Toreador wrote:If you aren't moving those 6" you don't gain even the 5+ save, which is a lot worse, and sitting still will cause a lot of hulking wrecks. I do see it as a strategy, but just not the sure thing it has been this edition. Always glance with holofields was amazing, and there were really few counters for it. 5th it looks like there are all kinds of counters to the same style of list.
Funny enough, eldar tanks just got a whole lot harder to kill...by really a lot. In 4th edition, you always glanced skimmers because they were always moving over 6" a turn. So once you did damage them (and you got a glance) there were 2 results on the chart that killed them, 5 (immobilized) and 6 (destroyed). Now if you compare that to a skimmer that is standing still in 5th edition, you get something similar. A roll of 5 (destroyed) or a roll of 6 (explodes) is needed to destroy the skimmer on the penetrating chart and none of the results of the glancing chart will kill the skimmer. This is because immobilizing a skimmer that moved less than 6" in a turn just makes it land safely. Only skimmers that moved over 6" crash and burn when immobilized. So now to kill a static skimmer, you have to actually penetrate it rather than just glance, so they got tougher. If you have them sitting in 4+ cover, they get even harder to kill.
Looking at math
4th ed skimmer moving fast (no cover, no holo field, etc.)
av 12, being shot at with bs4 las cannons takes 6.75 shots to kill (obviously more with the holo field, but the math on that gets much more tricky and comes out the same in the end)
5th ed skimmer moving 6” or less (no cover, no holo field, etc)
av 12, being shot at with bs4 las cannons takes 9 shots to kill. If you then stick the skimmer in 4+ cover, that number doubles up to 18.
Now if you look at a moving skimmer, they are still slightly tougher than they used to be. The 4th ed glance chart had 2 fatal possibilities. The 5th ed glance chart has 1 fatal possibility and the pen chart has 3 (since when moving at high speeds, skimmers die when immobilized). However, all shots have a 33% chance of being ignored due to getting a 5+ cover save from moving fast.
Now for math.
5th ed skimmer moving fast (no cover, no holo field, etc)
av 12, being shot at with bs4 las cannons takes 8.1 shots to kill. So from this we can see that the extra “protection” offered by moving fast is kind of a double edged sword. While you are more likely to avoid taking any kind of damage (since you get the cover save), when you do take damage, it is more likely to kill the skimmer since immobilized results = death.