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*pokes head in*

Mrs. Biehrellian here. I attempted to condense how many pages the V.D.R. takes up, but it's going to be an ongoing task. If anyone wants to PM me what they'd like to see in terms of ascetic, page count, font size, et cetera I'll try to take in into account as the V.D.R. gets fancied up.

The advanced races do still have to be skimmers when making immobile vehicles, the reason being that their weapon systems are usually cheaper than say imperial weapons of similar statline. If they could shave off 30 points on the platform to get two pulse lasers for dirt cheap, some people would. So, they get no discount and have the added fluff that even their stationary weapons platforms hover high above the battlefield. Even high enough that sky fire weapons don't take a penalty to fire at them.

In regards to fortifications, I'll be more explicit in the next update. Thanks for the feedback everyone! This thing is shaping up to be pretty epic

Spent some time stating out things I've had in my head for a bit. Posting for comment/math check/general discussion.

Sentinel Stone (Fortification) 165 Points




Menhir; 90 points



Ancient Menhir; Fortification 40 points



Storm Shroud; 225 points


edit; cleanup
edit; realized I omitted adding Living Metal from the listed abilities on the vehicles.

Those look sweet! I'll do the math for them later, don't have the stuff with me at work. Also, ignore the superheavy grade weapons for the eldar! I accidentally added the wrong set of stats to their chart.

In other news, occasionally I re-work units I had mathed out before to see where they stand in the current version of my V.D.R. and wouldn't you know it, the revenant is around 1000 points WITHOUT the ability to jet around. I would say it was to compensate for weaknesses in melee, but of the rumored changes to "titans" from forge world hold true that won't be an issue. The phantom still adds up fine.

How come opentopped for vehicles is a point drop? Many assaulters would have killed for an open-topped vehicle.

BTW, codex grots are ini2 - not 3.

Some thoughts looking at what I posted last night;

Several necron weapons are still missing (I used 2 above, another key one that's missing is the Flux Arc)

Technically, the Ancient Menhir is illegal, as it's "Immobile"/Fortification rather than Heavy.

I'm not seeing the Impassable trait as being available.

Also, may want to make explicit rules for "dual fire weapons" where one of the weapons is an ability. I used the TDBs to represent the old-school Eternity Gate with the Dimensional Corridor (current ability) and the Portal of Exile, only one of which could be used in a turn. This is also part of what lead me back to the following...

Even though I said I'd leave it alone, this made me believe even more that Living Metal should be a lower cost and the mcl abilities should be upped by 5-10 pts. Living metal is (mostly) is comparable to Extra Armor except in Heavies and Superheavies, where it adds IWND... so I'd price it where both of those are; 5. Even 5 points seems high given that there is no such thing as a Necron vehicle that does not have Living Metal. But, at 15 points, I was looking at this necron trademark as the pricing out an entire additional weapon system,..

Meanwhile, it's both disappointing and brilliant that you still can't get Living Metal with Extra Armor. Ignore both shaken and stirred? That'd be amazing...

The Night Shroud Bomber has AV 12, so you may want to bump the max not-heavy AV to that. (woo-hoo, 2 point range to pick from! ;-))

Meanwhile, you might consider a price break for Quantum Shields on Fortifications. There's no precedent for it (given that no one but Imperium has fortifications), but it's a super flavorful Necron thing that's currently just not worth the points with the fortifications cost for AV.

Speaking of, I assume that fortifications still purchase AV in all 3 columns (at half price). It's a little confusing and might be slightly more elegant to just add another column labeled "fortification" with the total calculation pre-completed.

On an entirely other line, and this is pure writing style, but I would put the weapons upgrades examples after the weapon upgrades list (using things that haven't been introduced yet is confusing). I'd also put the restriction on Upgrades and Additions in the block currently headed "Weapon Modification Options," as it's right by the relevant table (easy to find). Finally, you might stick to "Weapon Modifications" as the overall header, because you also talk about Weapon Upgrades which are broken down into Upgrades and Additions. All of which is nitpicking.

