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I was having a discussion of grav with a friend, and one of the issues we identified with it was the fact that grav is AP2, with up to 5-6 shots depending on platform. It's right now the best weapon in the SM armory, completely supplanting plasma, heavy bolters, and lascannons in some places. Thus, I propose that grav weapons become AP-.
Fluffwise, the wound on armor save still reflects the increased ease of causing damage to more massive targets, but it doesn't have the cutting force that penetrates armor. Heavy armor is partially designed to resist crushing forces anyway, so it should be able to resist local gravity fields. Gameplay-wise, it becomes the space marines version of "poison", and while still a useful weapon does much less damage overall making other options something that are worth considering.

Thoughts?

Are you an eldar player?

Yeah it's usefulness is entirely dependent on your opponent, so if you max out on them, and find yourself up again nids, guard, dark eldar, harlequins, orcs etc them you won't be taking much off the table, whereas plasma cannons would be shredding. I don't have a problem with them as they are.

No, I think I like having a heavy weapon that isn't complete and utter toss for once, thank you very much.

 JamesY wrote:
Yeah it's usefulness is entirely dependent on your opponent, so if you max out on them, and find yourself up again nids, guard, dark eldar, harlequins, orcs etc them you won't be taking much off the table, whereas plasma cannons would be shredding. I don't have a problem with them as they are.

Personally I think weapons that skew the game so much towards matchups are a bad thing. YMMV though.

Grav should really be ap3

Grav is designed to be nastier the heavier armor it targets. Making it more likely to wound but unable to penetrate armor makes it equally good/bad against all targets, which is clearly not the intent.
ie; this seems silly and like it's entirely missing the point of the weapon type as designed.

it actually bothers me more that they have no effect on buildings and such reduced effect on vehicles. I'd rather see that whole section replaced with "this weapon also has the Armorbane special rule."

I'd suggest reducing the volume of fire. My main complaint with grav is that a single grav-cannon stands a pretty good chance of crunching a T6, W5, Sv 3+ MC in one volley, and two almost surely will.

Make grav-guns Salvo 1/2 (but 24" vice 18" range), and grav-cannons Salvo 2/3 with their existing range, and that's probably OK, though with some cost reduction for grav-cents. (Also, all grav-cannons also having a grav-amp is a bit much)

I'll concede they're nigh useless against 5+ and worse saves, and plasma or heavy bolters (or heck, even storm bolters) are good options there. But one tac squad being able to have a reasonable chance of dropping a Wraithknight, Trygon Prime or similar in one round of shooting seems a little much. Though admittedly, you've gotta be at 18" range to /do/ that, and the odds are somewhat below 50/50, but you almost certainly have something else that can knock the last wound or two off (some lascannons or meltaguns, surely?)

No, because 2+ armor MCs exist. As long as they are in the game, grav needs to be largely the same. The grav cannon is a bit over the top, though. Maybe salvo 2/4.

Nerfing grav to AP 3 won't make 2+ armor infantry any less awful than they currently are, because of cheap plasma and melta equivalents splashed all over the game. And, of course, scatterbikes brute force through 2+ trivially by causing wound counts in the 40s.

The grav gun is also one of the few things that let the BA hang on by their fingernails against good lists.

Or, if 2+ armor is what you're worried about, cannonbikes, which are almost as scary. (Cannons average almost twice as many wounds to a Riptide as lasers - but against anything with good invulns, the scatter lasers win.)

Marines absolutely need a way to deal with 2+ armor MCs, other than just plasma/lascannon, though. (Not so Tau - they can throw enough AP1/2 around to compensate).

The whole grav thing is why I don't think the Riptide or DK should exist, because it makes grav necessary.

Ah, yeah, that's a good point. Marines do have fairly decent ways of dealing with 3+ armor MCs, no, or is Nidzilla still a sticky problem?

