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Something I noticed is that there are more than a few rules that aren't used very often, while str D is getting more and more common, as if it's just the easy way instead of taking the time to think about how the weapon actually functions.

For instance, a powerful weapon like a rail gun could have Lance, and a more powerful version could also have fleshbane and armorbane (or ordnance) to represent the fact that it will wreck everything it touches, maybe adding instant death on a roll of 5 or 6.

Rules like ordnance, instant death, armorbane, fleshbane, Lance, etc, should be used to show how powerful weapons are, and when you finally bring out a D weapon, it should be extraordinarily powerful. Like this:

Destroyer
Destroyer weapons are immensely powerful weapons, capable of laying entire armies low. If a weapon has a D instead of a strength value in its profile, it is a Destroyer weapon. A Destroyer weapon has a strength of 10 for determining armor penetration and has the Fleshbane, Instant Death, Lance, and Armourbane special rules. To resolve a Destroyer weapon attack, roll to hit and to wound or for armor penetration normally. Then, if the attack hits, roll a D3 and consult the Destroyer Damage table below.
1 - Serious Blow - The model suffers an additional 2 wounds or penetrating hits with only invulnerable saves allowed.
2 - Crippling Blow - The model suffers an additional 3 wounds or penetrating hits with no saves allowed.
3 - Devastating Blow - The model suffers an additional 4 wounds or penetrating hits with no saves allowed.

Excess wounds or hull points lost do not carry over to other models in the unit, if there are any.

Titan-Killer
Titan-Killer weapons are designed for one purpose - to destroy the largest, most powerful, and most well-armored targets with ease.

A weapon with the Titan-Killer rule has the Fleshbane, Instant Death, Lance, and Armourbane special rules. If a weapon with this special rule is also a Destroyer weapon, the amount of wounds or penetrating hits the target model suffers is doubled.

Agree

I added the following to get around of having instant death with every D weapon:

Multihit: double the amount of lost W/HP
Critical Hit: remove 2 W/HP per successful wound, no armour save

Then add some Special rules like lance, armorbane etc and you should have powerful weapons without just having a D everywhere

Yes, D-weapons need to be much rarer. They should be removed from everything but LoW units, and you shouldn't be able to have more than 1-2 per army at absolute most. And even the LoW ones need to be nerfed, the guns on the Warhound and Revenant should be a single twin-linked shot with a 3" blast, and should increase the cost by 500+ points if you take them. Units like the Shadowsword should be the only D-weapons allowed in normal games.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing the blast reduced or eliminated on turbo-lasers and some meaningful distinction in the power of different titan-killer weapons.

It kind of bugs me a bit that what is supposed to be the titan-killer weapon, the volcano cannon, is distinctly worse at its job than the 'scout-calibre' paired turbolasers, let alone the laser blaster on a reaver.

I don't mind seeing destroyer-grade weapons, but the pricing is all to hell because there is a massive jump in effectiveness between S10 and Destroyer. I much preferred the previous version - Automatic wound/penetrate with the Instant Death rule. The deathblow effect makes their firepower massively variable, too - which, feels wrong.

You could easily slap an extra trait (Titan-Killer) on the really big ones like titan melee weapons and volcano cannons to make them more into 'current' destroyer weapons.

Peregrine wrote:Yes, D-weapons need to be much rarer. They should be removed from everything but LoW units, and you shouldn't be able to have more than 1-2 per army at absolute most. And even the LoW ones need to be nerfed, the guns on the Warhound and Revenant should be a single twin-linked shot with a 3" blast, and should increase the cost by 500+ points if you take them. Units like the Shadowsword should be the only D-weapons allowed in normal games.

Definitely agree. Unless they're missiles or plasma, they shouldn't really be causing such outrageous explosions.

locarno24 wrote:To be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing the blast reduced or eliminated on turbo-lasers and some meaningful distinction in the power of different titan-killer weapons.

It kind of bugs me a bit that what is supposed to be the titan-killer weapon, the volcano cannon, is distinctly worse at its job than the 'scout-calibre' paired turbolasers, let alone the laser blaster on a reaver.

I don't mind seeing destroyer-grade weapons, but the pricing is all to hell because there is a massive jump in effectiveness between S10 and Destroyer. I much preferred the previous version - Automatic wound/penetrate with the Instant Death rule. The deathblow effect makes their firepower massively variable, too - which, feels wrong.

You could easily slap an extra trait (Titan-Killer) on the really big ones like titan melee weapons and volcano cannons to make them more into 'current' destroyer weapons.

