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Made in ca
Dour Wolf Priest with Iron Wolf Amulet






Canada

The big issue with tanks is that they pay extra for seemingly being more durable, while ultimately being less durable than infantry heavy weapons squads due to lack of cover and taking more damage from anti-tank weapons. Similarly, they also suffer from typically having less firepower compared to these infantry squads, making them overall a worse pick most of the time. They also suffer due to generally not being CORE, among other issues. Aside from just reducing the cost of vehicles in general, I'd look at one of the most viable vehicle units in the game right now - Dreadnoughts and their -1 Damage rule. Why do they even have this rule then far more heavily armoured vehicles do not...? Drawing on this inspiration, my suggestion would be to add the following rule:

Certain vehicles gain the "TANK" keyword to represent their armoured exterior. These vehicles have a flat -1 Damage from unsaved wounds (not to a minimum of 1 like Dreadnoughts, I'm talking a full-on -1 Damage). However, a hit roll of 6 will ignore this rule, representing unlikely situations where a bolter round finds its way through a view port, grenade going into a hatch, etc.

This would obviously vastly reduce the effectiveness of damage 1 weapons and make medium damage weapons less efficient as well. To compensate, you'd probably have to give a +1 damage buff to weapons that are actually intended to be used for an anti-tank role, especially stuff like autocannons or swingy anti-tank weapons like lascannons. Alternatively, these kinds of weapons could also just have a rule that lets them bypass the damage reduction from TANK units altogether.

Certainly doesn't solve all of the problems with tanks, but it would make them more durable than they currently are while also getting us back to a time where the delineation between anti-tank and anti-infantry weapons are more pronounced.

   
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 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
The big issue with tanks is that they pay extra for seemingly being more durable, while ultimately being less durable than infantry heavy weapons squads due to lack of cover and taking more damage from anti-tank weapons.

I'm going to nitpick this for the sake of discussion. Vehicles, by virtue of having much higher toughness values and way more wounds than your average infantry model, are more durable against small arms fire. A rhino is what? 80ish points? It's easier to kill 80 points of marines with bolters and lasguns than 80 points worth of rhino. So tanks are successful at being durable against some weapons. Anti-tank weapons, by design, are efficient at killing tanks because they bypass or mitigate Toughness and multiple Wounds for their points. And then weapons with some combination of decent strength, AP, and Damage kind of blur the lines, but also arguably should do that.

Meltaguns should be more cost effective at killing a rhino than a plasma gun, and a plasma gun should be more cost effective than a bolter. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's currently the case. No sarcasm in that last sentence. If math doesn't support my statement, please correct me.


Similarly, they also suffer from typically having less firepower compared to these infantry squads, making them overall a worse pick most of the time.

Well, that sort of adds up, right? Like, devastators have more gun than a predator, but more weapons are relatively cost-efficient against them than the predator. See above about a rhino being harder to kill with bolters than marines. So if the pred is tougher vs a variety of common gun types than the devastators, then the devastators need to have some sort of advantage over the pred to avoid being an inferior choice. That can mean more cost-effective offense (which is what you seem to be describing) or simply having a low enough unit cost to make them easier to fit into a list.

So X points of tank doesn't necessarily need to be just as killy as X points of not-tank even if both units theoretically have the same preferred targets.

They also suffer due to generally not being CORE, among other issues.

I'm nitpicking again, but this is kind of a red herring for purposes of this discussion, right? Not being core is a drawback for all non-core units; not just tanks.


Aside from just reducing the cost of vehicles in general, I'd look at one of the most viable vehicle units in the game right now - Dreadnoughts and their -1 Damage rule. Why do they even have this rule then far more heavily armoured vehicles do not...?

My guess is that the -1 Damage reduction (introduced as a cheap strat in the 2.0 8th edition marine codex and later changed to a built-in rule in the current codex) was a reactionary attempt to make dreadnaughts feel more durable and worthwhile without having to overhaul the statlines of every other vehicle to accommodate those changes. It also feels like a direct response to feedback indicating that plasma (D2 weapons) were dominating the anti-tank meta around the time those changes were released. Notably, the -1 Damage rule on dreads leaves them just as vulnerable to small arms fire as they were without it suggesting the designers liked the idea of dreads dying after they failed 8(?) saves against enemy bolters and shuriken shots. Worth keeping in mind when reading the portion below.


Drawing on this inspiration, my suggestion would be to add the following rule:
Certain vehicles gain the "TANK" keyword to represent their armoured exterior. These vehicles have a flat -1 Damage from unsaved wounds (not to a minimum of 1 like Dreadnoughts, I'm talking a full-on -1 Damage).

