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So I've come across several threads concerning both types of Eldar armies and the major issue concerning lance as an increasingly irrelevant and meh rule. I do feel that the carry-over of treating all armour as AV12 from past editions makes it an odd weapon, one that only really comes into value against AV13 and above which doesn't make much sense if its a dedicated AT weapon since it should be even more effective against low AV vehicles.

As a result, I propose that the lance rule instead reduce the AV of the enemy vehicle by 2 when rolling for the purposes of armour penetration. This way the S8 AP2 of Dark and Bright Lances maintain the same damage output against AV14 while increasing their effectiveness against AV13-10. It also makes things like the heat lance a heck of a lot better.

Personally I also think lances should be AP1 base to begin with, but that's touching more on the weapons more than the rule itself.

So what do you guys think?

You'd have to make single shot anti-tank viable again. That's not a problem of lance, that's a problem of single shot weapons sucking now.

Martel732 wrote:
You'd have to make single shot anti-tank viable again. That's not a problem of lance, that's a problem of single shot weapons sucking now.

So it's mainly a matter about how HP-stripping is more effective due to the way the damage table works and the fact that MC's and GMC's/SHW's now have so many ablative saves against AT-weapons that the only good single shot weapons are strength D?

 Grimskul wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
You'd have to make single shot anti-tank viable again. That's not a problem of lance, that's a problem of single shot weapons sucking now.

So it's mainly a matter about how HP-stripping is more effective due to the way the damage table works and the fact that MC's and GMC's/SHW's now have so many ablative saves against AT-weapons that the only good single shot weapons are strength D?

Exactly. S10 AP 2 is just as awful as S8 AP 2 lance. They both have virtually no chance of taking out a vehicle, where as Mass S6/7 have an excellent chance. And doubles as anti-infantry and triples as anti-MC.

You got it! Right now, glancing hits are "damage" effects, while penetrating hits are more like "damage, plus a bonus", with very little "one-shot-kill" effects. All the single-shot high powered stuff are only marginally more effective at getting a damage effect than a damage+bonus effect. Additionally, the "bonus" part isn't very effective. Many things ignore stunned/shaken, or have weapon systems that are not significantly affected by them.

Thus, being more reliably able to deal "damage" effects is more efficient than being able to deal more "damage+bonus" effects. They either need to make penetrating hits be more dangerous, or glancing hits less dangerous, in order for things like Lascannons to ever be a thing again.

I'm going to have to agree with Martel here. The problem is that single shot AT weapons really aren't that good anymore. With a Bright Lance you need a 6+ to explode most vehicles. It's just so much easier to strip hull points off with other weapons than it is to try and use single shot AT weapons. The damage table is very punishing to those kind of weapons.

Weapons like the Hammerhead railgun and lascannon should really do multiple wounds to MCs. But that would make too much sense. Clearly, MCs don't care about gaping holes burned straight through their torsos. It's just a single wound.

Lance and Armourbane are all rules that were intended to be "stacked" on non-Melta weapons in my opinion.

I don't have the Eldar/Dark Eldar books handy, but something like the Transauranic Arquebus from the Skitarii(S4 versus vehicles because of the "Sniper" rule) having the ability to count any of the heavier vehicles as AV12 rather than their normal AV while rolling 2D6 for armor pen?

All of a sudden, that gun can make its 25 points back fast in certain match-ups.

I should add that I'm going to be testing Armourbane weapons as doing D3 Wounds rather than a single Wound(with no spillover possible) against Infantry, MCs, and GMCs soon. Feel free to see if anyone local to you will do the same.

Railgun no. Its projectile is traveling too fast to create too much of a cavity. It basically tears a tube out of you. Lascannon yes, because it penetrates, but also causes massive inflammation to the tissue around it, causing additional damage, pressure, and hemorrhaging.

I think that's one thing that AoS did right, which was make it so that monsters/vehicles have diminishing returns on weapons/attacks/movement the more wounds they suffer. Unfortunately with the rules being all over the place for 40K it'd be hard to streamline all that into the game but it'd be a cool way to make wounds taken off MC/GMC's count.

