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I was recently putting together a Whirlwind I'd picked up a few weeks ago, and as I was putting together the launcher assembly, I found myself considering which load-out I wanted to give it. As I contemplated magnetizing the launcher a thought suddenly hit me. Since the model has two separate launchers, why not do one of each - one loaded up with Castellan and the other armed with Vengeance? (Well, the rules would need a bit of tweaking and you'd have to play with points - but, WHY not allow it?)

That got me thinking further - since twin-linked has now gone the way of the dodo, why not start allowing different weapon sets be taken on models/units that previously had matched or twin weapons. And even extend it to units that had one weapon or other choices (such as those that are melee or ranged only, or have one of two base weapon options).

Some examples:
- A Razorback with a roof-mounted Las-cannon/Assault cannon instead of a twin pair of one or other.
- A Land Raider with one weapon sponson with twin Lascannon, and the other sponson sporting a Flamestorm cannon
- A ten man squad of Necron Immortals, eight with Gauss cannons, two with Tesla cannons
- A five man terminator squad, the captain with a power sword and storm bolter, two armed with power fist and storm bolters, two with thunder hammer and storm shields (though this would probably need some additional handling due to the extra protection afforded by the shields).

and so on.

Thoughts?

From an in-universe reason it'd mainly be due to logistics.

From a gaming perspective, the limitations of a unit are more important than the abilities - it's what makes units interesting and unique. A game like 40K is about choices, and the more you delete those choices that you have to make, the less rich the game becomes.

It's akin to re-working a WW2 wargame and combining all the best elements of tanks into a super tank...why would you ever take anything else? While it sounds good on paper, it ends up making an exceptionally dull game. Vehicles already have a very large amount of options right now as it is --- adding more wouldn't add any enjoyment to the game.

Also, costs would have to go up. The more versatile a unit is, the more it should cost.

Nobody does this because specialization is more important. It also looks ugly as hell on a table.

My Tactical Squads look and play great

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Nobody does this because specialization is more important.

Basically this. A double Lascannon or double Assault Cannon will generally be more effective than one of each on the same vehicle. The Lascannon doesn't want you to move, while the Assault Cannon needs you to get closer, and they are each looking for different targets which will often be in different parts of the battlefield.

Specialisation > generalisation

My terminators can have that loadout if I want them to, and I don't think Wolf Guard terminators are particularly broken.

When I do field them, they usually have an Assault Cannon, a few Storm Bolter+Storm Shield guys, and a few guys with Storm Bolters and power weapons, in case they get into melee.


However, I don't think letting the weapons be mis-matched on the tanks would be a good thing. Those mounts are constrained to fire at the same target, they should be the same gun, or a big gun and a small one with similar ballistic performance for ranging in the big one.

For a start, how has twin-linked died?

Secondly the reason you don't strap everything to one chassis is the same reason that in real life you don't get main battle tanks with gatling cannons and mortars strapped on. It's not practical. You've weight to power ratios to consider, ammo storage, lack of specialisation etc etc.

Then again, the Repulsor exists.

Banville wrote:
For a start, how has twin-linked died?

Secondly the reason you don't strap everything to one chassis is the same reason that in real life you don't get main battle tanks with gatling cannons and mortars strapped on. It's not practical. You've weight to power ratios to consider, ammo storage, lack of specialisation etc etc.

Then again, the Repulsor exists.

Well, technically, tanks did used to have a variety of mounted weapons. There were even "hermaphrodite" tanks in WWI, that had a cannon sponson and a machine gun sponson [side note, I would very much like to see a slaaneshi land raider with a lascannon on one side and a hurricane bolter on the other]. Also, some modern armored vehicles have a fairly diverse set of primary weapon systems, like the Terminator that has missiles and autocannons.

