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While I like the idea of building a new set of rules for WH40K from the ground up, convincing others to use those rules may be difficult. I would have to admit that I would be suspicious as how to do I know the other person is not trying to use his rule set of "WH40K:I Always Win." So I was thinking more along the lines of using as few as possible house rules to deal with the problem with super-heavies and D-weapons.

I was thinking of two ideas to make titans relevant against each other but not so much of a "I win" stick against everything else. I do like the idea that they counter deathstars, but they create another problem as they are a counter to everything.

"Charging, sir!": All D-weapons require much more time to reload, recharge or to prepare to fire than infantry or vehicle weapon counterparts. A super-heavy needs to make a preparation roll of 4+ (or 3+ or 5+) in order to fire its D-weapons. Once fired, they will not be ready to shoot again until another preparation roll is made. The idea here is that super-heavies will conserve their D-weapon shots against targets that matter rather than blowing ever single small squad off the table.

Another option is:

"We can't track it, sir!" D-weapons are designed for use against other super-heavies and large structures. When shooting a D-weapon at infantry and vehicles, the large blast marker automatically scatters the full rolled distance. D-weapons that use the hellstorm template might be okay to leave alone. Horde armies might still feel the pain or any army if the super-heavy player gets lucky, but lessens his ability to cherry pick his targets.

I like these a lot rather then a straight up ban. I would still like to see people being able to take Invul saves mind because of fluff precedence such as a psyker making a force dome to ward off a titian cannon. I honestly think both rules could be applied and 'lessen' D weapons amount of impact, but letting people take invuls would help when the impact actuarially hits.

I could maybe see letting a unit get an single invuln save with no rerolls.

It's fairly simple: make all D-weapons single shot, no blast. Save blasts for giant missiles (that are at best S10 AP1).

 McNinja wrote:
It's fairly simple: make all D-weapons single shot, no blast. Save blasts for giant missiles (that are at best S10 AP1).

Vehicles will die just as much as they do now, though. You only save the infantry. And strength D is already somewhat less all-powerful (Though still massively strong) against infantry.

For the charging sir rule, to simplify it I would simply make it so you cant fire a d weapon twice in a row, this leaves less things up to luck and more streamlined. It still keeps the basic purpose of the rule (to make people think about where the stick their d into ) while making this faster in this already long game. For fluff reasons I camt think of how it would affect the organic units with D like the TCtan, it is basically a mini god that can make anything happen at its wim so it wouldnt really need to charge up its hellstorm D weapon.

This isn't a good change because it makes D-weapons have too much variation. When you're lucky and passing all of your charging rolls you're still slaughtering everything, but when your dice hate you your expensive tank/titan becomes a useless paperweight. Either way someone isn't having much fun. A much better solution is to make two changes:

1) Reduce the blast size of all D-weapons by one step (for example, a 5" blast becomes a 3" blast). This makes D-weapons pretty much useless against infantry, so you have to make a difficult choice between bringing the ultimate tank/MC killer or a weapon that is a bit less effective against big single models but can actually contribute something against infantry armies.

2) Remove a shot from all titan D-weapons and make them twin-linked instead. A big part of the titan problem is that they get way too much firepower for their cost. A Shadowsword gets a single D-weapon shot for 450 points, a Warhound gets four of them for 750. The choice is pretty obvious here, and having multiple shots on the turbolasers even lets the Warhound be a decent infantry killer against anything short of a full green tide list. If you bring titan firepower in line with all of the other superheavy tanks they're suddenly much less dominant.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 McNinja wrote:
It's fairly simple: make all D-weapons single shot, no blast. Save blasts for giant missiles (that are at best S10 AP1).

Vehicles will die just as much as they do now, though. You only save the infantry. And strength D is already somewhat less all-powerful (Though still massively strong) against infantry.

That's the point of D-weapons though; to faceroll big things. Be it a GC or SHV, the weapons are designed to turn powerful things into a weird amalgam of flubber and toothpaste, leaving the battlefield bouncy and fresh.

Sorry, it's late.

Anyway, the only things that really suffer are infantry. When you can throw down four Str D large blasts a turn, your tanking killing abilities pale in comparison to your infantry annihilating abilities.

How about making it so that only the hole at the center of the template is S D while the rest of the template is a "mere" S10 AP1?

This way you could still hit superheavies and try to snipe the linchpin models of broken cheese units, but won't be quite as rapestatic to massed armies.

This wouldn't really work for Hellstorm and flamer template D weapons though.

What our group is doing is making all D weapons S10 Ap1, Instant death, fleshbane, armourbane.

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Tactical_Genius wrote:
What our group is doing is making all D weapons S10 Ap1, Instant death, fleshbane, armourbane.

Won't that make them underwhelming against GMCs and SHs? It'll also make them next to useless at countering the super cheese units that everyone's so hot and bothered about.

Might be a good idea to add "can't re-roll failed saves" and "re-roll successful saves" or somesuch to the list.

 Peregrine wrote:
This isn't a good change because it makes D-weapons have too much variation. When you're lucky and passing all of your charging rolls you're still slaughtering everything, but when your dice hate you your expensive tank/titan becomes a useless paperweight. Either way someone isn't having much fun. A much better solution is to make two changes:

1) Reduce the blast size of all D-weapons by one step (for example, a 5" blast becomes a 3" blast). This makes D-weapons pretty much useless against infantry, so you have to make a difficult choice between bringing the ultimate tank/MC killer or a weapon that is a bit less effective against big single models but can actually contribute something against infantry armies.

