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After Dark Angels lost small heavy weapon squads, and the rumored chaos requirement for 10men to take a heavy weapon, the overall availablilty of dedicated, long range anti-tank weapons (lascannons, railguns, lances, venom cannons) is being systematically reduced.  If the new space marines lose 6 man las/plas (as speculated by many), the only army capable of taking tons of lascannons will be IG or DE.  All other armies will have to either take large squads (DA, CSM, SM?) or take the weapon in a heavy support slot.

Couple this with an increase in the number of anti-tank options sneaking into many codices (swooping hawks, ravenwing bike squads, fusion blasters on stealths), and it's possible that in 2 years, vehicles might become a more viable and fruitfull option in 40k.  Admittedly, until the las/plas squad departs (not exactly something I'm looking forward to) GW is merely nibbling around the edges.  However, it's looking more and more likely that IG might become the kings of infantry based anti-tank, as well as having more durable tanks.

I do hope that the codexii are being re-aligned to provide new life for mechanized and vehicle heavy army lists.  Above all, I hope that GW has a plan for balancing skimmers, monstrous creatures and ground vehicles so that we see more mixed composition armies and less all Mech or Godzilla armies.  I would suggest bringing back the hull down rule.  Making it so that monstrous creature could not benefit from cover saves, and giving skimmers an additional 4+ save that stops hits entirely when moving fast, but at the same time does not prevent penetration.  These changes would make zilla nids easier to deal with, force Eldar and Tau to use more caution with their skimmers and allow mixed composition IG/Marine armies to use Razorbacks and Chimeras competitively.

If similar changes are not implemented when the 5th ed rules come out, I will be very frustrated and the goal of streamlining the armies for tournament play will be a total fiasco.

I've never had a problem using Chimeras in a competetive list...Razors are under-powered, but Chimeras are fine.

samwise the skimmer rules as they are now do not need modification. if they went with your plan nobody would take them anymore. the skimmer tanks sacridice in other areas when compared to tracked vehicle.

tracked heavy  tanks generally have more guns(thus more shots) and often times  better armor value (especially IG and chaos with mutated hulls) for the points costs.

my hammerheads cost nearly as much as a land raider or a fully kitted chaos pred but i don't regen, it can't shoot if it is shaken/stunned, i have no AV 14 anywhere and i only have 2 guns

I wonder if it still will spark a resurgence of the Land Raider, with less heavy weapons on the board, it's high armour and 2 lascannons will start looking very attractive.

The fix for the skimmer armies are a bit simpler, for Tau, increase the minimum squad size for firewarriors and pathfinders, for Eldar, make the holofield and invulnerable 4+.

How to fix Nidzilla, don't allow the elite 'fexes to take guns, restrict them to assault options.

Posted By droidman on 06/23/2007 8:04 PM

How to fix Nidzilla, don't allow the elite 'fexes to take guns, restrict them to assault options.

Do that and Nids are no longer a competetive army.  No one would ever take elite fexes.

I've got a better idea:

Fix the movement problems the game has. Make walkers/monstrous creatures able to run 12" a turn if they don't assault, and make base vehicle movement 8"/16" and 8"/16"/24" for vehicles.

Then, change result 1 on the Glancing Hit chart to 'no effect', and chance result 6 on the Glancing Hit chart to 'Roll on the Penetrating chart'.

We've been playing that way for years and vehicles are way more fun, and aren't glass hammers.

BYE

Seems like it should be in proposed rules but I think skimmers could be brought more into line with other vehicles if they were required to land to hold an objective or quarter. Make landing a possibility if you move less than 6" in the same turn. It is a little more reasonable than allowing a landspeeder or falcon to go streaking 24" over a quarter on turn 6 to claim it and gives anyone opposing these vehicles a chance to take them out in the last turn if they plan well. It forces a little more fore thought on the skimmer player, in that he has to get his tanks into position a little earlier. Finally it gives ground based tanks a little advantage over skimmers which currently other than some of them have better armor they have none,

 

Non-Nidzilla nids are still competitive, more so if there are less SM/CSM heavy weapons out there and elite 'fexes would probably still be used in cityfight.

