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Ok, lets make this the official be all, end all, walker change discussion.

Take these initial suggestions and tweak them with me. I need some point crunchers in here too to make the points cost balanced.


First off, this is not just for dreadnoughts. I propose to get rid of or completely change walkers of all types and make them more akin to Monstrous creatures. This will smooth out gameplay and hopefully be balanced all around the board.

1. Walkers become monstrous creatures with a few extra rules.
2. Either front armor rating -4 becomes their toughness and their Hull points become their wounds, or they all become flat T7 with 2 wounds base and gain +1 wound for each addition armor rating over 10.
3. They gain standard heavy armor for their codex (i.e. 2+ save for dreadnoughts, 3+ save for war walkers, 4+ save for sentinals) and the save degrades by 1 for every wound they take.
4. Will all gain a points increase for the added benefits of HoW, smash, and loss of weaker rear armor. Will take into consideration walkers that already had AP2 from gear.
5. Will gain leadership score equal to that of a normal veteran (i.e. vet serg, aspect warrior, nob) and the stubborn rule.
6. Will still be able to purchase the same weaponry as before.



With these proposed changes you would get somthing like this:

Ironclad dreadnought- WS4 BS4 S6 T9 W3 A3 I4 Ld9 Sv2+ (this is using the first method of #2)
equipment as standard, move through cover, smash, stubborn, HoW
Points cost increast +35???

The Toughness seems way too high in your example. I mean consider that Melta is now useless against them, so it's just a S8 shot.

Melta at BS4, wounding on 5's, and since it's a MC I'm going to assume a 5+ cover. It will take over 20 melta shots to drop that.
Or 13.5 Lascannon shots. Pretty much the only thing that will be able to take it down will be Poison.

Even something like a Helbrute ends up as T8 with 3 wounds and a 2+ save. At 100 points base, it will have to take a significant point increase to even this out.

I like most the ideas though. Giving them HoW, Smash, and Move through Cover would do a lot to make them better.

On the other hand, why would a Sentinel have smash?

To represent that instead of using the legs to kick at a target you're using the machine's full momentum and weight to throw it's armored hull against a target?

Personally I think that MC shouldn't automatically get smash. To me it just makes it too common for every creature to throw out S10 AP2 attacks.

Why not make the appropriate MCs Walkers instead? (Riptide and Dreadknight come to mind.)

It would be nice if MCs had damage tables similar to Vehicles though (minus the 'explodes' option).

There isn't an actual consensus on what counts as a walker and what counts as a MC.
For example the intent is supposedly that walkers are more bulky and clumsy while MC are supposed to move fluidly.
This however really doesn't work out and doesn't explain any of the massive restrictions and differences between the two types.

For example there are some reasons why Riptides would be MC but no reason why poison affects them. There is a reason why Maulerfiends are a walker, but use the machine as if it's their own body instead of piloting it.

This change would actually weaken Walkers a fair bit since it makes them vulnerable to things like Poisoned Weapons and Instant Death without giving them much back. I'd suggest adding the Mechanical USR (Eternal Warrior and immunity to Poisoned Attacks) to converted Walkers (and possibly the Riptide, though at a price increase there).

Bharring wrote:
Why not make the appropriate MCs Walkers instead? .

Because Walkers suck in the current rules.

Its a trade off either way.

You loose the weakness of being able to be exploded with one shot from a low ap weapon, but now Instant death attacks can affect you.


Also, the toughness 9 on the ironclad is not too high considering it only has 3 wounds and no invunerable save.


There will be additional rules added on a per model basis, but this thread is for the General changes to all walkers.


The mechanical rule would probably be too strong to add on with the current changes but it is a good suggestion. Mabey a tweak on it a bit.

More machine than Man: A model with this special rule gains Feel no pain 6+ and any attacks that have the poisoned special rule are weakened by 1 (i.e. poisoned 4+ now only wounds on 5+).

Remember, Wraith Knight is t8 3+.

 insaniak wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Why not make the appropriate MCs Walkers instead? .

Because Walkers suck in the current rules.

