Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

If I recall the lore correctly, the Malcador used to be a fast battle tank during the great crusade, but by M41 current Malcadors are no faster than a LR. The Macharius, meanwhile, is a discount Baneblade. Practically speaking, both of these are designed to fill the gap between a 170 pt LR and a 500 pt Baneblade, and their current point values reflect that.

Not Online!!! wrote:add the same grinding advance, however allow them to double their firepower of all guns if stationary.
That would make them more into the pillboxes they were supposed to be, atleast the macharius.

The Malcador was intended to be a fast Superheavy:
Maybee allow it to double instead it's maingun and ignore -1 to hit penalties thorugh movement?

Letting the Malcador ignore penalties to shooting while moving is a given (and then shoot when it advances when it has tallarn doctrine, like a titanic vehicle). After all, the tank is almost the size of a land raider. A simple buff to its battle cannon, d6 damage instead of d3, should round it out. This is what the Marcarius has, and their guns look the same.

That doesn't help the other variants, but they just need a points drop. They're almost double the price of a russ. Make the chassis of all Malcador variants be 187 points, putting it almost in proption to a russ wound wise; increase the cost of the main gun on the heavy tank to 25 points, keeping it the same price while giving the defender and annihilator a 13 point drop; and dropping the hidden cost of the Infernus's inferno gun from 112 points to 92, for a total drop of 33 points which means it costs just as much as 3 hellhounds when ignoring secondary weapons.

Giving the Marcharius the ability to double the attack characteristic of all of it's weapons twice would be a nice ability (a shoot twice but each gun must target same unit, like on the russ). Exchanging a movement phase for an additional shooting phase is a big price, but valuable in a gunline army. The Vulkan already has a similar ability, so it's main gun should lose that ability and be changed to heavy 20

I don't think these buffs will make them better than the LR/BB in competitive play, but it should put them in line with other ig tanks for casual games. The Malcador will only have a little bit more firepower than a LR for 40% more points while the Marcharius will be comparable to a BB's shooting for ~100 few points at the cost of it's movement phase. Considering how important movement is 8th, I think that's a fair trade.

Pyroalchi wrote:As far as I now the Macharius has "Steel Behemoth", hasn't it?

And regarding the Malcador: ist still cheaper than a Knight, isn't it? I mean the most expensive Malcador should be the Annihilator + Lascannon sponsons for 280 Points which is something like one of the smaller knights before you add weapons.

But regardless: I don't think it is that good of an idea to compare the Malcador and Macharius to Knights, which again would be INTER faction Balance (and hard due to knights being really good). I think (!) it makes more sense to compare them INTRA faction wise, so for example the LR Battletank, the Malcador Battletank, the Macharius Battletank and the Vanilla Baneblade. My whole point is more: what should happen to give them some reason - as situational as it might be - to be taken instead of LR or BB?
As I said: I don't think it makes much sense to try on the firepower, CC or cheapness front, since that ship has sailed (they would need insane buffs to compete with LR/BB). Therefore I would argument to look for other ways which might be: speed, durability (without Inv. or FnP), non decreasing stats or maybe some fluffy special effect that is not overpowered but merely adds a bit of strategic depth.

He's comparing it to an Armiger knight. But knights move faster and are capable of fighting in melee, while tanks are not, thus I don't think they are really comparable. Still, durability is not the biggest problem these tanks have, a Malcador is proportionally just as tough as a LR. I think shoring up their weaknesses is the best option, namely firepower.

I've always wanted to get a Malcador. I love the WW1 tank aesthetic, but I couldn't justify it with their current rules. I've been mulling over some simple house rules for a few weeks. So do you think these will pass as good rules?
Keep in mind you only get the advance bonus if you have a Tallarn tank. I don't want to give the Malcador the titanic keyword, so the Tallarn doctrine will need to be changed to include it (titanic vehicle or Malcador). I don't think this will unseat the LR in competitive play once you factor in all its tricks, but the base stats should be close now.