Anyway, as always, my $.02. Still loving this and will probably have more madness to share later...

 koooaei wrote:
How come opentopped for vehicles is a point drop? Many assaulters would have killed for an open-topped vehicle.

BTW, codex grots are ini2 - not 3.

My bad on the grots, and the open topped is a points drop, but if you look at the top of that particular chart you'll see that transports actually ADD points to be open topped (5 for the most part)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

silentone2k wrote:
Some thoughts looking at what I posted last night;

Several necron weapons are still missing (I used 2 above, another key one that's missing is the Flux Arc)

Technically, the Ancient Menhir is illegal, as it's "Immobile"/Fortification rather than Heavy.

I'm not seeing the Impassable trait as being available.

Also, may want to make explicit rules for "dual fire weapons" where one of the weapons is an ability. I used the TDBs to represent the old-school Eternity Gate with the Dimensional Corridor (current ability) and the Portal of Exile, only one of which could be used in a turn. This is also part of what lead me back to the following...

Even though I said I'd leave it alone, this made me believe even more that Living Metal should be a lower cost and the mcl abilities should be upped by 5-10 pts. Living metal is (mostly) is comparable to Extra Armor except in Heavies and Superheavies, where it adds IWND... so I'd price it where both of those are; 5. Even 5 points seems high given that there is no such thing as a Necron vehicle that does not have Living Metal. But, at 15 points, I was looking at this necron trademark as the pricing out an entire additional weapon system,..

Meanwhile, it's both disappointing and brilliant that you still can't get Living Metal with Extra Armor. Ignore both shaken and stirred? That'd be amazing...

The Night Shroud Bomber has AV 12, so you may want to bump the max not-heavy AV to that. (woo-hoo, 2 point range to pick from! ;-))

Meanwhile, you might consider a price break for Quantum Shields on Fortifications. There's no precedent for it (given that no one but Imperium has fortifications), but it's a super flavorful Necron thing that's currently just not worth the points with the fortifications cost for AV.

Speaking of, I assume that fortifications still purchase AV in all 3 columns (at half price). It's a little confusing and might be slightly more elegant to just add another column labeled "fortification" with the total calculation pre-completed.

On an entirely other line, and this is pure writing style, but I would put the weapons upgrades examples after the weapon upgrades list (using things that haven't been introduced yet is confusing). I'd also put the restriction on Upgrades and Additions in the block currently headed "Weapon Modification Options," as it's right by the relevant table (easy to find). Finally, you might stick to "Weapon Modifications" as the overall header, because you also talk about Weapon Upgrades which are broken down into Upgrades and Additions. All of which is nitpicking.

Anyway, as always, my $.02. Still loving this and will probably have more madness to share later...

OK, the living metal rule is exactly the same wording as the spirit stone upgrade to the eldar, with the addition of healing hull points on heavy/superheavy vehicles. The eldar upgrade is 10 points. If I dropped living metal to 5, it would be half the piints , but undeniably better.

Any fortifications in the game that do not have a transport capacity are impassable, and if you want quantum shielding on fortifications, just cut the points in half. Maybe add 5 to the total to give protection to the rear arc. In regards to the night shroud, there will be units (especially forge world ones) that break norms in regards to racial designs. I don't want to allow people to armor up other units that way. Maybe limit it to flyers because they can't be slow...I'll add that caveat to the next update, they can't have an armor value below 11, and any unit OTHER than flyers with an av above 11 must be heavy, superheavy, or immobile/ fortifications. What do you think?

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:

OK, the living metal rule is exactly the same wording as the spirit stone upgrade to the eldar, with the addition of healing hull points on heavy/superheavy vehicles. The eldar upgrade is 10 points. If I dropped living metal to 5, it would be half the piints , but undeniably better.