As I understand it, the evolution of the tank to the modern accepted loadout from the land battleship bristling with sponsons and turrets was primarily a matter of focus. Additional guns give a diminishing return, since they can't all engage together, and the added crew and weapons were beyond a commander's ability to effectively coordinate. Unlike an actual battleship, a tank doesn't have thousands of crew with a elaborate and robust chain of command and delegation. And, of course, cutting turrets saves weight which can be used for armor, and since one big gun [and a couple little ones] is all it really needs, you get a better vehicle for not being a land battleship. I don't think I've read of multi-gun tanks like the M3 having extensive ammunition issues, though.

On the other hand, a not-irrelevant observation is that both the Land Raider and Repulsor are essentially entirely armed with light guns, which isn't an entirely inconceivable set up.

Interesting to note the Repulsor there. It highlights the in-game problem with this. You want specialisation. 2 Razorbacks, one with twin-Lascannon, one with twin-AC is much better than each of them having one of each gun. That's because ranges are different for each weapon and also because it allows a player to focus things like aura buffs and stratagems where they will get the biggest advantage. One reason the Repulsor is bad is because, while it has loads of guns, it doesn't specialise. It can do a little bit of everything, but that's not very useful in a game where what you really want to do is annihilate a unit in one go, not damage several different units at the same time.

Also, it just looks ugly.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Banville wrote:
For a start, how has twin-linked died?

Secondly the reason you don't strap everything to one chassis is the same reason that in real life you don't get main battle tanks with gatling cannons and mortars strapped on. It's not practical. You've weight to power ratios to consider, ammo storage, lack of specialisation etc etc.

Then again, the Repulsor exists.

Well, technically, tanks did used to have a variety of mounted weapons. There were even "hermaphrodite" tanks in WWI, that had a cannon sponson and a machine gun sponson [side note, I would very much like to see a slaaneshi land raider with a lascannon on one side and a hurricane bolter on the other]. Also, some modern armored vehicles have a fairly diverse set of primary weapon systems, like the Terminator that has missiles and autocannons.

As I understand it, the evolution of the tank to the modern accepted loadout from the land battleship bristling with sponsons and turrets was primarily a matter of focus. Additional guns give a diminishing return, since they can't all engage together, and the added crew and weapons were beyond a commander's ability to effectively coordinate. Unlike an actual battleship, a tank doesn't have thousands of crew with a elaborate and robust chain of command and delegation. And, of course, cutting turrets saves weight which can be used for armor, and since one big gun [and a couple little ones] is all it really needs, you get a better vehicle for not being a land battleship. I don't think I've read of multi-gun tanks like the M3 having extensive ammunition issues, though.

On the other hand, a not-irrelevant observation is that both the Land Raider and Repulsor are essentially entirely armed with light guns, which isn't an entirely inconceivable set up.

Yep. I think we're on the same page here. Tanks have evolved because overloading with stuff is inefficient. I'm not sure I agree with your laser weapon assumption, as I think the generators for lascannons take up massive amounts of room. Which is why the Crusader carries more dudes.

I still don't get the OP's assertion that 'twin linked is dead'. It doubles shots, for goodness sake. It's alive and kicking like a mule.

Slipspace wrote:
Interesting to note the Repulsor there. It highlights the in-game problem with this. You want specialisation. 2 Razorbacks, one with twin-Lascannon, one with twin-AC is much better than each of them having one of each gun. That's because ranges are different for each weapon and also because it allows a player to focus things like aura buffs and stratagems where they will get the biggest advantage. One reason the Repulsor is bad is because, while it has loads of guns, it doesn't specialise. It can do a little bit of everything, but that's not very useful in a game where what you really want to do is annihilate a unit in one go, not damage several different units at the same time.

Also, it just looks ugly.

I suspect the repulsive is supposed to be new player friendly as they can't over specialise it to the point of having a totally inappropriate loadout. It always has 1 of its weapons to use.

