44785
Post by: WisdomLS
I'm really looking forward to the release of the new Kratos tank for Horus heresy - mainly because they have said it will have rules for 40K!
I love the model, it looks like a proper marine tank and not a floating brick with loads of tiny guns on it.
The problem is all marine tanks are pretty useless in game!
The is from a combination of poor defensive stats and massive over pointing in many cases. They are universally useless in combat which is a major problem in the close confines of standard tables but the main reason is they just don't interact well with terrain in modern 40K.
Their poor mobility combined with not being able to benefit from or move through most terrain types just make them unplayable.
So how will they make the Kratos playable?
I assume a 2+ save and likely T8 - most nid monsters have moved to that as a baseline so large tanks should have at least that.
Imperial vehicles with invulns seems off to me and a 2+ with AoC is likely enough.
I has lots of guns and I don't think it will be short on firepower.
How to make it actually playable though? Could it be allowed to move through ruins and other terrain - tanks used to be able to just smash their way through stuff.
Bring backl a form of tank shock? infantry models should never stop a giant tank from moving.
Anyone else looking forward to this tank and hoping against hope it will actually be playable? I really miss using my tanks :-(
97198
Post by: Nazrak
Feel to me like a big part of the tank problem in 40K is there's no real disincentive to charging them with infantry. As if a tank's gonna stop politely while you chuck grenades down its pipes. Getting up close to a fully-functional tank, whether you're running towards it or it's driving towards you, should be a borderline suicidal move for all but the heaviest, toughest infantry.
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
Nazrak wrote:Feel to me like a big part of the tank problem in 40K is there's no real disincentive to charging them with infantry. As if a tank's gonna stop politely while you chuck grenades down its pipes. Getting up close to a fully-functional tank, whether you're running towards it or it's driving towards you, should be a borderline suicidal move for all but the heaviest, toughest infantry.
Except its not. Getting infantry right up to a tank with grenades is actually the most dangerous situation for the tank.
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
AoC has helped the durability of all of the 2+ save tanks a lot. Some of them could still do with some points cuts though, possibly. But even with that, loyalists probably still wouldn't use them very much, as they're too hung up on CORE (gotta have those rerolls  ). Chaos can still find use for a fairly priced tank though, the PBC shows that.
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
Gadzilla666 wrote: AoC has helped the durability of all of the 2+ save tanks a lot. Some of them could still do with some points cuts though, possibly. But even with that, loyalists probably still wouldn't use them very much, as they're too hung up on CORE (gotta have those rerolls  ). Chaos can still find use for a fairly priced tank though, the PBC shows that.
isnt the PGB fielded because its got everything that tanks would need to be good?
i has :
High toughness
good save/invuln (2+ and 5++ are mostly redundant together)
Damage reduction
strong guns (entropy)
utility guns (mortar)
Every vehicle should get damage reduction at the very least
109034
Post by: Slipspace
VladimirHerzog wrote: Nazrak wrote:Feel to me like a big part of the tank problem in 40K is there's no real disincentive to charging them with infantry. As if a tank's gonna stop politely while you chuck grenades down its pipes. Getting up close to a fully-functional tank, whether you're running towards it or it's driving towards you, should be a borderline suicidal move for all but the heaviest, toughest infantry.
Except its not. Getting infantry right up to a tank with grenades is actually the most dangerous situation for the tank.
True, but at the moment it's also about the safest situation for the infantry, which also doesn't feel right.
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
VladimirHerzog wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote: AoC has helped the durability of all of the 2+ save tanks a lot. Some of them could still do with some points cuts though, possibly. But even with that, loyalists probably still wouldn't use them very much, as they're too hung up on CORE (gotta have those rerolls  ). Chaos can still find use for a fairly priced tank though, the PBC shows that.
isnt the PGB fielded because its got everything that tanks would need to be good?
i has :
High toughness
good save/invuln (2+ and 5++ are mostly redundant together)
Damage reduction
strong guns (entropy)
utility guns (mortar)
Every vehicle should get damage reduction at the very least
Every Astartes tank that I'm aware of is either T7 or T8. AoC effectively turns a 2+ into a 5++ against AP-4, which is where most of the most commonly used AT weapons sit. It also keeps you at a 2+ against AP-1, a 3+ against AP-2, and a 4+ against AP-3. I'm not sure if you need damage reduction on top of that.
As for weapons, that's on a tank by tank basis. A basic Land Raider is pretty undergunned for its price because of the swinginess of lascannons. But an Achilles hits like a freight train. The various Sicarans do fine against their preferred targets, and are fast enough to get on target. Right now, I think it comes down to points, at least for most of the 2+ tanks. And the idiocy of Martial Legacy, of course, for the HH era tanks.
94850
Post by: nekooni
Gadzilla666 wrote: VladimirHerzog wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote: AoC has helped the durability of all of the 2+ save tanks a lot. Some of them could still do with some points cuts though, possibly. But even with that, loyalists probably still wouldn't use them very much, as they're too hung up on CORE (gotta have those rerolls  ). Chaos can still find use for a fairly priced tank though, the PBC shows that.
isnt the PGB fielded because its got everything that tanks would need to be good?
i has :
High toughness
good save/invuln (2+ and 5++ are mostly redundant together)
Damage reduction
strong guns (entropy)
utility guns (mortar)
Every vehicle should get damage reduction at the very least
Every Astartes tank that I'm aware of is either T7 or T8. AoC effectively turns a 2+ into a 5++ against AP-4, which is where most of the most commonly used AT weapons sit. It also keeps you at a 2+ against AP-1, a 3+ against AP-2, and a 4+ against AP-3. I'm not sure if you need damage reduction on top of that.
As for weapons, that's on a tank by tank basis. A basic Land Raider is pretty undergunned for its price because of the swinginess of lascannons. But an Achilles hits like a freight train. The various Sicarans do fine against their preferred targets, and are fast enough to get on target. Right now, I think it comes down to points, at least for most of the 2+ tanks. And the idiocy of Martial Legacy, of course, for the HH era tanks.
ML just needs to go or get replaced by "only one ML unit per 1k points" - but im only here to point out that the mastodon is T9
44785
Post by: WisdomLS
Astartes tanks, certainly those from the codex are mainly T7 and have a 3+ save - A couple (vindicator, landraider) have T8 2+.
Forgeworld has more with sicarans having a 2+ but as mentioned they all cost a CP for some reason.
Making most of them T8 2+ base would go along way to solving their durability issue but you would then have to add something else to differentiate the more durable ones. I suspect some annoying -1 damage or ignore AP rule but would much prefer to just use the base stats and give them T9.
Doesn't help with the issue that they just can't operate on a 9th edition board.
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
nekooni wrote:
ML just needs to go or get replaced by "only one ML unit per 1k points":
That would be even worse than what we have right now....
ML should be nothing more than a fluff status, especially for Legions.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
I hate to break this to you, but they aren't going to make this one specific tank uniquely playable when all the other tank options are not. Its going to suffer the same drawbacks and disadvantages of every other tank in the marines arsenal, its not going to get a special "drive through walls" rule, nor is it going to get a special tank shock rule. It will probably get T8 2+, plus whatever rules for its guns, and a points cost in the range of 300-400 points.
97198
Post by: Nazrak
Slipspace wrote: VladimirHerzog wrote: Nazrak wrote:Feel to me like a big part of the tank problem in 40K is there's no real disincentive to charging them with infantry. As if a tank's gonna stop politely while you chuck grenades down its pipes. Getting up close to a fully-functional tank, whether you're running towards it or it's driving towards you, should be a borderline suicidal move for all but the heaviest, toughest infantry.
Except its not. Getting infantry right up to a tank with grenades is actually the most dangerous situation for the tank.
True, but at the moment it's also about the safest situation for the infantry, which also doesn't feel right.
Yeah, this is kinda what I was driving at. No issue with tanks getting messed up by a close assault, but it shouldn't be a no-brainer for the guys carrying it out. "Dropping grenades into it is bad news for a tank" and "getting near to a moving tank is not great from a self-preservation perspective" aren't mutually-exclusive concepts.
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
VladimirHerzog wrote:nekooni wrote:
ML just needs to go or get replaced by "only one ML unit per 1k points":
That would be even worse than what we have right now....
ML should be nothing more than a fluff status, especially for Legions.
Honestly, the old "character tax" from 7th was better than what we have now. Of course, no tax at all for the Legions, as fw did in 8th, was best.
107707
Post by: Togusa
I've always thought tanks should have an inherent +1 AC against any weapon below S8 in addition to an inbuilt -1 DMG, both of which would serve to flavor heavy harmor. Only the most damaging weapons (LC, Melta, Missiles) should have sway over doing major damage to a tank.
For 40K I also think a strat that is a vehicle version of Transhuman should exist to serve as game rules flavoring the Machine Spirit and skill of the driver and gunner.
44785
Post by: WisdomLS
chaos0xomega wrote:I hate to break this to you, but they aren't going to make this one specific tank uniquely playable when all the other tank options are not. Its going to suffer the same drawbacks and disadvantages of every other tank in the marines arsenal, its not going to get a special "drive through walls" rule, nor is it going to get a special tank shock rule. It will probably get T8 2+, plus whatever rules for its guns, and a points cost in the range of 300-400 points.
Don't worry I know it won't get any special rules to alleviate the general problems Imperial tanks have in this edition, but its fun to dream and chat about on the internet :-D
Looking at the game as a whole we can see that tanks with fly are perfectly usable in general - Eldar ones of all flavours, Tau, Custodes, etc... and that fast cheap vehicles are also usable. Nid monsters and marine dreads are also in a good place partly due to being nasty in combat.
Its no shock that expensive, slow models that can't navigate the table well and are useless in combat are in trouble - its easy to see and hopefully GW will fix the issue with a general rule in a balance dataslate, its the best we can hope for.
Something along the lines of:
Give a list of models given the TANK keyword, likely also added in errata to their individual books - this list would be VEHICLE models without the FLY, DREADNOUGHT, HELBRUTE, WARDOG, ARMIGER or TITANIC keywords and with minimum T7 and 10W. That should cover most things that are generally considered tanks and are currently hampered by the rules. Basically larger models that don't fly and don't walk.
Models with the TANK Keyword can move through Area Terrain and INFANTRY, SWARM, BEAST & CAVALRY models as if they were not there but cannot end their move in a position the model cannot occupy. (this includes moving normally whilst in engagement range of enemy infantry models).
Models with the TANK Keyword reduce incoming damage by 1 when wounded by weapons with S7 or less.
Models with the TANK Keyword have WS 3+ in a turn in which they successfully charged.
This would fix alot of movement issues, add some survivability (I don't like -1 dam but they have already given extra armour with AoC which would have been my general vehicle survivability fix) and allow tanks to actually do something (still no much) by running people over.
101163
Post by: Tyel
I don't think Tanks have special issues. The problem is just comparable points and synergies.
Compare a Gladiator Lancer to say a Rupture Cannon Tyrannofex, a Hammerhead or a Fire Prism. (Maybe unkind to pick the Gladiator generally considered dead on arrival - but still.)
The conclusion would quickly be that two fractionally better lascannons (S10, AP-3, D3+3 damage) is kind of a joke at this point in the edition.
Compare them to:
Rupture Cannon: 3 shots, S14, AP-4 D6+4 damage.
Prism Cannon: 2 shots, S14 AP-5 3D3 damage (or 3D3 shots, S6 AP-2 2 damage).
Railgun: 1 Shot, S14, AP-6 (no invuls), D3+6 damage and 3 mortal wounds on successful wound.
(Could do Exocrine's here, but its kind of a different profile. But an average of 8 S8 AP-4 3 damage shots is also superior by some distance.)
There are some points variances here, that cover some differences - but still, the gap is incredible. The fact an Exocrine or Tyrannofex get a small number of high S AP-1 2 damage attacks really isn't bothering anyone. Sure it might beat your tank almost never doing anything - but so what? The issue is that 2+ save - combined with the fact Tyranids have ways to throw things like Transhuman and 4++ on to these monsters. Who have 15 or 17 wounds compare to 12 for the Gladiator. The fact the Hammerhead and Fire Prism have fly is a perk for them - but its more that their damage is much more significant for their points.
When GW inevitably do marines 4.0, they'll massively soup up these stats. The Lancer will probably be 2 shots, S14, AP-4, D6+3 that ignore invuls because "Marines is Best" or something equally silly.
And its entirely possible they could do so with the Kratos. Or they can make it say 350-400 points while only having the firepower of a 250~ point unit. In which case it will be weak.
101864
Post by: Dudeface
Interesting thought I had, the spartan is a LoW in 40k, the Kratos is a similar size to the Spartan, so Kratos is maybe a LoW in 40k making it borderline useless again?
94850
Post by: nekooni
VladimirHerzog wrote:nekooni wrote:
ML just needs to go or get replaced by "only one ML unit per 1k points":
That would be even worse than what we have right now....
ML should be nothing more than a fluff status, especially for Legions.
Thats why my first suggestion is to remove it entirely. If they still want to limit how many relics are on the table (which is clearly the intent behind ML), 1 per x points would be way better than the CP tax imho.
