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Made in ca
Fully-charged Electropriest






From what a lot of people have been saying one of the problems with the current edition is the increasing lethality making large vehicles that cost a lot of points basically useless as they get shot of the table in a single round of shooting. Aside from nerfing the firepower of various units, which I don't see happening, I had an idea of a way this could be mitigated; Armor facings.

It would seem that the new Horus Heresy is being basis on the old 7th edition rules including firing arc, templates and armor facings so I think it could be implemented into current 40k.

My very rough first draft:

Every vehicle model has four facings; front, left side, right side and rear.

For a model without a base each arc is determined as the area between two imaginary 1mm line coming out of each corner. (Not sure how to do it for models on a round or oval base, or with irregular shapes). Determine which facing a model firing at a vehicle is attacking; if the models base, or the hull if the model has no base, is at least 50% within one facing arc attacks are made against that armor facing.

When a vehicle makes a saving throw against an attack that saving throw is modified based on which facing was attacked:
Front - +2
Left and Right Side - +1
Rear - no modifier
Saving throws are them modified by AP as usual.


This means that a vehicle with a save of 3+ that is shot from the front with a -4 weapon would still have a save of 5+. This would also make positioning of models and units more important.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Armor facings pretend to give value in maneuvering but the truth is that you use weapons in the first place that generally don't care.

In theory this is a neat fix, but you're going to have to define how the vehicle is being targeted. It's also just silly that the manufacturers of the vehicles just forgot to put armor on the back.

If we want more importance to maneuvering, the Genestealer Cult rule of cross firing seems like something that should've been standard.
   
Made in it
Waaagh! Ork Warboss




Italy

No, facings only add controversies. Not every vehicle is a perfect brick like a rhino, razorback, leman russ, or land raider. And even about those I've seen lots of controversies back in the old times.

 
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







You could, alternately, just play 30k.

Balanced Game: Noun. A game in which all options and choices are worth using.
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Made in ca
Fully-charged Electropriest






EviscerationPlague wrote:
Armor facings pretend to give value in maneuvering but the truth is that you use weapons in the first place that generally don't care.

In theory this is a neat fix, but you're going to have to define how the vehicle is being targeted. It's also just silly that the manufacturers of the vehicles just forgot to put armor on the back.

If we want more importance to maneuvering, the Genestealer Cult rule of cross firing seems like something that should've been standard.


Well the point of this is to make it that weapons' that don't care do care by making their -4 to AP effectively a -2 if you shoot it from the front.

Don't know if it wasn't clear enough in the rule but when a model attacks a vehicle which armor facing is targeted is based on the location of the attacking model and the lines that come out of the corners of the vehicle. The idea that the rear facing doesn't give a bonus comes from the idea that many vehicles in 7th had a weaker armor on in the rear. The Predator for example had the values of:
Front - 13
Sides - 11
Rear - 10
There were models like the Land Raiders that had the same armor on each side so I could see certain models getting special rules that allow them to get the bonus on all sides. Also take a look at the repulsor model. The front is covered in armor and is sloped. The sides are armored but are vertical and have doors. The rear is covered in parts like exhaust and a door making it the most vulnerable.

100% agree about the cross fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Blackie wrote:
No, facings only add controversies. Not every vehicle is a perfect brick like a rhino, razorback, leman russ, or land raider. And even about those I've seen lots of controversies back in the old times.


That is the biggest problem with this so it would require players with common sense. So unlikely.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/03/31 06:43:05


 
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





I'm kind of a broken record whenever people pitch a return to armour facings, and others have already made a lot of my main points. So I'll try to keep this response brief:

* Not every vehicle is a break. You say it would require "common sense", but it's genuinely unclear on some vehicles. Where is the rear armor on a wave serpent? Does it start with the left/right-most "rear" parts beside the engines, or the 'rearmost" parts by the passenger hatch? Both seem reasonable, but that's a huge difference in the size of its weak points.

* It's weird that aliens with basically magical technology still leaves significant weak points on one or more quadrants of their vehicles.

* With weapon arcs not being a thing, armor facing is also less useful. You can turn your butt whatever direction you have to to almost never let the enemy shoot your rear unless you're surrounded.

* In past editions most(?) vehicles had the same front and side armor values. So in many (most?) cases, the only side that really mattered was the rear.

