cannon becasue of just that reason. It's better against infantry than the Heavy Bolter, and better against vehicles than a Lascannon. So there's less reason to bring either of those, and instead just spam Grav (and Plasma).
Right...so, a TAC list.
If you want to argue that TAC lists are too easy to make with the current wound chart and that's why we should change the wound chart to make it more difficult to make a good TAC list go for it, but that's the literal opposite of the prior argument.
If Grav was actually the best against everything (I don't think it was, but we'll take your argument at face value) that's a problem with that particular weapon. It's not a problem with the wound chart making it difficult to skew in a way that makes it impossible or virtually impossible for your enemy to kill you.
The point being: The idea that the only way to prevent the game being dominated by vehicle skew lists is to ensure that anti-infantry weapons are still decently effective anti-tank is ridiculous, and anyone with experience with any of the systems that have directly addressed this problem knows this. There are so many ways to bring back specialization of weapons while simultaneously discouraging vehicle spam as a skew; with Knights we already have substantial evidence that making it difficult to score can be enough.
Please stop wasting everyone's time with stupid straw men; it's a lazy and totally pointless way to argue. I did not say the only way to stop the game being dominated by vehicles was to allow anti-infantry weapons to be able to hurt tanks. I never said anything like that.
What I did say was that the "new" (it's years old now) wound chart does a good job of limiting the impact of skew, particularly at the list-building stage, and I do not want to go back to a game where models are completely immune to fire from other models. I don't care how WW2 games handle it, because 40k isn't a WW2 game and it doesn't offer the options those games do. A vehicle is really just a big tough dude in 40k, and changing the wounding chart isn't going to change that except to make it an even bigger, even tougher dude.
If you want to roll back the clock and go back to AV on tanks and have damage tables again and give infantry other ways to interact with tanks short of shooting them, go ahead and make your pitch to GW, but I don't think you're going to have any luck. But going back to the old wound chart alone is an even bigger non-starter; it addresses none of the issues with the relationship between infantry and vehicles. Perhaps more importantly, it is absolutely not going to happen. We can continue arguing back and forth about whether it should or not, but I think we just disagree about some very fundamental things about the game, and since it's never going to happen anyway, I don't see much point.
You're not seriously saying that a "TAC list" = mid-strength, AP1-2, multishot weapons that are spammed as much as possible?
You should need anti-tank weapons to deal with tanks. Period.
The fact of the matter is that right now the To Wound chart makes that unnecessary.
Um, that quite literally is a TAC list under the current game mechanics. I mean you'd obviously want to include a little more than that - some infantry-focused stuff and some AT as well - but that's very much the core of a current TAC list. You obviously don't think it should be a TAC list, but it very much is.
You can declare what you "should" need till you're blue in the face; I can declare the opposite too, but we're not going to get anywhere, and FWIWGW seems to agree with me.
Now I am sympathetic to the argument that right now mid-S, mid-AP, mid-damage high rate of fire weapons are more effective than they should be. And I think that is something you might see changed. Those weapons may be too efficient compared to AT right now, and addressing that efficiency makes sense.
But the wound chart is an absolute non-starter. You're wasting your time advocating it; quite apart from the fact that I think it would be a massive mistake, GW is simply not going to do it. 9th just came out. It's not even physically possible for it to happen until 10th, and you can take it to the bank that it won't then, either. So it's not a solution that you have any chance of getting .It'd be better to focus on more realistic things like efficiency than vainly tilting at the windmill of a game where vehicles are totally immune to small arms fire and virtually immune to mid-S stuff.
The reason you should want to shoot anti-tank at vehicles is because it's the most efficient way to kill them, not because it's the only way.
yukishiro1 wrote: And the wound chart does encourage and reward balanced TAC lists.
It's been argued that it encourages spamming mid-strength, AP1-2, multishot weapons since those weapons are reasonable against every potential target. Harder limitations encourage diversity.
Heck, I spent most of 8th edition Lauding the Grav Cannon becasue of just that reason. It's better against infantry than the Heavy Bolter, and better against vehicles than a Lascannon. So there's less reason to bring either of those, and instead just spam Grav (and Plasma).
Right...so, a TAC list.
Or a skew/spam list, depending on your definition. It was possible for me to just spam Plasma and be plenty effective, but that's not necessarily the way you want the game to manifest either.
In my eyes, a TAC list has a diversity of unit and weapons types that synergizes well. A manifestation of combined-arms.
If you want to define "take all comers" as something other than "can take all comers" go for it I guess. Seems weird to me - why not just call it something else if that's what you mean - but fighting over definitions is silly.
P.S. Plasma is S7/S8 and high AP, so if even plasma is on your list of stuff that shouldn't be able to threaten tanks because it's not "real" anti-tank, I have no idea how the wound chart is going to help with that one way or another?
Plasma is the literal definition of a TAC weapon. The problem with it, if there is one, is that it doesn't pay enough of a penalty for being good at everything. But the wound chart would do absolutely nothing to fix this - in fact it would just make plasma even more of a TAC choice - so I really don't see where you're going with that one.
yukishiro1 wrote: If you want to define "take all comers" as something other than "can take all comers" go for it I guess. Seems weird to me - why not just call it something else if that's what you mean - but fighting over definitions is silly.
P.S. Plasma is S7/S8 and high AP, so if even plasma is on your list of stuff that shouldn't be able to threaten tanks because it's not "real" anti-tank, I have no idea how the wound chart is going to help with that one way or another?
Plasma is the literal definition of a TAC weapon. The problem with it, if there is one, is that it doesn't pay enough of a penalty for being good at everything. But the wound chart would do absolutely nothing to fix this - in fact it would just make plasma even more of a TAC choice - so I really don't see where you're going with that one.
I'm going to ignore your definitions of TAC, and instead ask you what types of armies and weapons you would want to see. Do you want to see certain types of weapons spammed and used against everything? Or do you want to see a diverse array of weapons and units that are used against different types of targets?
You seem to argue against skew, but weapons skew is also a thing.
It wasn't my definition of TAC, it was yours. I assumed that TAC meant TAC - you know, what it actually says. You want to instead mean something like "balanced army with lots of different types of stuff." Which is fine, it just seems weird to call it TAC when that's not what you mean.
If you want to ignore what I'm writing that's up to you I guess, but it seems like a waste of both of our time?
I already said above what I want. I want a game where the reason you take one type of weapon over another is because it does the task most efficiently, not because it's the only way to accomplish that task. Dedicated anti-tank should be worth taking because it is the best way to kill a tank, not because it's the only way.
The funny thing is I'm the one here arguing for choice - if you want to take AT and be more efficient you can do that, if you want to take mid-S weapons instead and still be able to kill tanks but less efficiently in return for being able to better threaten non-tanks too, you should be able to do that and shouldn't just automatically lose if you come up against a tank list because of it. Y'all are the ones arguing against list choice it by saying no, you should absolutely have to take significant numbers of hard, specialized AT weapons in every list you make or else "get rolled," but somehow I'm getting painted as the one who wants everybody to take the same thing and is against list diversity, when your prescription for the game would result in less diversity than mine. My version of the game makes multiple approaches viable; yours forces everybody to to build in more restricted ways if they don't want to auto-lose games based on skew.
yukishiro1 wrote: It wasn't my definition of TAC, it was yours. I assumed that TAC meant TAC - you know, what it actually says. You want to instead mean something like "balanced army with lots of different types of stuff." Which is fine, it just seems weird to call it TAC when that's not what you mean.
If you want to ignore what I'm writing that's up to you I guess, but it seems like a waste of both of our time?
I already said above what I want. I want a game where the reason you take one type of weapon over another is because it does the task most efficiently, not because it's the only way to accomplish that task. Dedicated anti-tank should be worth taking because it is the best way to kill a tank, not because it's the only way.
"But not the only way" doesn't mean assault rifles have to be capable of damaging tanks.
For example, in some older editions infantry always hit the rear armor of vehicles, and each infantry model could use a grenade. Frag grenades counted as S4, so even Guardsmen with Frag Grenades could run up on a vehicle, plant Frags in vital areas, and damage/take out the vehicles.
To me, that's WAAYY better than assault rifles being capable of meaningfully hurting a tank.
Insectum7 wrote: "But not the only way" doesn't mean assault rifles have to be capable of damaging tanks.
For example, in some older editions infantry always hit the rear armor of vehicles, and each infantry model could use a grenade. Frag grenades counted as S4, so even Guardsmen with Frag Grenades could run up on a vehicle, plant Frags in vital areas, and damage/take out the vehicles.
To me, that's WAAYY better than assault rifles being capable of meaningfully hurting a tank.
Like I said, if you want to go back to AV, make your pitch to GW. I think you'll get absolutely nowhere, but go for it if you want.
Going back to the old wound charge wouldn't accomplish what you say you want to accomplish.
yukishiro1 wrote: You want to instead mean something like "balanced army with lots of different types of stuff."
That's exactly what a "Take All Comers" list means. How could you possibly think it has any other meaning?
What exactly do you think the words Take All Comers mean? If you want to define TAC as not TAC but instead "having a bunch of different types of unit types and weapons" go for it, but that's not what the phrase means. The phrase means what it says on the tin: a list with the ability to perform well against a variety of armies you encounter. The phrase says nothing about the composition of your own army except it's ability to handle various army types you face.
A list that can handle a lot of different types of lists through taking weaponry that performs well against a wide range of targets is literally a TAC list: it can take all comers. If you want to say that TAC doens't mean TAC and instead means something else go for it...but wouldn't it make more sense just to change the term you're using so you don't have to explain to everybody that even though you're saying TAC you actually mean something totally different?
Insectum7 wrote: "But not the only way" doesn't mean assault rifles have to be capable of damaging tanks.
For example, in some older editions infantry always hit the rear armor of vehicles, and each infantry model could use a grenade. Frag grenades counted as S4, so even Guardsmen with Frag Grenades could run up on a vehicle, plant Frags in vital areas, and damage/take out the vehicles.
To me, that's WAAYY better than assault rifles being capable of meaningfully hurting a tank.
Like I said, if you want to go back to AV, make your pitch to GW. I think you'll get absolutely nowhere, but go for it if you want.
Going back to the old wound charge wouldn't accomplish what you say you want to accomplish.
Ok, so you're just ducking out of the conversation then. K thx bye!
I'm not ducking out of anything, I'm literally quoting what you wrote and responding to it. You said it was better back when we had AV so infantry could hurt vehicles what way. Going back to the old wound chart wouldn't allow infantry to hurt vehicles that way because, well, you wouldn't have AV, which was the basis of what you said. It was a completely logical and on-topic response, as far from "ducking" as you could get. And I'm not the one who said he was ignoring what the other person said, btw.
