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The vehicle upgrades part of the weapon destroyed rule allows buying a bolter to give your Vindicator a 50/50 chance of keeping its main gun.

The weapon you want to knock out is the scatter laser, since that provides twin linked most of the time. With that down, the output is seriously degraded.

RAW the shield is not a weapon, but vehicle equipment. I understand the desire to change that, but besides said desire being aired, no actual rule based arguments to support the cause without selective reading or squinting have been brought forward.

BRB P.74 Vehicle damage table, weapon destroyed:
"One of the vehicle's weapons (randomly chosen) is destroyed - including combi- or built-in weapons."

Weapons. A Combi-weapon weapon that combines two weapons into one, usually with restrictions, e.g. combi melta.

"This can include vehicle upgrades that function as weapons, such as pintle mounted storm-bolters or a hunter-killer missile."

The key word here being UPGRADES, I.e. buy more weapons, split the destroyed result chance between stock and add-on weapons.

I don't have my Eldar Codex at hand, but it lists the serpent shield as gear, explains that it can be discharged, which then is handled as a shooting attack with the profile we know. I cannot buy a serpent shield as an upgrade for any unit in the codex, ergo it is not an upgrade.

The first sentence does not touch the shield since it is not a weapon.
The second sentence does not affect it, since it is not an upgrade.

Clearly, the weapon destroyed rules do not affect the serpent shield.

 Happyjew wrote:
Query - what Imperium vehicles do not come standard with Smoke Launchers and/or Searchlights? Doesn't almost every vehicle have them? Yet they are listed as upgrades.

Don't grey knights have to spent a point per searchlight?

The actual point was however that the intention of that second sentence explicitly includes the add-on weapons in the random allocation for the first sentence. Presumably because without it people would argue that since the weapon isn't stock they get to ignore them and destroy the main gun instead.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
[offtopic]The reason I ask what a "weapon" counts as was for the somewhat unrelated Fire Barrels upgrade in the AM Codex. [/offtopic]

I maintain that the Serpent Shield can be destroyed.

Here's a hypothetical: If the Serpent Shield came stock on a Wave Serpent, or could be bought as an upgrade for a Falcon for X points, would it count as an upgrade in both cases, neither in both cases, or an upgrade in one case but not in another?

Eldar Codex p97 "Wave Serpents may take items from the Eldar Vehicle Equipment list."

Vehicle Equipment List and items, not upgrades and upgrade list. It appears the common English definition applies. That means add-on improvements or replacements, not stock gear.

There is no point cost listed for the serpent shield, ergo it cannot be an upgrade.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:

Vehicle Equipment List and items, not upgrades and upgrade list. It appears the common English definition applies. That means add-on improvements or replacements, not stock gear.

Except that the BRB lists several pieces of stock wargear and calls them upgrades. Clearly the common English definition does NOT apply.

The BRB does have a page titled vehicle upgrades, which does include items that can be found stock on IOM vehicles. p.87 BRB
However, the BRB vehicle upgrade list
- doesn't list the serpent shield.
- lists items which are/were not found stock on IOM vehicles.

The authors just called these entries what they are: vehicle upgrades.
There is no section explaining what constitutes an upgrade, ergo upgrade is taken from English, not 40k-ish.

The serpent shield cannot be bought for points and added an upgrade.
The serpent shield is installed stock in all serpents.
Ergo, it is not an upgrade.

Murrdox wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:

Vehicle Equipment List and items, not upgrades and upgrade list. It appears the common English definition applies. That means add-on improvements or replacements, not stock gear.

Except that the BRB lists several pieces of stock wargear and calls them upgrades. Clearly the common English definition does NOT apply.

I think Stephanius has a point... indirectly. I don't think it matters whether or not the Serpent Shield is defined as an "Upgrade" to determine whether or not it counts as a weapon that is a viable target for the "Weapon Destroyed" result.

However, he is correct and it is worth noting that the Serpent Shield appears in the Eldar codex under the "Vehicle Equipment" and NOT under the "Ranged Weapons" category, along with the Prism Cannon, Doom Weaver, and other Eldar vehicle weapons. The Eldar Codex could have JUST as easily put the Serpent Shield in the "Ranged Weapons" category, and then explained the additional bonuses that it also functions as a shield.

