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I liked the old AP system much more so than modifiers, both thematically and gameplay wise.

Thematically, I makes more sense to me that a weapon would generally either penetrate the armor or not. The chance for failing the save already reflects the notion of a shot hitting a weak point or whatever. Hence power armor remaining a full 3+ save up until the shot is able to punch through it. It better represents armor being strong, and thinks marines shrugging off small fire. Hence better theme representation.

In terms of gameplay it means that you need to be more mindful of the types of weapons you bring in your list, and creates more differentiation in the roles of weapons. It also has a bearing on cover, as lighter armored forces have to rely on cover more for staying protected. They still have to do this to an extent with a modifier system too - but on the other end 3+ units don't need to worry about cover as much, unless facing lots of high AP weaponry.

Also in terms of gameplay it greatly speeds up the pace of play. You'll roll a lot less dice (for the hits that get penetrated) and you don't need to be adding and subtracting modifiers when you do need to take a roll.

The "old AP system" had modifiers. It was the new-fangled 3rd edition with its buckets of dice that ruined everything.

Get off my lawn!

I liked the all-or-nothing system. It meant armour actually meant something.

I like both systems, but both need to use a disciplined approach to really work well. Once AP/mods are handed out like candy, both systems suffer.

The issue (at least in my eyes) with the old All Or Nothing AP system, is that it's just too binary, a turret-mounted vehicle autocannon capable of penetrating APC armor may deflect an angled shott off a thick pauldron or breastplate of Astartes Power Armor, but a dead square shot to the chest should probably leave everything inside jelly even if it doesn't penerate, and stuff the helmet or backpack may be proof against Lasgun fire, that Autocannon's probably going to tear right through it. Having that being encapsulated only by a weapons Strength, but not its AP, led to a paradigm through many editions where spamming as much AP2 as possible (or where any AP value that wasn't 2+ or at least 3+ was considered irrelevant) was the norm.

Now, there are also issues with multishot mid strength weapons with -2 ASM's that can just do everything when spammed in considerable volume, that's absolutely an issue, but in general, armor isn't uniformly proof against everything until it isn't. If you look at modern combat armor, you'll find level III chest plates that are proof against rifle rounds, but helmets rated only for pistols and shrapnel, while major joints may have pads and plastic armor to protect against falls/scrapes/blades/punches/etc. So to abstract that modern combatant to 40k terms, against a sword or axe, that modern combatant may have a 4+ save, a pistol a 5+, and a rifle a 6+, and perhaps no save against a heavier rifle like a DMR weapon that'll sail right through level III plate, regardless of the wounding potential of each weapon.

I don't think anyone would argue however that codex execution has actively hampered both implementations.

 waefre_1 wrote:
...[w]hat stands out the most to me when I remember it [the old AP system] was how a Battle Cannon treated Space Marine power armor the same as an Ork t-shirt save, but a Terminator squad would see the Battle Cannon the same as they saw a lasgun. ...

Shamelessly quoting myself from upthread due to relevance. I just can't see that as thematically appropriate or logical.

Also, as Vaktathi mentioned, penetration isn't really binary IRL. I'll not claim to have any expertise here, but it strikes me that an Autocannon is still going to have an easier time penetrating power armor than a lasgun, and in the old system that simply did not happen (barring one-off rules like the old Choppa "counts armor saves lower than 4+ as 4+" thing). I'd argue that including modifiers makes armor even more relevant since a single point of AP no longer completely negates a certain level of protection, and lower save units like Guardsmen will actually get to use their armor saves, like, ever.

While we're talking about AP what about a system that is neither of the versions GW has thus far tried. One where a given weapon has two values, one that works like current AP modifiers, and another that sets an armor value where they instead use another lower modifier.