I always come down against proposals that make huge chunks of weapons in the game literally unable to harm vehicles. This is mostly because it is possible to field a "skew list" containing lots of vehicles. If I bring a "take all comers" list with a little of this and a little of that, I'm probably going to end up with a bunch of weapons in my army that basically aren't allowed to hurt the 80% of your army consisting of tanks. Fishing for 6s to hit to offset this isn't reliable or controllable enough to offset the "feels bad" experience of huge chunks of my army being rendered unable to meaningfully participate in the core experience of the game.

Additionally, if vehicle-heavy skew lists are highly effective against lists that don't have tons of tools to deal with them, then you encourage people to list tailor, often to the exclusion of many options. In 5th edition, I frequently found myself passing up flamer options because I had to stuff my lists to the gills with meltaguns in order to clear the enemy parking lost of vehicle spam. In an army like eldar where many units don't have any realy anti-tank options at all (banshees, scorpions, swooping hawks), you basically delete those units from the codex because taking them isn't worth the increased chance of having a bad matchup in a pickup or tournament game.


However, a hit roll of 6 will ignore this rule, representing unlikely situations where a bolter round finds its way through a view port, grenade going into a hatch, etc.

In addition to not being enough to offset the downsides described above, this would create a bit of slowdown by potentially splitting up your dice pools even more when resolving attacks. Say I have a D2 weapon that has better AP on a to-wound roll of 6 (due to a warlord trait, or whatever). Against a tank, my to-wound roll pool would be split between the dice that did and didn't roll 6s to hit, and then your pool of saves would be split between ...
* Attacks that didn't roll a 6 to hit or to wound.
* Attacks that rolled a 6 to hit but not to wound.
* Attacks that rolled a 6 to wound but not to hit.
* Attacks that rolled a 6 to hit AND to wound.

...As opposed to just having two dice pools for attacks that did and did not roll a 6 to wound. You'll notice that most (all?) buffs trigger on the to-wound roll instead of the to-hit roll; probably for this reason.


This would obviously vastly reduce the effectiveness of damage 1 weapons and make medium damage weapons less efficient as well. To compensate, you'd probably have to give a +1 damage buff to weapons that are actually intended to be used for an anti-tank role, especially stuff like autocannons or swingy anti-tank weapons like lascannons. Alternatively, these kinds of weapons could also just have a rule that lets them bypass the damage reduction from TANK units altogether.

If you have to add a second new rule to counteract the problems created by your first new rule, that raises a red flag for me. What weapons do you feel are. "actually intended to be used for an anti-tank role"? Are plasma weapons on that list? Seems like a ball of plasma should do an okay job of getting through tank armor. How about a heavy bolter? How about the D2 version of an eldar reaper launcher? The D3 version? Tau high-yield missile pods? If you're okay with all of those being deemed "anti-tank," then is it fair to reframe your proposal as something like the following?


Don't let Damage 1 weapons hurt Tanks. All other weapons are unaffected.


If you don't agree with that and do want to say that some D2 weapons are "anti tank" while others aren't, what's your criteria for defining that? You'll risk irritating some folks if you nerf their weapons seemingly arbitrarily.

-----------------------
IF there is a real need to improve the durability of vehicles, wouldn't simply adding wounds be the better way to go? Each wound you add makes an unsaved lasgun wound do that much less of the target's overall health as damage. Heavy hitters like lascannons can easily be given a change to their damage profile to help them scale the way you want with the increased number of wounds. D2 weapons like plasma are a bit awkward as adding wounds to tanks makes them less effective against tanks, but adding to their damage makes them significantly more effective against W3+ non-tank targets, but the answer to that probably depends on whether or not you feel like plasma should be considered an "anti-tank weapon."

----------------------
As I see it, the current state of affairs is this:

* Tanks are tougher against small arms fire than non-tanks.
* Plasma is better against tanks than small arms fire.
* Melta is better against tanks than plasma.
* Massed small arms fire is pretty bad at killing tanks for its cost, but it can chip in enough offense to meaningfully contribute to killing a tank; especially in tandem with guns that are "meant to" hurt tanks like plasma and melta.

Do you disagree that any of those bullet points are true? Do you feel that any of those bullet point should notbe true? Is there some other issue you're seeing?


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in au
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I do agree with what Wyldhunt is saying, but I do think GW have tipped the scales too far when they buffed specific AT weapons. The multi-melta, dark lance, and Ad-Mech lascannons are prime examples. All incredibly effective against armour, much more so than the other factions choices.

I don't think vehicles need much to make them more durable. The mains ones are Hammerheads, Fireprisms, Predators, Leman Russ tanks, etc.

Something as simple as increasing them all to at least 14 wounds would be fine. It just seems weird that we have an 11 - 19 bracket for Bring it Down but most Tanks only have 11 - 13 wounds.

