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Hey guys,

So I'm toying round with an idea which was coined by Marksman224 in this thread by which the a unit must make a D6 check against the Armour Penetration value of their weapon when they use it to make a Glancing hit, the success of which allows the infliction of a Hull Point. Here's my revised version of the rule:

Initial Proposal:

When a model inflicts a Glancing Hit on a vehicle target, it must make an Armour Penetration Check.

Armour Glancing Check
Roll a D6. If the result is greater than or equal to the Armour Penetration Value of the weapon, then one Hull Point is inflicted.

-- If the Weapon has no Armour Penetration Value (i.e. is AP-), then it automatically fails the Armour Glancing Check and no Hull Point is inflicted.
-- If the Weapon has an Armour Penetration Value of 1 (i.e. is AP1), then it automatically passes the Armour Glancing Check and as single Hull Point is inflicted

Restrictions and Conditions
-- Under no circumstances whatsoever may the Armour Glancing Check be re-rolled.


NB: This proposal has been edited.

Here are my questions:

(i) As it stands, what do you think of this rule?

(ii) Should there be any other rules (Special Rules or otherwise) or circumstances which would allow the Armour Glancing Check to be passed automatically?

(iii) What would you change about this rule?

Cheers guys

Edit:

Alternate Proposal:

When a Glancing Hit is scored against a vehicle, roll a D6 with no modifiers against the Vehicle Damage Table and apply the result as normal.

NB: Under this proposal, Hull Points are not inflicted by Glancing Hits as a default, but instead can only be inflicted if multiple Immobilised Results are achieved.

That's rather interesting. I like it

 Valkyrie wrote:
That's rather interesting. I like it

Cheers

Interesting. It would help against the glance to death spam, and it does seem easier to implement than granting armor saves to vehicles, which was my idea.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Interesting. It would help against the glance to death spam, and it does seem easier to implement than granting armor saves to vehicles, which was my idea.

My thoughts as well. It always seemed a bit silly that I could glance an Ork Trukk to death using Chainswords on Tactical Marines.

I'm also working on giving vehicles armour saves in the form of an invulnerable save, but it always seems to get overly complex and a bit too powerful.

i'd rather glance just reduce the AV value of the side that got hit ( ok CC would totaly screw this up ) without removing HP

kambien wrote:
i'd rather glance just reduce the AV value of the side that got hit ( ok CC would totaly screw this up ) without removing HP

The only problem is that something like that opens itself yp to be abused too easily.

I like it, but it may slow things down a bit. I have been making glancing hits roll unmodified on the damage table and hullpoints only drop when a pen is scored.

That way most vehicles will die with three penetrating hits, but glances require a lot of luck to actually kill a vehicle.

It slows things down a hair, but I think that's OK.

Lythrandire: my objection to that version would be that it lets the air out of Haywire and Gauss. Necrons aren't hurting, exactly, but Gauss is a not-insignificant chunk of why. As for Haywire, nerfing that mostly serves to kick Tyranids and DE while they're down - AdMech, Eldar and Tau have lots of other ways to demolish vehicles.

However, the OP's suggestion leaves Gauss and Haywire as useful (though maybe say that Haywire always removes a hull point on a 4+ unless its AP is better?), while letting the air out of a lot of spamguns.

Scatter Lasers specifically remain somewhat scary because at S6, they can inflict penetrating hits on AV10-11, which will still sand off hull points quite rapidly, but it does let a big chunk of the air out. Imperial Knights now can almost ignore them - you'll be fishing for sixes twice. (40 shots inflict on average .73 HP of damage under this system, assuming no cover. Even Night Fighting alone reduces this to near nothing)

How about glancing hits only remove a hp on a 4+?

jade_angel wrote:Scatter Lasers specifically remain somewhat scary because at S6, they can inflict penetrating hits on AV10-11, which will still sand off hull points quite rapidly, but it does let a big chunk of the air out. Imperial Knights now can almost ignore them - you'll be fishing for sixes twice. (40 shots inflict on average .73 HP of damage under this system, assuming no cover. Even Night Fighting alone reduces this to near nothing)

I'm not familiar with the profiles of Scatter Lasers and am not particularly familiar with Knight profiles. What's the profile of a Scatter Laser, and what is the typical AV of a Knight?

Martel732 wrote:How about glancing hits only remove a hp on a 4+?

I think that's a little bit too simple and misses the point a little bit. I believe that part of the premise of being able to take a hull point off a vehicle is based off two things:

(1) Having the Strength Value to punch through the target Armour Facing;

(2) Having the Armour Penetration Value to represent its ability to penetrate armour.