But if you don't want to talk that's certainly up to you. If you're not having a good time talking, you shouldn't talk.
yukishiro1 wrote: I'm not ducking out of anything, I'm literally quoting what you wrote and responding to it. You said it was better back when we had AV so infantry could hurt vehicles what way. Going back to the old wound chart wouldn't allow infantry to hurt vehicles that way because, well, you wouldn't AV, which was the basis of what you said. It was a completely logical and on-topic response, as far from "ducking" as you could get. And I'm not the one who said he was ignoring what the other person said, btw.
But if you don't want to talk that's certainly up to you. If you're not having a good time talking, you shouldn't talk.
If you're not ducking anything then answer my question: do you like the fact that you can efficiently take down heavy armour with mid-strength mid-AP weapons? If gw started introducing rules that mitigated that issue would you be ok with it? Something like letting vehicles reduce the AP of weapons? Better armour saves? You could still wound anything on 6s but those wounds would be more easily saved against. Or do you prefer big expensive units be "more bad than good"? Would it bother you if you actually needed to include anti-tank weapons in a list?
You're not seriously saying that a "TAC list" = mid-strength, AP1-2, multishot weapons that are spammed as much as possible?
You should need anti-tank weapons to deal with tanks. Period.
The fact of the matter is that right now the To Wound chart makes that unnecessary.
The wounding chart sucks but let's not pretend people were using antitank weapons all the time. Mathematically they did so little that glancing them to death or immobilizing them was just easier. Plus there were unkillable Skimmers in 4th and unkillable Rhinos in 5th (for the price anyway).
yukishiro1 wrote: It wasn't my definition of TAC, it was yours. I assumed that TAC meant TAC - you know, what it actually says. You want to instead mean something like "balanced army with lots of different types of stuff." Which is fine, it just seems weird to call it TAC when that's not what you mean.
If you want to ignore what I'm writing that's up to you I guess, but it seems like a waste of both of our time?
I already said above what I want. I want a game where the reason you take one type of weapon over another is because it does the task most efficiently, not because it's the only way to accomplish that task. Dedicated anti-tank should be worth taking because it is the best way to kill a tank, not because it's the only way.
"But not the only way" doesn't mean assault rifles have to be capable of damaging tanks.
For example, in some older editions infantry always hit the rear armor of vehicles, and each infantry model could use a grenade. Frag grenades counted as S4, so even Guardsmen with Frag Grenades could run up on a vehicle, plant Frags in vital areas, and damage/take out the vehicles.
To me, that's WAAYY better than assault rifles being capable of meaningfully hurting a tank.
Boy if you think it's acceptable that S4 Frags were able to do damage wait until you hear the strength value of Bolters and Flamers.
If you're not ducking anything then answer my question: do you like the fact that you can efficiently take down heavy armour with mid-strength mid-AP weapons? If gw started introducing rules that mitigated that issue would you be ok with it? Something like letting vehicles reduce the AP of weapons? Better armour saves? You could still wound anything on 6s but those wounds would be more easily saved against. Or do you prefer big expensive units be "more bad than good"? Would it bother you if you actually needed to include anti-tank weapons in a list?
You'd know the answer to that question if you read what I literally just wrote? It's hard to have a conversation with people who refuse to read what you write.
I literally just answered that for the other guy by saying that AT should be the most efficient way to take down tanks, but not the only way. Mid-S, mid-AP weapons should be able to take down tanks, but they shouldn't be the best way to do so. It should be to your advantage efficiency-wise to include some AT in your army, but if you come up against a skew list that goes heavy into tanks, the fact that you have comparatively few AT weapons in your list shouldn't make it clear from before T1 that you have zero chance of removing their models.
It would bother me if you absolutely needed to include large amounts of dedicated, specialized anti-tank guns in every list to avoid being rolled by any list that goes heavy on tanks, just like it would bother me if you absolutely had to include large amounts of dedicated, specialized anti-infantry guns in every list to avoid being rolled by an infantry-heavy list.
I literally just told someone else that I think most tanks should have a 2+ save.
If you're not ducking anything then answer my question: do you like the fact that you can efficiently take down heavy armour with mid-strength mid-AP weapons? If gw started introducing rules that mitigated that issue would you be ok with it? Something like letting vehicles reduce the AP of weapons? Better armour saves? You could still wound anything on 6s but those wounds would be more easily saved against. Or do you prefer big expensive units be "more bad than good"? Would it bother you if you actually needed to include anti-tank weapons in a list?
You'd know the answer to that question if you read what I literally just wrote? It's hard to have a conversation with people who refuse to read what you write.
I literally just answered that for the other guy by saying that AT should be the most efficient way to take down tanks, but not the only way. Mid-S, mid-AP weapons should be able to take down tanks, but they shouldn't be the best way to do so. It should be to your advantage efficiency-wise to include some AT in your army, but if you come up against a skew list that goes heavy into tanks, the fact that you have comparatively few AT weapons in your list shouldn't make it clear from before T1 that you have zero chance of removing their models.
It would bother me if you absolutely needed to include large amounts of dedicated, specialized anti-tank guns in every list to avoid being rolled by any list that goes heavy on tanks, just like it would bother me if you absolutely had to include large amounts of dedicated, specialized anti-infantry guns in every list to avoid being rolled by an infantry-heavy list.
I literally just told someone else that I think most tanks should have a 2+ save. Again, if you would read what I write you'd have less questions.
Well it's difficult when you're constantly stealth editing your comments after posting. You literally added that line while I was responding.
Anyway, so you'd be fine if gw introduced stat changes or abilities that made heavy armour more resilient against mid-strength mid-AP weapons as long as they still wounded on 6s? If we see a new instruction booklet for a Land raider and they're suddenly T10 or ignore AP-2 or less you won't complain?
yukishiro1 wrote: I'm not ducking out of anything, I'm literally quoting what you wrote and responding to it. You said it was better back when we had AV so infantry could hurt vehicles what way. Going back to the old wound chart wouldn't allow infantry to hurt vehicles that way because, well, you wouldn't have AV, which was the basis of what you said. It was a completely logical and on-topic response, as far from "ducking" as you could get. And I'm not the one who said he was ignoring what the other person said, btw.
But if you don't want to talk that's certainly up to you. If you're not having a good time talking, you shouldn't talk.
But you are deflecting while trying to shut the conversation down, because you're so angry you can't win the argument. You want to be right.
First it's "the game is an abstraction." You've since moved to "it doesn't matter anyway, because GW won't change anything."
As I said above in the very post you're responding to...yes if it merely made AT more efficient, no if it meant that you have to take large amounts of AT to avoid being rolled by a vehicle skew list.
As I also said above, I am sympathetic to the argument that right now mid-S stuff is too efficient compared to dedicated AT. You could address that either by nerfing the mid-S stuff or buffing the anti-tank, and you could do it via stat changes or via point changes. I am fine with expanding the efficiency gap by say 10 or 20%. I would not be fine with any changes to the wound chart that would result in S5-6 stuff only wounding tanks on 6s.
Ignoring AP would be a terrible way to address the issue. That'd just make lasguns comparatively better, not worse.
yukishiro1 wrote: I'm not ducking out of anything, I'm literally quoting what you wrote and responding to it. You said it was better back when we had AV so infantry could hurt vehicles what way. Going back to the old wound chart wouldn't allow infantry to hurt vehicles that way because, well, you wouldn't have AV, which was the basis of what you said. It was a completely logical and on-topic response, as far from "ducking" as you could get. And I'm not the one who said he was ignoring what the other person said, btw.
But if you don't want to talk that's certainly up to you. If you're not having a good time talking, you shouldn't talk.
But you are deflecting while trying to shut the conversation down, because you're so angry you can't win the argument. You want to be right.
First it's "the game is an abstraction." You've since moved to "it doesn't matter anyway, because GW won't change anything."
Usually, you're fairly level-headed, too.
You're seriously misreading me if you think I'm angry about anything. I moved to "GW won't change anything" because there's no point in continuing to go back and forth when you just have fundamentally different visions of the game. We exhausted the possibilities for discussion on the wound chart and it became obviously that nobody was going to convince the other person because we have extremely different ideas about how 40k should work on a very basic level. At that point "we're not going to agree, and GW is not going to change it anyway so there's not much point in continuing to go around in circles" is the logical and level-headed place to go.
If you'll note, once we got away from going around in circles with the wound chart, discussion actually started to pick up on actual ways to deal with the over efficiency of mid-S weapons, just like I said it would.
yukishiro1 wrote: If you want to say that TAC doens't mean TAC and instead means something else go for it
I'm saying what TAC means because that's what a "Take All Comers List" has always meant.
The only one changing that to mean "mid-strength, AP1-2, multishot weapons that are spammed as much as possible", which has never been what TAC meant, is you!
If you think "take all comers" never meant "take all comers" and always meant "a list with a bunch of different types of units and weapons," why do you think it was literally called take all comers if you contend it never meant anything to do with being able to, well, take all comers?
If a list can take all comers, it's a take all comers list. That's literally what the words mean. If you prefer to say that a TAC list has nothing to do with being able to take all comers and only has to do with the composition of your own army go for it I guess, but it seems weird to call it something it has nothing to do with.
Did you not mean that changing the wound chart helped by giving Orks the tools needed to deal with Knights...?
Well, that would be inaccurate anyway. Orks aren't doing better in 8th and 9th against knights because S4 suddently hurt them. Orks simply got better anti tank options and a better codex than the crappy 7th edition one.
Stripping one or two wounds off a tank or a walker with a basic grunt's weapon isn't significant in 8-9th edition. It happens but it's not common and it doesn't change the result of the game.
People that are against lasguns, bolters, shootas, etc being able to wound tanks are the same people that hated enemy units that could tarpit their shooty champions forever. So they had no problems with enemy units not being able to wound anything but if was one of their own that couldn't do anything because it was stuck they were crying for changes. All in the name of realism, when a turn based table top game has thousand of unrealistic mechanics anyway.
Boyz are surprisingly decent against T7 vehicles with 3+ saves. Not an ideal target, obviously, but they do well enough to not be something you can just ignore or else they will kill T7 stuff. What they aren't good against is either T8 or 2+ saves.
yukishiro1 wrote: Boyz are surprisingly decent against T7 vehicles with 3+ saves. Not an ideal target, obviously, but they do well enough to not be something you can just ignore or else they will kill T7 stuff. What they aren't good against is either T8 or 2+ saves.
True, but most of those tanks were AV10 in the back in the old editions, and boyz were very good against those targets. Not to mention that the power klaw from the nobz leading boyz could wreck an AV13 tank on his own. In practise a squad of boyz is now worse in killing predators equivalents even if choppas can hurt them.
