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With the advent of 6E we've seen some major changes to vehicles. They now effectively have wounds, and are *very* easily engaged in CC regardless of movement speed.

While these changes apply to vehicles in general, they seem to particularly impact transports, light vehicles, walkers, and medium tanks. That such vehicles are disappearing from tables I think has been relatively well noticed, and there's been lots of discussion as to why one giant robot is a Walker while another is a Monstrous Creature and usually boils down to the MC simply being more effective than if it were a Walker due to the current vehicle rules.

Heavier vehicles don't feel it as much as most weapons that can hurt them are high AP weapons that are likely to kill outright anyway and aren't tossing out multiple shots. Having a "wounds" mechanic effectively cuts average vehicle lifespan significantly, by up to half against many weapons, and the reduction in the usefulness of things like Smoke Launchers (which only work on a 5+ now) and Extra Armour (15pts to reduce Stunned to Shaken, only works against Pen's now) exacerbates the issue.

Recently we have seen two skimmer armies redone, Tau and Eldar. Skimmers naturally benefit from a 5+ cover save as long as they move, 4+ if they flat out. Both of these armies have wargear that adds +1 to that cover save, allowing for a 4+ if moving and a 3+ if flat out. These of course stack with things like Stealth and Shroud, thus facing skimmers with 2+ cover saves is not at all unheard of (especially with Nightfight in every game and Conceal being a primaris power). Eldar meanwhile have additional upgrades, ignoring Shaken on 2+ and Stunned on 4+ with Spirit Stones for 10pts (as opposed to downgrading Stunned to Shaken for 15pts) and the Wave Serpent downgrading Penetrating Hits to Glances on a 2+ (the fact that this exists and causes no great outroar I believe is proof positive that the vehicle damage table at this point has been made sufficiently superfluous by HP's as to be ready to be removed or stand as exhibit A that HP's went too far in reducing vehicle survivability). Necrons get another mention here as, while they don't have as much on the Cover Save side, their AV13 shields mitigate the worst of the HP nerf to vehicles and they too ignore Shaken results on a 2+ and Stunned on a 4+.

As a result we're seeing a swing back towards the days of 4th edition, where skimmers were by far more useful and resilient for the points invested in them, and much more popular than their tracked equivalents in other armies and tracked vehicles and walkers lack the staying power and/or mobility to be useful except for those with the heaviest armor. The Skimmers have easier access to cover saves and can enhance them much easier, and have much better 'extra armour' equivalents that are either included in the base cost or cheaper. While there were issues with vehicles in the previous edition (largely I believe codex related rather than core rules related), their utility to all armies was largely uniform, now they're increasingly becoming either "gimmes" for your opponents or "this thing is never going to die".

This isn't meant to be a 'zomg eldar/necrons/tau are broken' post or anything like that, rather trying to discuss the seemingly retrograde motion of vehicle usage to a previous era (largely that of 4th edition) which largely was a cause of much consternation for its time, and where vehicles usefulness becomes binary based on whether or not you're fielding skimmers, whereas in 5th, despite whatever problems vehicles had (largely transport related really) they were useful for everyone.

Thoughts?

4th ed: Skimmers were godmode, and few other vehicles made it to the table due to relative fragility for the points.

5th ed: Vehicles generally were godmode due to retooling of the glance/pen tables, and spamming of cheap, "tracked" transports far and away outgunned the expensive, elite skimmers that dominated 4th ed.

6th ed: Fast skimmers are godmode, and few other vehicles can make it to the table due to relative fragility for the points.

7th ed: GUESS WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT

8th ed: TO EVERYTHING TURN, TURN, TURN

I agree, my killa kans with only 2 Hp each get glanced to death every game before doing anything substantial they may have to sit on the shelf

Skimmers naturally benefit from a 5+ cover save as long as they move

This really should just be a 5+ all the time. Not getting one when your opponent gets first turn is bs, and players just moving them a millimetre to get the save is stupid.

I've literally never used a skimmer in my life either.

