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 Wyldhunt wrote:
Is there a reason for meltas to be less effective against monsters than machines? I know that the melta rule back in the day only worked against vehicles, but I thought that was one of the quirky points of frustration that eventually lead to monsters and vehicles being treated in a standardized fashion.

It's one of those weird game mechanics things.

Back when monstrous creatures and vehicles were separate entities, they each had their pro's and cons. Vehicles were faster, more heavily armed, near immune to small arms (and often, medium arms), and could in theory, take more damage. Ironically, they were more vulnerable to being shaken if they took a glancing or penetrating blow.

Monstrous creatures tended to be slower, less heavily armed, more resilient to a single high damage attach, but they were essentially giant units--they were susceptible to having their armor outright ignored (in a time where invulnerable saves were extremely rare), overwhelmed by small arms fire, or tied up in melee.

It's also not like the melta really needed any help either. The melta rule only applied when under half range, but a hit and penetration would not be a guarantee of a vehicle's death in the earlier editions. A melta hitting any monstrous creature, short of a wraithlord or GUO, at any range would almost certainly wound on a 3+ or even 2+.

You could chalk it up to a monstrous creature being a living thing might see a melta coming at it and defend its vulnerable pieces. Either that, or it does take massive damage, but it has redundant organ systems or regeneration or space elf magic that keeps it going. A vehicle kill, however, could be the result of hitting the ammo, engine, or reactor; or killing the crew; or just reducing the vehicle to a pile of slag by stripping all its weapons off.

I don't think as many people had a problem with MC's vs. Vehicles as they did with how GW classified some things as vehicles and some things as monstrous creatures. And then created a hybrid category of walker. A lot of people didn't like that their tank could get hit by a, y'know, anti tank weapon and then die, but those people also probably never had the joy of watching a carnifex get mowed down by a single las-plas tac squad.

Plasma having Anti-monster would've been a nice bit of rock paper scissoring, to the weapon choices. Although I think Grav weapons should get anti-monster if anything does because big water filled bugs squish best. Which would leave plasma out as a general choice which risks invalidating the others if too good.

To me the reasons a melta wouldn't get the same bonus to a monster as a vehicle; is that a vehicle will be meltable and even combustible. Whereas a monster will take a what? 5inch hole through it like a missing plug but will be cauterized from the heat. If you didn't get skeletal structure, movement muscles, or nervous system, that creature can probably still kill you in the ?5 mins? simulated game time that a 5 round game represents.

Breton wrote:
Again you ask something I just painstakingly explained. Because their characters, the Primarchs, and the Daemon Princes are MONSTER and CHARACTER AND generally can't join a bodyguard unit - and should be something else and CHARACTER so that a suicide squad doesn't hit them with a vulnerability normal characters don't have. Also as I explicitly mentioned (After that change to balance the MONSTER CHARACTERS) it would absolutely be good for the game to add ANTI-MONSTER X to plasma as part of an Elemental - ANTI grouping.

Those units are already vulnerable to incoming fire. I can't imagine that this change would have that big an impact.

The problem isn't that they would become too vulnerable. The problem is that Lone Operative isn't more common.

To be fair, part of the reason I didn't like the MC/Tank distinction is that you couldn't hit skeleton/nerves/crucial muscles. You could blow the leg off a 'naught, or the track off a Russ, or the grav plates off a Wave Serpent, but you couldn't even bruise a Hive Tyrant's shins (not in a way that way that was meaningfully different from bruising one of its arms). Even crazy Tyranid regen will probably take a minute to really have an effect, that still leaves a round where it'll limp. Also, organic matter can be plenty melty. I'm fine with them not being melty enough to take a Melta bonus or something, but it still feels weird that the Melta could instagib a tank but did the same damage as a heavy bolter against MCs.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Breton wrote:
Again you ask something I just painstakingly explained. Because their characters, the Primarchs, and the Daemon Princes are MONSTER and CHARACTER AND generally can't join a bodyguard unit - and should be something else and CHARACTER so that a suicide squad doesn't hit them with a vulnerability normal characters don't have. Also as I explicitly mentioned (After that change to balance the MONSTER CHARACTERS) it would absolutely be good for the game to add ANTI-MONSTER X to plasma as part of an Elemental - ANTI grouping.

Those units are already vulnerable to incoming fire. I can't imagine that this change would have that big an impact.

The problem isn't that they would become too vulnerable. The problem is that Lone Operative isn't more common.