1k was just an example, any less would basically mean that the rule has no effect - i dont think youd ever go beyond eg 4 relics in a 2k pts game, if we use eg 500pts thats as good as not having a limit at all.
119289
Post by: Not Online!!!
The first problem are not the games rules, but the price of the kit.
Quite a few of the newer tanks that got released haven't been worth it from a custommer perspective, that they suffer ruleswise on top makes for a mixture that keeps many of these tanks out of the game.
94850
Post by: nekooni
Not Online!!! wrote:The first problem are not the games rules, but the price of the kit.
Quite a few of the newer tanks that got released haven't been worth it from a custommer perspective, that they suffer ruleswise on top makes for a mixture that keeps many of these tanks out of the game.
Thats completely pointless though. Obviously the game rules decide whether or not something sucks. Money simply is not a balancing factor.
I have a ton of marine vehicles (im sitting at something beyond 18k pts of salamanders total), but most of the vehicles went unused throughout the current edition. That had nothing to do with price, and everything to do with rules not even being viable in casual games. Basically i only used Sv2 vehicles and rhinos.
119289
Post by: Not Online!!!
nekooni wrote:Not Online!!! wrote:The first problem are not the games rules, but the price of the kit. Quite a few of the newer tanks that got released haven't been worth it from a custommer perspective, that they suffer ruleswise on top makes for a mixture that keeps many of these tanks out of the game.
Thats completely pointless though. Obviously the game rules decide whether or not something sucks. Money simply is not a balancing factor. I have a ton of marine vehicles (im sitting at something beyond 18k pts of salamanders total), but most of the vehicles went unused throughout the current edition. That had nothing to do with price, and everything to do with rules not even being viable in casual games. Basically i only used Sv2 vehicles and rhinos. I disagree, price can determine availabiltiy and by extention influence the lcoal meta massivly, independantly of the "meta"-Choices and game balance. (which hasn't been great for vehicles since the stepping away from armor values and in the first place from the introduction of HP to them) Beyond sucking even at a casual level often, you don't see most of the new SoB tanks on a table simply because a castigator is price wise not justifyable compared to a predator. I am not saying that price is THE deciding factor aswell, i said it's a mixture and it only really applies to the newer vehicles aswell, which have a diffrent pricing structure and tag than your old school preds and land raiders.
94850
Post by: nekooni
Not Online!!! wrote:nekooni wrote:Not Online!!! wrote:The first problem are not the games rules, but the price of the kit.
Quite a few of the newer tanks that got released haven't been worth it from a custommer perspective, that they suffer ruleswise on top makes for a mixture that keeps many of these tanks out of the game.
Thats completely pointless though. Obviously the game rules decide whether or not something sucks. Money simply is not a balancing factor.
I have a ton of marine vehicles (im sitting at something beyond 18k pts of salamanders total), but most of the vehicles went unused throughout the current edition. That had nothing to do with price, and everything to do with rules not even being viable in casual games. Basically i only used Sv2 vehicles and rhinos.
I disagree, price can determine availabiltiy and by extention influence the lcoal meta massivly, independantly of the "meta"-Choices and game balance. (which hasn't been great for vehicles since the stepping away from armor values and in the first place from the introduction of HP to them)
Beyond sucking even at a casual level often, you don't see most of the new SoB tanks on a table simply because a castigator is price wise not justifyable compared to a predator.
I am not saying that price is THE deciding factor aswell, i said it's a mixture and it only really applies to the newer vehicles aswell, which have a diffrent pricing structure and tag than your old school preds and land raiders.
My experience is very different - Land raiders could very well not exist, looking at my local gaming area. Certain primaris tanks showed up everywhere when they were good (8th), and completely vanished from tables with 9th. Ppl still own these, but noone played them.
With FW resin models id say Price is a factor, but thats nothing recent. Were seeing a massiv price drop with those tanks when moving to plastic, and the Kratos and spartan are cheap if you consider them 30k models.
GW games are not a cheap hobby though, but thats true from basic Infantry all the way to superheavies
119289
Post by: Not Online!!!
nekooni wrote: My experience is very different - Land raiders could very well not exist, looking at my local gaming area. Certain primaris tanks showed up everywhere when they were good (8th), and completely vanished from tables with 9th. Ppl still own these, but noone played them. With FW resin models id say Price is a factor, but thats nothing recent. Were seeing a massiv price drop with those tanks when moving to plastic, and the Kratos and spartan are cheap if you consider them 30k models. GW games are not a cheap hobby though, but thats true from basic Infantry all the way to superheavies Of course good rules do indeed facilitate more table time, afterall fielding units that are just ineffective for what you pay in pts is rarely a nice experience. Especially that is the case when mechanically the balance is off, which considering 8th being rarely balanced and 9th having just recently gone down that route, again, is not surprising especially for "weaker" armies externaly to avoid any type of unit that can't compete on the table at an adequate level. It also leads in the case of prices to people attempting to sidestep the pricetag if a unit is good, one of the favourite exemples of that is scratch / semi scratchbuilt mekguns. overall in the best case, we would see a design paradigm shift that makes tanks and especially transports beyond gunships more fieldable, there it is indeed a question of mechanics that hinder their deployment, afterall why field a transport for an often rather absurd ammount of pts when walking is basically just as fast and the board has gotten smaller aswell. Why bother with tanks when you are highly vulnerable to what has been reffered in the past to being "glanced" to death thanks to a too small HP pool and too low toughness valiues? NVM movement mechanics which favour flying or infantry.
121890
Post by: Selfcontrol
I'm really looking forward to the release of the new Kratos tank for Horus heresy - mainly because they have said it will have rules for 40K!
Where did you get this information ?
From my understanding of the Warhammer Community article in which the Kratos was revealed, I'm not expecting it to have rules for 40K because afterall :
The Kratos is all but extinct in the 41st Millennium, but it was a common sight during the brutal battles of the Horus Heresy, where every Legion would field these armoured behemoths as line-breakers.
44785
Post by: WisdomLS
Selfcontrol wrote:I'm really looking forward to the release of the new Kratos tank for Horus heresy - mainly because they have said it will have rules for 40K!
Where did you get this information ?
From my understanding of the Warhammer Community article in which the Kratos was revealed, I'm not expecting it to have rules for 40K because afterall :
The Kratos is all but extinct in the 41st Millennium, but it was a common sight during the brutal battles of the Horus Heresy, where every Legion would field these armoured behemoths as line-breakers.
From the sunday preview article on WarCom
The Kratos will be earning itself a Warhammer 40,000 datasheet to boot. While it’s rare on the battlefields of the 41st Millennium, it’s not extinct – and it packs just the same wallop.
129388
Post by: Jarms48
Pretty sure if it had 40k rules it’d basically be a Land Raider with better weapons.
M 10”, BS3+, T8, W16, Sv2+, AoC
Maybe a -1 damage cause it trades transport capacity for more armour and weapons.
120227
Post by: Karol
It doesn't happen to have lore about being fitted with a small scale power field generator?
44785
Post by: WisdomLS
Tyel wrote:I don't think Tanks have special issues. The problem is just comparable points and synergies.
Compare a Gladiator Lancer to say a Rupture Cannon Tyrannofex, a Hammerhead or a Fire Prism. (Maybe unkind to pick the Gladiator generally considered dead on arrival - but still.)
The conclusion would quickly be that two fractionally better lascannons (S10, AP-3, D3+3 damage) is kind of a joke at this point in the edition.
Compare them to:
Rupture Cannon: 3 shots, S14, AP-4 D6+4 damage.
Prism Cannon: 2 shots, S14 AP-5 3D3 damage (or 3D3 shots, S6 AP-2 2 damage).
Railgun: 1 Shot, S14, AP-6 (no invuls), D3+6 damage and 3 mortal wounds on successful wound.
(Could do Exocrine's here, but its kind of a different profile. But an average of 8 S8 AP-4 3 damage shots is also superior by some distance.)
There are some points variances here, that cover some differences - but still, the gap is incredible. The fact an Exocrine or Tyrannofex get a small number of high S AP-1 2 damage attacks really isn't bothering anyone. Sure it might beat your tank almost never doing anything - but so what? The issue is that 2+ save - combined with the fact Tyranids have ways to throw things like Transhuman and 4++ on to these monsters. Who have 15 or 17 wounds compare to 12 for the Gladiator. The fact the Hammerhead and Fire Prism have fly is a perk for them - but its more that their damage is much more significant for their points.
When GW inevitably do marines 4.0, they'll massively soup up these stats. The Lancer will probably be 2 shots, S14, AP-4, D6+3 that ignore invuls because "Marines is Best" or something equally silly.
And its entirely possible they could do so with the Kratos. Or they can make it say 350-400 points while only having the firepower of a 250~ point unit. In which case it will be weak.
This is completely true, marine vehicle (and necrons to be fair) really suffer from being released at the start of the edition before they massively buffed antitank weapons across the board.
For an even worse comparison throw in a predator annihilator !!!! Makes the gladiator look great.
The Nid monsters are on a different level in terms of stats, better weapons, better W/T/Sav and cheaper on a body that can fight a little. Hopefully GW will recognise the problems and massively cut vehicle points if they're not going to update them.
121890
Post by: Selfcontrol
WisdomLS wrote:Selfcontrol wrote:I'm really looking forward to the release of the new Kratos tank for Horus heresy - mainly because they have said it will have rules for 40K!
Where did you get this information ?
From my understanding of the Warhammer Community article in which the Kratos was revealed, I'm not expecting it to have rules for 40K because afterall :
The Kratos is all but extinct in the 41st Millennium, but it was a common sight during the brutal battles of the Horus Heresy, where every Legion would field these armoured behemoths as line-breakers.
From the sunday preview article on WarCom
The Kratos will be earning itself a Warhammer 40,000 datasheet to boot. While it’s rare on the battlefields of the 41st Millennium, it’s not extinct – and it packs just the same wallop.
Thank you for your answer. I'm not very interested in Horus Heresy and I tend to not fully read the Warco articles as a consequence. I missed this information.
35086
Post by: Daedalus81
Nazrak wrote:Feel to me like a big part of the tank problem in 40K is there's no real disincentive to charging them with infantry. As if a tank's gonna stop politely while you chuck grenades down its pipes. Getting up close to a fully-functional tank, whether you're running towards it or it's driving towards you, should be a borderline suicidal move for all but the heaviest, toughest infantry.
It's pretty suicidal as it stands currently unless the tank has most of it's weapons with blast.
A Kratos in 40K with the volkite, two HBs, two LCs, and whatever fills the other turret slot will put a pretty big hurt on charging units.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
The conclusion would quickly be that two fractionally better lascannons (S10, AP-3, D3+3 damage) is kind of a joke at this point in the edition.
The problem with lascannons and their derivatives in 40k is that they are still built around an outdated concept of anti-tank weapons from older editions of the game when a single high strength shot could destroy a tank outright. A single S9 high AP shot back then could produce real results for you, now that same weapon does a mighty d6 damage - at best that knocks a few wounds off a tank, but not much more. Lascannons either need a dramatic points cut, or to have their rate of fire improved or their damage output improved - if they are meant to be a single high impact shot, then they probably should be doing 2d6 damage (or better), if not, they really should be considered a free weapon or a 5 point weapon rather than a 20 point weapon as they seem to be, otherwise they need to fire 2-3 shots each rather than a single shot.
Dudeface wrote:Interesting thought I had, the spartan is a LoW in 40k, the Kratos is a similar size to the Spartan, so Kratos is maybe a LoW in 40k making it borderline useless again?
Thats my expectation.
35086
Post by: Daedalus81
Tyel wrote:I don't think Tanks have special issues. The problem is just comparable points and synergies.
Compare a Gladiator Lancer to say a Rupture Cannon Tyrannofex, a Hammerhead or a Fire Prism. (Maybe unkind to pick the Gladiator generally considered dead on arrival - but still.)
The conclusion would quickly be that two fractionally better lascannons (S10, AP-3, D3+3 damage) is kind of a joke at this point in the edition.
Compare them to:
Rupture Cannon: 3 shots, S14, AP-4 D6+4 damage.
Prism Cannon: 2 shots, S14 AP-5 3D3 damage (or 3D3 shots, S6 AP-2 2 damage).
Railgun: 1 Shot, S14, AP-6 (no invuls), D3+6 damage and 3 mortal wounds on successful wound.
(Could do Exocrine's here, but its kind of a different profile. But an average of 8 S8 AP-4 3 damage shots is also superior by some distance.)
There are some points variances here, that cover some differences - but still, the gap is incredible. The fact an Exocrine or Tyrannofex get a small number of high S AP-1 2 damage attacks really isn't bothering anyone. Sure it might beat your tank almost never doing anything - but so what? The issue is that 2+ save - combined with the fact Tyranids have ways to throw things like Transhuman and 4++ on to these monsters. Who have 15 or 17 wounds compare to 12 for the Gladiator. The fact the Hammerhead and Fire Prism have fly is a perk for them - but its more that their damage is much more significant for their points.
