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Many tanks are in my opinion far too weak for their role in the game and/or their cost in points. At the same time dedicated anti-tank weapons are replaced with general purpose heavy weapons that glances the target to death with high rate of fire rather than destructive effect. That space marines can destroy a main battle tank with their bare (or rather power armored) hands (S4 against rear AV10) does also feel wrong in this edition.

Therefore I suggest the rule “sturdy build” (STB) for vehicles that are … well, sturdy. “A vehicle with this rule does only lose hull points from glancing hits if the attacking player, directly after the penetration roll, rolls equal or over the weapons AP with a D6. If not, the attack have no effect”

Example 1: A Leman Russ tank is hit on right side (AV12) by a meltagun, on left side (AV12) by a scatter laser and in the front (AV14) by a lascannon. All three attacks result in one glancing hit each. The meltagun has to roll equal or over a 1 to remove a HP – auto success. The lascannon has to roll equal or over 2 to remove a HP, but the scatter laser must roll a 6 to have any effect.

Example 2: A different Leman Russ is charged by three space marines. One has a power sword, one a power axe and the third only melee weapons. All three succeeds to get a glancing hit against the tanks rear AV 10. The power sword wielding SM must roll 3 or higher, the power axe marine 2 or higher while the third marine have no chance of damaging the tank, since his weapons lack an AP. (But if he had shot the tank with his bolter the AP would be 5.)

Many factions have tanks that rely on speed, cover and/or force fields for survival rather than physical armor. The “real” tank (threads!) have no advantages – it is slower, have the same HP, no saves, often more expensive and the ordinance weaponry make the sponson weapons almost worthless. STB would give threadheads a small but important advantage against the faster armies.
Examples of sturdy built vehicles would be the Leman Russ, Land Raider and Monolith. Fairly big and heavy, designed to be front fighters and to be able to take a lot of damage while dishing out damage. Dreadnaughts could get this ability to reflect the mixture of excellent armor and marine experience (but not both STB and venerable rerolls). Some Deamon Engines could be STB, representing that both technology and daemonology hold them together.

Titans, GC or MC with AV and superheavy vehicles should not get STB – either they are to big (Titans) or already represented in their HP (superheavies). STB is meant for “the poor bloody tanks” that gets no love nor good rules. Fortifications that are massive/well built/well placed could get STB since few weapons are designed to both penetrate the armor of tanks and ferroconcrete.

STB would make some tanks a bit more durable, and make the S6-7 heavy weapons less useful as universal weapons. It would also explain how IG tank units survive on the battlefield of WH40K in the face of Ork hordes, superquick D/C/CW Eldar or rebellious PDF with Earthshaker cannons.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Sounds similar to the Firepower check rules from Flames of War. I actually like the idea personally.

I'm not for it. There are a lot of high-AP attacks that factions rely on to kill tanks. Grey Knights' reliance on Psycannons, for instance, or Ork Tankhammers. Then there's the total neutering of Hammer of Wrath hits from Carnifexes and the like...

AP just wasn't designed to be used for this.

 raverrn wrote:
I'm not for it. There are a lot of high-AP attacks that factions rely on to kill tanks. Grey Knights' reliance on Psycannons, for instance, or Ork Tankhammers. Then there's the total neutering of Hammer of Wrath hits from Carnifexes and the like...

AP just wasn't designed to be used for this.

a) Is there any faction that totally lacks high S, low AP weaponry? Eldar and DE would simply have to add some Lances to their armies to make up for the lesser effect of Scatter Lasers. Ditto for GK. The idea behind STB was both to discourage the "one weapon for everything" thinking and to give "sturdy" vehicles some advantage compared to skimmers, IFVs or jetbikes.

b) Ok, I haven't considered HoW in STB. The same AP as CC attacks? But does Carnifexes really have problem killing tanks in CC, glancing hits or not? The fact that creature with S4 AP- can't damage a tank at all isn't a bug - it's the feature of STB.

superkuf wrote:

a) Is there any faction that totally lacks high S, low AP weaponry?

Like I said, Orks and GK both totally lack low AP guns. You can throw in Tyranids, too.