Slipspace wrote:
Interesting to note the Repulsor there. It highlights the in-game problem with this. You want specialisation. 2 Razorbacks, one with twin-Lascannon, one with twin-AC is much better than each of them having one of each gun. That's because ranges are different for each weapon and also because it allows a player to focus things like aura buffs and stratagems where they will get the biggest advantage. One reason the Repulsor is bad is because, while it has loads of guns, it doesn't specialise. It can do a little bit of everything, but that's not very useful in a game where what you really want to do is annihilate a unit in one go, not damage several different units at the same time.

Also, it just looks ugly.

While you do always want to specialise it's not true that you always want to annihilate units one by one. There are enough cases where you're better off splitting fire and crippling several units instead of just annihilating one. Each wound of overkill on the annihilated unit is a wound not removing firepower from the board. It can be especially important in the early game to get as many guns off the table as possible. You do of course need to factor in what's going on in the game though. If you really need first blood or really need a squad of devastators off the table then it's best to annihilate the squad. But when there's two identical squads taking out more bodies to reduce firepower can be much more valuable, especially when you take morale into account.

Or that vehicles degrade so it can be better to have 2 crippled vehicles than 1 dead vehicles.

A non-specialised vehicle like the Repulsor makes more sense in a strategic sense than in the tactical sense of a game of 40k. If a Space Marine force has limited transport capability, it might not have room for one vehicle to carry anti-personnel weapons foruse against Orks and Tyranids, and one with anti tank weapons. So, have one vehicle that does a bit of both. The problem is, 4ok doesn't model that sort of constraint, so it works out less useful in a game.

There used to be a razorback option that had twin plasma plus lascannon on 1 turret.

 Stormonu wrote:
I was recently putting together a Whirlwind I'd picked up a few weeks ago, and as I was putting together the launcher assembly, I found myself considering which load-out I wanted to give it. As I contemplated magnetizing the launcher a thought suddenly hit me. Since the model has two separate launchers, why not do one of each - one loaded up with Castellan and the other armed with Vengeance?

I'm all for WYSIWYG, but I don't think I'd be worrying about the size of the warheads. Build whatever looks best

Consider the Razorback or Wave Serpent gunner.

Do you lead your shots so your Heavy Bolter will hit, or aim directly so your Lascannon hits?

Do you aim for the gap with your Assault Cannon for suppression, or aim to land a missile in the wall behind the enemy with your missile launcher.

In some cases (Falcons, Pred Sponsons, multicrewed IG vehicles, drone-assisted Tau vehicles, anything with POTMS) it makes sense. In many others, not so much.

I’ve been considering the situation of co-axial machine guns on tanks (from Battlefield games I’ve played, TBH) - the big bore gun with a smaller machine gun side mounted as well. You use the big gun to clear enemy vehicles, and the co-axial to stave off nearby infantry or unarmored vehicles (or to annoy a target while you wait for the big gun to reload). It’s unlikely you’ll shoot both at a tank, and firing both into a crowd of infantry would only do any good if you’ve loaded HE shells.

Also, just as an aside, consider the humble AT-ST from ROTJ; it has sponsons, but one side has a laser blaster while the other side is a grenade launcher.

Overall, I know most of these mismatches wouldn’t be very efficient on pure firepower, but they do open up options of versatility.

(BTW, I was talking about “twin-link” being dead in that actual rules text for twin-linked weapons no longer existed in 8E - they’re now fully statted out individual weapons, which could possibly open up these mismatched options).

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There used to be a razorback option that had twin plasma plus lascannon on 1 turret.

Still in the Index, so technically allowed. Also with this config, as each of the weapons systems is a separate data sheet entry, you can fire the Lascannon at a tank in front of you, while shooting the twin plasma guns at some infantry behind you, all at the same time! Split fire shenanigans.

Also, most Twin-weapons are actually cheaper that 2 weapons of the same type. This is because it is 1 weapon that must shoot at the same target, rather than 2 weapons that can split fire.
A Lascannon/Assault cannon Razorback would be horribile because:
A) The gun would have to shoot at the same target and/or
B) it would likely cost as much as both a Lascannon and an Assault cannon without getting some discount

-

Sometimes it is better to have units with mixed rolls.

