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I think they should emphasize the difference between shooting at a roughly human-ish target and shooting at a vehicle more. Like, having a HB do D2 against infantry and D1 against vehicles or something like that.

Overall I prefer altered stats to stratagem bloat though.

Racerguy180 wrote:
I for one am glad that they've readjusted the baseline. Yes Astartes bumped to 2 differentiates them from reg humans even more, I hope that boys get the bump as well. Warriors being t5 w RP makes them feel like an unyielding menace, I cant wait to see what the do to nids.

I wish Warriors were T5, but that's just Immortals.

 Esmer wrote:
I think they should emphasize the difference between shooting at a roughly human-ish target and shooting at a vehicle more. Like, having a HB do D2 against infantry and D1 against vehicles or something like that.

Overall I prefer altered stats to stratagem bloat though.

What if weapons had two profiles, shot at squishy stuff and shot at tank. A heavy bolter kind of a weapon could do more damge to infantry models or bikers, but if you shot it at a tank you would just be chipping the paint.

At the same time a lascannon or MM with is anti tank beam of death would do huge damage to tanks, it would also do huge damge to a single infantry men.

This could help with flashing out options like plasma pistols, or add real difference to melee weapons. A power sword or power fist could be really different from a relic blade or chain fist, and those would yet again be different from Lightning claws. And this could be different for other factions too, maybe buzzsaws and ork claws should be different in more then one being superior in all situations.

Karol wrote:

 Esmer wrote:
I think they should emphasize the difference between shooting at a roughly human-ish target and shooting at a vehicle more. Like, having a HB do D2 against infantry and D1 against vehicles or something like that.

Overall I prefer altered stats to stratagem bloat though.

What if weapons had two profiles, shot at squishy stuff and shot at tank. A heavy bolter kind of a weapon could do more damge to infantry models or bikers, but if you shot it at a tank you would just be chipping the paint.

At the same time a lascannon or MM with is anti tank beam of death would do huge damage to tanks, it would also do huge damge to a single infantry men.

This could help with flashing out options like plasma pistols, or add real difference to melee weapons. A power sword or power fist could be really different from a relic blade or chain fist, and those would yet again be different from Lightning claws. And this could be different for other factions too, maybe buzzsaws and ork claws should be different in more then one being superior in all situations.

Alternatively, and hear me out here, what if tanks used an entirely different profile from infantry?

What if, instead of wounding against toughness, they instead had an 'armour value' (we'll call it AV for short), which weapons had to overcome in order to even have a chance of damaging them.

And instead of having wounds, maybe there could be a table (perhaps modified by the AP of the weapon) to see what effect damage has on them.

What if, instead of wounding against toughness, they instead had an 'armour value' (we'll call it AV for short), which weapons had to overcome in order to even have a chance of damaging them.

I don't know sounds confusing, plus am not sure people would want demon princes or hellbruts be only hurt by anti tank weapons. Could create an enviroment where everyone spams that one most efficient anti tank weapon, and God help those who wouldn't have access to it vide SoB and plasma.

Small stuff would be hard to balance too, no idea what AV a bike or jetbike would suppose to have. It is t5-6 with a few wounds, if it just had an AV, suddenly a cpt on a bike would be much weaker, then a captin with a jump jet. One would have 5-6 wounds, while the other could be blown up by a lucky shot from a scatter laser of a heavy bolter.

I don't think GW would want an imbalanced stats like that in their game.

 vipoid wrote:


Alternatively, and hear me out here, what if tanks used an entirely different profile from infantry?

What if, instead of wounding against toughness, they instead had an 'armour value' (we'll call it AV for short), which weapons had to overcome in order to even have a chance of damaging them.

And instead of having wounds, maybe there could be a table (perhaps modified by the AP of the weapon) to see what effect damage has on them.