One of the core ideas behind adding this system to Glancing Hits is that the shot (through luck of the dice rolls) has not "had the strength to punch through the armour", so we turn to the AP Value to try and gauge whether or not it can inflict damage. Hence the Armour Glancing Check.

With the above in mind, a simple "Inflicts a HP on a 4+" kinda glazes over the point of this rule.

Scatterlasers killing IK is stupid. Although I guess in your system, scatterlasers aren't very good at passing the check.

Most Knights are AV13/12/12 (one of the FW ones is 14/13/13 but we'll ignore that outlier). The Scatter Laser is R36 S6 AP6 Heavy 4 - it's a problem because it can glance AV12, and can be had in numbers large enough to make that fairly reliable.

For example, 10 scatbikes (one scatter laser each) in side armor on a Knight, on average inflicts 4.4HP of damage IIRC, assuming no rerolls for the bikes and no saves for the Knight. But, with your change, it usually wouldn't even inflict 1HP (but still has an outside, hail-mary chance of getting lucky). This is more in line with what it should do.

I'd personally argue - even as an Eldar player - that they should be S3 with Shred, or possibly S5 without, but that's not the point at issue here.

On the flipside, if a heavy rail rifle gets lucky and scores a glance on a Land Raider, its AP1 will cause it to always pass the check, and always remove a hull point - also as it should be, IMHO. Like I said, other than a few minor quibbles, I like the idea. Most of the edge cases can be taken care of separately.

Why does giving vehicles armour saves like everything else become complicated?

If you allow the damage resolution system to cover all units . in a similar way, surely that would make things much less complicated than the multiple systems currently in use?(Not to mention all the special rules that try to add complexity back, but just add more layers of complication. )

Lanrak wrote:
Why does giving vehicles armour saves like everything else become complicated?

If you allow the damage resolution system to cover all units . in a similar way, surely that would make things much less complicated than the multiple systems currently in use?(Not to mention all the special rules that try to add complexity back, but just add more layers of complication. )

Can't say as I disagree, in principle. In practice, as a sort of low-effort quick-and-dirty patch, the OP's suggestion is pretty good. Long-term, yeah, I'd like a bigger retool.

jade_angel wrote:Most Knights are AV13/12/12 (one of the FW ones is 14/13/13 but we'll ignore that outlier). The Scatter Laser is R36 S6 AP6 Heavy 4 - it's a problem because it can glance AV12, and can be had in numbers large enough to make that fairly reliable.

For example, 10 scatbikes (one scatter laser each) in side armor on a Knight, on average inflicts 4.4HP of damage IIRC, assuming no rerolls for the bikes and no saves for the Knight. But, with your change, it usually wouldn't even inflict 1HP (but still has an outside, hail-mary chance of getting lucky). This is more in line with what it should do.

I'd personally argue - even as an Eldar player - that they should be S3 with Shred, or possibly S5 without, but that's not the point at issue here.

On the flipside, if a heavy rail rifle gets lucky and scores a glance on a Land Raider, its AP1 will cause it to always pass the check, and always remove a hull point - also as it should be, IMHO. Like I said, other than a few minor quibbles, I like the idea. Most of the edge cases can be taken care of separately.

Cheers. I also am considering the cases where the Weapon's AP Value is 1 (i.e. whether it auto-passes or simply succeeds on a 2+ as if it were AP2).

Lanrak wrote:Why does giving vehicles armour saves like everything else become complicated?

All I meant was that my attempts at creating a Vehicle Armour Save have become over-complicated, wordy rules (somewhat more 'complex' and wordy than the rule I'm proposing in this thread). But I think Vehicle Armour Saves are a topic for another thread.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jade_angel wrote:
Long-term, yeah, I'd like a bigger retool.

Don't we all? haha

I like the idea myself.

I'm glad that you're still interested in this idea IllumiNini. I think having this rule just for glancing hits is a good idea. I think we might have been heading that way in my thread. The thing is that the AP stat is already modeled on a D6 with automatic passes and fails at either ends. I looks like we could make this stat do some more work in this game just by rolling a D6 against it directly. Glancing hits seem like an appropriate places to use it (maybe there are others). It would be a shame to waste a stat that could be so easily applied differently to other situations, in my opinion.

Marksman224 wrote:
I'm glad that you're still interested in this idea IllumiNini. I think having this rule just for glancing hits is a good idea. I think we might have been heading that way in my thread. The thing is that the AP stat is already modeled on a D6 with automatic passes and fails at either ends. I looks like we could make this stat do some more work in this game just by rolling a D6 against it directly. Glancing hits seem like an appropriate places to use it (maybe there are others). It would be a shame to waste a stat that could be so easily applied differently to other situations, in my opinion.

Props to you, as well. It was your baseline idea.