That sounds a bit complex and may unfairly penalize some armies. Firstly I think vehicles should be much harder to immobilize on terrain than they are. Maybe get a reroll on the difficult terrain test. Also when a techpriest, techmarine, bonesinger, whatever gets in base to base to make it's repair, it repairs all lost hull points for a non superheavy vehicle. If the character rolls a 4+ on a repair roll, a wrecked (but not exploded) vehicle becomes operational again. Then you buff vehicles and these underused characters at the same time. It also makes it important to take hardcore weapons that can explode a tank, since a tech guy can probably get anything less than that working again.

I think it makes more sense to just give every vehicle in the game and extra Hull Point. The glancing hit mechanic is meant to represent attacks failing to penetrate the armour, but tearing, buckling or just jolting it enough to cause moderate damage to the superstructure. This genuinely is a thing that happens in real tanks and it only takes so much punishment for a tank to become unusable. What I disagree with is the ease with which it happens.

As an aside, I think one of the issues with tanks is their inability to fire at more than one target. Some tanks are meant to be specialised (the Predator, for instance), while others are more general-purpose like the Leman Russ. One solution is to bring back the distinction between Offensive and Defensive weapons (so everything of S6 and above can be fired at one target, while weapons with S5 or less can be fired at a second, seperate target. Alternatively, that choice could be left to the tank's commander like in real life. It's not like we'll be able to abuse it.

Adding more layers of complication to an already bloated rule set is what GW do.

It would be much better to address the issues with the core rules , to solve the problems at source , than try to add more ''fiddle factors'', IMO.

Do vehicles not just need a saving throw?

This would bring them in line with other unit types - especially MCs.
It would bring AP into play, so scatter lasers become less effective against vehicles with their high AP. Isn't this what AP is meant to represent?
It would make vehicles generally more survivable.

I also suggested in a thread a while ago that the first hull point lost is only ever a glancing hit, regardless of whether the roll was sufficient to penetrate. This removes one-shotting. And the final hull point can only be removed with a penetrating hit. This removes glancing to death.

Not really a fan of this but its not terrible idea. It just seems more complicated and it does make AP- or 6 really difficult to damage a vehicle which makes HoW and things like tesla really ineffective against vehicles. Personally I am all for having 3+ armor on all vehicles for Front and Side Armor except skimmers/flyers who have 4+ armor on the same facings. AP3 and better are 100% the same as is while your AP4 weapons (auto cannon class) are just as effective against flyers/skimmers but have a much harder time stripping standard vehicles. All the high strength with trash AP like scatter lasers and gauss (immortal's gauss becomes noticeably different than the flayers on warriors vs skimmers) are now much less effective. Certain vehicles like land raiders and monoliths would have a special rule for 360 armor saves.

It is just the same mechanic I suggested to introduce in another thread a few months ago.
I totally agree that the game need some sort of rule that oblige to use heavy weapons to destroy tank and MCs and anti-infantry weapons for the troops.

Great, now i can't kill a rhino from afar with my lootas that cost 5 times more. If you're gona introduce a free save at least increase the price of cheap transports cause otherwise you invalidate a whole new class of units - mid str weapons.

You want it to work in melee either? That'd be harsh.

The thing is not all vehicles need improved durability. Landraiders and Predators - yes. Rhinos and Droppods - no. That's why broad changes are not going to fix the problem. They'll create a new one. Things like +1 HP to everyone won't probably matter to Battlewagons, Naughts and Landraiders as you can have a million HP but than get immobilized from a few grav shots or exploded with a few meltas. It will make Dreads decent as they're usually taken down by glances and will make Rhinos op as 4 hp transports for 35 pts that just don't go down and require ap1-2 to kill is ott.

 koooaei wrote:
Great, now i can't kill a rhino from afar with my lootas that cost 5 times more. If you're gona introduce a free save at least increase the price of cheap transports cause otherwise you invalidate a whole new class of units - mid str weapons.

You want it to work in melee either? That'd be harsh.

The thing is not all vehicles need improved durability. Landraiders and Predators - yes. Rhinos and Droppods - no. That's why broad changes are not going to fix the problem. They'll create a new one. Things like +1 HP to everyone won't probably matter to Battlewagons, Naughts and Landraiders as you can have a million HP but than get immobilized from a few grav shots or exploded with a few meltas. It will make Dreads decent as they're usually taken down by glances and will make Rhinos op as 4 hp transports for 35 pts that just don't go down and require ap1-2 to kill is ott.