Yeah, there is less difference than people often make out between AV and the current wound chart in terms of what can threaten what. Nobody's bringing down tanks with lasguns alone; the amount it annoys some people is really out of proportion with the very limited impact it has to allow a nominal chance of inflicting damage.
There's a reason we didn't apply the old wound chart to vehicles; it would not be a good idea to do so now.
yukishiro1 wrote: As I said above in the very post you're responding to...yes if it merely made AT more efficient, no if it meant that you have to take large amounts of AT to avoid being rolled by a vehicle skew list.
As I also said above, I am sympathetic to the argument that right now mid-S stuff is too efficient compared to dedicated AT. You could address that either by nerfing the mid-S stuff or buffing the anti-tank, and you could do it via stat changes or via point changes. I am fine with expanding the efficiency gap by say 10 or 20%. I would not be fine with any changes to the wound chart that would result in S5-6 stuff only wounding tanks on 6s.
Ignoring AP would be a terrible way to address the issue. That'd just make lasguns comparatively better, not worse.
Would it? Seems to work quite well for SOB. I'm perfectly fine with you fishing for 6s with lasguns, bolters, etc if my tanks still get their full saves against stuff like intercessor bolt rifles in the tactical doctrine or heavy bolters. That would be a good way to bring back Armoured Ceramite, that was always a well spent 20 points in 7th.
yukishiro1 wrote: As I said above in the very post you're responding to...yes if it merely made AT more efficient, no if it meant that you have to take large amounts of AT to avoid being rolled by a vehicle skew list.
As I also said above, I am sympathetic to the argument that right now mid-S stuff is too efficient compared to dedicated AT. You could address that either by nerfing the mid-S stuff or buffing the anti-tank, and you could do it via stat changes or via point changes. I am fine with expanding the efficiency gap by say 10 or 20%. I would not be fine with any changes to the wound chart that would result in S5-6 stuff only wounding tanks on 6s.
Ignoring AP would be a terrible way to address the issue. That'd just make lasguns comparatively better, not worse.
Would it? Seems to work quite well for SOB. I'm perfectly fine with you fishing for 6s with lasguns, bolters, etc if my tanks still get their full saves against stuff like intercessor bolt rifles in the tactical doctrine or heavy bolters. That would be a good way to bring back Armoured Ceramite, that was always a well spent 20 points in 7th.
Armored Ceramite was always just for Melta though. Literally nothing else.
yukishiro1 wrote: As I said above in the very post you're responding to...yes if it merely made AT more efficient, no if it meant that you have to take large amounts of AT to avoid being rolled by a vehicle skew list.
As I also said above, I am sympathetic to the argument that right now mid-S stuff is too efficient compared to dedicated AT. You could address that either by nerfing the mid-S stuff or buffing the anti-tank, and you could do it via stat changes or via point changes. I am fine with expanding the efficiency gap by say 10 or 20%. I would not be fine with any changes to the wound chart that would result in S5-6 stuff only wounding tanks on 6s.
Ignoring AP would be a terrible way to address the issue. That'd just make lasguns comparatively better, not worse.
Would it? Seems to work quite well for SOB. I'm perfectly fine with you fishing for 6s with lasguns, bolters, etc if my tanks still get their full saves against stuff like intercessor bolt rifles in the tactical doctrine or heavy bolters. That would be a good way to bring back Armoured Ceramite, that was always a well spent 20 points in 7th.
Armored Ceramite was always just for Melta though. Literally nothing else.
Yeah, I know. Just a thought. Maybe extra armour could ignore AP-2 or less and Armored Ceramite could stop melta from getting its bonus within half range again. Would probably be helpful with all the new melta rules.
yukishiro, you were asked a couple of pages back for a citation on the claim that MBTs in the Iraq War were taken out of commission by small arms fire, a claim which you were using to argue that lasguns hurting Land Raiders was, in fact, realistic.
Such a citation has yet to be forthcoming - please provide it, or concede that your point was groundless.
Because there are plenty of games out there where you actually need anti-tank weapons to take on tanks, and the guy who loads up on Panthers and Tigers is the guy who loses. You've already got a taste of this in 9th, with all-Knights lists being a pain in the ass to kill but trivially easy to beat on objectives.
A decent game has mitigating factors to reduce the impact of skew or, better yet, disincentivize it entirely. Old-40K had the FOC, but it also had other balancing elements as well. Every army had infantry that could take seriously dangerous grenades/meltabombs and viably kill tanks. Armor facings meant most vehicles were vulnerable to close assault and deep strike. Anti-tank weapons were significantly more threatening, and a single lascannon left on the board posed a serious threat to your vehicles. Target priority made focus-firing all the anti-tank weapons first much harder to do, and cover allowed infantry to become substantially durable against tank weapons. In HH, only infantry can actually score, so loading up on tanks without infantry to hold objectives is setting yourself up for a loss.
Historical wargames model armor's vulnerability in MOUT and terrain, making taking all-tanks suicide if you wind up in bocage or a city, and reinforce the concept of infantry holding ground by limiting the ability of armor to score. A Panther in a town square isn't an unassailable fortress that forces you to give up and repeat the words 'feeeels baaaad', it's a sitting duck for the squad's AT rifle grenades, the bazooka team moving up behind the buildings, the 3in gun hiding in some rubble, artillery support, air strikes, close assault with AT grenades, or ignoring entirely to go capture the objective while its transmission decides it's a day ending in 'Y' and breaks down. When you do successfully kill a tank, by using equipment you brought specifically to kill tanks, and employing effective anti-tank tactics, that is a feels good moment far beyond 'I'll just sit in cover and shoot the guns I brought anyways because anything works'.
In any remotely realistic game, tankers are fething terrified to operate without the support of infantry to scout ahead, clear out terrain, and provide close defense against enemy infantry. A skew list of all-tanks doesn't have to be explicitly prevented by the force organization system; it's inherently undesirable on a board with any sort of terrain. Core mechanics provide advantages and disadvantages to different unit types, and specialization/hard-counters means that an army of all scissors will lose to an army that's even a third rock. If the objective is in the middle of bocage, a Panzer company might as well give up before the game even starts.
The point being: The idea that the only way to prevent the game being dominated by vehicle skew lists is to ensure that anti-infantry weapons are still decently effective anti-tank is ridiculous, and anyone with experience with any of the systems that have directly addressed this problem knows this. There are so many ways to bring back specialization of weapons while simultaneously discouraging vehicle spam as a skew; with Knights we already have substantial evidence that making it difficult to score can be enough.
More of an aside, really, but after years of playing 40k, it's easy to forget that wargames can actually include meaningful tactical options.
H.B.M.C. wrote: You should need anti-tank weapons to deal with tanks. Period.
The fact of the matter is that right now the To Wound chart makes that unnecessary.
I think GW's idea is to change "Anti-tank weapons are needed to deal with thanks because anti-tank weapons have a high S to deal with the tank's high T/AV" to "Anti-tank weapons are needed to deal with thanks because anti-tank weapons have a high D to deal with the tank's high number of HP".
The new profile seems to confirm that this is how GW wants to make some weapons better at clearing lots of small dude (high number of shots, d1) and others good at taking down very resistant targets (low number of shots, high D)
Because there are plenty of games out there where you actually need anti-tank weapons to take on tanks, and the guy who loads up on Panthers and Tigers is the guy who loses. You've already got a taste of this in 9th, with all-Knights lists being a pain in the ass to kill but trivially easy to beat on objectives.
A decent game has mitigating factors to reduce the impact of skew or, better yet, disincentivize it entirely. Old-40K had the FOC, but it also had other balancing elements as well. Every army had infantry that could take seriously dangerous grenades/meltabombs and viably kill tanks. Armor facings meant most vehicles were vulnerable to close assault and deep strike. Anti-tank weapons were significantly more threatening, and a single lascannon left on the board posed a serious threat to your vehicles. Target priority made focus-firing all the anti-tank weapons first much harder to do, and cover allowed infantry to become substantially durable against tank weapons. In HH, only infantry can actually score, so loading up on tanks without infantry to hold objectives is setting yourself up for a loss.
Historical wargames model armor's vulnerability in MOUT and terrain, making taking all-tanks suicide if you wind up in bocage or a city, and reinforce the concept of infantry holding ground by limiting the ability of armor to score. A Panther in a town square isn't an unassailable fortress that forces you to give up and repeat the words 'feeeels baaaad', it's a sitting duck for the squad's AT rifle grenades, the bazooka team moving up behind the buildings, the 3in gun hiding in some rubble, artillery support, air strikes, close assault with AT grenades, or ignoring entirely to go capture the objective while its transmission decides it's a day ending in 'Y' and breaks down. When you do successfully kill a tank, by using equipment you brought specifically to kill tanks, and employing effective anti-tank tactics, that is a feels good moment far beyond 'I'll just sit in cover and shoot the guns I brought anyways because anything works'.
In any remotely realistic game, tankers are fething terrified to operate without the support of infantry to scout ahead, clear out terrain, and provide close defense against enemy infantry. A skew list of all-tanks doesn't have to be explicitly prevented by the force organization system; it's inherently undesirable on a board with any sort of terrain. Core mechanics provide advantages and disadvantages to different unit types, and specialization/hard-counters means that an army of all scissors will lose to an army that's even a third rock. If the objective is in the middle of bocage, a Panzer company might as well give up before the game even starts.
The point being: The idea that the only way to prevent the game being dominated by vehicle skew lists is to ensure that anti-infantry weapons are still decently effective anti-tank is ridiculous, and anyone with experience with any of the systems that have directly addressed this problem knows this. There are so many ways to bring back specialization of weapons while simultaneously discouraging vehicle spam as a skew; with Knights we already have substantial evidence that making it difficult to score can be enough.
More of an aside, really, but after years of playing 40k, it's easy to forget that wargames can actually include meaningful tactical options.
The sad thing, is the reason so much of that is stripped out of 40k is probably that half the factions are not supported well enough to be in a game like that. So much of it is windows dressing to make it seem far deeper than it is.
Its the Skyrim of Table top games, where every character slowly evolves into a stealth Archer
I am bemused by all the people saying "because str 4 could hit the rear, you should be able to hose down a tank with MG fire and win!"
This is moving the discussion to armor facings, but I find it immensely funny to read, because it implies that people see no difference between the front and rear of a tank. They've already accepted in their mind that tanks are just damage pinyatas.
Yes, bolters could kill a Russ (but not a Demolisher from any direction, remember that). That doesn't mean it was at all common, or that it excuses the 8th edition tradition of hosing down the front of a tank with a heavy Bolter or punisher cannon or whatever because "hey, always a chance amirite?"
