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SemperMortis wrote:

Drager wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Flanking means nothing in 40k. At least, not compared to pts/wound.

Please explain how you know this.

Because AV's aren't a thing anymore. So flanking means the same as deep striking/arriving from reserve. Models showing up from an unexpected angle....but the only inherent benefit is the fact that they show up after the enemy shot so they can't shoot it again. Implementing a rule where units getting shot from 2 distinct angles would be cool but extremely hard to write and would slow the game down a lot as people argued over the angles.

I'm talking about flanking a force not à unit. So one can bring 100% of your force vs a smaller amount of theirs with out the rest of the curve being able to retaliate. This doesn't require AV.

Writing relevant flanking rules isn't extremely hard, though. In Epic Armageddon there was a cool rule for units caught in crossfires: if the formation that was shooting could draw a line into another friendly formation (within a set distance) and the target formation they were shooting at was under that line, that action hurt some extra. IIRC it caused a penalty to saves, ignored cover and stuff.

While the exact penalty for getting caught could be something different in 40k, such a system for being in a bad position is not that hard to write. Just add enough clauses for not being able to help (they are in melee, they are understrength, they are a wrong type of unit, cannot be used against Aircraft or whatevs) and presto, you have a mechanic that rewards keeping your line together and seeking openings in the opponent's.

the_scotsman wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Drager wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Flanking means nothing in 40k. At least, not compared to pts/wound.

Please explain how you know this.

Because AV's aren't a thing anymore. So flanking means the same as deep striking/arriving from reserve. Models showing up from an unexpected angle....but the only inherent benefit is the fact that they show up after the enemy shot so they can't shoot it again. Implementing a rule where units getting shot from 2 distinct angles would be cool but extremely hard to write and would slow the game down a lot as people argued over the angles.

I pretty commonly play with a house rule of "front/rear armor" where you draw an imaginary line through the main body of all monster and vehicle keyword models and any attacks coming from units wholly in the front arc are resolved with +1 to standard saving throws amd any attacks coming wholly from the rear arc are resolved at -1. If there's any dispute or units are in partial arcs attacks are resolved normally.

Its pretty quick and easy honestly.

Knights too? A knight in the corner would feel a little busted.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Drager wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Flanking means nothing in 40k. At least, not compared to pts/wound.

Please explain how you know this.

Because AV's aren't a thing anymore. So flanking means the same as deep striking/arriving from reserve. Models showing up from an unexpected angle....but the only inherent benefit is the fact that they show up after the enemy shot so they can't shoot it again. Implementing a rule where units getting shot from 2 distinct angles would be cool but extremely hard to write and would slow the game down a lot as people argued over the angles.

I pretty commonly play with a house rule of "front/rear armor" where you draw an imaginary line through the main body of all monster and vehicle keyword models and any attacks coming from units wholly in the front arc are resolved with +1 to standard saving throws amd any attacks coming wholly from the rear arc are resolved at -1. If there's any dispute or units are in partial arcs attacks are resolved normally.

Its pretty quick and easy honestly.

Knights too? A knight in the corner would feel a little busted.

Given they arn't even placing in the top 10 factions of ITC for April I think your over hyping the issue.

Ice_can wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Drager wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Flanking means nothing in 40k. At least, not compared to pts/wound.

Please explain how you know this.

Because AV's aren't a thing anymore. So flanking means the same as deep striking/arriving from reserve. Models showing up from an unexpected angle....but the only inherent benefit is the fact that they show up after the enemy shot so they can't shoot it again. Implementing a rule where units getting shot from 2 distinct angles would be cool but extremely hard to write and would slow the game down a lot as people argued over the angles.

I pretty commonly play with a house rule of "front/rear armor" where you draw an imaginary line through the main body of all monster and vehicle keyword models and any attacks coming from units wholly in the front arc are resolved with +1 to standard saving throws amd any attacks coming wholly from the rear arc are resolved at -1. If there's any dispute or units are in partial arcs attacks are resolved normally.

Its pretty quick and easy honestly.

Knights too? A knight in the corner would feel a little busted.

Given they arn't even placing in the top 10 factions of ITC for April I think your over hyping the issue.

They're in sixth place win-rate-wise for ITC in April, so yeah...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Drager wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Flanking means nothing in 40k. At least, not compared to pts/wound.

Please explain how you know this.