The real problem is Hullpoints, not the lance rule. We should double all hullpoints for vehicles and make Glancing hits do 1 hull point and Pen hits do 2 hull points, plus damage chart

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
The real problem is Hullpoints, not the lance rule. We should double all hullpoints for vehicles and make Glancing hits do 1 hull point and Pen hits do 2 hull points, plus damage chart

That sounds like a worthy improvement, but doesn't change the lack of efficacy of powerful anti-tank weapons vs MCs. If you shot a Tyrannosaur with the main gun of an Abrams, it's dead. It doesn't take a "wound".

Martel732 wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
The real problem is Hullpoints, not the lance rule. We should double all hullpoints for vehicles and make Glancing hits do 1 hull point and Pen hits do 2 hull points, plus damage chart

That sounds like a worthy improvement, but doesn't change the lack of efficacy of powerful anti-tank weapons vs MCs. If you shot a Tyrannosaur with the main gun of an Abrams, it's dead. It doesn't take a "wound".

It would have to work something like blast templates in fifth. If it direct hit's, it will inflict instant death. Non blast weapons would be on a 4+

I'm actually a fan of EITHER MC's getting an identical "damage chart"
(1-3 shaken, 4 stunned, 5 arm damaged, 6 legs damaged, 7 catastrophic failure of brains/hearts.)

...or vehicles losing the damage chart and gaining some hull points.

One of those two needs to happen to bring back the pendulum between the two towards the middle.

I didn't realize that Blast Weapons worked like that in 5th. I kinda like it as a mechanic.

I think dedicated anti-tank weapons like lascannons, railguns, vanquisher cannons and multi-meltas, dark/bright lances should have a special rule like "Slayer", where the number of wounds it inflicts is the number inside the bracket, so if a lascannon would have Slayer(2) which would inflict 2 wounds instead of one on any non-vehicle model it hits. This way we can scale the different kinds of weapons to what degree they're able to inflict wounds. It also helps against tanky characters since each invuln/cover save they fail still does significant damage regardless of EW.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I'm actually a fan of EITHER MC's getting an identical "damage chart"
(1-3 shaken, 4 stunned, 5 arm damaged, 6 legs damaged, 7 catastrophic failure of brains/hearts.)

...or vehicles losing the damage chart and gaining some hull points.

One of those two needs to happen to bring back the pendulum between the two towards the middle.

The former makes a lot more sense. A lascannon would be incredibly deadly to a living organism. There's a reason it did 2D6 wounds in 2nd ed. The more I think about this game, the angrier I get.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I didn't realize that Blast Weapons worked like that in 5th. I kinda like it as a mechanic.

Multimetas did work in 5th



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
I'm actually a fan of EITHER MC's getting an identical "damage chart"
(1-3 shaken, 4 stunned, 5 arm damaged, 6 legs damaged, 7 catastrophic failure of brains/hearts.)

...or vehicles losing the damage chart and gaining some hull points.

One of those two needs to happen to bring back the pendulum between the two towards the middle.

The former makes a lot more sense. A lascannon would be incredibly deadly to a living organism. There's a reason it did 2D6 wounds in 2nd ed. The more I think about this game, the angrier I get.

This is why we have forums to talk about how to make it better

I always thought that the best way to change the AV damage system was to have Glancing hits have a save depending on the vehicle type. Tanks would have 3+, Walkers 4+, Others 5+. Whereas a penetrating hit would ignore the save and act as it does currently.

It would represent the sturdiness of vehicle types while making single-shot weapons much more useful.

 Quickjager wrote:
I always thought that the best way to change the AV damage system was to have Glancing hits have a save depending on the vehicle type. Tanks would have 3+, Walkers 4+, Others 5+. Whereas a penetrating hit would ignore the save and act as it does currently.

It would represent the sturdiness of vehicle types while making single-shot weapons much more useful.

