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 Desubot wrote:

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
There needs to be some counters to it,

The counter was for it not to be played outside of Apoc.

But, I loves me some giant models in 40k. Apocalypse takes too long, having bigger models with higher point totals let's me get a 2000 point game in in under 3 hours. Bonus for a second shift dad with limited gaming time!

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Grav weapons need to be a threat, if they are not then people won't need fear anything on the table with certain units. The moment a unit becomes "auto take" the game and meta break down. The primary reason I think we see grav so prevalently in the tournament scene is horde armies are unpopular due to time restrictions. My local meta includes swarm nids, Ork trukk boys, imperial guard, and renegades. I've never seen people spam grav because there iis a serious chance it will do nothing. Grav seems powerful, but only because everyone refuses to not take things it is REALLY good at killing.

The reason people do spam grav/melta/high str shooting, is because in order to handle hordes, you grab a thunderfire cannon, whirlwind, templates, anything with decent amounts of shots of any strength... and hordes go away. And usually working anti-horde into a list consists of paying 200ish points to never have to worry about large amounts of cheap bodies.

Ironically grav further invalidates the much loved but never played terminator armies that everyone seems to have, because their weight of fire and AP2 makes terms turn into a liability rather than a strength. Well... maybe if terminators could be kitted with grav weapons people would take them...

Wraith Knights are undercosted. We know this to be true.

Tyranids big bugs are overcosted. We know this to also be true.

I've never really had an issue with grav, but then I don't have wraith knights or a ton of 3+ armor in my eldar army, and almost no such armor in my dark eldar/harlequin forces. On paper, I don't really have an issue with grav weapons being effective against GMCs for the same reason I don't mind fleshbane being good against them. I do, however, feel that the costing and abilities of various superheavies a lot, due largely (I imagine) to the relative newness of their inclusion in normal 40k. If wraith knights weren't a fraction of the cost of 'nid GMCs while being considerably more effective, we might have an easier time agreeing on the costing of things that are good against them.

That said, the rate of fire on grav weapons does seem a bit odd to me, especially compared to other marine options. How would marine players feel about lowering the cost of grav, but also lowering the rate of fire on it?

Of course, I personally would like to see everything marinerelated get better and more expensive to make them feel more "elite," but that's just me.

yep, deathwing terminators vs grav....that'll work out great.

a 10 man grav dev sqd churns out 20 grav shots at 280pts, will kill 10 terminators in one round of shooting (and I'm not even factoring in bolter shots..just grav). That's 400pts of deathwing without upgrades. In one turn.

Agreed. That's more my issue with Grav weapons. I don't mihd them being good at killing big monsters so much, because I don't mind there being a 'monster-killer' class of weapons in the same way that meltaguns are tank killer weapons.

The problem is that the monster killer weapon used to be plasma - its strength wasn't quite high enough to punch out battle tanks, but enough that T5-T7 was a reasonable ask and the 2+ or 3+ save (which stops the Autocannons and Scatter Lasers which handle light vehicles) wasn't a problem.

Grav weapons, however, are just better at everything.
An amped Grav-cannon:

~ is better than a heavy bolter at killing guardsmen (heavy bolter does 1.6 wounds to the grav-cannon's 1.85)

~ does more HP damage to a tank than a multmelta at close range (multimelta does 1.11 HP including Explodes! results, grav-cannon does 2.05 including repeated Immobilized results)

~ is better than a plasma cannon at killing terminators (plasma cannon about 1.1 depending on the blast, grav-cannon about 2.6)

~ does more wounds to a gargantuan creature than a heavy wraithcannon (heavy wraithcannon 1.94 when you count a '6' as 9.5 wounds, grav-cannon 1.975 even assuming only a 3+ save and including feel no pain)

~ can move and fire effectively at close range

~ can be snap-fired against flyers, invisible units and in overwatch

~ has concussive to knock any target down to I1

~ Is available to all powered armoured marine units allowed a heavy weapon


The weapon's only real weakness is versus daemons, which generally have no armour plus an invulnerable save and turn up in decent numbers.