2) Remove a shot from all titan D-weapons and make them twin-linked instead. A big part of the titan problem is that they get way too much firepower for their cost. A Shadowsword gets a single D-weapon shot for 450 points, a Warhound gets four of them for 750. The choice is pretty obvious here, and having multiple shots on the turbolasers even lets the Warhound be a decent infantry killer against anything short of a full green tide list. If you bring titan firepower in line with all of the other superheavy tanks they're suddenly much less dominant.

Good points. I was thinking of changing the rule slightly so that you started the game with weapons charged and then have to roll after that. The good thing about not firing twice in a row is that it is a simpler rule to remember. The downside is that you can plan around it, but you don't know how many turns the game will last. So, you can't know exactly if you can always spare a shot. As for the getting lucky part, you can't know that. If you have a charge now what your roll will be next turn. So that should serve as a deterrent to excess shots.

The goal I am aiming for D-weapons:
+A rule that is easy to remember and implement
+Keep super-heavies relevant against each other
+Make them a counter to deathstars (mainly the 2+ rerollable invuln ones)
+But not overpowering to infantry and vehicles

I think reducing their template size is a great way to:

1.) Keep them useful against superheavies as they retain their ability to strip multiple wounds/hull points
2.) Still useful against those larger hardened units like Land Raiders and high-wound MCs.
3.) Dicey against smaller vehicles
4.) Good at ruining one Deathstar at least(Eldar), although it removes it's ability to affect the Screamerstar in most situations.(What about making it inflict 2d6 wounds on an infantry unit when it hits(regardless of number under the blast)? This would let it still do significant damage to smaller units of elites, but not as useful against blobs.
5.) A complete waste to toss onto regular troops.

I think 3 and 4 are in conflict. If a Seerstar is on bikes doesn't that make it dicey to hit them? With some good spacing and the odds of a scatter, I wonder how many jetbikes can we reliably hit? I have a feeling that if an opponent played a Revenant against my Screamerstar or Seerstar, I probably wouldn't worry about losses so much and focus on chasing the Revenant down and destroying it in melee.

Is number 2 worth worrying about? It seems like those units have enough counters already.

 Galorian wrote:
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Tactical_Genius wrote:
What our group is doing is making all D weapons S10 Ap1, Instant death, fleshbane, armourbane.

Won't that make them underwhelming against GMCs and SHs? It'll also make them next to useless at countering the super cheese units that everyone's so hot and bothered about.

Might be a good idea to add "can't re-roll failed saves" and "re-roll successful saves" or somesuch to the list.

We've also made 2++ rerolls a 2+/4+.

I may run these

Tactical_Genius wrote:

 Galorian wrote:
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Tactical_Genius wrote:
What our group is doing is making all D weapons S10 Ap1, Instant death, fleshbane, armourbane.

Won't that make them underwhelming against GMCs and SHs? It'll also make them next to useless at countering the super cheese units that everyone's so hot and bothered about.

Might be a good idea to add "can't re-roll failed saves" and "re-roll successful saves" or somesuch to the list.

We've also made 2++ rerolls a 2+/4+.

Nice, I was thinking of a rule where any ability that grants a reroll on a save of 1, the next save is taken at the original unmodified value. So simple to remember, but damn that baron for screwing it up.

In my group I'm going to suggest that destroyer weapons are just normal S10 weapons that ignore saves and deal an additional hull point or wound on a penetrating/wounding hit.

There's probably not gonna be other superheavies than a Lord of Skulls, Stompa, a Baneblade and possibly a C'tan.

If there's a league or a tournament I'll ask what are the rules gonna be, if it's "let's play loldar" I can do something else.

Oops forgot to mention ignores cover on our rules for D weapons...

I like these proposed rules, but I think it'd be a lot more balanced if Destroyer was simply kept the way it was in 5th. For those who don't know, Destroyer hits back then simply inflicted an Instant Death Wound ignoring cover saves. This meant that you still actually got your armour saves should you come across an Ap4 or similar Destroyer weapon (none created by GW, but can be homebrewed creations).

If they kept it at this, but maybe changed it to D3 Penetrating Hits on vehicles instead I think it'd make it a lot easier for both players.

 Peregrine wrote:
This isn't a good change because it makes D-weapons have too much variation. When you're lucky and passing all of your charging rolls you're still slaughtering everything, but when your dice hate you your expensive tank/titan becomes a useless paperweight. Either way someone isn't having much fun. A much better solution is to make two changes:

1) Reduce the blast size of all D-weapons by one step (for example, a 5" blast becomes a 3" blast). This makes D-weapons pretty much useless against infantry, so you have to make a difficult choice between bringing the ultimate tank/MC killer or a weapon that is a bit less effective against big single models but can actually contribute something against infantry armies.

2) Remove a shot from all titan D-weapons and make them twin-linked instead. A big part of the titan problem is that they get way too much firepower for their cost. A Shadowsword gets a single D-weapon shot for 450 points, a Warhound gets four of them for 750. The choice is pretty obvious here, and having multiple shots on the turbolasers even lets the Warhound be a decent infantry killer against anything short of a full green tide list. If you bring titan firepower in line with all of the other superheavy tanks they're suddenly much less dominant.

I like these suggestions. Very simple, yet still powerful without being ridiculous against almost every unit out there.


My real problem is with the damage charts of D weapons. I'd like to see it more as follows:

1. No wounds to units with Wounds. Glancing hit to a vehicle.
2-5. D3 wounds or D3 penetrating hits.
6. Instant Death/non-super heavy vehicle explodes. For gargants, Eternal Warrior units or super-heavies, D6+3 wounds or hull points removed.