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I get interested about changes in vehicles resilience from 4th to 5th edition, due to the new unique damage table, introduction of cover saves, we will see significant changes here.

This is not a general tactica of vehicle use in 5th. I could not pretend to a comprehensive study, but I can draw some answers, based on probabilities. No boring tables listings, but I will point some representative examples of 4 ed -> 5 ed evolution. All calculations have been made for BS=3. Ho, yes I'm playing Imperial Guard ! You may adapt values for BS=4 multiplicating them by 1.33. I'm only listing destruction probabilities, which is the most interesting thing, and because the occurrence of destroyed weapons & immobilizations will not change (in absence of cover save). The % values may seem low, but they represent the whole serie of dice rollings, combining the values in case of multiple-shots weapons, I've also verified them carefully.


To begin with this vast subject, I'm focussing on medium armoured closed tanks, then their skimmers equivalents, because a lot of transports fall into these categories. Impact of mechanised infantry is a point not to be neglected in WH40k. The coming 5th edition will make regular troops a privileged selection in army lists, tactics (and players purchases, for those min-maxers easily satisfied of 2 tiny troops squads so far ). With infantry able to cross more ground by using run option, will it be worth putting this infantry in a medium-armoured vehicle, exposing them to the consequences of a wreck? And what about the « skimmer nerf » prophetized last months, with worry or jubilation? This has scared many Eldar and Tau players about the viability of their cherished tanks.



Shooting on regular ground tanks (non open-topped)

1) First remark on glancing hits.
Talking about ordinary AP >2 guns, there will be no direct destruction of these vehicles by glancing hits. It means we will not see Rhinos, or Killa-kans destroyed anymore by opportunity fire with heavy bolters, Ork big shootas, Tau pulse rifles & burst cannons. These weapons will now be confined to anti-infantry use, or eventually to fight the most fragile vehicles. It will make a significant difference for AV = 11 (including vulnerable flanks of eg. Predator), as these weapons are common, and foreseeably will be even more common, due to the troop emphasis of 5th edition.
Thanks to high rate of fire of these weapons, destruction may still be achieved through cumulative damages, at the risk of wasting valuable firepower. Also, just immobilizing a transport loaded of dangerous troops will not be more difficult, and it can be enough to save the day.

2) What about bigger calibres ?
Occurrences of Rhino wrecks to autocannon / missile launcher / multi-laser shots will drop of about 2/5. For example, destruction chances with missile launcher 13.9% -> 8.3% , it will be even less than actually on a Chimera (9.7%) ! Destruction of a Chimera with autocannon or M-L will drop to only 5.5%. With melta-guns there will be less deceptions : 16.7% -> 13.9% on a Rhino. All antitank guns will suffer an efficiency reduction, the polyvalent category between Str 6 & 8 being considerably affected.

3) Under protection of smoke.
One big innovation of this 5th Ed. will be this cover save in place of glancing hit table for playing hard-to-hit tanks. A 5+ save roll to avoid hits under smoke. Let's see some destruction probabilities of a smoke-covered Rhino in 4Ed/5Ed : by autocannon 8.1% -> 7.3 % ; by laser-cannon 6.9% -> 7.4 % ; by melta-gun 5.6% -> 9.3% . In fact, at the noticeable exception of melta-gun, there will be few changes in this case. I can bet that we will continue to see transport vehicles surrounded of cotton during the early turns of battles, and the same annoyed face of the opponent who tries to stop them.

4) Consequences of damage on passengers
to be continued...


Shooting on medium-armoured fast moving skimmers.

6) Skimmer nerf : a myth ?
Destruction probabilities of Devilfish or Wave-Serpent will move as follow : for autocannon 10.8% -> 7.3 % ; for laser-cannon 11.1% -> 9.3%, at the same time high rate Str 6 weapons will show a severe drop of their efficiency. Lowering of antitank capabilities against SMF is not so flagrant, but skimmers will indeed be somewhat more resilient in 5th Ed. A little less resilient than ground vehicles of the same AV : here is the re-equilibrating. Let's come to the thorny case of Falcon + holofield. Its resilience is actually astonishing...
... it will remain !
For example with autocannon shots : 3.7% -> 3.0% ; slight progression with laser-cannon : 3.7% -> 4.3%.

