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So, I was thinking about some of the main problems involved in allowing super-heavies, and in particular, Imperial Knights, in standard 40k. One of the best things I'd read on the issue talked about how there are basically two outcomes when Imperial Knights show up in a game: 1) You don't know your opponent is bringing a Knight(s), so you don't build your list with enough high-powered weaponry (or, you're playing a hoard army like nids or orks and you simply don't have enough heavy weaponry to deal with it), you don't have any chance, so you don't have any fun playing, or 2) you know your opponent is bringing a Knight(s), so you build your army specifically to beat a Knight, they don't have any chance, and your opponent doesn't have any fun (personally, for me, I don't have any fun with this, either. I like to build my lists conceptually, not to beat one particular unit). That got me thinking about what some of the real issues with super-heavies actually are, what it is that over-powers most of them, and how the rules could be changed to level the field, on a point-to-point basis, without crippling super-heavies or removing all incentive to play them.

The main ones as I see it, are these:

1) In shooting, you need at least Str 6 weapon to even penetrate the rear armor on most super heavies, at least a Str 7 to penetrate the front or side, and of course, an Imperial Knight in particular has that ion shield which they set before the enemy shooting phase. When you take into account that in most battle-forged armies, maybe 10-20% of your guns are going to be strong enough, a super-heavy only needs to destroy 10-20% of your army before they're rampaging around unchecked for the rest of the game. With weapons like the Stompa's supa-gatler, or the Knight Errant's thermal cannon, that isn't exactly a difficult proposition.

How I would fix it: Some sort of combined fire rule, kind of similar to smash, but with shooting weapons. In fluff terms, numerous soldiers would all concentrate their fire on one single weak point in a vehicle's armor. The idea would be that, instead of each making individual shots at their own weapon's strength, several models would fire one shot between them at a higher strength. If I were writing the rule it would look something like this:

Bring 'Er Down Boys(just a working name, but I like it)
During the shooting phase, models with this special rule firing on a vehicle or monstrous creature may attempt to concentrate fire on weak points in the enemy model's armor. To do this, the firing unit must first pass a leadership test. If the test is passed, the controlling player may have a number of models armed with the same weapon instead make a single shooting attack, resolved at 1/2 of the combined strength of the weapons, using the AP of the base weapon. All weapons of a given type must be fired in this manner, but may be grouped into multiple shots

Example: James has a unit of 10 tactical marines armed with 2 melta guns and 8 boltguns. In his shooting phase, he attempts to fire on an enemy Stompa. He first fires the two meltas. As his boltguns will individually be ineffective, he attempts a "Bring 'Er Down Boys" attack. He first rolls leadership, and passes the test. He now decides to have the 8 remaining boltguns fire two concentrated shots, resolved at Strength 8 ((4+4+4+4)/2) AP -.

By doing this, an army is now no longer completely out of hope when they are out of heavy weapons, but at the same time, these shots come at the expense of the majority of their regular strength shots, and require them to take a leadership test.

2) Your really good close combat units, the ones that could take down that super-heavy? They're never gonna get a chance.

So, again, in any given army, probably 10-20% of your close combat weaponry will be capable of hurting a super-heavy. The problem is, most of those weapons, from Power Klaws, to Power Fists, to Thunder Hammers, etc., etc., are unwieldy. Now, against a Stompa, that's not an issue, since it hits on initiative 1, but a Knight hits on initiative 4. Hold on, where the crap does that make sense? Seriously, in real world terms, since that is the goal of a miniatures game, to try to create a realistic approximation of a battle, how does that make sense? Sure, infantry to infantry, it makes sense that unwieldy weapons hit on initiative 1.They're big, they're clunky, compared to a model armed with just a sword, they're just gonna be slower. You can't tell me that, even armed with a largish, heavy weapon, an infantryman or cavalry man moves slower than a giant machine. It just doesn't make sense. Personally, I think models should hit on their normal initiative in close combat with super-heavies, to represent their ability to maneuver more than the super-heavy.