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head Iocarno. It's not that there shouldn't be a weapon that is a GMC/MC killer, it's that the weapon that fills that role... also fills (nearly) every other role. It makes marine armies heavy weapons decisions come down to "in my mix, do I want more melta, or more grav". All the other heavy weapons serve little purpose or are too specialized to be worth taking in a TAC list.

Isn't it also more expensive than most of those, and also has a 24" range as opposed to a 36" for all but the multimelta? There are drawbacks to using it, such as area denial based on range. And don't forget that in "today's meta" most infantry units that aren't space marines are toughness 3/4 with 4+ armor (fire warriors, space marine scouts, and dire avengers). The heavy bolter does better against these units at longer range than grav does, and any cover will see those numbers drop quickly. Grav is strong, but let's not go crazy here.

It scales in effectiveness as you opponent gets stronger with no cap, just like gauss, blade storm, strD, and haywire. These weapons allow a player to use models they like and still compete with giant toys, without them silver tide, footdar, and basic marines CANNOT deal with the power level of some units out there. It also makes the riptide, dreadknight, wraithknight, and nid monster mash users think twice about using nothing but the toughest models at their disposal because your opponent may actually have a counter to it. You'll notice the release of several tyranid monstrous creatures with lower saves and secondary save options (shrouded and invul saves) that have dropped since the grav weapon was introduced. That isn't a coincidence...

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Isn't it also more expensive than most of those, and also has a 24" range as opposed to a 36" for all but the multimelta? There are drawbacks to using it, such as area denial based on range. And don't forget that in "today's meta" most infantry units that aren't space marines are toughness 3/4 with 4+ armor (fire warriors, space marine scouts, and dire avengers). The heavy bolter does better against these units at longer range than grav does, and any cover will see those numbers drop quickly. Grav is strong, but let's not go crazy here.

It scales in effectiveness as you opponent gets stronger with no cap, just like gauss, blade storm, strD, and haywire. These weapons allow a player to use models they like and still compete with giant toys, without them silver tide, footdar, and basic marines CANNOT deal with the power level of some units out there. It also makes the riptide, dreadknight, wraithknight, and nid monster mash users think twice about using nothing but the toughest models at their disposal because your opponent may actually have a counter to it. You'll notice the release of several tyranid monstrous creatures with lower saves and secondary save options (shrouded and invul saves) that have dropped since the grav weapon was introduced. That isn't a coincidence...

You make some good points. Now I'm going to be a jerk and disagree with a lot of them. ^_^

Having limited range on grav isn't really that big a deal because you're generally either drop-podding it in or sticking it on a bike. Rhinos and foot marines aren't really a thing these days, at least not from what I've seen. Being more expensive is sort of outweighed by being good at everything, but there is an argument for taking less expensive, more specialized options.

Most non-marine infantry may be a 4+ save these days, but many armies are still marines. Eldar jetbikes are basically marines. Also, while infantry certainly isn't irrelevant, it often takes a back seat to things like GMCs, nasty vehicles, and so on. Grav weapons may be less effective against my dire avengers or my friend's fire warriors, but we're probably less worried about those dying than wraith units and riptides. And bolters will kill off most infantry with a 4+ save just fine.

I partially agree with you regarding grav scaling up the nastier the enemy threat is. I like the idea of grav being an efficient way to kill things off that gets better the bigger/tougher the target is. My (minor) gripe with grav is that it has enough shots to also be good at other jobs reasonably well. It's not the anti-MC gun. It's the anti-MC, anti-vehicle, anti-TEQ, anti-MEQ gun with enough shots to not be completely terrible against light infantry. Harlequins, orkz, 'nids, and daemons put a dent in its effectiveness, but 3 of those 4 are generally considered to be lower-tier armies. And those armies still have MCs or vehicles for grav to go after.