7) Vulnerability to dedicated antitank fire.
Statements above are not the end of the story. Skimmer fans, being accustomed to an exaggereted protective status in 4th Ed, then will have to fear the destructive power of AP1 weapons. Destruction probabilities with a melta-gun will be 9.3% on a Devilfish, and an honourable score of 5.6% on a Falcon + H-F. It becomes serious, adding to this a noticable possibility of destroyed weapons. Furthermore, short-ranged fire of melta-guns will become really scary. Let me finish with the unit who may win the nickname of Falcon-killer : the Tau Broadside with their twin-linked railgun : 6.9% -> 15.7% .


Light open-topped vehicles

Planned calculations & writing...



So, a few words of tomporary conclusion.
In general, an increase of regular tanks resilience, including skimmers, leading to a rising need for dedicated powerful antitank guns. According to the latest rumors, Armour Piercing = 1 class weapons will really shine in this edition, in addition of being the weapons of choise to fight skimmers.

Et voilà ! There is more to say about this subject, I will certainly complete this topic later...

The substance of your first remark is false. Vehicles may be Destroyed (Wrecked) in one shot by Glancing Hits if they are open-topped (always, or just that turn...) or hit by AP1 weaponry, and may be killed by cumulative Weapon Destroyed and Immobilized results, both possible with Glancing Hits. Open-topped vehicles being hit by AP1 weapons may be Destroyed (Explodes!) in a single hit.

Stricto-sensu You are right, and I'm perfectly aware of that.
But I didn't spoke of these particular figures to avoid a complicated introduction to the subject. You see, I'm focusing for the moment on closed medium vehicles like the Rhino. For them the remark of less dangerous Str 5 heavy weapons applies. As I said on the end, there much to say about light open-topped ground vehicles, and light open-topped skimmers, and...

Later...

Only by sweating the details will your analysis be worth anything. Trying to avoid complication in a complicated subject will only over-simplify the analysis and introduce error.

Nurglitch wrote:Only by sweating the details will your analysis be worth anything. Trying to avoid complication in a complicated subject will only over-simplify the analysis and introduce error.

Please don't denigrate what I've tried to explain so far. What I said that makes you so harsh ?

I disagree : in trying to draw some guidelines to understand the changes, you can't speak of everything at one time, or disperse efforts trying to speak of every cross-cases of the game, it would be boring. Sweating the details, as you say, would make any analysis prone to fall into a mess. I think that focusing on usual vehicles and usual weapons is the key to have a representative vision of the situation. It is not oversimplified, there are no errors. Though the analysis is not finished yet.

Some details have already been taken in consideration. I just don't want to throw raw, fat, uninterpreted tables on a thread. On the other hand I've not yet made calculations for some vehicule types (like open-topped) or weapons that would be interesting, but plan to do so. Remember that I modestly said :

I could not pretend to a comprehensive study, but I can draw some answers, based on probabilities.

Also, I have to recognise that the introduction sentence about glancing hits etc... was not precise enough for defining the framework of the paragraph. It is edited now, thank you for that.



Thread will be completed, if people feel it would be of any use, and I am open to any constructive remarks, critics, including on wording and english mistakes, as it is not my native language...

Pointing out that you've left out salient detail, and that leaving out salient detail creates misinformation, is not denigrating your work. It is constructive criticism. I pointed out what you've done wrong (leave out salient detail), and how to do it right (cite all salient details). Denigrating what you've tried to explain would be criticizing it in a derogatory manner, to try and make the merit of what you say seem less, rather than objectively appraise that merit. Including both superfluous detail and salient detail, and to do so haphazardly and without good organization will miss the forest for the trees, but limiting yourself to salient detail and organizing it well will not only allow you to treat complex subjects clearly, but make them appear less complex (since less of the complexity will be artificial noise resulting from your presentation of the subject).

Here's more constructive criticism. There are simple ways of 'sweating the details' that aid your readers in comprehension and help to organize your analysis. Firstly go from generalities to particulars.