I don't know, I vastly prefer vehicles now than how they were pre 8th edition, the transition between AV to W and save for vehicles was a well appreciated step forward IMHO. I think they could simply go up in wounds considering that many weapons are gaining better damage values, and be ok.

A single shot that manages to bypass saves and destroys or just cripples a vehicle making it useless is a thing of the past which I'm extremely relieved it doesn't exist anymore.

Karol wrote:

What if, instead of wounding against toughness, they instead had an 'armour value' (we'll call it AV for short), which weapons had to overcome in order to even have a chance of damaging them.

I don't know sounds confusing, plus am not sure people would want demon princes or hellbruts be only hurt by anti tank weapons. Could create an enviroment where everyone spams that one most efficient anti tank weapon, and God help those who wouldn't have access to it vide SoB and plasma.

Small stuff would be hard to balance too, no idea what AV a bike or jetbike would suppose to have. It is t5-6 with a few wounds, if it just had an AV, suddenly a cpt on a bike would be much weaker, then a captin with a jump jet. One would have 5-6 wounds, while the other could be blown up by a lucky shot from a scatter laser of a heavy bolter.

I don't think GW would want an imbalanced stats like that in their game.

Karol, this is how vehicles worked prior to 8th edition.

I think a broad rebalancing of gun damage and hit points could allow more design space.

So I think going to elite infantry having 2 wounds makes a lot of sense. Not least because once you go past about 15ish points per wound which isn't incredibly fragile, unless it starts having something stupid like T7, 2+/5++(and even then mortal wounds exist). If you want to throw bling on a unit to give it offensive power, you need to throw on wounds and protection to give it defensive power as well, so the unit is roughly balanced offensively and defensively for the points.

As said though, the problem is that everything has to stretch at the same time. And GW hates doing that. Partly this is inevitable, because GW want to sell *more stuff* - rather than go "here's an edition, see you in 3 years" - but really its because I don't think there is one guy in the middle with a *rough* vision of how every army, every unit and every weapon should function.

So in practice, you are likely to get a meta where vehicles and monsters are bad, because of a proliferation of 2 wound weapons and weird over-buffs to MMs and other guns. Which could theoretically be resolved by giving vehicles and monsters loads more wounds to compensate, but at least from the leaks we have seen that has not been done. So it may start being done in the codexes released in 2021, which will in turn exacerbate the near inevitable creep. (For the equivalent development in 8th, just look at how many "new" units started ignoring the heavy -1 to hit if you move penalty, or got a 5++/6+++ seemingly for free etc.)

But the principle doesn't bother me. Just worried about execution. Also think some elite Xenos - especially Eldar - may end up being screwed, as their infantry continue the slide to being an "expensive horde" army.

 Blackie wrote:

I don't know, I vastly prefer vehicles now than how they were pre 8th edition, the transition between AV to W and save for vehicles was a well appreciated step forward IMHO. I think they could simply go up in wounds considering that many weapons are gaining better damage values, and be ok.

A single shot that manages to bypass saves and destroys or just cripples a vehicle making it useless is a thing of the past which I'm extremely relieved it doesn't exist anymore.

I was mainly speaking tongue in cheek.

My main point, though, is that GW initially made vehicles more like infantry, but now they've brought their heavy infantry so close to vehicles that we have to consider going back to the old system just so that weapons designed to kill heavy infantry won't also shred vehicles.

The problem of split profiles is one of scale in the game. A typical 40k army doesn't really have too much variety going on in it and as has been seen multiple times, especially during the time when knights were introduced into the game, playing against an enemy that negates most of your army is just bad feelings all around.

Games that do that, say, Apocalypse and Epic Armageddon, can do so with impunity because there is a greater level of abstraction as well as threat saturation going on at the battlefield. Unless you massively screw up in list construction, deployment as well as maneuver, you should have enough tools at hand to at least try and counter your opponent's forces. And even there you can do something against unoptimal targets, like assault them: if you don't have enough gun to bring that titan down, swamp it in bodies

 vipoid wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

I don't know, I vastly prefer vehicles now than how they were pre 8th edition, the transition between AV to W and save for vehicles was a well appreciated step forward IMHO. I think they could simply go up in wounds considering that many weapons are gaining better damage values, and be ok.

