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Careful. They'll come up with 5th edition which changes all the core rules and invalidating all codexes...

Don't give too many good suggestions. They may use 1/2 of it, then try to force us all to rebuy everything....again.

Posted By mauleed on 08/14/2007 6:50 PM

I still think the more interesting design fix is to make it so that long ranged AT weaponry isn't useful against infantry. Sure, you can aim that missile/lascannon at a tank, but hitting a little terminator with it should be so hard as to be only a last resort.

A nice fix would have been to designate some weapons as 'Long Range/High Power' and say they never hit a size 2 or smaller model on better than a 5+. Short ranged AT stuff would still hit normally (say anything with a range of 24" or less), so people would still have a 'short ranged fire fight' option to kill things with good armor saves, but they'd have to get close to do it.

Then let people take as much AT as they like, as now it's not both anti tank and anti-MEQ. And it bones over godzilla lists, which is good for everyone.

But instead, they'll just try to restrict it, but neglect to finish the job, and we'll see more cookie cutter armies.

That's actually a really great idea.  I had never thought of it, but it does address why lascannons are so popular: they're not only the best against tanks, but against infantry as well.  Making LCs, Lances, railguns, venom cannons, zzap guns, and maybe even heavy gauss cannons "long range" would make them less popular, and would actually provide a role for the Missile Launcher as the true versatile weapon. 

You could create the opposite rule: the long range/low power rule, to represent dedicated infantry weapons.  These weapons never hit vehicles on more than a 5+, and would include star cannons, plasma cannons (Which could simply be made heavy 2, with no blast), devourers, gauss cannons, etc.

Posted By Hellfury on 08/14/2007 4:50 PM
When you mention being immune to conventional weapons sparked something in me.

Perhaps that is where GW is going wrong with armor is allowing any weapon that has a high enough S to damage a tank. Realistically (Yeah, this is 40K, I know...) a shuriken catapult should not be able to damage a tank unless you stick the barrel in the vision slit and open up on the drivers face.

Who's to say what 40ks offense/defense cycle is, Early tanks could neutralised by the then higher powered hand held weaponry due to the effect of metal flakes peeling off the inside hull and flying around taking out crew members - a glancing hit if you like, that is all a shuri-cat can do against the lightest armor iin 40k. They could be directly penetrated by machine guns, again like a heavy bolter against 40ks lightest armor.

By start of ww2 many armies had anti tank rifles, that were still capable of taking out many of the then lighter tanks.

The modern tank being VERY well protected against most weapons is a pretty new reality with the advent of modern composite armors, depleted uranium plates and other such devices, even in the 70s many vehicles were still very vulnerable to infantry carried weapons, I'm not aware that the M113 (aka the Rhino) was designed to rush an enemy line.

I think the current armor rules are fine, as others have noted heavy tanks are strong but brittle - in other words they shrug of a lot of stuff, but when they don't .... bang . lighter armor has to take serious care in a battle full of high tech weaponry, should a sentinal/speeder really be totally immune to mono molecular blades or high poweed bolter rounds,  a small possibility of destroying seems not unreasonable to me.

Posted By puree on 08/15/2007 5:28 AM

  a small possibility of destroying seems not unreasonable to me.

But there-in lies the rub.  In a D6 system getting that small possibility is pretty rough.  Should a machine gun designed for killing infantry have a 1 in 6 shot of doing damage to an armored tank?  I don't think so.  Even with the kind of armor WWII tanks had a common maneuver was for tanks to literally "dust" enemy infantry off of each other with machine gun fire because it was impossible for the machine guns to actually damage the tanks, whereas those lickle infantry men might toss a grenade somewhere unsafe.  It's a simple system for tanks, and while I think it makes them a bit too vulnerable for real world comparisons, I think it makes sense in games terms.  Without tanks being 1 hit pop type deals they'd be far too overpowered. 

Posted By Athansor on 08/15/2007 5:47 AM

Posted By puree on 08/15/2007 5:28 AM

  a small possibility of destroying seems not unreasonable to me.