Wave Serpent downgrading Penetrating Hits to Glances on a 2+ (the fact that this exists and causes no great outroar I believe is proof positive that the vehicle damage table at this point has been made sufficiently superfluous by HP's as to be ready to be removed or stand as exhibit

No uproar because most of us don't have/cbf reading the eldar dex. Thats pretty fething broken right there. Can't wait until the new Ork dex so the boyz can have their fair share of this bs

I have never actually killed a vehicle off of hull points. Of course the fact I use a hammerhead railgun (10/1) for my vehicle removal needs might have something to do with that. Also, I have noticed that people just don't bother to shoot at my hammerhead anymore. It used to have a giant "kill me" sign on it, even though it got immeasurably worse with the loss of being fast (I don't even move it anymore).

The only big deal with these cover saves is the match-up with brightlances. Its fine they make AV12 Eldar skimmers more survivable, but now every wave serpent and its mother has brightlances and saves. Now their tanks are more powerful then dedicated anti-tank tanks. Giving them a weapon that reduces enemy AV to 12 while giving themselves a +/- 50% chance to dodge enemy shots and a 83% chance to reduce pens to glancing is a bit much imo.

Dakkamite wrote:

Skimmers naturally benefit from a 5+ cover save as long as they move

This really should just be a 5+ all the time. Not getting one when your opponent gets first turn is bs, and players just moving them a millimetre to get the save is stupid.

I've literally never used a skimmer in my life either.

I think part of it is that there's supposed to be a "reward" if you manage to stun it, though between Living Metal, Spirit Stones, and HP's it's becoming less and less applicable.

No uproar because most of us don't have/cbf reading the eldar dex. Thats pretty fething broken right there. Can't wait until the new Ork dex so the boyz can have their fair share of this bs

It can also forego the shield to instead fire a 60" S7 D6+1 shots Ignore Cover attack in addition to its other weapons

dementedwombat wrote:I have never actually killed a vehicle off of hull points. Of course the fact I use a hammerhead railgun (10/1) for my vehicle removal needs might have something to do with that. Also, I have noticed that people just don't bother to shoot at my hammerhead anymore. It used to have a giant "kill me" sign on it, even though it got immeasurably worse with the loss of being fast (I don't even move it anymore).

Railguns will do that, they're much more likely to kill vehicles through Explodes results than HP's as a result of their S and AP. That said, if you were using missile pod Broadsides you'd see large numbers of light/medium vehicle kills through HP's.

I play DE, which is skimmer-fest 2010, and the motion cover save usually spares me of a hit per game, if that much.

A 5+ is not really reliable unless you can have it in ludicrous numbers for cheap. Giving 120 orks a 5+ save? Great. Gviing 5-8 vehicles a 5+? Emm, not so hot.

Simply put, cmpetitive armies have the colume of fire to negate losing 1/3rd of their hits. IG have autocannons, pie plates and twin-linked vendetta fire to laugh at piddly skimmer saves. Space Wolves will nuke you with missiles, Dark Angels have twin-linked weapons and guided Deep Strike to glance you to hell, CSM will vector-strike you or pile autocannons hits, necrons will just drown you in green fire.

Granted, other factions have more durable skimmers, but in that case it's the AV of 12/13 lending the extra oomph. Maybe the rhino chassis should get front AV12 across the board and most skimmers brought to the AV 10/11 level to balance things in the long run, though.

Also keep in mind that not only do skimmers in this edition cost a boat load of points (Devilfish and Wave Serpents are extremely expensive tanks), but they also die to three glancing hits. Armor 12 is laughable when put up against a sufficient number of S7 or S8 shots. Also where are you getting the 2+ cover on the wave serpent from? Can the warlock cast Conceal on the wave serpent? Does it count as part of his unit?

 Vaktathi wrote:

No uproar because most of us don't have/cbf reading the eldar dex. Thats pretty fething broken right there. Can't wait until the new Ork dex so the boyz can have their fair share of this bs

It can also forego the shield to instead fire a 60" S7 D6+1 shots Ignore Cover attack in addition to its other weapons

Aspects of 40k remaining;

Movement
Terrain/Cover/Line of Sight
Shooting
Assault
Psychic Powers
Random Tables

I ask myself "why? why do I play this game", and I recieve no answer.

I kinda agree, too.

