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 don_mondo wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

PapaSoul wrote:
But smoke launchers are an upgrade. Or they were to the most recently written codex at that point. UPGRADES are the only thing it applies to. Its kind of in the wording.

I think you should read through the thread first. If you can find an book that allows you to purchase Smoke Launchers then the argument fails. However, no one has provided evidence to that, to the contrary, they have been stock for the vehicles that have them.

IG Hellhound, Taurox, Sentinel. Do not come with Smoke Launchers and can purchase them.

*Tumbleweed*


I noticed this pretty much stopped the "pro destroyed" party in its tracks. I guess this is solved now. Never seen so much clutching at straws :/

Not so much "clutching at straws" just the Codex:AM changed the rule and we didn't know.

Just so I'm clear.

It benefits from Laser Lock and cannot be destroyed?

I like this idea.

 don_mondo wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

PapaSoul wrote:
But smoke launchers are an upgrade. Or they were to the most recently written codex at that point. UPGRADES are the only thing it applies to. Its kind of in the wording.

I think you should read through the thread first. If you can find an book that allows you to purchase Smoke Launchers then the argument fails. However, no one has provided evidence to that, to the contrary, they have been stock for the vehicles that have them.

IG Hellhound, Taurox, Sentinel. Do not come with Smoke Launchers and can purchase them.

Thank you sir!

I only have an old IG codex from 2003 here, that has optional smoke launchers as well.
I don't have the IG codex that was current when 6th edition was published.

Any confirmation on the 5th Ed Guard codex?

PapaSoul wrote:

 don_mondo wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

PapaSoul wrote:
But smoke launchers are an upgrade. Or they were to the most recently written codex at that point. UPGRADES are the only thing it applies to. Its kind of in the wording.

I think you should read through the thread first. If you can find an book that allows you to purchase Smoke Launchers then the argument fails. However, no one has provided evidence to that, to the contrary, they have been stock for the vehicles that have them.

IG Hellhound, Taurox, Sentinel. Do not come with Smoke Launchers and can purchase them.

*Tumbleweed*


I noticed this pretty much stopped the "pro destroyed" party in its tracks. I guess this is solved now. Never seen so much clutching at straws :/

Not so much. I was pro-destroyed before I found the upgrade description in the BRB, and only brought it up as additional evidence to support my point of view, which remains the same: it fires as a weapon, it has a weapon profile, it can be destroyed.

 Jimsolo wrote:

PapaSoul wrote:

 don_mondo wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

PapaSoul wrote:
But smoke launchers are an upgrade. Or they were to the most recently written codex at that point. UPGRADES are the only thing it applies to. Its kind of in the wording.

I think you should read through the thread first. If you can find an book that allows you to purchase Smoke Launchers then the argument fails. However, no one has provided evidence to that, to the contrary, they have been stock for the vehicles that have them.

IG Hellhound, Taurox, Sentinel. Do not come with Smoke Launchers and can purchase them.

*Tumbleweed*


I noticed this pretty much stopped the "pro destroyed" party in its tracks. I guess this is solved now. Never seen so much clutching at straws :/

Not so much. I was pro-destroyed before I found the upgrade description in the BRB, and only brought it up as additional evidence to support my point of view, which remains the same: it fires as a weapon, it has a weapon profile, it can be destroyed.

Go for it champ!

I mean, you're wrong, but who cares about rules, right?

PapaSoul wrote:
Go for it champ!

I mean, you're wrong, but who cares about rules, right?

I think most people care about the rules, hence the whole discussion.

On the one hand, it has a weapon profile and is treated as a weapon, it can both benefit from laser lock and can be destroyed.

On the other hand, it is a vehicle equipment, and therefore cannot be benefit from laser lock and be destroyed.


Since "Treated as" is the same as "Is" from a rules perspective, I am still of the opinion that 59% of people who voted in the poll hold - yes it can be destroyed.

PapaSoul wrote:

I mean, you're wrong, but who cares about rules, right?

Well, so far Dakka seems to disagree with you.

