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So I used to play a lot of 40k back in the day. Like all of 4th Ed back in the day, not as far as many on here, but I was pretty heavily into the game. I've played a few things of 5th Ed, and I've followed the 40k codex's while I dabbled in WHFB, Warmachine, & Hordes; but recently some friends have got me playing more 40k (that and 8th Ed WHFB).

After a few matches I've come to the conclusion that it really is VehicleHammer 40k. Troops generally don't want to leave their transports, and a whole lot comes down to the fact that Vehicles are pretty awesome, and much depends on who can get the right rolls first on the damage chart to pop enough of the other guys vehicles to force his squishy stuff out, which can then be killed.

I've been playing my Mechanized Marines for the most part, and have found that in the games I've won and lost with them, it really comes down to who can kill the other guys vehicles faster.

After the games with the Marines, I've tinkered with making a Demon army, and after speaking to some old friends who've stuck with 40k while I played other games, the consensus was "non-vehicle armies are at a huge disadvantage", you will struggle with Demons. Another guy I know recently said he's considering just shelving his Nids now that Dark Eldar came out and are a hard counter to competitive 'Nids.

One of my games with the Marines was against a friends new Dark Eldar playtest list (he memorized the 'Dex after a day or two, so we had some time playing things out with his old models), and after we started hammering out what would be the most effective list for him - it came down to just as many basic Warrior/Lance Squads in Raiders, with some Wytch Squads in Raiders, and then Lances from Heavy Support, and giving everything the 5+ Inv Save for his vehicles. All the new "Toys" were just that, and the most effective thing was in his basic guys, with some Elite shooty guys to back them up - since he ran out of troop and HS slots.

I guess my question is whether or not what I'm seeing in my games or from speaking to others is true. Should I even bother converting my Demon army in WHFB to be dual purpose since they can't hide in the safety of transports? Is there more to the game than just killing vehicles, and then dealing with the small squads that were sitting in them?

I personally dislike 5th edition. Even for all its faults, I had more fun playing 4th edition than I have in any game in 5th.

It looks to me like 5th ed has some built in crutches that most effective armies exploit. So as you have pointed out, even vastly different armies still sorta look the same on the table.

Vehicles didn't become better, they just became useful.

4th edition basically had you starting OUTSIDE your Dedicated Transports in case you got Shaken and had to now Bail out and risk being pinned.

How is that not utterly ridiculous?

Gwar! wrote:Vehicles didn't become better, they just became useful.

4th edition basically had you starting OUTSIDE your Dedicated Transports in case you got Shaken and had to now Bail out and risk being pinned.

How is that not utterly ridiculous?

Don't get me wrong, 4th Ed had it's problems out the wazoo - Skimmers and Monstrous Creatures were what ruled then. And yes, Mechanized Marines was my "fun army to play against" which basically translates to "Stuff to play against fluff bunnies". At least then the stuff could MOVE and shoot, now most tanks are pretty slow so they can still shoot their one gun.

Still, there isn't a whole lot of point to armies that don't have vehicles to hide in. At least not compared to what I can see ATM.

I think the problem is mostly just narrow minded people. GW relaxed the FO chart and changed some rules so you can have more tanks, so the knee jerk reaction is for everyone to immediately run out and buy loads of tanks. If you give people the option of bringing a gun to a knife fight, the're going to take it.

My issue is it doesn't have to be that way. GW puts tons of alternate options and fluff into their games to use. Min/max players will of course strip a codex into 2 or 3 "good" units and spam them like crazy, but theres not a lot of enjoyment in that except for the win. I'm pretty sure that most of the people that fit that profile just print their list soup-to-nuts from a website and couldn't even tell you why a unit is good or bad. Why try to think of "list building" as a part of the game when someone tells you the way to win is to put as much AV on a list as possible and move them forward for 6 turns?

This game is generally far more enjoyable if you never visit the "Army list" or "Tactics" parts of forums. Some of the bloodiest, white knuckle, last-turn-takes-all fights Ive ever had come from competing lists that would probably be laughed out the door in a lot of places. But hey, for some folks every battle is 'Ardboyz.

Also, nice to see a Voodoo Boyz post again. I had one of your quotes as my Sig for like 2 years :p

There's a lot of sense in that.

The other thing people tend to ignore in these "rant" threads is terrain.

A table with a good amount of terrain on it is a lot less kind to vehicles, because they find it harder going without it being very much use as cover compared to infantry units.

Terrain is always absent from theoryhammer threads. When people say about hoe Carnifexes die easily because it's hard to hide them or get them cover saves, I just keep thinking 'man, do these people just put down some barricades and craters?'.

We run multiple Bastions, large hills and other buildings. Hiding a Carnifex is pretty easy.

Kilkrazy wrote:A table with a good amount of terrain on it is a lot less kind to vehicles, because they find it harder going without it being very much use as cover compared to infantry units.

Yeah but have you seen the types of tables people play on KK?

A brief look over the BatReps forum at any time of the week will show you that most people play on virtually bare tables with great tracts of flat green nothingness, punctuated by the odd half-assed ruin or perhaps a low-lying hill. And they're the tables that have a comparative wealth of terrain. The tournament tables are worse.