 

The way I see it, there are only 2 options instead of editing elite 'fexes & holofields:

1. no changes and watch Nidzilla and mech eldar dominate the tournie source for the next several years

2. use HMBC revisinist ruleset, although I think he's he got some great ideas, the odds of GW implementing them are less then me winning Wimbledon

 

 

I must disagree with this idea that skimmers are overpowered, most skimmers are damned expsencive and more fragile than people think, the eldar vehicle upgrades simply make the opponent use alot of firepower to suppress or destroy them.

Now those of you who think that land based tanks are at a disadvantage, are just not using the weaknesses of the skimmer tanks, if you want to annoy an eldar, or tau player just get behind the tank and shoot it. If you plan it out correctly its quite easy to pull in most aggressive players and then destroy their vehicle.

Now to point out the reason for the dark angels issue with small heavy weapon squads, is that I believe that the codex was designed to promote the use of a combined arms approach to their battles. If you look at alot of the elements of the army they seem designed to have synergy with one other unit, I will list a few of the examples that I see as prevalent.

Ravenwing + deathwing: great synergy for speedy deployment

AC-HB Predators + Ravenwing Bikes: Tanks for anti-infantry, while the bikes bust the enemies anti-tank with plas or melta guns.

Rhino with 5 assaulty marines, and 5 more with a heavy weapon in one force org slot.

Skimmers have the same problem that all vehicles had in 3rd - the fact that moving fast is all or nothing. There's no way to 'beat' or 'counter' a skimmer moving fast in the same way that if a vehicle was Hull Down in 3rd, nothing about your shot could change that.

Now there's the 4th Ed simplified and horribly dumbed down way of doing it - a 4+ 'you get glancing!' save. That works, to a point, but it's more dice rolls.

The way we did it, to find a middle ground between the 4+ and the all-or-nothing, was to allow weapons to penetrate if they rolled a 6 when doing armour penetration. So it didn't matter if you were smoked, hull down or moving fast - a 6 still got through that and got a penetrating (assuming, of course, you could actually penetrate in the first place - so a 6 on a Multi-Laser vs a Falcon wouldn't penetrate, as S6 weapons are incapable of penetrating AV12 vehicles).

Solved a lot of problems.

But as far as overpowering in 4th goes, it's not skimmers that are overpowered (although they have the aforementioned all-or-nothing probem) - it's the Falcon which is overpowered or, more accurately, Holo-Fields that make it over powered.

BYE

I agree.
Skimmers are a pain, Falcons are insane

Posted By Polonius on 06/23/2007 10:24 AM
If the new space marines lose 6 man las/plas (as speculated by many), the only army capable of taking tons of lascannons will be IG or DE.  All other armies will have to either take large squads (DA, CSM, SM?) or take the weapon in a heavy support slot.

You forgot Space Wolves. Right now, it's still okay to play SMs. But if GW does go ahead with the C:SM:R as is rumoured and include the Combat Squads rule in every recently published Codex, then Space Wolves will be the only SM army worth playing if you like versatility, flexibility and competitiveness. After all, they are the only major (i.e. gets their own Codex) Chapter that is non-Codex Astartes, so logically they shouldn't be bound by the ridiculous Combat Squads rule.

Until their new Codex comes out, that is. At which time, GW will have devised another weak-arse excuse as to why it's necessary. Yay! Enjoy your unit of 5 Blood Claws, SW players!

I disagree that the holo-fields make the Falcon as broken as most internet hysteria would have it. No-one complained about it much with the old Codex when it was still perfectly possible and the Falcons could take decent Starcannons into the bargain.  

I think the main problem lies in allowing both holo-fields and Vectored Engines to be taken. It should have been either or in my opinion. My holo-fielded tanks have been destroyed quite a lot, however with VE most of the immobilised results would have been a lot less crippling and the passengers wouldn't have been mostly dead and pinned.

I suggest that some of you try fielding Falcons without holo-fields and see how they do then. You'll find that they die expensively and take their fragile cargo with them, AV12 isn't great protection for a tank that costs around 150 points. Hell, Wave Serpents die a lot and they have better protection than a non-fielded Falcon.

The main problem that people have with ground vehicles dying too easily stems directly from GW removing the hull-down rule from the game. Leaving this rule in meant that tanks sacrifice mobility for protection, a fair trade in most cases. That said I'm pretty sure that many players might have some difficulty in reliably taking down 3 preds or Russ before they've been of use to their opponent, its mainly ground transports rather than MBT's that have borne the brunt of the changes IMO.

