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I have a Wave Serpent and a Dreadknight. I field them together. 4 games in a row, the Wave Serpent was killed by 1 lucky shot from a single enemy squad. I fired the shield before that. 6 on penetration result, AP2. The Dreadknight only went down to sustained firepower from everything on the table, and sometimes it survives 2-3 turns.

Does anyone here feel that vehicles are less competitive than Monstrous Creatures? MC have armor saves, usually 3+, can fight in close combat, have Smash, have 360' firing arc and do not take damage such as Stunning or Shaking. A Vindicator can be completely useless if once per turn your opponent can shake it, and with weapon destroyed, it can only ram now (unless you have SB on them). MC must take a lot of damage before going down, since there are not many ID and fleshbane range weapons. One the other hand, Ordnance and melta weapons are more frequent. A lucky lascannon shot can theoretically blow up a Monolith in one go.

Dark Eldar are the only excepting which excel in killing MC but not vehicles.

I don't see any indication that MC are generally more expansive than vehicles while they are definitely more powerful and versatile overall.

What do you think?

In this edition and even more last edition MCs and especially FMCs are extremely broken. They are more durable than vehicles and in some cases put out more damage and are cheaper.

6th edition MCs and FMCs were pretty overpowered compared to vehicles.

7th is pretty balanced tbh. Both can now score, which is a big deal.

Some things kill vehicles in 1 hit, but it is pretty uncommon now, even with melta weapons.
At the same time some things can kill MCs in 1 hit, so there is balance.

I find themm more balanced this edition. ( atleast on the ground)

Vehicles do have there advantages.

Immunity to small arms fire, Most MC can still drop to massed str 3.

Can usualy move around faster.
Transport capacity, protecting key troops and/or quickly bringing themm to where they need to be.

I also think they are more balanced. Both can be taken down with one shot - although it's pretty hard to do.

The firing arc isn't really a big deal because vehicles can pivot at the end of their movement phase to point at what they want to hit. Also, a few vehicles have the ability to target multiple units (ghost ark, land raider, etc).

Problem is not Vehicles vs MC's in general, problem is specific very durable MC's which also happen to duplicate many qualities generally assigned only to vehicles:

-near invulnerability to small arms fire
-wielding powerful Heavy weapons
-ability to move more than 6" per turn

whilst not having their traditional weaknesses:
-chance to get destroyed by one hit
-progressive damage in form of shaken, stunned or immobilized
-blowing up while getting killed, possibly causing further damage to friendly units.

Most notable offenders are Dreadknight and Riptide. If these two were tuned, the problem would be much less.

bibotot wrote:
I have a Wave Serpent and a Dreadknight. I field them together.

 koooaei wrote:

bibotot wrote:
I have a Wave Serpent and a Dreadknight. I field them together.

The Wave Serpent must be a Dedicated Surfboard.

EDIT: And I agree about the specific MC thing. No one is clamoring to nerf GUOs or Carnifexes. Whatever changes may come, I hope they're not overly zealous.

Why the Riptide and Wraithknight are MCs not Walkers is beyond me.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Why the Riptide and Wraithknight are MCs not Walkers is beyond me.

Pretty much this.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Why the Riptide and Wraithknight are MCs not Walkers is beyond me.

I would say that because Riptides and Wraith Knights are Jet Pack Units they fly around the concept as opposed to "walking." By extension they would not be a walker.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
Why the Riptide and Wraithknight are MCs not Walkers is beyond me.

To sell more Citadel plastic kits.

Or compare a DK and Riptide to any nid MC and then giggle at the poor nid kids getting hosed.

Vehicles are very definitely inferior to MC's and the vehicle mechanics in general are astoundingly bad.

Close combat especially, vehicles are absurdly easy to kill, a 10man tac squad has a better chance of killing a battle tank in CC than it does of killing just 2 other marines (assuming no pfist). It also doesn't help that, for 95% of vehicles, it doesn't matter if you're a Leman Russ or a Trukk, they die basically the same in CC. The HP introduction coupled with "vehicles are hit on rear armor in CC" and the "vehicles are always WS1" instead of being reliant on speed means that tank killing in CC is largely just a matter of making base contact and then you remove the vehicle for most things. When you've got heavy battle tanks and IFV's that are designed to break through an enemy line, or skimmers flying at breakneck speeds, and they're all absurdly easy to kill and afraid of getting anywhere close to enemy, something is wrong.

The introduction of HP's also largely halved the average number of hits required to kill most vehicles with shooting attacks. GW ameliorated this slightly with 7th and removing the explodes results from the normal damage table to require AP1/2 guns, but in doing so further reinforced HP stripping and made the big AT guns actually *less* effective while enhancing the relative effectiveness of more medium weapons like autocannons, and largely destroying the utility of things like missile launchers.

It also doesn't help that we now have the "skimmer vs non-skimmer" gap back with a vengeance, and a completely borked jink mechanic (immobilized skimmers and walking FMC's can jink, jink doing nothing to passengers, etc).