EDIT:
also, I know we moved past Knights, but here is my proposed fix:
- make Knights use the normal FOC, and give them other unit types (household guard for infantry, tech priests and bonded laborers, lesser vehicles to cart gear and supplies and men around, etc).
Unit1126PLL wrote: I am bemused by all the people saying "because str 4 could hit the rear, you should be able to hose down a tank with MG fire and win!"
This is moving the discussion to armor facings, but I find it immensely funny to read, because it implies that people see no difference between the front and rear of a tank. They've already accepted in their mind that tanks are just damage pinyatas.
Yes, bolters could kill a Russ (but not a Demolisher from any direction, remember that). That doesn't mean it was at all common, or that it excuses the 8th edition tradition of hosing down the front of a tank with a heavy Bolter or punisher cannon or whatever because "hey, always a chance amirite?"
EDIT:
also, I know we moved past Knights, but here is my proposed fix:
- make Knights use the normal FOC, and give them other unit types (household guard for infantry, tech priests and bonded laborers, lesser vehicles to cart gear and supplies and men around, etc).
Wow I am genius game designer GW hire me
it'd be certainly a more interesting army to see on the table, dare i say, a more complete army.
I don't know why you are arguing agaisnt each other people.
An unified system like we have now, a separated wound system with AV and armor and tables for vehicles. All are viable options to make your wargame, and all can be made in the right way. An unified system is more RTS like, an armor system a more "simulation" one. Personally in 40k when you have grots facing warhound titans I believe a RTS unified one is just neccesary, but done rightly.
But this is GW. Whats the point of arguing about the virtues of one system over the other when we all know GW will make it heavely flawed?
(some RTS have armor classes where small arms can't hurt vehicles, e.g. Company of Heroes or Men of War or the Wargame:Whatever series or World in Conflict...
...actually I think more have some kind of 'invulnerable to x weapon' mechanic than ones that do not)
Unit1126PLL wrote: (some RTS have armor classes where small arms can't hurt vehicles, e.g. Company of Heroes or Men of War or the Wargame:Whatever series or World in Conflict...
...actually I think more have some kind of 'invulnerable to x weapon' mechanic than ones that do not)
isn't it not so much invulnerable but more akin to an armor penetration check?
Especialy COH 2 to my knowledge seems to function that way, but it is some time since i checked that game out...
Unit1126PLL wrote: (some RTS have armor classes where small arms can't hurt vehicles, e.g. Company of Heroes or Men of War or the Wargame:Whatever series or World in Conflict...
...actually I think more have some kind of 'invulnerable to x weapon' mechanic than ones that do not)
Yeah, those are actually some of the ones I was thinking that used more of a tactical/simulation system similar to old 40k, but they are, not in the minority but in general the most common way is having units just be health pools , maybe with armor and damage types to make things more effective against others (Even Warcraft 3 had that).
But as I said, both systems are functional. What isn't functional is GW using them.
Unit1126PLL wrote: (some RTS have armor classes where small arms can't hurt vehicles, e.g. Company of Heroes or Men of War or the Wargame:Whatever series or World in Conflict...
...actually I think more have some kind of 'invulnerable to x weapon' mechanic than ones that do not)
isn't it not so much invulnerable but more akin to an armor penetration check?
Especialy COH 2 to my knowledge seems to function that way, but it is some time since i checked that game out...
Well an armor penetration check naturally yields invulnerability to weapons that cannot penetrate armor...
Unit1126PLL wrote: (some RTS have armor classes where small arms can't hurt vehicles, e.g. Company of Heroes or Men of War or the Wargame:Whatever series or World in Conflict...
...actually I think more have some kind of 'invulnerable to x weapon' mechanic than ones that do not)
isn't it not so much invulnerable but more akin to an armor penetration check?
Especialy COH 2 to my knowledge seems to function that way, but it is some time since i checked that game out...
Well an armor penetration check naturally yields invulnerability to weapons that cannot penetrate armor...
Not necessarily, it just severly divides normal damage done to my knowledge, take a Kar98 f.e from COH2 doing i gues 30 damage? against a tank ot does about 2? maybee 10 if you manage to hit the rear.
You're not seriously saying that a "TAC list" = mid-strength, AP1-2, multishot weapons that are spammed as much as possible?
You should need anti-tank weapons to deal with tanks. Period.
The fact of the matter is that right now the To Wound chart makes that unnecessary.
Um, that quite literally is a TAC list under the current game mechanics. I mean you'd obviously want to include a little more than that - some infantry-focused stuff and some AT as well - but that's very much the core of a current TAC list. You obviously don't think it should be a TAC list, but it very much is.
Today I learned that a Take-All-Comers, TAC list, actually literally means any list that can take on any opponent, even if it leans hard into spamming one thing, and not one with a balanced composition.
I guess all-Knights lists and flyer spam are TAC now.
I mean if you can be TAC spamming one thing that doesnt mean that list is not TAC, it means is unbalanced because no single option should be viable agaisnt everything.
You're not seriously saying that a "TAC list" = mid-strength, AP1-2, multishot weapons that are spammed as much as possible?
You should need anti-tank weapons to deal with tanks. Period.
The fact of the matter is that right now the To Wound chart makes that unnecessary.
Um, that quite literally is a TAC list under the current game mechanics. I mean you'd obviously want to include a little more than that - some infantry-focused stuff and some AT as well - but that's very much the core of a current TAC list. You obviously don't think it should be a TAC list, but it very much is.
Today I learned that a Take-All-Comers, TAC list, actually literally means any list that can take on any opponent, even if it leans hard into spamming one thing, and not one with a balanced composition.
I guess all-Knights lists and flyer spam are TAC now.
imagine this, with cheaper arty and no Ro3 bandaid:
A list spamming heavy quadlaunchers, and wyverns, would be tac... because it can deal with everything...
To be fair to Yukishiro, TAC means something a bit different than what it says on the tin.
What it really means is a combined-arms army that utilizes a variety of tools which have synergy on both offense and defense due to variant strengths and weaknesses.
For example, an armored infantry assault supported by indirect fire and CAS employs 4 separate arms: Armor for maneuverability and survivability, CAS for destruction, indirect fire for suppression, and infantry for the "final few yards" assault that sweeps the suppressed, disorganized, and disoriented enemy and secures the area.
No army in modern 40k will look like that though while the infantry are more mobile than the tank (since you can't disembark after moving) and more survivable against the majority of enemy weapons than the tank (as proven earlier in the thread) and indirect fire serves purely a destructive purpose and is basically indistinguishable from CAS so there's really nothing to sweep when the infantry arrive....
Galas wrote: I mean if you can be TAC spamming one thing that doesnt mean that list is not TAC, it means is unbalanced because no single option should be viable agaisnt everything.
The way I've always heard 'TAC' was meant as a balanced list you could take to the local shop and play against any random person and have a fun time. Tournament players do not go soliciting feedback on their hard-skew 'TAC' lists.
Having the most optimal strategy be to spam one thing is normally considered a bad game state, actively detrimental to player agency and game depth, not something to be praised as the core of any decent TAC list.
On that note:
yukishiro1 wrote: Please stop wasting everyone's time with stupid straw men; it's a lazy and totally pointless way to argue. I did not say the only way to stop the game being dominated by vehicles was to allow anti-infantry weapons to be able to hurt tanks. I never said anything like that.
Seriously? You've spent the entire thread defending the idea of anti-infantry weapons hurting tanks, and portraying it as necessary to avoid skew lists further dominating the game.
"Boys are decent at killing T7 vehicles, though, whereas under the old chart they'd be totally ineffective."
"Skew lists are powerful enough already, there is no reason to make them even more powerful by making it actually impossible for people to hurt stuff if they come up against a bad skew."
"a heavy bolter SHOULD be able to harm a tank"
"I think infantry guns should be able to plink the odd wound off a tank for gameplay reasons"
These are all direct quotes from you, and you keep restating that if some weapons couldn't hurt tanks,
"more games won and lost at the list-building stage, more feel bad moments, and more people deserving to "get rolled" and "feel bad.""
How else is all that supposed to be interpreted? As far as I can see you make clear statements and then complain about being strawmanned when anyone responds directly to them.
So at this point if you're still insistent that not allowing any weapon to hurt tanks automatically means more vehicle skew dominating in the listbuilding stage and more 'feels bad' gameplay, really all I can say is go play any of the games where this isn't the case.
Also, you still haven't cited your claim about rifle fire taking out tanks in Iraq. You haven't explained what you meant about Orks vs Knights being fixed by the new wound system, either.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I am bemused by all the people saying "because str 4 could hit the rear, you should be able to hose down a tank with MG fire and win!"
This is moving the discussion to armor facings, but I find it immensely funny to read, because it implies that people see no difference between the front and rear of a tank. They've already accepted in their mind that tanks are just damage pinyatas.
Yes, bolters could kill a Russ (but not a Demolisher from any direction, remember that). That doesn't mean it was at all common, or that it excuses the 8th edition tradition of hosing down the front of a tank with a heavy Bolter or punisher cannon or whatever because "hey, always a chance amirite?"
EDIT:
also, I know we moved past Knights, but here is my proposed fix:
- make Knights use the normal FOC, and give them other unit types (household guard for infantry, tech priests and bonded laborers, lesser vehicles to cart gear and supplies and men around, etc).
Wow I am genius game designer GW hire me
It actually was pretty common To hit the rear armor. The combination of that, easy access to Haywire or Melta, and of course Grav created a situation where no vehicles had worth outside Knights. Quite frankly it was similar in 4th seeing as only Skimmers were relied on as vehicles.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I am bemused by all the people saying "because str 4 could hit the rear, you should be able to hose down a tank with MG fire and win!"
This is moving the discussion to armor facings, but I find it immensely funny to read, because it implies that people see no difference between the front and rear of a tank. They've already accepted in their mind that tanks are just damage pinyatas.
Yes, bolters could kill a Russ (but not a Demolisher from any direction, remember that). That doesn't mean it was at all common, or that it excuses the 8th edition tradition of hosing down the front of a tank with a heavy Bolter or punisher cannon or whatever because "hey, always a chance amirite?"
EDIT:
also, I know we moved past Knights, but here is my proposed fix:
- make Knights use the normal FOC, and give them other unit types (household guard for infantry, tech priests and bonded laborers, lesser vehicles to cart gear and supplies and men around, etc).
Wow I am genius game designer GW hire me
It actually was pretty common To hit the rear armor. The combination of that, easy access to Haywire or Melta, and of course Grav created a situation where no vehicles had worth outside Knights. Quite frankly it was similar in 4th seeing as only Skimmers were relied on as vehicles.
Your first sentence is hilarious considering Inquisitor Lord Katherine says Rear Armor never mattered in other threads. I'll let you two work out which is the truth.
