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Since there's Bastion Breacher shells I thought the Leman Russ Vanquisher deserved to get some special rounds.

General rules: The point cost indicated is per shot, much like a Hunter-killer missile though in this case you can take multiple rounds in some circumstances.

Special Rounds
You may take any number of special Rounds for a Vanquisher. Be sure to indicate to the opponent the type/number remaining.

HE round (+5 points) Str 8 AP 3 Small blast counts as Ordinance
Virus round (+5 points) If hits and wounds, shot causes +D3 wounds to designated model (cannot allocate wounds).
EMP round (+5 points) Ignores any defensive abilities vehicle has to mitigate str, die rolls, special abilitites, etc
Semiguided round (+10 points) +1 when rolling to hit with the Vanquisher cannon.


Rare Rounds
You may take only 1 of any type of the following rounds. You must have a techpriest in your army to take a Rare Round

Mars pattern TankBane round (+15 points) If the round successfully glances/penetrates, you may re-roll on the vehicle crit table if you wish.
Ultrapenetrator round (+15 points) If the round hits, a vehicle or unit behind the targeted vehicle takes an unmodified Str 8 (no bonuses) hit on a 4+

Sounds interesting. I like the Virus round. Take that you blasted Avatars!

Gone are the days when the noble vanquisher could use its armour penetrating rounds or normal HE battlecannon rounds.

I think it would be better to pay a greater number of points for the ability to shoot lots of rounds, rather than a small amount of points to shoot one. I makes things much more neat.

HE rounds should be the same as the battlecannon's and have a large blast, +20pts

Virus rounds are too powerful, as they are they are able to snipe characters or individual models out of units. Poisoned are able to always wound above a specific number in 40K (2+/4+) but most leman russ weapons wound on 2s anyway.

EMP rounds need to be more specific. Presumable they will ignore a waveserpents strength reducing thing (which doesnt make any difference anyway) and holofields, but what about smoke launchers and camo-netting. I think that its too tricky to do this for every instance of a vehicles defensive abilities so it should probably be dropped. Maybe If it hits the vehicle suffers crew shaken in addition to any other result. +15pts

Semi-guided rounds guided by a machine spirit make sense. It just needs to be a +1BS bonus when firing the vanquisher cannon. +15pts

The tank bane round doesnt really make much sense. Why does it kill tanks better than a round that does so already?

The ultrapenetrator also needs to be clarified. Does the tank or unit suffer a S8 hit in addition to the normal weapon hit? How far behind the tank can the unit be to avoid being hit?

The last two arent that good, nor do they make much sense.

Regwon wrote:Gone are the days when the noble vanquisher could use its armour penetrating rounds or normal HE battlecannon rounds.

I think it would be better to pay a greater number of points for the ability to shoot lots of rounds, rather than a small amount of points to shoot one. I makes things much more neat.

Paying per shot is more balanced. The lower point cost are justified by the risks of missing. Having unlimited ammo puts less finesse in choosing which round to fire at which target, since there's little risk if you can still use that round again next turn.

HE rounds should be the same as the battlecannon's and have a large blast, +20pts

I think this makes the Vanquier too versatile. I'd rather keep it small blast and +5 points per shot. More balanced and cost-effective that way.

Virus rounds are too powerful, as they are they are able to snipe characters or individual models out of units. Poisoned are able to always wound above a specific number in 40K (2+/4+) but most leman russ weapons wound on 2s anyway.

It wasn't the intent for them to be able to snipe characters out of squads, rather to kill monstrous creatures such as Carnifexes or Wrathlords quickly. Also I could tone it down and simply have it deal 2 wounds to a target. However, given that a tank can always be one-shotted by a penetrating hit but a monster cannot, I don't see the problem in giving a vehicle designed for sniping big tough things the ability to even the score a bit.

EMP rounds need to be more specific. Presumable they will ignore a waveserpents strength reducing thing (which doesnt make any difference anyway) and holofields, but what about smoke launchers and camo-netting. I think that its too tricky to do this for every instance of a vehicles defensive abilities so it should probably be dropped. Maybe If it hits the vehicle suffers crew shaken in addition to any other result. +15pts

How about this- EMP rounds ignore vehicle defensive abilities which affect the number of dice rolled so it counters Living Metal and similar kinds of abilities which would normally only give you 8+1D6 penetration.

Semi-guided rounds guided by a machine spirit make sense. It just needs to be a +1BS bonus when firing the vanquisher cannon. +15pts

Pretty much.

The tank bane round doesnt really make much sense. Why does it kill tanks better than a round that does so already?

That's the whole point. You pay more points (plus you have to have a Techpriest) for a nearly-guaranteed kill on a single target. But its risky, since it could miss.

