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I'd like to see a rule where tanks (perhaps other vehicles too) are harder or easier to damage based on facing. They would gain +1 to their armour save on the front armour and -1 to their save on the rear armour (while the side armour save would be as in their stats).
Eg-A Leman Russ would have a 2+ save vs shots coming from the front arc, a 3+ save vs shots coming from the side and a 4+ save vs shots coming from the rear.

You would determine the direction of the shot by drawing lines through the centre of the tank. I doubt this would be implimented as simplification is in vogue (and I'm not really against that) but this is something I'd like to see and I don't think it would make things drastically more complicated

Armor facing only work and don't cause both slowdown and arguments if they have a base that has clear markings to indicate where facings begin and end or they are all made out of boxes.

Where are you drawing the lines to mark facings on a ghost ark? on a hammerhead? on a dread? on a knight?

What happens when a player kit bashes or converts theirs heavily?

What happens when they model it in action pulling a wheelie or tilting on it's side while driving over a carnifex? A knight turning at it's torso? Are basing it's facings on it's feet or it's chest? Or it's head?

In fact, it makes things drastically more complicated because the base foundation of the game does not support it being functional and easy in any capacity.

Yes, those are certainly some good points I suppose it would rely upon playing people that were not competitive to the point of getting very heated over the exact nature of the facings (which might be easier said than done ).
It's definitely true that drawing the lines is more of an art than an exact science, though we did manage to do this up until 8th edition. Basically it's not so much about finding the corners of a vehicle but more about determining an aproximate centre point and drawing lines out from there.

I definitely see where you're coming from though. Removing fuzzy stuff that can be open to interpretation is a good thing, as even in a friendly game it can lead to a bad time if one player feels like they've been cheated. This sort of ill-defined situation can lead to that sort of event.

I never ran into trouble with armour facings back when they were a thing (7th ed and earlier) but I can see how they might be a problem in some situations

I know 40k deals in a certain level of abstraction (and is a more fun game for it-I really prefer firing from any point on a model rather than having to worry about the arc of each weapon) but I still really like the idea of armour facings-Particularly on tanks.

I like the idea of the front armour bouncing off the worst the enemy can do (as armour value 14 on the front Russ used to do) and also the idea of a unit being rewarded with a better chance of doing damage if they manage to get round behind an armoured unit.

Just how I feel on the subject of course. Simplicity is great and should be striven for, but sometimes these little details can help to add a lot of flavour to a game

I don't think this adds flavor. And what you are talking about isn't really flavor but depth. You want the idea that getting behind a tank is a strategic element that lends tactical depth to positioning.

Unfortunately this doesn't really add depth. The tanks will always be placed facing forward because why wouldn't they? If you can deep strike behind them then you always will because why wouldn't you? It doesn't actually add any new tactical options. All it does is pigeon hole everyone into even more narrow options because they are actively rewarded and punished for doing otherwise. It's the illusion of depth at best.

There really does need to be more depth in the game play of 40k. But this ain't gunna do it.

I like it. Will suggest not when I get to play again. Can’t see it causing rows we are pretty chilled.

And it does add depth. You would position your tanks to be shielded from the rear. Be aware of allowing you rear to targeted. And enemies that can scoot around and attack an exposed flank could do so and behave like that should rather than it not matter. There would be a reward for flanking a tank, like it should be. I though maybe less toughness but like the save version too.

It really doesn't add depth because the same Deep Strikers that can do damage on the drop will do the same damage on the drop.

Andykp wrote:
I like it. Will suggest not when I get to play again. Can’t see it causing rows we are pretty chilled.

And it does add depth. You would position your tanks to be shielded from the rear. Be aware of allowing you rear to targeted. And enemies that can scoot around and attack an exposed flank could do so and behave like that should rather than it not matter. There would be a reward for flanking a tank, like it should be. I though maybe less toughness but like the save version too.