The rest are all codex problems - as you rightly point out, it was access to certain weapons / the design of certain weapons, and has little to do with the contents of the core rules.
It actually was pretty common To hit the rear armor.
Close combat was always vs rear armor IIRC, unless the vehicle was a walker. I remember my orks fishing for glancing 6s all the time against Leman Russes using their S4 (on the charge) choppas.
Pretty much, i remember the first implementations of flyers, that was fun, when most armies lacked (and even to this day often lack) reliable AA or fighters.
Facings had the additional issue that they worked well on imperial tanks which were boxes, and were a pain to determine in everyone else that had a more round or organic figure.
Also it wasn't particularly realistic how the AV system mostly only cared about Strength, with AP only having an effect in edge cases. That's not how armor penetration works, energy density (which would be represented by AP) is far more important than the overall force (that would be represented by Strength).
Unit1126PLL wrote: depends on the edition. 4th, for example, meant you hit the armor facing you were actually standing in.
Even better, the rulebook text specifies you could only hit the side you were facing when the assault began even if there were to be some wrapping shenanigans
yukishiro1 wrote: It wasn't my definition of TAC, it was yours. I assumed that TAC meant TAC - you know, what it actually says. You want to instead mean something like "balanced army with lots of different types of stuff." Which is fine, it just seems weird to call it TAC when that's not what you mean.
If you want to ignore what I'm writing that's up to you I guess, but it seems like a waste of both of our time?
I already said above what I want. I want a game where the reason you take one type of weapon over another is because it does the task most efficiently, not because it's the only way to accomplish that task. Dedicated anti-tank should be worth taking because it is the best way to kill a tank, not because it's the only way.
"But not the only way" doesn't mean assault rifles have to be capable of damaging tanks.
For example, in some older editions infantry always hit the rear armor of vehicles, and each infantry model could use a grenade. Frag grenades counted as S4, so even Guardsmen with Frag Grenades could run up on a vehicle, plant Frags in vital areas, and damage/take out the vehicles.
To me, that's WAAYY better than assault rifles being capable of meaningfully hurting a tank.
Boy if you think it's acceptable that S4 Frags were able to do damage wait until you hear the strength value of Bolters and Flamers.
Perhaps you don't recall that a Bolter couldn't even scratch a Rhino from 80% of it's facings. But perhaps you do and are just grasping at straws with an irrelevant point.
Tyran wrote: Facings had the additional issue that they worked well on imperial tanks which were boxes, and were a pain to determine in everyone else that had a more round or organic figure.
Also it wasn't particularly realistic how the AV system mostly only cared about Strength, with AP only having an effect in edge cases. That's not how armor penetration works, energy density (which would be represented by AP) is far more important than the overall force (that would be represented by Strength).
The Flames of War system for armor facings- front v rear, defined by a line drawn across the front of the vehicle- is a much more elegant means of determining armor facing than the often subject to disagreement 90-degree arcs.
I always thought it would have been more logical to use an AP-based system to determine armor penetration, then have Strength influence the severity of the hit. A low-S high-AP weapon would be something like a high-velocity low-caliber round that is likely to get through the armor but not inflict much damage, while a high-S low-AP weapon would be something like a howitzer that has difficulty penetrating armor, but is incredibly destructive once it gets through. The disconnect between AP and rolling to penetrate armor was an odd choice for sure.
Imagine a world in which facings were "Bespoke" - I mean everyone agrees USRs are hated. But you could simply print a top-down image of the vehicle model on the datasheet, highlight points on the hull in different colors, and say "the orange part is armor 12, the grey part is 10, and the blue part is 8" or whatever you want.
Then your core rules say "models fire at the closest point on the target model" and you can correspond to that point on the datasheet and voila.
That also moves the awkwardness of Front, Side, and Rear for vehicles with odd shapes, and also allows for two sides to be different (e.g. in the case of the valdor, where one side is conventionally armored for an Imperial vehicle but the other literally has a reactor sticking out).
The actual details of the damage mechanic remain (e.g. maybe strength is used for damage dealt and AP is used to determine penetration, as above).
Can you imagine the tedium in a game like modern 40k where somebody can bring 12 tanks? Just figuring out where each one was being hit by what would take you 20 minutes every shooting phase. The arguments about "no, only 3 of your guys can hit my side armor! no, 5 can, these two are .01mm closer to the side than the front!" etc etc.
There are wargames that will give you that kind of hardcore simulation, but 40k has very clearly moved away from it, so I doubt you're going to see them moving back to that.
Today I learned that a Take-All-Comers, TAC list, actually literally means any list that can take on any opponent, even if it leans hard into spamming one thing, and not one with a balanced composition.
I guess all-Knights lists and flyer spam are TAC now.
Uh yes, you learned that a "take all comers" list means a list that can take all comers.
I'm glad you could learn something today, though it probably shouldn't have been too much of a surprise, given it is literally just what the words mean.
If you mean "a list with lots of different types of units and weapons, nothing to do with whether it can take all comers" you should probably come up with some new terminology because why are you calling something take all comers if its ability to take all comers is irrelevant to being a, well, take all comers list?
An all-knights list could in theory be a TAC list, as could a flyer list, assuming there were ways to take those armies that actually can take all comers. Though I don't think you can make a good TAC list in 9th with either, and you certainly can't with only flyers.
yukishiro1 wrote: Please stop wasting everyone's time with stupid straw men; it's a lazy and totally pointless way to argue. I did not say the only way to stop the game being dominated by vehicles was to allow anti-infantry weapons to be able to hurt tanks. I never said anything like that.
Seriously? You've spent the entire thread defending the idea of anti-infantry weapons hurting tanks, and portraying it as necessary to avoid skew lists further dominating the game.
You're highlighting the wrong part of your own straw man. You can tell because I even told you what part of it was the straw man; I re-highlighted it for you. If anti-infantry weapons couldn't hurt tanks, tank-heavy lists wouldn't automatically dominate the game; you would just need to take a large amount of AT weapons in every list to avoid the auto-loss you would otherwise get if you came up against one. If anything, it might actually make heavy vehicle lists less effective competitively, because literally everyone would *have* to build in tons of AT weapons to their list, so then taking a list that *doesn't* have good targets for the AT results in greater efficiency gain than actually going vehicle-heavy. The reason I think it's bad design is not because it would make vehicles dominate the game, but because it would remove flexibility from list construction by forcing every single list to go heavy into specialized AT weapons no matter what to avoid the possibility of the auto-loss. I don't think the game is better by forcing everyone to take 20 Lascannon equivalents in every army because nothing but that kind of weapon can hurt a tank and you auto lose against a tank-only army if you don't do that.
Please read what I'm writing, it's so tedious to have to constantly point out how you're distorting what I wrote.
yukishiro1 wrote: Can you imagine the tedium in a game like modern 40k where somebody can bring 12 tanks? Just figuring out where each one was being hit by what would take you 20 minutes every shooting phase. The arguments about "no, only 3 of your guys can hit my side armor! no, 5 can, these two are .01mm closer to the side than the front!" etc etc.
No need to imagine, because those games exist, and it's not actually a problem in real life. The games of Heresy I've played (with lots of tanks, to be clear) have gone faster than 40K. Lack of rerolls dramatically outweighs the (minimal) time requirement to work out facing. In Flames of War you can have 40+ vehicles on the board and spend no measurable time at all assessing facing.
Honestly, you really would be a lot better off if you had game experience outside 40K to refer to. That's not a jab, I'm serious. 40K alone provides a very limited perspective on game design.
yukishiro1 wrote: Uh yes, you learned that a "take all comers" list means a list that can take all comers.
I have learned that you don't subscribe to the commonly-understood meaning of a 'take all comers' list.
Also that you complain about weapon specialization promoting skew lists and constraining listbuilding, but then praise the idea of every army being pushed to spam the same mid-strength weapons to be most effective.
yukishiro1 wrote: Can you imagine the tedium in a game like modern 40k where somebody can bring 12 tanks? Just figuring out where each one was being hit by what would take you 20 minutes every shooting phase. The arguments about "no, only 3 of your guys can hit my side armor! no, 5 can, these two are .01mm closer to the side than the front!" etc etc.
Games still exist that do this, and 40k used to do this, and everything was fine. I suggest you give 30k a shot sometime - or perhaps something entirely different, like Bolt Action, which also has vehicle facings - in fact, at the 1:1 miniatures level (where 1 miniature = 1 man/tank/whatever) I'm hard pressed to think of a system that doesn't have armor facings, except 40k and AOS. (if they include tanks at all)
yukishiro1 wrote: There are wargames that will give you that kind of hardcore simulation, but 40k has very clearly moved away from it, so I doubt you're going to see them moving back to that.
that doesn't mean that those of us who enjoyed it cannot offer constructive criticism or discussion points about the game. In fact, it's all the more reason to get loud about it.
Also that you complain about weapon specialization promoting skew lists and constraining listbuilding, but then praise the idea of every army being pushed to spam the same mid-strength weapons to be most effective.
I didn't praise that idea. I have specifically, multiple times in this thread, said I think that mid-S weapons are too efficient right now and I would like to see steps taken to address that. This is the third or fourth time in a row you've straw manned what I said. Up until now I've politely asked you to stop doing it, but that obviously isn't working, so I don't think there's much point in continuing to talk with someone who is obviously either unwilling or incapable of actually reading what I write. There's just no point in talking with someone who insists on changing everything you say into something that's easier for them to knock down. It's not even a real conversation.
yukishiro1 wrote: Can you imagine the tedium in a game like modern 40k where somebody can bring 12 tanks? Just figuring out where each one was being hit by what would take you 20 minutes every shooting phase. The arguments about "no, only 3 of your guys can hit my side armor! no, 5 can, these two are .01mm closer to the side than the front!" etc etc.
Games still exist that do this, and 40k used to do this, and everything was fine. I suggest you give 30k a shot sometime - or perhaps something entirely different, like Bolt Action, which also has vehicle facings - in fact, at the 1:1 miniatures level (where 1 miniature = 1 man/tank/whatever) I'm hard pressed to think of a system that doesn't have armor facings, except 40k and AOS. (if they include tanks at all)
yukishiro1 wrote: There are wargames that will give you that kind of hardcore simulation, but 40k has very clearly moved away from it, so I doubt you're going to see them moving back to that.
that doesn't mean that those of us who enjoyed it cannot offer constructive criticism or discussion points about the game. In fact, it's all the more reason to get loud about it.
Of course games still exist that do it. That was my point. If you like those games, shouldn't you be the one that plays those games, rather than me? It seems weird to tell me to play the game system I don't like because you like it and want to make this game into the same system.
