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Take 3rd ed and do the following:

Ignore the AP values of weapons.

If a weapon causes instant death, it ignores saves.

If a weapon was AP1 or 2, it automatically wounds. This can interact with ID to auto wound and ignore saves.


Play the game exactly the same otherwise (melee armour interactions are unchanged).

 Hellebore wrote:
Take 3rd ed and do the following:

Ignore the AP values of weapons.

If a weapon causes instant death, it ignores saves.

If a weapon was AP1 or 2, it automatically wounds. This can interact with ID to auto wound and ignore saves.


Play the game exactly the same otherwise (melee armour interactions are unchanged).

Are you keeping the rule that a weapon with double the strength causes instant death? If so, it feels like the purpose of this rules alteration is to allow the Imperial Guard to annihilate Space Marine armies at will.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
Take 3rd ed and do the following:

Ignore the AP values of weapons.

If a weapon causes instant death, it ignores saves.

If a weapon was AP1 or 2, it automatically wounds. This can interact with ID to auto wound and ignore saves.


Play the game exactly the same otherwise (melee armour interactions are unchanged).

Are you keeping the rule that a weapon with double the strength causes instant death? If so, it feels like the purpose of this rules alteration is to allow the Imperial Guard to annihilate Space Marine armies at will.

Yes and no.

All the S8 weapons the imperial guard have ignore marine armour anyway. Battlecannons are AP3 so won't autowound. So identical interaction as now. The only change would be to lascannons, which ignore marine armour and cause instant death. But they hit on a 4+ for 1 shot and statistically will be about as dangerous as they always were. and demolisher cannons, which are ap2 and S10, but are only short ranged and expensive.

This will actually make marines more dangerous against each other, than any army is against marines.

3rd ed weapons didn't have many AP1/2 examples - starcannons, plasma, lascannons, melta, fusion, demolisher, brightlance, darklance. They will auto wound, which given they all wound every infantry target on a 2+ against anyway, that's not a big deal.

And of those, the plasma will ID only T3 models, and the others are single shot, making them about as effective as they currently are.

I was thinking of the Basilisk Earthshakers that I employed in 5th. I was a terror with them normally.

Your rules also make Kasrkin /Stormtroopers useless, as they had str3 AP3 hell guns.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I was thinking of the Basilisk Earthshakers that I employed in 5th. I was a terror with them normally.

Your rules also make Kasrkin /Stormtroopers useless, as they had str3 AP3 hell guns.

It wouldn't change the basilisks at all, they're S9 ap3.

The stormtroopers are an edge case which never functioned very well with Low S and high AP anyway. They are pretty much the only example of that issue. At most I'd make them S4, which was what they were when they were originally released in 2nd ed anyway (hotshot/hellguns were identical to bolters in 2nd ed).

 Hellebore wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I was thinking of the Basilisk Earthshakers that I employed in 5th. I was a terror with them normally.

Your rules also make Kasrkin /Stormtroopers useless, as they had str3 AP3 hell guns.

It wouldn't change the basilisks at all, they're S9 ap3.

The stormtroopers are an edge case which never functioned very well with Low S and high AP anyway. They are pretty much the only example of that issue. At most I'd make them S4, which was what they were when they were originally released in 2nd ed anyway (hotshot/hellguns were identical to bolters in 2nd ed).

By ”Never functioned well,” you mean that they were only thrice as effective as ordinary Lasguns against MEQ and only twice as effective as bolters…

Seriously, what’s wrong with a low Strength weapon with good AP?

Also, the Instant Death (aka x2 Toughness) of Leman Russ and Basilisk pie plates, under your changes ignore saves.

So, it kills Terminators. That's huge, especially when they had to deep strike in that nice little circle, that screams, "Lay your pie plate on our heads."

JNAProductions wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
I was thinking of the Basilisk Earthshakers that I employed in 5th. I was a terror with them normally.

Your rules also make Kasrkin /Stormtroopers useless, as they had str3 AP3 hell guns.

It wouldn't change the basilisks at all, they're S9 ap3.

The stormtroopers are an edge case which never functioned very well with Low S and high AP anyway. They are pretty much the only example of that issue. At most I'd make them S4, which was what they were when they were originally released in 2nd ed anyway (hotshot/hellguns were identical to bolters in 2nd ed).

By ”Never functioned well,” you mean that they were only thrice as effective as ordinary Lasguns against MEQ and only twice as effective as bolters…

Seriously, what’s wrong with a low Strength weapon with good AP?