That'd be really cool to implement. Definitely gives a chance to those who get hit on rear armour, especially now with the new Tau stealth formation with the ghostkeel.

First, I would change the title of this thread to "Improving vehicles and monstrous creatures"

Second, I think GC's would be uneffected for the most part by these rules because they are so big.

Third, we could add "destructible environments" to the game, because cover saves get ridiculous in the Tau meta. A demolisher shell should instant death everything. Your dinky Ghostkeel sitting in that pile of rocks should be scrap metal in one from a vindicator

 Tactical_Spam wrote:


Third, we could add "destructible environments" to the game, because cover saves get ridiculous in the Tau meta.

Yes, yes and yes again, destructuble terrain would add a lot to the game.

A demolisher shell should instant death everything.

Once more hell yes, a 150mm+ HE shell should obliterate everything it hits, or at least severely damage bigger things.

Your dinky Ghostkeel sitting in that pile of rocks should be scrap metal in one from a vindicator

Fully agreed, a shell that size should remove everything it hits.

And I would drop Str D from half the eldar stuff because there are things that are really Str D and then theres someone who thought itd be cool to overpower eldar

Bolt Action has an "overkill" mechanic in it's tank rules. If a shot gets 3 points of penetration, you roll 2 dice and apply both effects. It would need to be tweaked a bit, but I think something like that for 40k would make high strength low ap weapons a lot scarier.

In my opinion, Lance is the way it is because both Eldar and Dark Eldar have lots of fast and/or deep striking units that can easily get shots at side or rear armor. You want such weapons to be able to threaten vehicles that have high AV all around, BUT at the same time you do not want them to instantly wipe out any other vehicle by getting a good attack angle. Hence, Lance exists.

This is thus one of those things that will be harder to balance than appears at first sight.

Alcibiades wrote:
In my opinion, Lance is the way it is because both Eldar and Dark Eldar have lots of fast and/or deep striking units that can easily get shots at side or rear armor. You want such weapons to be able to threaten vehicles that have high AV all around, BUT at the same time you do not want them to instantly wipe out any other vehicle by getting a good attack angle. Hence, Lance exists.

This is thus one of those things that will be harder to balance than appears at first sight.

Right, but at this point in the game they're heavily outclassed by the RoF weapons of Scatbikes and mass fire dragon super meltas. The Lance rule doesn't really give a viable alternative either Eldar armies to really bother consider taking them in comparison to other more efficient methods of anti-vehicle/MC. And especially with 7th edition where we've discussed has neutered one shot weapons like the dark/bright lance from being able to reliably take out vehicles, much less MC's.

The lance rule is actually largely irrelevant. No balancing necessary for the rule. In fact, your land raider is gonna last a lot longer against lances than it will D-scythes or fire dragons or haywire.

 Grimskul wrote:

Alcibiades wrote:
In my opinion, Lance is the way it is because both Eldar and Dark Eldar have lots of fast and/or deep striking units that can easily get shots at side or rear armor. You want such weapons to be able to threaten vehicles that have high AV all around, BUT at the same time you do not want them to instantly wipe out any other vehicle by getting a good attack angle. Hence, Lance exists.

This is thus one of those things that will be harder to balance than appears at first sight.

Right, but at this point in the game they're heavily outclassed by the RoF weapons of Scatbikes and mass fire dragon super meltas. The Lance rule doesn't really give a viable alternative either Eldar armies to really bother consider taking them in comparison to other more efficient methods of anti-vehicle/MC. And especially with 7th edition where we've discussed has neutered one shot weapons like the dark/bright lance from being able to reliably take out vehicles, much less MC's.

Lance is good in some armies like necrons where the lance weapon happens to be S10. And Scatbikes are a little stupid. When did the eldar turn into the Sons of Malice Anarchy?

Make S8, S9 and S10 ignore cover saves from terrain only.

raverrn wrote:
Make S8, S9 and S10 ignore cover saves from terrain only.

Im sorry, but being invisible doesnt save you from a demolisher shell