No I don't see al vehicle resurgence. I see drop pod variants for marines, mech Tau/Eldar, and lots of targets in the form of tracked vehicles for everyone else. Make tracked/wheeled vehicle cheaper and you might see a resurgence. At this point wheeled vehicles are just too easy to cap.

Posted By jfrazell on 06/25/2007 12:28 PM
No I don't see al vehicle resurgence. I see drop pod variants for marines, mech Tau/Eldar, and lots of targets in the form of tracked vehicles for everyone else. Make tracked/wheeled vehicle cheaper and you might see a resurgence. At this point wheeled vehicles are just too easy to cap.

A DA/BA Predator Destructor with Heavy Bolters is pretty reasonable for what you get. Ditto for the 35 point Rhino.

Drop Holofields all together and vehicles are fine in an environment with a little less Lascannons.

People didn't complain as much because a) there were no vectored engines; and b) the glancing table was different, so you were twice as likely to kill a Falcon on a glance than you are now. And they still complained then.

Yes, Falcons are expensive. Yes, they need something. No, the current layout was probably not the best way to achieve the desired result.

Posted By Janthkin on 06/25/2007 4:44 PM
People didn't complain as much because a) there were no vectored engines; and b) the glancing table was different, so you were twice as likely to kill a Falcon on a glance than you are now. And they still complained then.

a. I agree, as I pointed out above, holofields and VE should not be allowed to be taken at the same time

b. I'm talking about in 4th Ed with the old codex, the good year or two of using the new ruleset where the glancing table wasn't the old way. I never heard that much complaining, possibly because people were happy that they weren't playing Ulthwe.

Granted it may not be the best solution to the problem, but its not as bad IMO as is made out as long as the holo-fields are not used in conjunction with Vectored Engines.

 

What is with all this complaining about Falcons? They're not that great anymore--the nerf to Spirit Stones saw to that. It it ludicrous to play up the "invulnerability" of a Falcon--any army list worth its salt should be able to take out one falcon per turn given average rolls, and at least get "Crew Shaken" on all enemy Falcons. Come on--it's armor 12--get over it. If your army can't keep Falcons from shooting, then frankly your army sucks. If you can't deal with the six measly T3 Eldar that hop out of the falcon, quite frankly your army sucks. It's just that simple.

With the huge, even rediculous regularity of seeing lascannons, tank-hunting hellfire ven. dreadnaughts, TH missile launchers, and the ubiquitous 6-man las/plas tac squad, there is no reason to complain so much about the Falcon. In the last three Rouge Trader Tournaments I attended, several players brought 3-Falcon lists and not a single one took best general, and not a single one thought that 3-Falcon was the end-all be-all that it used to be. The nerf to Spirit Stones changed a lot, and Vectored engines simply made Falcons even more annoying. But at best, that's all they are--a mere annoyance for the opponent. It's very rare to see a Falcon actually accomplish something worthwhile given its 200 point price tag.

Like any other vehicle Falcons have become all-or-nothing. Either they survive and manage to hold an objective at the end of the game, or they are destroyed by concentrated enemy fire. Just like a Monolith, taking a Falcon is investing a huge number of points into a tough but not overly-potent vehicle. It could all come crashing down on turn 1, after all.

You want to know who's been winning the Rouge Trader and GT circuits? Chaos. The Chaos codex has been and remains the strongest and most breakable codex around, and even though Falcon armies are annoying Chaos will still table you. If you really can't beat a Falcon-heavy Eldar army, I suggest you play a tournament-grade Chaos Demonbomb army list, and see how well you do. Then come back here and complain about that.

EDIT: I should add that, thanks to Zilla Nid and gunline Loyalist Marines, vehicles are seeing a slight resurgence in use, especially with the DA codex's rebalancing of Rhino/Razor points costs. Ultimately, vehicles never really went out of fashion; they still provide critical support to certain armies that would be lost without them.

Posted By ColonelEllios on 06/26/2007 4:15 AM

What is with all this complaining about Falcons? They're not that great anymore--the nerf to Spirit Stones saw to that.

So you've been living under a rock, eh?