But there-in lies the rub.  In a D6 system getting that small possibility is pretty rough.  Should a machine gun designed for killing infantry have a 1 in 6 shot of doing damage to an armored tank?  I don't think so.  Even with the kind of armor WWII tanks had a common maneuver was for tanks to literally "dust" enemy infantry off of each other with machine gun fire because it was impossible for the machine guns to actually damage the tanks, whereas those lickle infantry men might toss a grenade somewhere unsafe.  It's a simple system for tanks, and while I think it makes them a bit too vulnerable for real world comparisons, I think it makes sense in games terms.  Without tanks being 1 hit pop type deals they'd be far too overpowered. 

Ah - but there you are saying real world comparison, what is wrong with the real world comarison of WW1 tanks which were vulnerable to MG fire.  What about the US heavy machine gun that could deal with lighter armor like transports.  Remember the heavy bolter can only deal with AV10 or 11, not exactly what one would class as a 'tank', but usually light recce vehicles or transports.

Why not give tanks wounds as well as armor. Much like the current version of void shields for titans.

Easy to implement just say all armor 10 vehicles have no extra wounds (every hit can pen/glance), armor 11 has 1 wound (first glance/pen ignored) up to armor 14 having a massive 4 wounds.

Then when new codexes come arround they could include this stat in vehicles.

easy to do, easy to understand/remember, and makes vehicles more resiliant to lucky kills but not concentrated fire.

I suppose I should have stayed away from using any real life comparisons in my argument. My main point was that tanks need to remain as vulnerable as they are to high powered weaponry (A lascannon/missile launcher/lance/etc.) since those weapons would obviously be very effective against them by design, while they need to be much tougher against low strength weaponry than they are right now, even the transports and recce vehicles. If it's open topped, I can see shooting at it with a machine gun being perhaps even more effective than shooting it with a high strength gun since all you're doing is taking out the crew, but other than that high strength weaponry and low strength weaponry should have a more clearly defined difference in the rules rather than being on the same sliding scale.

I think GW has tried to "fudge" a lot of the real life effects.

Small arms can effect tanks by making the crew retreat to the inside of the tank and reduce visability to vision slits. This is called "buttoning up." The bullets really do nothing to the tank, but because the tank is now nearly blind, it is vulnerable to infantry sneaking up, or armor manevering around for a side shot.

When playing WWII games, I routinely open up on tanks, carefully with rifle squads in cover to make them button, then follow up with heavy machine guns against light armor, and tank guns aganst battle tanks. My engineers finish the job by assaulting some of the surviving armor. Tank crew morale goes right out the window... most formations will want to retreat.

Back to 40K... I suppose that may be the reason small arms have a limited chance to hurt lighter vehicles. Not so much the ability to hurt the tank, rather a "fudged up" way to simulate a realistic outcome with a simplistic rule set. Something is lost in translation, but the outcome is the somewhat the same.

Warprat

Alternately, weapons could be given a designation "Tank hunter" (or some other name) that gives +1 to penetration. Then you could just raise the armor on vehicles by 1 across the board, leaving the rear armor on some vehicles 10. That way the number of weapons that are good against tanks are limited, but they can still affect infantry, while other weapons can chew through infantry, but at the same Str are pretty poor vs armor.
Or perhaps weapons without a tank hunting designation take a penalty when shooting armor.

I think it makes sense that there are man portable weapons that can damage armor. I just think that perhaps every man shouldn't have one, since it really reduces the effectiveness of vehicles to the point of perhaps not being worth it. (One has to ask why the Imperium et al. makes such constant use if they are so expensive and difficult to make, yet can get toasted easily.)

The issue is Anti Tank type weapons *las cannons krak missiles etc* can hit infantry just as easy as it can hit tanks. So its not just anti tank, it is anti everything.

If it would be harder to hit infantry type models with an anti tank weapon say... minus one or two to hit, it would be more balanced?

The problem is that if you make anti-tank guns less effective vs infantry, you give marines a big boost. There just are no guns in the game designed to kill marines. Heavy bolters are almost custom made to cut down geqs, but the only equivalent vs power armor is the missile launcher. If they put in some lower strength, higher ap guns I would take them in a minute. Imagine a multi-laser that was str 4, ap 3, heavy 3 and could be taken in line squads for the same cost as a missile launcher. I know I would take them.