But they didn't.

They put it in as a piece of equipment that has an optional profile that CAN be used as a weapon. I also think that the prior precedence of the Deff-Rolla not counting as a weapon lends strength to the argument. Yes, the Deff Rolla doesn't have a full weapon profile, but it certainly generates hits and could be called a "weapon". The same could be said of Tau Flechette dischargers. It's not the exact same thing, no.

This is actually the argumentation due to which the first rule sentence of weapon destroyed (randomly chosen weapon) is not applicable.
The serpent shield is not listed in the weapon sections of the armoury or summary.
"In it's shooting phase, the Wave Serpent can deactivate its shields to shoot a burst of energy with the following profile (treat this as a hull mounted weapon pointing forward):" p67 Codex Eldar.
The serpent shield is vehicle equipment that can be discharged as a burst of energy. This burst of energy (not the shield) is then treated as a hull-mounted weapon pointing forward.
So the shield is never treated as a weapon, it generates a burst of energy which is treated as one.

By deliberately NOT listing the serpent shield under weapons and not sticking the weapon label on it in any other way, the codex authors did not define it as weapon and make not eligible to be destroyed separately. Since it isn't an upgrade in any way either, and since not the shield, but only it's discharge energy burst have a weapon profile, the second sentence of the weapon destroyed rule which includes upgrades that function as weapons, does not apply either.

Conclusion: You can not destroy the serpent shield separately from the serpent, since it is neither classified as weapon, upgrade or functions as a weapon. They only way to destroy the serpent shield is to destory the serpent.

Apparently you didn't actually read my last post, otherwise you wouldn't have missed the new argument which does away with the "functions as weapon part".

The discussion is useless - like the poll - if one isn't willing to consider RAW arguments. HIWPI is just that. No actual RAW arguments for the serpent shield falling under the weapon destroyed rule have been presented.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:
Apparently you didn't actually read my last post, otherwise you wouldn't have missed the new argument which does away with the "functions as weapon part".

The discussion is useless - like the poll - if one isn't willing to consider RAW arguments. HIWPI is just that. No actual RAW arguments for the serpent shield falling under the weapon destroyed rule have been presented.

There's a bit of a problem with your argument in that it's part fluff and part rules. For example, if I wrote the sentence "A battlecannon can fire a massive shell downrange with the following profile: (XYZ)" then by your argument the battlecannon isn't a weapon, the weapon is the shell.

It's obviously meant as a bit of fluff to spice up the rule, though.

The battlecannon fires the shell, ergo the shell is the projectile/ammo and the battlecannon is the weapon. The serpent shield entry is different from your example since it states that the serpent fires a burst of energy, which then is treated as a weapon. So technically the shield itself is not a weapon and cannot be fired. It can however be disabled and the surplus energy can be fired by the serpent.

Now, if you disregard that as fluff, the shield is still not an upgrade and not a weapon, leaving us with the same result, which is supported by the choices made be the codex eldar authors in how they list and describe the shield.

As further "upgrade" evidence I'd like to point to the German Version of the BRB, which explicitly lists additional vehicle equipment in the weapon destroyed rule.

 Baragash wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:
not a weapon

It doesn't need to be a weapon.

RAW it has to be a weapon OR an upgrade that functions as a weapon.

Since the shield is not listed as weapon and is not available or listed as upgrade (RAW) or additional stuff purchased by the player (RAI), neither the condition for the first sentence nor the pair of conditions for the second sentence are met. Ergo, not applicable.

I understand that non-Eldar players would prefer this to be different, but I do not see anyone pointing out rules that support the view.

 Happyjew wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:

 Baragash wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:
not a weapon

It doesn't need to be a weapon.

RAW it has to be a weapon OR an upgrade that functions as a weapon.

Since the shield is not listed as weapon and is not available or listed as upgrade (RAW) or additional stuff purchased by the player (RAI), neither the condition for the first sentence nor the pair of conditions for the second sentence are met. Ergo, not applicable.

I understand that non-Eldar players would prefer this to be different, but I do not see anyone pointing out rules that support the view.