If you would like to add something productive to the conversation, then please feel free. If you have nothing to add but sarcastic remarks, I'd appreciate it if you refrained.

So if a vehicle upgrade that functions as a weapon comes stock on a particular unit, is it now magically immune to Weapon Destroyed?

 Happyjew wrote:

PapaSoul wrote:
Go for it champ!

I mean, you're wrong, but who cares about rules, right?

I think most people care about the rules, hence the whole discussion.

On the one hand, it has a weapon profile and is treated as a weapon, it can both benefit from laser lock and can be destroyed.

On the other hand, it is a vehicle equipment, and therefore cannot be benefit from laser lock and be destroyed.


Since "Treated as" is the same as "Is" from a rules perspective, I am still of the opinion that 59% of people who voted in the poll hold - yes it can be destroyed.

and that is 100% correct mr happyjew, if someone is going to say its a weapon, fine, its a weapon that has all those benefits. If not, and cant be destroyed, then fine, but it doesn't benefit from all those other things that benefit weapons too.

It you contend its a weapon for only the rules that benefit it, but not for those that are detrimental, then that has 0 RAW backing.

Either position could be RAW, but a mix of the two is 100% not.

 Jimsolo wrote:

PapaSoul wrote:

I mean, you're wrong, but who cares about rules, right?

Well, so far Dakka seems to disagree with you.

If you would like to add something productive to the conversation, then please feel free. If you have nothing to add but sarcastic remarks, I'd appreciate it if you refrained.

Your post it technically within the rules PapaSoul but it is quite obvious you are trying to bait people. As Jim here said, if you want want to participate in the conversation and politely disagree, that is perfectly fine. Sarcasm, not so much. Please refrain from doing this again. Guys, PapaSoul is also pretty new, so I would appreciate it if you could continue being polite with him, Dakka is a bit more tamed than many other forums where that statement would be fine.

Please hit the Yellow Triangle button if problems persist.

 Stephanius wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
The claim "upgrades" only means "non standard equipment" is proven false by a single counter example.

This. Basic rule of science. It only takes one proven negative result to invalidate any number of positive results.

Nice real world example. This isn't science though and how real life results of scientific experiments are treated is something completely different from arguments in a rules debate.

It is entirely possible that there are concrete arguments for either side of an issue. These arguments are then examined and weighted to see which side of the scales has more pull.
In the Red corner, part 2 of the weapon destroyed rule, the vehicle upgrade section headline, it's introduction and four of five if it's examples. In the blue corner, one bad example, which incidentally isn't even relevant to the weapon destroyed rule and is only considered invalid because IOM armies get this option free of charge. Ready to take your hand off the scales?

Yes, however a rules debate has to follow some forms, which is that your premise can be destroyed by a single counter example. There is no balance of probabilities needed when you take a restrictive position and that position is found to not be true for all cases.

I am in the pro-destroyed camp. This is how we have always played it at my FLGS. It has a weapon profile and hence is a weapon.

If only Games Workshop actually defined it's damned terms a lot of the YMDC threads wouldn't exist. In this case, since there is no BRB definition we are going to have to go with the plain english definition. Therefore, Serpent Shields cannot be destroyed by Weapon Destroyed as per RAW since it is not an upgrade.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
If only Games Workshop actually defined it's damned terms a lot of the YMDC threads wouldn't exist. In this case, since there is no BRB definition we are going to have to go with the plain english definition. Therefore, Serpent Shields cannot be destroyed by Weapon Destroyed as per RAW since it is not an upgrade.

Not everything listed as an upgrade is always an upgrade, so you cannot say stock function-as-a-weapon cannot be destroyed

 PrinceRaven wrote:
So if a vehicle upgrade that functions as a weapon comes stock on a particular unit, is it now magically immune to Weapon Destroyed?

