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Shame. Using USRs like "Anti-Tank" and "Anti-Infantry" could go a long way to fixing the problems of durability.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Now we just need some proper Legends rules for this thing:

Yes, yes, yes, and more yes!

H.B.M.C. wrote:Shame. Using USRs like "Anti-Tank" and "Anti-Infantry" could go a long way to fixing the problems of durability.

GW will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
[

 Daedalus81 wrote:
It takes over 26 bolter ( 36 lasgun ) shots to take a wound off a Rhino, which it then heals the next turn. You enjoy shooting them with bolters and lasguns all you want.

It shouldn't be possible in the first place. If Toughness values go up, but you can still wound anything on a 6+, then there's even more incentive to go "fishing for sixes" than there is right now.

I mean, using small arms or light autocannons to damage view ports, annetenas, fire control sensors, etc, is something we see in the real world. Not everything on a tank is bulletproof, and "buttoning up" a tank to limit its situational awareness, focus its attention away form the flanking AT system, or generally cuase problems with it.

its not unrealistic at all to fish a few wounds off it.

xerxeskingofking wrote:
I mean, using small arms or light autocannons to damage view ports, annetenas, fire control sensors, etc, is something we see in the real world. Not everything on a tank is bulletproof, and "buttoning up" a tank to limit its situational awareness, focus its attention away form the flanking AT system, or generally cuase problems with it.

Do troopers regularly, when bereft of other targets, decide to empty their mags into armoured vehicles? Do whole squads line up and just unload on things that they can't appreciably damage?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

xerxeskingofking wrote:
I mean, using small arms or light autocannons to damage view ports, annetenas, fire control sensors, etc, is something we see in the real world. Not everything on a tank is bulletproof, and "buttoning up" a tank to limit its situational awareness, focus its attention away form the flanking AT system, or generally cuase problems with it.

Do troopers regularly, when bereft of other targets, decide to empty their mags into armoured vehicles? Do whole squads line up and just unload on things that they can't appreciably damage?

Depending on the type of engagement, yes. A typical situation would be infantry holding a defensive line being assailed by a tank. The vehicle needs to be stopped, usually by directing it into mines or with man-portable missiles, but when a firefight opens *everyone* present opens fire at the same time. Not really to destroy it as such, but to distract its crew from making out which bush in front of them contains actual AT weapons, to demoralise the crew by telling them that this is now a real firefight and perhaps drive them away, to kill any infantry advancing behind the vehicle or fleeing crew from a tank that suffers a mission kill from the AT weapons and so on. There are a bunch of reasons related to incomplete information and fog of war in a real battle that 40k doesn't deal with but which can be rolled into the abstraction of infantry generally attempting to effect the enemy in front of them.

Of course you don't start a fight on your own volition if all you have is a rifle and the enemy has a tank, but the types of small combined arms brawls depicted by 40k games are already past that stage. The game is about the short, desperate moment where you throw down everything you have to win fire superiority and in that context, firing bullets at a tank is absolutely something you would see troopers do while praying their artillery and AT teams get hustling faster.

I just can't see an American infantryman seeing a tank cresting a hill and just holding down the trigger on his M-16 until he has nothing left in the vain hope he might get lucky.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

xerxeskingofking wrote:
I mean, using small arms or light autocannons to damage view ports, annetenas, fire control sensors, etc, is something we see in the real world. Not everything on a tank is bulletproof, and "buttoning up" a tank to limit its situational awareness, focus its attention away form the flanking AT system, or generally cuase problems with it.

Do troopers regularly, when bereft of other targets, decide to empty their mags into armoured vehicles? Do whole squads line up and just unload on things that they can't appreciably damage?

Oho boyo, the stories I could tell...

I know nothing about real anti tank combat so will stay out of that discussion :-)


I'm hoping for a little tweak to the to wound chart for S VS T.

A simple change by adding an additional stipulation that if a target has toughness of 3x or more than the Strength of the weapon then it cannot hurt it.

Rarely comes into play other than when attacking the heaviest targets.

Lasguns won't be able to hurt proper tanks, bolters wont be able to hurt very heavy tanks. Will only have an effect on basic infantry weapons, anything S5 or above wont get effected as they said the highest T is 14.

Simple and easy to put in.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I just can't see an American infantryman seeing a tank cresting a hill and just holding down the trigger on his M-16 until he has nothing left in the vain hope he might get lucky.