So a bolter firing at AP-1 could reduce armor of 4+ and worse by 1 and not reduce armor 3+ at all. While a heavy bolter might have the same AP but have its threshold set at armor 2+ instead. You could even have some weapons flip the scrip and gain higher AP against better armor as might be the case with grav weapons, lances, C-beams, and shokk attack gunz.

It's not a large change, but it means that weapons work in a way that better mimics IRL armor penetration and gives more design space to weapons. This could help offset the design space lost to the new wounding chart.

That system seems needlessly complex to me.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the current wounding chart either, they just need to assign stats with it in mind.

It's quite clear stats were ported over from the old edition, that's why a lascannon is still strength 9.
Which doesn't really work with the new wound system.

Necromunda uses the same wound chart as 40k, but a lascannon is strength 10. Now it wounds toughness 5 on a 2+ still and therefore is noticeably better than a missile launcher, which won't.

That's how I view a lot of mechanics in 40k. The mechanics are all fine in their own right, they just don't jive well together.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
That system seems needlessly complex to me.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the current wounding chart either, they just need to assign stats with it in mind.

It's quite clear stats were ported over from the old edition, that's why a lascannon is still strength 9.
Which doesn't really work with the new wound system.

Necromunda uses the same wound chart as 40k, but a lascannon is strength 10. Now it wounds toughness 5 on a 2+ still and therefore is noticeably better than a missile launcher, which won't.

That's how I view a lot of mechanics in 40k. The mechanics are all fine in their own right, they just don't jive well together.

The question is, what does the new wound chart actually solve that couldn't be addressed in another more elegant way?

For the AP systems, they're a product of their times. I don't think the current system applied to older editions would work as well, and I think the old system applied to this edition would be awkward.

In older editions, you either wanted to put the right weapon to the right job or you *had* to spam enough shots to beat the statistics. But plasma/lascannons (and most other forms of AP2) fired once or twice--not something you wanted to waste on anything smaller than Terminators or obliterators. Ideally you'd be aiming them at big, expensive-ish Monstrous Creatures or Vehicles.

The current AP, even inefficient weapons can do some real harm, and they usually come in enough numbers that even if they're not ideal, they'll at least do something. And I think that's why GW made the change--because the new system always feels like you're doing something. In the older system, if someone beat your armor, you didn't get a save (unless invul which was at best a 5+, or cover). If someone didn't beat your armor, you got your full save. I've had 30 hormagaunt attacks whiff off your bog standard tac marines in 4th. But in the current system, even AP-1 weapons do *something*, and even a weapon in an older edition that wouldn't allow an armor save might allow you to take one in this edition.

So I think the preference comes down to, can you tolerate less numerous, often less lethal weapons that just won't allow you to do jack if the opponent rolls averagely, or do you want to feel that your guns or armor are at least doing something, which means defensive profiles have to bloat to compensate because if a squad can put out 18 plasma shots, a T6 4 wound 3+ save carnifex isn't going to cut it anymore.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I liked the all-or-nothing system. It meant armour actually meant something.

It meant something to the extra bodies filling out a unit of the one or two workhorse special weapons that people actually cared about instead.

Ok... and?

It meant Marines actually got to use their much-vaunted armour, something that was never a big deal in 2nd Ed as every gun and its dog had a -1 Save mod, meaning you never actually got to take a 3+ save unless you were facing units with Autoguns.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The issue (at least in my eyes) with the old All Or Nothing AP system, is that it's just too binary, a turret-mounted vehicle autocannon capable of penetrating APC armor may deflect an angled shott off a thick pauldron or breastplate of Astartes Power Armor, but a dead square shot to the chest should probably leave everything inside jelly even if it doesn't penerate, and stuff the helmet or backpack may be proof against Lasgun fire, that Autocannon's probably going to tear right through it.

Thing is, GW almost solved this with the Choppa rules, but it's own inherent binary nature foiled them again. Choppas reduced you to 4+, but did nothing to 4+ and worse, which makes no real sense.

