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Hi all,

I've recently been thinking the rules for tanks (and walkers to some extent) are rubbish.I'm not new to the game so i know it's not a new theory, but they just seem really pointless.

To start off with they don't get any form of generic save (I'm not including cover as some tanks don't get it as frequently) which means you're basically rolling to wound and then to see damage you've done. Seems unfair when you're carrying around tons of armor plating.
You can move but will really impact your performance making tanks a case of sit still or pivot and shoot marginally effectively or advance and pretty much forgo shooting (unless your fast).
They're slow (unless a fast and/or skimmer).
They can only shoot 1 target despite the weapons being mounted for various uses (imperial tanks case in point).
They have, on average, 3 wounds but can be instantly killed by any weapon (if it's capable of damaging them), where as instant death is more rare for models.
They get wrecked with ease in HtH (which somewhat makes sense I suppose)

Just seems silly to me that they are so useless.

Tanks should be slow, unless they're specifically not (skimmers, light/fast, etc).
A vehicle's protection is AV, which most weapons cannot touch at all. An AV10 is out of the reach of Lasguns, for instance.

That being said, 1 target is silly, if there's any reason it has gun arrays or gunnery crew.
HP is too low for a lot of vehicles, and 4 should be the norm, I would say.
HtH should be graded by speed, as in 5th. A Turbo-boosting skimmer should be a lot harder to hit than a house-sized LRBT that is just turning on the spot.

I found most to be very weak

Tanks are awesome.
They always will be!

I don't think its the tank rules themselves that cause issues. Its the abundance of mid to high strength guns of some armies.

Jeeeez OP, tanks for nuthin.

Tanks had bad durability issues even in 5th edition where you could stunlock them with glancing hits. Hull points got around that a little bit, but at the expense of being a lot easier to wreck the vehicle. Having no save and taking damage over the course of the game with the damage table I wouldn't mind, were it not for the fact that monstrous creatures get more wounds, have a save, and lose none of their potency as they take damage. A Hive Tyrant with a single wound left is just as dangerous as one that's fresh, but this is rarely the case with vehicles.

I also miss how speed affected how easily you hit vehicles in close combat. In 5th edition, it was 4+ to hit something at combat speed, 6+ for cruising speed or faster. This made a lot of sense to me, as I imagine it's quite difficult to nail a moving target with a grenade especially if you're terrified it's going to run you over in the process. I also absolutely despise the always hit rear armour value rule. I see no reason why assaults should not be resolved by facing as shooting is, and it would make krak grenades and melta bombs not so redundant.

Tanks have too few HP and are way too easy to kill given their costs, all we can hope for is that 7th does something to improve this but i'm not holding my breath.

It depends. Leman Russ are tough nuggets since you actually have to kill the damned thing to get it to stop shooting which isn't easy given it's high AV. There will also undoubtedly be more of them which further complicates the issue. Rhinos are piss easy to get rid of, though.

Tanks are way to weak in this edition. Now, im not saying they should be overpowered, but I think it would be really cool if we saw more debilitating damage on tanks. Im sick of both my leman russes being blown up on turn one! If anything, make the Explodes! result take away D3 hull points, resolving the result if this causes the tank to be wrecked. I remember in 5th edition, when my Russes could take a beating, be down to a bolter sponson and a lascannon and still be awesome. It seems now that if someone gets a penetrating hit, its going to explode no matter what. And those fething skimmers, with their 4+ cover save! everything ignores my tanks cover save! Why cant I ignore theirs?! And while AV 14 might seem tough, all it takes is one hammerhead with that a-hole character and its all over. Im not just complaining on my end, either- most vehicles I fight are gone in the first two turns. Its kinda boring when tanks- big, scary tanks- play such a little role in Warhammer. Again, I don't want them to be overpowered, just... viable.

increase hull points by about 1.5 across the board and tanks get as LOT tougher.

it also gives a wider range of numbers to use too. as right now almost EVERY vehicle in the game is 3 HPs.

Tanks in general in 6E are very weak (barring the skimmer armies that can stand in the open with 4+ cover saves and still fire at full effect or nearly so). This is the edition of MC's, bikes, and Deathstars.

Tanks have to deal with two overlapping kill systems, with a vehicle damage table from past editions, and what amounts to a modified Toughness/Wound mechanism and no armor/invul saves, on top of being absurdly easy to hit in CC and being completely unable to interact with mission objectives outside a couple special circumstances.

