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If you've been playing 7th for awhile, you'll notice that when you want to kill vehicles, it generally makes sense to bring multishot medium-strength weapons rather than higher-strength shots with a lower rate of fire, despite the latter being nominally the "specialist" antitank weapons. HP gets scrubbed far faster and with more frequency than a high-power explosion.

While it doesn't particularly kill the game, it does lead to certain weapon setups hardly (if ever) appearing (raise your hand when you last saw Broadsides with HRRs instead of HYMPs for example).

Early thoughts as follows:

* Every vehicle gains an additional HP for every 3 HP (round up) it had. Rhinos are HP 4, Defilers HP 6, etc.

* Vehicle damage mods are +1 for AP4, +2 for AP3, +3 for AP2, and +4 for AP1. Melee adds an additional +1. Optionally (bears testing), -1 if the target is a super heavy.

* Any result of Vehicle Explodes simply subtracts an additional D3 HP from the vehicle beyond the initial HP for the penetrating hit. If the vehicle runs out of HP, it explodes like normal.

The implications are as follows, before taking penetrating hits into account:

* Vehicles are tougher versus multilaser-style weapons by a factor of 33% (or 50% if the vehicle originally had 2 HP).

* They're roughly as survivable vs AP 4 shooting before taking penetrating hits into account. While you lose HP instead of instantly dying on the spot, you lose 2-4 HP per explode. This means a penetrating hit inflicts 4/3 HP loss on average (1+(2)/6), roughly balancing out save for allowing autocannons or HYMP the chance to luck out versus a lighter vehicle.

* Vehicles are more vulnerable to high-end weapons. Lascannons inflict explodes on a 4+ instead of a 6 (1+.5 (2),
=2 HP on average) railguns and meltaguns on a 3+ instead of a 5+.

* The odds of an explosion are directly tied to how many HP have been lost. A Land Raider or Defiler will have 6 HP, so will need an average of 3 explodes results to take down. Same an Orkanaut with its 7 HP. Rather than hoping for damage lottery, you can more consistently allocate AT and math hammer the outcomes with more predictability.

Thoughts, C&C appreciated.

Hmmm. I think I like it.

But just to clarify vehicles gain +1 hp for every three they have rounding up so anything with 4 hps gets 2 more?

Land Raidrs go from 4 to 6, Imperial Knights go from 6 hull points to 8?

And I assume you mean both explodes and destroyed results do d3 hps right?

That's a neat way of handling it, MJ. It seems like it certainly does make heavier weapons better, but I'm not sure it will make people take heavy weapons over strength 6/7 spam.

HYMP, for instance, still seem like they might beat out the HRR. Most vehicles that you'dshoot a HYMP against will only have a single additional hull point to get through if you need to glance it to death, and AP 4 still has an okay chance of exploding something if you have enough shots. Plus it's still a nice monster hunter or infnatry blaster.

HYMP, scatter lasers, etc. don't generally shoot at things that will receive 2 extra HP making it kind of a moot point for them (though still relavant for dedicated AT weapons).

And thinking about specific armies, eldar lance spam or missile launcher spam doesn't seem like it's more likely to be a thing with these changes. You reward players for taking such weapons over scatter lasers, but just taking *more* scatter lasers is still a perfectly viable answer to 4 HP rhinos. Generally, eldar players are already bringing at least a little dedicated AT either in the form of strength d, fire dragons, or whatever, so I'm not sure your changes would really encourage changes to list construction. Though again, you do reward them if they *do* just so happen to really enjoy bringing lots of dedicated AT.

Plasma will kick much butt (and might possibly be a better way of explodings light transports than melta with these rules?) for human armies. I can actually see lascannons and missile launchers perhaps being taken over grav with this setup, though you don't really affect grav at all with your changes, so it doesn't become less viable.

