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.

Before we throw the metaphorical baby out with the bath water, vehicles have an advantage monstrous creatures don't, they are immune to anything having to do with leadership and initiative. This makes them immune to a good chunk of maledictions, and quite a few special effects. You can't get rid of the vehicle damage table without addressing that, or vehicles will turn into monstrous creatures +1, and the power creep will continue unabated.

The issue is that monstrous creatures are so good, and compete for the same roles, that they make vehicles look like garbage. So Instead of trying to bring vehicles up to monstrous creatures, why not bring them down to vehicles.

So here is my if I ran the zoo suggestion, make low ap weapons just as effective against MC as they are against vehicles. AP 2 weapons should be strength D for MCs on a 6 to wound, and AP 1 weapons will be strength D on 5 or a 6 to wound.

 Stormonu wrote:
I beleive vehicle HP should be doubled, the current AV turned into an equivilant Toughness and vehicles be given an Armor Save. Might want to give MC's some extra HP (maybe +2) considering the next step.

Likewise, weapons with Strength 7-8 should deal D3 wounds (to a single target) and weapons with Strength 9-10 should deal D6 wounds (to a single target). Strength D would deal 2d6 wounds (to a single target). Because of this, you could dump the Instant Death rule for weapon Strength exceeding double toughness.

This would make vehicles more resistant to just being glanced out, and turn anti-vehicle weapons into the nightmare weapons they should be. Likewise, the MC vs. Walker debate becomes mostly moot (except for a few effects, like poison, haywire and such).

And most of all, gets rid of the annoyingly archaic Vehicle Damage table.

Its ether that or things do additional wounds for how much you roll above what you needed.
kinda like the warmachine kinda thing.

would give a great bonus to single shot high str weapons.

though this would hurt a lot of multi wound low T models.

though this would change a lot of the core mechanics :/

No to the 1st suggestion and yes to the second.

The Vehicle Damage Table is okay with me, but I do agree Glancing Hits should only take 1/2 a hull point instead of 1 full hull point.

I feel like an armour save for vehicles, but only for pens. If you pass the save for the pen, then it's reverted to a glance. You don't get saves for glances.

 QuazzaP wrote:
I feel like an armour save for vehicles, but only for pens. If you pass the save for the pen, then it's reverted to a glance. You don't get saves for glances.

But its insanely easy to glance. its literally the biggest weakness of vehicles in the first place. i dont get the logic.

I agree with the others on this. Do away with glancing vehicles and go back to 5th edition and use 7th edition rules/damage table.

 Desubot wrote:

 QuazzaP wrote:
I feel like an armour save for vehicles, but only for pens. If you pass the save for the pen, then it's reverted to a glance. You don't get saves for glances.

But its insanely easy to glance. its literally the biggest weakness of vehicles in the first place. i dont get the logic.

I'm not sure I follow your math,
Armor 14 = T10
armor 13 = T9
armor 12 = T8

Generally speaking, vehicles have higher toughness equivalents than similarly priced MCs. The problem isn't that it's insanely easy to get glances, anymore than it's insanely easy to get wounds on toughness 8 MCs. Armor save is a no go as well, since most s7+ weapons will have a decent AP value (3 and below). The Big difference is the chance to bypass the hull points of a vehicle by using low AP weapons. We can either get rid of this, or we can add it to MC in the form of low AP weapons getting a chance to have Strength D against MCs, say on a wound roll of 6 for AP 2, and on a 5 or 6 for AP 1.

 Glitcha wrote:
I agree with the others on this. Do away with glancing vehicles and go back to 5th edition and use 7th edition rules/damage table.

Doesn't that make them stupid durable?

Fundamentally do we want the same guns that are good at killing MCs to be good at killing vehicles or do we want them to be different categories of target.

That needs to be decided before any potential fixes can be evaluated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grimgold wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 QuazzaP wrote:
I feel like an armour save for vehicles, but only for pens. If you pass the save for the pen, then it's reverted to a glance. You don't get saves for glances.

But its insanely easy to glance. its literally the biggest weakness of vehicles in the first place. i dont get the logic.

I'm not sure I follow your math,
Armor 14 = T10
armor 13 = T9
armor 12 = T8

Generally speaking, vehicles have higher toughness equivalents than similarly priced MCs. The problem isn't that it's insanely easy to get glances, anymore than it's insanely easy to get wounds on toughness 8 MCs. Armor save is a no go as well, since most s7+ weapons will have a decent AP value (3 and below). The Big difference is the chance to bypass the hull points of a vehicle by using low AP weapons. We can either get rid of this, or we can add it to MC in the form of low AP weapons getting a chance to have Strength D against MCs, say on a wound roll of 6 for AP 2, and on a 5 or 6 for AP 1.

Firstly you're forgetting side armour. Lots of vehicles are 10 or 11 on the sides.