If there's a part of the so-called 'meta-game' that people have forgotten, it's how to make interesting terrain-filled tables.

Terrain makes a huge difference. Where I play there is proper LoS blocking terrain, there is also difficult and dangerous terrain (for infantry and vehicles).

There is plenty of mech of all races,yet my daemons are easily 75% plus against mech

don't believe the net always

Reaver83 wrote:There is plenty of mech of all races,yet my daemons are easily 75% plus against mech

I agree with you about terrain, but let's not get carried away. Your 75% win record against Mech is anecdotal and proves only one thing - that you personally have a 75% win record against Mech. Doesn't mean much more than that I'm afraid.

I mean this is probably one of the better ones I've seen here in recent days, whereas this, this and this just make me cringe.

I even brought this up in a previous thread, using the picture below as an example of a table that looks great, yet is inadequate for a real game.

@Kilkrazy - I don't want to ignore things and be negative. I'm hoping more than anything to be proven wrong and find something to make the games more fun.

The sad thing that I've found is that 99% of the time, units want to stay in their transports - preferably transports that have guns on them, so they're useful. Transports can move and fire, or more quickly to get somewhere, and drop off a throw-away squad to unload firepower.

I do admit that the table we were playing on could have used more terrain (the table looked a lot like the pic HBMC posted), just with most of it being "area terrain" with a few pieces that would block LOS, but most of it was giving 4+ Cover saves to troops or tanks being shot through it.

If it was just more terrain that either Blocked LOS to vehicles (easier to deliver/hide troops) or just suited to give them more places to hide and provide a 4+ Cover save - wouldn't that just make the vehicles even MORE durable?

I guess what you're saying is that more terrain so vehicles can't drive anywhere? Looking at the table you linked as a "good" table, I'm not seeing much that makes vehicles to be at a distinct disadvantage. There's plenty of room to drive around in there and get where you're going or need to be.

Yeah but it covers most of the table and doesn't leave great areas of blank space. The terrain pieces are small (or small by my standards), but they're everywhere. Additionally, I said "one of the better ones I've seen here in recent days" which =/= a good table with good terrain.

To put it another way, I'd rather play on the table that puts small bits of tall terrain everywhere rather than a few pieces clumped together.

I'm talking about chunks of terrain that easily hide infantry and don't hide vehicles because vehicles need 50% coverage.

Area terrain is usually good this and can also be declared "Dengerous" for vehicles.

Basically if you want a lot of infantry and fewer vehicles, you need a table with a lot of terrain on it.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Yeah but it covers most of the table and doesn't leave great areas of blank space. The terrain pieces are small (or small by my standards), but they're everywhere. Additionally, I said "one of the better ones I've seen here in recent days" which =/= a good table with good terrain.

To put it another way, I'd rather play on the table that puts small bits of tall terrain everywhere rather than a few pieces clumped together.

I don't mean to infer that what was posted was perfect, I get what you mean. I also can agree, leaving big open spaces all over is probably a bad thing for 40k.

This said, unless it was very hard to drive your tank nearly anywhere on said board - then there's still tons of advantages towards being mech. Even without the 4+ Cover Save afforded to vehicles, armies have to gear up with plenty of Anti-Tank to get the squishy troops out of their transports. Without enough anti-tank, the guy who is all Mech'd up has a massive advantage in that only a small portion of his opponents guns can harm him, while just about anything the other guy can shoot will harm anything in the infantry guys list. Against assault armies, Mech is even better. First they have to assault your transport (hitting on 6's if you move over 6"), and even if they blow it up, you still can get out, sit there, and then shoot/charge the following turn.

In all honesty, what is the disadvantage of going mech? If you can bring enough (or the right) guns/assault elements to take care of a lot of bodies; then what's the advantage to bringing guys w/o the Tanks?

Agreed - what really hurts vehicles is terrain, so the upside is they are finally fairly hard to crack - midway between 3rd and 4th. In 4th standard deployment was NUTS....

I really must be missing something here:

How does terrain hurt vehicles?

slows them down. Forces difficult terrain checks. can cluster them up for barrages. Can stop them dead if you crack open the lead vehicle.

Terrain also blocks line of sight for your vehicles, keeping them alive longer.

Terrain is a boon and a bane for vehicles.

Yup. Terrain Terrain Terrain... You must have to have it, but not just any kind of terrain... LOS blocking terrain.

LOS blocking terrain is all find and dandy but that same lack of LOS stops you from shooting at the vehicle as well and giving a vehicle a 4+ cover just makes them even MORE durable so it's not some kind of silver bullet allowing non-mech forces to compete. It's a bandaid solution over the bleeding stump that is the vast over-performance of mechanization with vastly underwhelming risk and almost completely negligible cost of doing so.

It's all bonuses, no negatives and low cost.

So for the OP, yes you're right. It is VehicleHammer 40,000 and any army that can't get in on the fun is at a sizable disadvantage before even putting a model on the table.