Guard HWSs in early 8th (when they were pretty strong and spammable) were great with a lascannon and two mortars. It meant an enemy couldn't just focus down either your anti tank or anti infantry, depending what he was more worried about. Another advantage was being able to essentially shoot your lascannons one by one into a tank to avoid overkill.

They worked well as they both had the same range.

I think dark eldar kabalites in venoms with a blaster are a good contemporary example. The anti tank is buried across a whole list so it can't be sniped out, and the similar effective range helps.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
There used to be a razorback option that had twin plasma plus lascannon on 1 turret.

Yeah and it's worse than even the TL Heavy Bolter option.

Specialization trumps one-of-everything. As I said as well, units like that look terrible. Could you imagine a Devastator squad with one each Heavy Bolter, Lascannon, Missile Launcher, and Grav Cannon? It would look bad AND perform bad.

I thought Dev squads were better with 1 HB or 1 ML now?

 DoomMouse wrote:
Sometimes it is better to have units with mixed rolls.

Guard HWSs in early 8th (when they were pretty strong and spammable) were great with a lascannon and two mortars. It meant an enemy couldn't just focus down either your anti tank or anti infantry, depending what he was more worried about. Another advantage was being able to essentially shoot your lascannons one by one into a tank to avoid overkill.

They worked well as they both had the same range.

I think dark eldar kabalites in venoms with a blaster are a good contemporary example. The anti tank is buried across a whole list so it can't be sniped out, and the similar effective range helps.

Except a single Lascannon isn't anti-tank. At all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:
I thought Dev squads were better with 1 HB or 1 ML now?

Once they get rid of the Cherub making the Strategem working twice, Heavy Bolters will disappear.

Not sure where you got ML's from. Flakk is okay but that's it.

But then, how may Guard lists take only a single squad as their whole army?

1 LC may not be enough AT for the whole army, a decent number of "one lascannon" is great anti-tank.

Bharring wrote:
But then, how may Guard lists take only a single squad as their whole army?

1 LC may not be enough AT for the whole army, a decent number of "one lascannon" is great anti-tank.

It's also because with Lascannons they wouldn't be durable for the price, and part of the strategy with Mortars is that they're Indirect Fire. So you aren't taking advantage of the cheap mortars or you aren't making a splash with a total of THREE Lascannons from the 9 total models. It isn't good sense.

Stormonu wrote:I’ve been considering the situation of co-axial machine guns on tanks (from Battlefield games I’ve played, TBH) - the big bore gun with a smaller machine gun side mounted as well. You use the big gun to clear enemy vehicles, and the co-axial to stave off nearby infantry or unarmored vehicles (or to annoy a target while you wait for the big gun to reload). It’s unlikely you’ll shoot both at a tank, and firing both into a crowd of infantry would only do any good if you’ve loaded HE shells.

Also, just as an aside, consider the humble AT-ST from ROTJ; it has sponsons, but one side has a laser blaster while the other side is a grenade launcher.

Overall, I know most of these mismatches wouldn’t be very efficient on pure firepower, but they do open up options of versatility.

(BTW, I was talking about “twin-link” being dead in that actual rules text for twin-linked weapons no longer existed in 8E - they’re now fully statted out individual weapons, which could possibly open up these mismatched options).

Actually, the co-axial machinegun is for ranging in the big gun. The mounted coax guns would be selected for having similar ballistic performance to the main tank gun at a reasonable selection of ranges. Basically, if you shoot the machine gun and the machine gun hits, you can expect the machine gun to also hit. Not that you couldn't engage infantry with it, it is still a machine gun, but tanks have/had them for helping their gunner aim.

The pintle-mounted gun and the hull mounted gun were for shooting at infantry [and planes, in the former case], and while I'm not a WWII tanker [obviously] and therefore can't speak with authority on the matter, I would generally assume that it's probably easier to use the hull and pintle machine guns that are easier and quicker to move around than the whole tank turret.