You do realize that I'm an Eldar player and I advocate that it can be destroyed? As I said in my first post, nobody else (including non-Eldar players) in my store agree with my interpretation, and if it was destroyed we have no idea if that affects the defensive capabilities as well.

No, I did not. My apologies. Yet, maybe ending up with questionable results thanks to the dual nature of the item was the motivation behind not labelling the shield as a weapon. We have no way of knowing the intentions, hence me sticking to the couple of relevant sentences.

Or it could be d6+1 s7 autohits at ini 10 in the first round of melee.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Lungpickle wrote:
It's war gear and not a weapon, there is no mounting for it, and it can't be destroyed. That's it, use simple logic and move along. Trying to get 10 people here to agree based off of GWS incredibly lack luster writing is trying to win verbal argument with a mute person , only one in the convo sounds crazy. The faq's used by some tourneys I have gone to have ruled it not able to be destroyed and that's perfectly fine. It's just a piece of war gear.

It doesn't have to be a weapon to be able to be destroyed. The only requirement is that it can act like one. Which the serpent shield can.

That is incorrect. Please read that second sentence of the rule again.

The requirements for stuff on vehicles "weapon destroyed" can affect are:
a) it's a weapon
OR
b) it's an upgrade that (AND) functions as a weapon

The shield isn't classified as a weapon anywhere in the Eldar codex, so (a) is out.
The shield is not an upgrade, it cannot be bought. Since the first half of (b) isn't met, it is irrelevant if the second half is met, and (b) is out too.

The codex authors really went out of their way to have the shield not listed or labelled as weapon anywhere in the codex and did describe the way the shield functions so that it isn't even functioning or treated as a weapon but rather deactivating the shield frees up energy that can be fired forward by the serpent.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
There's someone who thinks the energy blast is the only part of the Serpent Shield treated as a weapon, I'd imagine they would have that opinion.

You are thinking of either Phil Kelly or Matt Ward, authors of the Eldar Codex, right? I just pointed out what it says there, I didn't come up with it.

Warmonger2757 wrote:
So since we've decided it's not a weapon, it doesn't benefit from being Twin-linked after a scatter laser is successfully fired? The scatter laser rule says that it only effects weapons.

People are arguing it's not a weapon. You can't have your cake and eat it too, either it's a weapon and can be destroyed and twin linked or it's not a weapon and can't be twin linked.

Actually you can, if as in this case there are two entirely different cakes, leaving one to be eaten and the other to be - probably eaten later. ;-]

Considering that "Weapon Destroyed" and "Laser-lock" are completely different rules with different conditions, it is possible that one doesn't affect the shield and the other does.

Weapon destroyed affects weapons or upgrades that function as weapons, the shield is neither a weapon nor an upgrade.
Laser Lock's condition is a hit with the laser, and instructs us to treat all other weapons on the model as twin-linked. The serpent shield rule explicitly instructs us that the serpent firing the energy burst is treated as a hull-mounted weapon firing forward with the following profile (...). That means it is treated the same as the shuriken catapult or cannon and does benefit from Laser-Lock.

Look on the bright side, at least Eldar don't have the hell-turkey, psi-ammo/grenades/weapons, shield eternal, croissants or super-heavy walkers outside of Apo. ;-]

 PrinceRaven wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
There's someone who thinks the energy blast is the only part of the Serpent Shield treated as a weapon, I'd imagine they would have that opinion.

You are thinking of either Phil Kelly or Matt Ward, authors of the Eldar Codex, right? I just pointed out what it says there, I didn't come up with it.

In its Shooting phase, the Wave Serpent can deactivate its shields to shoot a burst of energy with the following profile (treat this as a hull-mounted weapon pointing forward): [weapon profile]"

What makes you so certain "this" refers only to the "burst of energy" and not the piece of wargear, and that the "burst of energy" is not the Serpent Shield but something completely unrelated?

That is how "this" works. It refers to the last preceeding reference to avoid repetition.

The text passage in question goes: "In its shooting phase, the Wave Serpent can deactivate its shields to shoot a burst of energy with the following profile (treat this as a hull-mounted weapon pointing forward (profile). If this option is used, the Serpent shield is inactive until the start of its following turn."