When GW inevitably do marines 4.0, they'll massively soup up these stats. The Lancer will probably be 2 shots, S14, AP-4, D6+3 that ignore invuls because "Marines is Best" or something equally silly.
And its entirely possible they could do so with the Kratos. Or they can make it say 350-400 points while only having the firepower of a 250~ point unit. In which case it will be weak.
The Lancer needs a boost, but the Tfex should be like 300 points instead of ~200 ( probably mostly via Rupture Cannon ).
Tyranids aside I think the marine tanks are largely playable. At some point I wouldn't be surprised to see some land raiders hit tables.
120227
Post by: Karol
It would have to be the non lascanons versions. d6 dmg for that many points is just not worth taking.
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
Land Raiders got much more tanky with AoC but they still feel like overpriced pillboxes that do less damage than wet paper. The only one i'd consider is the Achilles with full melta.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
VladimirHerzog wrote:Land Raiders got much more tanky with AoC but they still feel like overpriced pillboxes that do less damage than wet paper. The only one i'd consider is the Achilles with full melta.
Yep the potential damage output of the Achilles is monstrous, the problem is - you really do pay for it over the cost of a standard land raider. I am still not sure the Achilles is actually worth its points, or if it just seems that way because its simply a better use of the points vs a traditional land raider configuration.
101163
Post by: Tyel
I guess it depends on your bar for playable. Predators are awful. The points of a vehicle with just 2 lascannons is about 85~ points. Not 130. Most of these vehicles are not good really - due to either having terrible damage output for the points (Land Raiders), or paper thin defenses (just about everything else).
I mean a Repulsor Executioner can be 345 points. Its got far too many guns, I can't be bothered to math out how it stacks up against much more sensible vehicles. But with 16 wounds T8 3+ and AOC its... probably still easier to kill than an Exocrine, Tyrranofex or Maleceptor who weigh in at about half that.
I think I remember reading that some GK player did alright in a tournament 2-3 weeks ago with a Land Raider, so I'm not going to say never, but I doubt you'll be seeing all of these.
35086
Post by: Daedalus81
Lascannons are just MM that haven't gotten into range yet.
They're not the sexiest thing out there, but people sell the potential of D6 a little short. A Hammerhead drops 10 to 12. My vindicator dropped 8 to 10 multiple times in a row.
YMMV, of course as the dice were clearly with me that day ( on top of spell assistance ).
A min 3 damage would be a good half way measure.
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
chaos0xomega wrote: VladimirHerzog wrote:Land Raiders got much more tanky with AoC but they still feel like overpriced pillboxes that do less damage than wet paper. The only one i'd consider is the Achilles with full melta.
Yep the potential damage output of the Achilles is monstrous, the problem is - you really do pay for it over the cost of a standard land raider. I am still not sure the Achilles is actually worth its points, or if it just seems that way because its simply a better use of the points vs a traditional land raider configuration.
Yeah, it's definitely overpriced in the current game. I had some fun with mine in early 9th when the multi-meltas first got their stats boost, but once I realized that I could just slap two melta lances on my Leviathan, and get roughly the same damage output and durability for less points, it lost a lot of its luster.
I think the biggest problem with Astartes tanks is that most of their 9th edition rules were written with early 9th in mind, and they've fallen behind since then. Most of the fw units were designed to be "in line" with those early 9th edition codexes, and it shows. The Achilles, for example, had it's invul dropped from a 4++ to a 5++, because in early 9th 16 T8, 2+, 4++ wounds seemed excessive. Two years later, and a Stormsurge comes in at 22 T8, 2+, 4++ wounds for I think, 5 PPM more than the Achilles? And with the firepower to match. If gw isn't going to readjust the rules for Astartes tanks beyond adding AoC, then they need points adjustments.
21358
Post by: Dysartes
Daedalus81 wrote:They're not the sexiest thing out there, but people sell the potential of D6 a little short. A Hammerhead drops 10 to 12. My vindicator dropped 8 to 10 multiple times in a row.
...can you translate those last two bits into English, please?
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
I think hes trying to say that people underestimate how good D6 damage is, and hes trying to justify that by pointing out that Hammerheads can do 10-12 damage while vindicators can consistently put out 8-10 damage per turn.
The problem with that argument though is that Hammerheads don't do d6 damage, they do 6+d3 damage +3 auto MW, which is not even remotely comparable to d6 damage (and is objectively far and away superior). Likewise, while Vindicators do d6 damage, they are doing that on the back of d6 shots rather than just 1 shot as is the case with the lascannon.
In short, its a very poor defense of lascannons/single-shot d6 damage weapons. The comparison to multimeltas in the prior sentence is also sus, as multimeltas are at least 2 shots each.
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
feth variable damage weapons.
Make lascannons do flat 4 damage
Make melta do flat 4 (6 if within half range)
21358
Post by: Dysartes
VladimirHerzog wrote:feth variable damage weapons.
Make lascannons do flat 4 damage
Make melta do flat 4 (6 if within half range)
Thing is... they make sense, intuitively. There would be variance in the amount of damage a wounding-hit-that-has-gotten-past-armour-and-other-saves actually does to a target.
What makes less sense is the weapons with fixed damage profiles, where that damage is higher than 1.
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
Dysartes wrote: VladimirHerzog wrote:feth variable damage weapons.
Make lascannons do flat 4 damage
Make melta do flat 4 (6 if within half range)
Thing is... they make sense, intuitively. There would be variance in the amount of damage a wounding-hit-that-has-gotten-past-armour-and-other-saves actually does to a target.
What makes less sense is the weapons with fixed damage profiles, where that damage is higher than 1.
feth "making sense", make the gameplay more enjoyable.
Playing CSM/ SM/Necrons and being stuck with mostly dD6 anti-tank is a terrible feelbad
120227
Post by: Karol
The spread is too big though. a d6 dmg on a high cost platform that shots one time and has to deal with wounding, hiting and potential saves or invs is just bad. Specially when the targets have between 9 to 17 wounds.
Look at the good guns in the game right now. All do flat dmg, often are multi shot or have different modes of fire, and have extra rules on top of that. A regular lascanon just doesn't cut it in the game. And GW knows it, because their changed how other factions lascanons work or roll dmg.
now if random weapons and their platforms were cheaper then those with guns that do flat dmg, then we could talk about balancing factors. The thing with lascanons is, that they are mostly on over priced platforms and cost an arm and a leg.
21358
Post by: Dysartes
I'm not going to sit here and claim that a partial design paradigm shift part-way through an edition is a good thing - I completely agree with you on that.
Equally, though, I'd look to change any flat high D weapons to something with a degree of variability, as well as changing the Dd6 AT weapons to be a bit more reliable- Dd3+3 or Dd6 (min. 3), for example, if you didn't want to change the maximum, though I suspect the max damage for some weapons from the early books should be reviewed as well.
35086
Post by: Daedalus81
chaos0xomega wrote:I think hes trying to say that people underestimate how good D6 damage is, and hes trying to justify that by pointing out that Hammerheads can do 10-12 damage while vindicators can consistently put out 8-10 damage per turn.
The problem with that argument though is that Hammerheads don't do d6 damage, they do 6+d3 damage +3 auto MW, which is not even remotely comparable to d6 damage (and is objectively far and away superior). Likewise, while Vindicators do d6 damage, they are doing that on the back of d6 shots rather than just 1 shot as is the case with the lascannon.
In short, its a very poor defense of lascannons/single-shot d6 damage weapons. The comparison to multimeltas in the prior sentence is also sus, as multimeltas are at least 2 shots each.
Note that I'm not saying the weapons are equivalent or that LC are the best thing ever. D6 weapons could do with a min 3 rule. HH have one shot to get that 12 damage whereas you'll have multiple D6 weapons in opposition. You couldn't just make LC D3+3, because they're so widely available unlike the railgun. Automatically Appended Next Post: VladimirHerzog wrote:feth variable damage weapons.
Make lascannons do flat 4 damage
Make melta do flat 4 (6 if within half range)
Too much. Marines can push tons of LC into a list without breaking a sweat, which would break any unit that is W3/4/8 ( Spawn, Grots, Gravis, Terminators, Crisis, Broadsides, Cents ). It's exactly why Voidweavers were so brutal and why Bananas were able to weather that at W5. I don't think there are any units at W4 that have a spoiler FNP or -1D.
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
Daedalus81 wrote:
Too much. Marines can push tons of LC into a list without breaking a sweat, which would break any unit that is W3/4/8 ( Spawn, Grots, Gravis, Terminators, Crisis, Broadsides, Cents ). It's exactly why Voidweavers were so brutal and why Bananas were able to weather that at W5. I don't think there are any units at W4 that have a spoiler FNP or -1D.
Brightlances and Darklances are more easily spammed than lascannons AND are better weapons (4 is their minimum damage) and theyre not exactly breaking the game apart
And its not a problem if they start spamming anti-tank weapons, they'll just get punished by someone bringing lots of chaff
130394
Post by: EviscerationPlague
Daedalus81 wrote:chaos0xomega wrote:I think hes trying to say that people underestimate how good D6 damage is, and hes trying to justify that by pointing out that Hammerheads can do 10-12 damage while vindicators can consistently put out 8-10 damage per turn.
The problem with that argument though is that Hammerheads don't do d6 damage, they do 6+d3 damage +3 auto MW, which is not even remotely comparable to d6 damage (and is objectively far and away superior). Likewise, while Vindicators do d6 damage, they are doing that on the back of d6 shots rather than just 1 shot as is the case with the lascannon.
In short, its a very poor defense of lascannons/single-shot d6 damage weapons. The comparison to multimeltas in the prior sentence is also sus, as multimeltas are at least 2 shots each.
Note that I'm not saying the weapons are equivalent or that LC are the best thing ever. D6 weapons could do with a min 3 rule. HH have one shot to get that 12 damage whereas you'll have multiple D6 weapons in opposition. You couldn't just make LC D3+3, because they're so widely available unlike the railgun.
Okay so whats the excuse you're giving the Dark Lance and Bright Lance?
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
Daedalus81 wrote: VladimirHerzog wrote:feth variable damage weapons.
Make lascannons do flat 4 damage
Make melta do flat 4 (6 if within half range)
Too much. Marines can push tons of LC into a list without breaking a sweat, which would break any unit that is W3/4/8 ( Spawn, Grots, Gravis, Terminators, Crisis, Broadsides, Cents ). It's exactly why Voidweavers were so brutal and why Bananas were able to weather that at W5. I don't think there are any units at W4 that have a spoiler FNP or -1D.
Errrmm......you just listed "Grots", which I assume refers to "Grotesques", which have a 5+++. Also, Paragon Warsuits have -1 damage. That's off the top of my head.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
VladimirHerzog wrote:feth variable damage weapons.
Make lascannons do flat 4 damage
Make melta do flat 4 (6 if within half range)
That still doesn't fix anything. Lascannons and meltas went from being able to destroy any non-superheavy vehicle in the game in a single hit to needing an average of 4-6 hit to destroy the typical vehicle. The problem is lascannons are still priced as though they are one-hit killers that are able to actually accomplish something. Making them flat damage 4 doesn't change that, it just cements the fact that they will need an average of 4-6 hits to kill their primary targets instead of allowing for hot dice getting you there in 2-3 hits. They still need a points adjustment. If we are to believe that lascannons are the premier anti-tank weapon platform for certain factions, then their abilities need to reflect that. If they are just a heavy hitter, but one which doesn't necessarily destroy targets on its own, then it needs a points adjustment to reflect that.
Note that I'm not saying the weapons are equivalent or that LC are the best thing ever. D6 weapons could do with a min 3 rule. HH have one shot to get that 12 damage whereas you'll have multiple D6 weapons in opposition. You couldn't just make LC D3+3, because they're so widely available unlike the railgun.
I don't particularly want Lascannons to be as powerful as a Hammerhead, but as it stands, as "widely available" as lascannons are, they don't get fielded all that much because they are too expensive for what they actually do - even in armies that don't have a lot f other good AT options available lascannon based AT systems are generally the last worst choice. Go ask Thousand Sons players why they never field quad-las predators despite ranged AT being considered the factions #1 weakness.
This is a pretty big indicator that lascannons are not in a good place and need to be adjusted somehow, and making them D3+3 is a perfectly legitimate way of accomplishing that.
Too much. Marines can push tons of LC into a list without breaking a sweat
They can... but they don't.
94850
Post by: nekooni
chaos0xomega wrote:
Too much. Marines can push tons of LC into a list without breaking a sweat
They can... but they don't.
Yeah, because lascans suck being D6. Duh.
Playing salamanders obviously scews things for me, but ignoring the +1 towound I'd still go with MMs all day right now.
D6 is not reliable, melta solves the issue at closer ranges. Lascans need something to fix it at full range, maybe 2d3 is the answer? average 4 damage, no 1 damage hits, but not too consistent.
105713
Post by: Insectum7
Melta doesn't even need the close range bonus to compete because it already has double the shots of the Lascannon.
130394
Post by: EviscerationPlague
Insectum7 wrote:Melta doesn't even need the close range bonus to compete because it already has double the shots of the Lascannon.
