Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have a couple ideas for solutions, but my view is all should not require total rewrites of all the codexes.

So! Sticking with changes to the BRB.

Against weapons you must pen a vehicle to damage it. If Str + d6 = Armor then the vehicle suffers no damage. Suddenly the main battle tanks (AV 12) are immune to anti-personnel weaponry, stand a better chance against higher shot/poor AP weapons (since they need 5's and 6's) and anti-tank weapons become a lot more important. This also means that standard marines/orks/etc can't just beat a tank to death with their bare hands.

Glancing hits still exist...but only from things like Haywire, the Serpent Shield ability, etc. They do damage to the vehicle, but don't totally cripple it.

Graviton changes to "May not move, even turning in place, during the vehicle owner's next turn. Flyers suffer a crew shaken result instead. The vehicle may not jink for the remainder of the current player turn." They also don't lose a hull point. Now they are hampered by gravity weapons, but gravity weapons become dedicated heavy anti-infantry weapons, and only an annoyance to vehicles.

Give Melta weapons in "Melta" range the instant death special rule. So if they get really close to those MC's, they pose a serious threat, but you have to get close, and you're getting single shots. This gives a reason for MCs to stay away or risk getting ripped to shreds. Even GMCs would have to worry about a squad of Melta-packing dudes. Melta type weapons become "Elite unit" killers.

Change Crew Shaken to reduce BS by 1 or 2. This way vehicles that rely on blast or template weapons aren't crippled if they get shaken. You may not be so accurate as you are jostled around, if you are using a flamer, who cares? If you're using something else, you may just be horrifically inaccurate.

By doing this you can still use krak grenades in close combat, or something like a T-Hammer or something along those lines to do some damage, but vehicles become a lot harder to kill if you don't.

For Example
AV 10 (Light Armor) - Regular bolters and equivalents can't do anything. Heavy Bolters or Heavy Flamers need 6's, Auto-cannons need 5's, Las Cannons need 2's
AV 11 (Medium Armor) - Las Cannons need 3's, Most Anti-Infantry weapons are useless, Scatter Lasers/Shuriken Cannons need 6's
AV 12+ (Heavy Armor) - You basically need dedicated Anti-tank weapons, Auto-cannons have a chance, but not much of one (needing 6's for AV 12, worthless above)

It isn't a save, but it means if you don't bring dedicated anti-tank, you are going to have some serious problems against heavy armor. Things like Land-Raiders and Lehman Russes become a whole lot scarier because if you don't have dedicated anti-tank you aren't going to be doing much to them.

Edit: oh, last change which could help them would be for all vehicles to be able to fire different weapons at different targets. Secondary guns become a lot more valuable and gives vehicles an edge in versatility in what doesn't seem to be a game breaking fashion.

What if "Lose 1 Hull Point" was on the vehicle damage table, just under "Explodes!"? Not sure what the overall effect would be, but it does put vehicles out of reach of weapons that can't pen. I'm just a newbie snotling, so I'm genuinely wondering what would happen if this was the case.

 Grimgrub Dregdakka wrote:
What if "Lose 1 Hull Point" was on the vehicle damage table, just under "Explodes!"? Not sure what the overall effect would be, but it does put vehicles out of reach of weapons that can't pen. I'm just a newbie snotling, so I'm genuinely wondering what would happen if this was the case.

That's what I was suggesting earlier. Add lose one hull point to the table, and you roll on the table if you got a glancing hit but with penalties that prevent the top end results.

I have some ideas, some of which were inspired by other responses in this thread (I didn't read the whole thing though):
-Glancing hits cannot remove the final hull point of a vehicle. No more glancing vehicles to death with bolters/Necron warrior guns/other low strength weapons. A good alternative would be a suggestion from early in the thread to make it where vehicles can only lose 1 HP from glances per turn.
-Grav weapons only Immobilize vehicles for one turn and do no HP damage (still nasty to flyers, but Land Raiders/Russes don't really care too much)
-Against MC's, if a weapons's Strength is higher than the MC's Toughness, a To Wound roll of 6 does D3 wounds instead of 1. Now MC's have to be afraid of high strength weapons just like vehicles do. Same applies to GC's. BOOM! Headshot!
-Tanks and Walkers get some kind of armor save, perhaps depending on the AV in each facing. Non-tank skimmers should probably be a bit more fragile.
-Transports should have Assault Vehicle if they do not move at all during the turn. This would make Rhino Rush more relevant again, but Drop Pods would count as moving and so would not become even more scary.