Because AV's aren't a thing anymore. So flanking means the same as deep striking/arriving from reserve. Models showing up from an unexpected angle....but the only inherent benefit is the fact that they show up after the enemy shot so they can't shoot it again. Implementing a rule where units getting shot from 2 distinct angles would be cool but extremely hard to write and would slow the game down a lot as people argued over the angles.

I pretty commonly play with a house rule of "front/rear armor" where you draw an imaginary line through the main body of all monster and vehicle keyword models and any attacks coming from units wholly in the front arc are resolved with +1 to standard saving throws amd any attacks coming wholly from the rear arc are resolved at -1. If there's any dispute or units are in partial arcs attacks are resolved normally.

Its pretty quick and easy honestly.

Knights too? A knight in the corner would feel a little busted.

Given they arn't even placing in the top 10 factions of ITC for April I think your over hyping the issue.

They're in sixth place win-rate-wise for ITC in April, so yeah...

You might want to check those lists, not a single Imperial Knights list actually finished in the top four of any of the events listed on 40k stats for april or may, still a lot of people miss reporting their faction.

Win rate is not the same as placing in the top at any given tournament.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Win rate is not the same as placing in the top at any given tournament.

Except win rate doesn't link back to a person or a list that can be checked, i've seen atleast 4 lists claiming to be imperial Knight's but are actually imperial soup lists in aprils results.
If you can't actually check the lists or provide evidence that those figures haven't been tainted by players misrepresenting their faction that data is questionable at best.

Ice_can wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Win rate is not the same as placing in the top at any given tournament.

Except win rate doesn't link back to a person or a list that can be checked, i've seen atleast 4 lists claiming to be imperial Knight's but are actually imperial soup lists in aprils results.
If you can't actually check the lists or provide evidence that those figures haven't been tainted by players misrepresenting their faction that data is questionable at best.

This is competitive 8th edition.
Pure lists don't exist and its about time you accept that.

Which begs the question why one would assume that a Knight in a corner as in the hypothetical example wouldn't be soup.

Pure lists are actually now a thing in competitive 40k actually, since the changes to ITC faction rating.

There are a lot of players that try to win Best In Faction and they must use pure lists to do so.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Pure lists are actually now a thing in competitive 40k actually, since the changes to ITC faction rating.

There are a lot of players that try to win Best In Faction and they must use pure lists to do so.

Good for them, and I think its a good change for their best in faction ranking but the 'pure' lists fighting over scraps in their own little ranking doesn't change that the top lists will be soup.

Definitely not gonna change the top 1-3 positions much, but it will change each individual factions W-L rate to a more accurate representation of their actual balance as we will see more pure lists at tournaments.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Definitely not gonna change the top 1-3 positions much, but it will change each individual factions W-L rate to a more accurate representation of their actual balance as we will see more pure lists at tournaments.

Well it will do once people stop miss representing their factions when submitting lists/results.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Drager wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Flanking means nothing in 40k. At least, not compared to pts/wound.

Please explain how you know this.

Because AV's aren't a thing anymore. So flanking means the same as deep striking/arriving from reserve. Models showing up from an unexpected angle....but the only inherent benefit is the fact that they show up after the enemy shot so they can't shoot it again. Implementing a rule where units getting shot from 2 distinct angles would be cool but extremely hard to write and would slow the game down a lot as people argued over the angles.

I pretty commonly play with a house rule of "front/rear armor" where you draw an imaginary line through the main body of all monster and vehicle keyword models and any attacks coming from units wholly in the front arc are resolved with +1 to standard saving throws amd any attacks coming wholly from the rear arc are resolved at -1. If there's any dispute or units are in partial arcs attacks are resolved normally.

Its pretty quick and easy honestly.

Knights too? A knight in the corner would feel a little busted.

Nobody's ever tried it, but if you were a powergamer doing that with a knight I'd assume it'd have a 4++, so having a basic save of 2+ rather than 3+ would essentially only matter vs AP-1 or AP-. I would bet that the fact that all its guns would effectively have 1 less AP would offset the fact that it basically gets permacover.

The game simply isn't balanced for front/rear, so I wouldn't be using that. And you can't use it in the general assumptions.

the_scotsman wrote:

Nobody's ever tried it, but if you were a powergamer doing that with a knight I'd assume it'd have a 4++, so having a basic save of 2+ rather than 3+ would essentially only matter vs AP-1 or AP-. I would bet that the fact that all its guns would effectively have 1 less AP would offset the fact that it basically gets permacover.