Which leads to the age old question of how valuable range is. Unfortunately, not too much
35086
Post by: Daedalus81
VladimirHerzog wrote: Daedalus81 wrote:
Too much. Marines can push tons of LC into a list without breaking a sweat, which would break any unit that is W3/4/8 ( Spawn, Grots, Gravis, Terminators, Crisis, Broadsides, Cents ). It's exactly why Voidweavers were so brutal and why Bananas were able to weather that at W5. I don't think there are any units at W4 that have a spoiler FNP or -1D.
Brightlances and Darklances are more easily spammed than lascannons AND are better weapons (4 is their minimum damage) and theyre not exactly breaking the game apart
And its not a problem if they start spamming anti-tank weapons, they'll just get punished by someone bringing lots of chaff
I mean you could fill up on scourges/ravagers and war walkers, but that's kind of the extent of it. Marines have dreads, razorbacks, predators, tacs, drop pod devs, quad las relics, sternguard, etc.
It's not like saying Kabalites can stand in cover like a marine and blast away and expect to live as easily. They're paying 95 for 1 shot. Marines pay 105 for the same wounds with better armor and AoC. They'd save LC on 4s in cover.
Ravagers get you 9 where predators get you 12. War Walkers get you 18, but for like 800 points. So, yea, I suppose you could go really hard, but I'm betting the edge will be on marines with Iron Hands extra AP, RR1s, and move and shoot and pods. They would win the trade game. Automatically Appended Next Post: Gadzilla666 wrote:Errrmm......you just listed "Grots", which I assume refers to "Grotesques", which have a 5+++. Also, Paragon Warsuits have -1 damage. That's off the top of my head.
Good point - forgot about that and Paragons. Automatically Appended Next Post: chaos0xomega wrote:Go ask Thousand Sons players why they never field quad-las predators despite ranged AT being considered the factions #1 weakness.
Well, I will ask myself why I don't...
And primarily it's because I like the Vindicator a lot more with S10 giving me that edge on battesuits et al. A vindicator is essentially a quadlas pred ( average 3.5, anyway ), but just tougher. I could see myself running a predator again some day if I can ever get around to painting it properly.
They can... but they don't.
Right and I will agree they're not fantastic, but they're not necessarily anemic either. Occasionally I'll reroll damage on the demolisher, but that's not practical for massed D6.
105713
Post by: Insectum7
EviscerationPlague wrote: Insectum7 wrote:Melta doesn't even need the close range bonus to compete because it already has double the shots of the Lascannon.
Which leads to the age old question of how valuable range is. Unfortunately, not too much
I disagree there. Range is hugely important, because you can't do any damage at all if something is out of range, and having good range means you can keep the platform in a more defensible position. Boards are smaller these days, and the LOS blocking terrain is more effective, so leveraging range is a little harder. . . But any situation where you can shoot at something that can't shoot because it lacks the range is good times.
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
EviscerationPlague wrote: Insectum7 wrote:Melta doesn't even need the close range bonus to compete because it already has double the shots of the Lascannon.
Which leads to the age old question of how valuable range is. Unfortunately, not too much
And also leads to the question: What the  are Heretic Astartes supposed to use for ranged AT? We only get multi-meltas on: Hellbrutes, the Death Guard only MBH, and various fw units.
@Daedalus: Like, seriously Daed, I don't have problems killing tanks/monsters at range, but everything that I use for that purpose is made out of resin. So, what's your answer? "Just use fw"? "Punch them to death"? "Bring a Knight"? Because any of those answers are going to be problematic for some people.
112298
Post by: DominayTrix
GW could always add something that interacts with the number of wounds, kind of like how grav interacts with the save. For example, "If the target has a wounds characteristic of 6 or more, a successful hit roll does an additional 1-2 automatic hits (these do not generate further hits)."
33527
Post by: Niiai
Nazrak wrote:Feel to me like a big part of the tank problem in 40K is there's no real disincentive to charging them with infantry. As if a tank's gonna stop politely while you chuck grenades down its pipes. Getting up close to a fully-functional tank, whether you're running towards it or it's driving towards you, should be a borderline suicidal move for all but the heaviest, toughest infantry.
Tyranid exocrines have only blast shooting weapons. A great reason to charge it. Good design. (8th edition bad touch.)
35086
Post by: Daedalus81
Gadzilla666 wrote:@Daedalus: Like, seriously Daed, I don't have problems killing tanks/monsters at range, but everything that I use for that purpose is made out of resin. So, what's your answer? "Just use fw"? "Punch them to death"? "Bring a Knight"? Because any of those answers are going to be problematic for some people.
Well, CSM is lacking the updates still.
Helbrute Plasma is D3 S8 AP3 D3 ( available on Contemptor, too of course ). Slap a missile launcher for 115 on and go to town. A contemptor can shoot twice as much for 50 more points, which seems fair.
I don't recall all the rumors, but the other viable options would be VC, Oblits, and melta Termies. Obliterators will ride a knife's edge depending on points with double shooting going away.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
nekooni wrote:chaos0xomega wrote:
Too much. Marines can push tons of LC into a list without breaking a sweat
They can... but they don't.
Yeah, because lascans suck being D6. Duh.
Yes, this is quite literally the point that I have been making, thank you.
Well, I will ask myself why I don't...
And primarily it's because I like the Vindicator a lot more with S10 giving me that edge on battesuits et al. A vindicator is essentially a quadlas pred ( average 3.5, anyway ), but just tougher. I could see myself running a predator again some day if I can ever get around to painting it properly.
I too will ask myself. I said: "because lascannons suck. Thats why I opted to get 2 vindicator laser destroyers and a land raider achilles (I don't run both the vindis and the achilles in the same list) - because either option is infinitely better than running 3 laspreds. I'll probably be replacing those with a trio of War Dog Executioners though."
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
Daedalus81 wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote:@Daedalus: Like, seriously Daed, I don't have problems killing tanks/monsters at range, but everything that I use for that purpose is made out of resin. So, what's your answer? "Just use fw"? "Punch them to death"? "Bring a Knight"? Because any of those answers are going to be problematic for some people.
Well, CSM is lacking the updates still.
Helbrute Plasma is D3 S8 AP3 D3 ( available on Contemptor, too of course ). Slap a missile launcher for 115 on and go to town. A contemptor can shoot twice as much for 50 more points, which seems fair.
I don't recall all the rumors, but the other viable options would be VC, Oblits, and melta Termies. Obliterators will ride a knife's edge depending on points with double shooting going away.
Terminators are supposedly going to be limited to 2 combi-meltas per 5 (because that's what's in the kit), and the leaked AT profile for Obliterators is literally a D4 lascannon. And there's a reason that the plasma cannon is the "free" option for Contemptors. Oh, and you still didn't get through that without mention a fw unit.
120227
Post by: Karol
VladimirHerzog wrote:
Brightlances and Darklances are more easily spammed than lascannons AND are better weapons (4 is their minimum damage) and theyre not exactly breaking the game apart
And its not a problem if they start spamming anti-tank weapons, they'll just get punished by someone bringing lots of chaff
Which I guess is an option if someone plays a horde army. A player who has an elite army, which marines still kind of a are, can't just drown the opponent in models, when their basic trooper is 20pts of slow moving infantry.
It's not like saying Kabalites can stand in cover like a marine and blast away and expect to live as easily. They're paying 95 for 1 shot. Marines pay 105 for the same wounds with better armor and AoC. They'd save LC on 4s in cover.
Only we all know they don't. While marine units do slog through the game on foot, because of how ineffcient and costly most of the transport options are, the Kabalite is flying around in an open topped transport. I really don't get those academic exampls of 5 man lascanon tactical vs kabalite with a dark lance. No one uses tacticals with lascanons, because they are a bad unit. It dies too fast and it doesn't do enough in no small amount due to its the lascanon being Dd6. if a DE or eldar player puts a lance in to something, it wounds, hits and does not get stopped by save, they know they can kill up to 4+ wounds of stuff. A marine player can do the same and then put a 1 on a moster or a tank. Hey he can even fail to kill another marine. In effcient shoting is why all the best marine armies are skewed to do melee, and the "shoting" chapters are doing bad.
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
Daedalus81 wrote:
I mean you could fill up on scourges/ravagers and war walkers, but that's kind of the extent of it. Marines have dreads, razorbacks, predators, tacs, drop pod devs, quad las relics, sternguard, etc.
Generic drukhari detachment :
Trueborn kabalites
4x Raiders
2x Ravagers
11 dark lance shots
Eldar can take brightlances on
Warwalker
vyper
hornet
wraithlords
wave serpent
falcon
crimson hunter
so lets say i do 3 warwalkers and 3 wraithlords, thats 12 brightlances
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Karol wrote:
Which I guess is an option if someone plays a horde army. A player who has an elite army, which marines still kind of a are, can't just drown the opponent in models, when their basic trooper is 20pts of slow moving infantry.
You mean your low modelcount army with models that effectively wear tank armor on them is weak to anti-tank weaponry? Who could've guessed.
the thing is a list that spams nothing but these theoretical lascannons will be weak to lists with a lot of bodies. If the meta begins seeing such spam lists, then its gonna adjust and we're gonna see more chaff units, which is gonna make these spamlists worse.
Just because GK can't really bring chaff, doesn't mean that chaff in other armies wouldnt help them by making lascannons a less optimal pick.
127202
Post by: Moorecox
Supposedly SM tanks are getting huge bufffs in the coming SM 2.0 dex.
130394
Post by: EviscerationPlague
Moorecox wrote:Supposedly SM tanks are getting huge bufffs in the coming SM 2.0 dex.
Wait we already got rumors of another SM codex iteration?
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
Moorecox wrote:Supposedly SM tanks are getting huge bufffs in the coming SM 2.0 dex.
But apparently not in the CSM codex, if the leaked playtest rules hold true.
127202
Post by: Moorecox
They have older groups tech.
120227
Post by: Karol
EviscerationPlague 805313 11373658 wrote:
Wait we already got rumors of another SM codex iteration?
They have to prepare the armies for 10th ed.
35086
Post by: Daedalus81
They'll probably be over 100 points each in that case.
120227
Post by: Karol
Then chaos marine dreadnoughts would have to come with a plethora of extra and new rules, because they would be very close in point costs to each other. They will, maybe, cost 100pts after a pts nerf a few months in the future. There is no way an oblit is going to cost 5 pts more then a void day one of the codex.
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
Possibly. I don't expect them to be cheap. Heavy d3, S9, AP-3, D4: what's that sound like to you? They've also got a middle profile that's basically "better autocannons": Heavy d3+3, S7, AP-2, D2, and an anti-infantry profile that's basically chaincannons. It's on page 1 of the CSM leaks thread in N&R, have a look for yourself. Just remember: "Playtest rules-subject to change".
91723
Post by: Nomeny
It has treads like a real tank, what more could you want?!
121430
Post by: ccs
As well as the actual rules they eventually sell you.
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
ccs wrote:
As well as the actual rules they eventually sell you.
Heh, true. But better, IMHO, than just leaving things that are obviously broken to remain a problem for sometimes years, as they sometimes did in the past.
21358
Post by: Dysartes
So, Gad, what do you think of the Kratos datasheet?
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
i think its a playable land raider (T8, 2+)
113031
Post by: Voss
Rage at the lack of a chaos datasheet, I assume. Bonus rage for martial legacy.
But... its.... interesting. But also weird. And given the game state, I'm still not sure its durable enough for its points (and CP cost)
standouts:
1- loyalist havoc launchers. Good for the new contemptor kit, I guess. Crappy option here, though.
2- heavy bolter == volkite culverins (no point costs). +9" range, +1 shot, +1 strength, and mortal wounds on 6s is worth -1 AP. And also -1 shot and shorter range on the volkite caliver. Because feth points. (also autocannons work in here for one set of mounts, which is even more laughable).
There are a bunch of swaps for the sponson, not-a-sponson and bonus weapon that are just odd. heavybolter=twinboltgun=combi-flamer= heavy flamer?
3- Main guns are a math test. Eyeballing it, I suspect GW failed.
Melta cannon is... fine? But marines can field so many fast multimeltas that I don't care. Can't see a reason to pay 320 points for a 36" range cannon that's equivalent to 2 multimeltas and on faster, cheaper things.
That a bonus multimelta is one of the two things you have to pay for feels absurd.
battlecannons shots:
AP vs HE looks iffy. Not in the mental state to do the math on it, but heavy 1 sucks, and Strength 14 just doesn't matter enough to care about. Damage is fine, until you realize that just 3 hits slipping through equals max damage on the AP. Yes, you'll care about AP 5. But then your target has invulnerable saves and you won't shoot AP.
d6+3 blast on the HE makes me annoyed. Its either 9 or... you'll still roll, because min 3 on 'tiny horde' units doesn't matter when you get minimum 4.
Volkite cannon. Lots of shots always, lots of rolling for 6s. Better range.