Any fortifications in the game that do not have a transport capacity are impassable, and if you want quantum shielding on fortifications, just cut the points in half. Maybe add 5 to the total to give protection to the rear arc. In regards to the night shroud, there will be units (especially forge world ones) that break norms in regards to racial designs. I don't want to allow people to armor up other units that way. Maybe limit it to flyers because they can't be slow...I'll add that caveat to the next update, they can't have an armor value below 11, and any unit OTHER than flyers with an av above 11 must be heavy, superheavy, or immobile/ fortifications. What do you think?

I totally get your point on Living Metal v Spirit Stones. Does it make sense in the framework of "this is better than that?" no, not at all. However, there shouldn't ever be a point where the living metal v spirit stones cost difference is a consideration. Neither one are on a general availability table, so a point difference is entirely in character to emphasize the difference in racial focus. I'm not nearly as familiar with the Eldar, but my understanding is that spirit stones aren't terribly common. It certainly isn't what the Eldar vehicles are "known for." My understanding of Eldar is fast, long range, and (relatively) fragile. Whereas the key for necrons is and always will be durability and dirty tricks. Reuse, Recycle, Reanimate. If it's not a freebie, Living Metal should be mandatory on all Necron vehicles (though, not fortifications because it doesn't do anything, thus I added IWND to those). Necrons are not going to move from here to there fast, but they may teleport across the distance and then just sit there soaking up hate. As was said earlier, it's racial context; the difference between adding some survivability to a glass cannon versus more survivability to a brick. It's just that's a relatively large investment of points for something that appears on every necron vehicle. Looking at the rules on vehicles it seems like those points should be going to cover higher costs on the various shenanigans they get.
Anyway, I'm sorry. I'm sure I'm coming across as argumentative, which is not my intent.

There's a big all-caps line that says Fortifications don't buy transport, which I took to mean they got it for free. Whether impassable is an even exchange, price break, or price hike there should be some comment. It should probably cost, because it keeps things from getting claimed. That's unimportant on something like the Void Shield, and probably necessary on something like my Ancient Menhir, but on anything with serious guns and armor starts dancing the line of (unreasonably) cheap immobile vehicle rather than fortification. Just compare the Menhir and the Ancient Menhir. I created the Ancient because I wanted a way to get that ability on the table first turn (ie; drop pod assault), but the fact it's half the price for identical stats is a problem. It suggests that Impassable should not be available with weapons (which is most likely), that it should cost something like 200% of weapons cost (preventing anything too ugly), or that it should return armor values to normal costs (which is the big cost break). The Void Shield is the only impassable fortification I know of; it has no weapons and its benefit is side-agnostic, so...

let me run some numbers on the quantum shielding, but that sounds like a reasonable ballpark.

I figured that the Forge World thing was part of the problem for the Night Shroud/AV11+, but that seems like a solid solution all around as the variables involved (size v max armor/speed) should keep things reasonable.

I'm not nearly as familiar with the Eldar, but my understanding is that spirit stones aren't terribly common.

Maybe as a vehicle upgrade/rule, but fluffwise all Craft World Eldar and "wraith" units have/wear spirit stones. They capture the Eldar's sould upon death. All the Wraith units are piloted by the soulds of departed Eldar.

Quantum Shields I'd go with 15 pts base, plus a 5 point full round upgrade. (a little less than half the cost of the current upgrade, a little more than half the cost of buying the actual armor.)

 adamsouza wrote:

I'm not nearly as familiar with the Eldar, but my understanding is that spirit stones aren't terribly common.

Maybe as a vehicle upgrade/rule, but fluffwise all Craft World Eldar and "wraith" units have/wear spirit stones. They capture the Eldar's sould upon death. All the Wraith units are piloted by the soulds of departed Eldar.