* With that last bullet point in mind, if you really want to include armor facings in some capacity, just represent the "rear" by placing a straight line against the rearmost part of the vehicle. Any model at least partially on the opposite side of that line from the vehicle is in its rear arc and gets whatever benefits come with that. This also saves the extra fiddlyness of figuring out how many models are in one arc versus another.


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
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

Having armour facings is absolutely realistic. It's not about being incompetent and leaving weakspots - it's about prioritising armour in quadrants most likely to be hit by enemy fire, you've only got so much weight to work with.

I do agree with the last point though - the only really practical armour facing for 40k is drawing a single line dividing the vehicle into two halves and having front/rear only.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 KingGarland wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
Armor facings pretend to give value in maneuvering but the truth is that you use weapons in the first place that generally don't care.

In theory this is a neat fix, but you're going to have to define how the vehicle is being targeted. It's also just silly that the manufacturers of the vehicles just forgot to put armor on the back.

If we want more importance to maneuvering, the Genestealer Cult rule of cross firing seems like something that should've been standard.


Well the point of this is to make it that weapons' that don't care do care by making their -4 to AP effectively a -2 if you shoot it from the front.

Don't know if it wasn't clear enough in the rule but when a model attacks a vehicle which armor facing is targeted is based on the location of the attacking model and the lines that come out of the corners of the vehicle. The idea that the rear facing doesn't give a bonus comes from the idea that many vehicles in 7th had a weaker armor on in the rear. The Predator for example had the values of:
Front - 13
Sides - 11
Rear - 10
There were models like the Land Raiders that had the same armor on each side so I could see certain models getting special rules that allow them to get the bonus on all sides. Also take a look at the repulsor model. The front is covered in armor and is sloped. The sides are armored but are vertical and have doors. The rear is covered in parts like exhaust and a door making it the most vulnerable.

100% agree about the cross fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Blackie wrote:
No, facings only add controversies. Not every vehicle is a perfect brick like a rhino, razorback, leman russ, or land raider. And even about those I've seen lots of controversies back in the old times.


That is the biggest problem with this so it would require players with common sense. So unlikely.

And some of the AP-4 doesn't get use anyway because an Invul will exist in some capacity. So sure you're killing the Predator a little easier, but the Predator wasn't a hard target in the first place.
   
Made in gb
Lord of the Fleet






London

I agree that it'd be nice to see facings come back, the only practical way I can see it working on unusual vehicles is for them to have to have bespoke bases which have the quadrants marked out on the rim.
   
Made in gb
[DCM]
Moustache-twirling Princeps





Gone-to-ground in the craters of Coventry

 kirotheavenger wrote:
the only really practical armour facing for 40k is drawing a single line dividing the vehicle into two halves and having front/rear only.
Ambiguity has been stripped out of later editions of 40k. Facings was one of them.
I likes facings, but if you are bringing that back, you're very close to having fire arcs, too.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/04/01 14:07:32


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Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







Wyldhunt wrote:
...* Not every vehicle is a break. You say it would require "common sense", but it's genuinely unclear on some vehicles. Where is the rear armor on a wave serpent? Does it start with the left/right-most "rear" parts beside the engines, or the 'rearmost" parts by the passenger hatch? Both seem reasonable, but that's a huge difference in the size of its weak points...


In practice if you're going to do facings hard definitions like "arcs are always 90 degrees, lines drawn out from the outer corners of the vehicle's bounding box" or just doing Flames of War facings (180 degrees front, 180 degrees rear) are very necessary, yeah. The whole corner-to-corner thing GW did in the old days was funny but it made the front arc on basically everything too narrow.

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Fixture of Dakka





 AnomanderRake wrote:
Wyldhunt wrote:
...* Not every vehicle is a break. You say it would require "common sense", but it's genuinely unclear on some vehicles. Where is the rear armor on a wave serpent? Does it start with the left/right-most "rear" parts beside the engines, or the 'rearmost" parts by the passenger hatch? Both seem reasonable, but that's a huge difference in the size of its weak points...


In practice if you're going to do facings hard definitions like "arcs are always 90 degrees, lines drawn out from the outer corners of the vehicle's bounding box" or just doing Flames of War facings (180 degrees front, 180 degrees rear) are very necessary, yeah. The whole corner-to-corner thing GW did in the old days was funny but it made the front arc on basically everything too narrow.