That would be an extreme example, but in reality suppressing fire might still be called for - you can get lucky hits on things on the tank, you prevent the tank commander going out of the hatch to get a better look at his surroundings (which is pretty important, as especially pre-modern tanks have very limited awareness and lines of sight if limited to scopes and viewing ports) or using pintle-mounted weaponry, you may prevent transported infantry from dismounting, and it's a boon to your own troops if they feel like they're doing something. Also, due to circumstances and environmental conditions, you may not even be entirely sure what vehicle exactly you're shooting at, maybe you do actually have a chance to hurt it with e.g. a light machine gun, maybe you we're just mistaken and you don't.

To circle back to the game, 2nd edition was iirc. the last one that tried to represent things like that - the SM razorback (which at the time had a marine manning the turret gun) had convoluted rules for the extra protection granted by the gun's front shield, and you could opt to either keep firing the gun, use the gunners pistol or retreat into the tank and close the hatches. Even for the more roleplaying-oriented 2nd edition, that was a lot of things to consider for a squad support/ transport hybrid.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Every time they buff the toughness of a vehicle without changing the Wound Chart, they are just making small arms more and more efficient relative to AT guns.

Oh no, rhinos are T9! My lasguns are afraid. I bet Baneblades are even T-15. Lascannons wound on 5s with one shot? Ha! Bolters are better.

Didn't realise you'd seen all the rules already.

Sorry, I thought the thread was discussing the previews. If you would prefer to wait until the full rules release to discuss them, you could always ask for the thread to be locked.

After all, I didn't realize *anyone* had seen the full rules yet, posting here.
).

Others aren't making assumptions of rules they don't know.

I've read a paper on a american forces vs isis combat. The us forces defended an airport and sprayed some tank with 50cals. The isis crew panicked and exited the tank, to be gunned down as they tried to run.

Also in ww1 german machinegunners sprayed into british tanks and sometimes penetrated. They might have had specialised heavier ammo for that.

So light weapons vs tanks are not unheard of


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Can't see any similar theories here on meltas, but i would assume being in melta range just increase the weapon strenght. No "anti tank"-keywords are neeeded then.

U guys saw the hunter killer missle had s14 right?

This overall Scenario is not a question of damage but of Moral

does the infantry gets panic and starts shooting even knowing that it won't do anything but give away their position
and does the tank crew get distracted or panic because there are people shooting at them

all other games with modern warfare use moral and/or suppression for this
and it works

 Gitdakka wrote:
U guys saw the hunter killer missle had s14 right?

Yeah. The krak missile on the Cyclone Missile Launcher is also up to S9.

Its going to be a bit silly to go "we've made vehicles tougher"/"Btw Lascannons are now S12", but its the sort of thing GW would do.

Suppressing a tank with small arms fire? Alrighty then...

I just cannot fathom the idea of infantry consciously, as a tactical decision, opening fire on something they cannot hurt on the off chance they hit something vital. Out of fear/panic, maybe, but that's not the same thing as a squad of men lining up to fire at tanks.

And none of this really takes away from the point that by making vehicles even tougher but leaving in "6+ wounds regardless of comparative Strength/Toughness", you're making those weapons more efficient. They're more numerous, and you can "fish for 6's" when you have nothing better to do.

 WisdomLS wrote:
I know nothing about real anti tank combat so will stay out of that discussion :-)

A simple change by adding an additional stipulation that if a target has toughness of 3x or more than the Strength of the weapon then it cannot hurt it.

Rarely comes into play other than when attacking the heaviest targets.

Lasguns won't be able to hurt proper tanks, bolters wont be able to hurt very heavy tanks. Will only have an effect on basic infantry weapons, anything S5 or above wont get effected as they said the highest T is 14.

Simple and easy to put in.

Had that same idea. And why would they up the Toughness if it didn't have any effect following the current chart?
Another variant would be the Lotr wound chart, where you have wounding on 6 (Strength 3 vs. T 7), a 6 followed by 4+ (strength 3 vs. T 8), then 6/5+ (S3 vs. T9) and so on. Would be far more complicated and involve lots of rerolls (in lotr units with T8+ are pretty rare outside of dwarfs so it's not a problem), but it would allow "everything to hurt everything" which was GWs goal in 8th, but I'm not sure they renewed that in the 10th previews so far.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Ooh...yea...autocannons. I think those are definitely going into plink category and getting used more on infantry now.

