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nosferatu1001 wrote:Except MEQ armies pay more in proportion than GEQ do - 10 point guardian dying half the time vs 18 point tac marine dying 1/3 the time, gives you a death per point of 5 vs 6 - you are already punishing MEQs more than GEQs, and TEQs have it worse: 40 point GKT gives a death cost of 17 points, 3 times that of a guardian.

Very imbalanced, as youve just made vehicles more dangerous when a MEW or TEW than GEQ!

That's kind of the idea. Presently the costs of transports combined with the durability of marines means that MEQs gain a disproportionate benefit from buttoning up in cheap transports. GEQs and the like suffer brutally from S4 or even S3 (DE) vehicle explosion, but Marines largely don't care. Losing d3 models would largely be ignored by a unit of Orks, but once they're OUT of the darn thing you can shoot the suckers. This kind a tweak to the core rules could make a positive change in the overall game environment without having to bump up the price of rhinos and razors in every SM book.

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

2. If you just blew up a vehicle, odds are you used an ANTI TANK WEAPON. If that weapon managed to pierce the hull and destroy the vehicle, I'm pretty sure it's hitting a few marines inside as well.

Depends on the weapon? Krak missle? No, it's force was used on the outer shell.

Ordenence weapons? Yes certainly, those pack far more force than a Krak missle

AP2 and below weapons? Also yes, because those weapons are directly penetrating the vehicle and melting through with their force.

Well, I'm pretty sure most dedicated anti tank missles do not simply explode on the outside of a vehicle to damage it. Most use shaped charges that burn through the armor and kill the crew inside or damage critical vehicle components. So yes, even they would be able to kill a marine. Plus, if it made it through the hull, it's probably hitting something important (ammunition, fuel lines, power sources, etc) However, that can easily be explained away by saying "oh our missles are different". But I'll stand by the fact that if that missle could kill a marine in the open with a direct hit, and it's knocked out a rhino, odds are it's hurting the guys inside as well.

One possible option would be to make a penetrating hit also be resolved against a unit inside. That way, say I pinned your rhino with three autocannon shots. That wouldn't be a big deal, your marines would probably be fine. But if I penned with a Leman russ Battlecannon, you'd risk losing the entire unit as well as the vehicle. And if someone got a lucky pen with something like a bolter or flamer, they'd do almost nothing as well, to represent some weak ricochets just bouncing around in the cab and being stopped by armor. Could be an interesting rule to implement. Basically make it where the amount of penetrating hits is the same against the unit. One melta shot wouldn't be as scary, but that demolisher cannon is going to REALLY hurt. Saves would be applied normally i.e. you can get armor saves, invulns, provided the weapon doesn't cancel them out, but no cover save for the unit inside (its a round going off inside a cramped space, you're not getting cover)

EDIT: Realized first idea was terrible, put in a better one.

But to get back on topic, if we want the mech based meta to ease up a bit, you NEED to make having transports be a risk. The main reason everyone takes them is because there is almost no risk whatsoever (especially with marines) Oh, my transport blew up? Whoop de doo, I lose 3 scrubs. Oh, my transport wrecked? Thanks for the free disembark action. Both of those quotes are word for word ones I've heard at my store, and the guys were being serious. And before you say these guys are noobs, these are guys who regularly place well in tourneys like adepticon and 'ard boys, not to mention cleaning out local tournaments with little difficulty.

Whether it's auto pinning, forcing wounds on Sarge's/special characters/special weapons/etc. , or just making it where armies suffer more casualties, it's all for the same purpose. Putting units in transports needs to have pros and cons. It should not be viewed as a 35 bunker that is a must buy with no drawbacks.

Other good ideas I've seen in the past was denying units in transports from having the option to capture objectives, forcing them to disembark, or perhaps even not allowing transports to contest.

I'm still relatively new to the game, so obviously my ideas are not going to be perfect, but I think most people will agree that something needs to be done if we want to shake up the meta a bit.

All of the ideas have been pretty bad so far.

I do not see anything that is wrong with the current system.

Could it use a few tweaks? Maybe.

is it a workable system as is? Yes.

If it is not broken, do not fix it.

(Or Wait a few months for 6th, there is bound to be a few tweaks in 6th ed.)

You know, as counterintuitive as this may seem, I think perhaps things should start out by making transpors BETTER. Back in the day, taking a transport gave you a serious benefit - it let you move twice as fast as regular infantry. For this serious benefit, you payed a serious cost, both in points and in risk.