This passage is a series of statements.
"In its shooting phase, the Wave Serpent can deactivate its shields"
WTF? why would I want to deactivate my awesome no-pen on 2+ shield?

"to shoot a burst of energy"
A burst of energy? Is that supposed to be a my-little pony style eldar rainbow lightshow?

"with the following profile (treat this as a hull-mounted weapon pointing forward (profile)."
Aha, the energy burst is treated as a weapon!

"If this option is used, the Serpent shield is inactive until the start of its following turn."
So it's turn by turn, would be dumb to disable it only in your own turn, but great that it goes back online.

Phil and/or Matt could easily have said "You can fire the shield as a weapon with the following profile". They didn't.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
By the examples given in the book (pintle-mounted storm bolters, hunter-killer missiles, dozer blades, searchlights, extra armour and smoke launchers) we can determine a "vehicle upgrade is one of the following three things:
A. Only those particular 6 things
B. All Imperium of Man vehicle wargear
C. All vehicle wargear

D. All vehicle wargear you add to the default load-out.

Don't get distracted by the IOM "vehicle upgrades" listed in the BRB. Those are examples. If I buy a 60's VW Beetle and put in power-everything, that is an upgrade (or heresy), if you buy a generic US car that comes with power-everything, that is stock. Not really hard to understand or agree to, unless you really really do not want to agree because you wish it was otherwise.

 Nilok wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
By the examples given in the book (pintle-mounted storm bolters, hunter-killer missiles, dozer blades, searchlights, extra armour and smoke launchers) we can determine a "vehicle upgrade is one of the following three things:
A. Only those particular 6 things
B. All Imperium of Man vehicle wargear
C. All vehicle wargear

D. All vehicle wargear you add to the default load-out.

Don't get distracted by the IOM "vehicle upgrades" listed in the BRB. Those are examples. If I buy a 60's VW Beetle and put in power-everything, that is an upgrade (or heresy), if you buy a generic US car that comes with power-everything, that is stock. Not really hard to understand or agree to, unless you really really do not want to agree because you wish it was otherwise.

That would be nice if either were a VW Beettle or an Avalon, but it is neither and your argument doesn't make sense.
Please do not use real world examples, especially when they have no relation to the rules.

The rules do not define "Vehicle Upgrade". They list a few items that are "vehicle upgrades", clearly as examples rather than as an exhaustive list.
"Some vehicles come stock with the example vehicle upgrades, therefore all vehicle gear must be upgrades". This claim has no basis in the rules and is illogical. Me pointing out the logical fallacy of your argument using a VW Bug doesn't touch the rules, but your argument isn't rule based in the first place.

 Nilok wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Some of those examples are stock items that cannot be purchased as additional wargear, therefore the definition of a vehicle upgrade being a piece of wargear purchased as an addition to a vehicle, while logical, is false.

It isn't that some vehicles come stock with the example upgrades, it is that some of the examples can only come stock.

Some? You mean (possibly) one, the smoke launchers. Grey Knights have to buy searchlights. I have no idea if some old (current when 6th Edition was published) IOM faction codex has a vehicle that had to - or could - buy smoke launchers. If one out of four vehicle upgrades should really not be purchasable anywhere - does that matter? It would be one out of four items, clearly not much of a trend.

Please read what it says in bold right under "Vehicle Upgrades":
"It is incredibly rare for even two vehicles of the same design to be identical - many are modified by their crews in order to archieve greater battlefield efficiency (or survivability). Accordingly, many vehicles have optional upgrades - the most common of which are listed here."

This makes very clear that the authors are talking about additions to vehicles, literally upgrades as in bought for points and not stock. I think we can forgive them for having added an item that is (maybe) not a literal upgrade to the same section, they are only human after all.

The weapon destroyed rule specifies vehicle upgrades. The section is called vehicle upgrades. The introduction specifies explicitly that these are modifications, literally upgrades and announces some examples.

Are vehicle upgrades additions to the stock loadout?
Yes, the section header says so.
Yes, the section introduction says so.
Yes, three of four examples say so.

By comparison, one example being bad is a very weak argument.