Again, thats not depth. Thats just 1 obviously best thing to do that you then obviously try to do to the best of your ability. There is no depth there. It's more complicated then it is now because there are bonuses and penalties involved where there currently are none. But it's not deep in any way. It's shallow. It's shallow like the first dusting of snow. It's nothing. Complication is not depth.

I'd argue it does add *some* depth; just not enough to warrant the extra complication of defining facings.

But Lance is definitely right about armor facing creating obvious "correct" decisions. I started playing in 5th. Armor facing was not a canvas on which to paint one's tactical brilliance. It was mostly a way to make tanks vulnerable to marines (and other s4 units) in melee because it was really lame to face a mech list and realize that it was immune to half your army's firepower. I don't believe I ever lined up a shot on rear armor (or had my own targeted) thanks to some amazing feat of generalship; it's just the thing that happened sometimes if you had deepstrikers or fast skimmers.

I'm afraid, SpaceGoblin, that I see your proposal mostly just resulting in adding to the durability of vehicles and thus requiring a lot of work go into tweaking their prices to reflect the newfound increase in resillience (and situational decrease in resillience).

I feel like armour facings would only really be worth it in some sort of variant game. Maybe a game focused heavily on vehicle vs vehicle combat with far fewer models in play at once. Sort of like Gangs of Commorragh but with tanks. Or possibly in a variant ruleset for Combat Patrol and Incursion-sized games where vehicles are kept artificially rare and thus have more gravitas when they do show up.

It's one of those things that just seems to make sense to me (since armoured vehicles tend to have thicker armour on the front and weaker armour in the rear).

It would add more thought into how to position your armoured units and also you'd be a bit more aware of trying to block deepstrikers to the rear or avoiding being surrounded or suffering from enfilading fire and having to decide whether to face one flanking enemy unit or the other or whether to compromise and show your side armour to both.

I can recognise the point that it might not make the game better. Having to agonise over the exact placement of models doesn't really make the game more fun and as I said, I'm glad they got rid of some of the complexity (such as arcs of fire on vehicle weapons).

I don't mind detail being sacrificed if it makes for a better game. This was just an idea that appealed to me

How about just making it a specail rule for the IG super heavy tanks? Their points would not need to be changed, as they are already a bit over costed and (in my opinion) they could also do with a boost in survivability. I'd even go so far as to give them a 2+ base save. Thus the front armour would be 1+, the side 2+ and the rear 3+. A roll of a '1' would always fail, but the front armour would still be on a 2+ save vs AP-1 weapons.

I don't know if- 'They'd have to change all the points' is a good argument against a rules idea. Otherwise you could never make changes to the system

I'm not really convinced either way. I like it, but I can agree that there are negatives and it might become tiresome. I may try it out and see how well it works.

 SpaceGoblin1980 wrote:
It's one of those things that just seems to make sense to me (since armoured vehicles tend to have thicker armour on the front and weaker armour in the rear).

In fact in the real world armored vehicles, in the past, were weaker on the bottom and top and equally armored on all horizontal facings. Then aircraft started bombing them and they got more armored on the top. Then IEDs and mines were used to disable them from the bottom and they got better armored on the bottom. If a vehicle is less armored someplace it's now by necessity (they need to be able to get fresh air in and bad air out. No escaping that).

It would add more thought into how to position your armoured units and also you'd be a bit more aware of trying to block deepstrikers to the rear or avoiding being surrounded or suffering from enfilading fire and having to decide whether to face one flanking enemy unit or the other or whether to compromise and show your side armour to both.

You won't think more. You will only have the single thought. There is no option besides optimization. And if you were not trying to stop deepstrikers before this isn't going to change much about it. Deepstrikers in your flanks are already an issue. Making it a slightly more inconvenient issue for some units that some armies might have isn't going to change that drastically.

I can recognise the point that it might not make the game better. Having to agonise over the exact placement of models doesn't really make the game more fun and as I said, I'm glad they got rid of some of the complexity (such as arcs of fire on vehicle weapons).