In our own rules we created "High Impact" (name stolen from the version of Necromunda that existed at the time) for those fringe cases where a weapon was really powerful, but giving it a higher AP would have caused it to be too powerful. It was just -1 to the save. So Choppas, which became "Heavy CCWs", had a flat -1, so they had an extra effect on Sv4+ and worse. Autocannons? High Impact, so they do something a bit more to Marines. Krak Missiles? High impact, so they can do something a bit more than just bounce off Terminators.

Simple rule. Made things better.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I don't think there's anything wrong with the current wounding chart either...

Everything can wound everything. That's the problem. That's why people use mid-strength mid-damage high ROF weapons to kill everything in 9th, as they're more effective by volume of fire than dedicated AT weaponry. It's also why we're seeing enhancements in damage in AT weaponry, to make them more attractive, thereby causing vehicles to be even weaker than they already were.

Ever since tanks got hit points (6th edition) instead of having to be killed by actually penetrating their armor (before 6th), the utility of high-rof mid-strength weapons such as assault cannons and scatter lasers has been too damn high!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It meant Marines actually got to use their much-vaunted armour, something that was never a big deal in 2nd Ed as every gun and its dog had a -1 Save mod, meaning you never actually got to take a 3+ save unless you were facing units with Autoguns

Did you play with a houserule stating that all ASMs automatically negate all armor? Because if not, you still got to use the armor, just not on a 3+. I'm not unsympathetic to the "why am I paying for a piece of armor when I never get its full usage", but you'll have to excuse me for not seeing "My Space Marines sometimes have to roll a 4+ rather than a 3+" as equivalent to Orks/Guard literally never getting to use their armor saves at all.

3rd - 7th Ed vehicle damage rules.

God they were dull!

I much prefer the T and W version we have now, married to degrading profiles.

The old one was just flavourless, and as someone else mentioned, Hull Points only made it worse.

2nd Ed gets a pass, as least the damage tables were pretty interesting (blowing off a turret and it landing on someone important was always good for a laugh), and with vehicle targeting, you never quite knew what you were going to hit.

Rogue trader gets a buy because I still don’t understand any of its various ways of handling vehicle rules

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Ok... and?

It meant Marines actually got to use their much-vaunted armour, something that was never a big deal in 2nd Ed as every gun and its dog had a -1 Save mod, meaning you never actually got to take a 3+ save unless you were facing units with Autoguns.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The issue (at least in my eyes) with the old All Or Nothing AP system, is that it's just too binary, a turret-mounted vehicle autocannon capable of penetrating APC armor may deflect an angled shott off a thick pauldron or breastplate of Astartes Power Armor, but a dead square shot to the chest should probably leave everything inside jelly even if it doesn't penerate, and stuff the helmet or backpack may be proof against Lasgun fire, that Autocannon's probably going to tear right through it.

Thing is, GW almost solved this with the Choppa rules, but it's own inherent binary nature foiled them again. Choppas reduced you to 4+, but did nothing to 4+ and worse, which makes no real sense.

In our own rules we created "High Impact" (name stolen from the version of Necromunda that existed at the time) for those fringe cases where a weapon was really powerful, but giving it a higher AP would have caused it to be too powerful. It was just -1 to the save. So Choppas, which became "Heavy CCWs", had a flat -1, so they had an extra effect on Sv4+ and worse. Autocannons? High Impact, so they do something a bit more to Marines. Krak Missiles? High impact, so they can do something a bit more than just bounce off Terminators.

Simple rule. Made things better.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I don't think there's anything wrong with the current wounding chart either...

Everything can wound everything. That's the problem. That's why people use mid-strength mid-damage high ROF weapons to kill everything in 9th, as they're more effective by volume of fire than dedicated AT weaponry. It's also why we're seeing enhancements in damage in AT weaponry, to make them more attractive, thereby causing vehicles to be even weaker than they already were.