No, not magically, but logically. That was what the whole smoke launcher discussion was about. The claim was that because nobody can buy smoke launchers and everybody gets them stock (we didn't think/know about IG/AM), smoke launchers are not an upgrade; if smoke launchers are not an upgrade, then the term vehicle upgrade must apply to all vehicle war gear, not only add-ons. With the smoke launchers listed as upgrade for IG, that argument is dead in the water. Now, as demonstrated by that, if a piece of gear comes stock for somebody (SM), but is an upgrade for someone else (IG), it is still an upgrade.

Turning to the Eldar codex, there we have vehicle war gear including the serpent shield. What we don't have, is a points cost for the shield or any vehicle that can buy the serpent shield as an upgrade. Nobody can buy a serpent shield as option. Ergo, it is not an upgrade.

The second sentence of the weapon destroyed rule lists two conditions linked by a logical AND - "vehicle upgrades that" (AND) "function as a weapon". As demonstated, the shield is not an upgrade, which makes it not match the conditions for this half of the rule.

 easysauce wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

I think most people care about the rules, hence the whole discussion.
On the one hand, it has a weapon profile and is treated as a weapon, it can both benefit from laser lock and can be destroyed.
On the other hand, it is a vehicle equipment, and therefore cannot be benefit from laser lock and be destroyed.
Since "Treated as" is the same as "Is" from a rules perspective, I am still of the opinion that 59% of people who voted in the poll hold - yes it can be destroyed.

and that is 100% correct mr happyjew, if someone is going to say its a weapon, fine, its a weapon that has all those benefits. If not, and cant be destroyed, then fine, but it doesn't benefit from all those other things that benefit weapons too.
It you contend its a weapon for only the rules that benefit it, but not for those that are detrimental, then that has 0 RAW backing.
Either position could be RAW, but a mix of the two is 100% not.

Your argument is that the shield not being subject to weapon destroyed and benefiting from laser lock is unfair, and therefore cannot be correct RAW.
I sympathise with the fairness bit, but find it irrelevant when determining what the rules say. We can still conclude that the rules are stupid, unfair and we wont play that way, but that is HIWPI.

I think we agree now that the serpent shield is not an vehicle upgrade.

The next and hopefully final question is how to evaluate the serpent shield rule text to determine if it is a weapon or not. As demonstrated by people jumping all over the "functions as a weapon" condition of the weapon destroyed rule, that question is not so easily answered. The Codex authors did not include the shield under weapons, call it a weapon or list it in the weapon summary. The shield is listed in vehicle wargear, not in the weapons section of the armoury. So it doesn't become a weapon by declaration. Let's look at the serpent shield entry in the vehicle war gear section of the Eldar codex.

The serpent shield entry starts with fluff in italics, then describes the defensive part of the shield. This is followed by a paragraph that describes what happens when you deactivate the shield. This paragraph is "In its shooting phase, the wave serpent can deactivate its shields to shoot a burst of energy with the following profile (threat this as a hull-mounted weapon pointing forward):" followed by the profile and another sentence that clarifies that the shields will be down until the start of the serpents following turn.

I claim that the serpent shield has exclusively defensive properties. The shield is referenced clearly in the first rule paragraph as the cause of the protection from penetrating hits. The only mention the shield gets in the second rule paragraph is that the shield is deactivated. From then on, the serpent is the actor and a burst of energy is fired. Gramatically and logically, the weapon profile applies to the burst of energy and not to the serpent shield. The rules do not state that the shield is fired. The shield is deactiavted, which allows a shooting attack to be made. Since it is not the shield that the weapon profile applies to, the existence of the profile doesn't make the shield function as a weapon or be a weapon.

Since the surplus energy that is available for shooting after deactivating the shield isn't an upgrade or a weapon, it cannot be destroyed. While vehicles obviously are not psykers, my understanding is that the shooting attack works similar to a witchfire, but uses surplus energy rather than warp charges.

TL;DR:
So, the burst of energy is treated as a hull mounted weapon, ergo it is affected by laser lock.
The serpent shield isn't a weapon by declaration or it's own rules, it also isn't an upgrade, ergo it cannot be affected by weapon destroyed.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
If only Games Workshop actually defined it's damned terms a lot of the YMDC threads wouldn't exist. In this case, since there is no BRB definition we are going to have to go with the plain english definition. Therefore, Serpent Shields cannot be destroyed by Weapon Destroyed as per RAW since it is not an upgrade.