I don't mind detail being sacrificed if it makes for a better game. This was just an idea that appealed to me

How about just making it a specail rule for the IG super heavy tanks? Their points would not need to be changed, as they are already a bit over costed and (in my opinion) they could also do with a boost in survivability. I'd even go so far as to give them a 2+ base save. Thus the front armour would be 1+, the side 2+ and the rear 3+. A roll of a '1' would always fail, but the front armour would still be on a 2+ save vs AP-1 weapons.

I don't know if- 'They'd have to change all the points' is a good argument against a rules idea. Otherwise you could never make changes to the system

I'm not really convinced either way. I like it, but I can agree that there are negatives and it might become tiresome. I may try it out and see how well it works.

I even agree that "all the points would have to change" is a bad argument. I just see no actual benefit to this in practice. In theory your saying your looking for all the right things. But this isn't going to make anything happen in any positive way. You are looking back to an old mechanic for inspiration when you should be looking for entirely new mechanics.

I'm really not sure how I feel about armour facings.

On one hand, I really like the concept. It adds a level of realism to an aspect I'm very interested in (tanks).

On the other hand, it's very difficult to do.
I play other games that involve arcs like this, and scarcely a game goes by where there isn't a disagreement over arcs - even with them clearly marked on bases and only being required to extrapolate up to 6 inches.
In 40k having no clear markings for bases (eg a Wave Serpent) and having to extrapolate regularly at 24+", you're begging for trouble.

I know that the game as we have it is an abstraction of a great many things -- but perhaps the many tanks each leman russ represents could do something different.

Have a strategem. Pick out precisely which tanks are forward facer types and which are not -- list them. Then, use that strategem called "forward facing" when you wish to give one unit of that armor a +1 on its forward save, and a minus one on EVERY OTHER save. It recieves ALSO a +1 toughness on its forward arc, but a -1 toughness on its rear arc. Till end of turn, or until it moves again, whichever is sooner.

Draw the arc from the dead center of any unit firing or being fired on, and to either
!) in a tank with no base, to the front left point of the non-turret portion of the tank, and the front right point of the non turret portionof the tank.
2_ in a tank with a base -- the OPPONENT chooses if its to the 10 oclock and 2 oclock positions from the center of the base, or if its physically measured to the similar hullpoint.

This lets you wedge one tank in good -- their crackerjack crews focus their armor in the direction of a singular threat, but a clever enemy who expects this could well have a second crew waiting to step in with a couple heavy flamers and give that tank's rear a real hard time. It means you would think carefully about putting tanks so that the front one's rear arc is less vulnerable, etc etc.

But its just a little 1 cp strategem, so it gives you a feel of exceptional tactics in this one spot, without turning big tank armies into a slow plod of "I think that shot is over the edge of my forward arc" "Aaiiie, again? Get the laserpointers back out."

Why not look back at old mechanics, they survived 20 years of playing for a reason. The rule in its self adds a little depth just by definition of being an extra element. Combine it with the other elements of placement and screening and cover use and it adds more depth than you give it credit for. Combine with a nice rule for fire arcs again you are in business.

The main reason these rules became unworkable was the change in culture of playing the game for fun and for advantage and competition. If you are all out to have fun these types of rules can add depth. If you are out only to win then they add arguments and difficulties

So sorry Lance, a lot of your points don’t add up in the environment I play where house rules like this can be fun. As much as anything narrative wise seeing a land speeder pop a tank from the rear is always a treat, and a tank in city fight or dense terrain and you have some choices to make you didn’t before.

Striving for new doesn’t always work. Old sometimes does. Sometimes old rules weren’t dropped because they were bad. If you are happy to slow the game a touch then it works great.

Andykp: Adding an extra element does not add any depth inherently. That statement is incredibly flawed. You could add 100 elements and have no more depth.

You could eliminate 50 elements and add depth.

Depth does not equal complexity. Again, depth and complexity are different things.

40k is an incredibly shallow game with a incredible amount of complexity. 7th ed was MUCH MUCH more complex and it was JUST as shallow. Probably more so.