Another thing I'd like to see is more minimum damage, something like:
- Krak Missiles and Hunter-killer Missiles: D6 (Minimum 2 damage).
- Lascannons: D6 (Minimum 3 damage).

That removes some player frustration when something like a Krak Missile does less damage than a Heavy Bolter or Autocannon, as well as a Lascannon doing less than a Krak Missile. It doesn't even step on the toes of the Ad-Mech ones, because they're minimum 4 damage, assault, and more reliable.



This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/06/27 08:15:24


 
   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

A tank that can be killed by a couple of shots from 40-55 ppm models is wrong, and that's the reason why they currently struggle.

Anti tank should definitely be good against vehicles but not to the point that they kill tanks with no effort. Damage 4-8 weapons on standard units (aka I'm not counting 500+ LOWs), that can also be enhanced in multiple ways, make sense only if vehicles have twice the wounds they currently have.

A multimelta would be much better than D1/2 weapons against a rhino even if the rhino had 20W.

 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




Anti tank should definitely be good against vehicles but not to the point that they kill tanks with no effort. Damage 4-8 weapons on standard units (aka I'm not counting 500+ LOWs), that can also be enhanced in multiple ways, make sense only if vehicles have twice the wounds they currently have.


I have no issues with transports like Rhinos, Chimeras, Raiders, etc remaining at 10 wounds. The only vehicles I have issues with are all the MBT's (Main Battle Tanks) being about as easy to kill as the transports.

That's why I keep saying that things like Fire Prisms, Hammerheads, Leman Russ Tanks, Predators, etc should probably move up to about 14 wounds. With things like Land Raiders going up to around 18 wounds.

LoW choices are a different matter. Knights seem fine. Their biggest issue is the lack of Obsec. Baneblades could use a 2+ save and more wounds. The Stompa should only have 3 damage brackets, no idea why it has 4. The Stompa could probably even drop 200 points after that as well.
   
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 Blackie wrote:

Anti tank should definitely be good against vehicles but not to the point that they kill tanks with no effort. Damage 4-8 weapons on standard units (aka I'm not counting 500+ LOWs), that can also be enhanced in multiple ways, make sense only if vehicles have twice the wounds they currently have.

Well, where exactly should the line be drawn? An unsaved melta shot within half range averages 5.5 damage compared to a dark lance averaging 4.5 compared to a lascannon averaging 3.5. Which, if any, of these dedicated anti-tank weapons do you feel is doing the "correct" amount of damage per unsaved wound? Or are you saying that we should increase the wounds on vehicles and keep the anti-tank weapon damage roughly where it is?


A multimelta would be much better than D1/2 weapons against a rhino even if the rhino had 20W.

A little unclear on what you're advocating for. A multimelta is much better than D1/2 weapons against a 10W rhino. Against a 20W model, the multimelta would still be way better than a D1/2 weapon, but the D1/2 weapon would be proportionately way worse. A lucky shot from my avengers' shuriken catapults would go from shaving off 10% of the rhino's health to shaving off 5%.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Jarms48 wrote:
Anti tank should definitely be good against vehicles but not to the point that they kill tanks with no effort. Damage 4-8 weapons on standard units (aka I'm not counting 500+ LOWs), that can also be enhanced in multiple ways, make sense only if vehicles have twice the wounds they currently have.


I have no issues with transports like Rhinos, Chimeras, Raiders, etc remaining at 10 wounds. The only vehicles I have issues with are all the MBT's (Main Battle Tanks) being about as easy to kill as the transports.

That's why I keep saying that things like Fire Prisms, Hammerheads, Leman Russ Tanks, Predators, etc should probably move up to about 14 wounds. With things like Land Raiders going up to around 18 wounds.


Interesting. So a 2 Wound increase on everything, but a proportionately smaller increase for things like land raiders that already have a few more wounds? Couple of questions:
A.) What impact do you feel that a 1/6th increase to the healthbar of fire prisms and hammerheads will have? To me, it seems like a pretty small difference. It lets you survive a single extra plasma wound and a little less than half of an extra dark lance wound. Seems like it would have the most impact against small arms fire.

B.) Why the proportionately small buff to something like a land raider? I thought the general opinion was that the land raider was a bit meh at the moment, so shrinking some of its advantage over other tanks seems a little odd.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/28 03:58:11



ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut





Start at the end and work backwards.

How many shots from anti-tank weapons should it take to kill a vehicle? Or how many from small arms? Given than previously only AT weapons could hurt them and now you've got to contend with all arms hurting them.

In 3-7 many weapons could one shot vehicles due to the damage table. Many weapons couldn't hurt them at all.

Now we've got a system where the extremes of can and can't, have been changed to more and less. IE now weapons hurt more or less, but they all hurt.

In the current rules you don't get different effects for hits, you just get wounds removed, the 'effects' rather than being situational, become of wearing down the unit as its wound levels hit different thresholds.