Damn, you're right. Forgeworld really dropped the ball on that one, making a laser blaster literally three times better than the volcano cannon. I feel like there could be some variance in the Destroyer rule by itself, but not NEARLY as much as "no wounds" to "TWELVE wounds." Also, there's such a vast power difference because very few weapons make use of the more powerful rules like fleshbane, armorbane, instant death, and lance. If those were more common in the more powerful weapons, there would be less of a power difference.

What about turning Destroyer and Titan-Killer into two different rules?

Destroyer
Destroyer weapons are immensely powerful weapons, capable of laying entire armies low. If a weapon has a D instead of a strength value in its profile, it is a Destroyer weapon. A Destroyer weapon has a strength of 10 for determining armor penetration and has the Fleshbane, Instant Death, Lance, and Armourbane special rules. To resolve a Destroyer weapon attack, roll to hit and to wound or for armor penetration normally. Then, roll a D3 and consult the Destroyer Damage table below.
1 - Serious Blow - The model suffers an additional 2 wounds or penetrating hits with only invulnerable saves allowed.
2 - Crippling Blow - The model suffers an additional 3 wounds or penetrating hits with no saves allowed.
3 - Devastating Blow - The model suffers an additional 4 wounds or penetrating hits with no saves allowed.

Excess wounds or hull points lost do not carry over to other models in the unit, if there are any.

Titan-Killer
Titan-Killer weapons are designed for one purpose - to destroy the largest, most powerful, and most well-armored targets with ease.

A weapon with the Titan-Killer rule has the Fleshbane, Instant Death, Lance, and Armourbane special rules. If a weapon with this special rule is also a Destroyer weapon, the amount of wounds or penetrating hits the target model suffers is doubled.

So a Turbo Laser Destructor and Laser Blaster would be Destroyer. The Reaver and Belicosa Volcano Cannons would be a Destroyer weapon with the Titan-Killer special rule. Coupled with Machine Destroyer (re-roll 1s on Destroyer Damage table) that would make the Belicosa much more powerful, although the Laser Blaster and Destructor would need a reduction in shots.

 McNinja wrote:
Damn, you're right. Forgeworld really dropped the ball on that one, making a laser blaster literally three times better than the volcano cannon. I feel like there could be some variance in the Destroyer rule by itself, but not NEARLY as much as "no wounds" to "TWELVE wounds."

Slight correction: it was actually "main GW" that did it, in the original Apocalypse book. The pre-Apocalypse FW rules for superheavies were much weaker. For example, the Warhound's turbolasers were just small-blast lascannons. When GW created Apocalypse they added in all the insanity with 10" blasts, D-weapons, etc. And then the 6th edition Apocalypse book gave us the current (and completely insane) D-weapon rules.

Excess wounds or hull points lost do carry over to other models in the unit, if there are any.

Oh god no. This essentially makes any non-destroyer superheavies completely worthless. A 5" blast from a Shadowsword is better than the Stormblade's 10" plasma blast when you're shooting at single tough targets, but now it's also better against hordes because each hit counts 2-4 times. That's completely removing the balancing factor where D-weapons are great for killing single targets but weaker against hordes, so that other weapons actually have a purpose.

 Peregrine wrote:

 McNinja wrote:
Damn, you're right. Forgeworld really dropped the ball on that one, making a laser blaster literally three times better than the volcano cannon. I feel like there could be some variance in the Destroyer rule by itself, but not NEARLY as much as "no wounds" to "TWELVE wounds."

Slight correction: it was actually "main GW" that did it, in the original Apocalypse book. The pre-Apocalypse FW rules for superheavies were much weaker. For example, the Warhound's turbolasers were just small-blast lascannons. When GW created Apocalypse they added in all the insanity with 10" blasts, D-weapons, etc. And then the 6th edition Apocalypse book gave us the current (and completely insane) D-weapon rules.

Excess wounds or hull points lost do carry over to other models in the unit, if there are any.

Oh god no. This essentially makes any non-destroyer superheavies completely worthless. A 5" blast from a Shadowsword is better than the Stormblade's 10" plasma blast when you're shooting at single tough targets, but now it's also better against hordes because each hit counts 2-4 times. That's completely removing the balancing factor where D-weapons are great for killing single targets but weaker against hordes, so that other weapons actually have a purpose.

True. Changed to "do not carry over."

The premise of this thread: Yes pl0x.

Current example in 40k is the Hellhammer cannon. It's D-1, showing off excessive and consistent brute force, without being "aha, you lose nao!"