Since 5th ed has come out (and its corresponding codices), What do you really gain by putting a unit in a transport? Not much. That 2x movement rate turned into a basically the same movement rate in which you got to shoot your guns after you disembarked. With there being no real gain to mounting up, there became no real cost, either in risk or in points. As such, transports wound up in the very strange role of being an efficient fire support system, which wound up just sitting in giant parking lots. Having transports allow you to take mini HS slots in your Troops choice I don't think was ever actually intended in the first place, but once this started happening, they just had to roll with it.

As such, I'd like to see transports get better and, most importantly, actually be incentivized to transport stuff around, rather than just sitting around plinking. Once they had something making them actually worth doing other than sitting around, eating a krak missile and dying unceremoniously, then you'd be able to actually assign some risk to them.

For example, say that they made it so that vehicles all became universally 6" faster, and tank shock was changed so that instead of merely pushing units out of the way, you pushed them out of the way and inflicted an immediate dangerous terrain check on everyone in the squad, and units inside weren't effected by damage to the vehicle (other than wrecked or explosions), but on the other hand, if a vehicle is wrecked or exploded, any unit still inside is just lost, straight away.

In this hypothetical, a player would actually have to make a real decision whether to keep a squad in a can, or whether to disembark, and would make it so that if a squad was embarked in a transport, the transport would actually behave as a transport. Furthermore, it would create a substantially different play style than foot lists.

Not saying that the above example is the best way to do it, but I think the biggest problem with mech lists is that most transports are flimsy, relatively useless, and bland, which is why you barely have to pay anything to take most of them. If we assume that the starting point is where we are now, and try to make tiny changes to it, we'll still have the basic problems that we have with mech lists now. Something more fundamental in shift is in order.

I haven't played enough to comment on the metagame or offer alternative systems, but this discussion has made me want to try out box-spam with my footmarines army.
It sounds pretty fun, in a hooray-I-won-again sort of way, but I don't think I'd use it often if it's as cheesy and prevalent as it seems.

Nagashek wrote:Eldar have Fire Dragons. 16ppm with a melta standard on BS4 models. Elite slot.

Remember the exactly one unit I mentioned? Do you think you should balance the entire eldar codex around fire dragons being the only valid option in your elite slot?

DE have Heat Lances. 18" range Melta Lance that's only S6. It can be mounted on Jetbikes (1 out of every three, and 34ppm on the ones that get it,) Scourges, 34ppm on Jump Infantry models, 2 out of every 5. Both of those are in FA and severely overcosted compared to other, more survivable options. You can also take a TL Heat Lance on the Talos in Heavy Support, but that is inefficient compared to the Ravager, (though more survivable.) DE don't need Melta weapons in general, as we have cheap and abundant lances to make up for shoddy toughness.

So, how does buffing something completely overcosted and useless for dark eldar help balance vehicles?

As for Orks or Daemons, I have no idea, but I was fairly certain that Nids have no melta option, given that they rely on MC close combat to get 2d6 AP.

None of them have any melta options, unless you count the weirdboy as melta weapon. So buffing melta range does absolutely nothing for them - which was my original point.


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DeathReaper wrote:If it is not broken, do not fix it.

I think all but you have agreed on it being broken.

I have read all 4 pages, and have yet to understand a single complaint. They have not been clear.

Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

The only other thing I could see would be to totally overhaul the whole system to make it more like Battletech.

DeathReaper wrote:I have read all 4 pages, and have yet to understand a single complaint. They have not been clear.

Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

The only other thing I could see would be to totally overhaul the whole system to make it more like Battletech.

Hehe, as much as i'd love to see titans in main games I doubt people would be able to afford most of them without some serious conversions.

Unless you are more referring to its damage charts, its heat buildup and it's various other tidbits that would change vehicles down completely.

DeathReaper wrote:I have read all 4 pages, and have yet to understand a single complaint. They have not been clear.

Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

The only other thing I could see would be to totally overhaul the whole system to make it more like Battletech.

I'm already partly there with my 10 difrent types of sentinel based walkers

DeathReaper wrote:Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

So, I'm not a big mech hater by any stretch of the imagination, but Redbeard said something recently that struck me. One of the most obnoxious things about mech lists is that they provide you with relative immunity to close combat. You have to spend one turn shooting at the transport with meltaguns, or one turn charging the transport, and then have to eat a turn of shooting before you can charge the stuff inside. If close combat is supposed to be a big part of the game, then having a practically free upgrade that causes very serious problems for assault-based armies (the problem of time) doesn't make much sense. In fact, it makes about as much sense as psychic powers being something that is either completely neturalized, or is something that can't be defended against at all.