I have little experience with the Marcharius. I was thinking each gun would effectively double its shots against its own targeted unit. They don't need to all target the same unit, rather each HB effectively becomes heavy 6.

I know that attack profile looks mean, but compared to a BB with sponsons:

3d6 x 9/-3/3, 1d6 x 10/-3/d6, 2 x 9/-3/d6, 2 x 7/-1/2, 18 x 5/-1/1

It's still worse and still costs about 73% as much. A quick glance tells me it probably shoots at 85% of a BB's level when stationary, so 43% when it moves. Averaging it out, the Marcharius need to move twice each game to stay inline with a BB's shooting. Do you think it would do that each game? I know it's not uncommon for a unit to only move once in a game. And considering how powerful a Marachius is, it should be a priority to avoid and so will have to move more.

In the event the Marcharius moves every turn or every other turn, it will hardly be comparable to a BB. I've never tested this or anything like it.

Running the shooting number on the Malcador again, assuming non-turret guns account for 1/3 of it's shooting potential, it would only have 8% more shooting than a LR when it is 43% move expensive. I don't know if that's enough to balance out the movement advantage.

The only lore problem is that this makes the Marcharius into a mobile pillbox; not a true discount Baneblade, which is what the Marcharius really is. Having only 20" of movement is pretty limiting, too. Especially since it would be a priority to avoid, a few inches of positioning movement would help it get as much out of its double shooting as a Baneblade gets out of its normal shooting. Of course, there are times when the Baneblade doesn't move at all or only moves a little bit. That eliminates a grinding advance ability, where it can shoot all of its guns twice as long as it moves under half its maximum distance. I would like to give it something like that to keep it from exclusively pillboxing, but I don't see that rule being balanced unless you reduce the movement to something like 1/3rd instead of 1/2, maybe subtract one for the movement value and then divide by 3 to get an even number. But then you will have to do something about the Tallarn doctrine.

For 43% more points? I would think it would need to have about 20% more dakka than a Russ to be viable. For that to happen, the main gun would only need to have slightly more firepower than to Russ's main gun. If you want to make a Heavy Russ, giving it grinding advance (reroll hits on the main gun instead of double shots) should put it inline with the Russ variants. It would lose the movement advantage, but will have 37.5% more firepower.

Reading the wikis, the Marcharius is a budget Baneblade that fills the gap between the Russ and the Baneblade. That's why I thought a double shooting ability would be good. It's just that a half move would give it too much shooting and remaining stationary would change its purpose. Would giving it grinding advance rule (double shooting on all guns) and a 30 point hick fix it? 80% of the price for 85% of the shooting and 50% of the movement.

 OldMate wrote:

Spoiler:

Macharius is supposed to be a budget baneblade but on the other hand it suits a single purpose better, Baneblade varients are like Swiss army knives. Malcador is a pillbox in 40k and fast tank in 30k.
(sorta psycotic, but they forgot to make the engines proppa, and then apparently remembered to in 8th but it wasn't fast anymore)

I don't put rules forwards here, but I do suggest areas where they could be imposed.

Malcador Prognosis
[spoiler]Malcador would greatly benefit from being stronger, slightly better armour than a russ(I'm thinking) and more wounds (it's a less compact tank so any incoming round has less chance of doing bad damage so perhaps it degrades slower?) I think giving it grinding advance/beating grinding advance on the back of the head and throwing it into a multcher because tanks ain't got no right to fire a primary twice in a turn.
Also this tank is designed to be a fast tank(in 30k at least( really leaves questions about that casemate in my view), so perhaps it can fire it's ordinance at full speed?(because the engine might have been clapped that tech is still working)

Hell you could bring back fast tank, give it a decent ram/access to close up wargear and have it scooting up the board the case-mate sorta balances against the fast tank rule if your house rules include pointing model's guns at their targets. (not as well as it would if it had armour values for all sides but meh that's 8th, while I'm here: templates)

Perhaps the Malcador could take specialized ammo types to edge out over the russ and give it extra utility. Could be that it has larger storage capacity for ammo, or simply that it's a higher prestige tank and given access to the good stuff. Perhaps it's a more stable firing platform and therefore the vehicle's accuracy is better than a russ.

