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Well, the Rhino is an iconic part of 40k. It is supposed to be the tracked equivalent of a Tactical Marine - Solid, rugged, with good all-round capabilities and equipped to deal with any eventuality.

As it is, it's one of the worst vehicles in the game and not very good at anything, so here's my proposed fix;

Rhino APC {Dedicated Transport}........................40 points

BS 4 FA11 SA11 RA10

Type: Vehicle (Tank, Transport)

Wargear: Smoke Launchers, Searchlight, Storm Bolter

Transport Capacity: 10 models.

Fire Points: Two models may fire out of the top hatch.

Access Points: One rear Assault Ramp, two side hatches

Special Rules: Repair

Options:
May take a second Storm Bolter: +5 points
May exchange a Storm Bolter for;
- Combi-Bolter: Free
- Combi-Plasma, Combi-Melta or Combi-Flamer: +5 points
- Heavy Flamer or Heavy Bolter: +5 points
- Missile Launcher: +10 points
- Advanced Tracking System: +5 points
May take any of the following;
- Up to two Hunter-Killer Missiles: As Codex
- Codex upgrades: As Codex
- Siege Shield: As Dozer Blade + 5 points
- Ablative Armour: +10 points
- Repair Servitor: +5 points
May be upgraded to a Repressor: +20 points

Advanced Tracking System
The Rhino gainst the Skyfire and Interceptor special rules.

Ablative Armour:
The Rhino is covered with autoreactive explosive plates designed to blunt the blow of incoming heavy weapons fire. When the Rhino suffers a Penetrating or Glancing hit, it is disregarded on a 5+. If a 1 or 2 is rolled on this die, the Ablative Armour has been expended and does not function for the rest of the game.

Repair Servitor:
Rolls made to repair the Rhino (whether by the Blessings of the Omnissiah rule or the Repair rule) receive a +1 bonus.

Repressor
A Repressor has an additional three fire points and a front armour value of 13. Note that to truly be a Repressor, the Dozer Blade, Secondary Storm Bolter and Heavy Flamer upgrades should also be bought.

Huh. Interesting. It's a neat list of options and it makes sense the Rhino would be the standard vehicle to which you could attach more or less anything. ("Espresso machine? Ahhhh.... Try putting it in that rack by the -- wow, it just clicks right in, doesn't it?")

Ablative armour seems scarily potent -- and should be available for main battle tanks too. Not sure about that one.

And the interceptor plus Skyfire option is awfully cheap.

 SisterSydney wrote:
And the interceptor plus Skyfire option is awfully cheap.

To be fair, none of its weapons are really that potent to take advantage of it. The peak would be a missile launcher versus aircraft, and even then, the rhino is easy to shut down.

The Skyfire option costs 10 points if you want a gun to go with it (you have to buy a second storm bolter for 5 points to exchange for the 5 point ATS), and it's useless without a gun. I priced it based on the idea that Flakk Missiles are overpriced at 15 over a missile launcher... ultimately, it's still less potent as an AA weapon than a counter-flier or a dedicated AA tank like the Hunter.

That said, it is cheaper and better than giving a tactical marine a flakk missile launcher, so increase the ATS to 10 points over the extra storm bolter? That puts it on the same cost as an AA upgrade for an infantry-mounted rocket launcher.

Ablative Armour should be available for other tanks, yes, but I'm not homebrewing every dang vehicle in an Imperial codex!

Yeah, you'd have to price reactive armour separately for each vehicle or else it would be an underpriced auto-take on, say, a Leman Russ.

I still think it's a little OP on the Rhino as it stands. It's basically a 5+ invulnerable save against (on average) 2 hits. At the very least I'd make it One Use Only -- and realistically you'd have to buy it separately for each facing.

Tracking individual facings would bog the game down too much in book-keeping, I think. Given how utterly fragile the Rhino is at the moment, I figured it needed some kind of non-AV-related defensive buff. Maybe something more like the Quantum Shield? It breaks the first time it fails?

You're giving a rhino assault vehicle, a heavy weapon, skyfire/interceptor and increased durability. Point costs aside, this is way too much for the humble rhino. It basically has everything a transport could ever want except maybe being able to fly. For me its way OTT.