Opps, stopped at four and failed counting to five. Embarassing. =/

What are you counting as not available as upgrade besides smoke launchers? As stated earlier search-lights are optional upgrades for grey knights.
So that'd make it four out of five examples being available as upgrades, not three out of four, a clear majority in either case. The section doubles as place to find the 6th Ed rules for common wargear. My guess is they shoved the search-light in there because it didn't fit elsewhere.

It is a considerable leap from "one example item cannot be bought!" to "all vehicle gear in all of 40k must be meant!". A leap that isn't supported by anything written in the BRB. Steering the discussion to the vehicle upgrade section with it's examples is an attempt to be obtuse what the word "Upgrade" might mean. Not my idea.

The introduction of the vehicle upgrades is as close as the BRB gets to defining vehicle upgrades. It contains a bunch of synonyms for upgrades and thereby eliminates any chance of the author's misuse of the word or a misunderstanding.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
To those arguing that the Serpent Shield is not a weapon upgrade because you didn't purchase it as an addition to the Wave Serpent, I'd like to direct you to Tenet 6 of YMDC:
"6. Dictionary definitions of words are not always a reliable source of information for rules debates, as words in the general English language have broader meanings than those in the rules. This is further compounded by the fact that certain English words have different meanings or connotations in Great Britain (where the rules were written) and in the United States. Unless a poster is using a word incorrectly in a very obvious manner, leave dictionary definitions out. "

That makes a lot of sense whenever the BRB offers a definition that conflicts with the meaning or one of the meanings of the word in common English useage.
It makes no sense in this case, where the BRB and the English usage align perfectly:

BRB, p. 87 "Vehicle Upgrades":
"It is incredibly rare for even two vehicles of the same design to be identical - many are modified by their crews in order to archieve greater battlefield efficiency (or survivability). Accordingly, many vehicles have optional upgrades - the most common of which are listed here."

Merriam-Webster:
"up·grade, noun \ˈəp-ˌgrād\
: an area or surface that goes upward : an upward slope
: an occurrence in which one thing is replaced by something better, newer, more valuable, etc.

As the Tenet implies, a 40k definition supercedes a common English definition. Otherwise the rulebook would not work.
However, the only 40k defintion for "vehicle upgrade" explicitly states that optional upgrades, improvements, modifications are meant.

Unless anyone finds a smoke-launcher purchaseable as upgrade, we can agree that the authors went against their stated definition by including the smoke launcher under vehicle upgrades.
What this doesn't do however, is change the definition or invalidate the four other examples - which are upgrades in the sense of the BRB and the English language.

In a RAW argument it is irrelevant what you'd like to see written down in the rules. What matters is what is written down in the official rulebooks.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Please don't break out dictionary definitions. It's generally considered bad form in YMDC. There's more than enough terms in 40k that mean something entirely different than what the dictionary definition states. As has been shown repeatedly in fact, 'upgrade' is one of them!

No such thing has been shown, only claimed by way of assumptions. There isn't one shred of written BRB or Codex evidence for your point of view.
Please show me a passage of text that actually makes statements supporting your point of view.

Wishful thinking aside, the only point brought forward has been the smoke launcher not being available as upgrade. We do not know why it was included in the upgrade section. We can guess, but we cannot know. Assumptions or subjective interpretation do not trump, invalidate or change RAW text.

 Nilok wrote:
Stephanius, we have already explained why dictionary definitions do not work and shown why it does not line up. Please stop trying to argue definition.

I'm arguing the 40k definition of vehicle upgrade (p.87 BRB), the English definition was only included to show that there is no difference, to counter claims to the contrary.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Please don't break out dictionary definitions. It's generally considered bad form in YMDC. There's more than enough terms in 40k that mean something entirely different than what the dictionary definition states. As has been shown repeatedly in fact, 'upgrade' is one of them!

No such thing has been shown, only claimed by way of assumptions. There isn't one shred of written BRB or Codex evidence for your point of view.
Please show me a passage of text that actually makes statements supporting your point of view.

Wishful thinking aside, the only point brought forward has been the smoke launcher not being available as upgrade. We do not know why it was included in the upgrade section. We can guess, but we cannot know. Assumptions or subjective interpretation do not trump, invalidate or change RAW text.