3) While we're at it, remind me again why close combat attacks always hit on a super-heavy walker's front armor? Always hitting the rear armor of a tank, I get, tank can't maneuver that fast. Hitting on the front armor or a normal walker, again I'm good with, as they're not much larger or less agile than the average space marine. Super-heavy Walkers are where I draw the line. Here's why, and again this has to do with realism. Down below is an image approximating a situation that came up in a previous game I played. My opponent had charged my blood claws. with his Imperial Knight. I attempted to make a "Our Weapons Are Useless" move, but ended up locked in combat, so, on the next turn, I charged in with my Terminators and Thunderwolves to try to destroy the damn thing and protect the remnants of my BCs. At the start of the fight sub-phase, the models were arranged about how you see in the diagram below. So, explain something to me. How does an Imperial Knight, which towers about 20 times the height of a space marine, spin around so fast, while being attacked from all sides, that, somehow, every single attack hits it on the front?

How would I fix this? Simple, super heavies take close combat hits on whatever side the attack is coming from, but at the end of each fight sub-phase, may realign themselves to present their front to different models.

4) Finally, the catastrophic explosion.

I don't mint that it happens. I don't even mind that some of my models die. I mind that I usually have to sacrifice a unit that cost more than the super-heavy in order to destroy it. because, apparently trained soldiers just sit there waiting for an explosion while the Knight or Stompa whirrs around in its death throes. Seriously, you're telling me none of my troops even tried to get out of the way?

How I would fix it: In this case, I would simply mitigate the explosion, not get rid of it. Once the final position has been determined, each unit under the template should take an Initiative test. If they pass, they take their hits as if they were at the next lowest level on the explosion chart. For example, say your opponent rolls a 3 on the CD table, generating a Devastating Explosion. You've got 4 models under the center of the blast marker, who would take a Strength D hit, 4 under the middle who would take a Strength 8 hit, 4 under the outer section, who would take Strength 4 hit. All three units take their initiative test, all three pass. Now the first group takes a Str 8 hit, the second group takes a Str 4 hit, and the third group escapes unharmed.

Anyway, I'd love people's input on some of these idea. They're not perfect or completely formed, but I think they would definitely help bring some balance. At present, I think super-heavies are completely over-powered in the game, but conceptually I do like what they bring to the table. I'd love to see them become a solid option to take and be fun in casual play, but right now, I feel like they're just the broken model you buy to have a chance of winning tournaments. That's just my opinion, though.

An interesting read and maybe I will take the liberty to use some of your idea about avoiding the catastrophic explosion in my rulebook.

One of my problems is how a fight is between infantry and huge walkers like titans and semi titans. I'm playing around with the idea that units are only in close combat as we know it with unit roughly their own size. If a unit is much bigger the close combat is like against a normal size tank - both units can move away as they're not locked in close combat and units trying to attack the huge walker gets a bonus for it being so big and slow. These walkers would need to have their own type as they differ from other big walkers as some are faster than others. The Greater Daemons from Forgeworld and the Wraithknight would probably be too fast to get any bonus against.

The huge walker don't hit back as it's occupied with bigger targets and imagine it yourself, it wouldn't be fast enough to locate the little guys running around it, and if it were would almost have to get down on its knees to be able to reach the infantry.

Killing superheavies is no more difficult than killing an equal number of points of any other vehicle. Usually it's easier, as it's only one target and rarely gets a save. Try killing a couple T10 Nurgle deamons; that's far tougher and no one complains about them.

In fact, I've never seen anyone complain about killing superheavies as the actual problem, except in the situation of "I can't kill them fast enough before their Destroyer weapons wipe out my army." Even then, killing them isn't the problem.

The problem with superheavies is Destroyer weapons. Those weapons operate in a way that no other form of attack works and negate nearly any strategies to avoid damage or inherent toughness.

You're trying to solve the symptom.

The disease is Destroyer.

By your logic I only need to kill 10-20% (probably more like 5-10%) of my enemies army and I insta-win if I bring a land raider.

Hell, i'll bring 3, I'll be invincible!

Sorry but no, I don't think Bring 'Er Down Boys is a good idea at all. This rule means I can take a unit of, let's say 30, Guardsmen, attach a Priest or similar HQ for Fearless, and automatically be able to fire roughly 15x S10 shots, just from Lasguns combining.

