Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've heard that walkers are supposed to be bad but me and my friend read the walker rules and we can't spot any flaws.How are they bad?
P.S We're only noob's to 40k.

They don't have armor saves, nor as many wounds as most MCs, and so they just get hull pointed out quickly and don't accomplish much.

 the big goblin wrote:
I've heard that walkers are supposed to be bad but me and my friend read the walker rules and we can't spot any flaws.How are they bad?
P.S We're only noob's to 40k.

It's not that Walkers are bad when you look at them.

They're bad when you're looking at Marines/Eldar/IG/Tau/Necrons/Tyranids

Basically, your main contenders.

Now, Your Sentinels and Dreads and definitely War Walkers...have their place in army lists...but the standard S6/7 ignores cover spam of 6th edition says no to a lot of the good-ness of walkers.

Low armor, crap weaponry and slow for vehicles meant to get nice and close to the enemy. In general.

Thanks now I see.

Dreadnoughts are meant to be walking avatars of war, but in game they have the same hull points as a rhino which is a box on tracks.

They would be good in melee but you can never get them across the board intact, and there are cheaper and better options for shooting.

They are just free kill points for your enemy.

Some Dread builds and the Knights are the exception here, to be fair.

Eldar War Walkers are amazing units, and I feel if the design motif used for them were passed to other Walkers (mobility, a save of some form added), Walkers would feel like they are doing what you imagine they should with the weaknesses you imagine they should.

War Walkers are cheap with crazy aweome weapons, rules, and an invuln.

Knights are also Superheavies with crazy rules

Maulerfiends are decent if enough are taken because they're fast (Codex: DINOBOTS)

Seninels are cheap and guard have enough units that they aren't a priority to kill.

We're really looking at Dreads/Hellbrutes that aren't worth it (I could be forgetting others)

When it comes to Dreads you have rare builds that can achieve anything.

Venerable/Ironclad in a pod or GK Psyflemen are the only ones I ever see.



Though I have yet to face Raukaan.

Effectively they're MC's, but lack the armor save and can be crippled or insta-killed by any hit that exceeds the minimum roll required to "wound" them, while completely lacking armor/invul saves and have a harder time getting cover saves than MC's. There also are no "flying" walkers the way there are flying monstrous creatures.

Much of this applies to other vehicles as well and not just walkers, but in general, GW needs to drop either the concept of HP's, or it needs to drop the vehicle damage table and give them a save.

If they had any sort of save, they would be much more worthwhile.

Which is why Iron Hands make them slightly more effective. Put ironclads in a drop pod and take CT Iron hands and now you have an AV13 with IWND and 3 or 4 insta death attacks in close combat preceded by 2 Heavy flamers.

Now dont expect this unit to last very long. as it will attract every but of firepower from your opponent. But if you drop down two of these things, expect to cause a lot of havoc in your enemies game plan.

But yea, overrall, walkers are sub-par.

I can't believe no one mentioned grenades. In 5th edition you could only hit Walkers with grenades on a 6, but now you hit them according to weapon skill which is a big difference.

 ductvader wrote:

 the big goblin wrote:
I've heard that walkers are supposed to be bad but me and my friend read the walker rules and we can't spot any flaws.How are they bad?
P.S We're only noob's to 40k.

It's not that Walkers are bad when you look at them.

They're bad when you're looking at Marines/Eldar/IG/Tau/Necrons/Tyranids

Basically, your main contenders.

Now, Your Sentinels and Dreads and definitely War Walkers...have their place in army lists...but the standard S6/7 ignores cover spam of 6th edition says no to a lot of the good-ness of walkers.

The only one out of them I play against is IG.

The difference in effectiveness between AV13 and AV12 walkers is quite vast and marked.

And even then, they really should be more liberal with giving out saves, and Walkers should have hammer of wrath and smash.

 the big goblin wrote:
I've heard that walkers are supposed to be bad but me and my friend read the walker rules and we can't spot any flaws.How are they bad?
P.S We're only noob's to 40k.

They're not bad, objectively, they're just bad compared to other models that look like them (and are generally more expensive), specifically, monstrous creatures. The shorthand for converting MCs and vehicles is that T = AV-4. So it's roughly as difficult to pull a hull point from an AV12 vehicle as it is from a T8 monstrous creature.

Which sounds good, until you realise that monstrous creatures get armor saves (including some with a 2+, and most vehicles only have 3 HP (and several walkers only have 2) to your average MC's 6. Given that MCs are often better-armed than walkers on top of being at least 9 times more survivable, well, you can see why there isn't much going for walkers, especially since any weapon strong enough to handle a monstrous creature (which lots of lists are packed with, because MCs are scary) is going to have no problem whatsoever punching through a walker's armor.