If you wanted to create some kind of distinction between them and also recalibrate AT weapons, there are a couple of things you could do, without upsetting the current wound mechanics.

Change what a wound is on vehicles and monsters.

ie, 'It will not die!' when this model is wounded by a weapon that has a damage value of 1 or 2 (this excludes variable damage weapons), it will only lose a wound for failed saving rolls with a combined damage of 3 or more. ie if it fails 4 saves against D1 weapons, it loses 1 wounds, if it fails 2 saves it loses no wounds. If it fails 6 saves it loses 2 wounds.


Then you build your AT weapons around this rule, with their damage being variable, or 3 or more minimum. You then redo wounds values on these units based on the chance of successful injury.


Something simpler but adding more saves:

It will not die! If this model fails a save against a weapon that causes 1 or 2 damage, it may ignore it on a 3+.


In this instance, I would probably take all weapons back to random rolls and allow it to apply against all types of weapons, reflecting a glancing blow from a lascannon as much as the insignificance of an attack from lasguns.

ie if a lascannon does 1d6 damage and rolls a 1 or 2, the target will ignore it on a 3+. You have to roll 3 or more damage to hurt the vehicle or monster.


   
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I’m not convinced that tanks need a boost to durability, but if they are to get one, rather than making small arms all but ineffective with a -1 damage, I think a better solution would be to increase the save for the tanks.

If tanks are armoured, perhaps that would be better represented with 2+ being he standard save rather than 3+ which seems to be the norm for most main battle tanks. This would increase the survivability against most weapons while still allowing anti-tank weaponry with high AP to work effectively against tanks as should be the case.

For tanks which already have a 2+ save such as the Land Raider, perhaps you an additional rule in their data sheets along the lines of the rule for storm shields on Bladeguard veterans could be added:


Heavily Armoured:
Add 1 to armour saving throws made for the bearer.


Or the ability to reduce enemy attack’s AP by 1:


Heavily Armoured:
When resolving attacks against this unit, reduce the AP by one (AP -2 becomes AP-1, AP -1 becomes AP 0) to a minimum of 0.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/28 04:32:03


 
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut





Interesting. So a 2 Wound increase on everything, but a proportionately smaller increase for things like land raiders that already have a few more wounds? Couple of questions:
A.) What impact do you feel that a 1/6th increase to the healthbar of fire prisms and hammerheads will have? To me, it seems like a pretty small difference. It lets you survive a single extra plasma wound and a little less than half of an extra dark lance wound. Seems like it would have the most impact against small arms fire.

B.) Why the proportionately small buff to something like a land raider? I thought the general opinion was that the land raider was a bit meh at the moment, so shrinking some of its advantage over other tanks seems a little odd.


There’s only so much you can do without tipping the scale and increasing a units point cost. In the Predators case it gained 3 wounds. That means you now have to cause 7 wounds to drop it to second bracket. That means it could at least absorb a full 6 damage shot from a lascannon and not be put into second bracket. It also means enemies have to dedicate more fire to completely finish off a target. Meaning they are either leaving units still alive but injured, or they’re overcommitting.

Land Raiders need other things than wounds. That’s just to keep them in line with the other vehicles. Land Raiders are just bad transports. They should get the Assault Vehicle rule at the very least.
   
Made in us
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Jarms48 wrote:

Interesting. So a 2 Wound increase on everything, but a proportionately smaller increase for things like land raiders that already have a few more wounds? Couple of questions:
A.) What impact do you feel that a 1/6th increase to the healthbar of fire prisms and hammerheads will have? To me, it seems like a pretty small difference. It lets you survive a single extra plasma wound and a little less than half of an extra dark lance wound. Seems like it would have the most impact against small arms fire.

B.) Why the proportionately small buff to something like a land raider? I thought the general opinion was that the land raider was a bit meh at the moment, so shrinking some of its advantage over other tanks seems a little odd.


There’s only so much you can do without tipping the scale and increasing a units point cost. In the Predators case it gained 3 wounds. That means you now have to cause 7 wounds to drop it to second bracket. That means it could at least absorb a full 6 damage shot from a lascannon and not be put into second bracket.

Ah. I see. Is it inherently desirable for it to take more than one full damage lascannon shot to bracket a vehicle? I hadn't really thought about it before, but allowing weapons that used to potentially one-shot vehicles to at least have a chance of diminishing their target's offense is actually kind of neat. And we are talking about an amount of damage that only happens 1/6th of the time (after saves are failed) for a Dd6 weapon. I'm not really taking a stance either way, but it's interesting to think about.

It also means enemies have to dedicate more fire to completely finish off a target. Meaning they are either leaving units still alive but injured, or they’re overcommitting.