For example: "All vehicles can move at combat speed and cruising speed, except Fast vehicles, and Walker vehicles. Depending on how fast a vehicle can move will affect how it can move from cover to cover, and thus benefit from a cover save."

Likewise include lots of 'sign-posting', or sentences telling your readers what you are talking about and the limits of your referents.

For example: "In the following paragraph I will sketch out a general structure for rendering complex analysis clear and straightforward."

Use an essay format for any written material over a paragraph. Introduce your subject and method, discuss it, and then reiterate your subject and say how it leads to your conclusions. If you're going to crunch some numbers, you should discuss your method and reiterate it for people to check, as well as qualify their significance so that their employment in any arguments is accurate and precise.

Finally do not mistake a business-like tone for harshness. Since we do not know each other personally, and you're operating in a language you are not fluent in, communication will only take place effectively where we both adopt a formal tone. That means leaving out tone and emoticons so that readers can focus on your ideas and not the ghosts of connotations they may imagine.

Given that I suggest starting from scratch discussing the general vehicle rules before moving onto exceptions and special cases. Since the structure of the game is by phase and there are three phases, I suggest breaking your discussion down by movement, shooting, and assault. If one phase affect another, such as movement affecting shooting, discuss that in the section on the shooting phase and cite that discussion first in the section on the movement phase.

Thanks for that - (personally i'm not too worried about presentation and elegance - the facts nice and concise for me please)

I personall think that one of the biggest proposals is that effects on the vehicle will now affect the passengers!

If you consider that a rhino with marines if it gets stunned the marines can jump out and run away. in the new proposals the same rhino once immobilised now means it is not only stuck in the open, but it's cargo are also stuck in there! Dangerous IMHO

Strongly suggest just pretending Nurglitch doesn't exist here. His purpose on the forum seems to be to prove that he's smarter than you, and/or giving rhetoric lessons.

Your analysis is pretty interesting. I'd like to see some more numbers, maybe in tabular format, and I'd love to see them analyzed by some of the other number-jockeys in the forum.

Nurglitch again. *Yawn*

Excellent, this looks like it has the potential to be a great thread if it does not get derailed by certain individuals. I back up the request to see more numbers and analysis, but hopefully not too many posts discussing the finer points of what constitutes 'analysis'. Great start Ravajaxe!

Here is a quick number:

Space Marine with a Lascannon shooting at a Falcon with Holofields, with the assumption that the Falcon has moved fast enough to get 4th Edition SMF or 5th Edition Obscurity).

4th Edition:

1 Shot, .66 Hit (2/3 Chance), 0.4356 Glances (2/3 of the previous 2/3), 0.03629 Destroyed Result (3/36 of the previous 2/3).

5th Edition:

1 Shot, .66 Hit (2/3 Chance), 0.33 Penetrating (1/2 of the previous 2/3), 0.0274 Destroyed Result (3/36 of the previous 2/3), 0.01826 Failed Obscurity Save (2/3 of the previous 3/36)

I probably did something wrong.

I like what you've done so far, keep up the good work and analysis. I'm looking forward to seeing the remainder.

Keep it up Ravajaxe. Your results look promising. Transports seem to become better at transporting, tanks become better at tanking (but not scoring) and dedicated anti tank guns like Meltas get better too. All without changing a single Codex. Pretty nice so far.

There is mathammer and then there is reality. i find in the real game dice averages rarely average.

As a person who has played deathwing for many years i can tell you making 5+ saves will rarely save a vehicle. in the old DA dex with the jink save on my ravenwing units it was a funny rare occurance to make that 6+ jink save(vehicle cove save equivalent for speeders) even on the 4+ save the masters speeder used to have.

Certainly being able to completely ignore the shot on 5+ is a nice thought. however it doesn't make them more survivable as getting that 5+ is harder than the mathhamer would have you think.

The reality of this rules change is that almost all non-skmmer vehicles will hide in terrain and remain immobile to fire all thier weapons as much as possible. turning them into pillboxes and removing a tactical aspect of the game. it was a welcomed change in the rules for those of us who are vehicle players when they got rid of it in the 3rd to 4th edition changes. the damage chart changes will also extremely buff AV14 vehicles due to the limiting of the number/strength of weapons that can actually kill.

the simple reality of these pruposed changes means a few simple things-
vehicles will hide, skimmers will not be as resiliant and AV14 especialy hiding in terrain will become the new skimmer power vehicle. especially the land raider since it has the machine spirit.

