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So I've been thinking for a while on how to change HPs so that they don't make so many vehicles so bad, and I think I'm finally settling on a decent solution. I like HPs in principal, but they make a lot of vehicles excessively fragile. My solution is that when a model runs out of HPs, every additional HP lost will drop the vehicle's armour values by D3 (representing pieces of the hull getting blown off and exposing vital bits, crew, etc). The only major problem I can see with this is that some vehicles, like Wave Serpents and some flyers, will need patching since the only reliable way to kill them at the moment is by glancing them to death, but at least it'll only take 2-4 hits to make a vehicle far more vulnerable.

Alternatively, maybe after the HPs are gone, glancing hits are rolled on the vehicle damage chart with a -1 or something. Thoughts?

Perhaps giving that ability to heavy vehicles, things like Lehman Russes and (I think) Land Raiders, give you a defensive boon for being heavy.

Seems a little clunky. the extra dice roll and then reduction to AV are more things to keep track of. How about this: All glances caused after 0HP are penetrating hits, a roll of Weapon Destroyed, or immobilized results in a wreck.

I think this is a pretty viable way to make vehicles a bit more useful. I'd have no problems playtesting this Idea, perhaps making glancing hits reduce armour by 1 and pens reduce armour by D3, if a vehicles armour reaches 0 anywhere it's wrecked, and penetrating hits do the damage roll anyway so chances are by the time it drops to AV6 or so, it's about to explode due to bolter rounds.

This makes transports much worse as they're less likely to just get wrecked and more likely to kill the guys inside, mind. though similarly, if you try and cling onto a vehicle as it's being blown apart, you kinda deserve to die.

That makes me think some sort of "emergency bail" should be allowed, so you can jump out of a vehicle after a unit has resolved its shots at it. that way if a unit manages to blast the vehicle down to such an armour as to guarantee it explodes when something else shoots it, the guys can bail out and only get hit by the external explosion - maybe a leadership test to do so after the shots are declared but before they're fired (the sergeant looks out of the window to see the barrels of a lascannon battery come to bear on his chimera, orders the 'bail out' as they fire.) I would suggest an initiative test but that's just another boost for eldar and another nail in the coffin for orks.

Well they'd still have the hull points to burn through first, most transported units should get out before then. And if it runs out of AV then it should probably result in Wrecked rather than Explodes (although if you get to a low enough AV then you're going to get enough Pens that there should be some explosions in there somewhere).

Now you run into the problem where the 35-pt rhino just won't die.

How about this: a vehicle reduced to 0HP is not quite dead but otherwise incapacitated. It cannot move, fire weapons or do anything (including using smoke launchers, casting psychic powers, etc.) . However, it is not wrecked and any passengers inside the vehicle can still fire out of it (assuming it has fire points) or embark/disembark from it. Furthermore, it doesn't give up a VP yet.

In order to finally kill it, you need to cause 1 more glancing or penetrating hit while it is at 0HP. Then the vehicle is treated as wrecked. Note that a vehicle can still be destroyed by an Explosion result on the penetrating damage table as normal.

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Alternatively, maybe after the HPs are gone, glancing hits are rolled on the vehicle damage chart with a -1 or something. Thoughts?

I think the best solution really is just giving vehicles more hull points. Given how easy it is to strip them now.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think the best solution really is just giving vehicles more hull points. Given how easy it is to strip them now.

+1 hull points across the board would probably do a lot.

it would also make wave serpants even more overpowered

Way more than +1. I'm thinking double. Land Raiders get 8, Rhinos and the like get 6, Speeders have 4, etc...

That way, vehicles could actually take some hits and not just die in a single shooting phase to 3-4 glances. They could still die to a single lucky Pen though!

And Wave Serpants are whole different ball of wax., Serpent Shields are broken no matter how many hull points the thing has.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Way more than +1. I'm thinking double. Land Raiders get 8, Rhinos and the like get 6, Speeders have 4, etc...

That way, vehicles could actually take some hits and not just die in a single shooting phase to 3-4 glances. They could still die to a single lucky Pen though!

And Wave Serpants are whole different ball of wax., Serpent Shields are broken no matter how many hull points the thing has.

Guys, I don't think you are seeing how broken this rule can be.

If you have 1 or 2 vehicles, it's not an issue.

If you spam them, the toughness of your army grows geometrically.

Armies like Eldar wave serpent-spam, Necron Air force, Necron AV13-spam, any flyer-spam (triple-ravens, triple-heldrakes, triple-vendettas), AM Leman Russ-spam will become just ridiculous to deal with.

Double the Hull Points and now 6 wave serpents become 12 (in terms of durability). 6 necron flyers become 12. 3 imperial knights become 6. 27 HP of leman russes become 54 HP of AV14 tanks!

That's madness, guys!