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One thing my gaming group doesn't like about the current edition of 40k is how much random chance plays in the destruction of vehicles. It's mostly an all or nothing affair. Yes you can damage them and wreck by destroying everything, but isn't the norm unless maybe you play necrons. Big expensive monstrous creatures can't be taken out in one shot (for the most part) so why should big expensive vehicles? On the flipside why should some vehicles be able to withstand multiple penetrating hits and come out only mildly inconvenienced? Basically the idea is to bring structure points into the game but make them much easier to destroy then they currently are. Here is a sample of we came up with.

Everything keeps the same AV value but gain structure points as well. Our proposed rules have rhinos and chimeras at 3 and land raiders at 5. Trucks and raiders are at 2. Predators, hellhounds, devilfishs at 4. Russes and hammerheads at 4.

Here are the new damage tables.

Glancing Hit

1 - Crew shaken (Movement speed is halved and all successful to hit rolls with ranged weapons must be re-rolled. For blast weapons the opponent may force a reroll but must accept 2nd result.)
2 - Crew shaken (Same as above)
3 - Crew stunned (May not move or shoot)
4 - Crew stunned (May not move or shoot)
5 - Vehicle System Damaged, (Opponent may decide to destroy one weapon or reduce vehicle movement in half. Reducing the vehicle movement twice will immobilize vehicle.) Crew Stunned
6 - Hull Damaged (Vehicle loses 1 structure point becomes wreck if reaches 0), Vehicle System Damaged
7 - Hull Damaged, Vehicle System Damaged, Crew Stunned

Penetrating Hit

1 - Hull Damaged, Crew Shaken
2 - Hull Damaged, Crew Stunned
3 - Hull Damaged, Vehicle System Damaged, Crew Shaken
4 - Hull Damaged, Vehicle System Damaged, Crew Stunned
5 - Hull Critically Damaged (Vehicle loses one structure point and another roll is made on the penetrating hit table, vehicle explodes if structure points reach 0)
6 - Hull Critically Damaged, Crew Stunned
7 - Hull Critically Damaged, Vehicle System Damaged, Crew Stunned

+1 for AP 1 as usual
-1 for AP - to minimum of 1
Open topped doesnt effect roll, taken into account in structure points

Those rules sound pretty cool but I think all the vehicles should have their structure points reduced by 1, otherwise I see everything lasting waaaaay to long out on the flied.
After all I've always imagined Trukks and Raiders being able to go down with a lucky shot, and as awesome as it would be a LR rolling up and taking a crap-ton of LC hits that might be too tough.

A penetrating 5, 6, or 7 still kills a truck or raider in one shot. All penetrating hits guarantee some damage and AP 1 has a good chance of causing more than 1 damage as well. I could see making the glancing hits table a little more dangerous to give glancing a greater effect. Maybe make everything a standard 3 structure points since its AV value takes into consideration its resilience? Open topped vehicles could keep the +1 on the table or be reduced to two structure points. Especially resilient things like the monolith could have a simple increase in structure points as opposed to a rule like living metal. It reduces the chance of single penetrating hit ganking your Land Raider across the table turn one, but also means that penetrating hit will always have a lasting effect on the game and won't result in a simple crew shaken when the vehicle probably wasnt going to fire anyway. Crew shaken and damage effects were also changed to affect all vehicles equally. No more useless weapon destroyed results on a rhino, or immobilized results and stationary artillery tanks like a basilisk. However the immobilized effect itself was to nerfed to compensate for its increased frequency. Stunned remains the same, but shaken was changed to hurt all tanks as opposed to only ones that would shoot.

The problem is that you're turning each vehicle into mini Baneblades; vehicles are going to last far too long out on the field.

Also, to be honest, the ability of mosntrous creatures to take multiple hits and live is balanced by their vulnerability to side arms.

Sure, a Trygon can take 5 lascannon hits before it goes down, and one lucky hit can blow up a Land Raider, BUT. That Trygon is vulnerable to a lot more things than the Land Raider is. What can hurt the landraider? Weapons with a strength of 8 or higher, and rending weapons with a strength of 5 or higher. What can hurt the Trygon? Almost every gun on the field.

Sure your Land Raider can go down to one lascannon, but you don't have to worry about the 30 Guardsmen with lasguns and autocannons. The Trygon does.


While I agree that the vehicle damage system needs an overhaul, I'm more in favor of 2d6 system instead of turning everything into a superheavy.

But you will notice that every penetrating hit causes a loss in structure point. So instead of 1/3 of every penetrating hits causing a kill. Going with a standard 3 structure points, you simply need just 3 penetrating hits to kill anything. A normal destroyed result will result in the loss of at least 2 structure points and possibly more if you roll well. Also glancing a vehicle to death is independent of the number of weapons it has. I admittedly only have played one game trying this out, but it seemed to work fairly well. It reduces the potential of lucky pot shots but means every pen makes the vehicle closer to death without any useless crew shaken or weapon destroyed results. If you penetrate a vehicle 3 times, its dead no matter what you roll. It is still possible to one shot a vehicle, just less likely, but it goes in the opposite direction as well as no longer can you eat multiple penetrating hits if the other person rolls poorly.

The fact that a trygon can be hurt by nearly everything is balanced by the fact that it fights at full effectiveness until its dead. You will notice that each penetrating result will also cause a crew shaken or stunned as well, even the system damaged results. Things still didnt like getting hit by meltas and two penetrating hits will lead to a decent chance of the vehicle getting killed.

You pen a rhino across the map with a lascannon, sure you will have a rough time killing in one shot, but it will be easier to kill later and wont result in a shaken or weapon destroyed result that accomplished essentially nothing.

I really like this solution. I'm not sure if I want to make vehicles more similar to MC but this is by far the best approach to this issue I've ever seen on this forum.
My gaming community is very sceptical of home made rules but I'll try to test it to some degree.

You'd need to do away with the Vehicle squads. Otherwise if these structure points are treated like wound allocations I get one stripped down Russ to take the whole beating while the other two tooled up ones go crazy dropping pie plates.

Just curious but what would you do with the Vendetta?