Oh, yeah, the "rear assault ramp" -- is that meant to give it the Assault Vehicle SR? Because that would be a BIG points boost. Also, as I understand it, by definition an assault vehicle is one where you can come out the front, because that's how you can keep the momentum of the vehicle's motion unbroken into the charge. Otherwise you have to come out the back or sides and then turn around, which is why you can't charge out of such access points.

It is supposed to give Assault Vehicle, but only out of the rear access point - meaning that the Rhino has to expose its rear armour to be used in that manner as a balancing mechanic.

The way I see it is that normal access points require a little clambering to get out of, but assault ramp access points let you literally just sprint out from a standing start. The idea of trying to retain the vehicle's momentum in your charge is ridiculous - vehicles move so much faster than people running that it just runs over anyone jumping out of it! Vehicles have to stop to let people out.

I'm not just "giving it" a heavy weapon, increased durability and skyfire/interceptor, I'm giving it the option of upgrading to have those abilities and thus become a true jack-of-all-trades. If you give it all of those upgrades, you're looking at a vehicle that costs as much as a Predator with significantly less firepower!

Hmmmm. Not sure that's how assault works

Assault works by hurling yourself at the enemy with the hope of punching him before he can shoot you. Not really sure how relevant that is with vehicles.

Exchanging stormbolter for combi-weapon should cost 7 pts cause stormbolters cost 3pts actually. Missile launcher should be more expensive also.
Repressor is basically no longer a rhino. Fluffwise, i can't remember marines having any other land transport vehicles other than rhinos and landraiders. Even razorbacks are somewhat made up.
Yep, marines need rhinos to be able to transport assault squads into mellee...but it's not the codex's fault - it's poor 6 ed ballance. In 5 ed khorne zerks did great in rhinos.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
It is supposed to give Assault Vehicle, but only out of the rear access point - meaning that the Rhino has to expose its rear armour to be used in that manner as a balancing mechanic.

The way I see it is that normal access points require a little clambering to get out of, but assault ramp access points let you literally just sprint out from a standing start. The idea of trying to retain the vehicle's momentum in your charge is ridiculous - vehicles move so much faster than people running that it just runs over anyone jumping out of it! Vehicles have to stop to let people out.

The vehicle has more settings than "Full Speed" and "Stop". I can see a Land Raider slowing up before disgorging it's terminators into melee, I can't see a Rhino racing up, pulling a 180 and flinging a squad out the back having the same effect.

Still, some cool ideas here if a little strong in parts.

You could just drive your Rhinos towards the enemy backwards....

I love the rhino and I want every excuse to take more of them, but I do feel that these go a bit far. Particularly the assault vehicle thing.

I love the repressor option, though I think it's a bit undercosted. Personally I'd like to see more utility options to fit with their tactical theme...deep strike disruption, stuff that makes terrain difficult, something that provides FnP in a small radius, I don't know.

Honestly people, why is everyone so scared of Assault Vehicles? Even with Reactive Armour, it's not like an AV11 vehicle is that hard to kill. Skimmers get 5+ cover just by existing, but no one's having issues shooting down Land Speeders or even Devilfishes, right?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Honestly people, why is everyone so scared of Assault Vehicles? Even with Reactive Armour, it's not like an AV11 vehicle is that hard to kill. Skimmers get 5+ cover just by existing, but no one's having issues shooting down Land Speeders or even Devilfishes, right?

Devilifishes cost 80 points are are kind of *bad*. Just thought I'd point that out.

 Colpicklejar wrote:
I love the rhino and I want every excuse to take more of them, but I do feel that these go a bit far. Particularly the assault vehicle thing.

I love the repressor option, though I think it's a bit undercosted. Personally I'd like to see more utility options to fit with their tactical theme...deep strike disruption, stuff that makes terrain difficult, something that provides FnP in a small radius, I don't know.

Under these rules, a Repressor (Repressor upgrade, dozer blade, pintle heavy flamer in addition to storm bolter) comes out at the same points value as in Imperial Armour 2 Second Edition, except that the IA2 version has a 6++ save. Unless my maths is wrong.

Assault RAmp was based on the fact that the rear ramp looks like it should be assaultable out of if the Land Raider is. But I guess I'm off base if everyone thinks its a problem?

I think the idea is that for a regular troop carrier, it stops, you get out on the sides and rear, you go around the vehicle and form up in front, and then you can charge -- on the next turn. An assault vehicle has a ramp in front so it stops, you charge right out.