But if we're introducing saving throws, they can be different for different vehicles. Maybe Land Raiders would be 3+, but Rhinos only 4+. Would help against being glanced to death from behind by bolters, but ineffective against mid-strength/AP weapons. Lascannons and meltas would not change as they're AP1/AP2. Same with melee, PKs, Krak and Meltabombs would still be effective, but a marine wouldn't be able to punch a rhino to death.

All this bitching about glancing hits...saving rolls/extra charts/roll above, below AP more rules ahhhhhhh.

Just do what i do...use common sense and say no penetration means no lose of hull points.
Its that simple

 koooaei wrote:
Great, now i can't kill a rhino from afar with my lootas that cost 5 times more. If you're gona introduce a free save at least increase the price of cheap transports cause otherwise you invalidate a whole new class of units - mid str weapons.

As I wrote in my initial post the rule "Sturdy build" should apply to a handfull of vehicles that (due to their role in combat and/or construction) should be more durable than vehicles that either were designed for speed (Wave Serpent, Land Speeders) or simply less ambitious (Rhino, everything Ork-built). The Predator is a bit of both - speed, cheap, easy to transport and maintain since it is based on the Rhino.

Russ tanks, Land Raiders and Monoliths are three poster boys for "Sturdy build". Moving fortresses with a lot of armor that can take a beating. And the basic Russ is slightly hurt by this rule, since its S8 battle cannon becomes worse att glancing AV 14.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 raverrn wrote:

superkuf wrote:

a) Is there any faction that totally lacks high S, low AP weaponry?

Like I said, Orks and GK both totally lack low AP guns. You can throw in Tyranids, too.

GK can take Lascannons. Or have someone changed the codex lately?

superkuf wrote:

GK can take Lascannons. Or have someone changed the codex lately?

Options for GK Lascannons:

Land Raider
Dreadnought
Storm Raven

In short, no. Grey Knights cannot take Lascannons. Maybe a lascannon, but that's a losing proposition.

Lascannons are worthless in 7th ed anyway. ROF is too low. It IS the shooting edition, but only for the haves. The have-not codices cant' shoot anything. At GK can assault; BA can't even do that well.

 koooaei wrote:
Great, now i can't kill a rhino from afar with my lootas that cost 5 times more. If you're gona introduce a free save at least increase the price of cheap transports cause otherwise you invalidate a whole new class of units - mid str weapons.

You want it to work in melee either? That'd be harsh.

The thing is not all vehicles need improved durability. Landraiders and Predators - yes. Rhinos and Droppods - no. That's why broad changes are not going to fix the problem. They'll create a new one. Things like +1 HP to everyone won't probably matter to Battlewagons, Naughts and Landraiders as you can have a million HP but than get immobilized from a few grav shots or exploded with a few meltas. It will make Dreads decent as they're usually taken down by glances and will make Rhinos op as 4 hp transports for 35 pts that just don't go down and require ap1-2 to kill is ott.

A rule such this would introduce a separation between anti tank weapons and weapons that are not. High str. Low AP would become anti tank, other would be anti infantry.
The Main advantage of this would be the elimination from the game of the "good for all" weapons, responsible for a good part of the actual abuse of too many stupid units such gravcent, scatterbikes and so on.

I'll propose something a bit different on the original theme.
Ditch the destruction table and roll a D6 against the AP of the weapon damaging the tank - if you manage to roll higher than your AP score the Armour Value of the tank is lowered by a point to represent lasting damage. Most ranged weapons wouldn't have the single shot chance of killing the tank they'd have to wear it down with constant fire meaning tanks would eat a few more shells on average before going pop.

Example.

1.Land Raider gets attacked by a CSM with a Powerfist, three hits land two do damage and because the Powerfist is AP1 it automatically brings the Land Raider down to AV12 until the end of the game or until it gets fixed by a techmarine.

2. Land Raider gets attacked by a Carnifex, Carnifex is at S8 due to Crushing Claws and Furious Charge, rolls for AP2 and successfully brings the Land Raider down by the amount of successful rolls.