Those units usually have Lone Operative in some form or they should, but that doesn't provide the same defense when you've got a Drop Pod Bomb of Anti-Monster 3+ able to land close enough to negate it plus chew through the monster wounds. Its second level fall out - these monsters were designed and pointed for this environment, and proliferating anti-monster without protecting them from that proliferation is likely to have unintentional consequences for that balance. Now Morty, Angron, Magnus, and the larger Nid Monster Characters like Norn Whatevers have enough wounds they're probably not one-turn vulnerable to a Drop Pod Bomb - 10 Hellblasters, 2 shots per, 20 shots, 13ish hits, 15ish after a to-hit reroll, Anti Monster 3+ gets you 10ish woundings for 20 damage before saves so about 10 get through a 4++. Again not enough to 1 Turn Angron, but it costs you 275 for that Pod Bomb, while the WE player is watching most of 500 points melt from one unit's shooting. Things get even worse when you get into the 8-12ish wound Monster characters, especially if they can't join a group and rely on Lone Operative, or worse a wish and a prayer. Winged Hive Tyrants, loyalist primarchs, Daemon Princes who unfortunately have nothing, and should have something.. they should all have some version of the Loyalist Primarch "If within 6" of (whatever), they have Lone Operative" at the least. That Hellblaster Pod Bomb only has to land (or start, don't even need the pod) within 24" of some poor Daemon Prince counting on his T10 and a stiff upper lip to keep him safe, only those Plasma Incinerators now wound on 3's instead of 5's.

Again, plasma (and differently named xenos parallels) absolutely should have Anti-Monster X to it. But before that can happen, they'd have to figure out a way to immunize the MONSTER CHARACTER units from ANTI-MONSTER to maintain balance for those units and armies. The simplest way is to make them OTHER KEYWORD that is then added to every MONSTER rule except ANTI-MONSTER


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 waefre_1 wrote:
To be fair, part of the reason I didn't like the MC/Tank distinction is that you couldn't hit skeleton/nerves/crucial muscles. You could blow the leg off a 'naught, or the track off a Russ, or the grav plates off a Wave Serpent, but you couldn't even bruise a Hive Tyrant's shins (not in a way that way that was meaningfully different from bruising one of its arms). Even crazy Tyranid regen will probably take a minute to really have an effect, that still leaves a round where it'll limp. Also, organic matter can be plenty melty. I'm fine with them not being melty enough to take a Melta bonus or something, but it still feels weird that the Melta could instagib a tank but did the same damage as a heavy bolter against MCs.

That was there for a little while, Monsters had wound tiers like Vehicles. It wasn't much better.

 waefre_1 wrote:
...but it still feels weird that the Melta could instagib a tank but did the same damage as a heavy bolter against MCs.

It was the paper/scissors/stone logic - the anti-tank gun is efficient against tanks, not monsters or mass infantry.

Though oldhammer didn't make it as pronounced as it could have been. T5 multi-wound elites and T7/2+ monsters react very differently to melta/missile/small arms fire than the old T4 and T6/3+ commonly used stat-lines, but also exaggerate list tailoring.

I don't know. I get the gamey appeal of having plasma handle monsters while melta handles vehicles, but it still feels weird from a fluff perspective.

Is there something about (at least partly) biological big things that makes them especially susceptible to damage from plasma? Or especially resistant to damage from a meltagun? The older distinction of having melta be more potent but shorter range and with fewer shots vs plasma having more range/shots and being more flexible seems like a more intuitive distinction, no?

There isn't, both plasma and melta work using the same principle: heat.

In fact I think plasma has particular electromagnetically disruptive attributes, making it possibly more useful against targets with sensitive electronics. IIrc the US had some brief ideas about shooting satellites with a plasma weapon, not to blow them up, but more to fry sensors and circuit boards.

Only grav should have anti-monster. Plasma is too similar to melta (and way too common on the table) in real world effects to justify it having anti monster. Grav is hard to spam and could realistically be called a specialist hunting unit then.

Grav is hard to spam? I must have imagined grav pistols, grav guns and grav cannons that are over the Space Marine armory.

Just because it has been bad for the last three editions doesn't mean it is hard to spam.

Why do monster characters need to be immune to weapons which are designed to kill monsters?

Should any character that can fly also be protected from anti-fly? Should my Tau commanders in XV8 armour be immune to anti-vehicle and anti-fly because they are characters?

Grav is super awkward. It kind of stopped having a niche when the rules changed after 7th. If I were to try to give it a purpose these days, I'd probably turn it into a debuff gun. That is, make it do less damage than a plasma gun, but have it debuff the movement and offense of vehicles and monsters.

 Gibblets wrote:
Only grav should have anti-monster. Plasma is too similar to melta (and way too common on the table) in real world effects to justify it having anti monster. Grav is hard to spam and could realistically be called a specialist hunting unit then.