I don't think that AT being good vs. Infantry is a problem, particularly if it is one shot per turn. A lascannon might be great vs MEQ, but against GEQ it is pretty weak, since toasting one a turn is less than exciting. Even against MEQ it is not too great, just a decent threat since MEQ's are expensive enough that losing 6 per gun at most over the course of a game is a little troublesome.

If one were to put in a low Str, low AP, high RoF gun, it would be interesting, but the possibility of killing large amounts of MEQ a turn causes problems in that such a weapon would be the only anti infantry you would ever need. If marines/sisters/naughty marines were suddenly as vulnerable as Guard or Orks, their value would drop precipitously, requiring many more of them, or cheaper orks and guardsmen to compensate. Possibly a Str 4, AP 3 Heavy 2 would work. Heavy 3 though, it would have to be very limited.

Personally, I like the idea of few marines weathering lots of fire. I do agree though that the 5 man las/plas squad needs changing in some way, and perhaps the 10 man for las cannon type thing is a good start. (I think there is a better answer though.)

Posted By foil7102 on 08/21/2007 7:08 AM
There just are no guns in the game designed to kill marines.

Plasma? Reaper launchers? Not many, granted. But, then again, SMs aren't quite so numerous & ubiquitous in the fluff....

Posted By foil7102 on 08/21/2007 7:08 AM
There just are no guns in the game designed to kill marines. 

Thousand son's bolters,  starcannons?

I think his point is that those guns are equally effective against all infantry targets, not just marines.

Scrap the AP system, and go back to S-based armor modifiers. It works in Fantasy, and quite well.

Horrible idea, as then terminators aren't getting saves from the things they should be getting saves from.

I like the AP system alot actually.

Posted By mauleed on 08/21/2007 10:52 AM

Horrible idea, as then terminators aren't getting saves from the things they should be getting saves from.

I like the AP system alot actually.

You could go back to the 2nd edition format for terminator saves: 3+ on 2d6...

Terminator armor save: -1. They'd get a 2+ save all the way through strength 6. Or start the S modifiers at S5, rather than S4 (so bolters wouldn't be killing marines quite so handily).

Nah, for a sci-fi wargame the AP system is the best thing you can get (but could need some further redefinition).

I'm still for a third stat on weapons. So an Autocannon could get stats like S7 AP4 and AM (armor modifier) -1, so Space Marine save would go down, but wouldn't cease to exist, not to mention terminator armor.

You could also go in the direction that weapons grant an positive AM...so Orks or guards could get some armor save loving too.

OT: I think it's a good thing that Anti-Armor gets downgraded even if its just by limiting their accessibility. Let's be honest, Tanks are/were merely one-shot wonders or only good if you massed them like armored company.

Greets
Schepp himself

I really like the idea of a -1 modifier for dedicated anti-infantry weapons: autocannon, heavy bolter, suriken cannon, etc.

Taking it too far would make heavy infantry armor far weaker, but would allow for an increase in cost and decrease in accesibility to plasma and anti-tank.

Posted By foil7102 on 08/21/2007 7:08 AM
The problem is that if you make anti-tank guns less effective vs infantry, you give marines a big boost. There just are no guns in the game designed to kill marines.

Then you increase the price of MEqs and/or decrease the price of GEqs.  The problem is that the lascannon is the best anti-tank heavy weapon and also the best anti-infantry heavy weapon (if you're facing MEqs - ie, most of the time).  If you make lascannons significantly worse at killing MEqs than heavy bolters then you'll see fewer lascannons and more survivable tanks.  Furthermore this will make the 2+ armor save and low-toughness multi-wound models more worthwhile - the prevalence of lascannons renders 2+ armor saves and toughness 3/4 multi-wound models no more survivable than MEqs.

And think about it from a fluffiness perspective.  Should a lascannon be more effective at killing marines than a heavy bolter?  Sure, a marine hit in the chest by a lascannon has a higher chance of death than one hit in the chest by a heavy bolter.  The thing is it's much easier to hit a marine in the chest with a heavy bolter since the rate of fire is so much higher.