Of course, it's all rather more nuanced than this (vehicles can suffer a vehicle explodes, but doesn't have to worry about ID, etc. etc.), but that's the long and short of it. They look like monstrous creatures, but are much weaker than them.

If this doesn't apply to your local gaming group, though, then it doesn't need to be a concern for you.

The good dreads are in FW, but they cost (in points) twice or almost 2.5x more than a normal dread.

I agree actually that for their points, they arent awful. When looking at most other Monstrous Creatures that have all those wounds and cool abilities, they are more than the ~100 or so points dreads cost. Even fully kitted out and in a drop pod, we are still less than 200 points. Whereas units like a Daemon Prince, Wraithknight or Riptide are going to cost you a minimum of 200.

(Also, this is my 1000th post. WAAAGH!)

 Icculus wrote:
I agree actually that for their points, they arent awful. When looking at most other Monstrous Creatures that have all those wounds and cool abilities, they are more than the ~100 or so points dreads cost. Even fully kitted out and in a drop pod, we are still less than 200 points. Whereas units like a Daemon Prince, Wraithknight or Riptide are going to cost you a minimum of 200.

(Also, this is my 1000th post. WAAAGH!)

My dakkafex gets more shots at a better strength then your HBolter mortis dread.

Trolololol.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
I can't believe no one mentioned grenades. In 5th edition you could only hit Walkers with grenades on a 6, but now you hit them according to weapon skill which is a big difference.

We have a winner here, the number of nerfs walkers received in close combat multiply with one another to the point were the result was obviously unintended. For example, 6th edition krak grenades received a massive 3,600% buff in efficiency vs ork deff dreads. Ten 6th edition krak grenades are as effective as 360 5th krak grenades. Two 6th edition kraks are as powerful a one 5th edition meltabomb. It's a clear example of how GW doesn't run even basic math on their rules changes. In short, AV12 close combat walkers simply don't work in 6th, as anything they would plausibly want to charge can usually kill them more effectively. Even the maulerfiend, the only new CC walker in 6th, with its ridiculously long list of special rules, is very underwhelming.

On the other hand, the long-ranged, shooting walkers are little more than normal vehicles and can be judged on a firepower-to-cost ratio. SM dreads also have the benefit of being able to drop pod in, which increases their usability, and lets the use "rule of cool" as a crutch.

The only walker I have used is the Furioso Dreadnaught, which is quite a monster, but it also sports AV13 front armor which probably helps it out a lot. In general though they are just too vulnerable and squishy to be effective. Every time I see one, I gun for it...easy first blood in many cases.

The Walker and MC rules should be merged. It makes no sense that a SM dread is so much less survivable than a Tau Riptide. They are analogous to each other - both are behemoth mech suits or war. But one has 5 wounds that need to be ate off one at a time - the other can be insta-slagged by a single lucky melta shot. Not to mention, MC's will stay at 100% combat effectiveness down to the last wound, whereas Walkers can suffer weapon destroyed and immobilized results.

Walkers should have some way to remain effective like MC's do - or else MC's should suffer similar hits to their effectiveness the way Walkers do.

Granted, the Riptide is on a larger scale, but that notwithstanding, no reason why we need two sets of rule types to cover a very similar model class.

It doesn't help that there is a lot of MC that SHOULD be Walkers (i.e. Dreadknights and Riptides) which only makes the Walker sub-type seem awkward and pointless. They really need to revamp how AV works and try to fit in a save according to how high the AV is, to compensate the chance for it to be blown up in a single lucky shot. Instant death and Poison (outside of Tyranids and Dark Eldar) as a rule in of itself is also much rarer than all the anti-vehicle weaponry like Lance, Melta, Armourbane, etc. that is generally more widely available across armies which again just furthers the gap between MC and Walker.

Triarch Stalkers are cool. AV13 sorta and no need at all to get close. Turns your whole army into a twin-linked kill machine.

Walkers also suck because most of them have really underwhelming combat stats. So not only do they get annihilated by grenades now, but you're lucky if you kill 1 model per turn with them.

mustardParty wrote:
The Walker and MC rules should be merged. It makes no sense that a SM dread is so much less survivable than a Tau Riptide. They are analogous to each other - both are behemoth mech suits or war. But one has 5 wounds that need to be ate off one at a time..

6 Wounds. But yeah. It's madness.

A shame, too, because a lot of Walkers are really cool thematically and have great models. The best example is a Deff Dread, I would love to field one but I've never even bought the model because, realistically, it will be shelved nearly every game.