Again, between all the main guns, it looks like the math resolves to 'one of these is best'
109576
Post by: Karhedron
Voss wrote:
2- heavy bolter == volkite culverins (no point costs). +9" range, +1 shot, +1 strength, and mortal wounds on 6s is worth -1 AP. And also -1 shot and shorter range on the volkite caliver. Because feth points. (also autocannons work in here for one set of mounts, which is even more lauable).
Agreed, losing AP-1 is really not a big deal in the era of AOC.
47547
Post by: CthuluIsSpy
The fact that you can swap out the heavy bolters for autocannons or volkites for free is just silly. Automatically Appended Next Post: Karhedron wrote:Voss wrote: 2- heavy bolter == volkite culverins (no point costs). +9" range, +1 shot, +1 strength, and mortal wounds on 6s is worth -1 AP. And also -1 shot and shorter range on the volkite caliver. Because feth points. (also autocannons work in here for one set of mounts, which is even more lauable). Agreed, losing AP-1 is really not a big deal in the era of AOC.
Yeah, it's a good thing that the only armies in the game are marines and as such every army has access to Armor of Contempt. Edit : Sorry, I completely misunderstood.
94850
Post by: nekooni
While the Kratos is pretty much what I expected based on the leaked 30k datasheet, I can't stop thinking the writer that did the datasheet went like "damn, thats a ton of options. I'd rather not check what each one's worth in 40k, people should use PL anyway ffs" and be done with it.
The entirely optional pintle weapons are free aside from what should be a 25pts upgrade (see: Land Raider pintle weapon).
I'll still build and play it in 40k, but really - can't you put in like 30 more minutes to do proper points? It's not that complicated once you have the base cost figured out, ffs.
113031
Post by: Voss
We're seeing that more and more though. The guard squads in the dataslate, for example. And various other units scattered throughout books. I suspect its the next paradigm shift, where upgrades are going to largely be free, regardless.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Yeah, it's a good thing that the only armies in the game are marines and as such every army has access to Armor of Contempt.
That's true of the face of it, but also... orks, daemons, guard, tau, a fair chunk of eldar units... it actually doesn't matter. The extra shot, extra strength and chance of mortal wounds is significantly better.
Against anything t3 you're now wounding on a 2+, so the fact that they don't get their save reduced is a wash. But now there's an extra shot and a chance of mortal wounds as well.
94850
Post by: nekooni
CthuluIsSpy wrote:The fact that you can swap out the heavy bolters for autocannons or volkites for free is just silly.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Karhedron wrote:Voss wrote:
2- heavy bolter == volkite culverins (no point costs). +9" range, +1 shot, +1 strength, and mortal wounds on 6s is worth -1 AP. And also -1 shot and shorter range on the volkite caliver. Because feth points. (also autocannons work in here for one set of mounts, which is even more lauable).
Agreed, losing AP-1 is really not a big deal in the era of AOC.
Yeah, it's a good thing that the only armies in the game are marines and as such every army has access to Armor of Contempt.
It's still a decent percentage of your matchups, and volkite still isn't bad against non-marines.
63623
Post by: Tannhauser42
Maybe it's the other way around? The base cost already accounts for all of the best weapon options, and the problem is that you're not getting a discount for choosing lesser options.
47547
Post by: CthuluIsSpy
nekooni wrote: CthuluIsSpy wrote:The fact that you can swap out the heavy bolters for autocannons or volkites for free is just silly. Automatically Appended Next Post: Karhedron wrote:Voss wrote: 2- heavy bolter == volkite culverins (no point costs). +9" range, +1 shot, +1 strength, and mortal wounds on 6s is worth -1 AP. And also -1 shot and shorter range on the volkite caliver. Because feth points. (also autocannons work in here for one set of mounts, which is even more lauable). Agreed, losing AP-1 is really not a big deal in the era of AOC.
Yeah, it's a good thing that the only armies in the game are marines and as such every army has access to Armor of Contempt. It's still a decent percentage of your matchups, and volkite still isn't bad against non-marines.
Yeah, I would say it's an outright upgrade, really. Heavy bolters fire 3 shots at S5 AP-1 and D2 at 36" Volkite culverins fire 4 shots at S6 AP0 D2 at 45" range with mortal wound procs The culverins are just better over all and you get them for free. That's just poor balance. Why would you ever keep heavy bolters when you can get the superior option? At least with the caliver you have to sacrifice range, RoF and AP for a point of strength, so I can see the logic with it being free as it would a side grade from heavy bolters, but culverins? Just poor design. Also, the datasheet doesn't list heavy bolters, which is just poor formatting. Automatically Appended Next Post: Voss wrote:We're seeing that more and more though. The guard squads in the dataslate, for example. And various other units scattered throughout books. I suspect its the next paradigm shift, where upgrades are going to largely be free, regardless. CthuluIsSpy wrote: Yeah, it's a good thing that the only armies in the game are marines and as such every army has access to Armor of Contempt. That's true of the face of it, but also... orks, daemons, guard, tau, a fair chunk of eldar units... it actually doesn't matter. The extra shot, extra strength and chance of mortal wounds is significantly better. Against anything t3 you're now wounding on a 2+, so the fact that they don't get their save reduced is a wash. But now there's an extra shot and a chance of mortal wounds as well.
Yeah, looking more closely at the stats, there's no reason to not take the culverin over the heavy bolter if its a free upgrade. Automatically Appended Next Post: Tannhauser42 wrote:Maybe it's the other way around? The base cost already accounts for all of the best weapon options, and the problem is that you're not getting a discount for choosing lesser options.
Which is a bad idea in itself, as then you're paying too many points if you don't take the best options.
I miss budget builds.
105913
Post by: MinscS2
I like it, look about right at 320 pts.
What happened to the old 1 PL = 20 pts coversion though? 320 pts =/= 44 PL. (Not that I care about PL in the slightest, I just thought it would be 400+ pts before I saw the actual pointcosts.)
My only real issue is the internal balance on the weapons on the Kratos, especially between the three main guns.
It's a massive fail on GW's part: Just spamming Volkite in general will probably be the best option against 99% of all potential targets.
Kratos: Battle Cannon:
Heavy 1 on the AP is a massive fail, especially since it doesn't get +1 to hit like Lancers and Repulsor Executioners. It should be Heavy 2 at the very least. Right now shooting HE is probably better against the intended targets of the AP-rounds.
(One would think that GW would've learned from the whole LR Battle Cannon vs. Vanquisher by now, but nope...)
Melta blast-gun:
It's a... twin-linked Multimelta with slightly longer range - on a 320 pts heavy tank. Whopeedoo! It's not "bad", it's just underwhelming and boring (and this is coming from a Salamanders-player)
Space Marines have no shortage of Multimeltas on cheaper, faster platforms.
The Volkite Cardanelle isn't just unique (and so, more fun) in this scenario, it's just plain better in general.
113031
Post by: Voss
I miss budget builds.
Same. I don't quite like the look of the sponsons, so would've been pleased with the ability to pay ~30 points less to not have them.
116670
Post by: Ordana
Its crap.
The Battlecannon AP is a single shot, which is a massive problem. A hammerhead does it better for half the points.
The HE profile lacks AP so outside of like Nid Warriors your going to bounce of whatever 3 wound thing your shooting.
The Melta is still a lol worthy D6 damage
The Volkite again lacks AP and needs multiple 6's to seem worth it.
47547
Post by: CthuluIsSpy
Ordana wrote:Its crap. The Battlecannon AP is a single shot, which is a massive problem. A hammerhead does it better for half the points. The HE profile lacks AP so outside of like Nid Warriors your going to bounce of whatever 3 wound thing your shooting. The Melta is still a lol worthy D6 damage The Volkite again lacks AP and needs multiple 6's to seem worth it.
Yeah, but you get 8 shots on the volkite and it inflicts two mortal wounds for every proc. It's the same range as the other volkite weapons (with the exception of the caliver), so if you just use volkites you can proc quite a few mortal wounds in a single turn without even having to get too close to the target. Which, given that the other options aren't great, means that it's best role is that of a MW dispenser. Which is pretty lame. It's a nice model, but the 40k rules for it are stupid. Maybe it's better balanced and designed in Heresy, I dunno.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
Land Raider Achilles has 2 less wounds but a 5+ invul and can arguably hit harder than the Kratos for just 20 points more.
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
chaos0xomega wrote:Land Raider Achilles has 2 less wounds but a 5+ invul and can arguably hit harder than the Kratos for just 20 points more.
5+ invuln is redundant in a world with AoC.
you'd need to save against ap5 for the invuln to matter
100848
Post by: tneva82
chaos0xomega wrote:Land Raider Achilles has 2 less wounds but a 5+ invul and can arguably hit harder than the Kratos for just 20 points more.
Uuh...how much -5 ap guns are around your area? That thing saves melta's on 5+'s.
94850
Post by: nekooni
tneva82 wrote:chaos0xomega wrote:Land Raider Achilles has 2 less wounds but a 5+ invul and can arguably hit harder than the Kratos for just 20 points more.
Uuh...how much -5 ap guns are around your area? That thing saves melta's on 5+'s.
The point isnt the 5++, its the "hits harder". 8 multimelta shots plus the quad cannon, while the tradeoff is range in a game where 24" range is very rarely an issue
105913
Post by: MinscS2
Well I folded and ordered one.
With a Techmarine around (I'll never field it without one) for PotO and AtMS and all Volkite my Salamander Kratos will dish out slightly above 4,22 mortal wounds per turn in addition to any other damage (and those 18,33 S5+ D2 hits are bound to do some damage).
Ultimately I'm just glad to get some reinforcements to my Salamanders that are actually tracked and not floating slightly above ground...
94850
Post by: nekooni
MinscS2 wrote:Well I folded and ordered one.
(...)
Ultimately I'm just glad to get some reinforcements to my Salamanders that are actually tracked and not floating slightly above ground...
Same, and its a lot more playable than the mastodon (still love it though)
105913
Post by: MinscS2
nekooni wrote:tneva82 wrote:chaos0xomega wrote:Land Raider Achilles has 2 less wounds but a 5+ invul and can arguably hit harder than the Kratos for just 20 points more.
Uuh...how much -5 ap guns are around your area? That thing saves melta's on 5+'s.
The point isnt the 5++, its the "hits harder". 8 multimelta shots plus the quad cannon, while the tradeoff is range in a game where 24" range is very rarely an issue
I don't know. If you give the Kratos a similar loadout to the Achilles it's pretty even regardless if you go the Volkite-path or the Antitank-path:
- Volkite:
Achilles: 16 shots + Quadcannon.
Kratos: 22 shots (8 which deals 2 MW on 6's)
- Antitank:
Achilles: 8 Multimelta shots + Quadcannon (4 ML's essentially)
Kratos: 6 Multimelta shots (4 which have 36" range) and 4 Lascannons.
I'd say the 2 additional wounds makes me favor the Kratos. Of course, the Achilles have some transport capacity.
I don't think neither makes the other redundant.
Edit: Apparently the Kratos comes with an Autocannon that you can't replace with anything as standard as well, but ... who cares honestly.
94850
Post by: nekooni
MinscS2 wrote:nekooni wrote:tneva82 wrote:chaos0xomega wrote:Land Raider Achilles has 2 less wounds but a 5+ invul and can arguably hit harder than the Kratos for just 20 points more.
Uuh...how much -5 ap guns are around your area? That thing saves melta's on 5+'s.
The point isnt the 5++, its the "hits harder". 8 multimelta shots plus the quad cannon, while the tradeoff is range in a game where 24" range is very rarely an issue
I don't know. If you give the Kratos a similar loadout to the Achilles it's pretty even regardless if you go the Volkite-path or the Antitank-path:
- Volkite:
Achilles: 16 shots + Quadcannon.
Kratos: 22 shots (8 which deals 2 MW on 6's)
- Antitank:
Achilles: 8 Multimelta shots + Quadcannon (4 ML's essentially)
Kratos: 6 Multimelta shots (4 which have 36" range) and 4 Lascannons.
I'd say the 2 additional wounds makes me favor the Kratos. Of course, the Achilles have some transport capacity.
I don't think neither makes the other redundant.
For me the Achilles will probably win because melta is worth more due to being Salamanders, and it has transport capacity. 2 more shots from the MM outweight the one extra AP on the lascans, especially t2/3 for me.
And the Achilles doesnt have Martial Legacy
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
I'd say many others have already covered most of what I think already. It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit "meh".
One thing, however, that I think people are forgetting when comparing the Kratos to an Achilles, or any other HS unit with <18W (other Land Raiders, Kill Rigs, Tyranofexes, etc), is that because of those 18W, the Kratos can not benefit from Obscurring and Dense cover. So it effectively can't hide, which is a problem in 9th. And since it isn't TITANIC, despite being the size of a Spartan, it doesn't even get the benefits that most 18+ wound models get, like being able to fallback + shoot/charge and ignoring Difficult Terrain of less than 3". In effect, you're getting some of the worst parts of a LoW, without any of the benefits. All you're really dodging is the 1CP you'd end up paying for the SHAD.
So yeah "meh".
494
Post by: H.B.M.C.
Gadzilla666 wrote:It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit
It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.
Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.
111831
Post by: Racerguy180
H.B.M.C. wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote:It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit
It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.
Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.
One more shovel full of dirt on the grave of points...
The more people complain about the points of stuff, the more GW will just continue on the road to PL only.
Cut off nose to spite face but hilarious if true.
100848
Post by: tneva82
Gadzilla666 wrote:
I'd say many others have already covered most of what I think already. It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit "meh".
One thing, however, that I think people are forgetting when comparing the Kratos to an Achilles, or any other HS unit with <18W (other Land Raiders, Kill Rigs, Tyranofexes, etc), is that because of those 18W, the Kratos can not benefit from Obscurring and Dense cover. So it effectively can't hide, which is a problem in 9th. And since it isn't TITANIC, despite being the size of a Spartan, it doesn't even get the benefits that most 18+ wound models get, like being able to fallback + shoot/charge and ignoring Difficult Terrain of less than 3". In effect, you're getting some of the worst parts of a LoW, without any of the benefits. All you're really dodging is the 1CP you'd end up paying for the SHAD.
So yeah "meh".
Well here knights were hiding in 8e and are still hiding.
Just because you are 18W doesn't mean you are seen through solid wall.
44785
Post by: WisdomLS
I don't mind it honestly.
It suffers from all the usual marine tank issues but we knew it was going to.
With AoC T8, 2+ 18W is as hard to kill as it gets for an Imperial vehicle out side of massive stuff.
Firepower wise it has lots of guns and can be kitted to deal with most targets. The Melta cannon isn't very interesting but is a decent option, certainly better than the AP shot of the battlecannon, what a fail.
All Volkite seems fun but its effectiveness will be highly dependant on what you are playing against.
I'm torn on the unevenness of the upgrades/points.
I don't mind them not changing cost for different weapon options when you get to choose between an anti-tank gun, anti-horde gun, anti elite gun (flamer/melta/plasma for example) as you can pick your poison and what you want it to do.
Also it may seem silly but some players I know are put off when they see points for loads of different stuff listed and just want to pay a single cost and then do what they want with it.
The problem is when one of the options does the job of one or more of the other options better than that option, then it need to cost more.
I would also like the option of not taking all the extra guns for a cheaper overall cost but the gamer in me wouldn't let me not take free upgrade options.
I love the model so will be getting one anyway, how effective it is? Time will tell.
39575
Post by: Darkseid
Looks better on paper than the similarly priced Repulsor Executioner.
116670
Post by: Ordana
Yes the move away from different points for different options is very concerning. A Nid warrior with Devourer and Scything talon should not be the same cost as one with a Deathspitter and dual boneswords, and based on the points cost it would appear GW is putting the price for both at the cheap end, rather then assuming the most expensive.
109576
Post by: Karhedron
I think that all-Volkite is going to be the way forward with the Kratos in 40K. The ability to pump out significant numbers of MWs at range is an ability Marines don't really have outside of of Forgeworld at the moment and that gives it a niche.
Melta on the turret is a bit underwhelming as a pair of MM attack bikes cost only 120 points and give you the same firepower (their speed compensates for the shorter range) and they are CORE. The Battlecannon turret does not seem to pack enough punch IMHO and Heavy Bolters and Autocannons are struggling due to the proliferation of -1 Damage units and AOC.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
H.B.M.C. wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote:It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit
It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.
Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.
Not the same doesn't automatically mean they have different value. There are times you want a heavy bolter and there are times you want a lascannon. The traditional failure of the 40k points system has often been (in part) the assumption that the demand and utility/applicabiltiy of both weapons is equivalent, and so the lascannon was priced at a higher cost than the heavy bolter, because "better stats = better weapon" - but if I'm shooting a guardsman the heavy bolter is the a better weapon than a lascannon (which is virtually useless for that role), and if I'm shooting a land raider the lascannon is the better weapon than the heavy bolter. The shift in weapon pricing is generally reflective of that, and goes hand-in-hand with the restatting of many weapons in order to differentiate them and give them more niche specialization to justify the idea that they are equal alternatives. The shift also goes hand in hand with the general change in approach to listbuilding and army composition engendered by the freeform DIY detachment system that GW rolled out and the introduction of armies like knights, etc. Another big change was the shift in vehicles to a standard profile away from armor values, etc. Now, the utility/value of a lascannon vs a heavy bolter is essentially directly proportional to the average ratio of "infantry" (generally low toughness low save single wound models) to "tanks" (generally high toughness high save multiwound models) on the other side of the table - but that ratio can change dramatically from one battle to another and attempting to proscribe a cost to these weapons on that basis is a fools errand.
If 99% of the models on any given table were guardsmen, then I would make the argument that a heavy bolter should be a 10-20 point upgrade and a lascannon should be a free weapon upgrade. If 99% of the models on any given table were leman russes, then I would make the argument that the heavy bolter should be free and the lascannon should be a 10-20 point upgrade, etc. With the proliferation of more varied statlines in the game, the increased commonality of armies where every model is some form of "tank" (Knights, Custodes, nidzilla/crusher stampede, etc.), plus the ongoing tug-of-war between survivability vs lethality rules from one army to another (Armor of Contempt, etc.) viewing one weapon option as being consistently and or absolutely more or less valuable than another in all situations is practically impossible and theres a degree of silliness in trying to price many of these weapons lower or higher than others in these cases.
GW has (rightfully so in my mind) recognized this and done away with the artificial valuation of weapons and instead given players free reign to make strategic listbuilding choices between what are essentially equal alternatives based on the needs of the army and intended role of the unit, relative to what their typical opponent is expected to bring, etc. Unfortunately, where this basically falls apart is the fact that going into a tournament or competitive event you can't change your list between games (and even in a casual environment such behavior is frowned upon as list tailoring), which serves to encourage players to in all instances simply pick the "most optimal" choice that has the widest ranging utility against the most varied set of targets likely to be encountered. Theres an argument to be made that this "most optimal" choice should be the one that has to pay extra for the weapons configuration on the basis that its the "most efficient" or "most used" in order to incentivize the alternative build - but that doesn't really work well for a game that is subject to the idea of local meta. Case in point - in the post Armor of Contempt world people insist weapons like heavy bolters, autocannons, or anything in the range of AP-1 or AP-2 are basically useless because their AP stat is effectively neutered by armies that benefit from AoC, which many presume to be in the majority... but locally AoC armies make up less than a third of my playerbase and those weapons still have a lot of use to me when facing other opponents, so I (and I would wager many others) are not devaluing those weapons the same way that many of you are. And so, trying to price weapons based on the perceived "most optimal" build used by the global meta aggregate is foolish, because its not necessarily reflective of the experience of the average player or even necessarily the majority of players.
87618
Post by: kodos
Yes and No
because there is one problem missing, that GW always created a weapon that is good at both, the situation were 99% of the enemies are Infantry and 99% of the enemies are Tanks
and this is the weapon everyone takes because the more universal the weapon is the better
in the past this was usually also the cheap weapon because somehow GW fails at calculating potential damage
a 1 shot Laser with D6 Damage is seen as equal to a D6 shot Laser with 1 Damage as seen as equal to a melee weapon with the same stats
all options being the same amount of points is as stupid as a Lasercannon being more expensive than a Heavy Bolter, because it ignores that there are some weapons who are better than those and should cost more
109576
Post by: Karhedron
GW really fail to understand all-round weapons. The fact that Marines pay more points for Missile Launchers than Grav Cannons is hilarious since the Grav Cannon is better than Frag against infantry and better than Krak against vehicles.
116670
Post by: Ordana
There is no reality in which a Devourer Scything talon Tyranid warrior costing the same as a Deathspitter Dual Bonesword Warrior makes sense.
82364
Post by: evil_kiwi_60
I’m just laughing that Space Marines get this thing as day -1 release and meanwhile CSM can just wait. I know creating a pdf is very very exhausting but just change a few words. Maybe Chaos will get to use it in a year or two I guess.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
Ordana wrote:There is no reality in which a Devourer Scything talon Tyranid warrior costing the same as a Deathspitter Dual Bonesword Warrior makes sense.
Which isn't saying much in and of itself, just because you can take certain weapon loadout combinations doesn't necessarily mean you should - putting a lascannon on a helbrute with a helbrute fist, for example, isn't the best use of a lascannon or a fist. Putting a multimelta on that helbrute with the fist, though, makes it a lot more useful. Likewise pairing the lascannon with a missile launcher makes it more useful (though less points efficient than a quad-las predator, but I digress).
Anyway, there is a reality in which the Devourer + scytal warrior is better than the Deathspitter Dual Bonesword warrior - a reality in which more than 50% of likely opponents have toughness 2, 1 wound, and no armor save (so basically somewhere between a grot and a nurgling). Its just that thats a generally unrealistic expectation of the game and the limited corner case scenarios in which the devourer + scytal warrior works out to being matehmatically superior are extremely extremely rare - rare enough that given the option between the two loadouts you would hedge your bets and go for the deathspitter dual bonesword loadout 100% of the time.
56055
Post by: Backspacehacker
In my personal opinion, so take this as you will, on making not just marine tanks, but all tanks not suck, should be this.
Any model that has the vehicle and tank key word should ignore the AP of weapons whos S > the vehicles toughness.
76825
Post by: NinthMusketeer
Racerguy180 wrote: H.B.M.C. wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote:It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit
It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.
Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.
One more shovel full of dirt on the grave of points...
The more people complain about the points of stuff, the more GW will just continue on the road to PL only.
Cut off nose to spite face but hilarious if true.
We have to self-balance anyways, might as well do it with less math.
130394
Post by: EviscerationPlague
chaos0xomega wrote: H.B.M.C. wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote:It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit
It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.
Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.
Not the same doesn't automatically mean they have different value. There are times you want a heavy bolter
Okay, so name the times you want the Heavy Bolter over the Volkite.
101163
Post by: Tyel
chaos0xomega wrote:If 99% of the models on any given table were guardsmen, then I would make the argument that a heavy bolter should be a 10-20 point upgrade and a lascannon should be a free weapon upgrade. If 99% of the models on any given table were leman russes, then I would make the argument that the heavy bolter should be free and the lascannon should be a 10-20 point upgrade, etc. With the proliferation of more varied statlines in the game, the increased commonality of armies where every model is some form of "tank" (Knights, Custodes, nidzilla/crusher stampede, etc.), plus the ongoing tug-of-war between survivability vs lethality rules from one army to another (Armor of Contempt, etc.) viewing one weapon option as being consistently and or absolutely more or less valuable than another in all situations is practically impossible and theres a degree of silliness in trying to price many of these weapons lower or higher than others in these cases.
Not sure about this.
For example at the outset of 9th, the new MMs drove vehicles without solid invuls towards extinction. Boards were littered with Eradicators, MM attack bikes, 8th edition codex Retributors and so on. Which unsurprisingly meant the amount of vehicles on competitive tables went down (and, interestingly, armies which didn't go as hard into this started to be more likely to win tournaments - because there are better tools than melta into say infantry). Should GW have made MMs even cheaper because they didn't have a target?
In practice for a balanced game you need a relationship between tanks, infantry, lascannons and heavy bolters. This is a function of their respective probabilities versus each other, not in which a player happens to encounter on the table. Because if one has better probabilities, and hence is more likely to come out on top, it will tend to become more common place.
So yes, you can try to make a heavy bolter the same points as a lascannon. But the maths has to work out that way. And it clearly doesn't in numerous cases GW had put out recently.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
When you're handed a Kratos datasheet and told that it costs you 320 points regardless of what options you select (the 5 point HK missile and 10 point multimelta option notwithstanding), how is that different than being told it will cost you 22 Power regardless of what options you select?
Both basically ascribe to the idea that weapon options are all (mostly) equivalent alternatives and any difference in their stats can be handwaved away as a result of performance tradeoffs (i.e. this weapon might hit harder but has fewer shots, etc.).
The way matched play points are trending is towards power level - the same phenomenon can basically be seen in Tyranid Warriors for example. Given enough time and adjustments to statlines GW will bring it to the point that most weapon options will be effectivly "equal alternates" with no cost associated, with the rare option that cost a few schmeckles more (whether thats measured in power level or matched play points is irrelevant). At that point it simply becomes a question of whether or not GW does away with the distinction between the two systems or continues to pretend that matched points are something different. I'm guessing the decision is really out of GWs hands and the playerbase would react unfavorably to a transition of points to power level, even if there is no fundamental difference between how they are being used at that point (cue kvetching about "points granularity" or whatever excuse the pro-points crowd would trot out at that point in time to justify why its okay for a unit of 10 models, for example, to cost 200 points regardless of what weapon and wargear options they select, but its not okay for the same unit to cost 10 Power). Automatically Appended Next Post: EviscerationPlague wrote:chaos0xomega wrote: H.B.M.C. wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote:It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit
It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.
Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.
Not the same doesn't automatically mean they have different value. There are times you want a heavy bolter
Okay, so name the times you want the Heavy Bolter over the Volkite.
Depends on the Volkite weapon, heavy bolter vs volkite caliver? I'd lean towards the heavy bolter. Vs volkite culverin? lean towards the culverin (unless AoC is removed from the meta or becomes dramatically less common, even still I probably would favor the culverin).