GW needs to either dump the vehicle damage table and give vehicles a save and treat them like pseudo-MC's, or they need to drop the HP thing and stick with the damage table. Having two overlapping kill mechanics is absurd.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Tanks in general in 6E are very weak (barring the skimmer armies that can stand in the open with 4+ cover saves and still fire at full effect or nearly so). This is the edition of MC's, bikes, and Deathstars.

Tanks have to deal with two overlapping kill systems, with a vehicle damage table from past editions, and what amounts to a modified Toughness/Wound mechanism and no armor/invul saves, on top of being absurdly easy to hit in CC and being completely unable to interact with mission objectives outside a couple special circumstances.

GW needs to either dump the vehicle damage table and give vehicles a save and treat them like pseudo-MC's, or they need to drop the HP thing and stick with the damage table. Having two overlapping kill mechanics is absurd.

Wouldn't the latter cripple weapons that rely on Haywire to kill vehicles (like my Tentaclids) and make Gauss largely little more than a nuisance again?

 Kain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Tanks in general in 6E are very weak (barring the skimmer armies that can stand in the open with 4+ cover saves and still fire at full effect or nearly so). This is the edition of MC's, bikes, and Deathstars.

Tanks have to deal with two overlapping kill systems, with a vehicle damage table from past editions, and what amounts to a modified Toughness/Wound mechanism and no armor/invul saves, on top of being absurdly easy to hit in CC and being completely unable to interact with mission objectives outside a couple special circumstances.

GW needs to either dump the vehicle damage table and give vehicles a save and treat them like pseudo-MC's, or they need to drop the HP thing and stick with the damage table. Having two overlapping kill mechanics is absurd.

Wouldn't the latter cripple weapons that rely on Haywire to kill vehicles (like my Tentaclids) and make Gauss largely little more than a nuisance again?

haywire kills vehicles stupidly easy this edition (hooray strip a hullpoint from any AV on a 2+ with each hit!), and at the same time isn't hugely widespread, so it's impact is relatively minimal. Even so, you'd very easily be able to stunlock them if GW went back to a 5E style damage table. Gauss likewise wouldn't have the killing power it does now (and I think that would be a good thing) but would be more capable at disabling vehicles.

Gauss.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Tanks in general in 6E are very weak (barring the skimmer armies that can stand in the open with 4+ cover saves and still fire at full effect or nearly so). This is the edition of MC's, bikes, and Deathstars.

Tanks have to deal with two overlapping kill systems, with a vehicle damage table from past editions, and what amounts to a modified Toughness/Wound mechanism and no armor/invul saves, on top of being absurdly easy to hit in CC and being completely unable to interact with mission objectives outside a couple special circumstances.

GW needs to either dump the vehicle damage table and give vehicles a save and treat them like pseudo-MC's, or they need to drop the HP thing and stick with the damage table. Having two overlapping kill mechanics is absurd.

Wouldn't the latter cripple weapons that rely on Haywire to kill vehicles (like my Tentaclids) and make Gauss largely little more than a nuisance again?

haywire kills vehicles stupidly easy this edition (hooray strip a hullpoint from any AV on a 2+ with each hit!), and at the same time isn't hugely widespread, so it's impact is relatively minimal. Even so, you'd very easily be able to stunlock them if GW went back to a 5E style damage table. Gauss likewise wouldn't have the killing power it does now (and I think that would be a good thing) but would be more capable at disabling vehicles.

Tentaclids is also the main thing that lets Crones be worth it as an air-superiority fighter.

With the old rules I'd have to bank purely on vector striking other fliers.

Fliers which can often easily outpace the Crone.

Fliers which include Doomscythes that can sweep anything not a monstrous creature off the table.

I wouldn't accept this without docking down the price of everything with Gauss and Haywire.

My Crones would have to cost 2/3rds of what they do now, minimum.

Of course the Tyranid army as a whole is currently a terrible broken mess that's patched together by overpriced DLC.

I mean, we're the army that made monstrous creatures a big thing in the game, yet we don't get anything even remotely as good as Riptides, or even Wraithknights.