 Sparkadia wrote:

mustardParty wrote:
The Walker and MC rules should be merged. It makes no sense that a SM dread is so much less survivable than a Tau Riptide. They are analogous to each other - both are behemoth mech suits or war. But one has 5 wounds that need to be ate off one at a time..

6 Wounds. But yeah. It's madness.

A shame, too, because a lot of Walkers are really cool thematically and have great models. The best example is a Deff Dread, I would love to field one but I've never even bought the model because, realistically, it will be shelved nearly every game.

I'm going to have to agree. AV needs to go. Heck, even long ago we had battlesuits as troops, wraithguard as troops, wraithlords as a MC... it's time to just do away with the silly premise of vehicles. Add some special rules maybe but that's about it.

 the big goblin wrote:
I've heard that walkers are supposed to be bad but me and my friend read the walker rules and we can't spot any flaws.How are they bad?
P.S We're only noob's to 40k.

I don't think Walkers are bad, unlike some people.

Most walkers (especially like the already-mentioned Sentinel) are meant to fulfill a fire-support role and not the look-at-me-I-can-squish-you-I'm-a-tough-vehicle role.

The average 40k army usually has plenty of fire support though, which makes a lot of walkers seem underwhelming.

 StarTrotter wrote:

 Sparkadia wrote:

mustardParty wrote:
The Walker and MC rules should be merged. It makes no sense that a SM dread is so much less survivable than a Tau Riptide. They are analogous to each other - both are behemoth mech suits or war. But one has 5 wounds that need to be ate off one at a time..

6 Wounds. But yeah. It's madness.

A shame, too, because a lot of Walkers are really cool thematically and have great models. The best example is a Deff Dread, I would love to field one but I've never even bought the model because, realistically, it will be shelved nearly every game.

I'm going to have to agree. AV needs to go. Heck, even long ago we had battlesuits as troops, wraithguard as troops, wraithlords as a MC... it's time to just do away with the silly premise of vehicles. Add some special rules maybe but that's about it.

It's funny, I've seen a lot of great suggestions on how to fix Walkers (on both Dakka and other places) and there are so many ways that would work - but I can guarantee you it will never happen. GW don't play that game, they'll just leave them as sub-par units and move along.

I mean, they don't even get Hammer of Wrath... in what world is a BIKE running in to you worse than being charged down by an enormous death machine. It's a joke.

 Mysterious Pants wrote:

 the big goblin wrote:
I've heard that walkers are supposed to be bad but me and my friend read the walker rules and we can't spot any flaws.How are they bad?
P.S We're only noob's to 40k.

I don't think Walkers are bad, unlike some people.

Most walkers (especially like the already-mentioned Sentinel) are meant to fulfill a fire-support role and not the look-at-me-I-can-squish-you-I'm-a-tough-vehicle role.

The average 40k army usually has plenty of fire support though, which makes a lot of walkers seem underwhelming.

Yet GW clearly want some to be used in Melee, or at least be able to have a swing. Walkers shouldn't be an excuse for a fire platform, that should be the job of Vehicles.

I wouldn't quite say fire-support due to the iconic Dreadnought being built to have a CCW and a gun rather than being a gun platform along with the maulerfiend being pure CC. I'm trying to remember all the walkers though... There's the Forgefiend which is plasma shots which can kill elite units, Maulerfiends which are pure CC, Helbrutes which are built to requrie you to have a gun and ccw although have slightly more options for CC than usual, Dreadnoughts which are fluffwise expected to have a gun and CCW (with a few extra gun choices), Defiler which is a schizo monster that is built to fire ordinance at long range and fire lascannons at vehicles close before charging with power fists or flamer before charging (so overall relatively middling), the eldar walker which is a fragile gun of doom, and the IG which is a fragile walker that shoots. So it seems more often than not walkers are somewhat balanced between the roles with more leaning to being shooty support. There's about 3 being fire support, 3 being middling, and 1 being for CC entirely.

But that's the problem. If you compare them, even at equal cost, walkers still don't do walkery things as well as monstrous creatures, and they're not nearly as good as support vehicles they're put up against.

Sometimes versatility is a very good thing. In the case of walkers, you're just gaining cheaper move-through terrain and a swing or two in close combat, while generally also being less durable and more expensive per-firepower to boot.

The problem is that what you lose in AV, HP, and firepower, you gain in... ... what? Monstrous creatures can smash and sometimes fly and are actually good in close combat, so it's not really the small gain in close combat (specifically, can only be hit on front armor instead of rear) that's going to do it.

My only hope is that given that walkers have been getting no cheaper or more expensive (cf. CSM defiler), while non-walker (and non-flier) vehicles are getting much cheaper (cf. russes), that the idea is that 7th is going to come by and do something to make walkers a lot better.