Everything being able to wound everything isn't the problem. The problem is the execution of the wounding table itself and being relegated to a D6.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I liked the all-or-nothing system. It meant armour actually meant something.

LOL it really didn't. It just meant you went with mostly AP2, because AP3 was that absurdly rare. Also in the newer system Marines (AND Terminators despite the people crying otherwise) became more durable to various weapons compared to before. Yes you're weaker vs a Gauss Flayer and now the Galvanic Rifle. However even with Manlet Marines having W1 they were more durable vs an array of weapons so that's fine.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
3rd - 7th Ed vehicle damage rules.

God they were dull!

I much prefer the T and W version we have now, married to degrading profiles.

I can't agree with this. You're right that Hull Points were a bad idea, but as someone who loves the Datafaxes from 2nd Ed, vehicles acting like vehicles (rather than just paper monsters like they are now) was a highlight of the game.

Now vehicles just die and are removed. Talk about boring.

 waefre_1 wrote:
Did you play with a houserule stating that all ASMs automatically negate all armor? Because if not, you still got to use the armor, just not on a 3+. I'm not unsympathetic to the "why am I paying for a piece of armor when I never get its full usage", but you'll have to excuse me for not seeing "My Space Marines sometimes have to roll a 4+ rather than a 3+" as equivalent to Orks/Guard literally never getting to use their armor saves at all.

I meant that something with a 3+ save got to have a 3+ save, rather than a 3+ save really meaning you have a 4+ or 5+ save all the time. I mean if virtually every weapon in the game makes you take a 4+ save rather than the 3+ save you come with, why not just have a 4+ unmodified save and cut out the middle man. That's the point I'm getting at - if you're always saving at 4+, then you don't really have a 3+ save, do you?

That's why I was shocked in my first 3rd Ed demo game, when the GW employee told the Marine player to take his 3+ saves, and I was just taken aback because Marines actually getting to roll 3+ saves was completely alien to my 2nd Ed brain.

Yes, you're right, Guard and Orks never got to take their save in 2nd Ed. I've had turns where it was just removing Guardsmen from incoming Eldar ranged fire because my heavy cover wasn't enough to save me. But in 3rd, we had cover saves, and they did just fine.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I meant that something with a 3+ save got to have a 3+ save, rather than a 3+ save really meaning you have a 4+ or 5+ save all the time. I mean if virtually every weapon in the game makes you take a 4+ save rather than the 3+ save you come with, why not just have a 4+ unmodified save and cut out the middle man. That's the point I'm getting at - if you're always saving at 4+, then you don't really have a 3+ save, do you?

That's why I was shocked in my first 3rd Ed demo game, when the GW employee told the Marine player to take his 3+ saves, and I was just taken aback because Marines actually getting to roll 3+ saves was completely alien to my 2nd Ed brain.

Yes, you're right, Guard and Orks never got to take their save in 2nd Ed. I've had turns where it was just removing Guardsmen from incoming Eldar ranged fire because my heavy cover wasn't enough to save me. But in 3rd, we had cover saves, and they did just fine

Yeah, I get that - but you still get to have a save, which is my point. Save Modifiers on power armor mean that you still get some level of protection against shots that would punch clean through flak or carapace, while also modelling that an Autocannon is going to have an easier time penetrating the weak points of power armor than a lasgun will. That's the point of heavy armor - you're never completely immune, but it's a damn sight harder to get through and you end up needing to target it with weapons that might prefer getting pointed at light vehicles or monstrous creatures instead.

As to why you would want the 3+ plus mods vs flat 4+...well, if we're going to have an armor penetration mechanic, then you'd want to have the 3+ plus mods to appropriately model the fact that some armors offer more protection and some weapons are better at penetrating armors and the weapons don't completely lose all of their penetrative capacity the moment the target puts on kneepads or a helmet. It's a little more work, yes, but IMO it's worth it. There's certainly room to argue about the proliferation of AP-1 (and also room to argue about whether armor should be separate from Toughness or invulns or a hypothetical Dodge save instead of all of them being rolled into a generic "Defense Save"), but that's an issue with implementation.