Grav is still easy to spam with Tacs and Devastators, used to be that Sternguard could get it too, but we all know how that went.


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 Wyldhunt wrote:
Grav is super awkward. It kind of stopped having a niche when the rules changed after 7th.

Grav Cannons were just the short-ranged anti-everything weapon in 8th and 9th. The normal grav guns have been the odd one out.

Meltas were far more effective against monsters than Heavy Bolters in 4th edition.

If you asked me what I would trust to stop a charging Carnifex, a unit with 4 multimeltas/meltas or a unit with 4 Heavy Bolters, I would have said the melta unit hands down, not "idk too close to call".

Don't confuse "only takes one wound away" with "is just as effective as". It's crappy hyperbole like that that broke 40k in the first place.

MC/Vehicle balance was fine in 4e, but broke towards vehicles in 5e and then towards MC in later editions with the addition of hull points.

And so many armies can spam Grav... no wait... Grav is quite rare, so making Grav "Anti-Monster" would give a distinct advantage to Marine armies, Marine armies, and Marine armies. And maybe some AdMech stuff.

Not to be too flippant but tactical squads and devastators aren't ripping up the meta or even feature in tourney lists. However there is an entire unit of space marines called Hellblasters which have nothing but plasma, there is nothing stopping someone from taking 30. As a dark angels player my plasma choices are quite extensive. Grav is harder to access then plasma, so would be a softer hit on the meta if on them.Nothing stopping grav from having a -2 to move penalty, just reduce the base Strength of the weapon to compensate.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Breton wrote:
Again you ask something I just painstakingly explained. Because their characters, the Primarchs, and the Daemon Princes are MONSTER and CHARACTER AND generally can't join a bodyguard unit - and should be something else and CHARACTER so that a suicide squad doesn't hit them with a vulnerability normal characters don't have. Also as I explicitly mentioned (After that change to balance the MONSTER CHARACTERS) it would absolutely be good for the game to add ANTI-MONSTER X to plasma as part of an Elemental - ANTI grouping.

Those units are already vulnerable to incoming fire. I can't imagine that this change would have that big an impact.

The problem isn't that they would become too vulnerable. The problem is that Lone Operative isn't more common.

any character with sub 10 wounds should get "lone operative", not even "if within x of a unit" just flat out give it to them. many need to be in a unit to be worth having, would even go so far as ones with sub five wounds maybe have "stealth" as well when alone as a small target, again they won't do a lot when alone and it provides some semi-fluff justification for how any survive their first battle

the bigger stuff probably needs some ways to screen against incoming fire as well but needs care otherwise the buff characters become impossible to kill while the combat ones are just as vulnerable as now so its very disproportionate.

I wonder if something like how Flames of War has "mistaken target" could work, if a [monster, character] is within 8" of another [monster] and gets hit, before rolling to wound have an unmodifiable and un-rerollable 3+ chance to transfer the hit to the other [monster], ditto with vehicles. fog of war, misheard orders etc. so say an attack with six hits is made, say four of them could go to the poor unfortunate standing nearby. (Flames does it slightly differently but thats the principle)

can still splat with volume of fire, and hits no longer just vanish, but would provide some protection to a "thing" character around similar "things"

 Gibblets wrote:
Not to be too flippant but tactical squads and devastators aren't ripping up the meta or even feature in tourney lists. However there is an entire unit of space marines called Hellblasters which have nothing but plasma, there is nothing stopping someone from taking 30. As a dark angels player my plasma choices are quite extensive. Grav is harder to access then plasma, so would be a softer hit on the meta if on them.Nothing stopping grav from having a -2 to move penalty, just reduce the base Strength of the weapon to compensate.

A reduction in Strength would be an uneccessary move, since it's already been nerfed in the AP and num-shots this edition, making it worse against most units, and it ignores Strength for hurting Vehicles anyways.

They finally made it not automatically better than a Heavy Bolter against most Infantry.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Why do monster characters need to be immune to weapons which are designed to kill monsters?
Because characters get extra protection from Rank And File, and instead of keeping various Look Out Sir rules that uniformly protect characters they tried to piece together several different rules for differently themed characters.

Should any character that can fly also be protected from anti-fly? Should my Tau commanders in XV8 armour be immune to anti-vehicle and anti-fly because they are characters?

Anti-Fly is not spammable on 10 Dudes In A Squad. Most if not all Tau Commanders in XV8(X) suits can join squads while most MONSTER CHARACTERS - as I've pointed out - cannot.