I was thinking a Castellan with a 2+ then being granted a 1+. That gives him a 4+ vs lascannons without spending CP (but no Cawl's so tit for tat I suppose).

the_scotsman wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Drager wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Flanking means nothing in 40k. At least, not compared to pts/wound.

Please explain how you know this.

Because AV's aren't a thing anymore. So flanking means the same as deep striking/arriving from reserve. Models showing up from an unexpected angle....but the only inherent benefit is the fact that they show up after the enemy shot so they can't shoot it again. Implementing a rule where units getting shot from 2 distinct angles would be cool but extremely hard to write and would slow the game down a lot as people argued over the angles.

I pretty commonly play with a house rule of "front/rear armor" where you draw an imaginary line through the main body of all monster and vehicle keyword models and any attacks coming from units wholly in the front arc are resolved with +1 to standard saving throws amd any attacks coming wholly from the rear arc are resolved at -1. If there's any dispute or units are in partial arcs attacks are resolved normally.

Its pretty quick and easy honestly.

Knights too? A knight in the corner would feel a little busted.

Nobody's ever tried it, but if you were a powergamer doing that with a knight I'd assume it'd have a 4++, so having a basic save of 2+ rather than 3+ would essentially only matter vs AP-1 or AP-. I would bet that the fact that all its guns would effectively have 1 less AP would offset the fact that it basically gets permacover.

I just wanted to add that flanking has NEVER meant anything in 40k. The incredibly slight advantage you got from shooting at the side or rear of a vehicle has never been worth the effort to get there. Even deepstriking you didn't always bother to go for the back because it mattered less than being in a more flexible position on the board.

ERJAK wrote:
I just wanted to add that flanking has NEVER meant anything in 40k. The incredibly slight advantage you got from shooting at the side or rear of a vehicle has never been worth the effort to get there. Even deepstriking you didn't always bother to go for the back because it mattered less than being in a more flexible position on the board.

Speak for yourself. having over lapping anti-tank units in different corners of the map gave enemy vehicles pause when moving up, and that's before considering melee units always hitting the rear armor.

Melee units only hit rear armor for 5E-7E, before that it was always whatever facing they made contact with. That system also resulted in vehicles being laughably easy to kill in CC.

AV usually meant Imperial gun tanks sat in back like pillboxes instead of being breakthrough units, while most transports and Xenos vehicles had identical front and side armor making such flanking largely pointless. Wave Serpents, Whirlwinds, Ravagers, Immolators, Fire Prisms, Looted Wagons, Dreadnoughts, Devilfish, Ghost Arks, Razorbacks, Falcons, Doomsday Arks, Rhinos, Raiders, Trukks, etc.

It was pretty much only non-Eldar/Necron battle tanks (Predators, Leman Russ, Hammherhead, Battlewagon) and Chimera chassis vehicles that cared most of the time about side vs front for the most part.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Melee units only hit rear armor for 5E-7E, before that it was always whatever facing they made contact with. That system also resulted in vehicles being laughably easy to kill in CC.

AV usually meant Imperial gun tanks sat in back like pillboxes instead of being breakthrough units, while most transports and Xenos vehicles had identical front and side armor making such flanking largely pointless. Wave Serpents, Whirlwinds, Ravagers, Immolators, Fire Prisms, Looted Wagons, Dreadnoughts, Devilfish, Ghost Arks, Razorbacks, Falcons, Doomsday Arks, Rhinos, Raiders, Trukks, etc.

It was pretty much only non-Eldar/Necron battle tanks (Predators, Leman Russ, Hammherhead, Battlewagon) and Chimera chassis vehicles that cared most of the time about side vs front for the most part.

I agree with this take.

The rear armor was larrgely never hit by units actually in the rear arc; it was struck either via the Ghostkeel formation, or via melee. And the tank's side arcs weren't very vulnerable and rarely exposed. Mostly, it served as a mechanism to force the pointing of guns a certain way.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Melee units only hit rear armor for 5E-7E, before that it was always whatever facing they made contact with. That system also resulted in vehicles being laughably easy to kill in CC.

AV usually meant Imperial gun tanks sat in back like pillboxes instead of being breakthrough units, while most transports and Xenos vehicles had identical front and side armor making such flanking largely pointless. Wave Serpents, Whirlwinds, Ravagers, Immolators, Fire Prisms, Looted Wagons, Dreadnoughts, Devilfish, Ghost Arks, Razorbacks, Falcons, Doomsday Arks, Rhinos, Raiders, Trukks, etc.

