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S6 AP3 24" (edit - ")   Heavy 4

Marines would then have an excellent anti-Marine gun and a solid anti-personel weapon, but not with the same power against heavier vehicles.

Thoughts?

Still 4 shots, or just Heavy 1?

Maybe heavy 3 would be good here.

CK

3 AP3 shots sounds about right to me.

I like Heavy 24 to the eleventh power ...SM could use the boost, other armies are catching up to them...

Seriously though...I like your idea (6/3 H3)

I think the Rending should just be removed. That would very quickly put an end to the AssCan spam as it wouldn't so much better than the lascannon against AV12+ anymore. The Rending rule is basically what makes them so strong, remove it and you're left with a good weapon, but not an overpowered one.

I think it would also be interesting if rending attacks were on the wound, not the hit, since rending now seems a bit OTT...

But if an AC is S6 AP3 HVY3-4 why take a missile launcher?

After playing all the new codexs marines are lagging. More and more marines are looking to drop pod lists to compete. Marines are starting to need a little finesse. Donkeycannons are a little over powered but they make up for everything else the marine army is lacking. I no longer complain about them. I need a new moniker.

They should just fix rending.  Split it into 2 separate rules:

Rending: +D6 armor penetration on an armor penetration roll of 6
Reaping: AP1 on a roll of 6 to wound

Assault cannons would only get Reaping.

Or just make Rending mean the following, as you suggest with Reaping (props to Abadabadoobaddon)

AP1 on a roll of 6 to wound.

It would be plenty to me.

CK

I would also use the Guass weapons effect on vehicles as a further type of rending or USR, but thats an aside (and agree the A cannon shouldn't have it).

I would rather see the Assault cannon rule chaged to jamming on a roll of 1 to hit. Meaning that the cannon can fire nothing that round as the marine works furiously to clean his jammed weapon. Similar to the weapon jammed in Space Hulk.

Just adding this would balance the AC. Now for every assault cannon there is a 66% chance it would not be able to fire in that round of shooting.

Nice point losttau, but with four shots the average Asscan will spend about half the game jammed, making it a crappy weapon.  Assault cannons should be scary, just not against heavy vehicles.  I think the same thing should be true for genestealer claws.  Maybe change rending attacks to having a strength of 3d6 against Vehicles?

How about this...

The Space Marine Assualt cannon jams only if all shots miss. I.E. a 1 or 2 is rolled on all four dice. This could represent the assualt cannon mis firing.
(I could never really imagine a space marine weapon malfunctioning anyway)


An alternative could be that if any "ones" are rolled when rolling to hit then you roll a D6 for each "1" rolled to see if it causes the weapon to jam. on a 3+ the weapon is ok, on a 1 or 2 it jams until the next shooting phase. Any rolls to hit that did hit are resolved as normal before checking to see if the 1's cause a jam.
In the next shooting phase you roll one D6, on a roll of 1 or 2 the weapon is still jammed. On a roll of 3+ the weapon may shoot as normal

E.G. Space Marine turn 1 Shooting Phase
Dreadnought shoots assualt cannon "Assualt4"
Scores a 1, 1, 1, and 5
The roll of 5 is a hit and is resolved as normal
To see if the weapon jams you roll 3x D6 because you rolled three 1's
Scores a 2, 2 and 5
The 5 means it has passed and because one of the two dice scored below 3+ it causes a jam

Space Marine Turn 2 Shooting Phase
Roll a D6 to see if weapon is still jammed (note only one die is ever rolled for this even so it was jammed by the two dice previous)
Scores a 3
Weapon is free to act normally
(if score was a 2 or one then it is still jammed until you try again in SM Turn3)

Else you could just keep the Assualt cannon "as is" as a viable alternative to the strenght 9AP2 lascannon, just a thought

Posted By Corpsman_of_Krieg on 12/11/2006 5:32 AM
Or just make Rending mean the following, as you suggest with Reaping (props to Abadabadoobaddon)

AP1 on a roll of 6 to wound.

It would be plenty to me.

CK

I would agree with this one.  As it currently stands, an assault cannon can potentially ignore 2/3rds of the shooting phase (hit, wound, save) if it rolls a 6 to hit.  That should never happen. 

If you change it to 'Reaping', then I wouldn't deal with jamming at all (but if I did, I'd make it three '1s' to jam, on 4 dice.  But if you get rid of rending, I don't think its needed.

@jmurph: at S6 AP3 Heavy 4, it'd be a little better than a Heavy Bolter against Light Infantry, a little better than a multi-laser against vehicles, and as strong as FOUR missile launchers against MEQs - instead of one shot at 2+ to wound no save, it's four at 2+ no save.

Surprised this thread has gone up to five stars. Along the lines of what thelosttau suggested - what about making it Heavy D6-1? 1/6 malfunction is the same as for most plasma attacks.

S6 AP3 24" Heavy D6-1

How about:

S6 AP3 Assault 5 Rending?

Just remove the damn rending

and making the weapon AP3 is hardly a solution..it will be spammed just as much because its now a MEQ killer.

People it isn't hard, take away the rending.

Since my last post, I've changed my mind about Rending. Why not just redefine it?

Change Rending from AP1 auto-wound on a 6 to hit

to this:

AP1 on a 6 to hit. You still have to roll to wound, and against vehicles, nothing special happens. Perhaps the shot could benefit from Tank Hunters?

CK

Like the Eldar sniper rifles ? IIRC they work the same way.

The main thing is how good the AC is against vehicles, remove that ability and its more or less ok.

Well, that's just the start of it. The main problem with the Assault Cannon is that it's good against everything. S6 AP4 is an ungodly gun for shooting at anything less than a 3+ save, and then the rending bumps it up against 3+/2+ saves. Beyond vehicles, it's an anti-light infantry gun that's a perfect... anti-heavy infantry gun. Consider that from 12-24", an Assault Cannon is a better gun than anything an Obliterator can morph up to fire against... every possible target save Monoliths.

True. But removing its ability against armour would force all the AssCan spamers to get other weapons to deal with armour and thus reduce the number of AssCans.

My personal favourite sofar is to remove any special ability against armour and give it the same rules as the Tau Ion Blaster: roll of 6 to Wound counts as AP1.

When people think a 6 str. AP 4 Heavy 4 weapon isn't good enough, something is very, very wrong.

People, you're all missing the point! Rending is only a special close combat ability and so should not affect shooting - see your rulebook (p.46 of my dinky version). The GW guys just put it on the weapon's stat ine as a tease

Back on topic, I like the reaping & rending differentiation. Rending on a ranged weapon is just wrong to start with.

Psh, whatever. Most will agree that assault cannons are the best weapon in the game. WHy tweak it. Leave it as is.

Posted By smart_alex on 12/31/2006 1:45 AM
Psh, whatever. Most will agree that assault cannons are the best weapon in the game. WHy tweak it. Leave it as is.

Ah, of course - total indifference was the answer all along!

I'll remember that next time I see a crackhead mugging an old lady in the street.
'Ah, whatever, it's what he does. Why change it?'

I would say so.

Wow, smart alex - you sure are smart!

lol, I was responding to his pS statement that said extremeanalogy. He must have gone back and changed it later.