When you mention the release of Tyranid MCs with worse saves, cover saves, etc., do you mean the psychic focused witchfire guy the giant venomthrope? The first never gets taken, and the second is probably subpar. Of course, all Tyranid MCs are kind of having trouble these days except for dakka flyrants and *maybe* dakkafexes and exocrines. Those last two definitely have their downsides though. To be fair, Tyranid MCs suffer from a lot of issues ranging from being overcosted and lacking a variety of decent ranged anti-vehicle options to not having invulnerable saves or even 2+ saves (outside of the hugely expensive tyrannofex). A lot of the TMC weaknesses are internal, but grav weapons don't help their situation either.

Again, I'm not especially anti-grav. I'd like to see it become cheaper but also have fewer shots. It would still be a cost-effective terminator and MC killer, but it wouldn't be able to reliably go vehicle hunting on top of that.

The range of grav can be largely discounted due to being able to be mounted on bikes, or loaded up into a drop pod. Or just gate the cents around.

Basic marines have access to lascannons, krak missiles, and plasma, all of which do pretty well vs the big stuff. They're all cheaper than grav too. And yet they never see the table (well, to be fair I've seen lascannons mounted on top of free razorbacks lately).

The nid monsters that have been released lately were the toxicrine, which has been a resounding "meh", and the maleceptor, which was a "what were they on when they made the rules for this".

edit - Wyld you ninja

But, the delivery systems mentioned aren't the fault of grav. The main issue I have is that the man portable versions have amps. Nearly all of the complaints, and most of the data would see a serious drop if the heavy weapon version in question didn't come stock with what amounts to shred and tank hunter. Also, grav does nothing to fortifications. Counter them with a bunker and get some killing done.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
But, the delivery systems mentioned aren't the fault of grav. The main issue I have is that the man portable versions have amps. Nearly all of the complaints, and most of the data would see a serious drop if the heavy weapon version in question didn't come stock with what amounts to shred and tank hunter. Also, grav does nothing to fortifications. Counter them with a bunker and get some killing done.

Drop pods and grav bikes aren't directly the fault of grav, but grav does nasty things when mixed with them. I hear less complaints about grav pods than grav bikes though, and the main complaint about grav bikes is, again, the number of shots. Mostly I was just addressing the point about the range difference though.

But yeah. Some form of mild nerf (along with a points drop) would probably be reasonable. Again, I personally don't mind grav too much, but I can see an argument for nerfing them in some way, if only so that they aren't an obvious choice over other special weapons.

Why isn't there an option giving the opinion that a change isn't necessary?

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Grav weapons need to be a threat, if they are not then people won't need fear anything on the table with certain units. The moment a unit becomes "auto take" the game and meta break down. The primary reason I think we see grav so prevalently in the tournament scene is horde armies are unpopular due to time restrictions. My local meta includes swarm nids, Ork trukk boys, imperial guard, and renegades. I've never seen people spam grav because there iis a serious chance it will do nothing. Grav seems powerful, but only because everyone refuses to not take things it is REALLY good at killing.

To the bolded portion, you mean like Grav Guns? I understand your local meta may be different but the problem I've seen with people who are so adamant about Grav Guns is that they refuse to look at it through the eyes of an opponent who isn't playing a top tier army. My example will remain tyranids. Think of this.
"I want to take a few MC's for support but I know "so and so" is going to take x unit with grav guns and he can pretty much nullify one each every turn from outside their threat range. Oh wait the only respectable HQ I can have is a Tyrant right? So theres a free slay the warlord right there unless I give him wings in which case my opponent is going to call cheese. Alright but "so and so" knows he is facing tyranids so aside from grav weapons you can bet your sweet ass he is gonna have a bunch of flamers and barrage whirlwind squadrons to ignore any of the cover provided by my venomthropes. Well guess my swarm is pretty useless but I'll still go play for the fun of it."