 Kain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Tanks in general in 6E are very weak (barring the skimmer armies that can stand in the open with 4+ cover saves and still fire at full effect or nearly so). This is the edition of MC's, bikes, and Deathstars.

Tanks have to deal with two overlapping kill systems, with a vehicle damage table from past editions, and what amounts to a modified Toughness/Wound mechanism and no armor/invul saves, on top of being absurdly easy to hit in CC and being completely unable to interact with mission objectives outside a couple special circumstances.

GW needs to either dump the vehicle damage table and give vehicles a save and treat them like pseudo-MC's, or they need to drop the HP thing and stick with the damage table. Having two overlapping kill mechanics is absurd.

Wouldn't the latter cripple weapons that rely on Haywire to kill vehicles (like my Tentaclids) and make Gauss largely little more than a nuisance again?

haywire kills vehicles stupidly easy this edition (hooray strip a hullpoint from any AV on a 2+ with each hit!), and at the same time isn't hugely widespread, so it's impact is relatively minimal. Even so, you'd very easily be able to stunlock them if GW went back to a 5E style damage table. Gauss likewise wouldn't have the killing power it does now (and I think that would be a good thing) but would be more capable at disabling vehicles.

Tentaclids is also the main thing that lets Crones be worth it as an air-superiority fighter.

With the old rules I'd have to bank purely on vector striking other fliers.

Fliers which can often easily outpace the Crone.

Fliers which include Doomscythes that can sweep anything not a monstrous creature off the table.

I wouldn't accept this without docking down the price of everything with Gauss and Haywire.

My Crones would have to cost 2/3rds of what they do now, minimum.

Of course the Tyranid army as a whole is currently a terrible broken mess that's patched together by overpriced DLC.

We're getting worried over one unit here, compared to an entire class of units present in every army in the game save one. I'm not going to worry about that one unit within this context. That said, as you noted, yes, the Tyranid book as a whole is an awful mess and needs reworking as an army.

The Necron stuff as it is now was introduced during 5th edition and priced at 5th edition levels before HP's existed, so if anything is undercosted currently.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Kain wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Tanks in general in 6E are very weak (barring the skimmer armies that can stand in the open with 4+ cover saves and still fire at full effect or nearly so). This is the edition of MC's, bikes, and Deathstars.

Tanks have to deal with two overlapping kill systems, with a vehicle damage table from past editions, and what amounts to a modified Toughness/Wound mechanism and no armor/invul saves, on top of being absurdly easy to hit in CC and being completely unable to interact with mission objectives outside a couple special circumstances.

GW needs to either dump the vehicle damage table and give vehicles a save and treat them like pseudo-MC's, or they need to drop the HP thing and stick with the damage table. Having two overlapping kill mechanics is absurd.

Wouldn't the latter cripple weapons that rely on Haywire to kill vehicles (like my Tentaclids) and make Gauss largely little more than a nuisance again?

haywire kills vehicles stupidly easy this edition (hooray strip a hullpoint from any AV on a 2+ with each hit!), and at the same time isn't hugely widespread, so it's impact is relatively minimal. Even so, you'd very easily be able to stunlock them if GW went back to a 5E style damage table. Gauss likewise wouldn't have the killing power it does now (and I think that would be a good thing) but would be more capable at disabling vehicles.

Tentaclids is also the main thing that lets Crones be worth it as an air-superiority fighter.

With the old rules I'd have to bank purely on vector striking other fliers.

Fliers which can often easily outpace the Crone.

Fliers which include Doomscythes that can sweep anything not a monstrous creature off the table.

I wouldn't accept this without docking down the price of everything with Gauss and Haywire.

My Crones would have to cost 2/3rds of what they do now, minimum.

Of course the Tyranid army as a whole is currently a terrible broken mess that's patched together by overpriced DLC.

We're getting worried over one unit here, compared to an entire class of units present in every army in the game save one. I'm not going to worry about that one unit within this context. That said, as you noted, yes, the Tyranid book as a whole is an awful mess and needs reworking as an army.

The Necron stuff as it is now was introduced during 5th edition and priced at 5th edition levels before HP's existed, so if anything is undercosted currently.

I'm convinced that Matt Ward knew full well that HPs were going to be a thing when he wrote the Gauss rules, especially since he removed the old auto-wound trait gauss guns had.