Fair, although wouldn't that mean you'd have to identify the center of a vehicle to figure out where those 90* arcs are? Easier than figuring out where the side arcs are, but still runs into some ambiguities. Think I'd still prefer to just identify the rear arc. with a straight line.


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 us
The Conquerer






Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

EviscerationPlague wrote:
It's also just silly that the manufacturers of the vehicles just forgot to put armor on the back.


Real life would kinda show that it is indeed the case.

The M4A3E2 Sherman's hull has 101mm on the front, 76mm on the side, and 38mm on the rear. The Turret is 177/152/152mm. The front is also angled at 47 degrees further increasing its effectiveness.

You can only put so much weight on a vehicle, better to concentrate the armor where it is most useful.

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Made in gb
Mekboy Hammerin' Somethin'





United Kingdom

The main issue with armour facings is that stuff in this game isn't always box shaped, so there's arguments abound about what is and isn't the side/rear of some units.

I would love for armour facings and firing arcs to come back as it brings a cool tactical element back to vehicles, but it slows the game down and leads to arguments whenever anyone uses a unit that isn't a box with wheels.
   
Made in ca
Fresh-Faced New User




Armor Faces used to cause a bit of problems back in 5th were I played if your at those "edge" angles between facings, however augmenting the save sounds like a possible fix. What if Vehicles got a +1 (Or +2, but that might be overkill) to armor saves vs weapons with a lower Strength then their Toughness, keep anti-tanks useful in dodging the bonus but makes the idea of "small arms" fire have less chance of doing damage since a 1 to save always fails anyway.
   
Made in us
Towering Hierophant Bio-Titan




Mexico

I would also add that it doesn't make sense to keep armor facings as a vehicle only thing.

Monsters that work as tanks also should have armor facings, hell arguably some infantry should also have facings, like those that are equipped with combat/storm shields. And on the other hand light vehicles like Dark Eldar skimmers and aircraft shouldn't have armor facings (as they barely have armor anyway).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/04/04 20:22:24


 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain




I'd second the argument about crossfire.

It's easy to have an unarguable measurement for; can you draw a line of fire from one unit able to shoot to another unit able to shoot that passes through the model, and hence give you a benefit. It worked in Epic Armageddon and it's a nice simple rule that makes outflanking units, fast shooty things like land speeders and so on very effective and generally rewards aggressive manouvre with shooty things.

I like the fact that genestealer cults brought the rule in but I don't get why it's not a standard rule....

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Made in us
Towering Hierophant Bio-Titan




Mexico

While it sounds good in theory, crossfire is an offensive rule and making it an universal rule will increase even more the game's lethality.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Tyran wrote:
While it sounds good in theory, crossfire is an offensive rule and making it an universal rule will increase even more the game's lethality.

Lethality wouldn't be an issue if stacking modifiers for negatives to hit came back.
   
Made in us
Gore-Soaked Lunatic Witchhunter







EviscerationPlague wrote:
 Tyran wrote:
While it sounds good in theory, crossfire is an offensive rule and making it an universal rule will increase even more the game's lethality.

Lethality wouldn't be an issue if stacking modifiers for negatives to hit came back.


...Or if you reversed some of the last fifteen years of constant stat creep.

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Made in mx
Towering Hierophant Bio-Titan




Mexico

Maybe reversing* back to old wound 7th table?

Anti-tank weapons would still be extremely lethal, but maybe that would be fine if medium and small arms were less effective against tough targets.

*Although maybe only a half reversal, keeping current high S vs low T part of the table so lethality against hordes doesn't increase.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/04/04 23:48:03


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 AnomanderRake wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
 Tyran wrote:
While it sounds good in theory, crossfire is an offensive rule and making it an universal rule will increase even more the game's lethality.

Lethality wouldn't be an issue if stacking modifiers for negatives to hit came back.


...Or if you reversed some of the last fifteen years of constant stat creep.

Not a terrible amount of that, considering GW didn't really adjust for their new wounding table.
   
Made in us
Veteran Knight Baron in a Crusader





 AnomanderRake wrote:
You could, alternately, just play 30k.