Falcons don't need to be able to shoot to be excellent units. They can still deliver their cargo even when shaken. They're also near impossible to kill now thanks to Vectored Engines and Holo Fields.

BYE

Sorry Ellios but the Las Vegas games day results prove you so wrong.

count(1) main_army avg score avg placing avg overall std
2 Kroot 60 63 120.5 0
24 Eldar 56.83 60.12 122.12 15.38
8 Dark Eldar 54.62 72.62 116.87 15.09
8 Tau 53.62 78.5 115.87 16.13
1 IG/Daemonhunters 53 109 104 0
4 orks 52.5 74 117.5 13.72
2 Lost and the Damned 51.5 47 124.5 8.5
22 Space Marine 51.4 84.95 114.09 15.3
28 Chaos Space Marines 49.32 72.39 117.14 17.17
11 Necrons 48.18 87.72 111.63 14.3
6 Witchhunters 47.33 80.5 114.5 10.51
12 Tyranids 46.08 96.25 106.16 18.32
12 Imperial Guard 44.33 99.66 106.25 20.03
18 Space Marines 44 98.72 108.16 14.44
3 Daemonhunters 39.33 103.33 106.66 10.84

Wow...because those statistics are so useful and readable by everyone...

True, the Vegas GT did have Eldar win Best General. But in the last 2 of 3 GTs, Chaos has taken overall.

It should be pointed out that IG scored an amazing 80 battle points compared to 87 for the Eldar best general, and Witchhunters also took 80 battle points home. Everything is relative. For all you know, the Eldar general got lucky and went first all 5 games. If I remember correctly, Chaos had several battle point totals above 80, and so did Tau.

Regardless, you can't argue that Chaos hasn't consistently held top placement, because if you did you'd be arguing falsehoods. Mech Eldar is not "broken." It's a powerful army, and Falcons are arguably the best "tanks" in the game, but they are neither invincible or game-winning by themselves.

Locally, triple-falcon builds are extremely popular. And all the local Eldar players (many GT winners) insist that Falcons are not an end-all, be-all solution. They're really quite useless compared to the alternatives, in my humble opinion. People just love to complain about them, because they can't figure out how to beat an army with less than 30 T3 models and a handful of AV 12 skimmers. If you plan on taking an army to a tournament to win, you had better plan for the "top tier" armies out there. Failing to bring enough anti-tank to deal with 3 Falcons and not working a 3-Falcon opponent into your game plan is your problem, and your problem only.

If it's not Starcannons, it's Falcons...and if it's not Falcons...it's Monoliths...etc...

@ HBMC: "near impossible" is an exaggeration, and you know it. Furthermore, to deliver their cargo, Falcons need to get close to the enemy, where suddenly they become vulnerable to power fists, double-tapping plasma guns, meltaguns, and the whole slew of close-range weaopnry that easily threatens AV 12. I am not ignorant--I've used Falcons extensively in the past, and they are not the units they once were, especially against a skilled opponent. Now, if you want to point to a tank that is truly a problem to kill, point to a Fire Prism that's shooting you dead from across the board--the long way...

Ummm...no? There are very, VERY few armies that can inflict 12 damaging results per turn on a Falcon (there are 3/36 possible holofield results that will "stop" a Falcon, or 1/12). And that would require your opponent to leave it hanging out in front of all your guns.

I stopped reading after that.

...to deliver their cargo, Falcons need to get close to the enemy, where suddenly they become vulnerable to power fists, double-tapping plasma guns, meltaguns, and the whole slew of close-range weaopnry that easily threatens AV 12. I am not ignorant--I've used Falcons extensively in the past, and they are not the units they once were, especially against a skilled opponent. Now, if you want to point to a tank that is truly a problem to kill, point to a Fire Prism that's shooting you dead from across the board--the long way...

Locally, triple-falcon builds are extremely popular. And all the local Eldar players (many GT winners) insist that Falcons are not an end-all, be-all solution. They're really quite useless compared to the alternatives, in my humble opinion. People just love to complain about them, because they can't figure out how to beat an army with less than 30 T3 models and a handful of AV 12 skimmers. If you plan on taking an army to a tournament to win, you had better plan for the "top tier" armies out there. Failing to bring enough anti-tank to deal with 3 Falcons and not working a 3-Falcon opponent into your game plan is your problem, and your problem only.