Skimmers, grav-tanks even, should count on agility over armor or structural soundness to endure. However, we're getting vehicles that enjoy the relative durability of a LRBT in addition to their jink save. I'm totally making this up as, obviously, there are no real life examples to look upon (and most likely there won't be in the foreseeable future), but making skimmers harder to hit but somewhat more fragile than their tracked/wheeled/walker counterparts seemed the right way to go.

There's only one thing that probably bugs me more than jink saves and psychic powers, though, and that has to be Monstrous Creatures and the way their rules are being used to bypass the restrictions that normally apply to vehicles. But that probably belongs in another thread.

Nightwolf829 wrote:
Also keep in mind that not only do skimmers in this edition cost a boat load of points (Devilfish and Wave Serpents are extremely expensive tanks), but they also die to three glancing hits. Armor 12 is laughable when put up against a sufficient number of S7 or S8 shots. Also where are you getting the 2+ cover on the wave serpent from? Can the warlock cast Conceal on the wave serpent? Does it count as part of his unit?

SMF save +nightfight is the most common (since Nightfight occurs in every Rulebook mission and 50% of the time at the beginning of the game). Does Conceal only affect the unit? I don't have my book on me at work, I may be wrong on that count. While they do remain more expensive, the increased lifespan/mobility often matters a lot more (and the raw firepower possible from the Wave Serpent can be significant). Also note that's only looking at Transports, a 130pt Hellhound for example isn't really any better off than a 55pt Chimera unless you're hitting side arcs (front and rear are identical).

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:
.

There's only one thing that probably bugs me more than jink saves and psychic powers, though, and that has to be Monstrous Creatures and the way their rules are being used to bypass the restrictions that normally apply to vehicles. But that probably belongs in another thread.

We have such a thread going right now, it's what spurred me to post this one

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
The only big deal with these cover saves is the match-up with brightlances. Its fine they make AV12 Eldar skimmers more survivable, but now every wave serpent and its mother has brightlances and saves. Now their tanks are more powerful then dedicated anti-tank tanks. Giving them a weapon that reduces enemy AV to 12 while giving themselves a +/- 50% chance to dodge enemy shots and a 83% chance to reduce pens to glancing is a bit much imo.

Please, do count all the anti-tank vehicles that are oh so less powerful than a single S8 lance and at the same time being at ~150 points mark. Good ones, not some crappy, never taken even under 5th edition ones.

 sourclams wrote:
6th ed: Fast skimmers are godmode

Are they? Are they really?

Or are the non-flyer vehicles so bad that even the good skimmers are branded "godmode" even when they are not. Because I do not recall vehicles any Tau skimmers being the 'broken' thing in this edition. Are Necron skimmers better then their flyers?

And yes, there is a disparity between vehicles. But first of all it's not just simply: skimmer good, other bad. Second of all, it may have something to do with some of them being crappy and not the other being 4th edition holo-falcon madness.

EDIT:

 Sephyr wrote:
Granted, other factions have more durable skimmers, but in that case it's the AV of 12/13 lending the extra oomph. Maybe the rhino chassis should get front AV12 across the board and most skimmers brought to the AV 10/11 level to balance things in the long run, though.

So 35pt rhino should be 12/11/10 3HP but ~150point Wave serpent should be 11/10/10 3HP 4+ cover?

 Macok wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
The only big deal with these cover saves is the match-up with brightlances. Its fine they make AV12 Eldar skimmers more survivable, but now every wave serpent and its mother has brightlances and saves. Now their tanks are more powerful then dedicated anti-tank tanks. Giving them a weapon that reduces enemy AV to 12 while giving themselves a +/- 50% chance to dodge enemy shots and a 83% chance to reduce pens to glancing is a bit much imo.

Please, do count all the anti-tank vehicles that are oh so less powerful than a single S8 lance and at the same time being at ~150 points mark. Good ones, not some crappy, never taken even under 5th edition ones.