Except that nobody plays by RAW. Nobody. (Unless you are telling me that you play where Flying Monstrous Creatures don't get Relentless or Smash. Or that you play Wraithguard as being unable to make shooting attacks.) What we CAN do is make reasonable inferences. The fact that 40% of the 'upgrades' listed in the upgrades section are almost always stock equipment seems like good evidence to reasonably infer that in context, 'upgrade' probably means 'wargear.'

That seems like a vastly more reasonable viewpoint than the opposing one, wherein a vehicle widely considered to be extremely overpowered anyway becomes even more overpowered by making its most potent weapon indestructible.

All the repetition in the world won't turn reasonable inferences into 'wishful thinking.' I think you might have joined up too late to miss the Fun List of RAW Fun. It wasn't written for the current edition, but the salient take-away from that thread was this: nobody plays by strict RAW. Everyone takes the necessary steps to interpret the rules in a reasonable manner so that we can all play a functional game. And I just can't believe that anyone could look at the rules in question here and think that interpreting them to get indestructible Serpent Shields is reasonable.

I hear you. However, unlike the examples for shoddy rule writing you provided, the rules in this case are not broken - they work just fine for most wargear, they just don't happen to match your point of view regarding the serpent shield. Reasonable is infering the use of a model's visor, helmet or head instead of non-visible eyes. If visible eyes were actually needed, power armor users would be out of luck too and could not fire.

You haven't revised your 40% stock equipment claim (to account for GK searchlight purchases) or explained how you arrived at it. I can only infer from this that you are not actually interested in valid premises and cling to the desired outcome instead.

In my (limited) experience, a units strength in relation to the point cost has nothing to do with reasonable, even in Codices where Matt Ward is not involved. There is no guaranteed value for points, there are horrible cheesy rules and units that are unfair, undercosted or both. One can try to adjust this with house rules or TO calls, but 40k is just such a horrible mess (even without FW) that it is a futile task, most likely just resulting in a differently skewed faction mix rather than an even one. Therefore RAW resulting in a unit to be subjectively too strong isn't really a valid reason to ignore RAW/RAI.

I was under the impression that the point of this thread was to determine how the serpent shield interacts with the weapon destroyed rule, based on the RAW or inferred RAI.
Your point of view is a HIWPI view, for which you cannot present RAW support. HIWPI is great, but discussing RAW vs HIWPI is futile.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
The claim "upgrades" only means "non standard equipment" is proven false by a single counter example.

That is an opinion. Just like this one:
The claim "upgrades" means "all vehicle war gear" is proven false by the overwhelming majority of valid upgrade examples and the definition at the start of the section.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
The claim "upgrades" only means "non standard equipment" is proven false by a single counter example.

This. Basic rule of science. It only takes one proven negative result to invalidate any number of positive results.

Nice real world example. This isn't science though and how real life results of scientific experiments are treated is something completely different from arguments in a rules debate.

It is entirely possible that there are concrete arguments for either side of an issue. These arguments are then examined and weighted to see which side of the scales has more pull.
In the Red corner, part 2 of the weapon destroyed rule, the vehicle upgrade section headline, it's introduction and four of five if it's examples. In the blue corner, one bad example, which incidentally isn't even relevant to the weapon destroyed rule and is only considered invalid because IOM armies get this option free of charge. Ready to take your hand off the scales?

 don_mondo wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

PapaSoul wrote:
But smoke launchers are an upgrade. Or they were to the most recently written codex at that point. UPGRADES are the only thing it applies to. Its kind of in the wording.

I think you should read through the thread first. If you can find an book that allows you to purchase Smoke Launchers then the argument fails. However, no one has provided evidence to that, to the contrary, they have been stock for the vehicles that have them.

IG Hellhound, Taurox, Sentinel. Do not come with Smoke Launchers and can purchase them.

Thank you sir!

I only have an old IG codex from 2003 here, that has optional smoke launchers as well.
I don't have the IG codex that was current when 6th edition was published.

Any confirmation on the 5th Ed Guard codex?

 PrinceRaven wrote:
So if a vehicle upgrade that functions as a weapon comes stock on a particular unit, is it now magically immune to Weapon Destroyed?

