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So, I'm still going through 3rd edition, and I'm in a "3rd ed state of mind" so to speak. I know the "AP as a modifier" to armor saves vs "AP negates armor saves" debate has been coming up again in other threads, and I was trying to think of some special rules or ideas that could be tacked onto the "AP negates armor saves" system that existed in 3rd edition which could be used to balance or re-balance things.

So here are some ideas I had, and I was wondering if anyone else had any other ideas.

1+ armor save
There had never been any units with a 1+ armor save, but you could give 1+ armor save to some units, rolling a 1 would still fail the armor save, but it would provide an armor save against AP2 weapons, and the armor save would still be negated by AP1 weapons.

Hardened armor
This idea I had would fortify the armor against one level higher of AP without improving the save itself. For example, a unit with 4+ armor save that is hardened armor would still get its save against AP4, but the armor save would get negated by AP3/2/1.

Ramshackle Armor
This is the opposite as hardened armor. For instance, a unit with 4+ armor save would gets its armor save negated by AP5/4/3/2/1

Cover negates/reduces AP
One idea I had was that, possibly instead of giving a cover save, cover could negate or reduce AP. I haven't worked out what would be the "best" way to do this because I think it could work in different ways. One way is that cover could just negate AP all together and you get your armor save if you're in cover, unless the weapon "ignores cover". Another way is that cover reduces AP, for instance cover that would give 6+ cover save would reduce AP by 1, 5+ cover would reduce AP by 2, 4+ cover would reduce AP by 3. Or you could find a progression of AP reduction that works and maps well with the 6+/5+/4+ cover save terrain.

I'm looking forward to hearing some feedback or thoughts about this, or if there are other ideas I hadn't thought of.

1+ should be handled very carefully. AP1 isn't common, so for some armies, a 1+ armour is practically a 2+ Invuln.

Hardened/Ramshackle are neat, no other comments for now.

I think Cover granting saves on its own is better, but high-powered weapons could work like Omnispexes and reduce the value. A Melta will blast through a fence no problem, so maybe AP1 is -2 to Cover Saves, and AP2 is -1?

Also, you can have modifiers via a special rule.
I like the name High Impact.
So, a Power Sword would be S:User, AP3, High Impact [1]. Applies a -1 penalty to armor save rolls made against it.

Lots of good ideas here! Mostly echooing JNA:

*1+ saves feel like a thing to be wary of. People like to complain about terminator durability regardless of the edition, but iirc the main way to deal with them in 3rd-7th was just to nickel and dime them to death through weight of dice. Giving them a 1+ save would just further encourage this as it means a lot of weapons you'd use to bypass their saves would suddenly be unable to do so. Depending on your wound allocation system, you also risk characters in the front tanking wounds with their 1+ saves more reliably.

*Hardened/Ramshackle seems like a solid idea. I feel like eldar specifically would be much more comfortable in the old AP system if guardians still got saves against bolters and dire avengers still got saves against heavy flamers. It's also a decent way to reflect their armor being "high-tech" without needing to make the save value itself better.

Ramshackle is probably going to be annoying to any unit that gets it, though. And I think you risk some frustrating break points. For instance, if 'eavy armor (4+ save) for orks is being ignored by AP5, then they're basically no better off than 5+ armor was in the old edition given how prevalent AP5 is. And I'm not sure if something like meganob armor would still qualify as "ramshackle" at that point. And if it did, I'd worry about making the ork equivalent of a terminator too squishy vs something like a battle cannon. So I'm open to the ramshackle rule, but I'm not sure where exactly you'd use it without it causing problems.

*The cover idea is interesting, but I'm not sure I like the idea of tying cover to AP/armor. Especially in the context of the all-or-nothing system. My wyches don't really benefit from cover in a meaningful way if all it does is let them use their 6+ armor saves. Gaining a 4+ cover save for standing in ruins, on the other hand, helps them a ton.

I feel like if we aren't differentiating between cover that absorbs impacts and cover that makes it hard to hit the target in the first place, then we should probably err on the side of the latter because it meaningfully helps all units. Some trees/bushes probably shouldn't absorb enough energy to meaningfully protect a marine from a lascannon, but they *might* throw off the attacker's targeting enough to make the shot miss entirely.

Some pet ideas for cover that I'm not necessarily suggesting for a 3rd-7th context:
-Units wholly within cover cannot be targeted outside of X".
-Units wholly within cover can perform the Hide action to make themselves untargetable outside of X".
- Some cover imposes a to-hit penalty or provides a to-hit penalty if the attacker is outside of X".

