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I really like the new vehicle rules in 6th edition, but I'm not at all a fan of how fragile dreadnoughts are in the assault. If I assault a 10man squad of marines with a dreadnought armed with a powerfist, I am pretty much going to die and only take a few of them down with me. This should not be the case. Plus it is a little bit rediculus to think that 10 krak grenades are getting stuck into joints in the dread's armour without any marines blowing themselves or their buddies away.

I think that grenades should only be able to be used by 1 or 2 guys at a time. Maybe as a compensation, make krak grenades S7? If only one guy can throw a grenade in the shooting phase, then it makes no sense that 10+ guys can use them while a giant dreadnought with a powerfist is trying to smash you. And making it S7 would mean that it has a chance of hurting an AV13 furioso still.

I'm not trying to make close combat dreadnoughts super crazy invincible, I just don't like it when a unit becomes completely obsolete.

How does that change sound? Does anyone else have a better idea?

 cpyke wrote:
I really like the new vehicle rules in 6th edition, but I'm not at all a fan of how fragile dreadnoughts are in the assault. If I assault a 10man squad of marines with a dreadnought armed with a powerfist, I am pretty much going to die and only take a few of them down with me. This should not be the case. Plus it is a little bit rediculus to think that 10 krak grenades are getting stuck into joints in the dread's armour without any marines blowing themselves or their buddies away.

I think that grenades should only be able to be used by 1 or 2 guys at a time. Maybe as a compensation, make krak grenades S7? If only one guy can throw a grenade in the shooting phase, then it makes no sense that 10+ guys can use them while a giant dreadnought with a powerfist is trying to smash you. And making it S7 would mean that it has a chance of hurting an AV13 furioso still.

I'm not trying to make close combat dreadnoughts super crazy invincible, I just don't like it when a unit becomes completely obsolete.

How does that change sound? Does anyone else have a better idea?

A CC dread should beat out the 10 man unit. You should something about 4-5 attacks on the charge, plus a flamer or something. They should swing with 10, hit with 5, and glance once. You have 2 hp left, they should lose 3-4 guys. Issue a challenge, so only the seargent can fight your dread, its 1 grenade. Kill him, win combat, hope they break, otherwise keep beating them.

Yeah, how are you guaranteed to die against 10 krak grenades?

 curran12 wrote:
Yeah, how are you guaranteed to die against 10 krak grenades?

Well I guess that it's not so much that you are guaranteed to die, but I don't like the idea of 10 grenades being thrown around when you are right next to them.

I wish you would have lead with that instead of this disingenuous "I am pretty much going to die and only take a few of them down with me" line. If you think something is unfitting, say so, don't lie to try giving it weight.

 curran12 wrote:
I wish you would have lead with that instead of this disingenuous "I am pretty much going to die and only take a few of them down with me" line. If you think something is unfitting, say so, don't lie to try giving it weight.

I wasn't lying, I just worded it poorly. and I don't need to add weight to anything. even if I convinced everyone on Dakka that I was right, this rule still wouldn't be implemented. It is just something to think about. Constructive criticism is useful, but calling someone a liar is not. And like I said, the argument is not wether or not a dreadnought would die, it is that they are much less effective in close combat than they were before to the point that (besides furiosos) I don't ever see dreads used for anything other than shooting anymore (at least in my gaming group).

So, to clarify. Dreadnoughts are not guaranteed to die in close combat against 10 marines with krak grenades. In fact, 10 krak grenades will only cause 0.8 glances on average. That doesn't seem bad at all, but you have to look at context. Which I have provided:

10 Krak Grenades: 0.8 glances vs AV12 dread.
Dreadnought with powerfist: 0.8 wounds vs marines.

So I counted the number of wounds/glances each side takes each turn, taking the approximate casualties taken to determine the winner (again, on average).

Turn 1:
-Space marines: 9.2 wounds left
-Dreadnought: 2.2 hull points left.

