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It was 5th, 4th made eldar and tau skimmers way to overpowered due to the skimmer glance only/moving fast only rules and 6th introduced a punishing 2nd damage table in the form of hull points on top of the glancing/penetrating table. you basically were being punished for bringing vehicles...oh and the stupid vehicle assault rules introduced in 6th didn't help either.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
We spent like, 3 pages talking about the AP system and it's pros and cons. What I wanna know is what edition had the best vehicle rules now, and the downsides and upsides for it

For detail, 2nd is the clear winner. There are hit locations, variable armor ratings depending on front or flank/rear facing, and there was detailed damage so one could have crew killed, tracks thrown, as well as fireball that destroys nearby stuff.

Vehicles have three speeds, which allows rapid movement (top speeds of 30"), can ram other vehicles, and trample people. Plus goofy stuff like turrets blowing off and landing on people.

The biggest flaw was that transports had hit result that simply said: "all passengers are killed." This was widely house-ruled to say "all passengers must make an unmodified armor save to avoid being killed," which properly reflects terminator armor and such.

Which reminds me, something I did hate about GW is their pendant for rules that auto kill stuff without saves and sometimes not even Eternal Warrior mattering.

The most infamous example being Jaws of the Wolf Wolf. Pass an Initiative test or die.

For me, the issue with stuff like JotWW technically isn't that the Save stat isn't somehow involved. It's that *all* defensive stats were ignored in a way that felt very uninteractive and basically meant you paid for high toughness, good armor, multiple wounds, etc. for nothing.

And the "draw a line" thing added a little extra sting because it basically punished you for not slowing down the game to position your models *just so*. If you ever lost more than one important model to jaws at a time, it felt like the blame was partially on you.

If the rumors on this board are true, then 11th edition should be amazing!

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
For detail, 2nd is the clear winner. There are hit locations, variable armor ratings depending on front or flank/rear facing, and there was detailed damage so one could have crew killed, tracks thrown, as well as fireball that destroys nearby stuff.

Prior to that there was the vehicle manual where you had to use a transparent target sheet, a location map of the target, and roll to see how wide your shot went from the intended component...

------------------------------------

3e also had the vehicles thrown around when destroyed but it couldn't kill anyone except the passengers. Non-eldar transports were real deathtraps in 3rd and 4th with troops getting locked into vehicles in 3rd until they blew up (no dismounting when stunned) or ejected from the vehicle and entangled in 4th if it suffered any penetrating hit result with the exception of the one that killed everyone inside with no saves.

5e was too generous with the minor results, almost no consequences to the passengers on disembarkation and the ability to withstand glancing and penetrating hits indefinitely with low enough damage rolls.

6e had 2-4 glancing hits automatically wreck vehicles, along with somewhat erratic distribution of haywire, emp, and/or medium strength weapons that made scoring penetrating hits somewhat optional for some factions.

 Tyran wrote:
Which reminds me, something I did hate about GW is their pendant for rules that auto kill stuff without saves and sometimes not even Eternal Warrior mattering.

The most infamous example being Jaws of the Wolf Wolf. Pass an Initiative test or die.

Jaws of the Wolf Wolf is the most Space Wolf thing ever.

-STS

5th, while not perfect, was probably the best for vehicles.

I get that hull points were the answer for infinite glances just doing nothing, but they just made it far too easy to kill tanks. And saw the decline of actual AV weapons in favor of spammed mid S shooting to strip HPs.

8th+ leveled the playing between tanks amd monsters, which needed to happen, but at the cost of a lot of flavor.

Transports might have been a bit underpriced in 5th, but the rules were solid. And cheep boxes promoted mechanized infantry lists, which I enjoy.

 Tyran wrote:
Which reminds me, something I did hate about GW is their pendant for rules that auto kill stuff without saves and sometimes not even Eternal Warrior mattering.

The most infamous example being Jaws of the Wolf Wolf. Pass an Initiative test or die.