Also, and this is a bit of a tangent, but I'd be inclined to wonder how much of the AP-1 proliferation is on-paper stuff (ie. x% of weapons having it, when y% may be more appropriate) and how much is meta/psychological (ie. "I need to bring weapons with AP because of the lists I will face" a la recent/current issues with vehicles/superheavies/AT weapons, or confirmation bias on the receiving end once you've had a game or three where AP-1 was more common).

Also also, we're talking about armor saves - Guardsmen and Orks never got to take those after 3e, either.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
LOL it really didn't. It just meant you went with mostly AP2, because AP3 was that absurdly rare. Also in the newer system Marines (AND Terminators despite the people crying otherwise) became more durable to various weapons compared to before. Yes you're weaker vs a Gauss Flayer and now the Galvanic Rifle. However even with Manlet Marines having W1 they were more durable vs an array of weapons so that's fine.

You mean you had to bring specific weapons to deal with specific targets, rather than what we have now where the middle of the road weapons do everything adequately enough to not require specialist equipment.

Oh how terrible.

Consolidating from combat to combat.

It might sound appealing to some ears, and I can understand why. For combat oriented armies, it punished your opponent for being too densely packed, as you skipped from combat to combat, safe from their firepower.

But...my distaste is probably more down to 3rd Ed and how bent some armies were.

Blood Angels in particular could get into combat stupidly fast. Potentially first turn if they got lucky and you’d really stuffed your deployment.

It meant combat armies had much of the game to themselves. Not only did they fight twice as often as ranged units (fighting combats in both player turns), but range armies rarely had much in the way of targets.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Consolidating from combat to combat.

It might sound appealing to some ears, and I can understand why. For combat oriented armies, it punished your opponent for being too densely packed, as you skipped from combat to combat, safe from their firepower.

But...my distaste is probably more down to 3rd Ed and how bent some armies were.

Blood Angels in particular could get into combat stupidly fast. Potentially first turn if they got lucky and you’d really stuffed your deployment.

It meant combat armies had much of the game to themselves. Not only did they fight twice as often as ranged units (fighting combats in both player turns), but range armies rarely had much in the way of targets.

Shouldn't punishing positioning mistakes be exactly how a melee army functions though? If you deploy wrong, they can start dealing damage and you watch as your gunline crumbles. If you don't misposition you, in turn, have the advantage given that as, presumably, a shooting list your heavy weapons have good odds of cracking/immobilizing/stunning enough transports to clog up their charge lanes and from there it should just be cleaning up.

This seems fair to me and if you get caught once it shouldn't take too many more beatings to realize that you don't want to deploy at the edge of your deployment zone and that you need to space units 5" apart.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
LOL it really didn't. It just meant you went with mostly AP2, because AP3 was that absurdly rare. Also in the newer system Marines (AND Terminators despite the people crying otherwise) became more durable to various weapons compared to before. Yes you're weaker vs a Gauss Flayer and now the Galvanic Rifle. However even with Manlet Marines having W1 they were more durable vs an array of weapons so that's fine.

You mean you had to bring specific weapons to deal with specific targets, rather than what we have now where the middle of the road weapons do everything adequately enough to not require specialist equipment.

Oh how terrible.

The whole argument of "oh specific weapons for specific targets" has always been a lie that the defenders of the old system tell themselves. Nobody was specifically bringing AP4 or AP3. They either brought high strength with high rate of fire (with AP just being a bonus) or they made sure everything was AP2. Everything meant Marines not hugging cover was laughable. Actually, Marines hugging the cover was still laughable.

The old wounding table mightve been better slightly (and only slightly), but the old AP system with all or nothing meant you brought weapons that ignored the problem altogether instead of tailoring for specific targets.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Consolidating from combat to combat.

