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I dont even recall anyone using lascannons as a dedicated anti tank weapon.

usually you ran around with grav guns double/tripling down on immobilized results for massive hull point removal.

It looks like the ability to hurt a vehicle has been reined in on both the high and low ends of the scale. On one hand anything can theoretically hurt a vehicle. On the other hand it’s harder to delete a vehicle without dedicating a more equal amount of points to anti-tank.

All in all, vehicles feel a lot tougher now than before. I know my Chimera can't be one-shotted by a Las Cannon, so I'm not afraid to leave it in the open for a turn if I have to.


I liked that in previous editions (3rd-7th, they all worked more or less the same), Vehicles were absolutely impervious to low S weapons. Got a million and one lasguns? Doesn't matter, they still won't scratch my armor. And they were also more vulnerable to dedicated anti tank weaponry.
Losing a tank to a lucky shot on turn 1 did suck, but punching a Vanquisher's AP-shell through a Land Raider and blowing it up in one shot was immensely satisfying. Different armor facings added character too, and made tanks feel more like actual tanks.

Downsides were that pretty much any penetrating or even glancing hit would incapacitate a tank for at least one turn. Crew stunned/crew shaken may not be permanent damage, but not getting to fire the next turn was annoying.


One thing I really like about 8th is the reintroduction of Damage rolls (been gone since 2nd), so now weapons that are great at killing tanks are also great VS monsters. Before, the Vanquisher cannon could one shot a Land Raider, but against any creature with T5 or higher it would do just one wound. Now it "feels" more like it should. (that it's kinda useless against both vehicles and monsters is more due to the current AM Codex/Index, not 8th ed in general).
Still, I wish they had kept some form of system with different armor facings on tanks.

One big negative in 8th in regards to vehicles is that blast templates have been replaced by attack rolls. So before, when a tank would get just one hit from a blast weapon, now it can get hit half a dozen times, making these weapons often better against tanks than one shot guns.

 wuestenfux wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
It depends.
The anti-tank weapons like lascannons and melta-type weapons can cause a lot of damage in a single volley.
At Saturday, I battled AdMech with my BA at the 3000 pt level. The enemy had an Imperial Knight and I played a Stormsword with a vulcan cannon. This weapon is an absolute beast. The knight went down in round two with ease.

Do you mean Shadowsword with a Volcano Cannon? Or a Stormlord with a Vulcan Mega Bolter? You've mixed your variants!

Okay. Shadowsword with volcano cannon. As said, this thing is a beast. Its ideal for dealing with superheavies.

Yeah it's a starship weapon strapped to a tank for the purpose of killing Titans! It was gross in Epic so it should be disgusting in 40K! It's not exactly the best yardstick for determining vehicle survivability though haha.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I think you forgot the save in the OP, champ.

Also keep in mind how gak Lascannons were in 6/7th, and how everyone just used Haywire, Grav, and spammed S6/7 shots in the rear. What you're complaining about is that the Lascannon is finally doing its job.

Exactly. The traditional anti-tank weapons were rubbish last edition - mid-S multi-shot weapons were king. Comparing a highly inefficient anti-tank weapon in 7th to a pretty efficient one in 8th is going to skew those results.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

vaurapung wrote:

7th edition mathammer with wounding vehicles
8th edition mathammer with no save

I have no idea what you're doing there.

To hit - 66%
To pen or glance - 33%
18 shots to get 4 HPs and kill (ignoring the chance of death via damage table - it's slighly lower because you might kill it via the damage table with fewer shots although it is unlikely, see below)

To hit - 66%
To pen - 16%
To kill via damage table - 16%
59 shots needed to kill via damage table - effectively irrelevant since fewer shots would kill via HPs more reliably. Hence the problem with traditional AT weapons.

8th

To hit - 66%
To wound - 66%
To fail save - 66%
Average damage - 3.5
1.01 wounds per shot on average
16 shots needed.

Of course, the landraider is an edge case since the weapons that were killing most vehicles in 7th can't hurt it.

If we compare scatter-lasers vs. Rhinos you'll see something completely different.

7th

To hit - 66%
To pen/glance - 33%
89% chance of a HP from a shooting attack (4 shots)
3.4 attacks needed

8th

To hit - 66%
To wound - 33%
To fail save - 33%
0.30 wounds per attack (4 shots)
34 attacks needed

Rhinos are 10x tougher vs. scatter lasers

So proper anti-vehicle weapons are now better against vehicles and weapons that shouldn't be great against vehicles aren't.

I have not done an exhaustive analysis but what I have done backs up what you have demonstrated here:

Against vehicles what have always been presented as anti tank specialist weapons (i.e. lascannons, meltas etc.) have broadly stayed the same in performance in the 7th to 8th transition, while the multi purpose weapons (specifically looked at Scatter Lasers here) have become significantly worse. So vehicles are much tougher against weapons not designed to destroy them, but are not tougher against weapons that are.

Every time i fielded a landraider (2 times) in 7-th it blew up 1-st turn.

 koooaei wrote:
Every time i fielded a landraider (2 times) in 7-th it blew up 1-st turn.

If you're only fielding one that's what happens every edition.

Massively so. For example, in previous editions, I could have charged a leman russ tank with my Captain and destroy it in a single round of melee attacks using his thunder hammer. That would be exceedingly difficult in 8th edition; all four attacks would have to hit, wound, and get through armor for that to happen, which while possible, is not probable-- I'll most likely only get two damaging hits off, not four.