A single shot that manages to bypass saves and destroys or just cripples a vehicle making it useless is a thing of the past which I'm extremely relieved it doesn't exist anymore.

I was mainly speaking tongue in cheek.

My main point, though, is that GW initially made vehicles more like infantry, but now they've brought their heavy infantry so close to vehicles that we have to consider going back to the old system just so that weapons designed to kill heavy infantry won't also shred vehicles.

More wounds and actually moving Toughness values to 9 or even beyond 10 would be enough. I agree that harlequin or Dark Eldar vehicles with T5 and 6 wounds are very close to infantry now, but there's enough space to adjust accordingly. You don't need a different kind of system for vehicles, we had that prior to 8th and at least in 6th and 7th it didn't work.

I like the concept of adjusting statlines to take into account how changes to the core rules affect things - like removing the caps on S and T - but I'm not keen on the piecemeal implementation, not the timing of it.

Ideally, I think I'd've preferred to see 8th delayed for a year to implement v1 of these stat changes, possibly with an initial Death Guard release in 7th edition (to be followed up on with the 8th core box). Spend that time rejiggering stats so that armies feel like they should, and also testing whether weapon changes have unforeseen impacts (does a D2 Heavy Bolter with 3 shots suddenly get used as an anti-vehicle weapon, for example).

Ideally, you'd probably want to start the process off with a big three-dimensional model with "Cost", "Survivability" and "Damage potential" as the axes, and plot out roughly where each existing unit should sit. Once the relative measures are in place, build the stats out from there - where should SM Terminators sit relative to Crisis Suits or Tyranid Warriors, for example?

If I'd been in charge, I wouldn't've gone with WS and BS being n+ scores, as it makes no sense that a Conscript is as likely to hit a Gretchin in melee as it is a Bloodthirster or Hive Tyrant, for example. I like the idea I've seen on here for some form of Evasion stat to compare BS to, while WS still faces off against WS. Even if you still get rid of Initiative, it allows for more points of variation between unit - and allows for speed as a defense.

I like it. I hope it carries into erratas as it gives them far more scope in making balance changes rather than just adding/removing points or tweaking special rules

Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.

Heavy bolters will be redesigned to kill 2W Marines outright.

Blackie wrote:Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.

The purpose of giving 2W to some armored infantries like old marines is to reduce the spam of mid strenght weapons which are currently good against anything: troops, elites and tanks.

If damage is going up to these kind of weapons, like heavy bolters, they'd be even more common and outlcass the anti tank even more than now.

If wounds on vehicles and mosters are also going up, by a significant percentage, it could have been a good move. But it's not gonna happen, the sad reality is that weapons like heavy bolters will double their effectiveness against vehicles, which is extremely bad game design.

S5 means they'll be wounding most vehicles on 5s and AP-1 means the vast majority of vehicles will be saving on 4s, so you better be bringing a lot of heavy bolters.

wuestenfux wrote:

Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.

Heavy bolters will be redesigned to kill 2W Marines outright.

Yes, this is how I see it. Mid strength 2D weapons for killing marines, but if you want to kill vehicles you need something bigger, like all those improved melta weapons.

I'm happy about the changes to original marines (2W) and the heavy bolter (D2).

Generally reworking statlines is something I'm in favour of if it makes the game interesting and better reflects the fluff. I just hope that it isn't limitited to Power Armour and other changes are brought in too, and the points are adjusted accordingly.

I'd like to see heavy flamers going back to the same stats as regular flamers just with bigger range and more shots than regular flamers. Like it was back int he day with a bigger template. It never made sense to me that being able to shoot your flame thrower over a larger area somehow made the flames "more burny".