Never functioned well conceptually. They are a weapon without a real target. Storm troopers were pretty much always used as double plasma gun delivery systems, not for their hellgun shots. The hellgun never gave them a real purpose, the ap3 was a bandaid rather than a real factor in their use.

Lathe Biosas wrote:Also, the Instant Death (aka x2 Toughness) of Leman Russ and Basilisk pie plates, under your changes ignore saves.

So, it kills Terminators. That's huge, especially when they had to deep strike in that nice little circle, that screams, "Lay your pie plate on our heads."

Terminators had a 5+ invulnerable save and pie plate vs deep striking terminator was an issue with the normal game, whether you change the AP rules or not. Plasma cannons were the bane of terminator deep striking, but under this they allow a 2+ save. Singling out an individual weapon doesn't really look at the whole picture of the rules interactions - claiming issue with a battlecannon is no more representative than me saying that plasma cannons lost their teeth proves it's perfect.

 Hellebore wrote:

If a weapon causes instant death, it ignores saves.

This what made me think you meant all saves, because as running the telephone pole guard armoured company (where I always went first-thanks Solar Macharius!)

If I could erase all saves, (because my weapons were mostly ×2 or more of T4. I would destroy a marine army quickly.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

If a weapon causes instant death, it ignores saves.

This what made me think you meant all saves, because as running the telephone pole guard armoured company (where I always went first-thanks Solar Macharius!)

If I could erase all saves, (because my weapons were mostly ×2 or more of T4. I would destroy a marine army quickly.

Ok, apologies for the lack of clarity. I was referencing the power weapon rule that just ignores saves as an inherent feature.



I'm also not wedded to this idea either, it just came to me in another thread. I've played around with all sorts of AP rules in the past like AP=sv -1 to save AP>Sv ignore. So AP3 against a marine changes their Sv to 4+ while AP2 ignores it (terminators save on 3+ against plasma, but lose their save against melta).

But I actually just think the concept of AP is really hard to balance and so needs to be stripped from the rules. It's a binary save /no save environment that makes armies overbalanced against some armies and underbalanced against others.

Hence the concept of tying it to Strength and ignoring AP. The 'penetrating' AP weapons like plasma et al which don't have high enough strength might suffer a bit, hence the AP1/2 effect. But it's not necessary really.

IMO the default save contains within it enough failure that AP is unwarranted and punishing for units with already low saves. 5+ saves fail more often than they succeed, so stripping your opponent of them is just mean...

Always worth trying on the table if you have locals who are up to it.

Gut feeling is that T3 elites like eldar and sisters get screwed. MCs might as well have 3+ or 2+ invulnerables, screening chaff units take longer to grind through, plasma weapons become useless against marines, and rending doesn't work unless you use the older rules.

You'd have to re-point and probably re-stat everything. Dark Reapers for instance are now multilaser fodder with AP- weapons.

I think it's awesome people are still playing 3rd.

I didn't think the AP system needed to be addressed at all and is one of the reasons that 8th+ editions are unplayable. As others have said, this would change army mechanics across the board. Even Wraithlords wouldn't be a threat under this system.

If it helps, there were other rules around at the time that might help. The Choppa/Chainaxe rule for example, where a save could never be better than a 4+ when wounded by a weapon, I can easily see your Ap1/2 doing that instead. I vaguely remember a trial rule around 3.5 where if the AP=Sv, then they'd get a flat 6+ instead of ignoring it outright. That was so long ago though.

 Akar wrote:
I vaguely remember a trial rule around 3.5 where if the AP=Sv, then they'd get a flat 6+ instead of ignoring it outright. That was so long ago though.

I think GW goes through phases of crit-fishing.

1=failure is always there but 6=success they seem to have a love-hate relationship with. On the one hand it's a lot of needless rolling, on the other hand it's a chance the controlling player gets to roll.

3rd edition already had major issues with las/plas and starcannon spam...

A.T. wrote:
I think GW goes through phases of crit-fishing.
1=failure is always there but 6=success they seem to have a love-hate relationship with. On the one hand it's a lot of needless rolling, on the other hand it's a chance the controlling player gets to roll.

I thought it was a good move vs. the either you do or you don't thing. It made AP3 slightly less lethal, and gave value to AP 1/2. Players like to roll dice, and it allowed MEQ's to roll dice. Didn't change anything for Starcannon spam, but I never found that to be too much of an issue either way.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
3rd edition already had major issues with las/plas and starcannon spam...

Didn't really see it at any of the events I went to. Sure it was decent against MEQ armies, but they'd struggle if they ran up against any cheap infantry horde army.