Breton wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Why do monster characters need to be immune to weapons which are designed to kill monsters?
Because characters get extra protection from Rank And File, and instead of keeping various Look Out Sir rules that uniformly protect characters they tried to piece together several different rules for differently themed characters.

Should any character that can fly also be protected from anti-fly? Should my Tau commanders in XV8 armour be immune to anti-vehicle and anti-fly because they are characters?

Anti-Fly is not spammable on 10 Dudes In A Squad. Most if not all Tau Commanders in XV8(X) suits can join squads while most MONSTER CHARACTERS - as I've pointed out - cannot.

I don't like the "make plasma anti-monster" idea in general because it feels hard to justify in terms of fluff. But that said, if we were to make plasma Anti-Monster, and if it did prove to be too hazardous for monstrous creatures' health in the meta, the simpler solution would probably be to just give MCs a few extra wounds.

leopard wrote:
any character with sub 10 wounds should get "lone operative", not even "if within x of a unit" just flat out give it to them. many need to be in a unit to be worth having, would even go so far as ones with sub five wounds maybe have "stealth" as well when alone as a small target, again they won't do a lot when alone and it provides some semi-fluff justification for how any survive their first battle

Giving stealth to an infantry-sized character feels like a bandaid fix. If a character is too squishy to survive without being attached to a squad, giving them -1 to being hit probably won't be enough of a mathematical shift to make a difference. If an infantry character is intended to wander around on their own, you should probably make them untargetable outside of X" or just give them a ton of wounds to represent their plot armor.

I'm not sure if sub 10 wound MC characters actually need extra help right now. Assuming they do, however, you could basically give them 8th/9th edition character screening rules. Probably cranked up to reflect their larger size. So no targeting them while they're within X" of a unit of at least 10 infantry models or a unit with the monster or vehicle keyword. Something like that.

I wonder if something like how Flames of War has "mistaken target" could work, if a [monster, character] is within 8" of another [monster] and gets hit, before rolling to wound have an unmodifiable and un-rerollable 3+ chance to transfer the hit to the other [monster], ditto with vehicles. fog of war, misheard orders etc. so say an attack with six hits is made, say four of them could go to the poor unfortunate standing nearby. (Flames does it slightly differently but thats the principle)

can still splat with volume of fire, and hits no longer just vanish, but would provide some protection to a "thing" character around similar "things"

Not sure how long you've been playing, but it sounds like you're describing the 7th edition version of "Look Out Sir!".

Honestly, I just think the character rules in 10th are completely borked.

I know some people celebrated it but IMO the return to characters joining units was a massive step backwards. Even moreso given how completely hamfisted the rules are.

In the past, characters could at least switch between units during the battle. Now they're completely locked into a single unit and can never join a different one even if the unit they're in is completely wiped out. Hell, they can't even voluntarily leave the unit they're in.

Then you've got abilities that don't work if the character isn't attached to a unit. If a Necron Overlord is in a unit and is personally wounded, his Resurrection Orb will heal him just fine. But then if he's not in a unit, suddenly the inanimate orb will have itself a big sulk and refuse outright to heal him for the remainder of the game.

It's such asinine design on every single level.

It definitely is half cooked, although GW has always struggled with Monstrous Characters and what they are allowed to join and be protected by.

 Tyran wrote:
It definitely is half cooked, although GW has always struggled with Monstrous Characters and what they are allowed to join and be protected by.

I think it would have been better to tweak 8th's system to go by toughness, rather than wounds.

So rather than 10+ wounds being an arbitrary cut-off (which bears zero relation to a model's size), you instead say that a model can only be protected by models with the same or higher toughness. Thus, a Hive Tyrant can hide amidst Carnifexes but not Warriors or Gaunts; Guilliman can hide behind a dreadnought but no a unit of ordinary Space Marines etc.

Though I would add also that the need for this highlights how much lethality has jumped since around 3d-5th - such that even the toughest monsters can't expect to last through a single round of enemy shooting if exposed.

 vipoid wrote:

Though I would add also that the need for this highlights how much lethality has jumped since around 3d-5th - such that even the toughest monsters can't expect to last through a single round of enemy shooting if exposed.

Eh depends on the army. Tyranids have never really been able to survive a round of enemy shooting if exposed. That's why Tyrant Guard is a thing.

There are two things they've screwed up trying to re-system:

Joining Units, and Legal Target.

Lethality is up because all 2,000 points can pour fire into the most "important" 500 points of opposing army. They need to go back to nearest target with few exceptions - LD check, Heavy vs Monster/Vehicle, etc.