The ultrapenetrator also needs to be clarified. Does the tank or unit suffer a S8 hit in addition to the normal weapon hit? How far behind the tank can the unit be to avoid being hit?

The targeted vehicle takes a standard vanquisher cannon hit (8+2D6 at BS3). If it glances/penetrates, a unit/squad/vehicle behind the targeted tank within a 45 degree arc takes a single str 8 hit as well. Its supposed to represent a tank shell passing clear through one tank and hitting a second one behind it, either via the shell itself, or if at a weird implausible angle/orientation damage from shrapnel/superhotjets of flame/chuck norris pee/etc.

From both a fluff and a game design perspective it makes much more sense to pay for the ability and not the individual round. Tanks never carry just a single round of varied ammo, there is too high a chance that the shot will be wasted if they miss. You can just imagine it "Sorry command, we were going to destroy that target, but our gunner missed and we only brought one SABOT round with us". From a game design perspective, players will become a lot less irritated if they can try something again if it goes wrong. It also makes list writing easier and means that you dont have to keep track of an extra thing in game, thus speeding the game up (game flow is very important, and the less players have to keep track of while playing the better). Cited examples include the Medusa in the IG codex, which can take bastion-breacher shells for a static points cost.

The original point of the vanquisher was that it was versitile and could fire both AT and HE rounds (much like modern tanks can). An increase of 20pts on top of the usual vanquisher price would be a reasonable cost for this versitility. From a flavor perspective there isnt any reason why a weapon with the same bore and a longer barrel would not be able to fire battlecannon shells (and why they took it out in the new IG codex is beyond me).

The way you worded virus rounds made it possible to snipe characters out of squads. Changing the wording to Any model wounded by a virus round takes two wounds instead., would mean that players still had the option of designating wounds within their own squad, but MC, who cannot join squads, and lone character (who deserve to get hit anyway) would still lose multiple wounds.

The only thing an EMP geneade would effect then is a monolith. This seems far too specific for an upgrade. It also doesnt make much sense in fluff because it isnt complicated electrical systems (which an EMP would effect) that causes the monolith to have its ability, its the materials its made out of. I think you should rethink this as it will never be worth taking.

Sorry i should have specified, doesnt make much sense for a fluff perspective (which should be at the forefront of any games design). Why does a tankbane shell work better than a shell thats already designed for filling tanks? Also, requiring the additional cost of the tech priest (which is a bad unit) will make this never worth its points (especially if you miss).

The ultrapenetrator i can see working but again having a limit of one and having to include a techpriest have it not worth it (and it doesnt do anything if you miss, see why points for the ability is better than individual points for the round).

The old vanquisher had to be versatile. With only three slots available for tanks or artillery it would never have been taken otherwise.

Now that there are nine slots available russ variants can afford to specialise. Taking a regular russ or a vanquisher is a real choice whereas before it was purely a question of finding the extra points.

I can see the reasons behind paying per shot - the Imperial Armour books (the first one) contain rules to that effect.

That said, why would you ever pay for this:

Jerjare wrote:HE round (+5 points) Str 8 AP 3 Small blast counts as Ordinance

The Vanquisher is already a junk tank thanks to 5th Ed's vehicles in cover rules, it's price cost and the loss of regular Battlecannon rounds, so why would you pay more points for a lesser Battlecannon shell - especially one that you can only fire once!!! The balancing act between the Vanquisher and Leman Russ has always been that the Vanquisher was just a Russ that could fire AT shells as well, but it cost a fair bit more. And that worked. It should have kept its high price tag and kept its regular HE ammo, not lost it and stayed at a high price, especially not with the 5th Ed rules.

I like the concept of the rules, and the poison round sounds nifty (!), but, again, why would you pay for a single pissweak Battlecannon shell?

I really like the idea of having a vanquisher with different rounds... kind of like the vindicare sniper

problem is though like Regwon said i dont think a guard crew would be happy to inform command that they couldnt stop the assault because they only had 1 shot

Would be cool if you could tak special Ammunition for each...

ex.
+30 pts
Virus shells woulds anything under the large blast template on a 2 with re-rolls or make it ap 4 and deny cover saves?

but ya i've played the old vanquisher and it was nice you could switch shots and the new 1 isn't all that useful anymore (unless you KNOW your fighting a mech legion)

the EMP rounds would be great for Chaos, orks, other IG maybe the round Denys cover saves and other defensive abilities like demoic hull for 1 turn but the tank cant shoot the target that turn because it shot the emp to balance it, great upgrade for tank squads, 1 lowers targets defenses and others take advantage

Great idea just would have to think of good rules that could just be solves with just giving it regular battle cannon shots

Mmmm, what about Canister rounds?

(hee!)

Canister rounds would be really cool, and easy to do. flamer template, str 8 ap 3, range template. I know of plenty of times I would choose this round.