As for Heavy bolters, isn't it supposed to be a larger caliber bolter? so a bigger round packed with more explosives should be more desructive. Higher strength and damage reflects this, but I would have reduced the number of shots to 2. AFAIK bolter weapons aren't supposed to be super high rate of fire like assault rifles, i thought that was autoguns and that weapon family.

More distinction between types of weapons and what they are good at is a good thing I think.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Blackie wrote:Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.

The purpose of giving 2W to some armored infantries like old marines is to reduce the spam of mid strenght weapons which are currently good against anything: troops, elites and tanks.

If damage is going up to these kind of weapons, like heavy bolters, they'd be even more common and outlcass the anti tank even more than now.

If wounds on vehicles and mosters are also going up, by a significant percentage, it could have been a good move. But it's not gonna happen, the sad reality is that weapons like heavy bolters will double their effectiveness against vehicles, which is extremely bad game design.

S5 means they'll be wounding most vehicles on 5s and AP-1 means the vast majority of vehicles will be saving on 4s, so you better be bringing a lot of heavy bolters.

wuestenfux wrote:

Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.

Heavy bolters will be redesigned to kill 2W Marines outright.

Yes, this is how I see it. Mid strength 2D weapons for killing marines, but if you want to kill vehicles you need something bigger, like all those improved melta weapons.

I agree. Claiming heavy bolters will become the best anti-tank in the game is utter hyperbole.

I'm happy about the changes to original marines (2W) and the heavy bolter (D2).

Well, I'm happy with the changes too.
It makes my oldschool Marines playable, in particular my BA army based on jump packs.
No more renaissance Primaris.

Interestingly enough, a str 5, -1 ap, 2D burst 3 heavy bolter is equivalent in damage to a str 7, -1 ap, 2D burst 2 autocannon at fighting a t7 3+ save target (like a rhino) . The heavy bolters are superior at targets less than t7 and will be stronger at higher than t7. With this change to heavy bolter, there is no target an autocannon is the preferred weapon.

kinginyello wrote:
Interestingly enough, a str 5, -1 ap, 2D burst 3 heavy bolter is equivalent in damage to a str 7, -1 ap, 2D burst 2 autocannon at fighting a t7 3+ save target (like a rhino) . The heavy bolters are superior at targets less than t7 and will be stronger at higher than t7. With this change to heavy bolter, there is no target an autocannon is the preferred weapon.

Autocannons are still superior vs T6, so Carnifexes and Ravagers iirc. A pretty narrow band.

I'm just happy GW realized that the main problem with 8th edition was that nothing died fast enough, and are determined to address it by increasing the deadliness of ranged weapons, which everyone knows were hugely underpowered in 8th edition. I cannot tell you how many times my opponent and I were frustrated in an 8th edition game by the way our armies would exchange fire with one another and only 3/4 of each army was removed by T2. Talk about unimpressive!

It's also great GW realized that the faction suffering most from not having powerful enough weapons was Space Marines. These poor guys were so pathetic in 8th edition - an imperial fists list would alpha my army and only destroy 2/3s of it on the first turn, the poor dears. What a joke!

Wonderful to have a gaming company with its pulse so firmly on the balance of the game, giving us the changes players want.

 vipoid wrote:

Karol wrote:

 Esmer wrote:
I think they should emphasize the difference between shooting at a roughly human-ish target and shooting at a vehicle more. Like, having a HB do D2 against infantry and D1 against vehicles or something like that.

Overall I prefer altered stats to stratagem bloat though.

What if weapons had two profiles, shot at squishy stuff and shot at tank. A heavy bolter kind of a weapon could do more damge to infantry models or bikers, but if you shot it at a tank you would just be chipping the paint.

At the same time a lascannon or MM with is anti tank beam of death would do huge damage to tanks, it would also do huge damge to a single infantry men.