No, not magically, but logically. That was what the whole smoke launcher discussion was about. The claim was that because nobody can buy smoke launchers and everybody gets them stock (we didn't think/know about IG/AM), smoke launchers are not an upgrade; if smoke launchers are not an upgrade, then the term vehicle upgrade must apply to all vehicle war gear, not only add-ons. With the smoke launchers listed as upgrade for IG, that argument is dead in the water. Now, as demonstrated by that, if a piece of gear comes stock for somebody (SM), but is an upgrade for someone else (IG), it is still an upgrade.

Turning to the Eldar codex, there we have vehicle war gear including the serpent shield. What we don't have, is a points cost for the shield or any vehicle that can buy the serpent shield as an upgrade. Nobody can buy a serpent shield as option. Ergo, it is not an upgrade.

The second sentence of the weapon destroyed rule lists two conditions linked by a logical AND - "vehicle upgrades that" (AND) "function as a weapon". As demonstated, the shield is not an upgrade, which makes it not match the conditions for this half of the rule.

 easysauce wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

I think most people care about the rules, hence the whole discussion.
On the one hand, it has a weapon profile and is treated as a weapon, it can both benefit from laser lock and can be destroyed.
On the other hand, it is a vehicle equipment, and therefore cannot be benefit from laser lock and be destroyed.
Since "Treated as" is the same as "Is" from a rules perspective, I am still of the opinion that 59% of people who voted in the poll hold - yes it can be destroyed.

and that is 100% correct mr happyjew, if someone is going to say its a weapon, fine, its a weapon that has all those benefits. If not, and cant be destroyed, then fine, but it doesn't benefit from all those other things that benefit weapons too.
It you contend its a weapon for only the rules that benefit it, but not for those that are detrimental, then that has 0 RAW backing.
Either position could be RAW, but a mix of the two is 100% not.

Your argument is that the shield not being subject to weapon destroyed and benefiting from laser lock is unfair, and therefore cannot be correct RAW.
I sympathise with the fairness bit, but find it irrelevant when determining what the rules say. We can still conclude that the rules are stupid, unfair and we wont play that way, but that is HIWPI.

I think we agree now that the serpent shield is not an vehicle upgrade.

The next and hopefully final question is how to evaluate the serpent shield rule text to determine if it is a weapon or not. As demonstrated by people jumping all over the "functions as a weapon" condition of the weapon destroyed rule, that question is not so easily answered. The Codex authors did not include the shield under weapons, call it a weapon or list it in the weapon summary. The shield is listed in vehicle wargear, not in the weapons section of the armoury. So it doesn't become a weapon by declaration. Let's look at the serpent shield entry in the vehicle war gear section of the Eldar codex.

The serpent shield entry starts with fluff in italics, then describes the defensive part of the shield. This is followed by a paragraph that describes what happens when you deactivate the shield. This paragraph is "In its shooting phase, the wave serpent can deactivate its shields to shoot a burst of energy with the following profile (threat this as a hull-mounted weapon pointing forward):" followed by the profile and another sentence that clarifies that the shields will be down until the start of the serpents following turn.

I claim that the serpent shield has exclusively defensive properties. The shield is referenced clearly in the first rule paragraph as the cause of the protection from penetrating hits. The only mention the shield gets in the second rule paragraph is that the shield is deactivated. From then on, the serpent is the actor and a burst of energy is fired. Gramatically and logically, the weapon profile applies to the burst of energy and not to the serpent shield. The rules do not state that the shield is fired. The shield is deactiavted, which allows a shooting attack to be made. Since it is not the shield that the weapon profile applies to, the existence of the profile doesn't make the shield function as a weapon or be a weapon.

Since the surplus energy that is available for shooting after deactivating the shield isn't an upgrade or a weapon, it cannot be destroyed. While vehicles obviously are not psykers, my understanding is that the shooting attack works similar to a witchfire, but uses surplus energy rather than warp charges.

TL;DR:
So, the burst of energy is treated as a hull mounted weapon, ergo it is affected by laser lock.
The serpent shield isn't a weapon by declaration or it's own rules, it also isn't an upgrade, ergo it cannot be affected by weapon destroyed.