Not that other weapons should be less viable exactly. Your changes seem to do their job, but I'm just not sure most armies will feel the urge to bring a larger number of AT shots considering that mid-strength shooting spam will still deal with light vehicles pretty well. So basically, we'd see heavy weapons being more effictive without necessarily changing the way people build their lists meaning you're just making anyone with AT weapons have a slightly more efficient shooting phase.

Not sure if that's what you're going for or not.

Something else to consider is that AT weapons will be causing vehicles to die by explodes results considerably more often which means armies that are already punished by open-topped vehicles having stronger explosions this edition will be feeling it even more.

Sounds like a cool and viable way of boosting vehicles. I'd like the AV system to be scrapped entirely myself, but seeing as that's not going to happen any time soon, this is workable too. I especially like that you've added more wounds, instead of higher AV - I believe the current focus on high Armor Saves and AV values + Invul. and FNP spam is really boring, and lets a lot up to chance, where I'd love to see toughness through Wounds and Hullpoints more. I dunno, if I have to allocate a set number of shots at one model to down it, I'd rather have it lose wounds as I play, rather than hoping that one shot might actually harm it.

E.G., with your system, it could be cool to give Knights 10 HP, but remove the Ion Shield (Or simply make it a -1 to Penetration). That would give more incentive to really blast it with all you've got, now that you know you can take wounds of off it with most heavy weapons!

Wyldhunt wrote:
HYMP, for instance, still seem like they might beat out the HRR. Most vehicles that you'dshoot a HYMP against will only have a single additional hull point to get through if you need to glance it to death, and AP 4 still has an okay chance of exploding something if you have enough shots. Plus it's still a nice monster hunter or infnatry blaster.

Ap 4 cannot explode a vehicle.

The explodes result comes in on a 7.

 Selym wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
HYMP, for instance, still seem like they might beat out the HRR. Most vehicles that you'dshoot a HYMP against will only have a single additional hull point to get through if you need to glance it to death, and AP 4 still has an okay chance of exploding something if you have enough shots. Plus it's still a nice monster hunter or infnatry blaster.

Ap 4 cannot explode a vehicle.

The explodes result comes in on a 7.

Vehicle damage mods are +1 for AP4, +2 for AP3, +3 for AP2, and +4 for AP1. Melee adds an additional +1. Optionally (bears testing), -1 if the target is a super heavy.

Ah. Missed that bit.

 The Wise Dane wrote:
Sounds like a cool and viable way of boosting vehicles. I'd like the AV system to be scrapped entirely myself, but seeing as that's not going to happen any time soon, this is workable too. I especially like that you've added more wounds, instead of higher AV - I believe the current focus on high Armor Saves and AV values + Invul. and FNP spam is really boring, and lets a lot up to chance, where I'd love to see toughness through Wounds and Hullpoints more. I dunno, if I have to allocate a set number of shots at one model to down it, I'd rather have it lose wounds as I play, rather than hoping that one shot might actually harm it.

E.G., with your system, it could be cool to give Knights 10 HP, but remove the Ion Shield (Or simply make it a -1 to Penetration). That would give more incentive to really blast it with all you've got, now that you know you can take wounds of off it with most heavy weapons!

I think the Ion Shield is an entertaining mechanic as is, but otherwise I agree entirely. Most of the reasons for the changes here have been to make the game normalize in a slightly more consistent form. I remember back in 5th when vehicles were a pure damage lottery, and 7th favors scrubbing vs single powerful shots by making that jackpot roll less common (add that said weapons like autocannons/etc tend to be cheaper...).

Making explodes easier to attain, but replacing "outright loss" to "loses d3+1 HP instead of 1" also makes it that you can tap a vehicle down to 1/2 HP before finishing it off with a larger shot...or vice versa.

I like the proposed changes here, apart from the fact that now a Fire Dragon causes an additional D3 hull points on a 2+

I understand that a LR with 6 HP can still survive that, but it would make that particular unit an even greater auto-take than it is now

one unit of Dragons could very easily nuke an IK through it's shield now, whereas before at least the shield had a decent chance to block enough hits to survive

This would go against the paradigm of scatterbikes owning everything in sight. Not allowed, clearly.