40k has gone in a very different direction. You may not like it, and you're certainly willing to express your opinion. But I think it'd be more useful to focus on things you have an actual chance of changing. AV isn't coming back. We just had a new edition and it isn't back. At a bare minimum, you're looking at 3+ years until you could have AV come back - and I think we both know it won't then, either. But either way, you have absolutely zero chance of getting AV back in the next 3 years, just like there is absolutely zero chance of bringing back the old wounding chart for the next 3+ years. So it would probably make more sense to talk about ways to make the game play better within the current system, wouldn't it?
We all seem to agree that mid-S, high volume of fire weapons are too efficient right now. So why not talk about solutions to that that are actually possible, instead of fighting over windmills?
yukishiro1 wrote: You're highlighting the wrong part of your own straw man. You can tell because I even told you what part of it was the straw man; I re-highlighted it for you. If anti-infantry weapons couldn't hurt tanks, tank-heavy lists wouldn't automatically dominate the game; you would just need to take a large amount of AT weapons in every list to avoid the auto-loss you would otherwise get if you came up against one. If anything, it might actually make heavy vehicle lists less effective competitively, because literally everyone would *have* to build in tons of AT weapons to their list, so then taking a list that *doesn't* have good targets for the AT results in greater efficiency gain than actually going vehicle-heavy. The reason I think it's bad design is not because it would make vehicles dominate the game, but because it would remove flexibility from list construction by forcing every single list to go heavy into specialized AT weapons no matter what to avoid the possibility of the auto-loss. I don't think the game is better by forcing everyone to take 20 Lascannon equivalents in every army because nothing but that kind of weapon can hurt a tank and you auto lose against a tank-only army if you don't do that.
Thank you for finally, clearly stating that position. Seriously, I have not been trying to straw man you; but you keep posting these quips about 'feels bad' and players deserving to 'get rolled' and seemingly get upset that I'm responding to what it looks like you're saying and not what was actually in your head. Judging by the other replies I am clearly not the only one having this problem.
Here's the thing: Your imagined scenario already existed, in the form of Knights in 8th. Every tournament list in 8th had to have enough anti-tank for the gatekeeper all-Knights list. The problem was that the current wounding system does not allow for non-anti-tank weapons to contribute meaningfully to anti-vehicle and obviate the need for massed anti-tank; it lets anti-infantry weapons chip in a bit, but you still need large numbers of lascannons, meltas, lances, or other weapons suitable for anti-tank duty. In turn, this did create a niche for horde spam lists that could take advantage of their opponents having brought a bunch of anti-tank.
In fact, in some ways it's worse than previous editions of 40K- my infantry were far more dangerous to tanks by being able to plant grenades on rear armor than they are now where at best they fish for 6s on their rifles. I have no choice but to take heavy weapon platforms, because I can't count on a unit of Scions one-shotting a Land Raider with a meltabomb, or a unit of Genestealers tearing through a Russ in one go. A unit of Veterans with three Meltaguns popping out of a Chimera used to be a death sentence to any tank they got near; now they struggle to even bracket a single tank in one volley.
Making anti-infantry weapons less effective against tanks, and anti-tank weapons more effective (that's the key to this; I haven't seen anyone here argue that tanks should be less vulnerable to infantry with no other changes), doesn't constrain listbuilding more than the current paradigm does. If you brought all anti-infantry weapons against tanks or Knights you would lose. If you brought all anti-infantry weapons against tanks or Knights in 8th you lost anyways. Flattened weapon performance doesn't unlock more options in listbuilding; it means you have to spam more anti-tank weapons, because a single lascannon inflicting D6 damage isn't scary anymore to a Knight rocking a 4+ invuln and 24+ wounds.
The Knight skew existed because weapons that should be effective anti-Knight weapons don't hard-counter them enough to overcome the skew- spamming Scissors is viable if it can beat a 'normal' army's allocation of Rock. This is reason to have more divergent profiles and counters baked into the game, not further homogenization of unit and weapon profiles to make armies functionally identical.
How does the game curtail Knight spam in 9th? Simple- it doesn't make them more vulnerable or less powerful (more the opposite, actually, given that they now have plenty of CP without souping); it uses missions where the inability of Knights to hold terrain or deal with mass numbers of infantry represents a tactical weakness that loses games, irrespective of whether or not they survive or how much damage they deal. The tactical inability for vehicles to hold terrain is a real-world maxim that, translated into 40K, puts a limiter on the ability of vehicle skew lists to win missions.
Again, I think you would really benefit from seeing how historical wargames handle this, because there are real incentives to combined arms in real life that carry over into well-researched games. It doesn't even have to be WW2; something like pike-and-shot or Napoleonic will show you what happens when a glitzy army of all cavalry runs into pike or bayonet squares. Skew arises when a specialized army is just as capable of playing the game as a 'well-rounded' one while simultaneously minimizing its vulnerabilities; addressing the latter is one way to address it but far from the only way. Any decently-written wargame will ensure that skew lists suffer tradeoffs for not taking a mix of capabilities.
yukishiro1 wrote: Of course games still exist that do it. That was my point. If you like those games, shouldn't you be the one that plays those games, rather than me? It seems weird to tell me to play the game system I don't like because you like it and want to make this game into the same system.
I do play those games, but I also like 40k and have spent more money on 40k than it is safe to publicly admit. And what I'm trying to understand is:
Why don't you like a system with greater realism? Why does "my AK-47s can spray down Challenger II tanks from the front" make it a better system?
yukishiro1 wrote: 40k has gone in a very different direction. You may not like it, and you're certainly willing to express your opinion. But I think it'd be more useful to focus on things you have an actual chance of changing. AV isn't coming back. We just had a new edition and it isn't back. At a bare minimum, you're looking at 3+ years until you could have AV come back - and I think we both know it won't then, either. But either way, you have absolutely zero chance of getting AV back in the next 3 years, just like there is absolutely zero chance of bringing back the old wounding chart for the next 3+ years. So it would probably make more sense to talk about ways to make the game play better within the current system, wouldn't it?
We all seem to agree that mid-S, high volume of fire weapons are too efficient right now. So why not talk about solutions to that that are actually possible, instead of fighting over windmills?
Because the Proposed Rules system is for talking about actual proposed rules, while this forum lends itself more to philosophy and conceptual discussion. As for it never coming back? Never is a long time, my friend.
Insectum7 wrote: "But not the only way" doesn't mean assault rifles have to be capable of damaging tanks.
For example, in some older editions infantry always hit the rear armor of vehicles, and each infantry model could use a grenade. Frag grenades counted as S4, so even Guardsmen with Frag Grenades could run up on a vehicle, plant Frags in vital areas, and damage/take out the vehicles.
To me, that's WAAYY better than assault rifles being capable of meaningfully hurting a tank.
Like I said, if you want to go back to AV, make your pitch to GW. I think you'll get absolutely nowhere, but go for it if you want.
Going back to the old wound charge wouldn't accomplish what you say you want to accomplish.
Ok, so you're just ducking out of the conversation then. K thx bye!
yukishiro1 wrote: I'm not ducking out of anything, I'm literally quoting what you wrote and responding to it. You said it was better back when we had AV so infantry could hurt vehicles what way. Going back to the old wound chart wouldn't allow infantry to hurt vehicles that way because, well, you wouldn't have AV, which was the basis of what you said. It was a completely logical and on-topic response, as far from "ducking" as you could get. And I'm not the one who said he was ignoring what the other person said, btw.
But if you don't want to talk that's certainly up to you. If you're not having a good time talking, you shouldn't talk.
No, you're not responding at all to the idea that there are potentially other ways of dealing with high AV targets than firing assault rifles at them. You've said that having ways to engage armor beyond dedicated anti-tank weaponry is necessary, and I just gave you an alternative to the current paradigm. And you're like: "nu uhhh, maaann. Take it to GW!" Which is the opposite of constructive. So if you're not going to be willing to engage in alternatives that address the issues you've stated, you're not here in good faith.
So the question is: Are you open to other anti-tank options if common weapons lose the ability to engage armor? Is that a potential solution for you?
I do play those games, but I also like 40k and have spent more money on 40k than it is safe to publicly admit. And what I'm trying to understand is:
Why don't you like a system with greater realism? Why does "my AK-47s can spray down Challenger II tanks from the front" make it a better system?
It kinda is the wrong focus regarding 40k. I mean, there aren't such things like AK-47s and Challengers. There are lasguns and leman russes (with the latter being so badly designed that a lucky hit from a lasgun may actually do stuff).
In an historical game, realism matter as you are simulating historical, real battles. But 40k isn't an historical wargame, I mean it has giant monsters and guys with swords, daemons and psychic powers. Realism has never been an objective here.
But see that's just not true. You could beat knight or tank-heavy armies in 8th without a ton of dedicated AT, and that was specifically because of the flattened wound table (typically combined with modifiers and/or rerolls). Tons of lists were based on this. Think Eldar lists with starcannons and doom; a doomed knight will absolutely go down to starcannon fire.
I had a primarily TSons list that killed knights with rubrics; the list had the ability to summon in a poxbringer that could debuff toughness, and rubrics firing at a T7 target absolutely shred it with vets up, especially if death hex goes off too. Once ritual of the damned came out, my 20 man rubric block could solo a knight in one round of shooting.
That's probably exactly the sort of list you disagree with, and would insist is not a TAC list, even though it literally was a TAC list, just build in a creative way you don't seem to want to recognize because it doesn't boast tons of lascannon equivalents. But it's a concrete example of how a flattened wound chart creates the opportunity to build literal, actual take-all-comers lists in a variety of creative ways.
I do play those games, but I also like 40k and have spent more money on 40k than it is safe to publicly admit. And what I'm trying to understand is:
Why don't you like a system with greater realism? Why does "my AK-47s can spray down Challenger II tanks from the front" make it a better system?
It kinda is the wrong focus regarding 40k. I mean, there aren't such things like AK-47s and Challengers. There are lasguns and leman russes (with the latter being so badly designed that a lucky hit from a lasgun may actually do stuff).
In an historical game, realism matter as you are simulating historical, real battles. But 40k isn't an historical wargame, I mean it has giant monsters and guys with swords, daemons and psychic powers. Realism has never been an objective here.
You can have all sorts of fantastical elements but still treat them with varying degrees of realism, and more 'realism' seems to have been more of an objective of design in some past editions.
yukishiro1 wrote: Of course games still exist that do it. That was my point. If you like those games, shouldn't you be the one that plays those games, rather than me? It seems weird to tell me to play the game system I don't like because you like it and want to make this game into the same system.
I do play those games, but I also like 40k and have spent more money on 40k than it is safe to publicly admit. And what I'm trying to understand is:
Why don't you like a system with greater realism? Why does "my AK-47s can spray down Challenger II tanks from the front" make it a better system?