Going back to earlier character joining is also the way to go - join just about anything, come and go as you please


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:
If a Necron Overlord is in a unit and is personally wounded, his Resurrection Orb will heal him just fine. But then if he's not in a unit, suddenly the inanimate orb will have itself a big sulk and refuse outright to heal him for the remainder of the game.

It's such asinine design on every single level.

That's the quick and dirty way (or Rules as we think we're supposed to have Interpreted way) but I'd check with the Rules forum. If Character A joins Unit B, they're a combined unit. There is no rule (in the BRB, individual codexes may be different- see later on) saying the Character is no longer leading that unit even after the unit is destroyed. Its an easy jump of logic, but its not a rule - in fact the rule says the opposite he is leading that unit for the rest of the battle. Now as I mentioned the codex may say differently - if Loyalist Captain A joins Squad B, and Loyalist Lieutenant C also joins Squad B, the rule allowing Lieutenant C to join also specified that if Squad B is destroyed Captain A and Lieutenant C now DO go back to being loners not leading anything. Edit To Add: Which implies Captain A continues to "lead" even after the death of the squad, and joining the Lieutenant has the obivous advantages and stripping the LEADER stuff as a drawback. Or that they just reiterated what the logic jump that technically runs counter to the rule as written had us believing.

You don't need to be able to come and go as you please with characters.

The bigger failing with characters is how they're useless when not joined to units. Like how the Librarians psychic barrier only works when he's leading a squad. Even his Psychic Hood stops functioning unless he's got some buddies with him. There's even a Marine enhancement that does literally nothing unless the model is leading a unit.

I wonder if something like how Flames of War has "mistaken target" could work, if a [monster, character] is within 8" of another [monster] and gets hit, before rolling to wound have an unmodifiable and un-rerollable 3+ chance to transfer the hit to the other [monster], ditto with vehicles. fog of war, misheard orders etc. so say an attack with six hits is made, say four of them could go to the poor unfortunate standing nearby. (Flames does it slightly differently but thats the principle)

can still splat with volume of fire, and hits no longer just vanish, but would provide some protection to a "thing" character around similar "things"

Not sure how long you've been playing, but it sounds like you're describing the 7th edition version of "Look Out Sir!".

leopard wrote:
Not sure how long you've been playing, but it sounds like you're describing the 7th edition version of "Look Out Sir!".

Going back further there was target priority, leadership test or be forced to fire at the closest target (or closest 'large target').

"My lascannon heavy weapon squad will shoot the onrushing landraider carrying Abaddon and his personal retinue"
(flips coin)
"... my lascannon heavy weapon squad will shoot the empty, unarmed rhino idling in heavy cover"

Breton wrote:

That's the quick and dirty way (or Rules as we think we're supposed to have Interpreted way) but I'd check with the Rules forum. If Character A joins Unit B, they're a combined unit. There is no rule (in the BRB, individual codexes may be different- see later on) saying the Character is no longer leading that unit even after the unit is destroyed. Its an easy jump of logic, but its not a rule - in fact the rule says the opposite he is leading that unit for the rest of the battle. Now as I mentioned the codex may say differently - if Loyalist Captain A joins Squad B, and Loyalist Lieutenant C also joins Squad B, the rule allowing Lieutenant C to join also specified that if Squad B is destroyed Captain A and Lieutenant C now DO go back to being loners not leading anything. Edit To Add: Which implies Captain A continues to "lead" even after the death of the squad, and joining the Lieutenant has the obivous advantages and stripping the LEADER stuff as a drawback. Or that they just reiterated what the logic jump that technically runs counter to the rule as written had us believing.

I was initially thinking that this wasn't correct:

P39 - "While a Bodyguard unit contains a Leader, it is known as an Attached unit"

It seems clear that you need both Bodyguard and Leader in order to constitute an Attached unit.

However, this being GW, they can't stick to any sort of consistent language even while writing everything in overly verbose legalese.

Thus, when we look at the Resurrection Orb:

"Resurrection Orb: While the bearer is leading a unit . . ."

Not the fact that "Attached unit" is not mentioned in any capacity.

Instead, we have "Leading a unit", which is only mentioned once throughout the core rules:

"...for each Leader in your army, if your army also includes one or more of that Leader’s Bodyguard units, you can select one of those Bodyguard units. That Leader will then attach to that Bodyguard unit for the duration of the battle and is said to be leading that unit."

So is "Leading a unit" interchangeable with "Attached unit" or are they separate things? Does a model continue to count as leading a unit even when that unit is not longer attached (because there is no unit left to lead)? It sounds ridiculous but the term glossed over and never properly defined.