Not everything listed as an upgrade is always an upgrade, so you cannot say stock function-as-a-weapon cannot be destroyed

\

Right, but Games Workshop never defines what an Upgrade actually is in Game Terms. You can call me out on being pedantic but the term "Upgrade" has a specific meaning to the rule because of the weapon destroyed rules. Because Games Workshop never gives us that meaning we have to go by the dictionary definition of the word.

So if the "destroyed" theory is correct, what happens if the sheild was fired in the following turn? It technically isn't there until the following turn :/

The apparatus to generate/fire it is still there, it just isn't generating a shield at the moment.

 Stephanius wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Some of those examples are stock items that cannot be purchased as additional wargear, therefore the definition of a vehicle upgrade being a piece of wargear purchased as an addition to a vehicle, while logical, is false.

It isn't that some vehicles come stock with the example upgrades, it is that some of the examples can only come stock.

Some? You mean (possibly) one, the smoke launchers. Grey Knights have to buy searchlights. I have no idea if some old (current when 6th Edition was published) IOM faction codex has a vehicle that had to - or could - buy smoke launchers. If one out of four vehicle upgrades should really not be purchasable anywhere - does that matter? It would be one out of four items, clearly not much of a trend.

Please read what it says in bold right under "Vehicle Upgrades":
"It is incredibly rare for even two vehicles of the same design to be identical - many are modified by their crews in order to archieve greater battlefield efficiency (or survivability). Accordingly, many vehicles have optional upgrades - the most common of which are listed here."

This makes very clear that the authors are talking about additions to vehicles, literally upgrades as in bought for points and not stock. I think we can forgive them for having added an item that is (maybe) not a literal upgrade to the same section, they are only human after all.

However, this direction of argument (first brought up on page 2) fails under scrutiny. I was going to mention it earlier, but the discussion moved in a different direction, and the anti-destroyed camp settled on some different snippets of verbiage to make their case.

At any rate, using the plain English definition of upgrade doesn't get you anywhere by itself, because there's no baseline set for the initial "stock" object that is being upgraded. You could just as validly consider the starting point to be a "stock vehicle" (ie. BS + Armour Values + Vehicle Type + all the general rules governing vehicles) as you could consider it to be a "stock Wave Serpent" (ie. everything previously mentioned, but in the specific allotments granted to a Wave Serpent + the specific starting weapons and gear of the Serpent).

The point about Smoke Launchers now being an optional choice somewhere in the game is an interesting development.

I wonder if there are there any counter-examples of an "upgrade weapon" being included in a vehicle's basic gear? Ie. a vehicle that comes with an automatic Hunter- Killer missile, or something like that?

Most Space Marine vehicles automatically come with Searchlights and Smoke Launchers, which are both considered Vehicle Upgrades even if they don't function as weapons. Rhinos come stock with Storm Bolters, Stormravens come stock with Mindstrike missiles, which are similar to Hunter-Killer Missiles, but I can't remember anything that actually has H-K Missiles as stock.

I guess a Storm Bolter would be a candidate.

Vehicles can buy them. Rhinos come with one. So is the one on a Rhino a weapon, or an "upgrade that functions as a weapon but was not selected as an upgrade and is therefore not counted as a weapon"?

 Altruizine wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:

 Nilok wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Some of those examples are stock items that cannot be purchased as additional wargear, therefore the definition of a vehicle upgrade being a piece of wargear purchased as an addition to a vehicle, while logical, is false.

It isn't that some vehicles come stock with the example upgrades, it is that some of the examples can only come stock.

Some? You mean (possibly) one, the smoke launchers. Grey Knights have to buy searchlights. I have no idea if some old (current when 6th Edition was published) IOM faction codex has a vehicle that had to - or could - buy smoke launchers. If one out of four vehicle upgrades should really not be purchasable anywhere - does that matter? It would be one out of four items, clearly not much of a trend.