Tyel wrote:chaos0xomega wrote:If 99% of the models on any given table were guardsmen, then I would make the argument that a heavy bolter should be a 10-20 point upgrade and a lascannon should be a free weapon upgrade. If 99% of the models on any given table were leman russes, then I would make the argument that the heavy bolter should be free and the lascannon should be a 10-20 point upgrade, etc. With the proliferation of more varied statlines in the game, the increased commonality of armies where every model is some form of "tank" (Knights, Custodes, nidzilla/crusher stampede, etc.), plus the ongoing tug-of-war between survivability vs lethality rules from one army to another (Armor of Contempt, etc.) viewing one weapon option as being consistently and or absolutely more or less valuable than another in all situations is practically impossible and theres a degree of silliness in trying to price many of these weapons lower or higher than others in these cases.
Not sure about this.
For example at the outset of 9th, the new MMs drove vehicles without solid invuls towards extinction. Boards were littered with Eradicators, MM attack bikes, 8th edition codex Retributors and so on. Which unsurprisingly meant the amount of vehicles on competitive tables went down (and, interestingly, armies which didn't go as hard into this started to be more likely to win tournaments - because there are better tools than melta into say infantry). Should GW have made MMs even cheaper because they didn't have a target?
In practice for a balanced game you need a relationship between tanks, infantry, lascannons and heavy bolters. This is a function of their respective probabilities versus each other, not in which a player happens to encounter on the table. Because if one has better probabilities, and hence is more likely to come out on top, it will tend to become more common place.
So yes, you can try to make a heavy bolter the same points as a lascannon. But the maths has to work out that way. And it clearly doesn't in numerous cases GW had put out recently.
Was it a problem of multimeltas being too cheap or a problem of vehicles not being resilient enough? Be careful not to put the cart before the horse, or in this case the points values in front of the problem.
129062
Post by: The Black Adder
Do we think they just made a horrible mistake with the power level? I can't see any reason it would be massively inflated above the 20 points = 1 power level standard.
It seems like it should be 16 or 17 power level instead of 22.
105713
Post by: Insectum7
Backspacehacker wrote:In my personal opinion, so take this as you will, on making not just marine tanks, but all tanks not suck, should be this.
Any model that has the vehicle and tank key word should ignore the AP of weapons whos S > the vehicles toughness.
That's an interesting idea. On first glance I kinda like that.
101163
Post by: Tyel
chaos0xomega wrote:Was it a problem of multimeltas being too cheap or a problem of vehicles not being resilient enough? Be careful not to put the cart before the horse, or in this case the points values in front of the problem.
I'm not really sure what you mean by putting points values in front of the problem - because points are intrinsic to the problem.
The issue was that MM probability was too good - and so you were likely to get highly positive exchanges. If I bring a 150~ (or less) point unit of melta and have very good odds to just move across the table and blow up a 150+ point tank then you are going to be in trouble. A few of those and you are losing % of your army - and that's before the rest of my list does anything.
If those tanks were cheaper you'd have more stuff left to fight back with. If those tanks have better stats (or MMs weaker stats - or more expensive) then the probabilities become less reliable. You won't make those exchanges on those terms - and so bringing tanks (or not bringing MMs) becomes more desirable.
I mean in the case of the Kratos - if for its 320 points you mathed out it was likely to only kill 100 points of stuff - and at the same time 500 points of vaguely anti-tank would reliably kill it, you'd quickly conclude its going to be bad as it has a terrible exchange rate. As far as I can see this isn't the case though.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
Tyel wrote:chaos0xomega wrote:Was it a problem of multimeltas being too cheap or a problem of vehicles not being resilient enough? Be careful not to put the cart before the horse, or in this case the points values in front of the problem.
I'm not really sure what you mean by putting points values in front of the problem - because points are intrinsic to the problem.
Are they? This is what I mean by saying don't put the points in front of the problem. You're saying that the problem is that vehicles are too expensive or multimeltas are too cheap. I am saying no, the problem is that vehicles are underpowered and overly fragile.
Could that problem be solved by making a 150 point vehicle a 100 point vehicle instead? Theoretically, sure - but it would be better if vehicle rules and stats were adjusted to reflect the idea that a tank is supposed to be a mobile bunker capable of shrugging off repeated blows that would otherwise easily paste softer targets.
101163
Post by: Tyel
chaos0xomega wrote:Are they? This is what I mean by saying don't put the points in front of the problem. You're saying that the problem is that vehicles are too expensive or multimeltas are too cheap. I am saying no, the problem is that vehicles are underpowered and overly fragile.
Could that problem be solved by making a 150 point vehicle a 100 point vehicle instead? Theoretically, sure - but it would be better if vehicle rules and stats were adjusted to reflect the idea that a tank is supposed to be a mobile bunker capable of shrugging off repeated blows that would otherwise easily paste softer targets.
Well yes. You can change rules. Maybe you should because just making everything cheaper to counter codex creep isn't a great solution.
But you still get back to this idea that a certain amount of power is worth a certain amount of points. If your 150 point tank is only worth 100 in terms other units, then its going to be bad. If on the other hand its worth 200 then its going to be very good.
And this is where we get back to the point. You can write rules where a heavy bolter and lascannon are worth the same. But if the maths doesn't work out that way - then they aren't. And you will have imbalance if you pretend that they are.
95410
Post by: ERJAK
Backspacehacker wrote:In my personal opinion, so take this as you will, on making not just marine tanks, but all tanks not suck, should be this. Any model that has the vehicle and tank key word should ignore the AP of weapons whos S > the vehicles toughness. That's greater than. You want T7 Vehicles to ignore AP on Melta, Lascannons, Volcano cannons?
122989
Post by: VladimirHerzog
ERJAK wrote: Backspacehacker wrote:In my personal opinion, so take this as you will, on making not just marine tanks, but all tanks not suck, should be this.
Any model that has the vehicle and tank key word should ignore the AP of weapons whos S > the vehicles toughness.
That's greater than. You want T7 Vehicles to ignore AP on Melta, Lascannons, Volcano cannons?
you understood what he obviously meant.
124882
Post by: Gadzilla666
tneva82 wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote:
I'd say many others have already covered most of what I think already. It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit "meh".
One thing, however, that I think people are forgetting when comparing the Kratos to an Achilles, or any other HS unit with <18W (other Land Raiders, Kill Rigs, Tyranofexes, etc), is that because of those 18W, the Kratos can not benefit from Obscurring and Dense cover. So it effectively can't hide, which is a problem in 9th. And since it isn't TITANIC, despite being the size of a Spartan, it doesn't even get the benefits that most 18+ wound models get, like being able to fallback + shoot/charge and ignoring Difficult Terrain of less than 3". In effect, you're getting some of the worst parts of a LoW, without any of the benefits. All you're really dodging is the 1CP you'd end up paying for the SHAD.
So yeah "meh".
Well here knights were hiding in 8e and are still hiding.
Just because you are 18W doesn't mean you are seen through solid wall.
Solid walls? No. Any windows, cracks, etc in Obscurring terrain? Yes. I guess I should have said that it can't hide as easily as a unit with less than 18W. Is that better?
494
Post by: H.B.M.C.
I want the points for a unit to reflect its abilities. I don't want to be handed a unit that costs X points and told "You can have anything, so might as well take the best stuff as it's no more expensive than the worst stuff!". I certainly don't want to be handed a unit that costs X points no matter what it's equipped with, but then has add on (ie. pintle) options that do cost points. So those are worth paying more for, but the better guns over the worse guns aren't? That's inconsistent.
127462
Post by: Hecaton
Ordana wrote:Yes the move away from different points for different options is very concerning. A Nid warrior with Devourer and Scything talon should not be the same cost as one with a Deathspitter and dual boneswords, and based on the points cost it would appear GW is putting the price for both at the cheap end, rather then assuming the most expensive.
Whereas for other factions they get priced on the most expensive (like Orks). Obvious favoritism there. Automatically Appended Next Post: chaos0xomega wrote:Anyway, there is a reality in which the Devourer + scytal warrior is better than the Deathspitter Dual Bonesword warrior - a reality in which more than 50% of likely opponents have toughness 2, 1 wound, and no armor save (so basically somewhere between a grot and a nurgling). Its just that thats a generally unrealistic expectation of the game and the limited corner case scenarios in which the devourer + scytal warrior works out to being matehmatically superior are extremely extremely rare - rare enough that given the option between the two loadouts you would hedge your bets and go for the deathspitter dual bonesword loadout 100% of the time.
That just makes you look like an idiot for suggesting they be the same points then.
100848
Post by: tneva82
Gadzilla666 wrote:Solid walls? No. Any windows, cracks, etc in Obscurring terrain? Yes. I guess I should have said that it can't hide as easily as a unit with less than 18W. Is that better?
Well that's why people in 8e made already terrain like that...
In practice 9e obscuring hasn't changed that much in los blocking. Solid wall blocked back then, solid wall blocks now.
44785
Post by: WisdomLS
I think most people agree that one of the main problems with vehicles in 9th is their survivability, they just don't last against any sort of decent firepower directed their way.
The basic rules of the game (I'm a big proponent of just using the basic rules as I think they are really good - we don't need loads of unique special rules!) have three statistics to represent survivability of a unit.
Toughness, Wounds, Save
The simplest to understand is Save, it represents the armour a unit has. Issues have arisen as GW has upped the AP on loads of weapons this edition whilst Save values have remained the same - they have tried to fix this with AoC and to some degree it has has the desired effect by making things with good saves more survivable.
Wounds, whilst its not stated anywhere that I know of I've always considered wounds to represent the general size of the model (height, width, volumes etc..) the bigger you are the more you have. This seems to hold up in general but GW seems to have forgotten vehicles when they upped the W of many units in 9th edition. A rhino used to have the same wounds as 10 space marines, now it has the same wounds as 5 for instance.
Toughness is a little harder to quantify but seems to represent the general hardyness, durability and sturdyness of a target.
The problem here is that even though the rules are made to cover any value for Toughness in 9th GW have put an artificial cap of T8 on all units it seems (some titans may have T9) this limits design space alot, making things like a landraider T9 would be a great way to up their durability.
To fix vehicle durability in the context of the modern game I think giving alot of them more wounds would be a good fix and giving some of them extra T including utilising T9 or maybe more in certain cases.
Save is ok with AoC but I would prefer reducing all the extra AP and removing Aoc but that's not really viable.
116670
Post by: Ordana
Doubling vehicles wounds (for example) and doubling AT weapon damage so their relative power stays similar also has the advantage of reducing just how good the 'anti elite' weapons are that often now run double duty since their 2-3D combined with a decent RoF is also great against vehicles.
AoC sounds like a solution to run away AP values but only if you pretend all the other armies that didn't get AoC were somehow ok. (hint, they were not).
What 40k needs more then anything else right now is a complete rebalance of all weapons to reduce lethality.
44785
Post by: WisdomLS
Ordana wrote:Doubling vehicles wounds (for example) and doubling AT weapon damage so their relative power stays similar also has the advantage of reducing just how good the 'anti elite' weapons are that often now run double duty since their 2-3D combined with a decent RoF is also great against vehicles.
AoC sounds like a solution to run away AP values but only if you pretend all the other armies that didn't get AoC were somehow ok. (hint, they were not).
What 40k needs more then anything else right now is a complete rebalance of all weapons to reduce lethality.
I completely agree on the complete rebalancing but thats a few years off I fear.
This edition they have massively upped the damage done by anti-tank weapons but forgot to up the wounds on vehicles along with it
There are some armies that do really suffer from not having AoC in a world of increased AP but not that many. Alot of the armies that didn't get it have near army wide invuln saves or don't really rely on saves at all. The proliferation on invulnerable saves is a big part of the larger armour/ AP problem as GW have let it completely run away from them. If they had stuck to the basics of AP then they would have been fine.
AP:0 Most basic anti infantry weapons.
AP:1 Heavy or very good anti infantry weapons.
AP:2 Light anti tank weapons and anti heavyinfantry weapons
AP:3 Anti Tank weapons or very good anti heavy infantry weapons
AP:4 Very good anti tank weapons
AP:5 extremely rare super heavy or esoteric weapons.
Instead of that we have basic anti infantry guns with AP:3 and knives can get similar.
130394
Post by: EviscerationPlague
EviscerationPlague wrote:chaos0xomega wrote: H.B.M.C. wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote:It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit
It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.
Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.
Not the same doesn't automatically mean they have different value. There are times you want a heavy bolter
Okay, so name the times you want the Heavy Bolter over the Volkite.
I'm still waiting for an answer to this, chaos0xomega
35086
Post by: Daedalus81
Ordana wrote:Yes the move away from different points for different options is very concerning. A Nid warrior with Devourer and Scything talon should not be the same cost as one with a Deathspitter and dual boneswords, and based on the points cost it would appear GW is putting the price for both at the cheap end, rather then assuming the most expensive.
I think that matters when the price of the weapon has a big effect on the model. Raveners getting a gun with practically no downside for no points is a bit silly. Whether or not people will care about saving 10 to 20 points on a 320 point model is debatable.
