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I like the basics of the vehicle damage chart in 5th ed but it has placed too much of a premium on AP 1 IMO and
penetrating hits. I would propose modifiers for different APs but to do that the chart needs to be expanded. I also dislike that
Kills are no longer possible on a glance except for AP 1 this nerfed some medium weapons and made haywire grenades totally worthless with
gauss being a close second.


AP 1, 2 and 3 are the general purposed AT weapons
AP 4 is kind of the neutral weapon.
AP 5, 6, and - are generally anti-infantry weapons.

The king is still pen vs glance so the strength of the weapon and the armor value are still driving it.

To get the variation, I would like to see them go to a 2D6 chart.

MODIFIERS:
-2 Glance
-2 AP -
-1 AP 5 or 6
0 AP 4, Grenades
+1 AP2 or 3
+2 AP1

Ordinance rolls 3d6 taking the highest 2 dice for the chart.

2-4 Crew shaken 16+%
5-6 Crew Stunned 25%
7 Weapon Destroyed 16%
8-9 Immobilized 25%
10-12 Vehicle Destroyed. 16% Roll for explosion.

Explosion happens on a roll of 8+ on 2 dice apply same modifiers as you did no the main chart.


Initially this chart is somewhat balanced but you could make it more modifiers and lean on the
shaken side so that the standard is shaken and stunned unless it is penetrating or you have modifiers in
your favor..

2-5 Shaken
6-7 Stunned
8 Wpn Destroyed
9-10 Immobilize
11-12 Vehicle Destroyed

In this case, I would break out AP 5-6 and AP 2-3. (e.g. AP - = -3 mod AP6 = -2 Mod, etc.)

DAaddict wrote:I like the basics of the vehicle damage chart in 5th ed but it has placed too much of a premium on AP 1 IMO and
penetrating hits.

Which makes quite a bit of sense.

DAaddict wrote:I like the basics of the vehicle damage chart in 5th ed but it has placed too much of a premium on AP 1 IMO and
penetrating hits.

There is a damage bias towards weapons that are specifically designed to punch through heavy armor, and damage results following armor penetration? I am shocked.

I don't understand what improvement your chart offers over the current system.

Bookwrack wrote:

DAaddict wrote:I like the basics of the vehicle damage chart in 5th ed but it has placed too much of a premium on AP 1 IMO and
penetrating hits.

There is a damage bias towards weapons that are specifically designed to punch through heavy armor, and damage results following armor penetration? I am shocked.

I don't understand what improvement your chart offers over the current system.

Current system is bring AP1 and get a Pen or go home. Str is king no matter what but AP 2-6 has no bearing on AT. By getting a modifier for the other APs you do give a bonus
to a Lascannon or Krak missile. Or as an eldar example - Right now Shuriken Cannon is AP4?, Scatter Laser is AP6?, Star Cannon is AP2 - all are S6 so all are right now equal anti-tank value to an
eldar - it is purely a cost, ROF decision on what to field. With the change, a cannon would have no modifier, Scatter laser would be -1 and Star Cannon would be +1. Or to do a Marine comparison,
Autocannon is S7 AP4 and Plasma Rifle is S7 AP2. Plasma would get a +1 on the chart. In a 2d6 chart you get a bell curve of results so modifiers are important but not the be-all-end-all that AP1 is today.

As I recall the old 2 chart Pen/Glance chart of 4th ed, you had a 1/6 chance of a destroyed result on a glance and the same 2/6 chance of a destroyed result on the pen chart. So look at a high-cost upgrade like haywire grenades for the races that have it. 4/6 Glance 1/6 Pen. If you have 6 grenade hits you get 4 glances and 1 pen.