Turn 2:
-Space marines: 8.4 wounds left
-Dreadnought: 1.5 hull points left.

Turn 3:
-Space marines: 7.6 wounds left
-Dreadnought: 0.8 hull points left.

Turn 4:
-Space marines: 6.8 wounds left
-Dreadnought: 0.1 hull points left

So the dreadnought was destroyed after killing only 32% of the space marine squad.

If the krak grenade was something like S8 AP4 against vehicles in close combat, but only allowing one model to use it each turn (the strength increase due to them shoving the grenade into joints like they should be used instead of just lobbing them) then they will glance 25% of the time and penetrate 17% of the time. This would allow the dread to have a better chance of doing some real damage, but at the same time giving the squad a chance to penetrate the dread causing immobilized, or even explodes results.

It would obviously need refinements(which is why I posted here in the first place), but I think that something along these lines would make things more interesting, and not restrict dreads to fire support only to remain effective.

I think dreads are okay as they are. From the look of what you did, it was just a standard dreadnought with 1 DCCW and whatever other stuff which wasn't relevant for melee. That's hardly a CC dread. If you took one like a furioso or an ironclad, which are CC dreads, it would be quite different. IMO the standard dread isn't a dedicated melee walker, its a support platform and that's what they're normally used for.

 cormadepanda wrote:
Issue a challenge, ....

How...?

 insaniak wrote:

 cormadepanda wrote:
Issue a challenge, ....

How...?

I'm glad someone else spotted that.


How indeed?

I could've sworn that for a while there was the misapprehension that things like dreadnoughts and wraithlords counted as characters (have they been made characters or not in the new codex?), because it still pops up form time to time.

 Bookwrack wrote:
I could've sworn that for a while there was the misapprehension that things like dreadnoughts and wraithlords counted as characters (have they been made characters or not in the new codex?), because it still pops up form time to time.

Wraithlords are, and have been since the release of 6th. Tervigons are as well. Dreadnoughts are not. There's no general rule, only that you aren't unless the rules say you are.

Dreads can't issue challenge can they?

 Juggalo17 wrote:
Dreads can't issue challenge can they?

No. They aren't characters.

Did you include diminishing attacks from the marines in your calculation?

Anyway, I'm in full agreement about the mass of krak grenades being stupid, and my enormous hulking buzzsaw machine being weak as gak *in close combat* of all places is just flying rodent gak slowed.

I just want to run a goddamn dred bash list

 Dakkamite wrote:
Did you include diminishing attacks from the marines in your calculation?

Anyway, I'm in full agreement about the mass of krak grenades being stupid, and my enormous hulking buzzsaw machine being weak as gak *in close combat* of all places is just flying rodent gak slowed.

I just want to run a goddamn dred bash list

Yes I did take that into account.

And yes, the biggest reason I think that something needs to change isn't that I want dreads to be able to smash everything in close combat, but I want it to be a bit more realistic than 10 high explosive grenades being stuck to a killing machine with a giant powerfist. It makes no sense.

 cpyke wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
Did you include diminishing attacks from the marines in your calculation?

Anyway, I'm in full agreement about the mass of krak grenades being stupid, and my enormous hulking buzzsaw machine being weak as gak *in close combat* of all places is just flying rodent gak slowed.

I just want to run a goddamn dred bash list

Yes I did take that into account.

And yes, the biggest reason I think that something needs to change isn't that I want dreads to be able to smash everything in close combat, but I want it to be a bit more realistic than 10 high explosive grenades being stuck to a killing machine with a giant powerfist. It makes no sense.

That it's moving about is why you hit on front armour, not rear - this means a LOT of things can't really hurt it.
Great, your marines have Krak Grenades - but you're a bit buggered if you're a DE Warrior, a Wrack, a Firewarrior, hell even a Battlesuit or Grotesque will have a hard time.

What I wouldn't complain about is dreads having a 6+ invun save in cc by default.