Funny aside - someone in my local group proposed an alternative Riptide that would cut back the rage a little:

WS1 BS3 S5 T5 W3 A1 Ld8 Sv 4+, Jet Pack Infantry, 195pts

Nova Reactor: as normal, but on a failure, take a hit at Strength: D AP1 at -1 on the destroyer chart that counts as S4 for the purposes of ID.

The tradeoff - has a 4++ instead of 5++, alway jetpacks 3d6, nova-charged HBC loses Gets Hot.

I think that's too far down, but not bad.

jade_angel wrote:
Ah, yeah...

Funny aside - someone in my local group proposed an alternative Riptide that would cut back the rage a little:

WS1 BS3 S5 T5 W3 A1 Ld8 Sv 4+, Jet Pack Infantry, 195pts

Nova Reactor: as normal, but on a failure, take a hit at Strength: D AP1 at -1 on the destroyer chart that counts as S4 for the purposes of ID.

The tradeoff - has a 4++ instead of 5++, alway jetpacks 3d6, nova-charged HBC loses Gets Hot.

It can have 3+ armor. That's fine. 3+ armor is already making it very vulnerable to scatterlasers and poison rounds. 2+ armor on something that is already T6 W5 is just crazy.

A Gravity gun really should just be a STR or T test or die weapon.

Thats my personal opinion of it.

But I like ap2 on it thank you. i like my heavy weapons to actually do something.

 Desubot wrote:
A Gravity gun really should just be a STR or T test or die weapon.

Thats my personal opinion of it.

But I like ap2 on it thank you. i like my heavy weapons to actually do something.

That's a major problem with marine heavy weapons. You fire them, and then nothing happens to your opponent.

It'd have to cost a fair bit more, though... I mean, a 15-point weapon that can scratch an entire unit of three Talos or Carnifexes in one volley is severely nasty. Then again, that's about equivalent to giving it "ID on a six", as long as it allows cover/invulnerable saves.

Anything that can scratch a multi-wound model with no saves allowed in one hit is really powerful - look at the rage over Wraith{guard,knight} D weapons - which would be my concern with that version.

jade_angel wrote:
Ah, yeah, that's a good point. Marines do have fairly decent ways of dealing with 3+ armor MCs, no, or is Nidzilla still a sticky problem?

Funny aside - someone in my local group proposed an alternative Riptide that would cut back the rage a little:

WS1 BS3 S5 T5 W3 A1 Ld8 Sv 4+, Jet Pack Infantry, 195pts

Nova Reactor: as normal, but on a failure, take a hit at Strength: D AP1 at -1 on the destroyer chart that counts as S4 for the purposes of ID.

The tradeoff - has a 4++ instead of 5++, alway jetpacks 3d6, nova-charged HBC loses Gets Hot.

I think that's too far down, but not bad.

As someone who passionately hates Riptides: why would anyone ever take one with that profile? It'd be awful.

Martel732 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
A Gravity gun really should just be a STR or T test or die weapon.

Thats my personal opinion of it.

But I like ap2 on it thank you. i like my heavy weapons to actually do something.

That's a major problem with marine heavy weapons. You fire them, and then nothing happens to your opponent.

One-shot weapons are unreliable in general. Look at how many Hammerheads you don't see, for example, even though S10 AP1 should, in theory, crack dang near anything. Same story with Fire Prisms. Trouble is, more shots start adding up really fast. It's kind of a hard balance point to hit, and I'm not sure anyone's codex really does hit it.

Martel732 wrote:
2+ armor on something that is already T6 W5 is just crazy.

Nids had 2+ armour on T6, W5 before it was cool.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

jade_angel wrote:
Ah, yeah, that's a good point. Marines do have fairly decent ways of dealing with 3+ armor MCs, no, or is Nidzilla still a sticky problem?