There is NO, absolutely no, under any circumstances no, correlation between complexity and depth in game play.

So, I think a strategem would work, where, perhaps, you get +1T and +1save against the 90 degree arc you designate by picking one enemy unit, draw a line from the center of your tank to it, and 45 degrees off either side of that, is the arc.

But all other arcs of inbound fire, you lose a point of toughness (because you keep your vehicles in that unit with their heavier armor pointed at the knight castellan, no matter what)

Limit the strat to the astra militarum's tread tanks.

1 cp. "focus defenses that way" Use when a tank is targetted in any phase by ranged fire, and lasts till end of that phase.
and then for the tallarn superdoctrine? One of the advantages would be a second, FREE strat, to do the same thing.
Another strategem called "focused defense posture" which is exactly the same thing, but says "a pure tallarn army can use the focused defensive posture for free one time per phase on a second (only) tallarn tracked vehicle unit.

This would give tallarn (and their successor custom regiments) a uniquely resilient front line of tanks -- if they were clever enough not to stick their butts out where the enemy s7 weapons could range on them...

I really hate the idea of using stratagems to represent core mechanics.
Strategems should be special tactics. The existence of stronger front armour shouldn't work like that.

I like the armour facings idea, but that's also a good point regarding modern tanks and their relative armour facings. If the tanks of today are desiqned to protect the vehicle from all possible directions (top against aircraft, bottom against mines, and all sides equally against everything else), I don't see why that would change in the future... unless the tanks in question were made to a certain "price point", like Leman Russes etc well might be. Stuff like large dozer blades should offer extra protection as well somehow.

Ideally you'd have to implement this at the datasheet level. Assign a keyword that dictates armour asymmetry, and assume that if it's not present, armour is the same for all directions. This then could require a points adjustment..

So perhaps not worth the effort.

There's still dramatic differences in armour protection around the aspect of a tank.
The amount of armour necessary to protect against modern long rod penetrators is obscene and it's simply not possible to carry that sort of armour in anything but the frontal aspect.
Urban conflict packages/upgrades tend to add more armour to the sides, but still not to the extent of the front because it's just not possible. Plus the comparatively crude and vintage anti-tank weapons used by insurgents doesn't necessitate as much armour to defeat.
The top and bottom armour are even less protected because it's so much harder to attack.

I don't think this equation would change at all in the future. If anything, the future has dramatically regressed in tank design as there doesn't appear to be any sort of active protection systems at all.
Then again, anti-weapons are all direct fire, with no fancy top-attack missiles or anything.
So perhaps active protection systems aren't used because they're totally ineffective against lasers and other sci-fi weapons.
Which would just bring us circling back round the facings, as there's no alternative left but thick slabs of armour which can't be reasonably distributed across the entire vehicle.

I think a lot of modern weapons we've seen deployed in recent times have had more of an anti insurgent design brief. They have been adapted to deal with enemies attacking at short range from any side and armed with vastly inferior weaponry (vs what an enemy state might have). In 40k the tanks have to deal with other broadly equally matched armoured vehicles and enemy forces. 40k is also somewhat archaic in design. If we were to travel along a continuous path of technological advancement and pure reason, there probably would be no tanks at all. And the chances of there being beefy, angry men in candy coloured armour seems even less likely

Therefore I don't think we should dismiss the idea of variable armour facings based on a recent focus on anti-insurgency roles in our own armed forces. The actual armour thickness is tricky to find out on a lot of modern vehicles (for some reason governments don't want to give out the stats on their latest weapons ) but I'd say cold war era stuff is more useful to look at anyway, given that such equipment was designed with enemy tank forces in mind rather than being heavily adapted to deal with insurgents armed with RPGs and home made booby traps.