Have walkers ever really been that great though? I remember similar comparisons between dreads and wraithlords in 3rd

Give all walkers, smash, hammer of wrath, moves through cover; monstrous creature cover rules, and start being a bit more liberal with passing them ways to handle MCs in Melee/protect against instant death via unlucky vehicle damage rolls such as saves, improving the saves on those lucky vehicles that already have them.

It keeps them separate but much more even.

Making them MCs also works though but requires a lot more work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
On the other hand, why would a Sentinel have smash?

Would you want to be on the receiving end of those legs?

No, but neither should it be able to just kick through Terminator Armour without seriously unbalancing itself and falling over.

If at all.

Eihnlazer wrote:
Its a trade off either way.
Also, the toughness 9 on the ironclad is not too high considering it only has 3 wounds and no invunerable save.

T9 is too high, especially when it has a 2+ save.
Missile launchers go from potenially being able to hurt it to laughable. Autocannons as well.
Ironclads should be T8, regular dreads T7. Yes bolters can now hurt them(but not likely) but they now dont have weakness to chainfists/haywire grenades, melta. They also dont have a weak spot on their rear armor.

MCs are sooo much better than walkers, it is true, but that doesnt mean that every walker should be an MC and have increased durability.

Bharring wrote:
Why not make the appropriate MCs Walkers instead? (Riptide and Dreadknight come to mind.)

It would be nice if MCs had damage tables similar to Vehicles though (minus the 'explodes' option).

I really feel like this is the best option, especially the MC damage chart. Vehicles tend to lose efficiency the more they get shot, MCs keep on trucking until they die. It doesn't mean that they need to full on lose movement, but at least take some hindrances as they suffer wounds, eg.

1: Nothing happens, the wound maimed the monster but its fighting ability is unaffected
2: Nothing happens, the wound maimed the monster but its fighting ability is unaffected
3: The MC becomes slow and purposeful as its legs have been damaged in the battle (FMCs and jump MCs instead become Monstrous Creatures)
4: The MC suffers -1 initiative (to a minimum of 1) for the rest of the game as it has been disoriented by the enemy attacks, possibly suffering minor brain injuries
5: The MC suffers -1 toughness (to a minimum of 4) for the rest of the game as a chunk of its chitin falls off, its armour cracks, or its hide is peeled away revealing its soft organs
6: The MC suffers -1 attacks (to a minimum of 1) for the rest of the game as it has either had a weapon damaged or one of its limbs severed in the fighting

Riptides wouldn't be as scary if you could make them regular MCs or toughess 5 with a single wound.

I like that damage chart

I'd prefer something simpler myself. If they simply acquired "damage" tokens that stacked to confer penalties, sort of how Pain Tokens stack and provide benefits.

The less bookkeeping the better imo

 Dakkamite wrote:
I'd prefer something simpler myself. If they simply acquired "damage" tokens that stacked to confer penalties, sort of how Pain Tokens stack and provide benefits.

The less bookkeeping the better imo

That would be nice. However what order would you suggest? I mean the order should be so that low wound (<5) MCs actually worry about taking wounds beyond dying, while high wound MCs (>5) aren't totally neutered by the time they die.

T9 is too high, especially when it has a 2+ save.
Missile launchers go from potenially being able to hurt it to laughable. Autocannons as well.
Ironclads should be T8, regular dreads T7. Yes bolters can now hurt them(but not likely) but they now dont have weakness to chainfists/haywire grenades, melta. They also dont have a weak spot on their rear armor.

Dont forget i added in the special rule that their armor save downgrades by 1 every time they take a wound. This is to represent layers of armor slowly being peeled away by fire.

If you want simplicity - add a super-heavy-like damage table. That actually aplies to MC and not Walkers. Probably whould apply to multi-wound models either but it's hard to judge now.

When a MC suffers an unsaved wound, roll d6.
If the wound was caused by ap2 weapon add +1. If the wound was caused by ap1 weapon add +2.

If the result is 6 or more, MC looses one additional wound. (or d3 if you really hate mc's).

 koooaei wrote:
If you want simplicity - add a super-heavy-like damage table. That actually aplies to MC and not Walkers. Probably whould apply to multi-wound models either but it's hard to judge now.

