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 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Yaavaragefinkinman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
At which point I'd agrue you haven't read the OP, who is aggravated at how fast Grav is taking down his Tyranid Monsters. So with that as the intent from this thread, can you justify the fact Grav can gut a Tyranid army with the fact you need it to counter a single model from the Eldar codex?

Yeah, I can, because I play against Eldar and not Tyranids. And on the rare occasion when I do, they spam flyrants. No sympathy here. Tyranids are suffering because their MCs are not up to snuff against the real MCs in the game. Just as my BA are suffering because we aren't real marines with the real marine codex and have no access to Skyhammer or shield eternal, etc. Until people are forced to play with suboptimal choices in this game, I'm gaming against the best units, not the middling units. Because guess what people are going to bring? The best.

First off the debate is not about YOU and YOUR local meta it is about the game as a whole and not just tournament play WAAC either.

Who's said anything about WAAC? Tournament play and WAAC isn't the same thing, pretending it is is rather rude to those of us that like playing as strong lists as possible without cheating.

Technically nothing is "cheating" if it is in a codex but that doesn't make it right to do. Also I meant to put or WAAC my mistake they were not intended to mean the same thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Given all possible targets in the game, grav is fine. Yes, it's too good against some targets, but other targets practically require it. Not my fault.

"The issue I see coming up is that a lot of people who happen to be Necron, Eldar and SM Grav players seem to think that fun means winning all the time. "

I'd settle for not losing all the time. All the time being more than 60% for full disclosure.

"Also on a side note, the things that you are referring to as "real MCs" Are all a bunch of fething vehicles. "

Not according to our GW overlords.

I'm on that losing side with you sorry your Chapter is sub par at the moment. Would you prefer they make it a chapter tactics instead?(not sarcasm an honest question) Also the MC thing was in lore not rules obviously I know what the lunatics at GW wrote it as I've fought the models.

Look. BA have grav guns. That's all. It's LITERALLY the only weapon I have that a Riptide or WK cares about. They nerfed my poison against the WK so now I'm fethed without grav.

What BA don't have is grav cannons w/amps. And we also don't have the skyhammer formation. I understand why it sucks to play against that. But it also sucks to shoot all the original Imperium weapons at say a Riptide and accomplish nothing.

There's massive power creep and it's affecting different lists completely unequally. Most Tyranid MCs and BA are just both on the short end of the stick.

I still can't believe that there is 6 pages of arguing about grav guns against GCs, MCs, and Super heavies.

Must be a really hard life being a player who brings something that is usually naturally OP to only get it countered by basically its one and only weakness.

A smart player would change their list to include units grav would barely affect, but nah lets continue making these already tough as hell creatures impossible to kill!

greytalon666 wrote:

 Happyjew 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.

I think your math is off a bit.

Lascannon - .667 hits, .556 Wounds (2/3 hit, 5/6 Wound)
3 shot Grav - 2 hits, .667 Wounds (2/3 hit, 1/3 Wound)

A gravgun doesnt have a 2/3 wound chance against a guardsguardsman. Your mamath is wrong. 2/3 hit, 1/3 of those wound 2/9 wounds

Didn't say 2/3 chance to wound Guardsmen. I said 1/3 Wound.

Therefore
3 shots Grav, 2/3 will hit (BS 4). This nets us with 2 hits.
Of those hits, 1/3 will wound vs Guardsmen (unless they have Carapace armour). This nets us with 2/3 of a Wound.

Yes, each shot has a 2/9 chance to Wound, 3 shots equals a combined 2/3 of a Wound.

"A smart player would change their list to include units grav would barely affect,"

Losing a model to a boltgun is to embarrassing to do this.

TuddFudders wrote:
I still can't believe that there is 6 pages of arguing about grav guns against GCs, MCs, and Super heavies.
Must be a really hard life being a player who brings something that is usually naturally OP to only get it countered by basically its one and only weakness.
A smart player would change their list to include units grav would barely affect, but nah lets continue making these already tough as hell creatures impossible to kill!

Yep, carnifexes/tyrannofexes/tervigons/trygons/walkrants naturally OP. Grav is the only way to counter these threats.

 Cytharai wrote:

TuddFudders wrote:
I still can't believe that there is 6 pages of arguing about grav guns against GCs, MCs, and Super heavies.
Must be a really hard life being a player who brings something that is usually naturally OP to only get it countered by basically its one and only weakness.
A smart player would change their list to include units grav would barely affect, but nah lets continue making these already tough as hell creatures impossible to kill!

Yep, carnifexes/tyrannofexes/tervigons/trygons/walkrants naturally OP. Grav is the only way to counter these threats.

Well, they are better than most vehicles at the same price points. That can beconstrued as being OP.

Martel732 wrote:

 Cytharai wrote:

TuddFudders wrote:
I still can't believe that there is 6 pages of arguing about grav guns against GCs, MCs, and Super heavies.
Must be a really hard life being a player who brings something that is usually naturally OP to only get it countered by basically its one and only weakness.
A smart player would change their list to include units grav would barely affect, but nah lets continue making these already tough as hell creatures impossible to kill!