I've never understood why Vehicles had their own unique rules in the first place. Or, I get it, but it still doesn't make sense to do so - The goal must have been to make fighting a vehicle cinematic, like in a action-movie, where Stallone only just manages to throw a grenade into a hatch to blow up a tank, but that is hardly great for a wargame...

Personally, I feel that Vehicles should have the same rules as the rest of the models in the game - Toughness, Armour Save and all that, but focussing on them having higher T values but lower Armour Saves, to differentiate them from MC - I wrote an article about this once, and I must say that the AV rules seem like they are nothing but leftovers from an earlier system...

The other way to do it would be to track when an MCs bladder is punctured and the like like with Vehicles, which I'm not terribly inclined towards.

The original original (i.e. Rogue Trader) rules for 40k had just that - vehicles had a toughness, armour save, and damage points (wounds by another name), just like infantry.

In fact, a dreadnought was T6, 3+ armour save, and 4 wounds - i.e., exactly what a carnifex is today.

I concur with a lot of the statements here - monstrous creatures as a whole are pretty balanced against vehicles - vehicles can move faster (yes, flying monstrous creatures are fast but you should be comparing them to flyers), are usually immune to small arms, and carry bigger guns - a monstrous creature does not generally carry anything vastly beyond what heavy infantry packs.

Vehicle rules have been tweaked so that whilst vehicles are easier to kill, they tend to fight at full effect until they die, unlike the metal boxes of yesterday which spent the entire game shaken and stunned.

Except.

All of that goes out of the window, because when people say 'monstrous creature', they don't mean 'monstrous creature' and haven't for a few years. They mean Riptide, Wraithknight, and Winged Hive Tyrant.

The Riptide carries guns not out of place on a battle tank, and is essentially immune to 90% of medium antitank fire due to its 2+ save. The Wraithknight is immune to small arms like walkers, but moves faster than normal vehicles - at least, if they want to be able to shoot whilst doing so. The winged Tyrant packs an unholy amount of air-to-air firepower that - unlike flyers - has a 360' arc of fire - and is a mastery 2 psyker to boot.

I think it's pretty balanced atm. T5 MCs (some Tyranids, Daemon Princes...) can be shot for instant death with S10. Aaaaaand they're gone. No roll on a table like with vehicles. In one of my last games my Helbrute survived a ridiculous amount of fire since my opponent didn't roll any 6 or 7 on the vehicle damage table. Yes, that's luck, but if there is no table you lost a wound or a model and have 0 chance to be lucky at all.

edit: typo

 Murenius wrote:
I think it's pretty balanced atm. T5 MCs (some Tyranids, Daemon Princes...) can be shot for instant death with S10. Aaaaaand they're gone. No roll on a table like with vehicles. In one of my last games my Helbrute survived a ridiculous amount of fire since my opponent didn't roll any 6 or 7 on the vehicle damage table. Yes, that's luck, but if there is no table you lost a wound or a model and have 0 chance to be lucky at all.

edit: typo

It is true that a str. 10 could insta-kill them, but most str. 10 is template, so if flying does nothing really, which the really good MCs for Tyranids are the FMCs, same as most Daemon Princes. Also most str. 10 are AP1 or 2, which can easily kill a tank 1 hit. Also most MCs are toughness 6 or higher other than Princes or harpies/crones the most MCs are toughness 6 or at least have a save outside of armor.

I think the biggest issue is the addition of FMC's which are a real pain to deal with, unless you build your army to go against them. With a firing arc of 360 they are the bane of vehicles and with the ability to vector strike and getting d3 against other fliers they will crush other fliers. They should have a firing arc same as fliers and not be able to jink on the ground. Or even better yet get rid of the flying mechanic completely.

 Murenius wrote:
I think it's pretty balanced atm. T5 MCs (some Tyranids, Daemon Princes...) can be shot for instant death with S10. Aaaaaand they're gone. No roll on a table like with vehicles. In one of my last games my Helbrute survived a ridiculous amount of fire since my opponent didn't roll any 6 or 7 on the vehicle damage table. Yes, that's luck, but if there is no table you lost a wound or a model and have 0 chance to be lucky at all.

edit: typo

That's the problem. These things will be flying, which mean it is impossible to land a Demolisher shot or Manticore Missiles into them.

7th has helped a lot to redress the massive imbalance between walkers and MCs in 6th, though MCs are still easily MUCH better.

No damage table, very VERY few things can ID them at range (where vehicles can be blown up by anything AP2/1, or anything at all if open-topped), more wounds (generally 6, vehicles (usually) have max 4), generally faster, don't have to worry about immobilizing themselves by traveling through difficult terrain, easier to grant cover saves (don't have to be 25% obscured), 360 all-the-time firing arcs, everything they do is AP2, can always boost str to 10, cause fear.

I think it's 100% broken that FMCs can flap over a vehicle and shoot its rear armor wheras flying vehicles actually have to worry about things like positioning and firing arcs. In other words, flyers actually take some forethought and planning to use, and can be outmaneuvered by getting close to them, but FMCs have 360 firing arcs all the time. That's ridiculous.

