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DarknessEternal wrote:

andrewm9 wrote:I'm very concerned for Sisters armies in CC. Given a distinct lack of lots of AP 1 and AP 2 weapons as well as overwhelming fire in shooting

Are we talking about the same Sisters that spam dozens of meltaguns, rending heavy bolters, and exorcist launchers?

Think he meant purely in melee..And than he's forgotten Repentia, oh and don't forget the fact flamers in the army give D3 in overwatch, along with the fact we have plenty of ways of getting preferred enemy now so shooting will be better too.

its not like Sisters relied on PWs for their anti-2+ armor stuff. Its those armies that got nerfed.

3+ armor hasn't changed really. It still gets ignored by power weapons.

In all likelihood, you're not going to see very much AP3. The opportunity cost associated it will be too substantial. With armor saves less than 3+ it will be seen as too extravagant. With 3+ saves it will be seen as being important, but not crucial for killing MEQs and the opportunity cost attached to only being able to kill the MEQ components of Marine armies will reduce their representation overall.

So for the most part you're going to be dealing with Axes and Fists along with chainswords. So either armor saves or they're striking at I1. If you play it right at I4 you might come out on top.

I think that this is both a good change for Terminators, who now keep their saves until I1, and Marine armies, who will see fewer Power Weapons, both due to the cost attached to Power Fists and due to the reduced usefulness of Power Weapons.

Redbeard wrote:I have to say, from a game design perspective, I really don't like this rumour. It doesn't make for interesting decisions, it makes for no-brainer choices. Let's say they made Power Weapons AP2, and Power Fists AP3. Now you have to make an actual choice. Do you want higher strength, for wounding monsters and vehicles, or do you want AP2, in case you're facing terminators. This is something people would need to think about.

AP2 powerfists and AP3 power weapons? No one will take a power weapon if a powerfist is an available choice.

Even though its not a rumour now, 100x this is how I wish it was.

Just looking at the way powerweapons are changing, it seems like taking a fist is a no brainer any time its an option.

You get x2S and +1 AP at the cost of being I1, which, now that only few weapons can harm the 2+ save in CC is now hardly a big trade off.

Edit: I am also guessing that AP3 will not be seen often in CC if there is an option to take AP2. AP3 is still twice as easy to take down with tons of attacks. Why not take every opportunity to have AP2 whenever possible
And I'm sorry, but Hammer's and Fists are Blunt weapons, why should they be better at "piercing" armour than a weapon with a sharp edge? Maybe I am thinking about this too much but it just seems wrong.

Well, power fists are massive hydraulic fists that pull apart the armour, using a massive energy field.

Most of the damage from the Hammer comes from the uber powerful energy field, no? That when it strikes something creates a massive kaboom that sounds like well, a crack of thunder.

A lot of it is less about the weapon design and more about their on board batteries / energy field production, I'd assume.

Noir Eternal wrote:

Redbeard wrote:I have to say, from a game design perspective, I really don't like this rumour. It doesn't make for interesting decisions, it makes for no-brainer choices. Let's say they made Power Weapons AP2, and Power Fists AP3. Now you have to make an actual choice. Do you want higher strength, for wounding monsters and vehicles, or do you want AP2, in case you're facing terminators. This is something people would need to think about.

AP2 powerfists and AP3 power weapons? No one will take a power weapon if a powerfist is an available choice.

Even though its not a rumour now, 100x this is how I wish it was.

Just looking at the way powerweapons are changing, it seems like taking a fist is a no brainer any time its an option.

You get x2S and +1 AP at the cost of being I1, which, now that only few weapons can harm the 2+ save in CC is now hardly a big trade off.

Edit: I am also guessing that AP3 will not be seen often in CC if there is an option to take AP2. AP3 is still twice as easy to take down with tons of attacks. Why not take every opportunity to have AP2 whenever possible
And I'm sorry, but Hammer's and Fists are Blunt weapons, why should they be better at "piercing" armour than a weapon with a sharp edge? Maybe I am thinking about this too much but it just seems wrong.

