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I've heard a lot of talk about how ground vehicles are in a really bad way right now, with skimmers and MCs having saves, even a Leman Russ or Land Raider is basically cannon fodder compared to even a Landspeeder. So my proposition would be universal armor saves based on the armor of the vehicle. This way weak armor is still affected by high AP weapons, and heavy armor needs significant anti-armor to take down. So here's the proposition, forgive me if it's been written on before but it was something I thought about recently.

AV10 = 5+
AV11= 4+
AV 12-13 = 3+
Av 14+ = 2+

Would this be a possible fix to the heavy stuff we all miss carting around?

But all the stuff you're using to kill that Land Raider is already going to be Ap1 or 2, so what's the point of having a save you can't take?

I agree that something like this would benefit vehicles, but simply slapping a 2+ save onto it and saying "there' that's more survivable" is a bit over the top.

It doesn't really solve the issue of things like scatter lasers slaughtering low armours either as the save isn't good enough.

I think where it would really be helping is against the medium arms fire that plagues vehicles so hard. I agree that to pen an AV 14 LR you usually use AP 2-1 weapons, but not always, in close combat for instance a Carnifex would be strength 10 but you would still have your save. Plus there's plenty of S6 weaponry that is not AP 3 or lower, which would allow the mid grade saves to prevent being plinked to death by small arms fire.

Um...no. Carnifexes are MCs, and MCs all have Smash, which makes their attacks AP2.

Fair enough, poor example, but Krak Grenades aren't, neither are Auto-Cannons or Heavy Stubbers, I mean a S4 infantry model can glance a chimera or rhino to death in close combat. But that tiny armor save would prevent base character profiles from wrecking tanks for really no reason. Although that could also be an argument for CC attacks hitting on the side they charge instead of free rear armor hits. I mean my White Scar bikers could by game mechanics, drive their bikes through a rhino purely with Hammer or Wrath.


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Would a universal armor save based on highest armor facing be better? Or some sort of invulnerable save conferred because of how much thicker tank armor should be than something as thin as SM power armor?

What about attacks won't strip a hull point unless the attack can roll equal to, or more than, the AP of the weapon?

Example:
A group of sentinels fire their Str 6 multilasers at the side armour of a chimera (AV 10). The attacker rolls a 2, 4, and 5 for armour penetration. That means that one hit does nothing, one hit glances, and one hit penetrates.
The penetrating hit means that the attacker rolls on the vehicle damage table.
The multilasers are AP 6, so the attacker rolls a further two times (once for the glancing hit, once for the penetrating hit). Each roll of 6 or more strips a hull point.

Anti-infantry weapons (especially high-strength weapons such as tesla cannons, scatter lasers, etc) can be debilitating to vehicles - frying electronics, disabling weapons, damaging external sensors, wounding operators, damaging a wheel, etc. However, no amount of tesla or deathspinner fire is actually going to be able to destroy the vehicle (unless it's open topped).

Just my tuppence.

 Valkyrie wrote:
But all the stuff you're using to kill that Land Raider is already going to be Ap1 or 2, so what's the point of having a save you can't take?

I agree that something like this would benefit vehicles, but simply slapping a 2+ save onto it and saying "there' that's more survivable" is a bit over the top.

Actually gauss and haywire are giant glaring weaknesses for land raiders, and are part of why people don't bother with them. And those are not ap2.


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pm713 wrote:
It doesn't really solve the issue of things like scatter lasers slaughtering low armours either as the save isn't good enough.

Eh. The 4+ pulls rhino/Razorbacks from typically dying to a salvo of minimum scatbikes (2.7 hull points from 12 shots) to typically taking 1 hull point (1.3ish.) That's a pretty big step in the right direction actually.


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As far as vehicle solutions go, it's definitely an improvement. (And it's also been suggested before, and it was a good idea then too.)

Penalizing anti infantry for shooting at vehicles and promoting anti vehicle shooting at vehicles is highly desirable.

I was thinking a varying invul save.
Light walkers or fast vehicles get a one use only 4+ (to represent reactive armor being destroyed)
Tanks get a 5+.
Super heavies get a 4+.
Imperial knights re-roll failed invul saves made on the shield facing.

Imperial Knights are pretty powerful as is IMO.

I rather like the idea of a flat 3+ or 4+ save, actually. The 2+ on AV14, for example, means that they're very resistant to Haywire, sure - so much so that there's almost no point in using it, which hurts some armies more than others. OTOH, the 5+ on AV10 is ignored outright by bolters, gauss flayers and such, so AV10 vehicles tend to die just as easily as they do now.

I think a 3+ makes most vehicles a little too hard to kill - not because you need AP3 to ignore it (that's fine), but because you ignore 66% of otherwise-damaging hits. I like the 4+ better for that reason, but there's an awful lot of AP4 around. I'd prefer some kind of special rule such that vehicles have a 4+ save, but you need AP3 to ignore it. If folks would rather not have another special rule cluttering things up, I'd probably go with the 3+.

I like the idea of vehicle having armour saves. It only makes sense for the units with an ARMOUR value to have an ARMOUR save.
However, I don't think having an AV:XX = X+ armour save is really a good measure. I think it should be more of a vehicle to vehicle basis.