That and, as I mentioned before, the conflict of purpose. Taking transport-based armies should incentivize a player to move around a lot. It turns out that with a few exceptions (like eldar), taking an all-transport army winds up encouraging the player to just sit still and do absolutely nothing except roll dice in the shooting phase. Not only does this seem a conflict of purpose, but the games that I've watched between two all-mech gunline parking lots have bored me to tears.

I'm not against mech armies in principle, but I think that they could be cleaned up a bit. I feel like foot lists and close combat both really hit the sweet spot with 5th ed rules, but vehicles in general, and transports in specific were somewhat more poorly designed than they were in 4th, or at least didn't get better at the same rate as other stuff.

DeathReaper wrote:I have read all 4 pages, and have yet to understand a single complaint. They have not been clear.

Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

The only other thing I could see would be to totally overhaul the whole system to make it more like Battletech.

The problem is, that marines get disproportional cheap transport with no drawbacks whatsoever, where any other army does not. So taking transports is an absolute no-brainer for marines, where all other armies have to sacrifice unit size and/or risk non-trivial casualties when the transport explodes. As no one wants to simply take the transports away from marines (because a dozen of red rhino chassis on the table look awesome and fit the fluff), we are searching for a way to tune down vehicles just far enough that the don't becaume an auto-include with every tactical squad, but rather a viable option. Just like putting boyz in a trukk or battlewagon is an option, not mandatory.

If you claim that 40k is supposed to be vehicle based, the tyranid and daemon codex flat out prove you wrong.

It's been by and large ignored by everybody, but worth pointing out here - if you play with anything like the proper amount of terrain on a board, you'll have to take dangerous terrain tests very often with most/all of your chimeras. It's often over-looked in favour of "DERP CHIMERAS ARE OP DERP", but if I I want my chimeras where they're going to be useful, I will have to move them into dangerous terrain - essentially every time a chimera moves,there's a 1 in six chance of it being immobilised and completely useless.
Assuming I have to take 2 dangerous terrain tests a turn, that's an immobilised chimera by turn 3, 2 by turn 6.

Of course you can get unlucky and have 2 chimeras fail them right when you were about to park them up to a Land Raider and Melta it to death.

You only ever take one dangerous terrain test, no matter how many minefields you are crossing.

Jidmah wrote:You only ever take one dangerous terrain test, no matter how many minefields you are crossing.

Per move I think Joey means, so the chimera will each separate game turn take another test if it moves over dangerous terrain again.

Jidmah wrote:You only ever take one dangerous terrain test, no matter how many minefields you are crossing.

You take one dangerous terrain test if, at any point of your movement, you go over difficult terrain. Not "minefields".
That wall? Dangerous terrain. All area terrain? Dangerous terrain.

Joey wrote:

Jidmah wrote:You only ever take one dangerous terrain test, no matter how many minefields you are crossing.

You take one dangerous terrain test if, at any point of your movement, you go over difficult terrain. Not "minefields".
That wall? Dangerous terrain. All area terrain? Dangerous terrain.

I was naming minefields because they are the most dangerous terrain, IRL.

The point was, that if you drive over a wall, you can as well drive through a mine field, a river, a ruin, some barbed wire and over a dead gretchin with a single test.

Jidmah wrote:

Joey wrote:

Jidmah wrote:You only ever take one dangerous terrain test, no matter how many minefields you are crossing.

You take one dangerous terrain test if, at any point of your movement, you go over difficult terrain. Not "minefields".
That wall? Dangerous terrain. All area terrain? Dangerous terrain.

That's not what the rules say.

I don't have the rulebook on me (at work) but I'm pretty sure that vehicles treat difficult terrain as dangerous terrain?

I misread your post and edited mine, you were faster at replying than I was at editing

Do you think some sort of compromise might be in order?

Perhaps on an explosion, everyone just takes an armor save? I.E. it auto wounds everyone in side the vehicle.

Just add this one thing to what happens when a vehicle explodes. If they take enough casualties, both a pinning and morale test is required.

I don't know if this is enough or to far...

imweasel wrote:
Just add this one thing to what happens when a vehicle explodes. If they take enough casualties, both a pinning and morale test is required.

This is already the case (Unless I've been playing it all wrong for years, which is possible )

I think we need more damage to the passengers in an exploding vehicle, but ultimately the rules for transports are fine as is. I think the bigger issue is the low cost of transports, especially for Marines is the biggest reason for hordes of Metal Boxes running up the table.

