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Basically a tachyon arrow isn't worth taking now unless it's very, very cheap. And even then it hardly seem right for a necron overlord to be saddled with such a weak weapon.

"BUT IT'S GOT A TEN FOOT RANGE!!!"

So what? It has a built in 1/3 chance of doing zero damage at all. No damage at 120" is no better than zero damage at 12". Making it do MW would at least drop the odds of doing zip damage to 1/6. And honestly how many times is a rang longer than 60" going to be really useful?

And it's a best case scenario that it only has 1/3 chance of doing nothing. Against a target with inv save, it's chances of laying an egg are much higher, making your overlord's one single ranged attack about as effective as farting at the enemy. (Hell, necrons can't even do that.)

"THEN JUST DON'T FIRE IT AT ANYTHING WITH AN INVULNERABLE SAVE THEN!!!"

It's a one use weapon. It's gives your overlord one single ranged attack per battle. You're going to want to fire it at something that really matters. How many high priority targets don't have ++saves?

Plus this is a weapon likely reserved for an overlord. He has the highest ballistic skill in the army and is going to take a one single use weapon that against a worthy or important target (I.E. one with a ++ save) is very like to go "Doink!" Necrons are supposed to be smarter than that.

Then of course the dreaded 1d6 dam value means you can still roll a 1 after the to hit, to wound and ++save.

Yes, in theory you could possibly tag the enemy warlord at like 5 feet, hit, wound, beat ++ save and roll a 6 damage. The odds of you doing nothing are far greater than that happening.

I could possibly see it on a CCB lord as at least if this whiffs he can shoot the gauss cannon at BS2.


Look, it's a one use weapon, give it MW already.

I kinda agree with the sentiment. Straight line and anything in that line gets D3 Mortal Wounds?

If you want it to be scary, make it:
Single Use, Heavy 2d3, Blast, 1 MW per hit

No, I don't want it to be OP, but dammit, as is it's not really effective at all unless you roll above average. Someone saioda vindicare sniper rifle is better overall than the tachyon arrow.

I don't want to Op it I just want to make it somnething that feels like a weapon created by the most advanced race in the galaxy for their warlords to use.

Perhaps make it give debuffs? Say, on a hit, the targeted unit halves its move, advance, and charge until your next turn.
On a wound, they also suffer -1 to-hit for the same period.

So, T1, you pop it at a Knight. You probably hit, slowing it down and stopping it from reaching your lines. if you roll nice and wound, it also does less damage. And then if you get real lucky, you also shave some wounds off.

 Matt Swain wrote:
No, I don't want it to be OP, but dammit, as is it's not really effective at all unless you roll above average. Someone saioda vindicare sniper rifle is better overall than the tachyon arrow.

I don't want to Op it I just want to make it somnething that feels like a weapon created by the most advanced race in the galaxy for their warlords to use.

A) A single use weapon carried by the quintessential elite character of an entire faction can be powerful so long as it is costed appropriately
B) I modeled that statline off of the already-existing Soulburner Ribaudkin, of which Hellforged Leviathan Dreadnoughts can carry two, and are not single use.

Maethbalnane wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
No, I don't want it to be OP, but dammit, as is it's not really effective at all unless you roll above average. Someone saioda vindicare sniper rifle is better overall than the tachyon arrow.

I don't want to Op it I just want to make it somnething that feels like a weapon created by the most advanced race in the galaxy for their warlords to use.

A) A single use weapon carried by the quintessential elite character of an entire faction can be powerful so long as it is costed appropriately
B) I modeled that statline off of the already-existing Soulburner Ribaudkin, of which Hellforged Leviathan Dreadnoughts can carry two, and are not single use.

Why does it have to stay a single-use item?

It's easier to balance it as a piece of war gear that can always be fired in addition to any other shooting attack that character may have. That way it can stay close to its current statline while not feeling useless.

 Canadian 5th wrote:
Why does it have to stay a single-use item?

It's easier to balance it as a piece of war gear that can always be fired in addition to any other shooting attack that character may have. That way it can stay close to its current statline while not feeling useless.

My understanding of the fluff of the item is that it has always been described as a single-shot weapon.
My intent was only to change the statline to better represent that fluff, not to change the fluff to better match some desired statline.
IMHO, if a weapon is desired that would demand a different fluff, it would be better to make entirely new fluff to suit it, rather than overwrite what already exists and could be make to work perfectly well in its own right.

Maethbalnane wrote:
My understanding of the fluff of the item is that it has always been described as a single-shot weapon.
My intent was only to change the statline to better represent that fluff, not to change the fluff to better match some desired statline.
IMHO, if a weapon is desired that would demand a different fluff, it would be better to make entirely new fluff to suit it, rather than overwrite what already exists and could be make to work perfectly well in its own right.

Isn't that solved by giving a character a Quiver of Tachyon Arrows rather than just one?