Macharius Prognosis

Spoiler:

The Macharius should be a cheap super heavy, double the fire-power of a russ, if russ gets grinding advance this thing should too. Otherwise it's just silly. (I mean it has an identical gun, just 2 of them and a bigger turret and heavier platform that seemingly should have better weight distribution, should lend itself to this) Hell it's a more stable firing platform so hitting on +3s instead of 4s shouldn't be out of the question stock. I mean the russ is a very tall tank, platform stability would be an issue for accuracy especially with ordinance weapons.

The Macharius Vanquisher should be a very scary tank hunter(vanquisher should be at least a capable tank hunter(and IMHO should be the best of the russes for general duties at long distance(I mean, it's a high velocity cannon) so there's a bit of rule changing needed there lol), It's got 2x giant cannons giving it a leg up on the original baneblade at long range AT wise(not having to worry about getting into demolisher range, but missing out on 2x las-cannons and an auto-cannon) Possibly less armour, less all round clouting ability. It's a tank killer not a land battleship/battlefortress.


The Vulcan is like a stormlord but has a turret and is not a confused SPG/APC/suppression tank.
(yeah not an issue in 8th apparently because self propelled guns work just like tanks)

It's a tank that gets in close and kills everything that does not have sufficient armour and is in a 45' arc of it's barrels
I mean if its a bit tougher I'd still be balanced by the fact it needs AT support

[/spoiler]

Sounds like you know your tanks. And it sounds like FW didn't know what they were doing with the Malador's movement. So right now the rules changes are giving the Malcador 50% more wounds than the Russ; giving it equivalent - if not slightly inferior - shooting power, but 50% more accurate shooting; and giving it the same movement stats as a Russ. That seems to be in line with what you said about the tank.

The Marcharius is a bit tougher to write rules for since it is basically an oversized Russ that's meant to compete with the land-ship that is the Baneblade, at least that's what I get from your description. It simply doesn't have the firepower to really fulfill that role without some special rules writing, not that that is impossible. The current rule change is to give it a Grinding Advance ability that lets every gun shoot twice. A points hike might be in order, too.

To take the basic heavy tank variant, the rules we have now give it 75% more firepower for each battle cannon (d6 damage instead of d3), so 3.5 times the firepower of a Russ on the main gun system. If you bought that in individual Russes, you would equal a Baneblade in cost. Now the Marcharius does not equal a Baneblade in cost because it lacks the same number of secondary weapons and sponson weapons. I think Grinding Advance ability should affect the guns it has, unlike on a Russ, just to give it some boost in secondary firepower. Really I don't think this is a problem because it's not meant to have 11 guns like a Baneblade, just have one good gun as you said. This should give it about 75% of a Baneblade's firepower (my original calculations didn't put enough emphasis on T8 enemies, which the Baneblade is much better against). So with that in mind, the current points cost is probably good, being slightly more than 2 Russes. I think these rules would make it play like the oversized Russ it's meant to be.

The next question is evaluating the main guns themselves:
Each vanquisher cannon is essentially a meltagun/lascannon hybrid. I don't want it to have the same problem as the LR vanquisher, so making each gun have d3 hits might be enough to balance it in relation to the normal battle cannon variant. In fact, the LR vanquisher probably needs that rule change too. It still fires an explosive shell after all, just of a different type.

If the Vulcan will get easier access to double shooting now with GA then keeping its's main gun as heavy 15 is ok. On the move, it will shoot slightly less than a Stormlord, but when it slows down it has even more firepower. I think this is a fair balance considering it is a titan weapon strapped to a heavy tank, even if it is it's the primary weapon for which to while the tank is designed around and it can't do anything else but shoot that gun (no troop transport).