This could help with flashing out options like plasma pistols, or add real difference to melee weapons. A power sword or power fist could be really different from a relic blade or chain fist, and those would yet again be different from Lightning claws. And this could be different for other factions too, maybe buzzsaws and ork claws should be different in more then one being superior in all situations.

Alternatively, and hear me out here, what if tanks used an entirely different profile from infantry?

What if, instead of wounding against toughness, they instead had an 'armour value' (we'll call it AV for short), which weapons had to overcome in order to even have a chance of damaging them.

And instead of having wounds, maybe there could be a table (perhaps modified by the AP of the weapon) to see what effect damage has on them.

No, that would never work....

@vipoid, I question your sanity because that is just pants-on-head crazy. unsubscribe.

 Blackie wrote:
Heavy bolters having D2 is flat out wrong.

The purpose of giving 2W to some armored infantries like old marines is to reduce the spam of mid strenght weapons which are currently good against anything: troops, elites and tanks.

If damage is going up to these kind of weapons, like heavy bolters, they'd be even more common and outlcass the anti tank even more than now.

If wounds on vehicles and mosters are also going up, by a significant percentage, it could have been a good move. But it's not gonna happen, the sad reality is that weapons like heavy bolters will double their effectiveness against vehicles, which is extremely bad game design.

People said the same thing about IF and it just didn't become the dominant force. Especially with the increasing opportunity to face armies that ignore AP1/2.

Previously we paid 20 for HB sponsons on a Predator. Now we pay 30. 100% more effective vs vehicles, 50% more cost.
Lascannon sponsons dropped 10 points, but we don't know what its changes will be, but I'd guarantee it being better than HBs at taking on vehicles.

 Weazel wrote:


I agree. Claiming heavy bolters will become the best anti-tank in the game is utter hyperbole.

Who said it's the best anti tank in game?

I just think that is too good against tanks. Of course meltas are better in cracking armors but now you need half heavy bolter shots to kill a tank. Take drukhari: no one used to field dark lances in 8th because D2 on dis cannons make them quite effective against anything. Now meltas have improved but heavy bolters (and maybe even assault cannons assuming they jump to D2 as well, which I don't know about) being twice as good as before against tanks means that a TAC list doesn't need tons of dedicated anti tank weapons as mid-strenght weapons could finish the job quite well. Vehicles with 5-8W become very vulnerable to heavy bolters and similars but they'd still be priced like they could tank twice the shots from those weapons.

I want to like D2 on mid strenght weapons that used to be D1, but I can't unless vehicles and mosters get +30-50% of their wounds. To me also sounds silly that heavy bolters become D2 to counter 2W marines, as the majority of heavy bolter platforms belongs to the same faction of SM. Unless many other xenos armies are going to get +1W on many infantry models.

Not to mention that the SM player gets the flexibility of having weapons that are fairly good against anything while other players have to wait months if not years to see their weapons improved. And by the time they got their buffs SM are about to get a second round of buffs. But I don't want to go off thread, I just wish vehicles and mosters could be more resilient than how they were in 8th and early 9th while GW's aim seems to be in the opposite direction, making them squishier instead.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Lascannon sponsons dropped 10 points, but we don't know what its changes will be, but I'd guarantee it being better than HBs at taking on vehicles.

True, but lascannons won't be better against infantries, that's my point. HB will be better against both infantries and vehicles, making the very versatile. Too versatile IMHO.

Adding wounds to infantry while kicking up the lethality of guns is compressing the spectrum, not expanding it. What is good against vehicle is naturally going to become better against infantry if infantry go to 2W, and anything good at killing 2W-4W, T4-5 infantry is going to be pretty decent at killing T6-7, W10 vehicles too.

It's not really clear where all these changes are really going besides "make everything except possibly elite infantry die even faster than it already did."

I like that they're changing things up and bringing previously outdated units/weapons up to the modern game standards. My issue is that they aren't doing it across the board, all at once like they did with the Chapter Approved at the beginning of 8th.