It wasn't "die" it wasn't "wounded"....it was "removed from play"

Same as loki's second heart stasis bomb and a few other items.

And funny enough using the old 3rd edition primarch rules i put the emperor up against horus and used Jaws on him.....and he rolled the 6+ auto failure , it was rather anti-climactic for the father/son fight on the galaxy.

slade the sniper wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Which reminds me, something I did hate about GW is their pendant for rules that auto kill stuff without saves and sometimes not even Eternal Warrior mattering.

The most infamous example being Jaws of the Wolf Wolf. Pass an Initiative test or die.

Jaws of the Wolf Wolf is the most Space Wolf thing ever.

-STS

I still have nightmares where a Wolf drop podded next to my Guard tank line... and Jaws of the World Wolf'd my army away.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

slade the sniper wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Which reminds me, something I did hate about GW is their pendant for rules that auto kill stuff without saves and sometimes not even Eternal Warrior mattering.

The most infamous example being Jaws of the Wolf Wolf. Pass an Initiative test or die.

Jaws of the Wolf Wolf is the most Space Wolf thing ever.

-STS

I still have nightmares where a Wolf drop podded next to my Guard tank line... and Jaws of the World Wolf'd my army away.

you know it doesn't work on vehicles right?

 Nevelon wrote:
5th, while not perfect, was probably the best for vehicles.

I get that hull points were the answer for infinite glances just doing nothing, but they just made it far too easy to kill tanks. And saw the decline of actual AV weapons in favor of spammed mid S shooting to strip HPs.

8th+ leveled the playing between tanks amd monsters, which needed to happen, but at the cost of a lot of flavor.

Transports might have been a bit underpriced in 5th, but the rules were solid. And cheep boxes promoted mechanized infantry lists, which I enjoy.

See, I think hull points were fine. GW maybe just needed to give every vehicle a couple more of them. That way you get rid of the unkillable stun-locked parking lots, but you're still incentivized to take anti-vehicle weapons because the chip damage from mid-strength weapons, while reliable, isn't *fast* enough to actually finish things off.

I also like the move to Toughness purely because I hated it when a skew list was literally immune to any small arms fire you made the mistake of bringing, but I acknowledge that AV "felt more cinematic."

 aphyon wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

slade the sniper wrote:

 Tyran wrote:
Which reminds me, something I did hate about GW is their pendant for rules that auto kill stuff without saves and sometimes not even Eternal Warrior mattering.

The most infamous example being Jaws of the Wolf Wolf. Pass an Initiative test or die.

Jaws of the Wolf Wolf is the most Space Wolf thing ever.

-STS

I still have nightmares where a Wolf drop podded next to my Guard tank line... and Jaws of the World Wolf'd my army away.

you know it doesn't work on vehicles right?

I remember. But my troops that were hanging around my tanks weren't so lucky.

It was a line of suffering that went right down my gunline. I couldn't have lined it up any better for my opponent.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
5th, while not perfect, was probably the best for vehicles.

I get that hull points were the answer for infinite glances just doing nothing, but they just made it far too easy to kill tanks. And saw the decline of actual AV weapons in favor of spammed mid S shooting to strip HPs.

8th+ leveled the playing between tanks amd monsters, which needed to happen, but at the cost of a lot of flavor.

Transports might have been a bit underpriced in 5th, but the rules were solid. And cheep boxes promoted mechanized infantry lists, which I enjoy.

See, I think hull points were fine. GW maybe just needed to give every vehicle a couple more of them. That way you get rid of the unkillable stun-locked parking lots, but you're still incentivized to take anti-vehicle weapons because the chip damage from mid-strength weapons, while reliable, isn't *fast* enough to actually finish things off.

I also like the move to Toughness purely because I hated it when a skew list was literally immune to any small arms fire you made the mistake of bringing, but I acknowledge that AV "felt more cinematic."