Secondly, there are lots of AP4 mid strength weapons. Vehicles are dying to loss of hull points (which they don't have enough of thanks to no armour save and less access to cover saves) not to destroyed results on the damage table. This is why the traditional anti tank weapons are out of favour for mid strength high RoF weapons. If the damage table was the big weakness of vehicles then AP1/2 weapons would be the premier vehicle killers. They are not.

Which vehicles have 10 side armor, rhinos? Seriously there are four types of vehicles:

1.) Those with good armor (land raiders/monolith)
2.) Those that can jink (skimmers)
3.) those who have good armor and can jink (necrons/tau)
4.) those with poor armor and no jink (rhinos)

You are not going to make a good argument for balance with vehicles from number 4, because whatever you do to make them workable, will overpower 1-3 (especially 3).

pm713 wrote:

 Glitcha wrote:
I agree with the others on this. Do away with glancing vehicles and go back to 5th edition and use 7th edition rules/damage table.

Doesn't that make them stupid durable?

Glancing hits would no longer matter, only pins.

Grimgold wrote:
Which vehicles have 10 side armor, rhinos?

Chimeras are 12/10/10
Rhinos are 11/11/10
Predators are 13/11/10
Tau vehicles are 12/11/10 and 13/12/10
Necrons vehicles are 11/11/11 (which is good armour according to you)

There are only a handful of vehicles with side armour better than 11 (Russ, hammerhead) and incredibly few better than 12 so you're saying that virtually all non-skimmer vehicles should be rubbish so as not to overpower landraiders and skimmers?

Since landraiders and skimmers weren't over powered in 3rd and 5th (the editions where vehicles were most powerful) that clearly isn't correct.

All marine vehicles effectively are AV 11. Their side arcs are so huge that their fronts don't matter.

My major concern is that glances are the one of the only ways Orks can destroy vehicles. Outside of close combat with Power Klaws and Kill Saws, some of the only (semi)reliable sources of anti-vehicle weaponry the Orks have are Rokkits and Deffgunz. And those largely rely on glances. Bringing back the old Deff Rolla might help, but every other high strength weapon either kills its wielder, isn't actually high strength sometimes, or is wildly inconsistent and unpredictable.

S8 is perfectly capable of penetrating most vehicles.

What orks lack is AP1/2 on decent strength (a bigger problem in 5th than in 7th).

Lets also not forget about those Glancing weapons like haywire and grav.

it does quite a lot of work.

they really need to fix the whole grav double immobilized sillyness. (also immobilize really need to be temporary or otherwise given to MC as well.

I like the idea of having an armour save against glancing hits, means that an AP2 glance should still strip a hull point every time, but massed fire will be significantly weaker.


The other big improvement would be for GW to get their heads out of their asses and stop using the Monstrous Creature rules for things that clearly aren't creatures. It makes little sense that a Wraithknight should ignore the melta rule but be highly vulnerable to poison. Also force weapons seem to be one of the most dangerous weapons to them, though that might make a little more sense fluff-wise.

They should just be walkers like everyone else, as at least that way they could actually suffer weapon damage and such like the rest of us, as right now an MC fights at 100% effectiveness even on its last Wound.


I would also support a larger change towards ditching the vehicle specific rules in favour of defining Toughness/Wounds based vehicles properly, as this would also fix "this is clearly a vehicle to everyone but GW" MC's, e.g- we should finally get an Immune to Poison rule (I mean, what was the point of defining separate Poison and Fleshbane effects without poison immunity?), have them suffer damage or fire fewer weapons as they lose Wounds etc.

 Haravikk wrote:
I like the idea of having an armour save against glancing hits, means that an AP2 glance should still strip a hull point every time, but massed fire will be significantly weaker.


The other big improvement would be for GW to get their heads out of their asses and stop using the Monstrous Creature rules for things that clearly aren't creatures. It makes little sense that a Wraithknight should ignore the melta rule but be highly vulnerable to poison. Also force weapons seem to be one of the most dangerous weapons to them, though that might make a little more sense fluff-wise.

They should just be walkers like everyone else, as at least that way they could actually suffer weapon damage and such like the rest of us, as right now an MC fights at 100% effectiveness even on its last Wound.


I would also support a larger change towards ditching the vehicle specific rules in favour of defining Toughness/Wounds based vehicles properly, as this would also fix "this is clearly a vehicle to everyone but GW" MC's, e.g- we should finally get an Immune to Poison rule (I mean, what was the point of defining separate Poison and Fleshbane effects without poison immunity?), have them suffer damage or fire fewer weapons as they lose Wounds etc.

There are so many classification issues its not even funny. its why the straight T and armor save idea + bio/mechanical would be the most straight forward. it streamlines the game which can only be a good thing at the moment. (not to say a super streamlined game is a good thing)

 Scott-S6 wrote:

Grimgold wrote:
Which vehicles have 10 side armor, rhinos?