Demons have problems in 5th ed because their a 4th ed codex not because the game is "vehicle hammer". Every non-5th codex has issues and some will be more competitive than others but thats just because they got lucky with the edition change over rules wise.

All of the 5th edition codex's are balanced with each other and it just isn't reasonable to pick up a codex that was made for a previous edition and expect to have all the tools you need to be effective in the next. For as much as people cry about nids being nerfed they can take on mech heavy armies just fine when build properly and have no vehicles just like demons. The only difference is they were built with 5th ed in mind.

Demons can be very powerful against most armies but their are certain things like heavy vehicles that give them fits this is just due to the edition change. The "tools in their tool box" will be expanded when they get and update. Just be glad the didn't get nerfed as bad as necrons. When they get updated they will be just fine just like the tyranids.

I enjoyed 3rd edition alot more myself. Even if it did have its issues. Foot armies and the like are viable just not optimal if your going for win at all costs. Whatever you do field make sure you have some good weapons to take down AV12+. Also I agree with other posters saying more terrain should be used in games. Randomize it with scatter dice and normal dice if needed. It creates landmarks to fight over and helps set the narrative for the battle more than army As forces meet army Bs on what happens to be a field flat and clear like a football pitch..

If a vehicle with troops sits behind 4+ cover, it makes the vehicle that much more survivable while it shoots your units to pieces. LOS blocking terrain prevents vehicle heavy armies from just sitting there and shooting like mad across the board. It also stops Long Fangs from doing the same thing. LOS blocking terrain makes vehicles and Long Fangs move around to the sides of the LOS blocking terrain to get shots. Now the Bloodthirster, which is hiding behind the LOS blocking terrain, can jump over the terrain and engage the vehicle in assault. Or more favorably the Tzeentch Herald on chariot can move around and shoot the vehicle which moved out of 4+ cover to get a better shot, and then the Thirster can engage the troops who fall out.

Vehicles are superior when they can park on the board edge and gain as much 4+ cover as possible. LOS blocking terrain makes the vehicles move forward to get their shots and that helps non-vehicle based armies.

Im a guard player, and I'm going to peacefully leave this thread.

People don't play with nearly enough Terrain.

I understand if one can't afford it, but at tournaments(particularly on a national scale) there's really no excuse for the laughably bare tables you see.

SumYungGui wrote:LOS blocking terrain is all find and dandy but that same lack of LOS stops you from shooting at the vehicle as well and giving a vehicle a 4+ cover just makes them even MORE durable so it's not some kind of silver bullet allowing non-mech forces to compete. It's a bandaid solution over the bleeding stump that is the vast over-performance of mechanization with vastly underwhelming risk and almost completely negligible cost of doing so.

It's all bonuses, no negatives and low cost.

So for the OP, yes you're right. It is VehicleHammer 40,000 and any army that can't get in on the fun is at a sizable disadvantage before even putting a model on the table.

Depends what you are trying to get the tank with. If you're trying to shoot the tank, sure, it's a negative. If that terrain is blocking LOS to some melee MCs like Carnifexes, then it's pretty nice to not have any missiles smacking into it on its way across the table.

Monster Rain wrote:People don't play with nearly enough Terrain.

I understand if one can't afford it, but at tournaments(particularly on a national scale) there's really no excuse for the laughably bare tables you see.

Agreed 200%

The GW i usualy play at has three urbun tables and the games i've had on those tables where my tank can rarely fire up to it's maximum range are by far the most fun i've had.

I'm getting flashbacks to the end of 4th edition. The complaining has started again...

Also, vehicles rarely fit well in Space Hulk style terrain.

Reaver83 wrote:There is plenty of mech of all races

I only play Tyranids. I disagree.

Vehicles went from "hit it first" to "HIT IT FIRST!"
We have none and got worse at dealing with everyone else's.
I still enjoy playing. . .but, really? I hope I misread that.

More to the point, yes things have changed.
You will, and I mean will need to buy/make/convert ways to deal with other people's transports. And lots of other vehicles.
But you should really be fine playing with only one--like Necrons, its a good one (the vehicle, not the army).

From what I gather, different units are useful in each game, and for different reasons.
Both have a couple units that really work, but really it's the differences in game rather than unit.
But I am still learning Fantasy.

Daemon armies take some practice but can really work if you are so inclined.

I hate painting vehicles, so I never buy vehicles, and let me tell you, I'm always at a huge disadvantage because of that. I'm not placing any blame on anything, since when it comes down to it, it's me simply not wanting to play with vehicles who's at fault. Still, it really sucks knowing that I'm going to be at a disadvantage until I give in and buy some armour, almost regardless of the army I may choose.

I just strongly disagree with the idea that proper terrain is some kind of panacea for all the problems associated with vehicles in 5th edition. It goes much beyond that. We can trade examples back and forth all day long like 'oh you can just assault the vehicle through that cover' until we're blue in the face and nothing would be accomplished.

At the end of the day vehicles are extremely effective, horrendously cheap and so close to completely lacking any sort of drawback that they have become the gold standard. It's a mech or nothing metagame, and everyone loses because of it.