I probably did something wrong.

yup

4th edition results, assume imobile = dead (cause the next shot will)
4.9% (you rounded somewhere and chance of glancing imobile is 1/9 not 3/36)

5th edition
.66 hit, .33 pen (half), .222 failed save (2/3 of previous), .055555 dead (1/4 are dead with same assumption of previous test)
On the glancing hit (imobile = dead)
.66 hit, .111 glance, .074 fail save, .002 die (1/36 chance of imobile)
add together
5th edition death to las = 5.75%
Small gain in 5th rules.
With imobile counted as ailve 4th = 1.22% and 5th = 2.47%

Off topic:

Nurglitch wrote:Only by sweating the details will your analysis be worth anything. Trying to avoid complication in a complicated subject will only over-simplify the analysis and introduce error.

I hate you so so so much.

On Topic:

Rarely do i pay attention to mathhammer but your observations are pretty insightfull and interesting. Ill be watching this one as it unfolds.

I think it is important to not to see the effect of Str 5 weapons on Rhinos as a wasted effort. Immobilizing a Rhino is almost as good as destroying a Rhino in terms of stopping it's primary use: troop transport. If I was a Tau player, I would rather see those troops hoof it across the board (likely facing two rounds of shooting) than to have the Rhino drive up in front of me and unload it's cargo.

@ravajaxe, beautiful work. Please ignore Nurglich. I am curious about how the edition changes will affect monoliths. Can you illuminate us?

Darrian

Nuglitch, if you want to be extremely technical, as he is writing a treatise that is mainly based upon statistics and the analysis of those statistics, a form more similar to those of mathematical or theoretical physics papers would be more appropriate. Of course, I am not a pompous intellectual who would require an abstract and some such thing from what is clearly a less formal form of writing, that is a forum post.

I tried a couple games using the rules from the pdfs. The results were entertaining.
Speeders with a save became annoyingly hard to kill. One particular instance saw the speeder ignore a 10 man squad with melta rapid fire into it.
The Russes were practically un-killable when facing long range fire. Even rhinos shrugged off their fair share of fire.

I predict the lith will retain its status as the god of not dying along with the falcon.

Hello !
Thanks very much for these encouragements.

I will keep writing. The case of light open-topped vehicles will soon be treated, but don't wait for any scoop compared to other vehicles.
By the way, whith AV=10, it is not so easy, because small weapons fire (Str 4) should be taken in consideration. With the shots of an entire squad, there is a strong possibility of destruction by blowing off the vehicle's unique weapon + immobilization + 3rd damage in a sigle turn. Difficult to calculate with so many rolls.

Reaver83 wrote:Thanks for that - (personally i'm not too worried about presentation and elegance - the facts nice and concise for me please)

I personall think that one of the biggest proposals is that effects on the vehicle will now affect the passengers!

If you consider that a rhino with marines if it gets stunned the marines can jump out and run away. in the new proposals the same rhino once immobilised now means it is not only stuck in the open, but it's cargo are also stuck in there! Dangerous IMHO

An interesting remark : I've forgotten about these rules changes. I will try to write something about it.

cypher wrote:

I probably did something wrong.

yup

4th edition results, assume imobile = dead (cause the next shot will)
4.9% (you rounded somewhere and chance of glancing imobile is 1/9 not 3/36)

5th edition
.66 hit, .33 pen (half), .222 failed save (2/3 of previous), .055555 dead (1/4 are dead with same assumption of previous test)
On the glancing hit (imobile = dead)
.66 hit, .111 glance, .074 fail save, .002 die (1/36 chance of imobile)
add together
5th edition death to las = 5.75%
Small gain in 5th rules.

Nice explanation, I agree. But could you explain what do you mean about :

With immobile counted as alive 4th = 1.22% and 5th = 2.47%

whoadirty wrote:I think it is important to not to see the effect of Str 5 weapons on Rhinos as a wasted effort. Immobilizing a Rhino is almost as good as destroying a Rhino in terms of stopping it's primary use: troop transport. If I was a Tau player, I would rather see those troops hoof it across the board (likely facing two rounds of shooting) than to have the Rhino drive up in front of me and unload it's cargo.