The issue is the ability that one Grav squad has to force the hand of your opponent. I get that marines need some answer to wraithknights and the like, but again going back to the hierophant your choices basically boil down to: Do I sit back and just accept that it costs 1000 pts for 12 S10 AP3 shots a turn at only BS 3 and no twin link, or do I charge forward and die in a blaze of "glory" (there aren't even any explosions to make me look cool dying? sad face) and throw away 1000 points. Then get castrated by the rest of his army.

PS
Sorry I forgot the option for no change I was caught in the heat of it when making the page.

Ps Ps

How bout the idea of some sort of strength test to ignore the "wounds" caused by Grav? and no loss in effectiveness?

PS PS PS
Also thank you all for all the responses and debate its good to get so many opinions. Too bad GW passes paperwork at the same speed as the administratum of the imperium. So we have to deal with it for now.

So, you have grav guns to counter monsters, and flamers/whirlwinds to counter the swarm. Grav guns are special weapons, same as flamers. And whirlwinds are taking heavy support slots, same as grav toting devestators and centurions. So, they need to choose. There is also the fact that the swarm aspect of your army directly counters their gravguns and the monstrous creatures directly could her their flamers and whirlwinds. Now you and your opponent are trying to outplay one another with even forces because the game has balanced itself with your unit choices. If you take too much of anything, you will win hard or fail hard. Too much grav and the swarms eat you, too many low strength ignores cover and the big bugs take you down. The same applies in reverse.

So no, I honestly don't think grav needs to change.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
grav in itself isn't a bad mechanic, the biggest issue is the number of shots that can be fired. 5 from a grav cannon (which also rerolls wounds) is a little crazy. Or bikers with 3 shots each, etc. It's not the grav as such, it's the ROF that is too much IMHO.

I don't think so. Grav needs a high ROF to be a middling weapon, or else it will be terrible. A lascannon can reliably hurt vehicles and guardsmen with one shot - while it only has one, it can be counted upon to murderize a guardsman.

If a grav weapon only had one shot, or even 3 shots, it would be less good at killing a single Guardsman in the open than a Lascannon.

3 shots of grav vs a Guardsman in the open (from a Marine): 2 hits, .31 Guardsmen dead.

One shot of a lascannon vs a guardsman in the open: .66 hits, .60 guardsmen dead.

A low-ROF gravcannon is literally less reliable against a horde of guardsmen than a LASCANNON. Let that sink in for a moment.

And there is NOTHING, absolutely nothing, that is wrong with that. You should have to make choices with your weapons at the list-building phase.

 greyknight12 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
grav in itself isn't a bad mechanic, the biggest issue is the number of shots that can be fired. 5 from a grav cannon (which also rerolls wounds) is a little crazy. Or bikers with 3 shots each, etc. It's not the grav as such, it's the ROF that is too much IMHO.

I don't think so. Grav needs a high ROF to be a middling weapon, or else it will be terrible. A lascannon can reliably hurt vehicles and guardsmen with one shot - while it only has one, it can be counted upon to murderize a guardsman.

If a grav weapon only had one shot, or even 3 shots, it would be less good at killing a single Guardsman in the open than a Lascannon.

3 shots of grav vs a Guardsman in the open (from a Marine): 2 hits, .31 Guardsmen dead.

One shot of a lascannon vs a guardsman in the open: .66 hits, .60 guardsmen dead.

A low-ROF gravcannon is literally less reliable against a horde of guardsmen than a LASCANNON. Let that sink in for a moment.

And there is NOTHING, absolutely nothing, that is wrong with that. You should have to make choices with your weapons at the list-building phase.

Yeah, I dont see an issue with this at all. Neither weapon is efficient vs guardsmen, and that is no way to measure their usefulness in this game. Vs an MEQ the grav is far better, even if it were ROF 2. I just do not understand why the weapon has a higher rof than a HB or AC.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
We hear about scatbikes being so bad, but a grav bike unit with 2 grav guns and a combi-grav is far better at killing marines etc than 5 scatbikes. Both are overused imho.

", but a grav bike unit with 2 grav guns and a combi-grav is far better at killing marines etc than 5 scatbikes"

Not if they have cover.

