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Just make all Sponson Weapons count as Defensive regardless of what they are.

And when other armies with sponsons complain, tell 'em to get in line behind the Dark Angel players who want their Storm Shield, Land Raiders and Cyclones to have the same rules as regular Marines.

BYE

Does anyone know why they made Defensive weapons S4? Are there any vehicles that actually have S4 weapons, besides the storm bolter and the Chimera's hull mounted lasguns only operatable by occupants... who have lasguns.

Skinnattittar wrote:Does anyone know why they made Defensive weapons S4?

Are you kidding? I doubt even they know why they did that. And if they do, it was probably Alessio who wrote that rule and his explanation as to why he wrote it will just raise more questions than it will answer them.

BYE

They made it S4 to universally cover the pintle mounted weapons.

I think you could make a case for Leman Russ' getting to use the sponsons as defensive weapons on the basis that unlike tanks of other races, IG actually have dedicated gunners manning those weapons.

I think only the sponson and not the hull weapon should be effected, by any sort of reclassifying on "defensive weapons."

aka_mythos wrote:They made it S4 to universally cover the pintle mounted weapons.

But they were already covered by the S6 defensive weapons. Nothing changed for pintle-weapons.

BYE

But they just wanted it for pintle weapons, therefore making pintle weapons worth more and reducing the fire output of moving tanks at the same time.

Honestly, if you hate the game so much, write your own ruleset and play with that.

open_sketchbook wrote:But they just wanted it for pintle weapons, therefore making pintle weapons worth more and reducing the fire output of moving tanks at the same time.

Honestly, if you hate the game so much, write your own ruleset and play with that.

I don't think anyone here has voiced the opinion that they hate the game. It seems most people's complaints or dispositions are out of bewilderment of the changes. Writing your own rules and playing them would be great, but the problem is, no one will play them on an even semi-regular basis, maybe once, maybe twice, if they like you.

Every weapon on a Leman Russ is supposedly manned by a human gunner (except for a HKM). What I was just wondering was; how does movement affect the gunner of one or most weapons, but not one or two others? Heck, even moving at speed it is still a tank, which are good stable firing bases, skimmers even more so. Heck, the whole point of a tank is to make a moving bunker and artillery position.

Here's one that I was also thinking of; make squad heavy weapons artillery. I sincerly doubt this will happen since the people at Games Workshop seem to have something against the Imperial Guard being a lethal fighting force, or even have any aspects of the Army being something worth fearing, but I think this rule would work with the fact that anti-tank weapons are more often than in any other army mixed in with regular troops. The only reason to do this, in any practical logic which is why I doubt it will happen, would be so the heavy weapon is defended against enemy infantry while it gets ready and in position to fire on hard targets. Well, nine lasguns is doubtful to have any sort of impact on any vehicle, this is just a situation where volume of fire can NOT make up for lack of quality of fire (and given how many times any IG player has let loose thirty lasguns on a CSM squad with rapid fire and still result in no enemy casualties, perhaps volume doesn't much make up for it either....). So pinging lasbolts against the hull of an oncoming tank is rather useless, so perhaps trying to pump those rounds into the supporting infantry of that tank to defend the lascannon that is drawing a bead on that tank would be more useful.

open_sketchbook wrote:But they just wanted it for pintle weapons, therefore making pintle weapons worth more and reducing the fire output of moving tanks at the same time.

Honestly, if you hate the game so much, write your own ruleset and play with that.

This is a stupid post for so many reasons. Here are some of them:

1. This is a proposed rules forum.
2. This is a proposed rules forum.
3. In a proposed rule forum, what GW wants or what they would do is irrelevant.
4. The 'if you hate the game' line such a pathetic line. If I, we or any of us actually hated the game, we wouldn't play it. Shouldn't it be obvious that we like the game a lot, enough that we would spend time discussing how we want it to be better?
5. You do realise that you just suggested that we write our own rules... in a proposed rules forum.

BYE

Skinnattittar wrote:Every weapon on a Leman Russ is supposedly manned by a human gunner (except for a HKM). What I was just wondering was; how does movement affect the gunner of one or most weapons, but not one or two others? Heck, even moving at speed it is still a tank, which are good stable firing bases, skimmers even more so. Heck, the whole point of a tank is to make a moving bunker and artillery position.

Worse is the fluff justification within the rulebook itself that says that firing the main cannon requires the 'attention of all the gunners'. Umm... what? There are 5-6 people in a Leman Russ. Why do the Sponson Gunners have to stop what they're doing to concentrate on the main gun firing?

BYE

The force of the cannon firing requires them all to brace for recoil? All I can think of really..