I have to admit you are pretty right. A last-chance attempt to immobilise this anger-loaded Rhino, with eg. pulse rifles is not really a wasted effort. My comment must be tempered.

With immobile counted as alive 4th = 1.22% and 5th = 2.47%

when i did the calculations i counted immobilizations as dead for the falcon. If you count only purely destroyed results the percentages drop accordingly. Just didn't include calculations.

that rhino thing annoys me. If you kill it the guys can get out and walk. But stun it really good and they cant do anything.

What are the chances extra armor will be placed on all 35 pt rhinos in the next edition if this holds true?

Cypher's math is right on the Falcon in V4 vs. V5 in terms of being shot and killed by a single Lascannon. Goes from about 4.9% chance of death to a 5.7% chance. Round abouts or so.

Likewise, a Lascannon vs. a Land Raider who popped smoke that turn, you're looking at only a 4.9% chance of killing the LR in a single shot.

Of course all this changes drastically when using Melta or AP1 weaponry. Which will be the new and improved way of dealing with tanks of all types come 5th Ed. Tau and anyone with infiltrate/deepstrike and Meltaguns will just love it in 5th. The Las/Plas is probably dead for good, since Meltas will do the Job for Marines/IG/Chaos far better than most Lascannons will.

And lord help you at long range vs. AV14 in a forest (4+ cover). Even a Railgun from a Hammerhead will only have an 6.4% chance or so of taking it out, but a 13.89% chance of making sure it at least can't shoot next turn.

LONG LIVE THE LEMAN RUSS'S OF THE FOREST!

I can just see the machine spirit inside the tank now: "Bring me....a shrubbery!"

Has anyone seen the catachan Baneblade in the latest white dwarf? Is that a way to get the cover save without smoke?

FearPeteySodes wrote:Off topic:

Nurglitch wrote:Only by sweating the details will your analysis be worth anything. Trying to avoid complication in a complicated subject will only over-simplify the analysis and introduce error.

I hate you so so so much.

Off topic:

Hate to go against the tide here, but we will have to watch out for details. If we just count 'Vehicle Destroyed' results, a Falcon in 4th Edition is nigh-on indestructible. If we count culmative damage from 'Weapon Destroyed' and 'Immobilized' it gets *slightly* easy to kill.
Of course even in mathematical research papers it is common practice to make simplifying assumptions, and they get paid to be as close to fully rigorous as they can get!

On topic:

Seriously though, your analysis is a hell of a lot better than I could do. I'd like to think Nurglich (and I, I guess) are giving constructive advice.

Well, nice to know the quality of certain posters here. Keep it up, you classy people you!

Longshot: I'm no statistician, so I appreciate it when statisticians show their work and explain to me how it works so that I can understand the significance of their conclusions.

Lemartes: A snide dismissal? That's beneath you.

MrJones: Yes, asking that he write clearly and in an easily readable style is derailing the thread.

FearPeteySodes: I don't know you, so I couldn't say whether I hate you or not, but your need to make things personal seems certainly hateful enough to deserve some in return.

DarkHellion: Thanks for the flame, but contrary to your ad hominem I am not a 'pompous intellectual'. I'm not a statistician either so I'm inclined to want people using statistics to take their time and explain things clearly to me. You know, as a courtesy.

Kalkyrie: Thank you for adding something constructive. It's posts like that that make posting here worth it. Incidentally, I did not say that simplifying assumptions were bad (at least I tried to distance myself from that), they're quite good when they're explicitly noted. Since, as mentioned, I'm neither a statistician nor a 'pompous intellectual' nor even psychic, it really helps me (and the discussion) to lay everything on the table.