When a MC suffers an unsaved wound, roll d6.
If the wound was caused by ap2 weapon add +1. If the wound was caused by ap1 weapon add +2.

If the result is 6 or more, MC looses one additional wound. (or d3 if you really hate mc's).

Ow my carnifexes.

Anywayz, i don't want to nerf tyranid mc's but want to nerf riptides and wraithknights a bit. That's more of a codex ballance issue. As for me, Wraithknights should be t7 and a bit less expensive. Allowing them to be threatened by s4. Still very-very tough but more in a line. And riptides...don't know how to fix them. I play orkses so don't care much for ap2 but most other armies do - so not up to me to decide.

About walkers. I think they all should get Hammer Of Wrath for the start. For free ofc. What's walker's main problem? They're slow, not durable enough and have very few attacks so can be easilly tarpitted.

1. Slow - can't help much in here. Those who have deepstrike, droppods or move-shoot-run are fine so it's a codex issue. Also, maulerfiends that move 12' are extremely fast.
2. Not durable enough. Same thing here. The best thing i can think of is 5++ invul but that's more of a codex issue once again. For example, i'd not call ironclad dreads fragile. The enemy has to throw his hard-hitters at av13 and you can get in place via droppod. And when you look at nurgle soulgrinders in cover...all in all there are some walkers that are rather tough thanks to flavour they get in their dexes.
3. Problem of being tarpitted by a horde. Now that's something we can help a bit. What about some extra attacks at walker's base str and ap- representing them smashing and kicking the opponents not only with the weapons but with sheer weight of the hull parts? Like an intensely raging warmachine they should be up close.

+d3 base str ap- attacks at ini 1 every round.

 koooaei wrote:
Anywayz, i don't want to nerf tyranid mc's but want to nerf riptides and wraithknights a bit. That's more of a codex ballance issue. As for me, Wraithknights should be t7 and a bit less expensive. Allowing them to be threatened by s4. Still very-very tough but more in a line. And riptides...don't know how to fix them. I play orkses so don't care much for ap2 but most other armies do - so not up to me to decide.

About walkers. I think they all should get Hammer Of Wrath for the start. For free ofc. What's walker's main problem? They're slow, not durable enough and have very few attacks so can be easilly tarpitted.

1. Slow - can't help much in here. Those who have deepstrike, droppods or move-shoot-run are fine so it's a codex issue. Also, maulerfiends that move 12' are extremely fast.
2. Not durable enough. Same thing here. The best thing i can think of is 5++ invul but that's more of a codex issue once again. For example, i'd not call ironclad dreads fragile. The enemy has to throw his hard-hitters at av13 and you can get in place via droppod. And when you look at nurgle soulgrinders in cover...all in all there are some walkers that are rather tough thanks to flavour they get in their dexes.
3. Problem of being tarpitted by a horde. Now that's something we can help a bit. What about some extra attacks at walker's base str and ap- representing them smashing and kicking the opponents not only with the weapons but with sheer weight of the hull parts? Like an intensely raging warmachine they should be up close.

+d3 base str ap- attacks at ini 1 every round.

Wraithlords have always been impervious to bolters since Wraithlords have been a thing, and the rather meh saves on Wraithknights and not too spectacular guns on Wraithknights prevent them from being a problem like Ion riptides are. The overall theme of all Eldar wraith units is abnormally high toughness values for a unit of their class, trading in a lot of the usual speed associated with the Eldar and having somewhat reduced relative killyness per point compared to the usual Eldar glass cannons.

Overall I've not overly been bothered by wraithknights.

I will agree that the jump from AV12 to AV13 walkers is pretty huge. AV13 walkers are generally thought of as being very resilient and tough, while AV12 and below walkers are much less so. It's quite spectacular how much difference one added point of AV makes.

As for tar pitting, MCs tend to have this too, you pay for a resilient, hard hitting platform for not having the same volume of attacks as infantry. Thirty hormagaunts can tear through thirty cultists no problem, three carnifexes may take some time to do the same.

I'd say that Walkers generally deserve Hammer of wrath just like MCs, even a sentinel ramming into a unit should cause some disruption.