Chimeras are 12/10/10
Rhinos are 11/11/10
Predators are 13/11/10
Tau vehicles are 12/11/10 and 13/12/10
Necrons vehicles are 11/11/11 (which is good armour according to you)

There are only a handful of vehicles with side armour better than 11 (Russ, hammerhead) and incredibly few better than 12 so you're saying that virtually all non-skimmer vehicles should be rubbish so as not to overpower landraiders and skimmers?

Since landraiders and skimmers weren't over powered in 3rd and 5th (the editions where vehicles were most powerful) that clearly isn't correct.

Necron vehicles have 13/13/11 until they take their first pen (something that would require actual tank hunting weapons to accomplish), they also have jink (effectively doubling their 4 hull points), and ignore shaken and stunned results. So yes, they are among the toughest vehicles currently in game. As for your list, the first two are transports, and unless your argument is that transports should be able to soak massive amounts of fire, I think it's safe to exclude them. The third is the lamest battle tank in the game that isn't piloted by orks, and the last two have jink and better armor than you stated.

With that out of the way, let me correct a few misconceptions before I restate my point. First you got causality wrong on why high strength multishot weapons are coming into favor, it's not because they are awesome against vehicles (they are demonstrably not), it's because they are effective against MCs. The current Meta is loaded with MCs, they are tough, have a host of rules that make them awesome, and generally carry huge amounts of firepower. You need high strength and a lot of shots to take them down, lances, las cannons and melta are laughably bad at getting the required number of wounds. So this forces armies to choose between weapons that are good against vehicles only, or weapons that might be ok against vehicles and good against MCs. Which leads to my second issue, vehicles aren't bad, but anytime there is a competition between MCs and vehicles, vehicles loose. The Tau and the eldar are two good examples, eldar vehicles aren't bad, but compared to the stupid good wraith knights, they are subpar weapons platforms, rocking a similar price. Hammerheads aren't bad, they are fairly tough, have decent fire power, but with riptides on the same army list you would have to be touched in the head to take them. With vehicles being rare, and loads of MC, it's a no brainer as to whether to take lots of shots or a single low AP shot.

Which brings me to my point, vehicles are bad in comparison to MCs, and they are competing for the same slots/points on your army list. Your answer is to effectively raise all vehicles armor by 1, and get rid of the damage chart, in an effort to bring them up to monstrous creatures. This is a bad idea, because the game doesn't need more power creep, it needs to be hit with a cheese grater. My answer is to make MCs more vulnerable, because they need a nerf in the first place, and second it will allow vehicles a place on the battle field, because MCs won't be autopicks. If you can one/two shot a riptide, the whole dynamic of how the tau play changes.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
S8 is perfectly capable of penetrating most vehicles.

What orks lack is AP1/2 on decent strength (a bigger problem in 5th than in 7th).

Not as well as you might think, especially given that most S8 is single shot.

I think that any suggested change that involves re-lease of every Codex is an exercise is futility. It will never happen. How about we find a solution that requires as few changes as possible and occurs just to the BRB.

For Example: Why not have Glances simply not cause hull points at all, but instead cause "Crew Shaken"? Maybe "Crew Stunned" on the second Glance done per phase?
This can bring back the old vehicle suppression tactics of 5th ed, while also encouraging players to field more weapons that can cause Pens and also making upgrades like Extra Armour, Spriri Stones and Deamonic Possesion more relevant.

--

Because vehicles would still suck, because you can't suppress MCs.

Martel732 wrote:
Because vehicles would still suck, because you can't suppress MCs.

Most MCs easily cost 3-6x more than most vehicles.
MCs are also living things (or otherwise VERY integrated into a suit in the case or DK, WK & Riptides), while vehicles are just being driving.

MC's should be better than vehicles, but by taking away the HP caused by Glances, some vehicle become virtually unkillable. Imagine a Necron army trying to fight a Gladuis with tons of Rhinos, the Necrons could never win.

--

 Galef wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Because vehicles would still suck, because you can't suppress MCs.

Most MCs easily cost 3-6x more than most vehicles.
MCs are also living things (or otherwise VERY integrated into a suit in the case or DK, WK & Riptides), while vehicles are just being driving.

MC's should be better than vehicles, but by taking away the HP caused by Glances, some vehicle become virtually unkillable. Imagine a Necron army trying to fight a Gladuis with tons of Rhinos, the Necrons could never win.

--

If you think a Tyrannosaur would be better than an M-1 Abrams, you are crazy. The T-Rex would get one shotted by a 120 mm cannon.

 Galef wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Because vehicles would still suck, because you can't suppress MCs.

Most MCs easily cost 3-6x more than most vehicles.
MCs are also living things (or otherwise VERY integrated into a suit in the case or DK, WK & Riptides), while vehicles are just being driving.