Banville wrote:

Spoiler:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

Banville wrote:
For a start, how has twin-linked died?

Secondly the reason you don't strap everything to one chassis is the same reason that in real life you don't get main battle tanks with gatling cannons and mortars strapped on. It's not practical. You've weight to power ratios to consider, ammo storage, lack of specialisation etc etc.

Then again, the Repulsor exists.

Well, technically, tanks did used to have a variety of mounted weapons. There were even "hermaphrodite" tanks in WWI, that had a cannon sponson and a machine gun sponson [side note, I would very much like to see a slaaneshi land raider with a lascannon on one side and a hurricane bolter on the other]. Also, some modern armored vehicles have a fairly diverse set of primary weapon systems, like the Terminator that has missiles and autocannons.

As I understand it, the evolution of the tank to the modern accepted loadout from the land battleship bristling with sponsons and turrets was primarily a matter of focus. Additional guns give a diminishing return, since they can't all engage together, and the added crew and weapons were beyond a commander's ability to effectively coordinate. Unlike an actual battleship, a tank doesn't have thousands of crew with a elaborate and robust chain of command and delegation. And, of course, cutting turrets saves weight which can be used for armor, and since one big gun [and a couple little ones] is all it really needs, you get a better vehicle for not being a land battleship. I don't think I've read of multi-gun tanks like the M3 having extensive ammunition issues, though.

On the other hand, a not-irrelevant observation is that both the Land Raider and Repulsor are essentially entirely armed with light guns, which isn't an entirely inconceivable set up.

Yep. I think we're on the same page here. Tanks have evolved because overloading with stuff is inefficient. I'm not sure I agree with your laser weapon assumption, as I think the generators for lascannons take up massive amounts of room. Which is why the Crusader carries more dudes.

I still don't get the OP's assertion that 'twin linked is dead'. It doubles shots, for goodness sake. It's alive and kicking like a mule.

Sorry, I wasn't referring to them using laser weapons. I meant that their guns were in the category of "light guns" as opposed to "heavy guns". Things like machine guns, autocannons, and TOW missile launchers compared to a 120mm/L44 tank gun or a 155mm howitzer.

I don't think TL is dead, either.

So:
Shining Spears: OP because it can use it's Laser Lance and Shuriken Catapaults - very different weapon types.

Marines: Terrible because they have options that have multiple weapons.

Wave Serpent: OP because they're generalists.

Marines: Trash because they're generalists.

Reapers: Elite infantry is OP - durability doesn't matter.

Marines: Elite infantry cannot work in this edition with 1W.

Reapers/Spears: 3+ means they're practically unkillable.

Marines: 3+ isn't worth anything.

Funny, how it always works out that way.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
But then, how may Guard lists take only a single squad as their whole army?

1 LC may not be enough AT for the whole army, a decent number of "one lascannon" is great anti-tank.

It's also because with Lascannons they wouldn't be durable for the price, and part of the strategy with Mortars is that they're Indirect Fire. So you aren't taking advantage of the cheap mortars or you aren't making a splash with a total of THREE Lascannons from the 9 total models. It isn't good sense.

Mortars have quite a few advantages. Notably, it turns 2 models into 1, which we wanted for Reaper. In addition, it's a straight upgrade from the guy's Lasgun. It has indirect, but most of those squads aren't actually out of LoS, if they were, they wouldn't be protecting their tanks. Finally, it's super cheap, and that's the important thing. A Lascannon is 20 points, a Mortar is 5. For the cost of the infantry's lascannons you can have a Basilisk, or two more squads of infantry,

But that's not really the point.

A lascannon is a light antitank weapon, in a similar to a shoulder-launched missile. It's not really a big gun.

And 3 units with 1 LC each has certain advantages over 1 unit with 3 LC.

Although Rule of 3 changes things a bit.

Look at it this way: would you rather have 4 backfield Tac squads with 1 LC each or one backfield Dev squad with 4 LCs and 3 backfield Tac squads naked?