Which doesn't make any sense to me. They're meant to be light anti-tank weaponry. They shouldn't be putting a dent in Land Raiders, but they should reasonably expected to damage Rhinos and Chimeras with a decent volley.

Eh, are Rhinos and Chimeras light vehicles? They seem pretty well armoured to me.
A light vehicle would be something more like a land speeder or a venom. Isn't there a jeep looking thing in the game as well?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


And none of this really takes away from the point that by making vehicles even tougher but leaving in "6+ wounds regardless of comparative Strength/Toughness", you're making those weapons more efficient. They're more numerous, and you can "fish for 6's" when you have nothing better to do.

Yes, fishing for 6s is obviously un-fluffy and a point where this system apparently breaks down (unless, again, there are rules that we're not currently aware of that stop you from lasgunning a baneblade to death). If it exists in 10th, it's a weakness of the system and probably the most lazy/clutchy solution to the problem of e.g. pure Knight armies existing, which would make much of a typical army completely useless against them if small arms were flat-out unable of even scratching them at all.

Another variant would be the Lotr wound chart, where you have wounding on 6 (Strength 3 vs. T 7), a 6 followed by 4+ (strength 3 vs. T 8), then 6/5+ (S3 vs. T9) and so on. Would be far more complicated and involve lots of rerolls (in lotr units with T8+ are pretty rare outside of dwarfs so it's not a problem), but it would allow "everything to hurt everything" which was GWs goal in 8th, but I'm not sure they renewed that in the 10th previews so far.

That's also how you rolled 7+, 8+ etc. on a D6 in very early editions and sidegames based on them, but as you said, it quickly becomes impractical in games where you roll buckets of dice.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:


And none of this really takes away from the point that by making vehicles even tougher but leaving in "6+ wounds regardless of comparative Strength/Toughness", you're making those weapons more efficient. They're more numerous, and you can "fish for 6's" when you have nothing better to do.

True, that would be pretty lame and would hurt the flow of the game. It would encourage players to mass fire at vehicles on the off chance that they'll get a few sixes, because why wouldn't you? If there's no better target and you have a bunch of dudes with rifles sitting around, you might as well try your luck.
They should just not have that rule and save us the trouble of sitting through that.

It's as if armor values had a point to them.....

That said things like 50cals or AA cannons can seriously damage tanks and scare/ surpress crew.
Just because you can't destroy a target doesn't mean that said target has an cold enough crew to realise that, and even if it does, getting tracked and blinded by low or even high calibre still doesn't feel nice.
Nvm that without mobility due to damage a Tank turns fast into an artillery target.

Not Online!!! wrote:
It's as if armor values had a point to them.....

That said things like 50cals or AA cannons can seriously damage tanks and scare/ surpress crew.
Just because you can't destroy a target doesn't mean that said target has an cold enough crew to realise that, and even if it does, getting tracked and blinded by low or even high calibre still doesn't feel nice.
Nvm that without mobility due to damage a Tank turns fast into an artillery target.

IMHO a hybrid system between AV of the past and the current system would work well. The biggest hindrance to the AV system was that it was artificially limited by the available range of strength values + D6, and at the time did not take AP into account at all (because AP was its own can of worms, not a modifier like today), and damage values straight up did not exist.

Nowadays, you could use AV with a much higher range of values because strength is no longer capped at 10, and use the AP modifier directly. Give tanks a number of hull points comparable or greater to their current wounds, and use damage. Add in some rules that allow saves to reduce damage or damage-cap each individual hit for extraordinarily sturdy verhicles, and you have a system that gets the most important touchpoints right-ish.

I'm pretty sure they don't want to try balancing a game where a % of units can't certain units at all.

Does anyone remember the armoured company rules for 3-4th edition where they had to add special rules just for those vehicles to allow infantry weapons to hurt them?

From a setting perspective I like the idea of immune vehicles but I also remember 3-5 ed games where targeting the anti tank units left armies without any ability to hurt opposing vehicles.

I think they've decided that a small chance is still easier to balance than 0 chance.

Especially if you're playing knights and they take out all the more potent weapons quickly ala the aforementioned mech companies.

 Hellebore wrote:
I'm pretty sure they don't want to try balancing a game where a % of units can't certain units at all.

Does anyone remember the armoured company rules for 3-4th edition where they had to add special rules just for those vehicles to allow infantry weapons to hurt them?

