Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've seen alot of discussion on how the Imperial Guard need to be fixed, and there is plenty of valid comments going around there, but I wonder if its not more the underlying core rules that are the problem. Specifically Vehicles. Even more specifically, non-Skimmer (ie non-Jinking) vehicles. Since the Guard tend to have a strong focus on vehicles, if the Vehicles rules were to be looked would the current codex fall into line? Here's some suggestions - not all of them might be needed, but maybe a combination of some.

Overwatch: Vehicles can fire S5 or lower weapons at a target that declares Overwatch against them. Note that Line of Sight restrictions still apply to Overwatch as normal for a Shooting Attack.
One of the biggest weakness of non-Walker Vehicles is their huge vulnerability to assault, and this might be a way to mitigate that. Assault units can avoid arcs of fire to lessen the impact of overwatch, rewarding good movement by the Assaulting Player. S5 restricts to mainly anti-infantry weapons, so no shooting high strength/low AP stuff in overwatch. Tau can already do this with the Point Defence Targeting Relay upgrade, and could be changed to allow their vehicles to overwatch at BS2.

Heavy: Vehicles with the Heavy type ignore the penalties for firing Ordnance weapons, so long as they remained stationary in the movement phase.
This would be in addition to the current benefits of the Heavy type, and would be a way to restore some of the functionality of the Lumbering Behemoth rules for Leman Russ's. GW must have decided Lumbering Behemoth was too good, so this still keeps the downside of Ordnance if the vehicle is moving. It would also buff Monoliths.

Tank: Vehicles with the Tank type may fire 2 weapons at full BS when moving at Combat Speed. Penalties for moving at Cruising Speed apply as normal
Currently, as soon as a vehicle moves up to 6", they can only fire 1 weapon at full BS and everything else as snapshots. This change would allow Tanks to fire 2 weapons at full BS so long as they only moved up to 6". This gives a nice delineation between the various vehicle types and how they can fire weapons at full BS when moving at combat/cruising speeds (non-tanks: 1/0, Tanks: 2/0, Fast: 2/2, Heavy: All/not-applicable). This would buff all Rhino variants, Predator variants, Land Raiders, Chimera Variants, Battlewagons, Looted Wagons, Hammerheads, Devilfish and Sky Rays.

Independent Gunners: Weapons of S6 or less may be fired at different 'Secondary' targets to the rest of the Vehicles weapons. All other weapons must be fired at a declared 'Primary' target. Line of Sight is still required as normal for any target.
This is mainly to help Sponson weapons, especially on bulky models like Land Raiders or Russ', to fire at something rather than sit there uselessly (Land Raider Redeemer I'm looking at you...). It also helps with mismatched weapon loadouts on some vehicles. Monoliths already have something like this.

Glancing Hit: On a Glancing Hit, roll a d6. On a 1-3: Nothing Happens. 4-5: Crew Shaken. 6: Crew Stunned. No HP is lost, and AP modifiers apply as normal.
This is to prevent the excessive stripping of HPs, whilst still providing a noticeable impact on the vehicle - ie being forced to Snapshot and not move.

i like alot of this. My only complaint is the Glancing hits idea. Since my orks have almost zero dedicated anti tank weapons we rely on HP stripping. In fact the best way to currently deal with vehicles is to get a Nob with a PK next to it and rip it apart. my nob is S9 on the charge and S8 afterwards with a PK so I would be GLancing on 5s Penning on 6s. And if it was a disorganized charge....forget about it, only glances on 6s.

Plus the best way for me to strip HP at a distance is the Lootas with S7 weapons. Yeah we have Tank Bustas, but 24inch range kinda hurts.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
i like alot of this. My only complaint is the Glancing hits idea. Since my orks have almost zero dedicated anti tank weapons we rely on HP stripping. In fact the best way to currently deal with vehicles is to get a Nob with a PK next to it and rip it apart. my nob is S9 on the charge and S8 afterwards with a PK so I would be GLancing on 5s Penning on 6s. And if it was a disorganized charge....forget about it, only glances on 6s.

Plus the best way for me to strip HP at a distance is the Lootas with S7 weapons. Yeah we have Tank Bustas, but 24inch range kinda hurts.

You've got the disordered charge rule wrong, you still get the +1S bonus from furious charge you only lose out on the +1 attack that you normally get from charging. So it's not nearly as bad as you're making it out to be for orks in CC.