Went and dug up the Eldar book. For the fluff, while you're right that eldar craft have spirit stones, the ones described in the Spirit Stones upgrade are "large spirit stones with a captive animus which can control the vehicle should it be disabled," which don't sound like the typical "every eldar has one" spirit stones.

Meanwhile, purely mechanical; looking at the benefit it grants I wouldn't say Living Metal is at all better on non-heavy/superheavy vehicles. Living metal guarantees the least penetration effect never happens. The percentage of the time that the Spirit Stones allow that effect (~17%) is less than half the percentage it gets to ignore the next value on the penetration table (~50%). Then, on heavy and superheavy it adds a weakened version of IWND (~17% chance v normal 33% chance).

Meanwhile, back to the "price breaks for limited options" Necrons do not (and should not) have anything similar to Vectored Engines, Star Engines, or the Crystal Targeting Matrix, let alone the sheer reach of weapons (a substantial number of which out-range all but the biggest Necron guns), or move speed. All of these things substantially increase the threat range of the Eldar compared to Necrons, who then need to compensate.

OK, I see you guys' points on these. Dropping it to 5 points shouldn't be too big a deal. And, ignore my post above about revenants. I realized today that I used the same overpriced superheavy weapons I accidentally added to the list.

I really need to throw out old worksheets

PS, totally derped out on the gauss flux arc. I'll add it to the list later, possibly this weekend.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, you can still claim any building with battlements. The only buildings that are unclaimable are the vengeance weapons batteries. Maybe make any impassable building without battlements have to use the rules for those, in regards to its guns. What do you think?

I don't have the rules handy, but the only concern I have about claiming by battlements is whether that requires a jump/jump pack to access... (ie; aren't battlements normally only accessible from "inside?") If not, that works perfectly.

I'd also make Living Metal mandatory on all Necron Vehicles (and, for similar reasons though there's no precedent, IWND on Necron Fortifications).

On a "not reducing costs for things note," I think you shorted the Flayer Array by 5-10 points on cost. It currently costs 4 Flayers rather than the 5 it has.


edit; apparently I really like to end posts with a "meanwhile" sentence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The impassable/battlements for claiming thing would be very dependent on size; a fortification more than 6" tall would prevent moving straight to the battlements preventing claiming in that manner. How about an Impassable Fortification which has weapons must be a Small building and may not be modeled more than 5" tall.

I didn't expect people to want me to INCREASE the gauss flayer array! I'm also thinking about including the living metal for free, but adjusting points for their weapons. When I first started rolling the points around for necrons, it didn't occurs to me that the system may be free, but the weapons more expensive. I had just assumed the weapons would be cheaper and the upgrades were where the points were made up.

Also, I don't want to limit modeling limits any more than I already have. If your opponent didn't bother to bring anything with the jump pack, jetpack, jetbike, skimmer, infiltrate, or deep strike rules (which all could be used to claim the building) or don't have any heavy weapons to simply destroy it, that really is their problem. Don't forget that these rules are even MORE dependent on enemy approval than normal 40k rules. If they really have no answer for your creation, add an access point, let them get up there despite height limitations, any number of workarounds on the fly or added beforehand can make your game more fun.

Don't forget the rule of cool, that should always be the number one rule for these models. Being cool also should include how people describe how the model operated in game

Realizing that the array, with an additional ability, cost less than just buying the flayers gave me an OCD twitch you would not believe. Every time I look at the codex gauss weapons list and see blasters that are rapid fire and the flux arc that's heavy I die a little.

I still think that, rather than the weapons, it's the extra abilities that are being underpriced. As much as I've pushed the Living Metal price drop, the Eternity Gate should cost at least what a Comms Relay does. There are more vehicles with strategy-altering goofy rules than pure shooty ones in the Necron force. Even the big gun is, essentially, a type of strategy shaping gimmick because it's so different than everything else in the codex, and I think that's by design.