In any case; with your changes, I'd probably cut down Tyranid, Daemonic, Squiggoth, and Kroot monstrous creatures in points.

Save for some cheese builds for Daemons (namely those that give 2++ rerollables) these MCs are relatively tame; even with biomancy due to the many options available to mess with psykers, the unreliability of getting Iron Arm in the first place, and for the most part these are either short ranged or melee focused.

Also, if we are going to punish MCs, I'm unsure if multiwound HQs and the like should be let off the hook.

It'd be hardly fitting to end the glory days of Uber-Princes only for Build a beatstick HQs to supplant them as the greatest terror on the battlefield.

So, considering walkers.

I think everyone's happy with HoW rule to them. What about making HoW concussive or strikedown? That'd be somewhat interesting. For example to give some slim chances vs MC.

And what do you think about d3 additional base-str ap- attacks at ini 1 to handle tarpits a tiny bit more?

 Ashiraya wrote:
On the other hand, why would a Sentinel have smash?

Sentinels should get a S6AP2 attack in close combat. HAVE YOU SEEN THAT CHAINSWORD?

While I do think Walkers need a boost, perhaps it's an apt time to reconsider Monstrous Creatures too?

Perhaps they should only be AP3 generally?

 Slaanesh-Devotee wrote:
While I do think Walkers need a boost, perhaps it's an apt time to reconsider Monstrous Creatures too?

Perhaps they should only be AP3 generally?

This results in massively punishing the Tyranids for the sins of other armies, which I generally dislike for obvious reasons.

It also goes against years of game design. MCs ignored armor or got huge modifiers against saves for as long as I can remember.

I'd rather AV>12 Walkers be competitive with MCs, rather than MCs brought down to Walker level.

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
On the other hand, why would a Sentinel have smash?

Sentinels should get a S6AP2 attack in close combat. HAVE YOU SEEN THAT CHAINSWORD?

It's optional though. I almost never see sentinels built with it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, it is a great shame that it is so difficult to bring down Wraithknights and Riptides without punishing the Tyranids.

Okay, maybe Flyrants are somewhat OP, but still.

Vehicles in general need:

- A blanket +1 hull point across the game, or at the very least, more expensive (around 100 point range,) 3 HP models should be moved to 4, while the 200+ point 4 HP models should move to 5.

- An armor save against glancing hits removing a hull point, varying per model. Penetrating hits ignore this save.

- A minus 1 modifier to the pen chart result for every 2 hull points currently on the vehicle (before removing one for the current shot in question.) Any results of 0 or below simply remove a hull point with no other damage effects, like a failed save against a glancing hit.
The result of this is that say...a dark eldar raider would get -1 to the first penetrating hit (assuming there were no glances beforehand,) netting a total roll modifier of 0 due to open-topped, plus the 1 or 2 bonus for AP. Meanwhile, a land raider would get -2 until it lost at least 2 HP, and then -1 until it got to its last HP. So the first pen on it could not do anything more than take off a weapon without an AP bonus, immobilize it if it was AP2. AP1 could still blow it up on the first shot, but the chances are drastically reduced.

niv-mizzet wrote:
Vehicles in general need:

- A blanket +1 hull point across the game, or at the very least, more expensive (around 100 point range,) 3 HP models should be moved to 4, while the 200+ point 4 HP models should move to 5.

- An armor save against glancing hits removing a hull point, varying per model. Penetrating hits ignore this save.

- A minus 1 modifier to the pen chart result for every 2 hull points currently on the vehicle (before removing one for the current shot in question.) Any results of 0 or below simply remove a hull point with no other damage effects, like a failed save against a glancing hit.
The result of this is that say...a dark eldar raider would get -1 to the first penetrating hit (assuming there were no glances beforehand,) netting a total roll modifier of 0 due to open-topped, plus the 1 or 2 bonus for AP. Meanwhile, a land raider would get -2 until it lost at least 2 HP, and then -1 until it got to its last HP. So the first pen on it could not do anything more than take off a weapon without an AP bonus, immobilize it if it was AP2. AP1 could still blow it up on the first shot, but the chances are drastically reduced.

You make Wave Serpents very happy.