Because 40k is a game about crazy fascist spacemen fighting spikey chaos-worshippers or fungus people or psychic sorcerers who bend reality to their mind and can blow holes through vehicles with brain pewpew.
I want a game where the focus is on strategy, not on fighting over whether it's 4 of my guys or 5 that can hit your back armor with my psychically enhanced guns that fire explosive shells that you think should never be able to damage a WW-2 style tank because it isn't realistic. If you want to play a realistic wargame, play a realistic wargame. 40k has never been that; it was not that even when it had AV. It never will be that. There are games for that itch if you want to scratch it.
Nothing about 40k is realistic. The setting is a tongue-in-cheek caricature. The stories are ridiculous. It's all about drama and having a laugh with your mates. It just seems such a weird hill to die on to insist that it's a massive problem with 40k that a lasgun can plink a wound off a tank when you have space bugs blowing holes in said tank with their brains while giant humanoid fungus creatures beat you to death with their own arms that you've shot off.
If 40k had never had AV values and had always used the "new" wound chart this wouldn't be a hill you're dying on. This is less about realism and more about not liking a change the game made. Which is fine - you're totally entitled to not like a change. But it was made 3 years ago, and deliberately not changed in the new edition that just came out. So it's not a change that's going away. You're welcome to continue to express disagreement with it, don't get me wrong, but you're not going to get your old 40k with AV and vehicles invulnerable to bolter fire back.
yukishiro1 wrote: Of course games still exist that do it. That was my point. If you like those games, shouldn't you be the one that plays those games, rather than me? It seems weird to tell me to play the game system I don't like because you like it and want to make this game into the same system.
I do play those games, but I also like 40k and have spent more money on 40k than it is safe to publicly admit. And what I'm trying to understand is:
Why don't you like a system with greater realism? Why does "my AK-47s can spray down Challenger II tanks from the front" make it a better system?
Because 40k is a game about crazy fascist spacemen fighting spikey chaos-worshippers or fungus people or psychic sorcerers who bend reality to their mind and can blow holes through vehicles with brain pewpew.
I want a game where the focus is on strategy, not on fighting over whether it's 4 of my guys or 5 that can hit your back armor with my psychically enhanced guns that fire explosive shells that you think should never be able to damage a WW-2 style tank because it isn't realistic. If you want to play a realistic wargame, play a realistic wargame. 40k has never been that; it was not that even when it had AV. It never will be that. There are games for that itch if you want to scratch it.
Nothing about 40k is realistic. The setting is a tongue-in-cheek caricature. The stories are ridiculous. It's all about drama and having a laugh with your mates. It just seems such a weird hill to die on to insist that it's a massive problem with 40k that a lasgun can plink a wound off a tank when you have space bugs blowing holes in said tank with their brains while giant humanoid fungus creatures beat you to death with their own arms that you've shot off.
Having hard limits to weapon capability, and having vehicle rules that encourage flanking, are also ways to bring more focus on strategy.
That's a bait and switch, both of you that replied to me.
I am not talking about "realism" in the REAL LIFE sense. I am talking about realism in 40k's background, as I've said more than once (though to be fair in other threads).
Other posters have used verisimilitude, which is fine I suppose. Maybe I should've used that, but to sum up:
The game has a setting. The setting needs to be consistent. If the setting says small arms can damage tanks, then so be it - tanks will be removed from the setting, since they no longer serve a purpose (restoring mobility to an extra-lethal battlefield by being armored against that lethality). But tanks do exist, and in the novels, are never concerned with the small arms that the enemy has, whether Baneblade, Predator, Russ, or Wave Serpent.
So accepting that the setting includes these elements, then we return to the idea that the game should reflect the setting. Do you disagree? Because fundamentally, that's what you're doing. Disagreeing with the basic idea that gameplay should reflect the setting.
The "AK-47 vs Challenger II" example is exactly applicable, because it's exactly that sort of "modern-but-future" feel 40k goes for. We could do MP40 vs Sherman if you wanted, or M1 Garand against King Tiger, or we could leap somewhere in the middle and do AK-47 versus Chieftain or something. The fundamental distinction is "weapon vs. thing that wouldn't exist if it couldn't repel weapon firepower of that type"
Insectum7 wrote: You can have all sorts of fantastical elements but still treat them with varying degrees of realism, and more 'realism' seems to have been more of an objective of design in some past editions.
Not really, the AV system was unrealistic because that isn't how armor penetration works, and the melee system has never been realistic, soldiers don't drop their weapons because their enemy managed to get close to them, and fire support can be very willing to blow up the enemy even if it takes their unlucky comrades with it, specially with the lore elements we are working here.
And the differences between vehicles and monsters break down once you consider the lore, Tyranid monsters were described as being living tanks with comparable armor and yet they had an entirely different system which did not favor them: vehicles were immune to lasguns, but my monsters weren't, also my monsters could be tied in melee unlike tanks. So much for following the lore.
And of course the great offenders was how Space Marines were on the tabletop and how they are in the lore, exemplified by the "Movie Marines".
yukishiro1 wrote: But see that's just not true. You could beat knight or tank-heavy armies in 8th without a ton of dedicated AT, and that was specifically because of the flattened wound table (typically combined with modifiers and/or rerolls). Tons of lists were based on this. Think Eldar lists with starcannons and doom; a doomed knight will absolutely go down to starcannon fire.
I had a primarily TSons list that killed knights with rubrics; the list had the ability to summon in a poxbringer that could debuff toughness, and rubrics firing at a T7 target absolutely shred it with vets up, especially if death hex goes off too. Once ritual of the damned came out, my 20 man rubric block could solo a knight in one round of shooting.
Sure, but you had to build in those specific gimmicks (Doom, poxbringer, VotLW, death hex) into your list in order to be effective at anti-tank. Those constrain your listbuilding just as surely as needing to bring anti-tank weapons does. What about the TSons player who actually wants to play pure Tzeentch and doesn't want to soup in Nurgle? What about the Eldar player who doesn't want to spam flyers with Starcannons, or rely on Doom as the lynchpin of their anti-tank ability? Or the Guard player who wants to play an infantry force and doesn't even have ways to make his mid-level weapons effective at anti-tank?
On the flipside, why wouldn't those force-multipliers allow an army to get away with fewer dedicated anti-tank weapons? If Bright Lances were scary again, combining a couple them with Doom would let you achieve your requisite anti-tank support without having to fill your army with any specific weapon. Fire Dragons with appropriately scary melta would be a credible threat. Veterans of the Lost War works on Havocs, and with split fire a single unit with multiple lascannons could be a serious threat to multiple vehicles simultaneously. The force-multipliers that you describe to allow non-anti-tank weapons to perform anti-tank duty could instead be enabling a smaller number of dedicated anti-tank weapons to do their job better, and free up the rest of the army for other things.
Beyond those possibilities, I would argue that it is absolutely a 'feels bad' moment when stacking abstract wombo combos allows riflemen to blow up Knights like you describe your Rubrics doing. It's the same deal with Imperial Fists and Stalker Bolt Rifles being effective tank-killers in Devastator doctrine.
Insectum7 wrote: Having hard limits to weapon capability, and having vehicle rules that encourage flanking, are also ways to bring more focus on strategy.
Sure. I'm not saying it isn't. And if you want to play a game based on that sort of strategy, play a game based on that sort of strategy. There are plenty out there.
But it's not the sort of strategy game I want to play, nor is apparently the sort of strategy game GW wants 40k to be any more. They've gone in a fundamentally different direction, not just in 8th but further in 9th, with a host of changes that both (1) open up design space to bring the kind of army you want to bring, and (2) de-emphasize the importance of minute maneuvering generally. It's very clear GW sees the game not as a simulation but a strategy game.
It happens to be a direction I like and one you don't like, and you're welcome to say that. If enough people thought like you, GW might even change their mind. But they don't, and GW isn't going to change its mind, just like you're not going to convince me that I should prefer a simulation wargame to a strategy wargame.
Insectum7 wrote: You can have all sorts of fantastical elements but still treat them with varying degrees of realism, and more 'realism' seems to have been more of an objective of design in some past editions.
Not really, the AV system was unrealistic because that isn't how armor penetration works . . .
I'll stop you right there. Are you telling me that it's common for professional soldiers to spray and pray at heavily armored vehicles? Because in previous 40K editions you basically never did that, but in the current system it's done all the time. Which is more 'realistic' to you?
Now now, depending on health of the local community he might not have any other alternative then 40k as a TG.
Also it doesn't help that alternatives, that are less, let's say bound to locality aka videogames haven't really been up to snuff alot of time in regards to RTS.
On the flipside, why wouldn't those force-multipliers allow an army to get away with fewer dedicated anti-tank weapons? If Bright Lances were scary again, combining a couple them with Doom would let you achieve your requisite anti-tank support without having to fill your army with any specific weapon. Fire Dragons with appropriately scary melta would be a credible threat. Veterans of the Lost War works on Havocs, and with split fire a single unit with multiple lascannons could be a serious threat to multiple vehicles simultaneously. The force-multipliers that you describe to allow non-anti-tank weapons to perform anti-tank duty could instead be enabling a smaller number of dedicated anti-tank weapons to do their job better, and free up the rest of the army for other things.
Beyond those possibilities, I would argue that it is absolutely a 'feels bad' moment when stacking abstract wombo combos allows riflemen to blow up Knights like you describe your Rubrics doing. It's the same deal with Imperial Fists and Stalker Bolt Rifles being effective tank-killers in Devastator doctrine.
Of course you could do those things. That's the whole point. The wound chart compression gives you options to do many different things. You could do all those things in 8th. If they weren't optimal it was because of problems with the design of those elements, not because my rubrics had a creative way to deal with knights too. Your argument is that it's a problem that there are multiple ways to do something and that the only option for dealing with tanks should be dedicated AT weapons. That's an argument you can make, but it's absolutely not an argument in favor of greater flexibility in building lists.
It's not true that I had to build my list that way. I could have taken AT weapons instead. If the AT option was underpowered, the solution is to fix that, not remove my ability to find other ways to get to the same place.
You consider death hex and psychically enhanced guns and psychically debuffed enemies a "gimmick" and an "abstract wombo-combo" while loading up on tons of lascannons is a "strategy." But that's just your own biases talking. Maybe death hex and psychically enhanced weapons and psychically debuffed armor is the strategy for a faction based around psychic power, and spamming lascannons is the gimmick. Who's to say? Why do you feel entitled to brand my list a gimmick while your list that just brute forces vehicles with AT is the right way to play the game?