I'd rather just see all the main gun weapons be useful.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Two of the HBs are getting replaced by Calivers ( 2 shots ) - not Culverins ( 4 shots ).
Two HB cause 2.7 wounding hits to a marine. The Volkites cause 1.8 plus an additional 0.4 from the MW. So even with AoC the HB comes out on top.
You would benefit from volkite where you're hitting T3 or T6 and slightly on T5.
The full suite of volkite vs HB is 5.3 vs 5.3 + 1.33. It's not wildly out of place and I'm not sure the couple of points difference is even worth worrying about. You'll certainly feel better about volkite if you roll hot.
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
Hecaton wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
chaos0xomega wrote:Anyway, there is a reality in which the Devourer + scytal warrior is better than the Deathspitter Dual Bonesword warrior - a reality in which more than 50% of likely opponents have toughness 2, 1 wound, and no armor save (so basically somewhere between a grot and a nurgling). Its just that thats a generally unrealistic expectation of the game and the limited corner case scenarios in which the devourer + scytal warrior works out to being matehmatically superior are extremely extremely rare - rare enough that given the option between the two loadouts you would hedge your bets and go for the deathspitter dual bonesword loadout 100% of the time.
That just makes you look like an idiot for suggesting they be the same points then.
No, that makes GW idiots for not making Devourers and Scytals a reasonable equal alternative to Deathspitters and Dual Boneswords. I only delineated GWs approach and philosophy - which is a 100% valid approach - I didn't suggest that they were implementing it well.
Wounds, whilst its not stated anywhere that I know of I've always considered wounds to represent the general size of the model (height, width, volumes etc..) the bigger you are the more you have. This seems to hold up in general but GW seems to have forgotten vehicles when they upped the W of many units in 9th edition. A rhino used to have the same wounds as 10 space marines, now it has the same wounds as 5 for instance.
The same argument kinda works in reverse with weapons though. In older editions of a game a lascannon or a meltagun/multimelta, etc. could potentially destroy any vehicle in the game in a single hit (except once structure points came into play, though IIRC it was still possible with good rolls using certain weapons), and versus certain multiwound infantry models (like terminators, marines, etc.) would automatically kill them in a single hit/wound as well via the instant death rule. Back then, upgrading a weapon to a lascannon generally cost ~20 points and made a lot of sense because even though you only got *one* shot with them per shooting phase (rare shenanigans and special rules notwithstanding) they still could do a lot if that shot was successful.
Today, that same weapon will need 3-5 hits minimum (assuming they wound, etc.) to destroy those same vehicles, and has the potential of leaving the same multiwound infantry models alive even if the hit successfully wounds them... but lascannons still generally work out to a roughly 20 point upgrade on a lot of models that have the option to take them despite the fact that they are now only one-fifth to one-third as lethal as they used to be. Granted, multimeltas faired a bit better (alongside anything that used to be twin-linked) as it received a second shot, but they are still substantially less lethal than they were in their previous incarnations.
So its not the traditional anti-tank weapons which are causing the problem here - while some weapons (Hammerhead Railguns) did become more lethal, in general they overwhelmingly became less lethal and less effective at killing vehicles than they were in previous editions. Instead the problem is the fact that just about every weapon in every army now has the potential to do damage to any vehicle in the game, whereas in the past if you were armed with anything weaker than an autocannon or a plasma gun it generally wasn't worth even bothering to shoot at a vehicle because it was either impossible to harm them or the probability of doing so was so low that it would be a waste of those shots unless you were absolutely desperate and were hoping for a lucky hit.
Increasing toughness and wound counts won't (in my mind) substantially help matters, it will just further devalue the already weak and inefficient AT weapons, whereas people who use massed bolter fire and the like to chip wounds off of tanks (and many do) will be wholly unaffected as they are already rolling 6+ to wound vs a 3+ save in many cases anyway (though some who get the benefit of 5+ to wound against certain vehicles might see that degrade to 6+ in some cases, but still my point stands). Theres a danger here too, because if you up wound counts dramatically enough to fix the vehicle survivability issue and suitably devalue massed small arms as a viable anti-vehicle weapon system, you will need to increase accessibility to weapons like lascannons/meltaguns or increase their ROF/damage output to make up for it.
If you currently need 3-5 hits (again thats a minimum assuming that you wound and bypass saves, etc.) to destroy a vehicle, by upping the wound count you push that number higher. Using your rhino wounds count as an example if currently you need 3 average damage lascannon hits to destroy a rhino, then upping the rhinos wound count to 20 in order to keep consistent with the marines would mean you would need 6 average damage hits to destroy it instead. At that point, you're essentially talking about a single lascannon, etc. per rhino firing away at it as a full time job for 6 turns straight and successfully hitting, wounding, and bypassing armor in order to destroy it by the end of the game. In reality though you need multiple lascannons (or meltaguns, etc.) per rhino or other vehicle firing away at it as a full time job, because not every shot you take is gonna hit, not every hit is gonna wound, not every wound is going to penetrate armor, etc. Likewise you have to account for attrition, a percentage of those lascannons won't survive past the first turn, a percentage won't survive past turn 2, etc. etc. Then you also have to factor in the current paradigm where most games are over by turn 3 or 4, so you need to up the number again to account for that.
Doing some quick back of the envelope math, if you made Rhinos T9 20W with a 2+ save (for example), at BS4+ you would need an average of 36 lascannon shots to destroy a single rhino. Assuming an average game length of 4 turns and 4 rhinos in the typical opposing list, you would need an average of 18 lascannons firing per turn to destroy *half* of those rhinos. Assuming an average of 12.5% of your starting lascannons are lost per turn (if we are targeting 50% destruction of enemy rhinos over the course of 4 turns then its fair to assume 50% destruction of your lascannons over the course of 4 turns), you would effectively need to start the game with about 27 lascannons to destroy just two rhinos assuming everything is average - which is a larger number of lascannons than I've ever seen fielded in any game across my 5 editions playing... just for rhinos. If your opponent focuses fire on lascannon armed models as "high value targets" then you will need even more as they will have a higher attrition rate. This doesn't even begin to account for any other vehicles your opponent might have in their list. In this scenario, its unlikely (if not impossible) that you will ever destroy all 4 rhinos (which may or may not be a problem depending on what your opinion is with regards to the possibility of tabling an opponent). So, an increase in survivability of vehicles without a commensurate increase in lethality of supposed "anti tank" weapons is a recipe for disaster and potentially breaks the game.
In reality, this is emblematic of the sort of problem that exists with the game since the switchover from 7th to 8th ed. 8th and 9th edition were built on the bones of previous editions, and while they made substantial changes in some areas of the game (for example - vehicle statlines/profiles and space marine wound counts) they left other areas of the game largely untouched or didn't adequately adjust it to reflect the "new normal" of the game in the face of other changes (for example - lascannon and melta profiles and weapon costs didn't change much, aside from the addition of d6 damage, but the d6 damage change still results in them being less lethal than they were before). This has obviously thrown a lot of internal and external balance out of whack which they are now struggling to come to grips with.
I would guess that a big part of this is the fact that the OG game designers who did all the math and number crunching in designing the basis for the older editions of the game are all gone now, and the people who are left aren't familiar enough with the underlying system logic, assumptions made, design paradigms, etc. that shaped those numbers in the first place. They have spreadsheets and calculators they can use to figure out stats, points values, and the like and have enough knowhow to calculate probabilities and points efficiencies, etc. but they don't necessarily have the designers notes that explain what the target numbers, ratios, parameters, etc. were for establishing unit survivability/resiliency or weapon lethality, etc. or why those target numbers and ratios are relevent or the mathematical paremeters within which the points system and calculators were intended to work and the necessary design limitations in order to avoid compromising the integrity of the game engine.
I think back to an excerpt from an article penned by Rick Priestly ( iirc) that I once read, where he discusses the use of ratios to define movement distances in the game - he argued a normal unit should have a movement speed that corresponds to 1/8th of the table length because it should take it approximately 8 turns to go end-to-end across the table unassisted, a slow unit 1/12th, and a fast unit 1/4th. In other words, in older 40k and WHFB where the table was defined as 48" wide, normal speed units moved 6", fast units moved 12" and slow units moved 4". Weapon ranges were likewise built around this system of ratios (hence oldschool 40k weapons always being in 6" range multiples with a bias towards full 12" increments with only a rare few being at 6" intermediate steps). Unfortuately, he never really bothered to explain the basis for these ratios or why they were important or when/why they should be used or ignored - he could have sound logic and data underlying it, or it could have been something he and the design studio arrived at through trial and error and sussed out as a sort of intrinsic and instinctual truth (i.e. "this feels right" - its quite possible that the entire game was designed that way with the studio arriving at reasonable/approximate conclusions through experimentation without the studio having any understanding of the underlying dynamics that made it work), or he could have pulled it wholly out of a hat. Without the explanation of the "why" there, I can't fault the current design team for ignoring it (not only is the table size smaller but units no longer adhhere to those ratios), assuming they were even aware of it to begin with. If my systems lead handed me documentation that tells me what the design limitations or parameters of something are without any explanation as to why, I would question the validity and utility of it and would treat it with suspicion until I could get clarification on it, I expect any semi-competent game designer at GW would probably feel the same if they were handed Priestly et als design notes and saw something like that too. Anyway, fact of the matter is that this is an example of design logic that the game was quite literally built around back in the day and which was part of the underlying fundamentals around which the entire game system was built around... but its clear that they are no longer following that today, which begs the question: did they move away from it intentionally and knowingly because they disagreed with it with consideration to all the other aspects of gameplay that would be impacted by this deviation? Or did they move away from it because they looked at movement distances and ranges in the game and said "its kinda boring that everyting moves either 6" or 12" - what if these guys went 8" and those fast vehicles could move 14" instead!" without any consideration for why they were structured that way, or what else might be impacted by doing so?
Personally, I think the latter is more likely than the former, purely on the basis that when looking at things like changes to marine wound counts, the shift from vehicle armor profiles to using the standard model profile, etc. there is insufficient evidence that these changes were made with any amount of consideration to the impact they have on broader gameplay or balance, etc. as evidenced by the fact that points values didn't change much (if at all) even as the established ratios and parameters of survivability vs lethality were effectively turned on their head and thrown out the window.
Doubling vehicles wounds (for example) and doubling AT weapon damage so their relative power stays similar also has the advantage of reducing just how good the 'anti elite' weapons are that often now run double duty since their 2-3D combined with a decent RoF is also great against vehicles.
AoC sounds like a solution to run away AP values but only if you pretend all the other armies that didn't get AoC were somehow ok. (hint, they were not).
What 40k needs more then anything else right now is a complete rebalance of all weapons to reduce lethality.
Doubling both is better than only doubling one but not the other, but I think you still run into trouble with "intermediate" weapons that are intended to hunt both light vehicles and heavy infantry. They exist at a sort of crossover point where improving their lethality vs vehicles makes them too lethal vs heavy infantry, but leaving them as is kinda makes them useless as they are already sort of ineffective in their intended role - having insufficient damage output to address vehicles and insufficient rate of fire to address heavy infantry.
EviscerationPlague wrote:EviscerationPlague wrote:chaos0xomega wrote: H.B.M.C. wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote:It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit
It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.
Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.
Not the same doesn't automatically mean they have different value. There are times you want a heavy bolter
Okay, so name the times you want the Heavy Bolter over the Volkite.
I'm still waiting for an answer to this, chaos0xomega
Its embarrassing for you to try to be a tough guy and call me out when I answered that exact question in pretty simple terms on the previous page. Go look for it - hint: ctrl + f "volkite" (no quotes) - its the last hit you'll get on page 4.
127462
Post by: Hecaton
chaos0xomega wrote:No, that makes GW idiots for not making Devourers and Scytals a reasonable equal alternative to Deathspitters and Dual Boneswords.
Why should they have to?
7075
Post by: chaos0xomega
Hecaton wrote:chaos0xomega wrote:No, that makes GW idiots for not making Devourers and Scytals a reasonable equal alternative to Deathspitters and Dual Boneswords.
Why should they have to?
Because thats the concept around which they are attempting to balance those weapons and why those weapons have no points costs associated with them. If they want those weapons to be equally viable (which is a prerequisite for those weapons all having an equal cost of 0 pts) then they need to make them equal alternatives.
121430
Post by: ccs
EviscerationPlague wrote:EviscerationPlague wrote:chaos0xomega wrote: H.B.M.C. wrote: Gadzilla666 wrote:It's quite odd that so many of its options are the same price, and overall, it's a bit
It's not odd. It's the current paradigm among the design team. I expect we'll see it more and more over the next few Codices.
Why even have points if you're going to cost everything's options the same. They're not the same.
Not the same doesn't automatically mean they have different value. There are times you want a heavy bolter
Okay, so name the times you want the Heavy Bolter over the Volkite.
I'm still waiting for an answer to this, chaos0xomega
Do narrative reasons count?
What about modeling reasons? Ex; I simply like the look of the HB option better vs the Volkite.
|
|