If you look at medievil weaponry, tactics, and fighting in melee, you'll notice that knights fighting with swords invaribly, could only penetrate each others armour on a thrusting charge (holding sword two handed, braced against body, run at enemy) otherwise you were aiming for the gaps in between the plate, hoping to penetrate the mail underneath.
A sharp edged sword is infact, rather bad at cutting through armour plate, it'll invaribly ding it, or simply slide / ricochet / bounce off as that's what armour is designed to do.

What they would take for dealing with other knights, is Maces, Morning Stars and Hammers. Various large, blunt, heavy weapons. The impact reverberates along the entire plate, rather than sliding off, enough force and the impact will dent, crater or rip open the plate it's hit. In the case of maces, the weight of the head would drive a large, heavy spike through the plate as well. This results in massive dents pressing into the flesh of the enemy, broken bones, broken skin etc.

An honourable mention goes out to Great Swords, which work on a similar principal, massive heavy strike. The point is the weight of the weapon, resulting in a HUGE impact hit. Also the big ole metal kite shields - knock down the opponent, then slam the tip down into their chest.

Of course the payoff is these weapons are slower, so Knights would often carry a sword AND a mace or something.

Yup, and two handed swords were often actually quite dull. You couldn't cut your hand on it even if you tried.

Sharp weapons are only good against relativly soft surfaces(flesh, leather, clothes)

I remember watching a documentary about the medieval armour and weapons. They demonstrated using a dead pig and some chainmail how each weapon worked against a person's body. The sword sliced through the chainmail and caused a massive slash through the body. The axe only punctured the body slightly and wouldn't have caused enough damage to incapacitate the opponent, the hammer didn't break through the chainmail (only a few rings broke) but the pigs bones beneath were completely shattered. However, as Ovion has said plates of armour were a different matter, swords sliced into the plate but didn't completely go through the chainmail underneath. The axe largely went into the plate and mail but again didn't cause enough damage to incapacitate (it did about the same amount of damage to the body as the sword except for a crack in one rib) the hammer again proved the greater, though the plate and chainmail survived (though in pretty poor shape) the pigs body beneath was actually worse than before. The plate effectively acted like an amplifier for the hammer with the epicenter of the impact acting like an arrow and pierced the mail and skin beneath causing a wound, that if it didn't kill immediately, would be a very slow and excruciating death.

EDIT: Hence why Hammers and Fists are AP2...

Chainmail is a funky armor as to its purpose.

It was really made to protect against small cuts and lacerations from glancing blows, not against a killing strike. It was so you didn't win the battle and later die from infection.

Chainmail is practically useless against piercing blows(or blows with enough force to break the rings)

Against a cutting action it is able to prevent it from penetrating, but against a sharpened point it breaks and allows entry.


Chainmail is supposed to be used along with a shield. The shield is the primary defensive implement while the chainmail protects against glancing blows that get through. If you have left your torso open to a strike you are dead no matter the weapon, the axe and mace will all stagger you enough for a second blow to come in and finish the job.

They also demonstrated that the Longbow were the machine gun of their day. Very few things would actually stop an arrow, other than a shield, and even that was dubious at times with the arrows piercing 6" through (though that was a close range shot) not great for the holding arm some times...

EDIT: Anyway the point was that plates of armour could be defeated by any weapon BUT the weapon with the highest success rate was a blunt weapon.

oddly enough, Plate armor is quite good at stopping bodkin arrows. But when fired in massive quantities they will find the few weaknesses there are.

French Knights at Agincourt, their armor actually would reflect some arrows downwards into their crotch. so some of them found they were suffering million dollar wounds and were now stuck to their saddles. Most of the casualities amoung the knights were not from arrow wounds but from drowning in the muddy field they charged accross. They were either knocked off their horse by the deluge of arrows or their horse was killed and they ended up face down in the mud.

Grey Templar wrote:oddly enough, Plate armor is quite good at stopping bodkin arrows. But when fired in massive quantities they will find the few weaknesses there are.

French Knights at Agincourt, their armor actually would reflect some arrows downwards into their crotch. so some of them found they were suffering million dollar wounds and were now stuck to their saddles. Most of the casualities amoung the knights were not from arrow wounds but from drowning in the muddy field they charged accross. They were either knocked off their horse by the deluge of arrows or their horse was killed and they ended up face down in the mud.

Actually, most of the casualties among the knights were when Henry executed his prisoners. The number of knights killed in battle was laughably low, their armour offering excellent protection.