6th was the "MCs are completely, absolutely, entirely broken" edition, and while 7th is better in that regard, but MCs still are easily far, far better than vehicles in almost all arenas.

At least smash has been nerfed (perhaps a bit too much, honestly), so that walkers actually stand a chance in hell against MCs. In 6th it was smash smash smash dead walker.

IIRC, any weapon can take a wound off a T6 creature, whereas vehicles can only be 'wounded' by a weapon whose S + at least 6 = AV.

That is an advantage for vehicles, one which should be noted. I'm not saying vehicles are better, but they do have a distinct advantage there.

To be fair however, the chances of most things like boltguns or lasguns actually inflicting a wound that sticks on a T6 MC is very low indeed, often low enough to be negligible. With BS3 Lasguns you need 36 shots to average 1 wound against a T6 3+sv MC, or 72 shots to average 1 wound on something like a Riptide.

Meanwhile, once anything gets into CC, 95% of vehicles in the game can be killed by S4 attacks (and commonly S6 grenades as basic equipment), and the tank gets no save. At a tournament this weekend, CC is how I lost the majority of my tanks, an MC or unit with krak grenades would make it in, and usually once something makes base contact with a tank it's dead with a very high degree of certainty.

<deleted for bad math>

 jasper76 wrote:
As a counter argument, take a squad of 30 Termagants stock except all with Devourers. When they come into range of an MC, that's 7.47 wounds = 1 dead MC....no charge necessary (which would add even more wounds???).

When they come into range of any vehicle AV 11 or higher, they shoot all they like...nothing will even glance. They can charge and attack all they like, even against rear armor 10, nothing will even glance.

Again, I'm not saying vehicles are better, but they do have an advantage in that not everything on the board can wound them.

Yes, and vehicles are also not affected by Poison attacks, but seriously, these are exceptional situations. In practice, Sv2+ Monstrous creature is more durable than any vehicle, even Land Raider, because it can't be instakilled with very common battlefield weaponry which would kill a Land Raider straight up (Meltas) and it has a save against most common heavy weapons.

Atually, looking back on my post, my math is wrong because it didn't account for any kind of armor save...and now the point has been made pretty clear to me.

But vehicles having opposing stuff on the board that can't hurt them is an advantage...just much more negligible than I considered at first due to lack of armor/invul saves.

Now my answer to "What do you think?" has changed to the following:

MCs and vehicles are perfectly balanced, because I play Nids.

I think giving vehicles a T value and Sv, and a Vehicle macro rule which made them immune to poison and gave them EW, would work very well, as long as the T value and number of wounds was judged about right.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I think giving vehicles a T value and Sv, and a Vehicle macro rule which made them immune to poison and gave them EW, would work very well, as long as the T value and number of wounds was judged about right.

Brother.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I think giving vehicles a T value and Sv, and a Vehicle macro rule which made them immune to poison and gave them EW, would work very well, as long as the T value and number of wounds was judged about right.

I agree completely... It would be easier to learn, would take less time on the tabletop and get rid of the imbalance between walkers and MCs. Plus, no one would complain about some walkers being MCs (looking at you, dreadknight and riptide) for no reason.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
No damage table, very VERY few things can ID them at range (where vehicles can be blown up by anything AP2/1, or anything at all if open-topped), more wounds (generally 6, vehicles (usually) have max 4),

Fun fact of the day #1: Of the 48 Monstrous Creatures in the game (Including named ones + FW) 6 Wound MCs are only the 3rd most common, only beating the incredibly rare 7 wounds (1 model has this) and 3 wounds (3 models have this). 2 of those 6 wound MC's are T5 somewhat immobile pods.

#2 Which armies have the most MCs?

Tyranids: 17 + 2 Named Characters (Stonecrusher Carnifex counted separately to the regular Carnifex)
Daemons: 7 + 6 Named Characters (2 Named FW Daemon Princes counted in total)
Necrons: 4
Eldar: 4
Tau: 3 + 1 Named Character
Chaos Space Marines: 2 + 1 Named Character (Not included in total 48 as they're duplicates from the Daemons codex.)
Dark Eldar: 2
Grey Knights: 1
Orks: 1

#3 What about GCs?

Tyranids: 4
Daemons: 4
Orks: 1
Necrons: 1

 Zande4 wrote:

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
No damage table, very VERY few things can ID them at range (where vehicles can be blown up by anything AP2/1, or anything at all if open-topped), more wounds (generally 6, vehicles (usually) have max 4),

Fun fact of the day #1: Of the 48 Monstrous Creatures in the game (Including named ones + FW) 6 Wound MCs are only the 3rd most common, only beating the incredibly rare 7 wounds (1 model has this) and 3 wounds (3 models have this). 2 of those 6 wound MC's are T5 somewhat immobile pods.

Which isn't saying much when your range is 3-7