Aren't the grav bikers more expensive anyway?

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Aren't the grav bikers more expensive anyway?

Yes, and they have shorter range and aren't as good vs AV 10/11. The range is the real killer though. And the scatterlaser is one-stop shopping. It slaughters light armor, all infantry, and most MCs.

I dont have SM codex but know that 5 scatbikes are equiv to 4 RW bikes with 2 grav and combi grav. If SM bikes cheaper, then numbers maybe equal.

 bullyboy wrote:
I dont have SM codex but know that 5 scatbikes are equiv to 4 RW bikes with 2 grav and combi grav. If SM bikes cheaper, then numbers maybe equal.

5 SM Bikers with two grav guns is the same as 5 Scatterbikes.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
I dont have SM codex but know that 5 scatbikes are equiv to 4 RW bikes with 2 grav and combi grav. If SM bikes cheaper, then numbers maybe equal.

5 SM Bikers with two grav guns is the same as 5 Scatterbikes.

Wow. Such a joke.

To me the principle factor of Grav Weaponry is that they play off of armor saves and not toughness.

So you could have a gargantuan creature with T8 and a 5+ save and Grav Weaponry wouldn't be super effective but Lascannons would. I mean... that's why Grav isn't the be all, kill all weapon that people act like it is. Grav weapons are terrible against Orks and blobbed guard. They're not fantastic against vehicles either. I think they're fine as they are.

 Dust wrote:
To me the principle factor of Grav Weaponry is that they play off of armor saves and not toughness.

So you could have a gargantuan creature with T8 and a 5+ save and Grav Weaponry wouldn't be super effective but Lascannons would. I mean... that's why Grav isn't the be all, kill all weapon that people act like it is. Grav weapons are terrible against Orks and blobbed guard. They're not fantastic against vehicles either. I think they're fine as they are.

Have you been keeping up with our argument here? We haven't, not once, said that Grav-Guns are the Be all End all weapons. We never complained our Wyches and Guardsmen were getting shredded by Grav-fire. What we are complaining about is HOW effective a Grav Gun is against Monsters. The ROF of these weapons, combined with their ability to functionally ignore toughness and being universally AP 2 on platforms which have easy access to Re-rolls all for the same cost as a Plasma Gun. If grav guns were 1/2 and cannons were 2/3 they would still be effective against Monsters, more so then a Las Cannon or Plasma Gun, but they wouldn't be able to erase a Carnifex a turn for each Centurion in the unit.


Can you give me another example of a weapon which is AP 2 with a similar rate of fire and wound rate (assuming most Mc's have a 3+ Sv)? No? Exactly, because Rate of Fire should be inversely proportional to the quality of the shot or cost a hell'a lot, but yet Grav is relatively cheap, AP 2 which a high ROF. It's hard to argue they deserve to have all this while Dark Eldar pay 15pts for a Blaster.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
What we are complaining about is HOW effective a Grav Gun is against Monsters.

A thousand times this.
Especially when you consider that a stationary grav gun (not cannon) has as many shots as a heavy bolter, and more AP2 shots than rapid-fire plasma at greater range. The fact that you can throw them with ease on relentless platforms just makes them even worse.

I guess I'm just not sympathetic to a lot of the complaints that are being voiced. Grav weapons do one thing and they do it very well. They kill things with good armor saves. But they don't help against massed infantry, things with high toughness or poor saves, or vehicles. They also don't really have stellar range.

Because that's the thing that stands out the most to me. You can have stationary Grav guns or Grav cannons and you can gun down all kinds of things but that means those units aren't taking objectives, pressing the advance, or maneuvering into a better position. And sure, you can put them on bikers but then you're shelling out hard and as soon as anyone sees Grav bikers they make sure to erase them. Combine the limited range with the speed at which some monstrous units can close with targets and you're looking at one or two salvos at most. So some people might say to just saturate them across your army but in doing so you're compromising anti-tank, anti-blob, and melee.