There is one tank you didn't mention, the Marchaius Omega. It has a plasma gun that is not even equal in strength to the heavy plasma guns used by hellblasters. It's supposed to rival a titan plasma gun, like the Vulcan. I would stay just giving it +1 damage on both profiles would fix this. It would be identical to a normal titan plasma gun when shooting normally, but with less overcharge capability. But this would be way better than any other Marcharius variant with its double shooting ability. Maybe it needs a points hick in relation to the other tanks, say +20 points so it will cost more than the vanquister instead of being equal to the Vulcan.

Edit: spelling

Glad you like the changes. Hopefully others like them too. I wish GW would give them a proper boost though, the guard range needs more diversity. I can't imagine them balking at more FW sales.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:Probably a moot point about the Omega, you'll be hard-pressed to find one of those. I dare say they are rarer than Gorgons nowadays.

The Omega would receive more benefit from double shooting than the other variants after it's +1 damage. Do you think this isn't enough to warrant a points change?

Pyroalchi wrote:@ OldMate and Eipi10: very good ideas indeed. And I also think more diversity would be nice for guard.

Regarding Vanquishers (on whatever platform) I also sometimes think: when it was a much longer barrel shooting a much faster projectile and taking 3.5x as much time to aim and fire, shouldn't it be much more precise?

Just from some quick and dirty mathhammering a +1 to hit would put the LR Vanquisher slightly above the Standard BC on a normal Russ. The Macharius Vanquisher would need more love to get better than the BC Macharius in anti tank duty (+2 to hit makes it better against T8 3+, but still worse against T7 3+)

Either way this increased precision would also make the Vanquisher more reliable.

But again that's just an idea open to discussion

I never pictured a battlecannon shooting d6 shots myself. I always saw the d6 as a stand-in for templates, the aoe of the cannon shot. But would this be in addition to or instead of the d3 shots? It's an interesting idea. If you're going for realism, I don't know if +250m/s on the shell would take a tank from shooting like a guardsman to shooting like space marine.

@Pyroalchi

I always thought vanquishers fired HEAT rounds. I wonder if GW has ever thought about this before. The wiki says it can shoot both, for what its worth.

I'm not sure about your math hammer on the standard vanquisher. I get much lower numbers than you (~.7 for the first one and .97 for the second). You do make a good point that doubling the number of shots would make it much better than a normal LR without any good scaling.

As far as your suggestions go, BS 3 doesn't seem like a good enough improvement, it's still weaker than a BC. 2+ wounding removes the value of weapon strength. I would say rerolling all failed wound rolls would do much the same thing, mathematically, but I know a lot of people think the game has too many rerolls. Catastrophic damage is simply too unreliable for competitive play, but I do think you are on to something, a damage boost is probably the way to go. Melta damage might be the best option, the highest of two dice for a normal LR vanquisher. Unfortunately, it only does .94 wounds on a Repulsor, not enough. 2d6 damage would be too much, I think 6 damage on average would be just about perfect, dealing 1.25 damage on average. The Marcharius, meanwhile, needs to do about 8 damage to do 2.25 damage, over the 2.04 damage of the BC. I'm not sure what the best way to reach those averages with dice is.

That's what I get for not reading the rules.

I don't know of many d6+X weapons in 40k. Toying around with the numbers a bit more, doubling the damage on a wound roll of 6+ would make the LR vanquisher match a LR on T7/3+ and do 1.25 dmg on a T8/3+. Unfortunately this is not enough on a marcharius, it still won't match the BC. So I think your idea might be good for that marcharius (melta, +2 against vehicles, and doubling on a wound of 6+). The only other rule I can think of that will do something similar is doubling the damage on a 5+ and taking the highest damage of 3d6. 1d6+4 and the one I just mentioned will do 7.5 damage per shot on average, while the combination will do 8.125. I'm slightly worried that will be too good.

You would shoot AT rounds at a single dude if you're shooting a custodian.

I thought the Abrams just had no need for an anti-infantry round. Then again modern US conflicts have no need for the Abrams, but that might change if the war party (i.e. both parties) gets its way.