Also since 5th ed. the races that don't have melta tech and/or specific options that do have it have seen it get spammed to the detriment of balanced lists. Making AP 2 weapons better but not as good as AP1 seems like a good thing to me. Just read some of the other posted suggestions out there. "Make Lascannons/Brightlance/Dark Lance AP1" or "they just aren't cost effective AT." These all might be partially true but a solution at the core rules avoids codex-dependent updates to address these kind of issues.
Today's chart with modifiers: Shaken 50%, Stun 16% Wpn D 16% Immob 16%. Pen- Sh 16% St 16% WD 16% Immob 16% Destr 33%

So if you payed for them your average is going to be Shaken 42% Stun 13% Wpn D 13% Immob 13% Destr 5% No Effect 16 % (All rounded so yes it totals above 100%.)
Old charts just looking at destroyed - 16% -

Put some bonus to other than THE top AT weapons (AP 1) and get some modifiers for the stuff between AP 1 and AP -.

Also, a bell curve chart allows you to get the "lucky" result on a glance to destroy a target but not go to a 1 in 6 but maybe 1 in 12 or 1 in 36. Puts some teeth back into haywire grenades and gauss
weapons.

Also since 5th ed. the races that don't have melta tech and/or specific options that do have it have seen it get spammed to the detriment of balanced lists. Making AP 2 weapons better but not as good as AP1 seems like a good thing to me. Just read some of the other posted suggestions out there. "Make Lascannons/Brightlance/Dark Lance AP1" or "they just aren't cost effective AT." These all might be partially true but a solution at the core rules avoids codex-dependent updates to address these kind of issues.

Bookwrack wrote:

DAaddict wrote:I like the basics of the vehicle damage chart in 5th ed but it has placed too much of a premium on AP 1 IMO and
penetrating hits.

There is a damage bias towards weapons that are specifically designed to punch through heavy armor, and damage results following armor penetration? I am shocked.

I don't understand what improvement your chart offers over the current system.

I think the complaint is that the 5th ed rules have made it TOO advantageous to take Melta weapons. So much of an advantage that you hardly see anything other than melta as an anti-tank option.

In 4th, the choice between melta vs lance, lascanon, etc, was a bit more balanced and different players chose different solutions. It was a tough choice between an awesome tank killer with limited range vs a moderate tank killer with long range. Now, the choice is between awesome tank killer with limited range vs bad tank killer with long range.

Additionally, it REALLY hurts Necrons, whose anti-tank option is basically glance it to death. In 4th, it took 36 hits on average (1/6 to glance, 1/6 to destroy) to kill a tank. In 5th, it takes 54 hits on average to kill a tank with 1 gun (you need 3 total immobalized and weapon destroyed, add 18 hits for each additional gun the tank has).

DAaddict: I like the idea of re-balancing the vehicle damage table to make them a little more destroyable to non-melta, although I like the increased survivability of vehicles in 5th. However, your chart seems a little over-complicated. Having 5 different modifiers for varying AP seems a bit much. I'd suggest you find a way to balance it using the current +X for AP1, -X for AP-, and no mod for the rest.

Oh, and in 4th, vehicles were destroyed on a penetrating with a 4, 5, or 6. So, 50% of the time.

Grakmar wrote: DAaddict: I like the idea of re-balancing the vehicle damage table to make them a little more destroyable to non-melta, although I like the increased survivability of vehicles in 5th. However, your chart seems a little over-complicated. Having 5 different modifiers for varying AP seems a bit much. I'd suggest you find a way to balance it using the current +X for AP1, -X for AP-, and no mod for the rest.

Oh, and in 4th, vehicles were destroyed on a penetrating with a 4, 5, or 6. So, 50% of the time.

As far as 4th ed pen chart - ouch that explains the pain even more.

I understand the modifiers being a bit much but I am suggesting this is a way to make LasCannons and the like a doable option again. If you go with second modifiers seem like alot but really it comes down to this.

2d6 + Glance/Pen Modifier + Weapon AP Modifier. Glance/Pen is -2 if it is a glance and unmodified if it is a pen. If you treat AP - as AP7 you can make it into a simple formula for Weapon AP Modifier.