We don't really need to look at any one historical point of course. The immutable factor is that armour is limited in thickness by the weight of that armour. It is better to have thicker armour where you most expect to be attacked and armoured vehicles tend towards having thicker armour at the front and thinner at the rear. You can't have thick armour on all sides. If you choose to have equally thick armour on all sides, your tank will have no facing that can repel first rate anti-tank fire. Being 'quite tough' all over is not as good as being very tough at the front, quite tough on the sides and a bit tough at the rear

This rule was just an idea of course and again I can appreciates the problems it might cause. Another argument against is that range is another important factor in anti tank weaponry. Closer range shots (in a standard brute force reliant gun) have a better chance of doing damage. I'm very glad this is not a thing in 40k as it seems like it would add a headache inducing level of complexity. Therefore I can appreciate the argument against the armour facings idea.
The best argument being: 'Yes, that might be more accurate but I don't want to do that because it would be very annoying'. And that is definitely a good argument against

 Lance845 wrote:
Andykp: Adding an extra element does not add any depth inherently. That statement is incredibly flawed. You could add 100 elements and have no more depth.

You could eliminate 50 elements and add depth.

Depth does not equal complexity. Again, depth and complexity are different things.

40k is an incredibly shallow game with a incredible amount of complexity. 7th ed was MUCH MUCH more complex and it was JUST as shallow. Probably more so.

There is NO, absolutely no, under any circumstances no, correlation between complexity and depth in game play.

Adding complexity does not = depth and I never said it did. But that doesn’t mean adding this doesn’t. Or adding other things. There are lots of rules in 40K I don’t always use and some older rules not in the set now that we do use to add depth, flavour, what eve
R you like.

I can tell you certainly and with out doubt the game has less depth than earlier editions and isn’t by definition better or worse for it. 7th was awe full and that whole era between 3rd and 7th were the worst to me. What I like about 8th and 9th is that the rules seem like a sand box and you can add or take away as much or as little as suits. THIS rule seems like a nice little addition that will work well with the people I game with. You might not like it but I do and for me it could work nicely, a little reward for getting that fast tank Hunter in position to flank a big tank and a small punishment for not covering your ass what playing a tank. Not too powerful but a little bit of flavour. I agree, lots would spend too long arguing about facing but not the folk I play with. So for me it sounds good,

If you come up with something better I’ll likely happily use that too. Nothing as yet from you though???

 SpaceGoblin1980 wrote:
It's one of those things that just seems to make sense to me (since armoured vehicles tend to have thicker armour on the front and weaker armour in the rear).

I get that. I'm just not convinced that the added simulationism would warrant the added complexity for me or my group. If GW introduced this rule in 10th edition, I'd personally probably view it as a sidegrade at best. Especially as I'm not convinced my various aliens are building their vehicles in a manner consistent with 20th century human war machines. But ultimately, if you and your opponents would enjoy using these rules, by all means use them. Part of offering feedback on this forum is commenting on how we'd personally react to the rules proposed to give the homebrewer an idea of how others might react to them. But that doesn't mean you have to agree with what we say.

It would add more thought into how to position your armoured units and also you'd be a bit more aware of trying to block deepstrikers to the rear or avoiding being surrounded or suffering from enfilading fire and having to decide whether to face one flanking enemy unit or the other or whether to compromise and show your side armour to both.

Having played since 5th, that was almost never really my experience with armor facings. Firstly, a good number of vehicles (including pretty much all aeldari vehicles) had the same front and side armor. So the positioning you're talking about basically boiled down to:
* Don't moon the enemy gunline.
* Point your butt at the table edge if you're worried about deepstriker; your good guns are turrets, so the direction your facing mostly dosn't matter to your offense.
* Point your butt at BLOS if there is some. If there isn't, then there's no decision to be made here.

You'll notice that most of those "decisions" basically boil down to, "Do you want to position your vehicle in a dumb way or not?" Very, very rarely, against an opponent that was about as fast as me or against an opponent with lots of deepstrikers, I might have to choose whether to expose my rear arc to the enemy in front of or behind one of my vehicles (if I'm not in the center, I just point my butt towards the board edge). But I generally found those situations to be too rare and niche to warrant the extra complexity.