Skinnattittar wrote:Here's one that I was also thinking of; make squad heavy weapons artillery. I sincerly doubt this will happen since the people at Games Workshop seem to have something against the Imperial Guard being a lethal fighting force, or even have any aspects of the Army being something worth fearing, but I think this rule would work with the fact that anti-tank weapons are more often than in any other army mixed in with regular troops. The only reason to do this, in any practical logic which is why I doubt it will happen, would be so the heavy weapon is defended against enemy infantry while it gets ready and in position to fire on hard targets. Well, nine lasguns is doubtful to have any sort of impact on any vehicle, this is just a situation where volume of fire can NOT make up for lack of quality of fire (and given how many times any IG player has let loose thirty lasguns on a CSM squad with rapid fire and still result in no enemy casualties, perhaps volume doesn't much make up for it either....). So pinging lasbolts against the hull of an oncoming tank is rather useless, so perhaps trying to pump those rounds into the supporting infantry of that tank to defend the lascannon that is drawing a bead on that tank would be more useful.

The problem with that is it makes the heavy weapon much more vulnerable to enemy fire. As artillery, the first bolter round to come in could potentially knock the gun out. As infantry you have to burn through most of the squad before the heavy weapon is in serious danger. You may find it frustrating to let the awesome antipersonnel firepower of the lasgun go to waste so you can shoot the lascannon at a tank. I personnally would find it far more frustrating to lose the lascannon in the enemy's first shooting phase.

To give an idea of recoil....

Back...back through the mist of time, to a time when I was young, and you were either older or even younger....

The Demolisher Cannon, 2nd Ed, was move or fire despite being mounted on a Tank. Why? The recoil could flip the Tank if it was fired on the move.

As to the arguement, why SHOULD S6 weapons be considered Defensive. Why Should S5...that is the real question, surely?

@Raxmei's comment : Not a terrible point, in fact, it's a completely reasonable and valid point. Perhaps IG squad level artillery would require a special rule. There are ten guardsmen and only one gun, somewhat different compared to typical artillery and crew units (I can only think of the Ork artillery weapons that use the artillery rule, at the moment). So maybe artillery would only be hit on a 6 and/or confer an additional save as one of the guard crewmen get the option to sacrafice themselves for the gun. That's fluffy too!

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:To give an idea of recoil....
Back...back through the mist of time, to a time when I was young, and you were either older or even younger....
The Demolisher Cannon, 2nd Ed, was move or fire despite being mounted on a Tank. Why? The recoil could flip the Tank if it was fired on the move.
As to the arguement, why SHOULD S6 weapons be considered Defensive. Why Should S5...that is the real question, surely?

I think already defined why S5 weapons should be defensive. Something to also be considered, if a, maybe, 200lb guardsmen can handle a heavy bolter level weapon, why shouldn't a many dozen ton tank be able to?

Tank recoil IS massive, and I am not going to argue that perhaps firing a main ordinance weapon should not stop the firing of all the other weapons as they cling to the nearest hand-hold for dear life (just look at that massive bore on the model! If it were real, you could probably craw down it quite easily!), but should far far lighter weapons, which are able to be fired by infantry in a field environment, not be able to fire from a tank at all times, except maybe moving through difficult terrain at full tilt, of course.

I can only think it's because of the movement. Bouncy bouncy and all that, not exactly condusive to accurate fire.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I can only think it's because of the movement. Bouncy bouncy and all that, not exactly condusive to accurate fire.

If that was the reason then skimmers would always be able to fire all their weapons or there would be excusions for running on roads or not in difficult terrain. Even still, tanks weight, usually, in excess of fifty tons. The M1E3 Abrams weighs, when fully loaded, almost eighty tons. Even though they are on treads, anything they roll over gets crushed flat and the vehicle rides smoothly over it. I talked to a tanker buddy of mine, he ran over a few cars that wanted to cut him off in Iraq, he said he wouldn't have known it if he hadn't been in the commander's perch to see and hear it. Rocks and rubble, I've seen the Abrams turn them to gravel and dust and not shake at all.

A more likely reasoning would be to make tanks cheaper or limit their practicallity to be used in the game, making players take more infantry instead, which makes for more money in their pockets and a game based more on what they feel players want; which seems to be assaults.

When you look at all the armies affected by defensive weapon rule the only one that doesn't make sense is the IG (maybe tau), which is why their rules should include an exception to it.

From the GW perspective the ordinance firing thing is more a mater of trying to balance out the "fairness" of such a devastating weapon. The thing is the core rule book doesn't deal with the specifics of each army and leaves those up to the individual codex of that army. Thus any appropriate exception to the normal rules should be made there.