From a setting perspective I like the idea of immune vehicles but I also remember 3-5 ed games where targeting the anti tank units left armies without any ability to hurt opposing vehicles.

I think they've decided that a small chance is still easier to balance than 0 chance.

Especially if you're playing knights and they take out all the more potent weapons quickly ala the aforementioned mech companies.

Yeah, like i said:

it's a weakness of the system and probably the most lazy/clutchy solution to the problem of e.g. pure Knight armies existing, which would make much of a typical army completely useless against them if small arms were flat-out unable of even scratching them at all.

It's a crutch that needs to exist to solve edge-cases like pure knight armies, because the system as it is currently set up can't handle them otherwise.

Frankly pure knight armies in their current form should not exist, doubly so because it ignores the household forces/ man at arms aspect. Alas gw gotta gw.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Frankly pure knight armies in their current form should not exist, doubly so because it ignores the household forces/ man at arms aspect. Alas gw gotta gw.

Yes, obviously that would be the better solution, but alas, this ship has sailed long time ago.

I don't think that GW sees the "fishing for 6s" as a weakpoint of this rule system.
They probably see it as a perk.

We have one faction right now who can just say "Oh, that's a lot of vehicles! Now I autowound them on 6s to hit".

Spoletta wrote:
I don't think that GW sees the "fishing for 6s" as a weakpoint of this rule system.
They probably see it as a perk.

We have one faction right now who can just say "Oh, that's a lot of vehicles! Now I autowound them on 6s to hit".

They may see it as a perk, but it's still degenerate (in a mathematical sense) game design. Not only because it makes small arms relatively better, but also because it removes differences between small arms if the target is above a certain toughness value, which leads to paradoxical effects and makes it difficult to price weapons and options correctly (not that this is a large problem for GW and their usual approach of just eyeballing point costs ).

It is more of a fluff issue than a real gameplay issue.

We are discussing about weapons which have no effect. So the fact that they have zero or 0,0001 effectiveness... doesn't change the way you play.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
I'm pretty sure they don't want to try balancing a game where a % of units can't certain units at all.

Does anyone remember the armoured company rules for 3-4th edition where they had to add special rules just for those vehicles to allow infantry weapons to hurt them?

From a setting perspective I like the idea of immune vehicles but I also remember 3-5 ed games where targeting the anti tank units left armies without any ability to hurt opposing vehicles.

I think they've decided that a small chance is still easier to balance than 0 chance.

Especially if you're playing knights and they take out all the more potent weapons quickly ala the aforementioned mech companies.

Yeah, like i said:

it's a weakness of the system and probably the most lazy/clutchy solution to the problem of e.g. pure Knight armies existing, which would make much of a typical army completely useless against them if small arms were flat-out unable of even scratching them at all.

It's a crutch that needs to exist to solve edge-cases like pure knight armies, because the system as it is currently set up can't handle them otherwise.

Or like...multiple land raiders? Knights are not at all the only vehicle in 40k that A. are canonically immune to small arms fire and B. Can be fielded en masse.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I just can't see an American infantryman seeing a tank cresting a hill and just holding down the trigger on his M-16 until he has nothing left in the vain hope he might get lucky.

I seen videos of russians doing it though. And w40k armies function a lot more like the russian army, then the US one.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I just can't see an American infantryman seeing a tank cresting a hill and just holding down the trigger on his M-16 until he has nothing left in the vain hope he might get lucky.

WW2 training material on the subject.





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 Gitdakka wrote:
I've read a paper on a american forces vs isis combat. The us forces defended an airport and sprayed some tank with 50cals. The isis crew panicked and exited the tank, to be gunned down as they tried to run.

Also in ww1 german machinegunners sprayed into british tanks and sometimes penetrated. They might have had specialised heavier ammo for that.

WW1 tanks had awful spalling issues against machine guns. They were dangerous to be in. And the noise would be quite something. Newer tanks don't have those issues. Usually if you're out of AT missiles you're cowering while randomly tossing hail mary grenades.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tsagualsa wrote:

They may see it as a perk, but it's still degenerate (in a mathematical sense) game design. Not only because it makes small arms relatively better, but also because it removes differences between small arms if the target is above a certain toughness value, which leads to paradoxical effects and makes it difficult to price weapons and options correctly (not that this is a large problem for GW and their usual approach of just eyeballing point costs ).

I don't think you need to price weapons for incidental damage at all.