Lendys wrote:
I have a couple ideas for solutions, but my view is all should not require total rewrites of all the codexes.

So! Sticking with changes to the BRB.

Against weapons you must pen a vehicle to damage it. If Str + d6 = Armor then the vehicle suffers no damage. Suddenly the main battle tanks (AV 12) are immune to anti-personnel weaponry, stand a better chance against higher shot/poor AP weapons (since they need 5's and 6's) and anti-tank weapons become a lot more important. This also means that standard marines/orks/etc can't just beat a tank to death with their bare hands.

Glancing hits still exist...but only from things like Haywire, the Serpent Shield ability, etc. They do damage to the vehicle, but don't totally cripple it.

Graviton changes to "May not move, even turning in place, during the vehicle owner's next turn. Flyers suffer a crew shaken result instead. The vehicle may not jink for the remainder of the current player turn." They also don't lose a hull point. Now they are hampered by gravity weapons, but gravity weapons become dedicated heavy anti-infantry weapons, and only an annoyance to vehicles.

Give Melta weapons in "Melta" range the instant death special rule. So if they get really close to those MC's, they pose a serious threat, but you have to get close, and you're getting single shots. This gives a reason for MCs to stay away or risk getting ripped to shreds. Even GMCs would have to worry about a squad of Melta-packing dudes. Melta type weapons become "Elite unit" killers.

Change Crew Shaken to reduce BS by 1 or 2. This way vehicles that rely on blast or template weapons aren't crippled if they get shaken. You may not be so accurate as you are jostled around, if you are using a flamer, who cares? If you're using something else, you may just be horrifically inaccurate.

By doing this you can still use krak grenades in close combat, or something like a T-Hammer or something along those lines to do some damage, but vehicles become a lot harder to kill if you don't.

For Example
AV 10 (Light Armor) - Regular bolters and equivalents can't do anything. Heavy Bolters or Heavy Flamers need 6's, Auto-cannons need 5's, Las Cannons need 2's
AV 11 (Medium Armor) - Las Cannons need 3's, Most Anti-Infantry weapons are useless, Scatter Lasers/Shuriken Cannons need 6's
AV 12+ (Heavy Armor) - You basically need dedicated Anti-tank weapons, Auto-cannons have a chance, but not much of one (needing 6's for AV 12, worthless above)

It isn't a save, but it means if you don't bring dedicated anti-tank, you are going to have some serious problems against heavy armor. Things like Land-Raiders and Lehman Russes become a whole lot scarier because if you don't have dedicated anti-tank you aren't going to be doing much to them.

Edit: oh, last change which could help them would be for all vehicles to be able to fire different weapons at different targets. Secondary guns become a lot more valuable and gives vehicles an edge in versatility in what doesn't seem to be a game breaking fashion.

Ok, I mostly like this idea, with the proviso that outside of things like Haywire and Gauss, AV14 was not getting sanded to death by six-to-glance fishing as it is.

Maybe I'd amend this to add that all Skimmers and Flyers have a 4+ Armor Save, while land-bound vehicles have a 3+ Armor Save. Now you have decent protection against Gauss and Haywire (yes, Gauss Blasters have AP4 - so Jink, when those Immortals come within double-tap range!), but they can still be effective. Without that, Haywire becomes the go-to answer for vehicles, even more than it already is. Most proper anti-tank weapons, of course, ignore these saves, so you usually won't get saves against penetrating hits. But sometimes, like that weird-ass S9 AP5 large blast a Stormsurge can throw around, you still will.

Also, while I like the Melta idea, I'd replace "half range has ID" with "half range is treated as Strength D, treat rolls of 6 as 5". Less all-or-nothing, but still a big threat. Treating rolls of 6 as 5, here, rather than -1 on the chart, because we're not looking to wound on a 3+ when you'd wound on a 2+ at max range (Melta versus Carnifex, say), but we also don't generally want "take 12 wounds, no saves of any kind allowed" from a 10 point weapon. So, if you roll a 6, it's a 5. Congratulations, two Sisters just barbecued an Exocrine in two shots, enjoy your buff

I'd also like to add a new special rule that means that high-S proper AT weapons - lascannons, railguns, brightlances, kustom mega-blastas, supa-cannons, battle cannons, etc - would cause 2 wounds, saved separately, on a successful roll to wound. Then maybe have Ordnance and Primary Weapon make that "double all inflicted wounds on a 6 to wound", but at this point we're adding a lot of shinies. And Knights get scary...