Ovion wrote:

Noir Eternal wrote:

Redbeard wrote:I have to say, from a game design perspective, I really don't like this rumour. It doesn't make for interesting decisions, it makes for no-brainer choices. Let's say they made Power Weapons AP2, and Power Fists AP3. Now you have to make an actual choice. Do you want higher strength, for wounding monsters and vehicles, or do you want AP2, in case you're facing terminators. This is something people would need to think about.

AP2 powerfists and AP3 power weapons? No one will take a power weapon if a powerfist is an available choice.

Even though its not a rumour now, 100x this is how I wish it was.

Just looking at the way powerweapons are changing, it seems like taking a fist is a no brainer any time its an option.

You get x2S and +1 AP at the cost of being I1, which, now that only few weapons can harm the 2+ save in CC is now hardly a big trade off.

Edit: I am also guessing that AP3 will not be seen often in CC if there is an option to take AP2. AP3 is still twice as easy to take down with tons of attacks. Why not take every opportunity to have AP2 whenever possible
And I'm sorry, but Hammer's and Fists are Blunt weapons, why should they be better at "piercing" armour than a weapon with a sharp edge? Maybe I am thinking about this too much but it just seems wrong.

If you look at medievil weaponry, tactics, and fighting in melee, you'll notice that knights fighting with swords invaribly, could only penetrate each others armour on a thrusting charge (holding sword two handed, braced against body, run at enemy) otherwise you were aiming for the gaps in between the plate, hoping to penetrate the mail underneath.
A sharp edged sword is infact, rather bad at cutting through armour plate, it'll invaribly ding it, or simply slide / ricochet / bounce off as that's what armour is designed to do.

What they would take for dealing with other knights, is Maces, Morning Stars and Hammers. Various large, blunt, heavy weapons. The impact reverberates along the entire plate, rather than sliding off, enough force and the impact will dent, crater or rip open the plate it's hit. In the case of maces, the weight of the head would drive a large, heavy spike through the plate as well. This results in massive dents pressing into the flesh of the enemy, broken bones, broken skin etc.

An honourable mention goes out to Great Swords, which work on a similar principal, massive heavy strike. The point is the weight of the weapon, resulting in a HUGE impact hit. Also the big ole metal kite shields - knock down the opponent, then slam the tip down into their chest.

Of course the payoff is these weapons are slower, so Knights would often carry a sword AND a mace or something.

But, we are talking POWER swords here - think lightsaber. According to the fluff, they "melt" thru any armor they touch.

Yes power weapons do bear a similarity to a lightsaber in effect, however, power weaponry essentially obliterates the atoms or molecules it comes into contact with (giving them their glow) the visual effect on armour would be like a lightsaber but the actual effect would be something like an atomic explosion (on a molecular level anyway)

EDIT: so the differing APs could be explained in a Star Wars scene... episode 1 cutting into the security doors on the droid ship. It gets tougher when the thicker doors activate.

We're also talking combat here, and armour that's been designed with this in mind.

There were weaves and armours (cortosis and things like it.) in the Star Wars universe that either deflected or slowed the Lightsabers down, cortosis weave swords could go toe-to-toe with a lightsaber, and Cortosis Weave shirts would deflect them. Pure Cortosis Alloy Armour while significantly less useful against blasters and vibroblades (near useless infact) and obscenely expensive and rare, rendered lightsabers practically useless.

I would liken this to various armours (specifically that of 2+ in this instance) being the sort built to withstand these impacts, or to disrupt the power-weapon field effect, reducing its ability to rend matter.

Power Fists / Hammers / etc, would have the significantly heavier nature of impact weapons designed to breach heavy armour, and the bonus of a significantly stronger field effect.

At least that's how I'm looking at it.

Now thats a good way of looking at it. Consider it adopted.

I think a crucial part of the ap for powerswords and powerfists will be how they play out in duels/challenges. Say your Tac squad with a sergent's fist charges a tac squad with a sergeant who has a power weapon. Now that powerfist is pretty scary and is gonna mess your marines up, but there's a way form stopping him from doing that. The power sword sergeant can challenge the powerfist sergeant to a duel, if the powerfist accepts it he will most likely loose the fight because the powersword strikes first, or the power fist can decline the challenge and just sit the fight out. Challenges will really change up the dynamic of powerfists/powerswords it seems.