Compare a Rhino to a Tau Piranha, for example:
Both have AV11 on the front and AV10 in the rear, but are probably made out of different metals/materials and clear have different structural make-ups. A Rhino would probably be heavier (because Imperial tech is crude and heavy) and would probably have a better save than the lighter (open-topped) Piranha.

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 Ashiraya wrote:
Imperial Knights are pretty powerful as is IMO.

They are more victims of the scatterlaser, though. So how good are they, really?

I like this in concept but disagree with it for one reason:

It would essentially make Vehicles into Monstrous Creatures with a damage table and variable toughness depending on the facing.

I'd rather see something unique to vehicles so it would feel different to use them over simple Toughness and Wound models.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I like this in concept but disagree with it for one reason:

It would essentially make Vehicles into Monstrous Creatures with a damage table and variable toughness depending on the facing.

I'd rather see something unique to vehicles so it would feel different to use them over simple Toughness and Wound models.

I think vehicles and MCs should converge, mechanically. Toughness and Saves for vehicles, damage chart for MCs.

As for the flavor, what we really need is some way to separate organic, crewed and fully robotic models. It should be pretty obvious to everyone (I would hope) that Haywire, Lance and Melta should hit Riptides as hard as it hits tanks, but Poison shouldn't hit Riptides as hard as it hits Carnifexen.

I mean, certain things like open topped could reduce all saves by 1, which makes open topped assault vehicles more vulnerable than heavier counterparts. I agree that vehicles need unique stats but at the end of the day its clear the MC and GMC rules are more on the balanced side than vehicles so making the two more simmilar is a good start

I did this once, it looked like this:

AV 10-11=4+
AV 12-13=3+
AV 14=2+

As stated earlier this makes it so you want to shoot the vehicle with the appropriate weapon. Autocannons for the Light Armor and Lascannons for the heavy armor. It also slows down Haywire and Gauss, though Gauss probably still has enough shots that it isnt hosed.

One big issue with assigning Armour saves with AV is that it makes the gap between vehicles HUGE. Sure it makes AV13/14 great it they have a 3+ or 2+ save, but if AV10/11 vehicles only have 4+/5+ they will pretty much get no save at all (especially since open-topped should really have -1 save)

It would be interesting to see each vehicle get an armour save based on the material it's made of.

For example, an Eldar Grav-tank is made of Wraithbone, which is the same stuff Wraithguard and Wraithlords are made of. They might have a better Armour save than a Chimera that is made out of metal, even though both are AV12 tanks

Nice idea in but totally useless in practice.
Just look at all weapons currently killing vehicles almost all of them evade saves.

I had a similar idea to that seen in the OP and it came down to two things:

(i) Without making exceptions, AP values would make these Armour Saves largely redundant.

(ii) With exceptions (i.e. making it so that AP doesn't negate the Armour Save of a vehicle, or something like that), they become too powerful. As was mentioned before, AV14 with a 2+ save is awesomely powerful, and definitely well within the realms of SHV territory.

I have an alternative idea that may (<-- this being the operative word) work better without being OP, but I don't want to hijack the thread.

I'd make a base save of 4+ for most vehicles.

Improve by 1 if they are Heavy, Super Heavy or Tanks.
Penalize by 1 if Open Topped.

I have been saying for a while that having a 3+ armor save for all vehicles except for skimmers and flyers who get 4+. This makes it so the real AV weapons continue to work as intended (krak missiles, lascannons, melta, rail, etc) while the "autocannon" class weapons will bypass the 4+ armor of skimmers and flyers (forcing the need to jink) while not as effective against the 3+ armor of ground vehicles. The high strength AP- or hull point shredding things like gauss, scatter lasers, tesla, etc will become a lot less effective. Make these armor saves apply to front and side armor only so close combat and getting around to the rear makes all weapons fully effective. Special consideration might be needed for EMP to where maybe they ignore vehicle armor.

 Vankraken wrote:
The high strength AP- or hull point shredding things like gauss, scatter lasers, tesla, etc will become a lot less effective

I would rather see these weapons nerfed since they are problematic for many other units as well. Thy are just too good vs too any targets. A good start would be to reduce their rof .

GW's not nerfing anything. We can only go up. The inverse proposal is to make single shot high STR weaponry much more dangerous.

Martel732 wrote:
GW's not nerfing anything. We can only go up. The inverse proposal is to make single shot high STR weaponry much more dangerous.

Imagine if lascannons dealt multiple wounds (to make them viable against MCs) and had a line of effect (so you can force those jetbikes to be careful with positioning, otherwise you might be able to hit much of the squad with one shot).

Do like bolt action:
Set a toughness like MC's, then give a +1 for side shots and +2 for rear and none of that for a Landraider.
HE's (high explosive) and Shaped Charge give other options that could be applied.

 Ashiraya wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
GW's not nerfing anything. We can only go up. The inverse proposal is to make single shot high STR weaponry much more dangerous.

Imagine if lascannons dealt multiple wounds (to make them viable against MCs) and had a line of effect (so you can force those jetbikes to be careful with positioning, otherwise you might be able to hit much of the squad with one shot).

The line isn't necessary, but the multiple wounds would be nice. As well as giving them back some teeth vs tanks.