Perhaps, but that makes themed Mech Armies (like ASL or Elysians) very hard to run.

That's the catch, ultimately. Either we wind up with transports being too inexpensive and dominating the game or we wind up with them being too expensive and certain lists become infeasible.

Now perhaps I am jaded to low cost transports as my army's transport generally costs more than the squad inside it (without upgrades on the transport I might add), but if an upgrade is a force multiplier, it should be such a small fraction of the squad in cost (ie Rhinos and razorbacks can be bought for the cost of less than 3 of the guys who ride in them).

Jefffar wrote:That's the catch, ultimately. Either we wind up with transports being too inexpensive and dominating the game or we wind up with them being too expensive and certain lists become infeasible.

Now perhaps I am jaded to low cost transports as my army's transport generally costs more than the squad inside it (without upgrades on the transport I might add), but if an upgrade is a force multiplier, it should be such a small fraction of the squad in cost (ie Rhinos and razorbacks can be bought for the cost of less than 3 of the guys who ride in them).

Agreed, it's not the vehicle rules so much as it is the low price of transports in certain Codices. Try playing razorspam Black Templars and see if transports are so OP, for example.

Tell me about it.

Our local has Eldar, Marines, Necron and Tau - guess which one is most likely to have a bunch of transports?

If the problem is transports and not vehicles as a whole, why not let certain weapons (like flamethrowers and some psykers power) be able to attack embarked units directly?

ZebioLizard2 wrote:

DeathReaper wrote:I have read all 4 pages, and have yet to understand a single complaint. They have not been clear.

Are people QQing over the fact that it used to be an infantry based game, and is now a vehicle based game?

The only other thing I could see would be to totally overhaul the whole system to make it more like Battletech.

Hehe, as much as i'd love to see titans in main games I doubt people would be able to afford most of them without some serious conversions.

Unless you are more referring to its damage charts, its heat buildup and it's various other tidbits that would change vehicles down completely.

I was referring to the BattleTech Damage sheets and how they work the damage.

Though that would really require a overhaul of the whole vehicle system as to hit numbers would have to be modified etc.

I don't really think there is anything wrong with the way vehicles work in 5th edition. I think cover for vehicles needs to be less forgiving (just because half of a Land Raider is behind cover, I'm not half as likely to hit it? It's as big as a barn and half of a barn is still a huge ing target!!!!!!). I think vehicles should only get cover saves if they are 75% concealed.

Also, I don't mind the way vehicle explosions work in 5th. MEQ survives the explosions much more often but they tend to cost more (although not enough more IMO) so they should survive more. SM vehicles should cost more also. They are practically free compared to other codex's transports! If Mech Guard loses a transport, that squad is pretty much boned, but if Mech MEQ loses one, it's pretty much a negligible loss. However, if GW wants to make the game more realistic, everyone in the transport should die when it explodes. I don't care about power armor or terminator armor because shrapnel and fire aren't what kills people in an explosion. It's the pressure wave that kills people and armor has exactly no effect on that, so even terminators would be just as susceptible as a guardsman or an ork to an explosion.

Vaktathi wrote:

imweasel wrote:
Just add this one thing to what happens when a vehicle explodes. If they take enough casualties, both a pinning and morale test is required.

This is already the case (Unless I've been playing it all wrong for years, which is possible )

No you have it right. I was simply expanding on my 'everyone takes a wound' thing.

bmoleski wrote:I don't really think there is anything wrong with the way vehicles work in 5th edition. I think cover for vehicles needs to be less forgiving (just because half of a Land Raider is behind cover, I'm not half as likely to hit it? It's as big as a barn and half of a barn is still a huge ing target!!!!!!). I think vehicles should only get cover saves if they are 75% concealed.

Also, I don't mind the way vehicle explosions work in 5th. MEQ survives the explosions much more often but they tend to cost more (although not enough more IMO) so they should survive more. SM vehicles should cost more also. They are practically free compared to other codex's transports! If Mech Guard loses a transport, that squad is pretty much boned, but if Mech MEQ loses one, it's pretty much a negligible loss. However, if GW wants to make the game more realistic, everyone in the transport should die when it explodes. I don't care about power armor or terminator armor because shrapnel and fire aren't what kills people in an explosion. It's the pressure wave that kills people and armor has exactly no effect on that, so even terminators would be just as susceptible as a guardsman or an ork to an explosion.

Wait, how does armour not protect you from the pressure wave? I'm genuinely curious.