If we're going to change vehicles, just do away with vehicles altogether, and turn them into MCs with a 'vehicle' rule. This would also help with the nonsense that a largely mechanicaly construct is being treated like a biological creature, but another mechanical construct is treated like a vehicle.

So, you have one new type of unit, called...I dunno, 'Constructs', or 'That Big fething Thing'. This covers everything that is currently a vehicle or MC. Everything has a toughness value (fluffwise, call it durability, or resilience, or something), a set number of wounds (or hullpoints, or whatever you want to think of it as), and an armour save.

I hear you now screaming "But what about poison weapons? And melta? And haywire? An-" Simple. You create two new USRs. One called 'Mechanical Construct', the other called 'Biological Construct' (names subject to change). Things that have affected vehicles (Haywire, melta, armourbane) will only affect constructs with the mechanical USR. Things that affect MCs (poison, fleshbane) only affect things with biological USR.

Boom. One unit type is easier to learn, remember, and apply in game than two. Its easier to balance between things like Carnifexes and Russes, and makes a whole feth ton more sense for units like the Riptide that are affected by poison but not haywire.

But if we're talking about minor changes, yeah, OPs' ideas are solid.

 Grimskul wrote:
You've got the disordered charge rule wrong, you still get the +1S bonus from furious charge you only lose out on the +1 attack that you normally get from charging. So it's not nearly as bad as you're making it out to be for orks in CC.

He really hasn't:

Furious Charge, pg 164 wrote:{...} A model that has made a disordered charge that turn receives no benefit from Furious Charge (pg 54).

 Quanar wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
You've got the disordered charge rule wrong, you still get the +1S bonus from furious charge you only lose out on the +1 attack that you normally get from charging. So it's not nearly as bad as you're making it out to be for orks in CC.

He really hasn't:

Furious Charge, pg 164 wrote:{...} A model that has made a disordered charge that turn receives no benefit from Furious Charge (pg 54).

huh, missed that clause. My bad.

 Blacksails wrote:
If we're going to change vehicles, just do away with vehicles altogether, and turn them into MCs with a 'vehicle' rule. This would also help with the nonsense that a largely mechanicaly construct is being treated like a biological creature, but another mechanical construct is treated like a vehicle.

So, you have one new type of unit, called...I dunno, 'Constructs', or 'That Big fething Thing'. This covers everything that is currently a vehicle or MC. Everything has a toughness value (fluffwise, call it durability, or resilience, or something), a set number of wounds (or hullpoints, or whatever you want to think of it as), and an armour save.

I hear you now screaming "But what about poison weapons? And melta? And haywire? An-" Simple. You create two new USRs. One called 'Mechanical Construct', the other called 'Biological Construct' (names subject to change). Things that have affected vehicles (Haywire, melta, armourbane) will only affect constructs with the mechanical USR. Things that affect MCs (poison, fleshbane) only affect things with biological USR.

Boom. One unit type is easier to learn, remember, and apply in game than two. Its easier to balance between things like Carnifexes and Russes, and makes a whole feth ton more sense for units like the Riptide that are affected by poison but not haywire.

But if we're talking about minor changes, yeah, OPs' ideas are solid.

I like the concept of Vehicles though, since it provides variety in the type of units you encounter. The problem is the rules for Vehicles are somewhat lacking compared to Monstrous Creatures, so all I want is a way to bring them up to par against each other without fundamentally changing any core rules. Being able to bring more weapons to bear than a Monstrous Creature seems like a decent way to make the Vehicles that can't jink more viable.

What about the concept of vehicles as they stand do you like?

There would still be variety, plenty of it in fact, except the core rules governing those interactions would be streamlined. You wouldn't lose any variety by making this change. If anything, it would open up better and fluffier options for units that don't quite fit in category.

That they have facings with different armour values, have the ability to fire more weapons than non-vehicle models, have cumulative damage (ie weapons being destroyed, immobilised etc), some vehicles having options to Tank Shock or Ram etc.

If you simply made them Not-Monstrous-Creatures you'd have to write back in all those rules to the point that you'd wonder why you changed them in first place. I don't think Riptides and Dreadknights being poorly categorised as Monstrous Creatures is enough reason to throw away all the Vehicle rules.

Number of weapons fired, cumulative damage, and the ability to ram/shock are all things that should be available to every sufficiently large model.

Don't think of it as throwing away vehicle rules, but as changing the mechanics that affect all large models to be simpler, more logical and consistent in game, and more balanced to boot.

But, as I already mentioned, if you're looking for a fix that alters the core rules in the smallest way possible, your proposal is fine.