I'm currently waiting until I see full points values and stat changes for all my armies before I even attempt to make an army list or purchase any models. Knowing the armies I like to play, that could take well over a year.

On HBs - I see the point - but I don't think the maths supports it on multimeltas because they are insane.

Vs T7/3+

HB:
3*2/3*1/3*1/2=1/3. 2 damage=2/3 wounds.

MM
2*2/3*2/3=8/9. 3.5 damage=3.111 wounds. In half range, 5.5 average damage = 4.8888 wounds.

So ignoring points, an MM does 4.666 times as much damage to a vehicle as a heavy bolter. Or 7.35 times as much in 12". Which seems... sufficient. Basically the MM has been buffed to the point where you take it on any platform you can unless the points are raised to an onerous level.

Comparing a Lance versus Dissie:

Lance:
1*2/3*2/3=4/9. 4/9*3.5=1.55.
Dissie:
3*2/3*1/3*5/6=5/9. 5.9*2=1.111.

Which as you can see is, far closer.
Make it versus T8, and the lance is down to 1.16 - scarcely better than the disintegrator. Given the superior utility of the dissie, and the lower chance of achieving nothing, its not really surprising they have been favoured.

The argument is probably over a lascannon - which, as said, seems set to become a bit crap if its left on current rules.

Lascannon:
1*2/3*2/3*5/6=0.37. 0.37*3.5=1.29. So a bit under twice as good as the HB on a T7/3+ target.

Throw on a 3+5++ though,
Las:
1*2/3*2/3*2/3=8/27*3.5=1.037.
HB same as before at 0.66.

Which possibly isn't a big enough variation.

Conclusion:
MM is busted. Lascannon is looking a bit sad. Dark lances suck.

Dark lances suck.

Dark (and bright) lances have always been iffy weapons.

Even their special rule against vehicles (back with AV) was 50% fail, 16% glance and only 33% pen. Unless you were going against lower AV, and then you wanted more shots anyway.

They've never been useful enough.

Tyel wrote:
On HBs - I see the point - but I don't think the maths supports it on multimeltas because they are insane.

Vs T7/3+

HB:
3*2/3*1/3*1/2=1/3. 2 damage=2/3 wounds.

MM
2*2/3*2/3=8/9. 3.5 damage=3.111 wounds. In half range, 5.5 average damage = 4.8888 wounds.

So ignoring points, an MM does 4.666 times as much damage to a vehicle as a heavy bolter. Or 7.35 times as much in 12". Which seems... sufficient. Basically the MM has been buffed to the point where you take it on any platform you can unless the points are raised to an onerous level.

Comparing a Lance versus Dissie:

Lance:
1*2/3*2/3=4/9. 4/9*3.5=1.55.
Dissie:
3*2/3*1/3*5/6=5/9. 5.9*2=1.111.

Which as you can see is, far closer.
Make it versus T8, and the lance is down to 1.16 - scarcely better than the disintegrator. Given the superior utility of the dissie, and the lower chance of achieving nothing, its not really surprising they have been favoured.

The argument is probably over a lascannon - which, as said, seems set to become a bit crap if its left on current rules.

Lascannon:
1*2/3*2/3*5/6=0.37. 0.37*3.5=1.29. So a bit under twice as good as the HB on a T7/3+ target.

Throw on a 3+5++ though,
Las:
1*2/3*2/3*2/3=8/27*3.5=1.037.
HB same as before at 0.66.

Which possibly isn't a big enough variation.

Conclusion:
MM is busted. Lascannon is looking a bit sad. Dark lances suck.

The issue isn't that the new HB is better than the New MultiMelta, it's that both have seen massive improvement in damage output while vehicals have seen 0 durability increase.
Yeah I sure remember everyone complaining that nothing died fast enough in 8th.

Esentially these changes without points changes for everyone are going to make vehicals horifficly overcosted.