As I said, I'm miffed that despite the Tyranids being arguably THE monstrous creature army, most Tyranid MCs are generally either overcosted or underwhelming, or both (hello Tyrannofex!), while the Tau get a ridiculous shooty monstrous creature that is flat out better than the Tyrannofex (gets an invulnerable save, doesn't need another unit for a FNP save, much faster, superior guns, put in a less jam packed slot), the new Eldar monstrous creature has a statline better than our basic lord of war and is half the cost (but the Heirodule is a ridiculously crappy LoW to be fair), and the Dreadknight punches out just about anything in the Tyranid codex it can get it's hands on with ease.

And apparently Tyranids can't have biomancy while daemons get Biomancy AND Divinitation AND a boatload of great artifacts.

Even the Chaos Space Marines get silliness like Winged Nurgle Princes with Black maces and the Necrons can get all sorts of funky abilities on their C'tan shards while also Spyders are dirt cheap for what they can do, while Stalkers are pretty funky but fun.

Everyone getting better MCs than the definitive MC army annoys the hell out of me.

I think the OP is spot on in identifying major issues with the rules.

I think tanks should be able to pick as many targets as they have gunners (persons or computer guidance). E.g. a tank with 3 weapons and 1 gunner can only effectively target 1 unit at a time. Whereas a target with 1 main gun, and side sponsons, each with a gunner, can target 3 separate targets.

I don't think AV adds much, and the idea of some things being untouchable to weapons of certain strength is already covered by the toughness system (e.g. you only have a chance to wound things with 3 more toughness than the strength of your weapon).

I think vehicles should have directional toughness but otherwise act like any other model. I think that infantry within melee range should be able to employ a special sabotage attack, than can result in immobilization, weapons destroyed, etc, even if they can't get through the armor. That way, tanks would still be a tough nut to crack, but some grots that get in range can quickly turn it into a useless lump of metal.

The general sturdyness of a vehicle would determine its toughness, but the completeness of its protection and full coverage of its armor would determine its save. E.g. a large Ork vehicle may have high toughness and tolerate lots of damage, but have no armor save and is susceptible to sabotage.

The problem with most vehicles is that they seem to priced with 5th ed. in mind, apart from that the actual vehicle rules seem fine.

madric wrote:
I think the OP is spot on in identifying major issues with the rules.

I think tanks should be able to pick as many targets as they have gunners (persons or computer guidance). E.g. a tank with 3 weapons and 1 gunner can only effectively target 1 unit at a time. Whereas a target with 1 main gun, and side sponsons, each with a gunner, can target 3 separate targets.

This is interesting. We could say that a vehicle can target X different units a turn - this represents the number of crew, skill of the crew at responding to threats, the technology used in the vehicle, number of guns, etc.

For example, we'd see Leman Russ
Type: Tank, Heavy
Target Capability: 2

This would mean that all the Leman Russ's guns can fire at two different targets - the controlling player can decide which two and which weapons are firing. Like lascannon and battlecannon fire on a Monstrous creature in the distance and the heavy stubber and heavy bolters can fire on a troop squad closer to the tank. It wouldn't effect how many guns can fire or if they're Snapshotting or not, but it would give vehicles a little more flexibility in loadouts and tactics.

The Leman Russ can have up to 5 weapons, so this would represent "mere" humans in a rugged, jack-of-all-trades vehicle. Most vehicles would be able to fire at two different targets; only the really big/advanced ones could do more. You could have something like an Ork battlewagon that could choose to fire on a different target with each gun, to represent the crew just blazing away at anything and everything.

Space Marine vehicles with Power of the Machine Spirit (and Chaos Space Marine vehicles with Infernal Device grumble grumble) would function the same - regardless of how far/fast the vehicle moves, it can engage an additional target with one weapon at normal NS.

I do believe a vehicle with, say, side sponsons, should be able to shoot at three different targets.

It is quite odd to force the entire crew to shoot at the same target. By the way, the same goes for squads. They should be able to target multiple enemies, perhaps lowering the BS.

I like a lot of the ideas posted here. A Baneblade or a Land Raider rolling up onto the battlefield should give any Infantry force a case of soiled trousers... even Necrons, who have the ability to kill a tank with a Gauss Flayer, need to consider how many Warriors they're throwing away as the tank guns the infantry down, even as its hull erodes.