And comparing Grav weaponry to the weapons of a group like Dark Eldar doesn't make any sense. Sure they might not have have the ability to sling AP2 left and right but they've literally got poison coming out of their ears and they can close gaps faster than anyone. As for monstrous units just pump them full of Dark Lances or dispatch them with Eldar Rangers (because you can do that) unit they stop movin

" What we are complaining about is HOW effective a Grav Gun is against Monsters."

We need grav against monsters, otherwise they will be even more broken. 2+ armor save MCs should never have been a thing.

 Dust wrote:
I guess I'm just not sympathetic to a lot of the complaints that are being voiced. Grav weapons do one thing and they do it very well. They kill things with good armor saves.

Yes they do, and they do it very well...better than any other gun in the game. And those things generally cost significantly more than the grav gun, which can be fielded en masse now.

 Dust wrote:
But they don't help against massed infantry

The only other SM option for squads that have a choice is the heavy bolter. If it's light enough that grav sucks, then sticking with boltguns is your most economical choice.

 Dust wrote:
things with high toughness or poor saves

News flash: High toughness units generally have good saves. And even if they don't, you'd be hard-pressed to find another gun that wounds them and gets 5 shots. And cannons with amps actually aren't that bad against low saves:
6+: 1 unsaved wound
5+: 1.8 unsaved wounds
4+: 2.5 unsaved wounds
That's 5 shots at bs4, giving 3.33 hits, and those wounds are regardless of toughness. A heavy bolter gets 2 hits, and wounds at S5 against whatever toughness. For T4 it's 1.33 unsaved wounds, meaning that a grav cannon becomes more effective starting at a 5+ save. T3 gives 1.67 unsaved wounds, so a grav cannon+amp is better starting at 4+. But guess what? Bolters are AP5.

 Dust wrote:
or vehicles

A grav cannon+amp does 1 immobilized result on average to a vehicle, regardless of armor value. 2 such results wreck most vehicles in the game, and the ones they don't are AV14 meaning that a lascannon needs a 6 just to roll on the damage table. Sure, melta is generally better in this case, but grav can fill in if you need it to.

 Dust wrote:
They also don't really have stellar range

Grav outshoots plasma and melta on range, heavy bolters have more but as shown above grav is better against most targets.

Unlike say, Eldar, SM don't have high ROF troop killers. There is no scatter laser equivalent. But just because one codex is broken doesn't mean we need to break another.

 greyknight12 wrote:


Unlike say, Eldar, SM don't have high ROF troop killers. There is no scatter laser equivalent. But just because one codex is broken doesn't mean we need to break another.

But Grav weapons aren't broken. They have their strengths and weaknesses as people have been debating for four pages. If anything was broken in the new Marine codex it would be the ability to take a bucket of razorbacks for free. Not a matter of AP values or range or application or math or probability but just free. They're just there for the taking.

And I don't think the Eldar codex is broken either. If every book gets jacked up and unhinged then everyone can gut each other equally.

you can generally tell when a weapon system is broken when you see it spammed repeatedly. Scatter bikes as mentioned, marines with grav (not sure what's worse...grav cents in pod, skyhammer gravs, or biker command sqd grav...I think the latter due to the combination of stormshield)

One thing I would change in the rules regarding bikers is that a weapon carried by the biker and not mounted does not get relentless. Then a choice between plasma and grav would be more difficult...now, grav is a no-brainer...every. single. time. That = broken.
It's a gun designed to take down the toughest elements in an opponents army, and does it flawlessly at a generally cheap cost, unlike most of it's targets. That's why it makes no sense to equate to how many guardsmen it kills....feth guardsmen, these things are wrecking anything with an armour save of 3+ or better, and there are plenty of that around.

Again, I don't mind the mechanic, but it shouldn't be "easy button" easy. ROF 3 max on cannons, ROF 2 on guns. Done deal, still a deadly weapon. By all means, knock a few points of the cannon, and take away the reroll wounds...that is just silly, unless you do a single 50pt upgrade for the squad.