Yep, carnifexes/tyrannofexes/tervigons/trygons/walkrants naturally OP. Grav is the only way to counter these threats.

Well, they are better than most vehicles at the same price points. That can be construed as being OP.

Better at doing what exactly?

Not dying like little bitches.

Certainly not when it comes to Grav.

For pretty much everything else, though.

Grav is basically melta for MCs. The fact that is hoses over a ton of other units is an incredibly unfortunate side effect.

Martel732 wrote:
Not dying like little bitches.

I just don't even know where to go from there.

There are MCs to fear - mostly the Knight class MCs (WK, DK, Riptide), but are non-flying Nid MCs really that scary?

If you think Grav is bad, you should see how a beast hunter shell is against my IG.

Either way, I really don't think understand why people want MCs to be so ridiculously tough. They already have invul saves + FNP most of the time that vehicles don't even get.

There really isn't a hard counter to MC's besides beast hunter shells, mass lascannons (which suck vs horde), and D weapons.

Comparing TMC toughness to Guardsman toughness. Pretty close matchup. Also - TMC's don't have invulns, and have to rely on psychic powers going off to get FNP (if you have the proper power). And aren't krak missiles, lascannons, force weapons, any sort of high ROF weapons of any strength enough to get through T6 and a 3+ armor save?

I do understand why I want TMC's to be "tough". Cause if I walk any sort of TMC, it doesn't make it halfway across the board.

 Cytharai wrote:
And aren't krak missiles, lascannons, force weapons, any sort of high ROF weapons of any strength enough to get through T6 and a 3+ armor save?

The ROF weapons are, there just are 0 Space Marine heavy weapons outside the Grav Cannon that has more than two shots except the Assault Cannon, which doesn't have any good platforms other than possibly the Stormtalon. Thus, in order to get enough rate of fire to deal with TMC spam without using Grav, one would have to gimp one's list against other armies. Neither Eldar nor Necrons care that much about Krak Missiles, for example.

Forget about existing grav weapons for a moment, and noodle on this: what profile would a weapon have to have to be effective against MCs (and maybe TEQs) without also being devastating against most other targets?

jade_angel wrote:
Forget about existing grav weapons for a moment, and noodle on this: what profile would a weapon have to have to be effective against MCs (and maybe TEQs) without also being devastating against most other targets?

Because of the Riptide and DK, the grav gun, or something very close, is about bare minimum. Or, in other words, 18" ROF 3 Str 8 AP 2.

So basically the equivalent of ~2 plasma guns? (Or the Skitarri Plasma Caliver with +1 S?)

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
So basically the equivalent of ~2 plasma guns? (Or the Skitarri Plasma Caliver with +1 S?)

Yes, mainly because the Riptide, WK and DK exist. Get rid of 2+ armor MCs and T8 MCs and the bar gets a lot lower. I find the grav cannon excessive in general.

Does it need to be that broad?

WK is a problem, but is the T8 Wraithlord really a problem?

Similarly, Flyrants are a problem, but a Hive Tyrant on foot, kitted for CC?

I'm not sure it's quite as simple as that, either - for example, as a Space Marine player, what's scarier? A Riptide (let's say with an HBC so we take the separately-OP ion accelerator out) or a Tyrannofex?

If you're at all like me (I play SM and Eldar and Tau), you'll say the Riptide, hands down. Why? Because it has a reliable 5++, situational 3++, and usually FNP. The Tyrannofex has +1W, and it might - possibly - have Shrouded and FNP, maybe. If it does, it's almost as terrifyingly hard to kill as the Riptide. If not, well, you can kill it pretty reliably with plasma, lascannons and melta. The Riptide, not so much. Shoot it with a melta, and odds are, it shrugs that hit off. The T-fex probably takes a wound unless the 'nid player sunk a lot of effort into making it extra-survivable and successfully lit off a psychic power.

So yeah, I see why you want grav.

To me, the Wraithlord isn't such a problem because of a few things: 1) No FNP, 2) 3W vice 6W, 3) Sniper and Poison work fine and the 3+ save means they might even stick, and 4) it's pokey.

With a Wraithlord, I can kill it in 1-2 turns. A squad of Kroot might even delete one in a single shooting phase if it rolls well. Moreover, I have 3-4 turns to kill it before it crashes into my important units, usually, and if not, it's sitting back hitting me with less firepower than a Falcon. Not that Falcons aren't scary, but Marines can deal with them easily enough. With a Wraithknight, it'll take me 2-4 turns to kill one (at least) without grav, but I only have 1-2 turns before it's in melee range. Also, both its shooting options are scary, though for different reasons and to different things. So with the WK, I pretty much need to grease it the first time I get to shoot at it, or it's going to delete things with contemptuous ease. With the WL, it's brutal if it makes it into melee but I have time to deal with it, and its firepower is something I can handle for a while if need be.

(As an aside here, I have much less trouble with the Wraithknight D-cannons than I do with the Wraithguard ones... Those should have stayed S10, thank you very much, that was quite deadly enough. Maybe replace "6 to wound is instant death" with "6 to hit is resolved at Strength D except on Snap Shots".)