On topic though, the possibility of killing vehicles through cumulative glancing hits seems to be something that people are glossing over in their discussions of the presumed vehicle rules (use the future tense, they're not set in stone yet!). It's certainly something to run the numbers for the likelihood of the minimal number of glancing hits to destroy a vehicle compared to the likelihood of single-shot kills.

cypher wrote:

With immobile counted as alive 4th = 1.22% and 5th = 2.47%

when i did the calculations i counted immobilizations as dead for the falcon. If you count only purely destroyed results the percentages drop accordingly. Just didn't include calculations.

that rhino thing annoys me. If you kill it the guys can get out and walk. But stun it really good and they cant do anything.
What are the chances extra armor will be placed on all 35 pt rhinos in the next edition if this holds true?

I see, it's just that I did'nt write my calulations like that. I do treat weapon or vehicles specific rules in my tables, like immobilized = destroyed for a moving skimmer.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:
Of course all this changes drastically when using Melta or AP1 weaponry. Which will be the new and improved way of dealing with tanks of all types come 5th Ed. Tau and anyone with infiltrate/deepstrike and Meltaguns will just love it in 5th. The Las/Plas is probably dead for good, since Meltas will do the Job for Marines/IG/Chaos far better than most Lascannons will.

You have outmanoeuvred me! After doing these calculations it stroke me too that melta will really shine in this edition.

LONG LIVE THE LEMAN RUSS'S OF THE FOREST!
I can just see the machine spirit inside the tank now: "Bring me....a shrubbery!"

At last, main battle tanks will have a chance to rule in this Edition !

But sorry, you have mistaken :

a Lascannon vs. a Land Raider who popped smoke that turn, you're looking at only a 4.9% chance of killing the LR in a single shot.

(with BS=4) hit : 2/3 * smoke fail : 2/3 * one chance of pen. hit 1/6 * destroyed on 5+ : 1/3 = only 2.5% !!

Kalkyrie wrote:Off topic:
Hate to go against the tide here, but we will have to watch out for details. If we just count 'Vehicle Destroyed' results, a Falcon in 4th Edition is nigh-on indestructible. If we count culmative damage from 'Weapon Destroyed' and 'Immobilized' it gets *slightly* easy to kill.
Of course even in mathematical research papers it is common practice to make simplifying assumptions, and they get paid to be as close to fully rigorous as they can get!

Immobilized results are already taken into account for skimmer destruction. For damaging weapons (and immo' in case of ground vehicles) I'm in the mist for defining what could happen in probabilities. Destruction by cumulative damages could happen, but you need at least 3 successive damages. Plus there could be more than one weapon to shut down on a tank before this accumulation would pay the firer. An occurence of a destruction after for example one single damage cancels the previous damage in terms of maths : it has been done "for nothing". Such damage series rarely happen from one single heavy weapon in one turn. So how many guns, how many squads, how many turns? All of these factors makes a "total probability" of destroying a tank impossible to guess.

Anyway, will the probability of such damage change?
No : there is still a single immobilize and a single Weapon damage in tables, whatever the edition and penetration result.
With cover save? Apply a 2/3 or 1/2 factor, that's it!
No need to go further, the real changes are there : in the tank direct-destruction !

Massing the right amount of firepower here or there is a matter of tactics and player skills, not the matter of math-hammer.
This article provides guidelines, not the auto-win formula !

Seriously though, your analysis is a hell of a lot better than I could do. I'd like to think Nurglich (and I, I guess) are giving constructive advice.

I've listen to some of his remarks, for presentation, the remaining is not reasonable IMHO.

LONG LIVE THE LEMAN RUSS'S OF THE FOREST!
I can just see the machine spirit inside the tank now: "Bring me....a shrubbery!"

At last, main battle tanks will have a chance to rule in this Edition !

Voodoo Boyz: It certainly seems significant where Necrons are concerned, given the Gauss and Disruption Field rules. Likewise the fact that it is possible to destroy a vehicle through cumulative Weapon Destroyed and Immobilized results beyond crashing skimmers (those without special Eldar and Tau upgrades...) certainly seems significant where it's not unreasonable for a vehicle to sustain large numbers of glancing hits such as Monoliths, Land Raiders, and like vehicles facing bolters and whatnot.

Can you even destroy a Monolith through cumulative results? You never destroy it's weapons - you only put another -1 penalty on it's number of attacks. Thus you can never technically get past the "Weapon Destroyed" result.