It was pretty much only non-Eldar/Necron battle tanks (Predators, Leman Russ, Hammherhead, Battlewagon) and Chimera chassis vehicles that cared most of the time about side vs front for the most part.

"Laughably easy" is an exaggeration, considering just bumping the vehicle mean half the attacks missed, and Imperial vehicles being up armored artillery pieces has not changed at all in 8th except now assaulting a vehicle is pointless. The unwillingness for players to push their metal boxes forward is purely psychological, not the fault of rules.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
The unwillingness for players to push their metal boxes forward is purely psychological, not the fault of rules.

I think you've forgotten one major point - your vehicle pushing up can't provide fire support if the chaff unit on the other side of the table decides to punch its hull.

There are no rules that encourage you to move forward, but a huge selection of them that encourage you to stay still behind a screen of your own.

I tried to proxy Land Raiders twice, and my limited expiriance with them, is that if they try to move up the field, they become useless very fast. If they hand back they at least get to shot a few times, even if the shoting is a bit inefficient considering the points. So am not sure, if the not moving up front is just psychological.

Though there are no specific mechanics for flanking in 40K, being able to hit soft spots behind your opponent's main line has always been valuable. Moving up the side and "crossing the T" still works, too.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
I just wanted to add that flanking has NEVER meant anything in 40k. The incredibly slight advantage you got from shooting at the side or rear of a vehicle has never been worth the effort to get there. Even deepstriking you didn't always bother to go for the back because it mattered less than being in a more flexible position on the board.

Speak for yourself. having over lapping anti-tank units in different corners of the map gave enemy vehicles pause when moving up, and that's before considering melee units always hitting the rear armor.

Word. Flanking IG vehicles in particular was pretty important. You dropped that AV 14 of a Leman Russ to a 12, giving a Lascannon a 4+ to pen rather than a 6.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Melee units only hit rear armor for 5E-7E, before that it was always whatever facing they made contact with. That system also resulted in vehicles being laughably easy to kill in CC.

That depended heavily on what was attacking. Vehicles still couldn't be hurt by S3.

If the issue was a marine swinging a powerfist, well that's a fine time for a vehicle to feel vulnerable if you ask me.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Melee units only hit rear armor for 5E-7E, before that it was always whatever facing they made contact with. That system also resulted in vehicles being laughably easy to kill in CC.

AV usually meant Imperial gun tanks sat in back like pillboxes instead of being breakthrough units, while most transports and Xenos vehicles had identical front and side armor making such flanking largely pointless. Wave Serpents, Whirlwinds, Ravagers, Immolators, Fire Prisms, Looted Wagons, Dreadnoughts, Devilfish, Ghost Arks, Razorbacks, Falcons, Doomsday Arks, Rhinos, Raiders, Trukks, etc.

It was pretty much only non-Eldar/Necron battle tanks (Predators, Leman Russ, Hammherhead, Battlewagon) and Chimera chassis vehicles that cared most of the time about side vs front for the most part.

"Laughably easy" is an exaggeration, considering just bumping the vehicle mean half the attacks missed

That was only 5th, and you didn't need that many hits when touching rear armor, particularly with stuff like MC's where they got their full complement of attacks with 2d6 armor pen basically meaning they almosy couldn't fail to penetrate. If they didnt move they got autohit. 6E and 7E tanks got hit on WS1, and HP's meant it was trivial to kill most tanks in CC when they basically were all WS1 T6 W3 Sv- models.

Regardless, facing didn't really matter, as 95% of vehicles had rear AV10 and it just acted as an alternate T value as opposed to having anything to do with manuever or actual facing, you just needed to make base contact *somewhere*.

and Imperial vehicles being up armored artillery pieces has not changed at all in 8th except now assaulting a vehicle is pointless.

How so? It's another vector to do damage and prevent the tank from shooting for a turn.

The unwillingness for players to push their metal boxes forward is purely psychological, not the fault of rules.

No, it was a fault of the rules because anything getting into CC meant the tank was done for, especially once HP's came about, at least in previous editions. Didnt have anything to do with facings or crossfiring into different AV's, the game actively discouraged it.