It might sound appealing to some ears, and I can understand why. For combat oriented armies, it punished your opponent for being too densely packed, as you skipped from combat to combat, safe from their firepower.

But...my distaste is probably more down to 3rd Ed and how bent some armies were.

Blood Angels in particular could get into combat stupidly fast. Potentially first turn if they got lucky and you’d really stuffed your deployment.

It meant combat armies had much of the game to themselves. Not only did they fight twice as often as ranged units (fighting combats in both player turns), but range armies rarely had much in the way of targets.

Shouldn't punishing positioning mistakes be exactly how a melee army functions though? If you deploy wrong, they can start dealing damage and you watch as your gunline crumbles. If you don't misposition you, in turn, have the advantage given that as, presumably, a shooting list your heavy weapons have good odds of cracking/immobilizing/stunning enough transports to clog up their charge lanes and from there it should just be cleaning up.

This seems fair to me and if you get caught once it shouldn't take too many more beatings to realize that you don't want to deploy at the edge of your deployment zone and that you need to space units 5" apart.

Kind of.

Certainly any rule system should allow for the errors of your opponent to be exploited.

But, with the way 3rd and 4th Ed (I think they removed consolidate into a new combat in 5th. Might’ve been 6th) worked, you never got a chance to recover from such an error. And that made for a bad system.

Because the more shooty/static army had to deploy without error, whilst certain* assault armies didn’t.

*remember, my criticism largely stems from how specific armies were able to exploit it.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
...The whole argument of "oh specific weapons for specific targets" has always been a lie that the defenders of the old system tell themselves. Nobody was specifically bringing AP4 or AP3. They either brought high strength with high rate of fire (with AP just being a bonus) or they made sure everything was AP2. Everything meant Marines not hugging cover was laughable. Actually, Marines hugging the cover was still laughable...

Which is a consequence of stat creep more than anything else. The amount of 2+ armour in the game ballooned ridiculously in 5e-7e, hull points made AP increasingly irrelevant against vehicles, the introduction of easy move-and-fire AP2 blasts/templates made heavy infantry kind of a joke, yes. Try looking at 3e/4e or 30k where the game isn't made entirely of underpriced AP2 large blasts, superheavies with Invulnerable saves, rapid-fire S8, scatterbikes, and 2+-armour MCs.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
LOL it really didn't. It just meant you went with mostly AP2, because AP3 was that absurdly rare. Also in the newer system Marines (AND Terminators despite the people crying otherwise) became more durable to various weapons compared to before. Yes you're weaker vs a Gauss Flayer and now the Galvanic Rifle. However even with Manlet Marines having W1 they were more durable vs an array of weapons so that's fine.

You mean you had to bring specific weapons to deal with specific targets, rather than what we have now where the middle of the road weapons do everything adequately enough to not require specialist equipment.

Oh how terrible.

??¿¿?¿? Most armies had enough AP on their basic troop to negate the armor of all horde infantry in the game. AP4 weapons were nearly non existant. So all the "special" weapons one could bring with the exception of flamers were AP3 or better.

I really believe you are overstating how the old system forced people to take "the right tools for the job".

Also that was the age were a single 1 meant a dead 2+ model.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Canadian 5th wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Consolidating from combat to combat.

It might sound appealing to some ears, and I can understand why. For combat oriented armies, it punished your opponent for being too densely packed, as you skipped from combat to combat, safe from their firepower.

But...my distaste is probably more down to 3rd Ed and how bent some armies were.

Blood Angels in particular could get into combat stupidly fast. Potentially first turn if they got lucky and you’d really stuffed your deployment.

It meant combat armies had much of the game to themselves. Not only did they fight twice as often as ranged units (fighting combats in both player turns), but range armies rarely had much in the way of targets.