Still, I am skeptical if a velocity change of a few hundred m/s will make a noticeable difference on the tabletop outside, of one point of AP or something. I think it is more plausible that they use different ammunition which requires different barrel structures. I don't have a good guess for what those might be, and I don't think GW does either.

I don't know about specialist detachments, they feel too restrictive. I think there is a reason why there is no indication we will see any more since vigilus, and why I personally have never seen one used since they were new.

It seems pretty clear from the rules that the BB is intended to be a supersized russ, so I figured the malc and mach would follow the same trend if GW/FW wrote the rules properly. But it looks like you all proposing rules that would split the guard tanks into two families, infantry support and MBT. You could even go further and give each guard tank fill a unique tactical role, but I'm not sure of a good way to differentiate the BB and LR, or malc and mach for that matter. If you wanted some more flexibility, you could always make both the malc and mach heavy supports.

So if the LR has it's GA rule for tank v. tank combat, and the BB has steel behemoth for dominating the battlefield, what special rules should the malc and mach get? What about some kind of dedicated heavy tank rule: As long as this tank moves at or under half it's move characteristic, it suffers no penalties for moving and firing heavy weapons, subtracts 1 from the damage of incoming attacks to a minimum of 1, and on a 4+ it can force one enemy unit to target it instead of one friendly infantry unit within 3" for shooting attacks one per battle round.

I really think these tanks need some kind of shooting improvement, they are just so far behind that it's sad. Something to further boost survivability will not be remiss if you aren't trying to make it compete with a LR/BB, but I don't like messing with wound roles unless it is for a good reason, I would soon alter the incoming damage or just give the tank a FNP.

Earlier in the thread, I had suggested giving the malcador reroll hits on it's main gun if it moves under half it's move characteristic. Between that and boosted damage, it would be in line with the power level of a LR. I don't think that rule would be good however, the game has too many rerolls now and I don't want to infringe in the trojan's territory. A mathematically similar rule would be shoot twice (like a LR) but with a damage of d6 minus 1 to a minimum of 1. If you want to malcador to be a slightly tankier LR and want to macharius to bridge the gap between a LR and a BB, you can use to rules I made.

But making these tanks more like infantry support vehicles is much more interesting. I still like your idea of intercepting hits. Maybe make it apply to all units within 3" (not just infantry) and activate on a 5+ if you want these tanks to support infantry too. A pair of macharius's can even intercept hits for each other if you want to stay out of melta/rapidfire range or something. This rule only works if the attacks are within range of the new tank. Otherwise, the attacks target the originally targeted unit as normal.

I don't like the idea of guard getting invuln saves (except for characters and those given by other armies). They're supposed to (usually) be 20th-century soldiers in the 400th-century, no force fields here.

I still don't like using detachments for this. As long as you stay mono-faction, I wouldn't consider your army to be soup. Everyone is always trying to optimize their list, it's why internal army balance is so important. Furthermore, there is a reason why GW made a lot of their specialist detachment relics and stratagems into standard ones. This is especially true for marines, and they have an even bigger codex than guard.

FW units need some special stratagems all their own. +1T for the macharius and BB is good, maybe for 2 CP if it's outside of a specialist detachment. The malc is too small to be T9. Intercepting shooting can be a malcador stratagem, maybe make it a 2CP strat so you don't have to compensate in another way, so your not designing the unit around the stratagem. I was reading over the guard codex and I noticed the LR doesn't actually have a unique stratagem, maybe give it a stratagem that lets it fire it's heavy weapons even if it advances, to represent it's mobility.

Remove the LR tank commander (Pask can still exist) and then a tank commander can be a general AM stratagem. For 2CP, it gives 1 tank order to the unit, the officer keyword, +1 BS, +1LD, and makes the unit count as an HQ instead of a heavy support. This can only be applied to the malcador, macharius (which is now a heavy support) and LR. Tank order can now be used a malcador, macharius, or LR, instead of just the LR.

But the WW2 tactics is more a mine avoidance tactics than a shooting one, you can do that with normal movement.