I think the multiple targetting idea is great. Makes tanks dangerous and allows side sponsons to be used well.

I do think tanks are not tough enough in this edition.

Mostly, they're like saveless MCs with 3 wounds and a toughness equal to their AV-4.


The Vehicle Damage Chart is awesome, but should not exist alongside Hullpoints just like Vakhathi said.

As for the shooting different targets thing, I'm somewhat torn.

On some Imperial tanks, the sponsons are obviously meant to be able to shoot different targets; their design is indicative of the World War 1 tanks meant to park on a trench and clear it on both sides of the tank with the sponsons. It's quite a silly design really if your tank does indeed have to engage a single enemy per turn -- sponsons become a liability.

Yep, you guys are catching onto the idea.

Upgrades, like sponsons, may add additional gunners as well as weapons. Let me just make up a few hypothetical upgrades:
* Manned Sponsons - Add two weapons, one to each side of a vehicle, and increase the number of gunners for the vehicle by 2. These crewed weapon pods each contain a gunner that seeks out and fires upon threats.
* Targetting Weapon Pods - Add two weapons, one to each side of a vehicle, and increase the number of gunners for the vehicle by 1. These weapons are controlled by a computer system that acquires targets via a camera. The camera can only identify and fire on a single unit.

This could be used to make vehicles of different factions behave differently. Perhaps Ork vehicles, like a Battle Wagon, have tons of weapons, and gain additional gunners for every X models it transports. Also, as I stated in my previous comment, toughness vs. armour save vs. wounds could also distinguish vehicles from different factions in terms of how much punishment they can take and continue to function.

For example:
* Ork vehicles - High Toughness (large, heavy, strong blows required to damage), Low armor save (poorly enclosed mechanisms vulnerable to fire), High wounds (hardy insensitive mechanisms)
* Imperial guard vehicles - High Toughness (large, heavy), High armor save (well protected), Low wounds (sensitive mechanics, poorly maintained and finicky computer systems)
* Space marine vehicles - Medium toughness (lighter, faster), High armor save (well protected), High wounds (redundant and compartmentalized systems with fault tolerance)

An of course, infantry could still sabotage vehicles once they get in range, jamming guns, blowing tracks, etc. with a special sabotage attack allowing them to roll on a vehicle damage table. Special weapons like melta bombs or krak grenades giving a bonus to this roll. The table with have results ranging from killing a gunner, immobilizing the vehicle, causing an ammo explosion, jamming a weapon, etc.

Vehicles miss some kind of armour save. AV 10-11 could have a 5+, AV 12-13 a 4+ and 14+ a 3+. Strong AT weapons still ignore such values, but at least force armies to rely on them instead of using a lot of S6-7 weapons without AP to destroy vehicles.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Vehicles miss some kind of armour save. AV 10-11 could have a 5+, AV 12-13 a 4+ and 14+ a 3+. Strong AT weapons still ignore such values, but at least force armies to rely on them instead of using a lot of S6-7 weapons without AP to destroy vehicles.

AV is more similar to toughness and should be unrelated to the Save. In fact, a vehicle's AV is identical against most weapons to a monstrous critter's Toughness value plus 4.

 Vector Strike wrote:
Vehicles miss some kind of armour save. AV 10-11 could have a 5+, AV 12-13 a 4+ and 14+ a 3+. Strong AT weapons still ignore such values, but at least force armies to rely on them instead of using a lot of S6-7 weapons without AP to destroy vehicles.

Agreed, but most str 6 and 7 weapons will ignore 5+ and 4+ armor. I would say most vehicles should have a 3+, except for some special cases where perhaps a landraider can have a 2+, and maybe ork trukks have a 4+, etc.

A save could just be given to the vehicle based on any number of factors not immediately represented by HPs and AV. Things like internal reliability, energy fields, type of armour, plot armour...stuff.

Either way, a good start for most vehicles would be to have HPs comparable to many MCs. A base of 4 and scaling to 6 wouldn't be unreasonable. Given the proliferation of MCs, most well built armies are already bringing enough high strength shots to deal with massed AV as well as massed MCs.

Though a 5-6 HP russ at the current prices would...maybe too strong? Especially with some of the ideas being thrown around about saves.

While I like the removal of stun locking from glances, I'm not impressed with the durability of vehicles in general, especially once engaged in CC.