Please read what it says in bold right under "Vehicle Upgrades":
"It is incredibly rare for even two vehicles of the same design to be identical - many are modified by their crews in order to archieve greater battlefield efficiency (or survivability). Accordingly, many vehicles have optional upgrades - the most common of which are listed here."

This makes very clear that the authors are talking about additions to vehicles, literally upgrades as in bought for points and not stock. I think we can forgive them for having added an item that is (maybe) not a literal upgrade to the same section, they are only human after all.

However, this direction of argument (first brought up on page 2) fails under scrutiny. I was going to mention it earlier, but the discussion moved in a different direction, and the anti-destroyed camp settled on some different snippets of verbiage to make their case.

At any rate, using the plain English definition of upgrade doesn't get you anywhere by itself, because there's no baseline set for the initial "stock" object that is being upgraded. You could just as validly consider the starting point to be a "stock vehicle" (ie. BS + Armour Values + Vehicle Type + all the general rules governing vehicles) as you could consider it to be a "stock Wave Serpent" (ie. everything previously mentioned, but in the specific allotments granted to a Wave Serpent + the specific starting weapons and gear of the Serpent).

The point about Smoke Launchers now being an optional choice somewhere in the game is an interesting development.

I wonder if there are there any counter-examples of an "upgrade weapon" being included in a vehicle's basic gear? Ie. a vehicle that comes with an automatic Hunter- Killer missile, or something like that?

If someone can buy the item for points, it must be an upgrade.
If nobody can buy the item for points (or swap it in), it cannot be an upgrade.

In the weapon destroyed rule, it doesn't really matter if a "weapon" is an upgrade or not, since the first sentence doesn't define stock or upgrade. If it's a weapon - such as a bolter, or hunter killer missile - that will do fine with the first sentence. Therefore I'm not sure how helpful discussing these items is to the serpent shield discussion.

Agreed, if you can buy it with points, it is an upgrade. However that is not the only, exclusive definition of upgrade that there is - anthing over and above base vehicle stats can be considered an upgrade.

I'm going with it can be destroyed, unless / intil they errata this "ermergency" weapon to 6", One Use

Must say, I'm surprised by the surprise about smoke launchers.
My sentinels have never had them and, now I have checked, I have had "freebie" smoke launchers on my hellhounds for years.
Cheaty scumbag.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
I'm going with it can be destroyed, unless / intil they errata this "ermergency" weapon to 6", One Use

I have heard that the 60" range is a typo (said in all seriousness, it seemed), is that true or just internet static?

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Agreed, if you can buy it with points, it is an upgrade. However that is not the only, exclusive definition of upgrade that there is - anthing over and above base vehicle stats can be considered an upgrade.
...

It would be helpful if you'd provide the reasoning that led to your conclusion, or the rule source for your definition.

The one and only "definition" source we've found in this thread is the start of the vehicle upgrades section. That makes clear that upgrades are modifications or additions to vehicles performed by the crew in the field. That logically excludes the gear the generic vehicle has ex-factory aka codex entry.

Fuusa,
No official Errata to correct it, so hard to say if it is true or not, but a lot of people feel that the Narrative for this weapon makes no sense compared to the Rules surrounding it.

 Stephanius wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
So if a vehicle upgrade that functions as a weapon comes stock on a particular unit, is it now magically immune to Weapon Destroyed?

No, not magically, but logically. That was what the whole smoke launcher discussion was about. The claim was that because nobody can buy smoke launchers and everybody gets them stock (we didn't think/know about IG/AM), smoke launchers are not an upgrade; if smoke launchers are not an upgrade, then the term vehicle upgrade must apply to all vehicle war gear, not only add-ons. With the smoke launchers listed as upgrade for IG, that argument is dead in the water. Now, as demonstrated by that, if a piece of gear comes stock for somebody (SM), but is an upgrade for someone else (IG), it is still an upgrade.

Turning to the Eldar codex, there we have vehicle war gear including the serpent shield. What we don't have, is a points cost for the shield or any vehicle that can buy the serpent shield as an upgrade. Nobody can buy a serpent shield as option. Ergo, it is not an upgrade.