Funny aside - someone in my local group proposed an alternative Riptide that would cut back the rage a little:

WS1 BS3 S5 T5 W3 A1 Ld8 Sv 4+, Jet Pack Infantry, 195pts

Nova Reactor: as normal, but on a failure, take a hit at Strength: D AP1 at -1 on the destroyer chart that counts as S4 for the purposes of ID.

The tradeoff - has a 4++ instead of 5++, alway jetpacks 3d6, nova-charged HBC loses Gets Hot.

I think that's too far down, but not bad.

As someone who passionately hates Riptides: why would anyone ever take one with that profile? It'd be awful.

As a Tau player, I wouldn't, at 195 points, but maybe at 135. I kinda want something in my army with a weapon that can do what the nova-charged HBC does (and yes, I know I'm weird for not preferring the ion pancake puker), and a bit of variety over "Fire Warriors and Crisis Suits", but I do feel fairly bad playing Riptides anymore.

I have two, but seldom run more than one. Heck, even Broadsides earn dirty looks...

Broadsides shouldn't because Necrons, Eldar, and now SM hav e so much worse.

Grav's not really much of a problem. - signed my buck-ass naked demons.

Grav weapons are supposed to be using the target's armour against them so it should be worse at getting through the heaviest?

That does not sound right.

Charistoph wrote:
Grav weapons are supposed to be using the target's armour against them so it should be worse at getting through the heaviest?

That does not sound right.

You should see the 40k technology thread

 Desubot wrote:
A Gravity gun really should just be a STR or T test or die weapon.

Thats my personal opinion of it.

But I like ap2 on it thank you. i like my heavy weapons to actually do something.

I would like it with a flat To Wound rate ala Poison, that gets better the Bulky-er a target is.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
A Gravity gun really should just be a STR or T test or die weapon.

Thats my personal opinion of it.

But I like ap2 on it thank you. i like my heavy weapons to actually do something.

I would like it with a flat To Wound rate ala Poison, that gets better the Bulky-er a target is.

JA based on Bulky to MC and so on. so they dont really lose there purpose.

Why must you attack the one weapon in the IOM that can compete with eldar weapons?

The few times I've faced grav weaponry, I haven't really had a big problem with them. They're good against most MCs and against terminators and such, but that's their job. Only hurting my vehicles on a 6 is a merciful downgrade from plasma in my eyes, and most of my infantry has 4+ or 5+ armor.

It seems to me that grav should only really be a problem against marines (what isn't good against marines?) and armies that spam those especially problematic MCs everyone complains about. Even tyranids seem like they shouldn't get hit all that hard by grav weapons between the high number of wounds on many TMCs, their easy access to shrouded, and the prevalence of flyers.

Well, grav cannon devs, or tri-grav tacticals move way up the list of dangerous targets, for a Tyranid player. Most Tyranid MCs still have a 3+ (only the Harpy, Hive Crone and Tyrannofex don't, IIRC), so grav hurts, and 20 shots pretty much scratches one unit per turn.

I'd be thinking about taking an Exocrine in a Tyrannocyte just to handle that case.

The problem with grav-cannons is that their rate of fire is so ridiculously high that it doesn't just outmatch lascannons and plasma guns, but it does a decent job at antipersonnel as well.

A Grav-cannon with it's built-in grav amp still kills ork boyz, termagants and daemons and guardsmen faster than a heavy bolter, and can fire on the move far more effectively, but can turn around next turn and incinerate gargantuan creatures and tanks.

It's essentially the same as the 4th edition space marine codex - AKA "how many assault cannons can I put in my army because they're just strictly better than everything else" - which is largely responsible for Rending getting the nerf bat applied to it - which in turn went a long way to making Genestealers bloody useless.

I don't have a problem with the grav-cannon's rules. But I really wish it had a lower rate of fire, and I really, really dislike the fact that a devastator's version also includes the grav-amp. If the grav-cannon with grav-amp replaces a twin-linked heavy weapon on centurion warsuits and land raiders, how the hell is it man-portable