Yea I hear a lot of people calling for balanced armies with more restrictions, no/less stratagems, templates, and vehicle facings. Like, uhhh, you're literally just describing 30k. You can play mechanicum, custodes or daemons if space marines aren't your thing. We don't need to turn 40k into 30k, just play 30k...
   
Made in us
Ultramarine Chaplain with Hate to Spare






Toofast wrote:
 AnomanderRake wrote:
You could, alternately, just play 30k.


Yea I hear a lot of people calling for balanced armies with more restrictions, no/less stratagems, templates, and vehicle facings. Like, uhhh, you're literally just describing 30k. You can play mechanicum, custodes or daemons if space marines aren't your thing. We don't need to turn 40k into 30k, just play 30k...
No Necrons, Nids, Tau, etc. . .

Better to just play an older (and cheaper) version of 40K.


But to most of the thread, I am pro-Armor Facings. A 90 degree quadrant solution or a 180 split front/rear solution would be fine, though my preference is for quadrants. I'd be happy to have vehicles use different methods as well. Some as quadrants, some as split, and some as same-armor-at-all-angles, just for added texture.

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Italy

Easiest solution with armor facings and vehicles is putting them on square/rectangular bases. Not so good looking probably (I'd hate that) but really effective, it would eliminate any controversy while vehicles that do not look like bricks could not be stuck on having the same AV value on each side.

 
   
Made in us
Ultramarine Chaplain with Hate to Spare






^No bases, please. A simple template to place over models in case of contention should be plenty good.

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Dakka Veteran






 Insectum7 wrote:
^No bases, please. A simple template to place over models in case of contention should be plenty good.


Yes, this.

The corner to corner thing doesn't work for a lot of vehicles. What we do is just determine the "center point" of the model (center of its hull as best we can deduce, sometimes will even make a little dot/mark on the model for it) and then just have 90-degree arcs centered on that center point. You can use a circular protractor for this or draw some lines on an old transparent blast template and use then. Whatever arc the shooting unit is within is the armor value that's used. If a unit touches on multiple arcs, we default to using whichever grants the most protection/armor for the vehicle.

The above is clean, and works, and arguments are pretty minimal.

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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Simplest solutiuon I've heard of is the straight line across the back of the vehicle. Most vehicles have moderately flat backsides, so it's practical in 90% of cases (necrons being one of the few with pointy rears).

Anything from in front of that line is in the front, anything behind is the rear.

Problem is you need to include weapon arcs again to make it work properly, which I also approve of, even if you keep the same simplicity of tividign the vehicle with an upside-down "T", where you have front left, front right, and rear left and rear right arcs for weapons. some sponsons shoot both left or right arcs, leman russes only cover front left or front right arcs.

But then ghost arcs are tricky. See how it all goes a bit odd?

Dedicated arcs would be fine though, provided they are kept as simple as possible!

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You'd think GW would do this just to sell special widgets for each vehicle that determined armor facing. Get another couple bucks per vehicle type.

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Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 some bloke wrote:
Simplest solutiuon I've heard of is the straight line across the back of the vehicle. Most vehicles have moderately flat backsides, so it's practical in 90% of cases (necrons being one of the few with pointy rears).

Anything from in front of that line is in the front, anything behind is the rear.

Problem is you need to include weapon arcs again to make it work properly, which I also approve of, even if you keep the same simplicity of tividign the vehicle with an upside-down "T", where you have front left, front right, and rear left and rear right arcs for weapons. some sponsons shoot both left or right arcs, leman russes only cover front left or front right arcs.

But then ghost arcs are tricky. See how it all goes a bit odd?

Dedicated arcs would be fine though, provided they are kept as simple as possible!

I feel like this sort of gets into the topic of 40k's scale too. I'm not sure I want to bother with firing arcs and armor facings in a 2,000 point game where I'm trying to pilot 50 infantry models on top of my 5 vehicles. But I'm also not sure I want a whole sub-system dedicated to armor facings when I'm playing Combat Patrol and there's only one vehicle across the table from me.

Maybe armor facings, weapon arcs, etc. would be a better fit for a Spearhead game variant where the focus is entirely on vehicles and monsters? Like, if the entire game is your 3-5 imperial knight models versus my 10ish tank models, then by all means; let's break out the diagrams and vehicle speed counters and so forth.


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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