Weapon AP Mod = 4 minus Weapon AP of the weapon with AP - counting as 7

So, actual 2d6 effects:

AP1 Pen AP2 AP3 AP4 AP5 AP6 AP -

NA Shaken 2 2-3 2-4 2-5 2-7 2-8
2-3 Stunned 3-4 4-5 5-6 6-7 8-9 9-10
4 Wpn Destroyed 5 6 7 8 9 10
5-6 Immobilized 6-7 7-8 8-9 9-10 10-11 11-12
7-12 Veh Destroyed 8-12 9-12 10-12 11-12 12 NA

Compare that to today
AP1 Middle AP-
Shaken - 1 1-2
Stunned 1 2 3
Wpn Destr 2 3 4
Immob 3 4 5
Veh Dest 4 5 6
Explode 5-6 6 -

Move the charts however you want. My example is less lethal than todays charts so you could make that higher or lower just by moving the chart. What should be obvious is that a true AT weapon will do a much better job of destroying a vehicle than a similar strength weapon with a high AP value. AP1 is still the best but AP2 is not that bad either. You should WANT to shoot AP 3 or lower at vehicles. AP 4 is multi purpose so it is still a good anti-tank shot but you should really be thinking before you fire AP 5 or higher at vehicles - it is just not what the weapon was intended to do even if it has a passable Strength.

So just looking at today's chart and modifiers versus this chart here would be the difference on vehicle destroyed
TODAY SAMPLE CHART
AP 1 50% 58%
AP 2 33% 42%
AP 3 33% 28%
AP4 33% 17%
AP 5 33% 8%
AP 6 33% 3%
AP - 17% 0%

It can be made easier or harder by adjusting the basic chart but the principle of making AP - other than the extremes - a modifier can be seen.

Before any howling on AT being harder - look at what this would do for glancing effects:

TODAY SAMPLE CHART
AP 1 17% 28%
AP 2 0 % 17%
AP3 0 % 8%
AP4 0 % 3%
AP5 0 % 0%
AP6 0 % 0%
AP- 0 % 0%

There are other methods than a one chart system but I am assuming that is the core simplicity we don't want to give up.

DAaddict wrote:
I understand the modifiers being a bit much but I am suggesting this is a way to make LasCannons and the like a doable option again.

If you don't think lascannons are a viable anti-tank gun, you're doing too much reading about 40k and not enough playing of 40k.

Lascannons kill tanks. End of story.

Just because meltaguns also kill tanks doesn't make the previous fact untrue.

Hello, all guns - given enough strength kill tanks. What I am saying is the 5th ed charts change the game significantly in that it. 1. Made kills harder via the charts.
2. Added a modifier to melta weapons. 3. Decreased the cost of melta tech in newer codexes. 4. Did not adjust the cost of other weapons in light of the new charts.

Overall, this has led to things like melta-spam, fire dragon spam to the exclusion of other options, etc.

What I am saying is build in a benefit to other types and you give me a reason. The stupidity now is that - if I were a tech in 40k world - I would be retrofitting every lascannon armed vehicle with multi-meltas so it could do the job it was intended for. What scares you more? The multi-melta on a landraider or the two twin-linked lascannons? If I am trying to keep my own landraider around, kill the multi-melta if I am worried about my MC, the lascannon is still king.

DarknessEternal wrote:

DAaddict wrote:
I understand the modifiers being a bit much but I am suggesting this is a way to make LasCannons and the like a doable option again.

If you don't think lascannons are a viable anti-tank gun, you're doing too much reading about 40k and not enough playing of 40k.

Lascannons kill tanks. End of story.

Just because meltaguns also kill tanks doesn't make the previous fact untrue.

Yeah, Lascannons kill tanks. But, meltaguns do it SO much better with 5th ed. DAaddict is just trying to re-balance things so that Lascannons are closer to meltaguns, and glance-only options are viable tank killers in large enough quantities.

Grakmar wrote:

Yeah, Lascannons kill tanks. But, meltaguns do it SO much better with 5th ed.

That's not correct either. Meltaguns don't kill tanks at all from 12"-48" where a Lascannon does. And they dubiously do so from 6"-12".

Range still matters a great deal in this game.

I've had enough tanks killed by Lascannons to not discount them as easily as you're doing.