I'm not sure that second sentence necessarily follows the first. There's a lot of variety in unit design and thus a lot of variety in the average (expected) damage output of a given unit. I'm not sure I'm more likely to be overcommitting after your proposed change than I am before. If I fire X dark reapers at a rhino now, for all I know without running the numbers I might already be overcommitting. If I'm good at crunching numbers, I can look at a rhino with 1 or 2 wounds remaining and go, "I should need to put this many bolters into that thing to finish it off," and split my fire accordingly.


Land Raiders need other things than wounds. That’s just to keep them in line with the other vehicles. Land Raiders are just bad transports. They should get the Assault Vehicle rule at the very least.

Fair enough. Although weirdly, I kind of realized in a land raider thread a while back that land raiders aren't "bad" so much as they're just worse than other marine vehicles. They look pretty okay next to something like a pair of ravagers.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User




Jarms48 wrote:
I do agree with what Wyldhunt is saying, but I do think GW have tipped the scales too far when they buffed specific AT weapons. The multi-melta, dark lance, and Ad-Mech lascannons are prime examples. All incredibly effective against armour, much more so than the other factions choices.

I don't think vehicles need much to make them more durable. The mains ones are Hammerheads, Fireprisms, Predators, Leman Russ tanks, etc.

Something as simple as increasing them all to at least 14 wounds would be fine. It just seems weird that we have an 11 - 19 bracket for Bring it Down but most Tanks only have 11 - 13 wounds.

Another thing I'd like to see is more minimum damage, something like:
- Krak Missiles and Hunter-killer Missiles: D6 (Minimum 2 damage).
- Lascannons: D6 (Minimum 3 damage).

That removes some player frustration when something like a Krak Missile does less damage than a Heavy Bolter or Autocannon, as well as a Lascannon doing less than a Krak Missile. It doesn't even step on the toes of the Ad-Mech ones, because they're minimum 4 damage, assault, and more reliable.


A few more wounds wouldnt go amis I'd agree but I think perhaps the bigger issue is the one you raise with damage still being very swing heavy with lots of dice rolling doesnt favour tanks over elite infratry.

I'm not really against say Terminators having 3 wounds, I think it fits in well with their nature and they should be tough as hell against smaller weapons. Against big weapons though I think the degree of swing in so many of them just adds an extra level of toughness. With tanks the swing isnt so much of an issue if your targetting one model with multiple weapons, getting two lascanon wounds on a tank and rolling damage 5 and 1 is the same as rolling 3 and 3 but attacking Terminators it isnt, you only kill one model rather than two.

More set damage or at least minimum damage on heavy weapons would probably go a long way to rebalancing things.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/12 11:59:30


 
   
Made in it
Regular Dakkanaut




It would be better if small weapons had no effect at all on tanks.

Personally, find silly a lasgun or a bolter could harms a Predator.
Even a heavy bolter should not harms a Pred while it could have more sense if it could damage a speeder or a Vyper.

So, all in all, old set of rules (7ed) about tanks were better, they needed only some tweaks.
   
Made in au
Longtime Dakkanaut




The Deer Hunter wrote:
It would be better if small weapons had no effect at all on tanks.

Personally, find silly a lasgun or a bolter could harms a Predator.
Even a heavy bolter should not harms a Pred while it could have more sense if it could damage a speeder or a Vyper.


In my experience that's not what's killing tanks though. 36 lasgun shots will hit with 18, 3 of those might wound, then you'll fail 1 of those saves on average. That's assuming that squad has 10 guardsmen, in rapid fire range, with FRFSRF, and has nothing better to shoot at.

So what's the point of removing that entirely if its not making much of a difference?

The problem is AT lethality has increased drastically. Eliminators, Dark Lances, Ad-Mech lascannons, etc.

That's why I keep saying that all factions MBT's need to be given T8 and minimum 14 wounds. Hammerheads, Predators, Leman Russ tanks, etc.

Something like a Leman Russ should in addition to the above suggestion should have a 2+ save against ranged attacks and a 3+ save against melee attacks. Basically any vehicle that previously had AV 14 on the front but had weaker side and rear armour should get that. So that would apply to things like Macharius tanks and Baneblades, etc as well.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/02 01:57:01


 
   
Made in us
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The Deer Hunter wrote:
It would be better if small weapons had no effect at all on tanks.

Personally, find silly a lasgun or a bolter could harms a Predator.
Even a heavy bolter should not harms a Pred while it could have more sense if it could damage a speeder or a Vyper.

So, all in all, old set of rules (7ed) about tanks were better, they needed only some tweaks.


Okay. I show up with an army consisting entirely of tanks and maybe some token infantry riding inside tanks. I get first turn, and all your anti tank weapons are dead by the time you take your second turn. The rest of the game is you shoving bodies onto objectives while I blast you off the table. Basically, half the game is just you waiting for me to tell you whether or not I rolled well enough to win the game. Your tactical decisions are reduced to deciding when to break cover with one of the units that isn't allowed to hurt me.