Shouldn't punishing positioning mistakes be exactly how a melee army functions though? If you deploy wrong, they can start dealing damage and you watch as your gunline crumbles. If you don't misposition you, in turn, have the advantage given that as, presumably, a shooting list your heavy weapons have good odds of cracking/immobilizing/stunning enough transports to clog up their charge lanes and from there it should just be cleaning up.

This seems fair to me and if you get caught once it shouldn't take too many more beatings to realize that you don't want to deploy at the edge of your deployment zone and that you need to space units 5" apart.

Kind of.

Certainly any rule system should allow for the errors of your opponent to be exploited.

But, with the way 3rd and 4th Ed (I think they removed consolidate into a new combat in 5th. Might’ve been 6th) worked, you never got a chance to recover from such an error. And that made for a bad system.

Because the more shooty/static army had to deploy without error, whilst certain* assault armies didn’t.

*remember, my criticism largely stems from how specific armies were able to exploit it.

There were also some other things about the 3E/4E era that really helped consolidation into new combats. Being able to have your Daemon Prince or unkillable Falcon zip up the board turn 1, hide completely out of LoS behind area terrain, and turn 2 move up (or disembark passengers) and dive into assault against anything that wasn't butt-to-board-edge, and consolidate up the board either hiding in combat or using the LoS rules to stay completely untargetable the entire time against an opponent that cannot redeploy against you was a wee bit silly.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
...The whole argument of "oh specific weapons for specific targets" has always been a lie that the defenders of the old system tell themselves. Nobody was specifically bringing AP4 or AP3. They either brought high strength with high rate of fire (with AP just being a bonus) or they made sure everything was AP2. Everything meant Marines not hugging cover was laughable. Actually, Marines hugging the cover was still laughable...

Which is a consequence of stat creep more than anything else. The amount of 2+ armour in the game ballooned ridiculously in 5e-7e, hull points made AP increasingly irrelevant against vehicles, the introduction of easy move-and-fire AP2 blasts/templates made heavy infantry kind of a joke, yes. Try looking at 3e/4e or 30k where the game isn't made entirely of underpriced AP2 large blasts, superheavies with Invulnerable saves, rapid-fire S8, scatterbikes, and 2+-armour MCs.

I played 4th, thank you very much. The same still applied except for Rapid Fire weapons just not being very good. Take Necrons using weight of fire for example with Immortals and Destroyers, which is literally what I played.

Part of the problem is a clash between "realism" (in the context of the setting) and balance.

Think about it from a narrative perspective: "sir, you can take these plasma guns which ignore every armor save and are quite effective even against medium vehicles, or for 1/3rd the price you get the gakky version of a lasgun" (the Grenade Launcher)." Of course almost every commander will choose plasma.

Therefore:
Increase the cost of AP3 or 2 weapons to reflect their rarity and expense in the setting. This can vary (e.g. battle cannons should be cheaper on this metric than plasma guns). Otherwise you end up like IRL where firepower that does more damage will always dominate lower quality firepower unless the price is dramatically different.

You part of the problem with the idea of "bring the right weapon for the right target" is that in 40k you don't consistently fight a variety of targets.

You know in most games you're going to be playing Space Marines, so that's an entire army of 2-3+ saves.

I distinctly remember in those days the attitude of "AP3 or bust" for that very reason.

I prefer AP mods, although I think they hand out AP a little too easily.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Kind of.

Certainly any rule system should allow for the errors of your opponent to be exploited.

But, with the way 3rd and 4th Ed (I think they removed consolidate into a new combat in 5th. Might’ve been 6th) worked, you never got a chance to recover from such an error. And that made for a bad system.

Because the more shooty/static army had to deploy without error, whilst certain* assault armies didn’t.

*remember, my criticism largely stems from how specific armies were able to exploit it.

This also went against them too. If they deployed incorrectly, went second, or if you deployed well you could counter their gameplan almost completely. This design made for swingy games, which weren't as common in 3e, but that's hardly the biggest sin 40k has ever commited.