Random aside, it does make me sad that you limited invasion beams to non-hovering fliers. Instead I'd make its cost equal to the vehicle's listed max transport size, but also give it the extra rule that there is no limitation on transport capacity that can be purchased for the vehicle (night scythe exceeds the listed by-size limitation).
Of course, then making a little blue box with unreasonably high transport capacity might be too fun... (immobile, heavy, deep strike, give it the night shroud "return to reserves" ability for the shroud's price...)

I totally get what you're saying about not making modeling limitations, this is all about the rule of cool. I just like rules sets to not have loopholes, and that feels like a loophole. I'll have to ponder that some.


edit; removing automatically appended double post.

Like I was saying before about impassable buildings without battlements, there is only one in the game currently, it can't be fired manually, only has one gun, and HAS to shoot at the nearest enemy unit. I will be putting those limitations in place with the next update.

I actually appreciate you guys picking this thing apart, that's why I have a thread for it instead of simply dropping it here and walking away. Keep the feedback comming!

PS. When I next update this thing, you will see a lot of changes to the titan grade weapons. I am costing them based on their ability instead of their cost on the model. (If I followed that, the revenant pulsar would be 25 points more expensive than the double barrel turbo laser destroyer. Which has a three foot longer range with the exact same statline besides!

Costing around effectiveness, rather GW listed amounts is a good idea.

I thought so. I plan to add the games workshop price in parenthesis next to it if there is a discrepancy of more than 20 points. Don't want people to think my math is off when they are attempting to debunk my work.

There are a few minor tweaks I'd like to see, but I really like what you have here.

Skitarii shouldn't be advanced in my opinion - they do emphasize walkers and skimmers, but if you think about the Ordinatus, FW Mechanicum tanks or the fact they supposedly use Land Raiders in the fluff it makes sense that they should have tracked/wheeled ground vehicles as well.

Super-heavy fliers with 16+ HP should gain the AA Fire rule the Manta has (so they're hit on normal BS despite being a flier) but up the maximum AV to 13. (Or possibly 14, given that the Stormbird has AV14 on the front - you're the balance guy)

I'd like to see Vector Strike added to the vehicle special rules, and I'd also like to see some kind of general invulnerable save to represent various rules like the Manta's energy field or the Warlord's reinforced superstructure.

SHV maximum transport capacity should scale with # of hull points - 7 per HP seems relatively close to what you see from existing models, so I'd probably go with that. It puts the Manta at max 210 models vs the 200 model capacity it actually has.

I also think you should make the SHV cost per hull point 33 (rather than 100 for 3) because there are vehicles that don't have a multiple of three HP. The tiny number of points you'd save is inconsequential.

All superheavy vehicles have multiple of three hull points, they translated over the structure points system from the older books.

I was deliberately trying to keep clear of too many abilities that only singular vehicles get (such as vector strike and the manta ability) because it is really hard to extrapolate the points for those abilities due to lack of cross reference.

I'll try to add the Option for invulnerable saves. They seem to be +5 points per point of invul save, max 4+. Shouldn't be too hard actually!

You're probably right on the admech, I'll drop that in the next update.

Anything else? I just finished up everything you guys mentioned before the last post, loving the feed back!

I added in the ability to buy singular hull points for superheavies, and increased the limit for transport capacity on superheavy vehicles above 21 hull points. I added in vector strike and a generic invulnerable save, and added the giant flyers being easier to hit while also being allowed heavier armor. I should.be able to post the latest version up tomorrow morning, do you guys have anything else for me?

Edit: VDR updated!

Ok guys, this will be the last update for a while. I'm going to take a hiatus for about a month an let this thing get some serious play testing in.

In regards to the title, I've discovered that games workshop isn't as disjointed in its costing as it at first appears. The most flagrant violators of the algorithm are
The wraithknight: no excuse for this one, they didn't seem to think becoming a gargantuan gave it that much for some reason.