MC's should be better than vehicles, but by taking away the HP caused by Glances, some vehicle become virtually unkillable. Imagine a Necron army trying to fight a Gladuis with tons of Rhinos, the Necrons could never win.

--

most MC cost 2x more unless you are counting rhinos.. but they also almost always have 4x the survivalist and 10 times the fire power.
(hyperbolic amounts but really they are much more survivable and MUCH stronger while costing less than they should for it)

it really comes down to the fact that MC dont have ANY diminishing returns and cant for the most part get 1 shotted from across the table while also being able to claim cover better or just straight having some of the best saves in the game.

 Galef wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Because vehicles would still suck, because you can't suppress MCs.

Most MCs easily cost 3-6x more than most vehicles.
MCs are also living things (or otherwise VERY integrated into a suit in the case or DK, WK & Riptides)
--

So is a dreadnought and most Daemon vehicles. Why aren't they MC then?

Martel732 wrote:

 Galef wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Because vehicles would still suck, because you can't suppress MCs.

Most MCs easily cost 3-6x more than most vehicles.
MCs are also living things (or otherwise VERY integrated into a suit in the case or DK, WK & Riptides), while vehicles are just being driving.

MC's should be better than vehicles, but by taking away the HP caused by Glances, some vehicle become virtually unkillable. Imagine a Necron army trying to fight a Gladuis with tons of Rhinos, the Necrons could never win.

--

If you think a Tyrannosaur would be better than an M-1 Abrams, you are crazy. The T-Rex would get one shotted by a 120 mm cannon.

I am not sure what an M-1 Arbrams is, I assume it's a WW2 tank, but if it was in 40k, it would probably be like a Leman Russ tank, which can in fact, 1 shot an MC. I may have my tanks mixed up, but I know a friend of mine has a FW all tank Imperial Guard army that has an Instant-Death weapon.

This issue is that MOST 40k vehicles are not this kind of vehicle. Rhinos, Venoms, Chimeras, etc should be killable by most weapons. It doesn't even represent them getting permanently wrecked, just taken out of commission during the battle at hand. Most of everyone else suggestions to "make vehicles better" would either A) involve an entire system "do-over' or B) create yet another imbalance that puts vehicles way above everything else.

If A happens, there will surely be stuff to complain about.
If B happens, there will eventually be a thread about why MC's suck so bad vs. vehicles.

pm713 wrote:

So is a dreadnought and most Daemon vehicles. Why aren't they MC then?

A better question that I often ask myself is why aren't Riptides & DKs Walkers

--

Pretty sure I could kill a T-Rex with a Bradley as well.

It's got this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster

This is what it fires: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster#/media/File:US_Navy_090529-N-5345W-126_Gunner%27s_Mate_2nd_Class_Michael_Miller_downloads_an_ammo_belt_from_an_MK_38_25mm_gun.jpg

That would mess up something made of flesh and bone.

This is an M-1 Abrams:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams

What if Ordiance weapons simply inflict multiple wounds on MCs?

One rule: for every three points of strength that an ordinance weapon has, it inflicts one extra wound. So Demolisher and Earthshaker Cannons would inflict three wounds, whilst a Battlecannon would inflict 2. So if you really want to kill MCs, aim your artillery at it.

Or, for every point of strength above 7 that an ordinance weapon has, it inflicts 1 extra wound. So S:8 is 2 wounds, S:9 is 3 wounds, and S:10 is 4 wounds.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
What if Ordiance weapons simply inflict multiple wounds on MCs?

One rule: for every three points of strength that an ordinance weapon has, it inflicts one extra wound. So Demolisher and Earthshaker Cannons would inflict three wounds, whilst a Battlecannon would inflict 2. So if you really want to kill MCs, aim your artillery at it.

Or, for every point of strength above 7 that an ordinance weapon has, it inflicts 1 extra wound. So S:8 is 2 wounds, S:9 is 3 wounds, and S:10 is 4 wounds.

As I am a fan of simpler rules, how about making it so that Ordinance inflicts D3+1 wounds against everything, not just MC's

Another note about Glancing no causing HPs, but "crew shaken" instead: the only reason I would make a Glance do something is because so many rules in other books do something on a "Glancing" hit. If you make Glances do nothing, those rules become irrelevant.
----------
So in summary, here is what I would change:
a) Glances cause "crew stunned" instead of an HP. any Glances after the first in a phase will do "crew-stunned" instead.
b) I would make AP1 weapons only add +1 and AP2 do nothing to the Pen result. Having AP1 add +2 and AP2 add +1 is just silly.
c) Ordinance weapons cause D3+1 wounds

I am very confident that these 3 changes are all that is needed to bridge that gap between MC's & vehicles. MCs will still have an advantage, but vehicle (all vehicles) will have a significant rise in use

--