Karol wrote:
I tried to proxy Land Raiders twice, and my limited expiriance with them, is that if they try to move up the field, they become useless very fast. If they hand back they at least get to shot a few times, even if the shoting is a bit inefficient considering the points. So am not sure, if the not moving up front is just psychological.

I hinted at it above, but there are so many reasons to stay behind, but not many to go forward. For Land Raiders, being a shock transport is one of the key reasons to move forward. For vehicles without that role? Better to stay back if your weapons allow you, because moving forward puts you at risk of...

rapid fire plasma weapons

melta style weapons (technically any high damage weapon with a short range)

could take you out of cover

being silenced by any unit charging you

being in range of hard hitting melee units

might make it harder to benefit from LoS blocking terrain

and for a vast majority of the armoured vehicles in this game, impacts your accuracy

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Melee units only hit rear armor for 5E-7E, before that it was always whatever facing they made contact with. That system also resulted in vehicles being laughably easy to kill in CC.

That depended heavily on what was attacking. Vehicles still couldn't be hurt by S3.

In all fairness, little else was hurt by S3 either. Yeah in theory S3 could hurt a Riptide or the like, but not really in any meaningful way. A naked Carnifex would take 144 WS3 S3 attacks to kill, a tooled up Riptide nearly 900 (assuming WS3).

If the issue was a marine swinging a powerfist, well that's a fine time for a vehicle to feel vulnerable if you ask me.

A Powefist being a threat to a vehicle was fine, nobody had an issue with that. But when a unit with free krak grenades basically autokilled any tank on an average roll just for making it into base contact, and with no threat of the tank fighting back and crushing or grinind things beneath tracks or the like, it got a wee bit silly.

Yeah, I never felt it made much sense in previous editions that a Hellhound could floor it 18" down a road, and a group of infantry could sprint into the front of this hurtling vehicle and precisely lob their grenades into the "weak spots" (rear armour justification), yet a Leman Russ that trundled a mere 1" was just as easy to take out.

Hitting the rear armour of stationary vehicles made some sense, but not vehicles moving reasonably fast (unless actually in the rear arc of course). It would've promoted more vehicle movement too if going more than, say, 3" in a turn meant melee hit the armour facings like shooting.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Melee units only hit rear armor for 5E-7E, before that it was always whatever facing they made contact with. That system also resulted in vehicles being laughably easy to kill in CC.

AV usually meant Imperial gun tanks sat in back like pillboxes instead of being breakthrough units, while most transports and Xenos vehicles had identical front and side armor making such flanking largely pointless. Wave Serpents, Whirlwinds, Ravagers, Immolators, Fire Prisms, Looted Wagons, Dreadnoughts, Devilfish, Ghost Arks, Razorbacks, Falcons, Doomsday Arks, Rhinos, Raiders, Trukks, etc.

It was pretty much only non-Eldar/Necron battle tanks (Predators, Leman Russ, Hammherhead, Battlewagon) and Chimera chassis vehicles that cared most of the time about side vs front for the most part.

"Laughably easy" is an exaggeration, considering just bumping the vehicle mean half the attacks missed, and Imperial vehicles being up armored artillery pieces has not changed at all in 8th except now assaulting a vehicle is pointless. The unwillingness for players to push their metal boxes forward is purely psychological, not the fault of rules.

It is a fault of the rules because:
Most importantly, tanks can't shoot effectively on the move, [despite some infantry heavy weapons units being able to just fine], meaning that the tank will sit in place to avoid being less worthwhile than it's infantry-antitank-section counterpart.
Tanks have no reason to get closer. Most of their guns can hit from here, and they have nothing that makes them more useful pushing than sitting where they are
Tanks are ridiculously vulnerable to close quarters combat, [to be fair, tanks actually are very vulnerable to infantry close assault tactics],

There's lots of reason to stay here, and no reason to go that way.

Solutions would include:

Allowing vehicles to fire while mobile. Seriously, why do claws help Havocks move and fire without penalty, while a Predator cannot?
Reducing tank vulnerability to melee. This, and the above, give the tank freedom to move, though not the incentive.
Flanking bonuses could provide the incentive to move up [to flank enemy vehicles], but it would also require tanks to become frontally resilient enough to have to be flanked to be destroyed.

Reducing the overall effectiveness of infantry antitank units [especially frontally] would probably be another good step in general for improving the game and introducing flanking, by forcing infantry to attack the side and rear weakspots of vehicles and/or conduct close assault with grenades..