More HP would have helped. Also, letting vehicles get saves. The system was not unworkable, just a little flawed. Might have been better accepted if MCs were not out of control at the time. It also helped cement all plasma, all the time. And autocannons. Spammed mid-S attacks were all you needed. Which I was not a fan off.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
That way you get rid of the unkillable stun-locked parking lots, but you're still incentivized to take anti-vehicle weapons

You could probably fix most of the parking lot issues with three changes:
1) Limit troops that disembark from shaken/stunned vehicles. Much of the problem was that no matter how much you shot a vehicle in 5th the troops would step out just fine and melta/plasma/demo charge your unit. Further penalise troops in exploded vehicles.

2) Add a +1 damage modifier to any vehicle that has suffered critical damage (weapon destroyed or immobilised), optionally only on penetrating hits.

3) Troops in vehicles are not scoring.


Pricing and slots optional. 3e and 5e guard mechanised lists are night and day even with the same rules.

 Nevelon wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
5th, while not perfect, was probably the best for vehicles.

I get that hull points were the answer for infinite glances just doing nothing, but they just made it far too easy to kill tanks. And saw the decline of actual AV weapons in favor of spammed mid S shooting to strip HPs.

8th+ leveled the playing between tanks amd monsters, which needed to happen, but at the cost of a lot of flavor.

Transports might have been a bit underpriced in 5th, but the rules were solid. And cheep boxes promoted mechanized infantry lists, which I enjoy.

See, I think hull points were fine. GW maybe just needed to give every vehicle a couple more of them. That way you get rid of the unkillable stun-locked parking lots, but you're still incentivized to take anti-vehicle weapons because the chip damage from mid-strength weapons, while reliable, isn't *fast* enough to actually finish things off.

I also like the move to Toughness purely because I hated it when a skew list was literally immune to any small arms fire you made the mistake of bringing, but I acknowledge that AV "felt more cinematic."

More HP would have helped. Also, letting vehicles get saves. The system was not unworkable, just a little flawed. Might have been better accepted if MCs were not out of control at the time. It also helped cement all plasma, all the time. And autocannons. Spammed mid-S attacks were all you needed. Which I was not a fan off.

I'd probably have gone with a different solution to HP - mainly that if a vehicle is already suffering a given Glancing damage result and you roll it again, you step up the table until it actually does something.

At the same time, something along the lines of the current degrading profiles should've been applied to MCs (along with a long thought as to whether Silly Big Battlesuits, for example, should really be a MC instead of a vehicle).

A.T. wrote:
Prior to that there was the vehicle manual where you had to use a transparent target sheet, a location map of the target, and roll to see how wide your shot went from the intended component...

I can barely claim to be a Rogue Trader player, and IIRC, robots had to have their movement "programmed" before the start of the game. The detail was simply not comparable with anything that came after.

I found 3rd a real downer because most vehicles moved at a walking pace rather than at least outrunning leg infantry. And I missed the quick flanking movements.

The drastic change in vehicle speeds from 2nd to 3rd was pretty jarring! I definitely have mixed feelings about it. The fact that vehicle movement necessarily became more deliberate with slower overall speeds and firing restrictions wasn't all bad. But it sure felt restrictive compared to blasting your Predator up 23" or whatever max speed was, blazing away with every weapon (at a -1 to hit iirc) on the opposition flank.

I'd have to go back and look at vehicle speeds in 2nd, but I think creating greater differences between faction vehicle movement speeds was reasonable. It just changed how they felt a lot.


Edit: Just checked.
2nd ed:
Predator Combat Speed was 20", Fast Speed 25"
Falcon Combat Speed was 20", Fast Speed 30"

3rd+
Predator Combat Speed 6", Fast 12"
Falcon Combat Speed 12" Fast 24"

Honestly the fact that the two had the same combat speed in 2nd is a little surprising to me, considering the form factors. It makes sense that the Falcon would be significantly faster.

Edit again. Just checked Leman Russ speed in 2nd. Combat Speed 8", Fast 16" gyaddayum that's a hefty boi.