I want to have a game where people can make tons of different builds work using the full flexibility accorded by the game mechanics. You seem to want a game where everyone has to build similar lists that take enough of what you consider to be mandatory in order not to get stomped because builds you don't like are "gimmicks." You're welcome to that opinion, but it's not one I share, and it relies on a subjective determination as to what is a gimmick and what isn't that not everyone shares.
I'll stop you right there. Are you telling me that it's common for professional soldiers to spray and pray at heavily armored vehicles? Because in previous 40K editions you basically never did that, but in the current system it's done all the time. Which is more 'realistic' to you?
Nice strawman, I stated that the AV system wasn't realistic, I never made a comparison with the current system.
Insectum7 wrote: Having hard limits to weapon capability, and having vehicle rules that encourage flanking, are also ways to bring more focus on strategy.
Sure. I'm not saying it isn't. And if you want to play a game based on that sort of strategy, play a game based on that sort of strategy. There are plenty out there.
But it's not the sort of strategy game I want to play, nor is apparently the sort of strategy game GW wants 40k to be any more. They've gone in a fundamentally different direction, not just in 8th but further in 9th, with a host of changes that both (1) open up design space to bring the kind of army you want to bring, and (2) de-emphasize the importance of minute maneuvering generally. It's very clear GW sees the game not as a simulation but a strategy game.
It happens to be a direction I like and one you don't like, and you're welcome to say that. If enough people thought like you, GW might even change their mind. But they don't, and GW isn't going to change its mind, just like you're not going to convince me that I should prefer a simulation wargame to a strategy wargame.
Your preferences are all well and good. But then don't say that:
I want a game where the focus is on strategy, not on fighting over whether it's 4 of my guys or 5 that can hit your back armor with my psychically enhanced guns that fire explosive shells that you think should never be able to damage a WW-2 style tank because it isn't realistic. If you want to play a realistic wargame, play a realistic wargame. 40k has never been that; it was not that even when it had AV. It never will be that. There are games for that itch if you want to scratch it.
Nothing about 40k is realistic. The setting is a tongue-in-cheek caricature. The stories are ridiculous. It's all about drama and having a laugh with your mates. It just seems such a weird hill to die on to insist that it's a massive problem with 40k that a lasgun can plink a wound off a tank when you have space bugs blowing holes in said tank with their brains while giant humanoid fungus creatures beat you to death with their own arms that you've shot off.
Because 40K obviously had more elements like that at one time. And you can't say that you want a focus on strategy but expect nobody to bring up the fact that you can't even flank a vehicle anymore.
In fact it seems like you're saying that 40 has never been realistic, but also saying that the mechanics of prior 40K were more realistic, at the same time.
I'll stop you right there. Are you telling me that it's common for professional soldiers to spray and pray at heavily armored vehicles? Because in previous 40K editions you basically never did that, but in the current system it's done all the time. Which is more 'realistic' to you?
Nice strawman, I stated that the AV system wasn't realistic, I never made a comparison with the current system.
The whole discussion has been driven by comparing the two. Which do you think is more realistic? Or why do you prefer one over the other?
Insectum7 wrote: The whole discussion has been driven by comparing the two. Which do you think is more realistic? Or why do you prefer one over the other?
I dislike any system that arbitrarily has completely different mechanics. I could accept a return to the old wound chart and bespoken armor facings using Save values (2+ save on front, 3+ on sides, 4+ back or something like that), but I would prefer if the old AV system stays dead.
In fact it seems like you're saying that 40 has never been realistic, but also saying that the mechanics of prior 40K were more realistic, at the same time.
That's exactly what I'm saying. There's nothing contradictory about that. 40k has never been a realistic simulation-based wargame, and it's moved further and further from that over the years. They took out AV precisely because they didn't want that level of simulation in the game any more, they thought it was at odds with what they wanted the game to be. It's not like they just did pin the tail on the donkey and decided to get rid of AV because that's where the dart landed.
40k has been moving for a long time towards broader strategic considerations and away from "your dude is 1mm in this direction so you can hit my tank's back armor and blow me up rather than 1mm in that direction so my tank is completely invulnerable." It's fine that you don't like it. But you're not going to convince people who do like it by saying the game should be more simulation-based and talking about realism. Especially when as modeled it's clear that the tanks that do exist in 40k do have all sorts of vulnerabilities that small arms fire actually could realistically damage, because then the "realism" argument isn't even right.
In fact it seems like you're saying that 40 has never been realistic, but also saying that the mechanics of prior 40K were more realistic, at the same time.
That's exactly what I'm saying. There's nothing contradictory about that. 40k has never been a realistic simulation-based wargame,
When we describe the benefits of that system. You say:
A: It's not realistic
B: It's more realistic but 40K isn't meant to be realistic
C: Despite having been more realistic in the past, 40K has never been realistic.
yukishiro1 wrote: and it's moved further and further from that over the years. They took out AV precisely because they didn't want that level of simulation in the game any more, they thought it was at odds with what they wanted the game to be. It's not like they just did pin the tail on the donkey and decided to get rid of AV because that's where the dart landed.
40k has been moving for a long time towards broader strategic considerations and away from "your dude is 1mm in this direction so you can hit my tank's back armor and blow me up rather than 1mm in that direction so my tank is completely invulnerable." It's fine that you don't like it. But you're not going to convince people who do like it by saying the game should be more simulation-based and talking about realism. Especially when as modeled it's clear that the tanks that do exist in 40k do have all sorts of vulnerabilities that small arms fire actually could realistically damage, because then the "realism" argument isn't even right.
I believe you're still lacking a citation for that one.
Dysartes wrote: yukishiro, you were asked a couple of pages back for a citation on the claim that MBTs in the Iraq War were taken out of commission by small arms fire, a claim which you were using to argue that lasguns hurting Land Raiders was, in fact, realistic.
Such a citation has yet to be forthcoming - please provide it, or concede that your point was groundless.
To be fair it wasn't him it was me and I told you exactlly where the information came from its in afteraction reports available from the DoD and MoD on the report of costs of repairing heavy armoured vehicles. I'm genuine not sure how publicly available it is without paying them money.
But it broke down the reason the vehical was removed from active pool, damage inflicted, replacement parta and costs time to supply parts and time to fit and release to service the vehical.
I will pointout we aren't talking actually doing this with a lucky shot or two the figures were something nuts like 1000s of round impacts and esentially all they destroyed was optics leaving the vehical combat/mission killed due to the crew being unable to see where they were going/shooting.
Most of the time the vehicals where combat ready within 48 hours hence the only place this info is really captured is in these spending documents or probably classified action/mission reports.
In fact it seems like you're saying that 40 has never been realistic, but also saying that the mechanics of prior 40K were more realistic, at the same time.
That's exactly what I'm saying. There's nothing contradictory about that. 40k has never been a realistic simulation-based wargame,
When we describe the benefits of that system. You say:
A: It's not realistic
B: It's more realistic but 40K isn't meant to be realistic
C: Despite having been more realistic in the past, 40K has never been realistic.
Armor values isn't particularly realistic. It's probably more realistic than vehicles having wounds. But 40k isn't a realistic game and it's become less so over the years. Still don't see what you're having trouble with there?
Dysartes wrote: yukishiro, you were asked a couple of pages back for a citation on the claim that MBTs in the Iraq War were taken out of commission by small arms fire, a claim which you were using to argue that lasguns hurting Land Raiders was, in fact, realistic.
Such a citation has yet to be forthcoming - please provide it, or concede that your point was groundless.
To be fair it wasn't him it was me and I told you exactlly where the information came from its in afteraction reports available from the DoD and MoD on the report of costs of repairing heavy armoured vehicles. I'm genuine not sure how publicly available it is without paying them money.
But it broke down the reason the vehical was removed from active pool, damage inflicted, replacement parta and costs time to supply parts and time to fit and release to service the vehical.
I will pointout we aren't talking actually doing this with a lucky shot or two the figures were something nuts like 1000s of round impacts and esentially all they destroyed was optics leaving the vehical combat/mission killed due to the crew being unable to see where they were going/shooting.
Most of the time the vehicals where combat ready within 48 hours hence the only place this info is really captured is in these spending documents or probably classified action/mission reports.
Ok. . . so to confirm, thousands of rounds were fired at this vehicle and the only damage it sustained was some broken optics, yes?
It didn't like. . . blow up and kill the occupants inside and throw shrapnel around. It could have still driven around if, for example, a heavily armored crewman decided to pop their head out and give commands or soemthing?
In fact it seems like you're saying that 40 has never been realistic, but also saying that the mechanics of prior 40K were more realistic, at the same time.
That's exactly what I'm saying. There's nothing contradictory about that. 40k has never been a realistic simulation-based wargame,
When we describe the benefits of that system. You say:
A: It's not realistic
B: It's more realistic but 40K isn't meant to be realistic
C: Despite having been more realistic in the past, 40K has never been realistic.
Armor values isn't particularly realistic. It's probably more realistic than vehicles having wounds. But 40k isn't a realistic game and it's become less so over the years. Still don't see what you're having trouble with there?
Ok, so it IS more realistic though. That's something.
and flanking a vehicle DOES have strategic value, yes? You just don't like it.
Insectum7 wrote: I believe you're still lacking a citation for that one.
Look at the models. They've got all sorts of exposed stuff that could clearly be damaged by small arms fire. Comms arrays out the wazoo, unprotected tracks, view slits, sponson weapons with vulnerable connections, etc etc. Those are the tanks they use in 40k. You could clearly damage bits of them using small arms fire. Could you penetrate through the armor of one? Probably not. But that's where the game being an abstraction comes in. We don't roll to see whether the lasgun hit the comms array or the tread or went through the view slit. We just roll to wound and assume that represents finding a spot vulnerable enough to be damaged by said weapon.
If you're talking about the real world, armed forces don't release that stuff and news stories can be hard to corroborate. The particular story I was remembering was about a Challenger tank in Basra getting its optics knocked out by insurgents using machine guns and RPGs and then running aground on a barrier and having to sit there disabled until help arrived; the version I read at the time said it was small arms fire that disabled the optics, then follow up RPG fire that stopped it from being able to move after it ran aground and exposed its underside, but some other versions seem to say it was an RPG, or even, in one case, a guided missile that took out the optics in the first place. They couldn't penetrate the armor so the occupants all survived until help arrived, but the tank itself was put out of commission by having its optics knocked out.
There are tons of examples from WW2-era tanks of small arms fire being able to damage them in multiple ways. If you look at 40k tank models, they definitely have elements that could be damaged by small arms fire.
But it will suck for most codex to come probably in maybe 1-2 years of facing two wound marines and imperials with buffed weapons. And then, the last batch of codex will face being "obsolete" in less than a year when 10 rolls around.
Unless many other xenos armies are going to get +1W on many infantry models.
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