The second sentence of the weapon destroyed rule lists two conditions linked by a logical AND - "vehicle upgrades that" (AND) "function as a weapon". As demonstated, the shield is not an upgrade, which makes it not match the conditions for this half of the rule.

 easysauce wrote:

 Happyjew wrote:

I think most people care about the rules, hence the whole discussion.
On the one hand, it has a weapon profile and is treated as a weapon, it can both benefit from laser lock and can be destroyed.
On the other hand, it is a vehicle equipment, and therefore cannot be benefit from laser lock and be destroyed.
Since "Treated as" is the same as "Is" from a rules perspective, I am still of the opinion that 59% of people who voted in the poll hold - yes it can be destroyed.

and that is 100% correct mr happyjew, if someone is going to say its a weapon, fine, its a weapon that has all those benefits. If not, and cant be destroyed, then fine, but it doesn't benefit from all those other things that benefit weapons too.
It you contend its a weapon for only the rules that benefit it, but not for those that are detrimental, then that has 0 RAW backing.
Either position could be RAW, but a mix of the two is 100% not.

Your argument is that the shield not being subject to weapon destroyed and benefiting from laser lock is unfair, and therefore cannot be correct RAW.
I sympathise with the fairness bit, but find it irrelevant when determining what the rules say. We can still conclude that the rules are stupid, unfair and we wont play that way, but that is HIWPI.

I think we agree now that the serpent shield is not an vehicle upgrade.

The next and hopefully final question is how to evaluate the serpent shield rule text to determine if it is a weapon or not. As demonstrated by people jumping all over the "functions as a weapon" condition of the weapon destroyed rule, that question is not so easily answered. The Codex authors did not include the shield under weapons, call it a weapon or list it in the weapon summary. The shield is listed in vehicle wargear, not in the weapons section of the armoury. So it doesn't become a weapon by declaration. Let's look at the serpent shield entry in the vehicle war gear section of the Eldar codex.

The serpent shield entry starts with fluff in italics, then describes the defensive part of the shield. This is followed by a paragraph that describes what happens when you deactivate the shield. This paragraph is "In its shooting phase, the wave serpent can deactivate its shields to shoot a burst of energy with the following profile (threat this as a hull-mounted weapon pointing forward):" followed by the profile and another sentence that clarifies that the shields will be down until the start of the serpents following turn.

I claim that the serpent shield has exclusively defensive properties. The shield is referenced clearly in the first rule paragraph as the cause of the protection from penetrating hits. The only mention the shield gets in the second rule paragraph is that the shield is deactivated. From then on, the serpent is the actor and a burst of energy is fired. Gramatically and logically, the weapon profile applies to the burst of energy and not to the serpent shield. The rules do not state that the shield is fired. The shield is deactiavted, which allows a shooting attack to be made. Since it is not the shield that the weapon profile applies to, the existence of the profile doesn't make the shield function as a weapon or be a weapon.

Since the surplus energy that is available for shooting after deactivating the shield isn't an upgrade or a weapon, it cannot be destroyed. While vehicles obviously are not psykers, my understanding is that the shooting attack works similar to a witchfire, but uses surplus energy rather than warp charges.

TL;DR:
So, the burst of energy is treated as a hull mounted weapon, ergo it is affected by laser lock.
The serpent shield isn't a weapon by declaration or it's own rules, it also isn't an upgrade, ergo it cannot be affected by weapon destroyed.

I don't really see why the whole "upgrade argument" is really needed to decide that a Serpent shield in fact can be destroyed when the main argument you are providing against it is from flavor text. Shouldn't the actual nuts and bolts, game mechanics text, "treat this as a hull-mounted weapon" indicate that it is in fact a weapon? As per your claim that the shield is not a weapon and that the "burst of energy" is what the weapon profile applies to, then could I not destroy said "burst of energy" even though it fires in the shooting phase and has a weapon profile? Emphasis mine, even you said the "burst of energy" has a weapon profile. I really don't see how you're getting the best of both worlds here (ie can be TL and cannot be destroyed) except by twisting around some of the flavor text surrounding the rule. This really reminds of the whole drop pod open/closed debate with the open side citing the fact that the drop pod's doors "burst open" upon landing.