I can recognise the point that it might not make the game better. Having to agonise over the exact placement of models doesn't really make the game more fun and as I said, I'm glad they got rid of some of the complexity (such as arcs of fire on vehicle weapons).

I don't mind detail being sacrificed if it makes for a better game. This was just an idea that appealed to me

Plenty of people like the idea of armour facing. Enough so for it to be a semi-frequent topic here in the proposed rules forum. I get the impression that for many folks, the "feeling" of depth brought by armor facings is worthwhile in its own right. I've just personally found that "depth" to be largely illusory. But if you enjoy the game more with that added complexity, more power to you.

How about just making it a specail rule for the IG super heavy tanks? Their points would not need to be changed, as they are already a bit over costed and (in my opinion) they could also do with a boost in survivability. I'd even go so far as to give them a 2+ base save. Thus the front armour would be 1+, the side 2+ and the rear 3+. A roll of a '1' would always fail, but the front armour would still be on a 2+ save vs AP-1 weapons.

Eh... I mean. You'd be introducing the armor facing mechanic for a small number of units found in a single faction, and then you'd have to explain exactly where those armor facings are to your opponents (some of whom may have never used armor facings before). It seems too clunky to be worth it to me. I'd either simplify it so that it's easier to incorporate into the existing rules, or else do a more thorough overhaul per your initial suggestion so that you're at least getting some mileage out of the facing mechanic you're reintroducing.

I don't know if- 'They'd have to change all the points' is a good argument against a rules idea. Otherwise you could never make changes to the system

Very fair point. I guess what I was getting at is that changing the points on so many units would be an awful lot of work given that you'd (ideally) want to set prices based on things like how wide the stronger and weaker facing arcs are, how useful/detrimental the +/- to saves is to a given vehicle, etc. So part of doing this is asking yourself whether the perceived benefits of your proposed changes are worth that many hours of your own personal time. If so, great.

I'm not really convinced either way. I like it, but I can agree that there are negatives and it might become tiresome. I may try it out and see how well it works.

Sure thing. Something you might consider: it's a lot easier to define only the rear arc than the front, sides, and rear. If you add a rule that says, "place a marker 3" long and 1cm thick against all vehicle models with an armor facing. Draw an invisible line between the attacker and the vehicle when the vehicle is targeted by a ranged attack If the line passes over the marker, the attack is considered to be attacking the vehicle's rear armor. Attacks against rear armor get the following benefits..."

This eliminates the ambiguity about where the "center" of a vehicle's mass is and works pretty well for asymmetrical converted vehicles too. Even if you decide to put your rear armor marker at what appears to be the "front" of the vehicle for some reason, it will always be clear exactly where you need to be to hit the weaker flank of the target. Granted, you'd have to add a bit more verbiage to handle vehicle squadrons.

Here's my take on it:

(1) Given that vehicles are relatively underpowered, I think the rulings here should make it HARDER to kill vehicles from certain angles, and then work as it currently does for other angles.

(2) The best way I've seen suggested to determine facing is just have a "forward arc" and a "rearward" arc. Draw a line perpendicular to the axis of the vehicle, centered midway along it's length. Units shooting from forward of this line hit count as hitting in the forward arc, those shooting from behind hit the rear arc.

(3) As for the impact... I'd lean towards hits in the forward arc doing some combination of reducing the damage hitting the vehicle, improving the armor save roll, or even increasing the toughness of the vehicle. I don't know what would be best honestly.

As for "realism", well, I'm in favor of rules that create more opportunity for interesting choices and decisions. Not having to think about vehicle positioning or flanking is a lost opportunity in my mind.

As someone who played Warmachine for years, the front arc/back arc led to arguments, probably even more than armor facing quadrants.

I think pretty much any attempt to simulate those sort of interactions are going to be of far less benefit than the clutter they add to the rules.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
As someone who played Warmachine for years, the front arc/back arc led to arguments, probably even more than armor facing quadrants...

...How? Did you mark arcs on your bases?