Also, you can have modifiers via a special rule.
I like the name High Impact.
So, a Power Sword would be S:User, AP3, High Impact [1]. Applies a -1 penalty to armor save rolls made against it.

This is also a good idea.

One idea I had in regards to cover was differentiating between "concealment" and "obstruction", it doesn't specifically relate to AP but it was an alternative to cover as it worked in 3e.

Concealment would make a unit harder to hit, providing -1, -2, -3 modifier to hit.

Obstruction would provide the traditional cover save.

So, specific terrain types could provide different levels of concealment and/or obstruction.

But I am now thinking cover could also provide other bonuses as well.
Cover could reduce the strength of the weapon, cover could reduce the AP of the weapon, cover could increase the armor save (up to a point) for models inside of it.
Cover could increase the range between the firing unit and the target unit, possibly causing weapons to miss and/or preventing rapid fire.

Hmmm... there might be more possibilities, like... cover increases the toughness of units.

I think ramshackle is too punitive because AP is already really punitive.

The most common compromise I've seen is that when AP=Sv, it doesn't ignore but modifies or affects the target in some way.

-1 to Sv is the most common. So AP5 vs sv5 allows a 6+ sv.

However, this does skew again to the heavy armour units a lot more, which given the game already does that, I'm not sure it's the best idea.

Perhaps, simply have that AP=Sv you can save on a 6.

This does some fun maths and pulls the skew to heavy armour a little bit back by bringing the relative probability of lower save units up compared to them. It means that 6+ save units have a tiny boost in survivability against AP6 specifically, but as that's an unusual AP value its not a big impact.

And its conceptually no different to AP1 and 2 doing the same thing due to the limitations of the AP vs Sv interaction, just on the save side instead.

AP1 and Sv1+ I don't think is a good idea, it gets close to tripling the skew for a unit.

To be fair, the only unit I was thinking that might get a 1+ save would be Abbadon the Despoiler, since his terminator armor was 2+ on 2d6 in 2nd edition vs regular terminator armor being 3+ on 2d6. Or at least used very rarely like for a few other special characters. Maybe it could be an expensive (60 points) wargear upgrade for characters.

Couldn't you just give 2+ units Hardened armor and scratch 1+, as it achieves the same?

 a_typical_hero wrote:
Couldn't you just give 2+ units Hardened armor and scratch 1+, as it achieves the same?

You're right about that. Plus I was thinking "ramshackle armor" just as a theoretical existing counter-point to hardened armor, I hadn't thought about what, if any, units should get it. Ramshackle armor would do worse against shooting, but would still be good in combat against normal attacks.

Power weapons in close combat would also still slice through 1+ armor or "hardened" 2+ armor like butter.

I think that if you were to go down this path it would just reinforce marine saves rather than balance the game.

Because of course marine armour is reinforced so they get a special rules that makes them harder to kill. Terminators as well.

So imo anything that makes marines more resilient won't balance the game because they aren't what's under powered.


So what angle are you looking at for this? What problem are you trying to fix?

 Hellebore wrote:
I think that if you were to go down this path it would just reinforce marine saves rather than balance the game.

Because of course marine armour is reinforced so they get a special rules that makes them harder to kill. Terminators as well.

So imo anything that makes marines more resilient won't balance the game because they aren't what's under powered.


So what angle are you looking at for this? What problem are you trying to fix?

I suppose I'm just throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what could be good to maintain 3rd edition pretty much as it was, with the AP negating armor rule rather than AP modifying saves (and melee mostly being getting a save or not getting a save (power weapons)) , but trying to iron out some of the wrinkles that this system creates, perhaps the best way to do that is to change the AP values of weapons rather than introducing new mechanics/rules to iron out the wrinkles.

I wanted to try to find a way to make the eldar/dark eldar less fragile over-all, or perhaps making all units viable choices for whatever their role might be, which might be mainly possible with an over-all points rebalance.

BanjoJohn wrote:
I wanted to try to find a way to make the eldar/dark eldar less fragile over-all, or perhaps making all units viable choices for whatever their role might be, which might be mainly possible with an over-all points rebalance.

Which units are you trying to make less fragile?

I played 3e dark eldar a little (albeit mostly in 5th) and their fragility was somewhat offset by blowing you away in the early turns leaving significantly less to shoot back. Plus all your AP2 plasma and AP3 battlecannons were wasted points.

For eldar, guardians suffered from lack of range. Most other units were at least AP4.