Hey, Lasguns can now kill Baneblades! Vehicles suck now!

Of course vehicles are tougher in 8th, especially compared to non-vehicle models. Remember, models die more easily now in general, and even the toughest things can be focussed down.

Another, completely unbiased, weapon comparison.
In 7th, you needed about 5 haywire hits to kill a land raider (out of cover).
In 8th, you need about 32.

fresus wrote:
Another, completely unbiased, weapon comparison.
In 7th, you needed about 5 haywire hits to kill a land raider (out of cover).
In 8th, you need about 32.

To be Fair Haywire was most likely the highest nerf'ed gun in 8th.

I think the thing to take from all of this is

Anti-tank weapons are better at killing tanks in 8th than in 7th.
Small/medium arms fire is much worse at killing tanks in 8th than in 7th.

Very few weapons can kill any vehicle (at least those with 7+ wounds) with a single shot in 8th, many could in 7th.

vaurapung wrote:
So i was just pondering the number of hits it takes to destroy a vehical in 8th vs 7th. I used a lascannon vs land raider, let me know if any of my percentages need fixed.

Lascannon 7th vs land raider

To hit 66%
To wound 33% of hit
To pen 50% of wound
To explode 17% of pen

Wounding = 21.78%
One hit kill = 1.85% chance
20 shots to destroy

Lascannon 8th vs land raider

To hit 66%
To wound 66% of hit
Damages 43.56% of hit
17% chance result of 1,2,3,4,5 or 6

6 damage = 7.41% chance
5+ damage = 14.52%
4+ damage = 21.78%
3+ damage = 29.04%
2+ damage = 36.3%
1+ damage = 43.56%

All said there is a 25% chance of 3.5 damage into 16 wounds
18 shots to destroy

Land raiders are easier to kill in 8th

Except that you fail to account for every pen from a lascannon effectively turning off at least part of the Land Raiders effectiveness for at least one turn. thats the real reason non-SHVs are improved in 8th.

Breng77 wrote:
I think the thing to take from all of this is

Anti-tank weapons are better at killing tanks in 8th than in 7th.
Small/medium arms fire is much worse at killing tanks in 8th than in 7th.

Very few weapons can kill any vehicle (at least those with 7+ wounds) with a single shot in 8th, many could in 7th.

If you consider bolter to be small arms than it's infinitely better than it used to be at killing anything av11 and higher.

Going from zero chance to an extremely small chance is an improvement but is a significant improvement? Not really.

Depends on what you mean by "tougher". In general a single vehicle has become harder to kill than it's 7th edition counterpart, since they now have wounds (even if they can have multiples shaved off by a single shot) and, most importantly, saves, which adds an extra layer of protection they didn't have before.

However if you mean they've become Mighty Glaciers, then no. vehicles in general have gone up in price (with a few exceptions) so their survivability per-point hasn't changed that much (if anything it has gone down).

The one type of vehicle that got weaker was the flyer: -1 to BS isn't the same as "you only hit on 6s". However, the ability to ignore facings when shooting has made them much, much more lethal.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
Going from zero chance to an extremely small chance is an improvement but is a significant improvement? Not really.

Is it really such an extremely small chance? One unbuffed bolter does around 0.15 wounds to a rhino in rapid-fire range. If you get re-rolls to hit, which is very easy, it goes to ~0.2 wounds. If you also get re-rolls to-wound it goes to 0.33 wounds. That's just 4 times worse than an equally buffed autocannon.

From what i see on the tabletop, it's definitely not a marginal thing. You can easilly expect to get a couple wounds off vehicles with basic anti-infantry weapons. Not like you're going to obliterate armored companies with couple bolter marines but you definitely can't ignore it.

My S4 Tyranids are glad with the new vehicle rules - no chance of running into the dreaded AV 13 Necron wall again.

Two bolter shots against T8 Sv3+ averages 0.07 wounds. That's 104 bolters in rapid fire range to do 8 wounds 50% of the time.

To look at it another way, 40 bolter shots only does 4 or more wounds 6% of the time.

Rerolling all hits and all wounds (a significant investment in buffs) 0.18 of the time. You still need 42 bolters rapid firing to have a 50% of doing 8 wounds.

So, practically, it comes down to an odd wound here and there.

Why not fire it against t7 where the result is going to be twice as good statistically. I'm not telling you will absolutely demolish anything with bolters. But you are pretty much guaranteed to contribute. Realistically, i'd expect around 2-3 wounds if you really want to down the vehicle. It's not much but it can be a deciding factor to finish off this damn dread, razorback or stormraven.

Yep, 20 rapid firing bolters will probably do 2-3 wounds against T7. It's something but I still don't think that is a significant difference between 7th and 8th.

It's significant that you could previously walk a walker, light transport or basically anything without side-armor 10 past those bolter marines without even worrying about them.

Now, if you keep a vehicle parked next to an occupied ruin, you are basically giving your opponent a free lascannon hit.

I don't know what to say. No one of my Dreads lasted a full game alive in 7th, now in 8th they are actualy ussable, and not only that, in many cases are even good!

Cover usually doesn't help when you field a vehicle.
It must be in cover and be seen less than 50%.

That's true enough, but in 7th, that cover was most vehicles' only hope of getting a save (outside the few with invulns). Now? Even the most glass-jaw vehicle has at least something against most weapons - and if your opponent is packing brightlances or meltas, cover affords you precious little, even if you can claim it.