 Altruizine wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Some of those examples are stock items that cannot be purchased as additional wargear, therefore the definition of a vehicle upgrade being a piece of wargear purchased as an addition to a vehicle, while logical, is false.

It isn't that some vehicles come stock with the example upgrades, it is that some of the examples can only come stock.

Some? You mean (possibly) one, the smoke launchers. Grey Knights have to buy searchlights. I have no idea if some old (current when 6th Edition was published) IOM faction codex has a vehicle that had to - or could - buy smoke launchers. If one out of four vehicle upgrades should really not be purchasable anywhere - does that matter? It would be one out of four items, clearly not much of a trend.

Please read what it says in bold right under "Vehicle Upgrades":
"It is incredibly rare for even two vehicles of the same design to be identical - many are modified by their crews in order to archieve greater battlefield efficiency (or survivability). Accordingly, many vehicles have optional upgrades - the most common of which are listed here."

This makes very clear that the authors are talking about additions to vehicles, literally upgrades as in bought for points and not stock. I think we can forgive them for having added an item that is (maybe) not a literal upgrade to the same section, they are only human after all.

However, this direction of argument (first brought up on page 2) fails under scrutiny. I was going to mention it earlier, but the discussion moved in a different direction, and the anti-destroyed camp settled on some different snippets of verbiage to make their case.

At any rate, using the plain English definition of upgrade doesn't get you anywhere by itself, because there's no baseline set for the initial "stock" object that is being upgraded. You could just as validly consider the starting point to be a "stock vehicle" (ie. BS + Armour Values + Vehicle Type + all the general rules governing vehicles) as you could consider it to be a "stock Wave Serpent" (ie. everything previously mentioned, but in the specific allotments granted to a Wave Serpent + the specific starting weapons and gear of the Serpent).

The point about Smoke Launchers now being an optional choice somewhere in the game is an interesting development.

I wonder if there are there any counter-examples of an "upgrade weapon" being included in a vehicle's basic gear? Ie. a vehicle that comes with an automatic Hunter- Killer missile, or something like that?

If someone can buy the item for points, it must be an upgrade.
If nobody can buy the item for points (or swap it in), it cannot be an upgrade.

In the weapon destroyed rule, it doesn't really matter if a "weapon" is an upgrade or not, since the first sentence doesn't define stock or upgrade. If it's a weapon - such as a bolter, or hunter killer missile - that will do fine with the first sentence. Therefore I'm not sure how helpful discussing these items is to the serpent shield discussion.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Agreed, if you can buy it with points, it is an upgrade. However that is not the only, exclusive definition of upgrade that there is - anthing over and above base vehicle stats can be considered an upgrade.
...

It would be helpful if you'd provide the reasoning that led to your conclusion, or the rule source for your definition.

The one and only "definition" source we've found in this thread is the start of the vehicle upgrades section. That makes clear that upgrades are modifications or additions to vehicles performed by the crew in the field. That logically excludes the gear the generic vehicle has ex-factory aka codex entry.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Agreed, if you can buy it with points, it is an upgrade. However that is not the only, exclusive definition of upgrade that there is - anthing over and above base vehicle stats can be considered an upgrade.
...

It would be helpful if you'd provide the reasoning that led to your conclusion, or the rule source for your definition.

The one and only "definition" source we've found in this thread is the start of the vehicle upgrades section. That makes clear that upgrades are modifications or additions to vehicles performed by the crew in the field. That logically excludes the gear the generic vehicle has ex-factory aka codex entry.

Which is fluff, not rules. I provided the reasoning, that an upgrade is also anything above base stats, eg tank is an upgrade

That is a claim, a conclusion, not the reasoning on how you arrive at the point or the rules/examples you base yourself on.
If anything, you'd start from the vehicle type as the chassis and then apply things like armour, propulsion and armament from there.

Regardless of how you evaluate the vehicle upgrade intro, the example upgrades make it quite clear that the BRB considers upgrades to match the "fluff intro" exactly.
Considering that it is impossible to get a tank chassis, a 11/11/10 armour or a serpent shield seperately everything that is included in the package deal cannot be an upgrade.