If it's not Starcannons, it's Falcons...and if it's not Falcons...it's Monoliths...etc...

Well Jankinth, seeing as though you "stopped reading" and are apparently uninterested in the facts, I'll re-post it here to make it easy for you. Or you can continue to be ignorant and spout you idiocy in a public forum...your choice...

 Do you even play this game? It doesn't take "12 hits" to stop a Falcon. It can only take one--especially if the opponent goes first.

Falcons are durable transports for small squads (fire dragons or quins) but are not really all that great as main battle tanks anymore. The fact that anything that gets though their relatively low armor will keep them from shooting has seen to that (read sprit stone nerf). I still like fielding 1 because its generally useful, but other than as an objective grabber / fire dragon delivery system, it tends to not do too much and my points (and heavy support slots) are much better spent on things like reapers and war walkers.

One of the big problems is that when the falcon gets close to the enemy, not only does the enemy get into range with all the short rage weapons like plasma and melta guns that can hurt the falcon, but it also gets to the point where the enemy can move around to the rear armor where even bolters will start being effective.

Regardless, if anti tank weapons start to become more rare or if rules change to make tanks more durrable, then I would expect to see more of them on the field. On the other hand, I don't expect to see mech list to become any less popular, after all, everyone loves tanks.

Statistical Anomalies happen Elios, You have one person who got first turn 5 times in a row and rolled 6's all day so he got extra high points with a really bad army. It explains why the kroot had the highest average score, only two people in the tourney with kroot. Also the more people who take a specific army the greater the chance that you get new players or fluff players who bring down the total point score. This is why marines, despite having a powerful dex generally show around the middle of the field. The thing that makes the vegas GT results interesting is that you had 24 eldar players. A large percentage when compared to the total field. They showed second from the top in highest average score.

And another thread mutated to the "Falcon equals Über" discussion...

On Topic:
I seriously hope that vehicles become more popular in the future. But besides Tournament builds, I don't see an actual problem with them.
How often do you see battle reports with tanks or walkers in it without the "unkillable"-mark and they fare quite well?

It would be nice if not every squad could take a tank-hunting weapon or had to choose between anti-tank and anti-infantery. The 6-man las/plas is the (in)famous example here. And on a side note, yes the tactical squad should be flexible but a certain amount of specialization should be necessary.

Greets
Schepp himself

Posted By Schepp himself on 06/26/2007 11:26 AM
And another thread mutated to the "Falcon equals Über" discussion...

On Topic:
I seriously hope that vehicles become more popular in the future. But besides Tournament builds, I don't see an actual problem with them.
How often do you see battle reports with tanks or walkers in it without the "unkillable"-mark and they fare quite well?

It would be nice if not every squad could take a tank-hunting weapon or had to choose between anti-tank and anti-infantery. The 6-man las/plas is the (in)famous example here. And on a side note, yes the tactical squad should be flexible but a certain amount of specialization should be necessary.

Greets
Schepp himself

The issue again comes down to Marines. A Lascannon and Plasma Gun are good choices for killing Marine Infantry (and far better against Necrons).

With so many walking mini-tanks, no wonder anti-tank is so popular.

If Marines were equally as popular as Guard, Orks and Tau, then Heavy Bolters and Flamers would actually serve a purpose.

Yes, I play. Yes, it could take a single hit, particularly if your oponent is kind enough to leave it exposed to fire on turn 1, before it moves. Equally probable, it could survive 24 hits with no actual damage. The median result is that 1 in 12 damaging results will inflict an immobilized or destroyed glancing hit on a holofielded Falcon.

No, I'm not especially interested in the remainder of your assertions, as they seem predicated around a local metagame which is so unlike any of the tournaments or leagues I have ever experienced or heard of as to be essentially meaningless. "Bring enough heavy weapons to shoot them down," as I noted above, is not really valuable advice, given the ACTUAL odds of shooting one down. "Kill the T3 contents" is meaningless, given that they are used either for a) delivering a suicidal but devestating squad to a particular target (e.g., Fire Dragons to an expensive tank, or Harlies into close combat with shooty troops); or b) positioning SIX scoring units for taking/holding objectives at the end of the game.

I am pleased you find them less than optimal; my conclusions differ.