Yes lets take some tanks I can muster, a Leman Russ Vanquisher and a Predator. The 2+ making pens glancing kills the dedicated anti-tank role of the Vanquisher, 2d6 penetration rolls, shame 83% of the time this is wasted even if it hits. Or a triple-las pred on my marines, about 2/3 of the shots hit, then further reduced to 1/3 by their standard cover save (every Eldar player worth his salt moves them a bit) and then making the remaining hit a glance with a 83% chance. To recap, these two tanks are around the ~150 mark and build for anti-tank duty. But on top of making the Eldar tank more likely to pen my tanks (by making an AV 14 Russ just a 12) it can also carry an infantry squad at the same time, even making it better, since it will be moving flat out for the first turn giving me only a 33% chance to hit on the crucial turn taking out transports before there deadly units disembark. Need some more examples? What tank preforms better and costs less?

Edit: You mean Wave Serpent with AV 12 front?

 Macok wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
The only big deal with these cover saves is the match-up with brightlances. Its fine they make AV12 Eldar skimmers more survivable, but now every wave serpent and its mother has brightlances and saves. Now their tanks are more powerful then dedicated anti-tank tanks. Giving them a weapon that reduces enemy AV to 12 while giving themselves a +/- 50% chance to dodge enemy shots and a 83% chance to reduce pens to glancing is a bit much imo.

Please, do count all the anti-tank vehicles that are oh so less powerful than a single S8 lance and at the same time being at ~150 points mark. Good ones, not some crappy, never taken even under 5th edition ones.

Well, in all fairness, a WS has as good of a chance to knock out a Land Raider as a Hammerhead does for pretty much the same cost. S8 TL against AV12 versus S10 against AV14, both require 4s to glance and 5s to penetrate. The Hammerhead has the slightly better AP, but the WS is twin linked, so that's a wash IMO. Throw in the D6+1 S7 shots and the WS performs much better against light vehicle squadrons than the HH.

I am a CSM player, I have always played vehicules, and I will continue to do so.

First, a Land Raider is not an easy target to destroy (14/14/14) and a pair of twin-linked lascannon can destroy everything on the table, as the powerfull monolith. It is an assault vehicules, and with dirg caster you can wipe out entire units in a single turn,

Rhino. 35 points. Can transport 10 troops. A very versatile and low cost vehicule to outflank your opponent quickly.

Predators : with a pair of lascannon and an autocannon, a long range shooter very usefull against vehicules and troops.

I think people are keen on skimmers 'cause the 6th edition give them a new life, but they are expensive in points ( for example, I think that the monolith is overrated : very expensive, and easy to destroy in CC) and players would in some times rediscover the flexibility of rhinos and others low cost vehicules

Or you could play Tau and just trollface.jpg everyone who tries to use cover saves.

"Oh, your vehicle gets a 2+ cover save. Cool story bro, markerlights!"

Actually I take that back, I don't want everyone playing Tau, I kind of like playing "that one army nobody plays".

(sorry for everything I just said, I blame it on the beers)

Looking at the new wave serpent rules, I think that hydras may actually be effective against them. AV12 is about as high as autocannons can remain effective, they get to use full BS against skimmers and ignore jink saves. They are not that bothered by the shield either, as they are going for hull point kills anyway,

 dementedwombat wrote:
Actually I take that back, I don't want everyone playing Tau

I used to talk like that. Now half the people at my FLGS are playing Tau.

Seriously though, the only change I've noticed is that my hammerheads aren't getting stunned anymore, and instead just lose hullpoints. Disruption pods just got more expensive but don't care about range.

And about the wave serpent, it's because the old field made all weapons above S8 = S8, and you didn't get to roll more than one D6... ever. So it was basically nerfing your powerful anti-tank weapons and not affecting your "pray for a lucky shot" S7 spam. It's basically the same thing, it just does it in a different way.

This is why I'm sad that my codex was the first one released.

The best thing in it is that I can lose my characters in mandatory challenges, there's a chance he'll turn into a big monster, but he loses all his expensive wargear. That, and heldrakes, which I don't use.

Definitely seeing a little power creep starting to show in the newer books.

I think sometimes people who only play space marines are the ones who get gakky when xenos races get anything of value...

bodazoka wrote:
I think sometimes people who only play space marines are the ones who get gakky when xenos races get anything of value...