 Stephanius wrote:

The serpent shield entry starts with fluff in italics, then describes the defensive part of the shield. This is followed by a paragraph that describes what happens when you deactivate the shield. This paragraph is "In its shooting phase, the wave serpent can deactivate its shields to shoot a burst of energy with the following profile (threat this as a hull-mounted weapon pointing forward):" followed by the profile and another sentence that clarifies that the shields will be down until the start of the serpents following turn.

I claim that the serpent shield has exclusively defensive properties. The shield is referenced clearly in the first rule paragraph as the cause of the protection from penetrating hits. The only mention the shield gets in the second rule paragraph is that the shield is deactivated. From then on, the serpent is the actor and a burst of energy is fired. Gramatically and logically, the weapon profile applies to the burst of energy and not to the serpent shield. The rules do not state that the shield is fired. The shield is deactiavted, which allows a shooting attack to be made. Since it is not the shield that the weapon profile applies to, the existence of the profile doesn't make the shield function as a weapon or be a weapon.

Since the surplus energy that is available for shooting after deactivating the shield isn't an upgrade or a weapon, it cannot be destroyed. While vehicles obviously are not psykers, my understanding is that the shooting attack works similar to a witchfire, but uses surplus energy rather than warp charges.

TL;DR:
So, the burst of energy is treated as a hull mounted weapon, ergo it is affected by laser lock.
The serpent shield isn't a weapon by declaration or it's own rules, it also isn't an upgrade, ergo it cannot be affected by weapon destroyed.

I don't think this line of reasoning gets you where you want to go. If asked, what would you say you are applying the laser lock to? Certainly not a burst of energy. The Serpent isn't equipped with a 'burst of energy'. What's more, if this burst of energy were somehow separate from the shield, the rules for it wouldn't be contained within the rules for said shield. I completely get how you've parsed this out, but I also think your suffering a little from a forest for the trees moment.

If you want to claim that it's a weapon, and further, a weapon that isn't somehow a part or function of the shield, you'd need to be able to show that it's actually, somehow, a separate weapon. The line of reasoning that ends in the bolded text above is flawed IMO. It sounds logical, but I think it completely escapes from the confines of the game mechanics and charges headlong into the heady realm of semantics. It's essentially a fluff argument IMO - I could easily say that we're talking about the the energy that creates the shield used in a different way, and I'd sound just as logical - and neither of us would be furthering the actual rules issue at hand. In order for your logic to stand up the 'weapon' needs to not be the shield, by which I mean you'd need to show what it actually is, rather than simply pointing out what it might not be. 'Things' (weapons, whatever) in 40K have rules that apply to them and those rules are listed in the appropriate entry for each item - that's the basic game design. So if the shooting weapon and profile listed under 'Serpent Shield' in the Eldar codex doesn't in fact apply in some fashion in to that listed piece of vehicle wargear, why do they appear there and what weapon or wargear are we actually talking about?

The issue of definition of terms is also, IMO, not nearly as cut and dried as your position would probably like it to be. The various terms equipment, wargear, and upgrade are all used somewhat interchangeably (and haphazardly) across books to refer to the same broad class of things.

 Stephanius wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Agreed, if you can buy it with points, it is an upgrade. However that is not the only, exclusive definition of upgrade that there is - anthing over and above base vehicle stats can be considered an upgrade.
...

It would be helpful if you'd provide the reasoning that led to your conclusion, or the rule source for your definition.

The one and only "definition" source we've found in this thread is the start of the vehicle upgrades section. That makes clear that upgrades are modifications or additions to vehicles performed by the crew in the field. That logically excludes the gear the generic vehicle has ex-factory aka codex entry.

Which is fluff, not rules. I provided the reasoning, that an upgrade is also anything above base stats, eg tank is an upgrade