The fact is, Super-Heavies are designed to be this tough. The only problem is there's a huge disparity between them. For example, I agree with you that a Knight is far tougher to destroy than a Baneblade due to the Ion Shield, but the Baneblade costs a fair more points to use. If you use this rule it may fix the problems with Knights, but other SH like Baneblades and Scorpions to name a couple, would be at a disadvantage even further, and that's before we even consider the "more designed for fun than competitive play" models such as Malcadors and Macharius'.

While they're tough to deal with, I see your idea, but you're taking a single unit like Knights and changing rules that'll affect every SH model out there. Knights can be dealt with in other ways, usually through some suicide-Melta unit, but these rules don't do well enough to fix it.

Basically, if you can't deal with it, you play around it or tarpit it. This stuff works.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/632878.page

T10 can be bypassed by dark eldar poison shootingshooting and plague knives poison.

The whole point in taking a sh is to abuse the str D weaponry.

SH are like a bazooka in a knife fight. Complete overkill.

 Filch wrote:
T10 can be bypassed by dark eldar poison shootingshooting and plague knives poison.

The whole point in taking a sh is to abuse the str D weaponry.

SH are like a bazooka in a knife fight. Complete overkill.

Hardly. a BUNCH of super heavys dont even come with D weapons

Personally i like the whole demolition derby style of thunderblitzing because its fun. but that requires a lot of maneuvering

Its mostly for the immune to tables rules and the large amount of HP.

 Filch wrote:
T10 can be bypassed by dark eldar poison shootingshooting and plague knives poison.

The whole point in taking a sh is to abuse the str D weaponry.

SH are like a bazooka in a knife fight. Complete overkill.

Super Heavies are pretty fragile for their point costs.

You probably had a bad experience because you didn't bring enough to deal with one. Thats not a valid reason for wanting to change their rules.

The super heavy rules are fine, its some individual Super Heavies which have problems. For what its worth, Knights are an army that either wins big or loses big. They're really best when taken singly in another army. Just them alone either steamrolls the enemy or they flop horribly.

I've never really had an issue with Superheavies in any game I've played. As a Lord of War choice, running a superheavy is a fairly decent choice, as you're still sacrficing a lot of your list to put something in that can really spam D weapons.
(Warhounds and the Transcendent C'tan, for example)

The new 7th ed book has balanced D weapons a bit more now too, with total gibbing being on a 6 now instead of a 2+.
My main issue has been facing armies that simply abuse psychic powers.

Shooting a giant vehicle with haywire/glancing hits until it explodes is one thing, trying to kill a 2++ rerollable buffed unit tearing through your ranks is another entirely.

The problem isn't inherent in superheavies, most of them are fair for their points. The problem is in the Knights detachment that lets you run an army of all Knights and that's only a problem because it's a skew list that makes games unwinnable for one side or the other depending on how much effective AT the Knights' opponents have.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The problem isn't inherent in superheavies, most of them are fair for their points. The problem is in the Knights detachment that lets you run an army of all Knights and that's only a problem because it's a skew list that makes games unwinnable for one side or the other depending on how much effective AT the Knights' opponents have.

^^ This.

I've never faced an ALL knights list, but I'd assume it'd be pretty annoying for both sides. I can only plan my lists accordingly, and normally that entails ranged massed firepower to glance them to death, or power fists or some other such hunter units that can't be singled out easily for knights.

My knight pretty much always dies, due to my opponents running at least 2 or 3 melta combinations. On their own SH are fine, I'd just say limit who you play against if they decide to run a knight spam list.

That said, if I ame up in a pick up game and found that list, I'd fight it anyway as a matter of priniple. I enjoy playing 40k more than winning 40k, and I certainly enjoy a challenge.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Filch wrote:
T10 can be bypassed by dark eldar poison shootingshooting and plague knives poison.

The whole point in taking a sh is to abuse the str D weaponry.

SH are like a bazooka in a knife fight. Complete overkill.

Super Heavies are pretty fragile for their point costs.

You probably had a bad experience because you didn't bring enough to deal with one. Thats not a valid reason for wanting to change their rules.

The super heavy rules are fine, its some individual Super Heavies which have problems. For what its worth, Knights are an army that either wins big or loses big. They're really best when taken singly in another army. Just them alone either steamrolls the enemy or they flop horribly.