 IHateNids wrote:
I like the proposed changes here, apart from the fact that now a Fire Dragon causes an additional D3 hull points on a 2+

I understand that a LR with 6 HP can still survive that, but it would make that particular unit an even greater auto-take than it is now

one unit of Dragons could very easily nuke an IK through it's shield now, whereas before at least the shield had a decent chance to block enough hits to survive

Make a rule where you can never modify it past a 3+ maybe?

It's a 3+ already, 4+ optionally. You need a 7 to explode a vehicle anyway, and a +4 makes it a 3+. 2+ for the meltabombs...

Granted it still bears testing (whether to have a -1 damage modifier for Super Heavy vehicles, whether the extra +2 HP offset the extra explosions, etc).

Martel732 wrote:
This would go against the paradigm of scatterbikes owning everything in sight. Not allowed, clearly.

Would you kindly stop being so gorram cynical, for the Emperor's sake? You have a good point but you sound like a broken record.

Now, as to the OP's suggestions: my only complaints are that this makes AP4 slightly too good (Heavy Bolters, Assault Cannons, Tau Missiles/HYMPs - these are spam-sanders as it is), and it's slightly too good a bonus to AP1. (Consider Fire Dragons, and the fact that Adepta Sororitas Dominions can gain Ignores Cover on their meltas, or Salamanders with master-crafted combi-meltas in a Sternguard squad, say. All of these get real mean, real fast.)

So, instead I'd propose: AP3 - +1, AP2 - +2, AP1 - +3. This way, krak missiles can explode vehicles (they should be able to!), and meltas aren't quite auto-die-sticks though still really dangerous.

My real suggestion, then: get rid of the D6 system. You'll never find a satisfying vehicle system with 40K's current mathematical set up.

Now that I can actually agree with. It'd be a lot of re-work, but a D10 or D20 system would probably have enough extra granularity.

It'd take me a while to come up with a reasonable stab at actually converting the rules, though.

D100. That's about the granularity GW's been trying to get out of a D6.

Or, y'know, use the old Epic Armageddon rules. Just attach everything to movement trays, and take blocks of three baneblades as standard army composition.

Would probably solve a lot of problems.

 Selym wrote:
D100. That's about the granularity GW's been trying to get out of a D6.

Or, y'know, use the old Epic Armageddon rules. Just attach everything to movement trays, and take blocks of three baneblades as standard army composition.

Would probably solve a lot of problems.

Fantasy Flight has made that game. Several times even! Check out the 40k RPGs they put out.

Please note that, while using different die sizes is an interesting topic in its own right, it isn't directly relevant to this particular topic.

Out of curiosity MJ, why give Ap 4 weapons a +1 to vehicle damage? I can see it for things like Hydras, but aren't Ap 4 weapons generally going to be along the lines of the mid-strength-spam weapons you're trying to discourage?

Wyldhunt: Mostly for stuff like Krak Grenades, Hive Guard/TFexen, Hades Autocannons, etc. For regular Autocannons/Missile Pods, the extra HP and odds of explosion roughly cancel out vs AV11 (imperfectly), and favor the extra HP for AV12. It could easily be modified like Jade suggested (AP3 at best), alongside making some weapons AP 3/2 instead (like the Tyrannofex Rupture Cannon, *cough*).

Gah, the T-fex's Rupture Cannon should really just be one bio-cannon, straight up: S10 AP3 Assault 6, but leave it at BS3, no twin-linked. But that's another rant for another time (Tyranids: what needs fixing and how!)

Hive Guard also need some fixing, but yeah, because of autocannons, missile pods and so forth, I think letting AP4 cause "Explodes" results (well, more like "Critical Hit" on the proposed chart) is too good in other cases.

As for grav, it would depend on whether "Immobilized when already Immobilized removes an additional hull point" stays or not. I'd argue that removing that isn't a terrible idea: it would make grav only slightly more dangerous to vehicles than Gauss.