Ork vehicles: they didn't specify that giving the 'are case upgrade didn't remove the assault transport rule from the vehicles.they also built the gork/ morkanaught as superheavies, then decided to weaken them. Perhaps they didn't want it competing with the stompa, or were afraid of it being a threat to the imperial knight, we can't know for sure. If they had done these things, I think Orks would be an upper mid tier codex at the very least!

Titans: I decided to use the volcano cannon to figure out the pricing of all the other large blast or higher strD instead of creating them from scratch to get my numbers closer to what games workshop was throwing around, and the results were quite interesting! The eldar titans appeared the most overpowered originally, but as it turns out they were the closest to balance of the whole bunch. The revenant sits at a weird point in its power because its weapons are long enough range to cover the board without going to excessive levels. In Apocalypse it would have to use its speed to counter the 3'+ range advantage of every other titan on the table. The imperial titans were undercosted for the most part, their weapons are so rediculously disparate in ability that I can't understand how they thought they should all be interchangeable for free.


Those are MY findings, what have you guys noticed that I didn't? Have you found any real head scratchers out there?

I won't be able to test this myself, but I wanted to put some ideas down that I had people might like to try out and to give Lythrandire a few more examples to examine if he wants them.

Dark Eldar


Orks


I'll continue to edit this and add new units.

OK guys, you've had a month to throw this thing around. I've got a points adjustment for jump and jet packs for walkers and shuffled some things around, what else is missing from my list?

Also, how are the things you've made balancing out? Any major complaints?

Edit: just looked at the super gargant, it should cost 3080 points. Each mega skorcha is 200, the multi mega lobby is 289, and the suped up deffstorm megashoota is 106. The hull points are 800, the armor is 80, 50 Ork assault transport is 100 and the two base melee attacks are 6. I rounded down one point because reasons

I just found this. I'll be tooling around with this. I remember the 3rd ed VDR when they came out. crazy stuff. I may have the chapter approved laying around somewhere.

Time to build a throne for my Dark Apostle.

 Fallenbourne wrote:
I just found this. I'll be tooling around with this. I remember the 3rd ed VDR when they came out. crazy stuff. I may have the chapter approved laying around somewhere.

Time to build a throne for my Dark Apostle.

Spread the word my friend! The more people see this thing, the better it will get. Let me know if you see any glaring imbalances or discrepancies not listed here

Edit: just as a heads up, I am going to build a monstrous creature section of this thing. I am going to ignore the apparently separate ways games workshop utilises to make them and go with a straight vehicle to monster translation. Tyranid monsters should see an increase in capability with the new system, daemons will be a crapshoot, every other monster should line up pretty well though.

What do you guys think?

Almost done, anyone have any other suggestions for this thing?

Yeah I have a bit of a weird request. Could you translate the durability of vehicles into MC form?

I'm considering removing the hull point system from 40k entirely and just moving to a straight Toughness based system with vehicles just having special rules (like Vehicle letting them ignore poison, but weapons with the armorbane or melta rule working like a poison 3+ against them)

Like what Toughness and armor save would a rhino be? A Land Raider?

You will be able to math it out with my new system, the answer to the two mentioned is
Rhino: toughness 6, 3+ armor
Land raider: toughness 9, 2+ armor
And dreadnaught (because why not) toughness 7, 3+armor.

Should be an exciting update

That seems a little.... undercosted if they retain their previous point values.

35 pts for a 3 wound T6 3+ creature?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I could see it being T5 4+ maybe instead?

It isn't a monstrous creature, it has no attacks in melee, no smash special rule, only a single storm bolter for offense. You can't look at them as monstrous creatures if all you're doing is translating survivability.

If you look at the points for a rhino for survivability, the armor value is only making up 10 points of the vehicles total. Look at how things are going to damage it, bolt guns and lasguns will wound it now on a 6+, it will ignore 2/3 of those, but was immune to them on front and side before. Now ap 1-3 are all a problem for it also. When you look at the actual math, it works out pretty well