In the case of the IG "defensive weapons" and Ordinance weapon rule need to be adjusted in how they work. Defensive weapons needs to be amended to incorporate the heavy bolters and ordinance firing limitations on other weapons should also be to prevent all the other weapon on a Leman Russ from being useless.

"Dedicated Gunners: The tanks of the Imperial Guard are heavily crewed with men arming the many weapons on their mighty armored vehicles. For the purposes of moving and the number of weapons that may be fired in a turn, Leman Russ tanks do not count their main weapon as ordinance."

That way we would still be able to move and shoot our ordinance and some of our weapons.

That's not a bad idea, but I think perhaps the two should be seperated differently, IMO.

"Dedicated Gunners: The tanks of the Imperial Guard are heavily crewed and armed with many weapons. For the purposes of movement and shooting, all weapons may fire as long as one weapon of its type (Primary and Defensice) may fire."

Easy
Leman Russ = Lumbering

Lumbering would work. Its kinda the slow and purposeful equivalent for tanks is it not? That would make some sense. Does anyone see an issue with how Lumbering would create issues in 5th ed. since its not in the main rule book?

Also on the notion of artillery, it doesn't make too much sense because of the fact that the heavy weapons aren't as much a separate entity as the "Artillery" rules would make them out to be. I know someone who got to talk to the guy working on the IG codex said he's planning to make sure artillery is represented in the new codex.

It'll be cool if artillery wise we can get some howitzers autocannons aka Thudd Guns (indirect fire autocannons), Rapier Lasers (3 shot lascannons?), rocket salvos (multi-shot missile launchers), AA Heavy bolters/autocannons to shoot at skimmers, mole mortars, Quad-Launchers. Those would be cool.

It would be mice for the Guard to get some shooty that's worth having in the ever growing assault world of 40k (not that I'm complaining too much, at least it's stream lined a bit better to make it actually a bit fun if any of my guys survive). It will be interesting to see if they make any heavy weapons that are able to move and shoot. Seriously, it will break a big rule for most armies, but it's the freaking Imperial Guard, how much moving are they going to do? Outflank you? That would only be really freaking cool! Maneuvering weapons as a battle unfolds! HERESY! It's preposterous!

Actually the defensive weapon is kinda moot anyway, given that Russes are better off in cover anyway in 5th. If cover was 5+ and not 4+, then it'd be different, but as it stands moving makes you easier to kill and you can't score anyway, so why move?

BYE

They can always contest a critical location. Nothing says "not so fast" like a Leman Russ.

But anything can contest a critical location. The only reason a Russ has to leave cover is to find better cover.

BYE

Or if it's in a crap location. Lets move away from static battle fields and start getting into the game. The rules need to let more maneuverability into the play. It's okay to sit back and hope you don't get the shaft, but it's more fun to move those tanks around and bust some heads.

I agree, it may be safer to stay in cover but I prefer the option to play less static.

Skinnattittar wrote:Or if it's in a crap location.

Hence:

Leave cover to find better cover.

Skinnattittar wrote:I agree, it may be safer to stay in cover but I prefer the option to play less static.

Sadly the rules of 40K are non-condusive to that. As much as we wish you could move and shoot in this game, the designers have chosen to make everything into a binary choice - you move or you shoot. You can never do both. Multi-tasking is not encouraged.

Now, as this is a proposed rules forum, if you can propose an alternative that gives the player an incentive to move out of cover, then go for it, but right now ignoring 50% of all incoming firepower is pretty damned hard to pass up.

BYE

It is probably the biggest weakness of the last three editions, that game play is so heavily close combat centric. When it comes to assaulting there are next to no restrictions, but when it comes to shooting the benefits are minimal with plenty of drawbacks. Maybe one day we'll get some form of overwatch back.

I forgot which designer who once said he personally envisioned each turn of 40k representing like 7 or 8 seconds of real time. Which when you think about that makes 40k battles very fast and deadly. Which would make the average 6" move representing someone traveling 4-5mph.

I can't think of any benefit for vehicles moving. I guess I'll save the moving for my transports.

I once wrote a rule called "Repulse Assault," where a charging unit during the assault phase, and now would include the "run phase," would be subject to a volley of fire from the unit being charged. The exceptions were to units that engage in the movement phase, and would still gain all the advantages of charging in the assault phase. The reason being that at those close ranges the unit was moving quickly into combat, and the assaulted side already had their chance to repulse their assault in the last shooting phase.

@HBMC : I concur that 40k does not allow for much variety in general play. You are either shooty and static, or assaulty and moving.

Andy C did a stand and shoot thing as well. It just ended up with shooty units annihilating assault units during the assaulting units turn.

It didn't last long.

BYE