How about you fight 2 imperial knight titans Allied into a AM army with your take all commers list at 1000. Only AM guard are prepared for that.

If you think that's easy try Fighting at 750 against a minimal cad tax army with a imp knight ally!

 DarknessEternal wrote:
The problem with superheavies is Destroyer weapons.

The disease is Destroyer.

No, Destroyer weapons aren't a problem. Fit a Superheavy with a Destroyer CCW, and nobody cares. Destroyer is not the problem.

Destroyer BLASTs are the problem.

And then, only because they're somewhat undercosted.

If the Warhound's Turbolasers removed the Blast effect entirely, there would be no issue.

Oohhh, you can kill 1 vehicle, or 1 model per turn. No big deal.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:
a BUNCH of super heavys dont even come with D weapons

Indeed. Of the Imperial Guard Baneblade / Shadowsword family, only the Shadowsword has a D gun. Is the Shadowsword broken? Nope. For the points, extra sponson Baneblades are better!

 Grey Templar wrote:
The super heavy rules are fine, its some individual Super Heavies which have problems.

This. There are only two things that need to be done about superheavies:

1) Rebalance the small number of overpowered ones (ctan, d-weapon titans).

2) Impose a "little things don't work on big things" rule like a lot of Apocalypse games used to use. Any psychic power/buff/debuff/etc (other than attacks with strength values) that does not explicitly state that it works on superheavies/GCs can not be used on them. So no more superheavy transports full of repair units, no invisible titans, etc. All of those buffs are designed to be fairly priced when applied to a 100-200 point unit, and become way too powerful for their cost when applied to a 500+ point unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If the Warhound's Turbolasers removed the Blast effect entirely, there would be no issue.

Or if it just had an appropriate point cost with the turbolasers. You get four times the firepower of a Shadowsword for 50% more points, which is blatantly overpowered. And the other guns are twice the firepower of the Baneblade equivalent, for the same 50% increase in point cost. If you make the d-weapon versions of the Warhound and Revenant cost 2000+ points like they should then the problem is fixed. You won't be able to use them in smaller games at all, and in larger games they won't have such ridiculously high firepower for their cost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Filch wrote:
If you think that's easy try Fighting at 750 against a minimal cad tax army with a imp knight ally!

Bring a flyer, automatically win because the knight can't even attempt to attack your flyer and the tax units have no real hope of killing it before they're removed from the table. Or just don't play at 750 points since you'll have the same problem with the IG player who brings a minimum HQ + troops and 2-3 LRBTs.

 Filch wrote:


How about you fight 2 imperial knight titans Allied into a AM army with your take all commers list at 1000. Only AM guard are prepared for that.

If you think that's easy try Fighting at 750 against a minimal cad tax army with a imp knight ally!

So by your argument, Battle Sisters are broken because a 750 point game against a knight + cad tax army is basically a free win?

 Filch wrote:

How about you fight 2 imperial knight titans Allied into a AM army with your take all commers list at 1000. Only AM guard are prepared for that.

I've got a batrep of footslogging orks vs double IK 1250 pt battle. Even without maelstorm and with horde-penalising timeshield, orks managed to pull a draw. If not for the timeshield and if it had been maelstorm, i'm pretty sure i'd have an upper hand via board controle.
Here's a link if you're interested:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

So by your argument, Battle Sisters are broken because a 750 point game against a knight + cad tax army is basically a free win?

SOB are broken. Even their name "SOB" represents te grief of their opponents.

I would do what has been mentioned as far as properly balancing the super heavies...

I'd also expand 40k such that there is no such thing as a "standard game". Introduce a more tiered system with a completely different army selection which is tiered such that typical small games would have a more limited army selection system with larger games being more open and also have more scenario-specific army selection methods.

Nope, I think Super heavies and models the size of a children should be welcomed in a small point battle and the table top. I had to face apocalypse level stuff 6 years ago from 500-1500pts and so should everyone else. This time I can stop complaining and ally in a few Imperial Knights or what ever super heavy I want to fight back. I did not get the luxury of affording any super heavies back then or had the know how and time to scratch build. You can thank all the people who advocate super heavies as not being too overpowering, WELCOME TO WH40K! EAT MY STRENGTH D!!!