From the Warhammer 40k fandom dot com wiki:
"The only disadvantage to this astounding item is that its strange ammo supply is exhausted with a single shot, and is far too complex to be reloaded in the midst of combat."

If you want to do away with the balance complication of Single Use, you're looking less for a 'quiver of arrows' as a metaphor than 'brace of pistols' - ie. a character carrying multiple entire weapons to use and discard in turn because they can't be effectively reloaded mid-battle.

Maethbalnane wrote:
From the Warhammer 40k fandom dot com wiki:
"The only disadvantage to this astounding item is that its strange ammo supply is exhausted with a single shot, and is far too complex to be reloaded in the midst of combat."

If you want to do away with the balance complication of Single Use, you're looking less for a 'quiver of arrows' as a metaphor than 'brace of pistols' - ie. a character carrying multiple entire weapons to use and discard in turn because they can't be effectively reloaded mid-battle.

The issue is that single-use weapons are impossible to balance unless they are cheap enough that they can be taken in meaningful numbers (hunter-killer missiles) such that a miss isn't devastating. A one-use unique relic weapon that is powerful enough to be a good option would have to be so powerful that the gains from it hitting are worth the risks of a miss and thus games, where you do hit, are turned massively in your favour and games where you miss are actively turned against you. Being favoured to win or lose based on a single RNG event isn't good game design.

Thus your options are to make the weapon useful all game long so that it will tend towards the middle of a bell-curve in terms of impact, make the single-use items success automatic but its effect small, or reimagine the weapon such that it provides a passive effect in addition to its single attack.

I don't see how and why a relic would/should have such drastic effect. They're supposed to be game influencing, not game changing.

 skchsan wrote:
I don't see how and why a relic would/should have such drastic effect. They're supposed to be game influencing, not game changing.

two words ... vindicare assassin

TomWilton wrote:
two words ... vindicare assassin

But that's an Imperium unit. The Imperium is allowed to have nice things.

Here we are discussing for nice things for "those filthy zenos". How we have dared such impudence is a mystery that may never be solved.


/s

 skchsan wrote:
I don't see how and why a relic would/should have such drastic effect. They're supposed to be game influencing, not game changing.

It's not relic though but reqular wargear.

tneva82 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
I don't see how and why a relic would/should have such drastic effect. They're supposed to be game influencing, not game changing.

It's not relic though but reqular wargear.

So are the Soulburner line of weapons, or Exitus Rifles, or flipping Deathstrike Missiles...

 Matt Swain wrote:
Basically a tachyon arrow isn't worth taking now unless it's very, very cheap. And even then it hardly seem right for a necron overlord to be saddled with such a weak weapon.

"BUT IT'S GOT A TEN FOOT RANGE!!!"

So what? It has a built in 1/3 chance of doing zero damage at all. No damage at 120" is no better than zero damage at 12". Making it do MW would at least drop the odds of doing zip damage to 1/6. And honestly how many times is a rang longer than 60" going to be really useful?

And it's a best case scenario that it only has 1/3 chance of doing nothing. Against a target with inv save, it's chances of laying an egg are much higher, making your overlord's one single ranged attack about as effective as farting at the enemy. (Hell, necrons can't even do that.)

"THEN JUST DON'T FIRE IT AT ANYTHING WITH AN INVULNERABLE SAVE THEN!!!"

It's a one use weapon. It's gives your overlord one single ranged attack per battle. You're going to want to fire it at something that really matters. How many high priority targets don't have ++saves?

Plus this is a weapon likely reserved for an overlord. He has the highest ballistic skill in the army and is going to take a one single use weapon that against a worthy or important target (I.E. one with a ++ save) is very like to go "Doink!" Necrons are supposed to be smarter than that.

Then of course the dreaded 1d6 dam value means you can still roll a 1 after the to hit, to wound and ++save.

Yes, in theory you could possibly tag the enemy warlord at like 5 feet, hit, wound, beat ++ save and roll a 6 damage. The odds of you doing nothing are far greater than that happening.

I could possibly see it on a CCB lord as at least if this whiffs he can shoot the gauss cannon at BS2.


Look, it's a one use weapon, give it MW already.

Just reduce the range to something sensible. 24" lets say. And remove the slowed one use only clause. Once that's done, Boom. You got yourself a cool weapon!

What if it did 1d3 mortal wounds and then started the cascading wounds like the rock saw or that headshot stratagem.

By "that headshot stratagem", do you mean the Vindicare Assassin's datasheet ability, "Head Shot"?

So... it’s a Necron Hunter-Killer Missile?

 Slayer6 wrote:
So... it’s a Necron Hunter-Killer Missile?

Kinda. It used to be a purchased wargear for any Overlord in the 5th edition codex, and it was at the time S10 AP1 (the equivalent of AP-5 now), so it was significantly stronger than the HK Missile, but obviously more limited in numbers. Come 7th onwards with the new codex the entry disappears outside Anrakyr with his. Now we have a generic Overlord with the wargear again.