How much fun are you having?

Conversely, you're bringing an armored company. I don't enjoy spending all game throwing bodies on objectives while knowing that I can't hurt you. How many anti tank weapons am I required to bring if I want to have fun all game? And what percentage of my codex will now never be used because taking an anti-infantry option means that I'm not taking even more anti-tank options?

And as Jarms says, lasguns and bolters aren't what's killing tanks. My drukhari heavy bolter equivalent (the disintegrator) isn't doing a great job of killing tanks either. It's my dedicated anti-tank guns like dark lances that are accomplishing that.

At the risk of assuming and generalizing, I feel like people who want to prevent lasguns from hurting vehicles are doing so purely because they don't like the thought of it; not because lasguns actually have a problematic level of anti-tank lethality. I'd go so far as to suspect that, in 90% of their games against armies that have lasguns, lasguns don't deliver the killing blow to a single vehicle.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in it
Regular Dakkanaut




Wyldhunt wrote:
The Deer Hunter wrote:
It would be better if small weapons had no effect at all on tanks.

Personally, find silly a lasgun or a bolter could harms a Predator.
Even a heavy bolter should not harms a Pred while it could have more sense if it could damage a speeder or a Vyper.

So, all in all, old set of rules (7ed) about tanks were better, they needed only some tweaks.


Okay. I show up with an army consisting entirely of tanks and maybe some token infantry riding inside tanks. I get first turn, and all your anti tank weapons are dead by the time you take your second turn. The rest of the game is you shoving bodies onto objectives while I blast you off the table. Basically, half the game is just you waiting for me to tell you whether or not I rolled well enough to win the game. Your tactical decisions are reduced to deciding when to break cover with one of the units that isn't allowed to hurt me.

How much fun are you having?

Conversely, you're bringing an armored company. I don't enjoy spending all game throwing bodies on objectives while knowing that I can't hurt you. How many anti tank weapons am I required to bring if I want to have fun all game? And what percentage of my codex will now never be used because taking an anti-infantry option means that I'm not taking even more anti-tank options?

And as Jarms says, lasguns and bolters aren't what's killing tanks. My drukhari heavy bolter equivalent (the disintegrator) isn't doing a great job of killing tanks either. It's my dedicated anti-tank guns like dark lances that are accomplishing that.

At the risk of assuming and generalizing, I feel like people who want to prevent lasguns from hurting vehicles are doing so purely because they don't like the thought of it; not because lasguns actually have a problematic level of anti-tank lethality. I'd go so far as to suspect that, in 90% of their games against armies that have lasguns, lasguns don't deliver the killing blow to a single vehicle.


Yes, is above all that I dont like the thought of it

A bolter wounding a Predator on 5+, and leaving a 5+ save to the tank, is definitly stupid. Imo.
   
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Personally I think if you increase most (with definite exceptions) vehicle's wounds by say 20%, so for example a Leman Russ goes to 14-15 wounds you can solve the durability issue without fundamentally changing the game. I think we are in a relatively good place with vehicles at the moment compared to other editions where they were either OP and spammed or rubbish and nobody took any
   
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Yes, is above all that I dont like the thought of it

A bolter wounding a Predator on 5+, and leaving a 5+ save to the tank, is definitly stupid. Imo.


Bolters are AP0. Where does the -2 come from? A Predator has a 3+ save.

So 5 tactical marines, in rapid fire range, with bolter discipline would get 20 shots. Get 13 hits and 4 wounds. That Predator would then fail 1, maybe 2, saves. That seems fine to me.

Especially when you consider back in the day bolters COULD hurt Predators by shooting their rear armour of 10. They could glance on 6's. So, by using my suggestion of buffing it to T8 that would make bolters wound on 6's, which basically goes back to the old system.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/03 00:01:43


 
   
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The dark hollows of Kentucky

Jarms48 wrote:

Yes, is above all that I dont like the thought of it

A bolter wounding a Predator on 5+, and leaving a 5+ save to the tank, is definitly stupid. Imo.


Bolters are AP0. Where does the -2 come from? A Predator has a 3+ save.

So 5 tactical marines, in rapid fire range, with bolter discipline would get 20 shots. Get 13 hits and 4 wounds. That Predator would then fail 1, maybe 2, saves. That seems fine to me.

Especially when you consider back in the day bolters COULD hurt Predators by shooting their rear armour of 10. They could glance on 6's. So, by using my suggestion of buffing it to T8 that would make bolters wound on 6's, which basically goes back to the old system.

Pretty sure they're assuming primaris bolt rifles in the Tactical Doctrine. Those would be AP-2.
   