EDIT: I can number, really.

"but is the T8 Wraithlord really a problem? "

I wouldn't know as I haven't seen one in a long time.

nobody is talking about taking grav away, just reducing the effectiveness of a singular weapon. Talking about greasing it in one turn is so typical of the attitude toward 40K currently. Grav allows a single unit to take out hundreds of points in one round of shooting, quite easily. And talking about a wraithlord is quite laughable, grav is basically wasted on this guy.
Reduced ROF grav would still be effective at doing it's job, it just might require more than one unit or more than one turn to topple a big nasty. This seems reasonable to me. How many turns/units does it take to topple a biker command grav sqd equipped with storm shields?

" Talking about greasing it in one turn is so typical of the attitude toward 40K currently"

I can't afford to have the Riptide running around turn after turn. By the time I get grav bikers within range, it has already done a ton of damage. It needs to die in one turn for BA to have any chance.

" it just might require more than one unit or more than one turn to topple a big nasty."

It's hard to get more than one unit within range, so that's why it's like this. Or at least should remain, because I doubt GW planned it that way. Don't forget the Riptide usually has HYMP broadside buddies raining death down as well.

"How many turns/units does it take to topple a biker command grav sqd equipped with storm shields?"

That is an expensive unit that can be chipped away pretty easily with Xeno wound spam. The same thing that kills most marine lists. Stormshields look silly if you force them to make 30 regular saves.

Lemme clarify what I meant about the Wraithknight: Imperial armies very often only have a few units that can actually hurt it with more than longshot odds. It can move very fast and kill almost anything, therefore I pretty much have to kill it or risk the few units that can either being killed or tarpitted. And because the Wraithknight is so fast, I don't have much time to do it.

From my perspective, as an SM player, I wouldn't mind needing to dedicate several grav-equipped tac squads or bike squads to bringing that Wraithknight down. In fact, that's probably how it should work. I'm just agreeing that something akin to grav weapons does still need to exist.

It's the rate of fire that makes it such a problem, and my original question was about brainstorming a weapon that would serve as an MC-buster but not share the grav problem of being just better against almost everything except GEQ. (Where, frankly, bolters actually are good - a bolter does to a Guardsman what a grav-gun does to a Hive Tyrant, y'know...)


So, as a brainstorm, here's an idea:

MC-buster that's not also a TEQ-buster: 24" S5 AP4 Rapid-fire, wounds against Initiative, ID on 6, Rending. Its cannon version gets 30" range and Salvo 2/3 instead of Rapid-Fire.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, @Martel - wouldn't it make sense if there were some way to force those big MCs to take a crapload of saves? Maybe some kind of weapon that is Fleshbane but AP -, with say Heavy 8 or so, maybe with Rending?

" I wouldn't mind needing to dedicate several grav-equipped tac squads or bike squads to bringing that Wraithknight down"

The Eldar will kill too many of your squads armed thusly, making the WK unkillable. These MCs aren't in vacuums, people. Even getting a single squad into range with enough grav left is a feat against Eldar.

You do realize we're talking about grav that's not in a vacuum? There's such a thing as kataphron destroyers that get 6 grav shots at 30" range. There's such a thing as invisible cent-stars that gate around the table wherever they want.

 Cytharai wrote:
You do realize we're talking about grav that's not in a vacuum? There's such a thing as kataphron destroyers that get 6 grav shots at 30" range. There's such a thing as invisible cent-stars that gate around the table wherever they want.

Invisibility is over the top, but it is one of the few marine counters to Xeno shooting. The whole thing is messed up and out of whack. Sounds like the kataphron destroyer is a new problem unit. Add it to the pile. To make this remotely fair, you'd have to leave BA and DA with full powered grav and then nerf cents and destroyers. I don't even know where to start with that mess.

TBF Kataphrons are only a problem with Grav, their other weapon choice (Their default weapon) isn't OP, from memory it's just a 2 shot plasma cannon with less range (Kinda like Dev Cents, really).

Honestly if I was going to rewrite Grav weapons it'd probably look something like this:

Grav-pistol: The same stats. Points decrease to 10pts as long as the same happens to the Plasma pistol.

Grav-gun: Range 18"|Str *|AP 2|Heavy 1; Concussive; Graviton; The Bigger They Are...|15pts

Grav-cannon: Range 24"|Str *|AP 2|Heavy 2; Concussive; Graviton; The Bigger They Are...|40pts with Grav-amp on the Heavy Weapons List (Now available for BA and SW), 30pts on Centurion Devastators.

Heavy Grav-cannon: Range 30"|Str *|AP 2|Heavy 2; Blast; Concussive; Graviton; The Bigger They Are...|10/15pts for Kataphron Destroyers (as opposed to free, like they were before. Remember this replaces their default Plasma Culverin)

The Bigger They Are...: If the hit model is Toughness 6 or higher and suffers an unsaved wound, this weapon causes D3 wounds instead of 1.