Here are a couple of things I'd like to add to the rule:

Additional rules that warrant an automatic pass of the Armour Glancing Check:

-- Haywire

Weapons with an Armour Penetration Value of 1 automatically pass the Armour Glancing Check.

Yep, concur with both. Only a few armies get haywire in volume (*), and of them, they either have other ways forward if Haywire were nerfed, or would be seriously hampered by a nerf, so not nerfing it makes the most sense.

And AP1 really does need to be better than AP2 in some way, and this is exactly the kind of way that makes sense.

(*) - and one of them, Tau, just had that volume FAQed out - not that it matters, because they get melta in large volume.

I remember someone raising an issue with Haywire grenades under this proposal. Is it not easy enough to just change the Haywire rule to: "on 2-5 the target looses a hull point, on a 6 the target suffers a penetrating hit"?

I think this is a great idea. Not perfect, but little is in 40k. Playtesting would tell us what tweaks if any would need to be made, and this rule could give back some of the durability vehicles should have without making them onerous or changing every vehicle in the game drastically. I don't imagine the extra roll overall would slow things down too much more than they already have been by other rules ect. This rule might actually let vehicles compete against MCs (though Tyranids need a boost, or maybe just a nudge).

This sounds interesting, and will ask my opponent next game to try it out.

So what I understand is that.
If a Glancing hit is scored, roll a D6. If the D6 result is equal to or greater than the weapon's AP, the hit removes 1 hullpoint.
AP - automatically fails.
AP1, Gauss, Rending, and Haywire automatically pass.

I hammer of wrath an imperial knight/carnifex/wraithknight/other high base str unit with HoW into a vehicle. Is it intended that their glancing hits not be able to pass the chack? I understand for stuff like jump pack troops, but knights and MC's should be a little different (not that they really need the minor buff though).

 Happyjew wrote:
This sounds interesting, and will ask my opponent next game to try it out.

So what I understand is that.
If a Glancing hit is scored, roll a D6. If the D6 result is equal to or greater than the weapon's AP, the hit removes 1 hullpoint.
AP - automatically fails.
AP1, Gauss, Rending, and Haywire automatically pass.

Yes, that's it. And if you end up play-testing it, I'd be very much obliged if you shared the results. My local group is pretty hard to convince in terms of using house rules, so I need to know if the rule works haha

 IllumiNini wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:
This sounds interesting, and will ask my opponent next game to try it out.

So what I understand is that.
If a Glancing hit is scored, roll a D6. If the D6 result is equal to or greater than the weapon's AP, the hit removes 1 hullpoint.
AP - automatically fails.
AP1, Gauss, Rending, and Haywire automatically pass.

Yes, that's it. And if you end up play-testing it, I'd be very much obliged if you shared the results. My local group is pretty hard to convince in terms of using house rules, so I need to know if the rule works haha

The only change I'd make (have not play tested yet) would be that melee attacks (including Vector Strike and Hammer of Wrath) are unaffected by this change.

 Happyjew wrote:

 IllumiNini wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:
This sounds interesting, and will ask my opponent next game to try it out.

So what I understand is that.
If a Glancing hit is scored, roll a D6. If the D6 result is equal to or greater than the weapon's AP, the hit removes 1 hullpoint.
AP - automatically fails.
AP1, Gauss, Rending, and Haywire automatically pass.

Yes, that's it. And if you end up play-testing it, I'd be very much obliged if you shared the results. My local group is pretty hard to convince in terms of using house rules, so I need to know if the rule works haha

The only change I'd make (have not play tested yet) would be that melee attacks (including Vector Strike and Hammer of Wrath) are unaffected by this change.

Why should this be the case?

Because it SEVERELY hampers the ability of assault to deal with vehicles, as close combat weapons are AP-, and the stuff that isn't is usually limited to one model in most squads, is expensive, and the stuff that isn't are rarer than big foot sightings. Particularly after GW threw grenades under the bus.

(i) I like the rule. Adds a fairly un-bloated mechanic to fix the hamfisted GW approach to HP.

(ii) Armorbane gives +1, Melta gives +1 (so yeah, most melta weapons auto-pass the check), Ordnance re-rolls 1's.

(iii) Rending I'm fine with being an auto-pass. It's representing how impossibly sharp the weapon is, allowing one to cut through a material they would otherwise not have the strength to do so. Gauss, however, shouldn't be a free ride. Crons have an easy enough time removing HP. If a space marine still gets his 3+ against a 6 to wound, the rhino still requires him to pass a 5+ roll to cause that glance. Maybe now we'll see cron players finally using their rather potent anti-tank weaponry.

I think it is a good rule, though I question Rend and Gauss getting a free pass, and AP - should probably score on a 6. I think the only rule that should get a pass on the Penetration roll is an attack that has Armourbane.