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In My Lab

Jarms48 wrote:

Yes, is above all that I dont like the thought of it

A bolter wounding a Predator on 5+, and leaving a 5+ save to the tank, is definitly stupid. Imo.


Bolters are AP0. Where does the -2 come from? A Predator has a 3+ save.

So 5 tactical marines, in rapid fire range, with bolter discipline would get 20 shots. Get 13 hits and 4 wounds. That Predator would then fail 1, maybe 2, saves. That seems fine to me.

Especially when you consider back in the day bolters COULD hurt Predators by shooting their rear armour of 10. They could glance on 6's. So, by using my suggestion of buffing it to T8 that would make bolters wound on 6's, which basically goes back to the old system.
A standard bolter never fires more than 2 shots in one go.

Bolter Discipline lets you Rapid Fire at a longer distance, but it never lets you more than double the number of shots.

Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne! 
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




Bolter Discipline lets you Rapid Fire at a longer distance, but it never lets you more than double the number of shots.


Yep, you're correct. For some reason I still had the Guard FRFSRF example stuck in my head. That does drastically reduce the results though. It basically doesn't do anything.

Pretty sure they're assuming primaris bolt rifles in the Tactical Doctrine. Those would be AP-2.


Ah, gotcha. That's more situational, and you're spending more points then. Even then, I got my math wrong. So that'd only bring that back up to the 1 - 2 damage taken mark.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/03 01:38:49


 
   
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Bristol (UK)

It's not that situational, that's the standard small arm of one of the best troops choices in the codex and applies to turns 2-3, which is a fairly important chunk of the game.

That said, that's a problem with the Space Marine codex throwing out far too much AP, not a problem with vehicles per-say.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/03 08:50:04


 
   
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Italy

The Deer Hunter wrote:


So, all in all, old set of rules (7ed) about tanks were better, they needed only some tweaks.


In real life lasguns still don't do jack against tanks and in 7th most tanks were instant killed by a single shot. Not to mention that high RoF weapons that could glance do death vehicles regardless of their S and AV values existed and for some armies were also easy to spam.

 
   
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West Yorkshire

A friend of mine has been playing around with a different idea for tanks. He has brought their wounds down (Between 7-12 wounds depending on tank) But instead of being destroyed by losing all it's wounds, It instead rolls on a modified old Vehicle damage chart.
Each time it rolls on the chart and isn't destroyed, you add 1 to the next roll it makes. *Edit* It also returns to its maximum starting wounds, unless it loses some of it's maximum via vehicle damage chart.

If i can get him to respond I'll see if he can send me the updated chart to post here for critique.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/08/03 10:29:59


5000pts W4/ D0/ L5
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London

In essence cheap firepower, especially AT firepower, is too common, time to charge is too short, all leading to vulnerable vehicles.

In the past AT weapons were very multiwound (60" Str9 2D6 -6 save for lascannons and 24" Str 8 4D6 (later 2D12) -4 save for multimelta for example - Hve Bolters were D4 damage incidentally). But vehicles had lots of wounds (in the same edition a Land Raider had 50).

So with herohammer you can't have those guys getting insta gibbed. So that came right down.

Now there is massively increased small arms firepower, decreased Hve Weapon damage, but cheaper and more common heavy weapons. That is mixed in with far easier to kill vehicles that cost far less in points that are also more likely to be in CC turn 2.

You can fundamentally re-jig weapons (give them AP and AT profiles), alter points, give special rules, etc. etc. but I think within the current context of the game rules a bump in wounds is the easyist option.
   
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The_Real_Chris wrote:
In essence cheap firepower, especially AT firepower, is too common, time to charge is too short, all leading to vulnerable vehicles.

In the past AT weapons were very multiwound (60" Str9 2D6 -6 save for lascannons and 24" Str 8 4D6 (later 2D12) -4 save for multimelta for example - Hve Bolters were D4 damage incidentally). But vehicles had lots of wounds (in the same edition a Land Raider had 50).

So with herohammer you can't have those guys getting insta gibbed. So that came right down.

Now there is massively increased small arms firepower, decreased Hve Weapon damage, but cheaper and more common heavy weapons. That is mixed in with far easier to kill vehicles that cost far less in points that are also more likely to be in CC turn 2.

You can fundamentally re-jig weapons (give them AP and AT profiles), alter points, give special rules, etc. etc. but I think within the current context of the game rules a bump in wounds is the easyist option.

I agree that just adding a few extra wounds onto vehicles is probably the best solution. Not entirely sure I agree with AT firepower being too common though. I could have sworn we were all saying that d6 damage weapons weren't effective enough a year or so ago. The main difference I see between then and now are things like dark lances (now averaging 4.5 damage instead of 3.5) and multimeltas (now 3.5 outside melta range, 5.5 inside it, and now get twice the shots). A dark lance doing an average of 1 more point of damage when it was previously considered "bad" seems unlikely to be a big problem. So are we sure we're not really talking about multi-meltas (and maybe eliminators) specifically?