Try chaos, half our book aint worth fielding, and sometimes your chaos lords and your sorcerers become worse then they started!

MarsNZ wrote:
Definitely seeing a little power creep starting to show in the newer books.

I can honestly agree with you there. I play Tau, I played Tau when they sucked (tail end of 5th edition anyone?). I love the little fish faced guys on principle. Even I have to admit that the new toys in our shiny codex are a bit...unreasonable at times.

I can't help but feel like it's because Tau was the first codex specifically designed to hard counter fliers and deep strike assaults (the latter of which really didn't need countered in 6th), both of which older codexes don't really have any way of dealing with.

At least if you somehow get past the guns and get us in close combat we melt like butter under a blowtorch. With Eldar I honestly have no idea what their weaknesses are.

 dementedwombat wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
Definitely seeing a little power creep starting to show in the newer books.

I can honestly agree with you there. I play Tau, I played Tau when they sucked (tail end of 5th edition anyone?). I love the little fish faced guys on principle. Even I have to admit that the new toys in our shiny codex are a bit...unreasonable at times.

How so.....looks at neuroweb jammer, C&C node and MSSS.
Ok, maybe a little

 sourclams wrote:
4th ed: Skimmers were godmode, and few other vehicles made it to the table due to relative fragility for the points.

5th ed: Vehicles generally were godmode due to retooling of the glance/pen tables, and spamming of cheap, "tracked" transports far and away outgunned the expensive, elite skimmers that dominated 4th ed.

6th ed: Fast skimmers are godmode, and few other vehicles can make it to the table due to relative fragility for the points.

7th ed: GUESS WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT

8th ed: TO EVERYTHING TURN, TURN, TURN

^^ This absolutely on the money! Not more complicated than this.

bodazoka wrote:
I think sometimes people who only play space marines are the ones who get gakky when xenos races get anything of value...

I think some people who play Xenos only are horrible persons who eat puppies for breakfast.



Hey, look, I can make up ridiculous stuff too!


On a more serious note, if Tyranid players were allowed to spend all of 5th edition complaining about how everyone counters them I sure as hell am going to complain in an edition where every new Xenos Codex makes playing assault-centric MEQ armies more and more difficult. That's not even including the Heldrake. There's a double standard; Marine players aren't allowed to complain about anything, whereas anything negative that happens to a Xenos Codex is GW showing their blatant favouritism. It's getting old.

I really like what forge world did to the Sisters of Battle Repressors (specialized rhinos)

AV 13 front and 70'ish points (about 20 more than regular rhino)

It is quite a nice upgrade. I forsee future imperial vehicles going this way. Possibly also some crazy tank armor that ignores lances on 2+

I forsee Ork vehicles going even cheaper and staying the same with costs so cheap that it makes them still worth taking despite the lack of survivability. Alternatively the regular rhinos may go that way as well.

 sudojoe wrote:

It is quite a nice upgrade. I forsee future imperial vehicles going this way. Possibly also some crazy tank armor that ignores lances on 2+

You keep your filthy hands off of my Blessed Hull, you hear me?!

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 sudojoe wrote:

It is quite a nice upgrade. I forsee future imperial vehicles going this way. Possibly also some crazy tank armor that ignores lances on 2+

You keep your filthy hands off of my Blessed Hull, you hear me?!

lol gdi I totally forgot about that upgrade. The BT player here moved away about 2 yrs ago and he never ran land raiders so I haven't even paid any attention to this rule and just thought that it'd be something nice to have for a LR lolololol

 sudojoe wrote:
I really like what forge world did to the Sisters of Battle Repressors (specialized rhinos)

AV 13 front and 70'ish points (about 20 more than regular rhino)

It is quite a nice upgrade. I forsee future imperial vehicles going this way. Possibly also some crazy tank armor that ignores lances on 2+

I forsee Ork vehicles going even cheaper and staying the same with costs so cheap that it makes them still worth taking despite the lack of survivability. Alternatively the regular rhinos may go that way as well.

If that's accurate, then the Repressor is actually about double the points of a regular Rhino.

Yeah, with our latest Codex we got our Rhinos re-costed to be more in line with the Marine dexes.