Meanwhile, Boneswords still ignore all armour saves. :p

Squigsquasher wrote:Meanwhile, Boneswords still ignore all armour saves. :p

Nope, look at page 61 under "Unusual Power Weapons". It still retains it's unique rules, but its an AP3 weapon. Same applies for Relic Blades, etc etc.

Boneswords arn't power weapons, they are CCWs that ignore armor saves.

Kammerlocher wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:Meanwhile, Boneswords still ignore all armour saves. :p

Nope, look at page 61 under "Unusual Power Weapons". It still retains it's unique rules, but its an AP3 weapon. Same applies for Relic Blades, etc etc.

Nids don't have weapons, they have upgrades, so Boneswords work just fine.

Kammerlocher wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:Meanwhile, Boneswords still ignore all armour saves. :p

Nope, look at page 61 under "Unusual Power Weapons". It still retains it's unique rules, but its an AP3 weapon. Same applies for Relic Blades, etc etc.

No, they still ignore Armour Saves.

See, Unusual Power Weapons refers to things like Dark Eldar Agonisers. Power Weapons with additional effects, so these are AP3.

HOWEVER, things like Boneswords, Warscythes, etc, ARE NOT Power Weapons. They simply Ignore Armour Saves.

Kammerlocher wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:Meanwhile, Boneswords still ignore all armour saves. :p

Nope, look at page 61 under "Unusual Power Weapons". It still retains it's unique rules, but its an AP3 weapon. Same applies for Relic Blades, etc etc.

Or read the actual codex entry for the weapon. Boneswords are NOT power weapons, which means they are not "Unusual Power Weapons," which means they have no relation to that rule in the first place. They simply ignore armour saves, no need to worry about AP.

Is the phrase Power <Noun> even mentioned in the nid codex?

Not that I can think of.

Fafnir wrote:

Kammerlocher wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote:Meanwhile, Boneswords still ignore all armour saves. :p

Nope, look at page 61 under "Unusual Power Weapons". It still retains it's unique rules, but its an AP3 weapon. Same applies for Relic Blades, etc etc.

Or read the actual codex entry for the weapon. Boneswords are NOT power weapons, which means they are not "Unusual Power Weapons," which means they have no relation to that rule in the first place. They simply ignore armour saves, no need to worry about AP.

I think you might have to. Are they AP1 (like the Warscythe), or AP2?

boneswords are AP - at the mo as they have no AP and are not PW's, so yeah they ignore AS but get no bonus vs tanks (i.e +1 +2 etc.)

Yup, they are simply CCWs that ignore armor saves.

Noir Eternal wrote:You get x2S and +1 AP at the cost of being I1, which, now that only few weapons can harm the 2+ save in CC is now hardly a big trade off.

Edit: I am also guessing that AP3 will not be seen often in CC if there is an option to take AP2. AP3 is still twice as easy to take down with tons of attacks. Why not take every opportunity to have AP2 whenever possible
And I'm sorry, but Hammer's and Fists are Blunt weapons, why should they be better at "piercing" armour than a weapon with a sharp edge? Maybe I am thinking about this too much but it just seems wrong.

Buying the power fist is a no brainer as long as you have that 2+ save and given that the majority of units with that 2+ save already usually have power fists anyway not much is going to change. Yeah when you have that 2+ save in CC it is easy to sit back and wait for your I1 attack rolls. Of course *everyone else* without that 2+ is going to get beaten down while they wait for I1. People who are claiming powerswords are now never to be seen are just being foolish. They lost their impact on such a small percentage of likely enemy targets that it just doesn't matter. I know that not one of my regular opponents has any models with a 2+ save, so I have no need to swap things out for axes or power fists for any reason.

Of course worrying solely about CCW ignores all the other weapons armies can field that will deal just fine with those 2+ armored opponents without getting close enough for hand to hand attacks in the first place.

Skriker

Formosa wrote:boneswords are AP - at the mo as they have no AP and are not PW's, so yeah they ignore AS but get no bonus vs tanks (i.e +1 +2 etc.)

If they are AP - then I take it that means you get a feel no pain save against them.