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
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The main difference I see between then and now are things like dark lances (now averaging 4.5 damage instead of 3.5) and multimeltas (now 3.5 outside melta range, 5.5 inside it, and now get twice the shots). A dark lance doing an average of 1 more point of damage when it was previously considered "bad" seems unlikely to be a big problem.


Whilst this is true on an average. There's a massive difference between something always having minimum 4 damage, while something else has the potential to roll 1/2/3/4. 66% of the time your typical D6 lascannon is going to do the same or worse as the dark lances minimum 4.

There's also a massive difference between a lascannon potentially getting a 5/6 33% of the time compared to a dark lance getting a 5/6 66% of the time.

I've said it a few times. Things like Krak Missiles need Damage D6 (minimum 2 damage). This eliminates the chance of them being worse than Heavy Bolters or Autocannons.

While Lascannons need Damage D6 (minimum 3 damage). This at least makes them more reliable but still not as good as the Ad-Mech's "hording the best tech" lascannons, or superior xeno technology.

So are we sure we're not really talking about multi-meltas (and maybe eliminators) specifically?


Eliminators are yesterdays news. They're still good, but were nerfed. Dark Eldar raiders again, still good, but nerfed. Now it's Ad-Mech chicken walkers with their twin lascannons each with Damage 3 + D3, literally double the output raiders had on a cheaper platform.

Even despite those nerfs the problem is the same, AT weapons are becoming both more deadly and more reliable.

That's why I keep saying that faction MBT's simply need more wounds. Potentially going up to T8 as well.

- Predators moving up to T8 and getting 14 wounds.
- Hammerheads moving up to T8 and getting 14 wounds.
- Fire Prism gets 14 wounds, doesn't need the toughness increase they already have methods of getting increased durability via upgrades.
- Leman Russ gets 14 wounds and goes up to a 2+ save against ranged attacks (3+ in melee). This brings it back to the same armour as a Land Raider, but retains the vulnerability they had in close combat.

Personally I do feel that transports, artillery vehicles, basically anything that's not a factions main battle tank doesn't need a durability increase.
   
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I pretty much agree with all that. I guess I'm just not sure if a dark lance and similar weapons are okay at d3+3 damage or if they should be something like d6 minimum 3.


ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




I'd do one of two things. Either go down the route of Apocalypse/Epic with defined AT and AP weapons so you can control things like rapid firing D2 or D3 weapons being too good against tanks. Or just up the Toughness and Wounds on tanks while giving a similar, but smaller, boost to anti-tank weapon damage to make all those D2 weapons less effective. If tanks were T12 minimum you'd then be able to up the Strength of anti-tank guns to at least 12, if not higher, to distinguish between their killing power and lesser weapons.

The key to getting this right would be getting the wound, damage and Toughness numbers correct, which would take a lot of testing. I'd also limit anti-tank guns to 1-2 shots maximum to stop them being efficient at killing heavy infantry.
   
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Wyldhunt wrote:
I pretty much agree with all that. I guess I'm just not sure if a dark lance and similar weapons are okay at d3+3 damage or if they should be something like d6 minimum 3.


I'd leave Dark Lances/Bright Lances (whenever they're buffed) and Ad-Mech lascannons alone. Tau Railguns will probably be added to the D3 + 3 club as well once they get buffed, as will Guard Vanquisher Cannons.

It's only common lascannons, and equivilents, I'd give the D6 (minimum 3 damage).
   
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Slipspace wrote:
I'd do one of two things. Either go down the route of Apocalypse/Epic with defined AT and AP weapons so you can control things like rapid firing D2 or D3 weapons being too good against tanks. Or just up the Toughness and Wounds on tanks while giving a similar, but smaller, boost to anti-tank weapon damage to make all those D2 weapons less effective. If tanks were T12 minimum you'd then be able to up the Strength of anti-tank guns to at least 12, if not higher, to distinguish between their killing power and lesser weapons.

The key to getting this right would be getting the wound, damage and Toughness numbers correct, which would take a lot of testing. I'd also limit anti-tank guns to 1-2 shots maximum to stop them being efficient at killing heavy infantry.


Remember the push for Hve Weapons doing less damage was for Characters. No one liked their pricing single model being one shot'ed by heavy weapons (regardless as to whether or not you should be).

An option to go alongside upped wounds could be giving Heavy weapons -1 to hit infantry, +1 to hit vehicles. Now you aren't as worried about your pricy infantry falling to multi-melta, your vehicles care less about massed small calibre fire, but heavy weapons still make tanks wince.
   
 
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