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Hey Guys,

I was thinking about how the Gravitation Special Rule could be redefined to make it slightly less OP and thus balance Gravitation Weapons. Here's one thought I had:

Gravitation
The roll needed To Wound when firing a weapon with this Special Rule against a non-vehicle unit is always equal to the Armour Save of the target, with a minimum of 6+.

For example, when resolving a hit against a model with a 3+ Armour Save, you would need a roll of 3+ To Wound.

When resolving a hit against a vehicle, the Strength of the shot is treated as being the Armour Value of the Armour Facing that suffered the hit subtract five.

For example, a weapon with this Special Rule makes a single successful To Hit roll against an Armour Facing which has an Armour Value of 13. The Strength of the shot is now treated as being Strength 8.

What are people's thoughts on this?

Cheers Guys

Errr...I don't see any less power really. You seem to have just moved it from fishing for 6's against vehicles to cause immobilize, to 5's and 6's, and actually getting pen results on the 6's. This means every successful hit (with amp reroll included) goes from a 30% chance of doing damage to a 55% of doing damage.

With the double hull point damage from immobilize considered, this means 7ish hits before killed any 2 or 3 hp vehicle, (or 10 hits for 4-5 hp,) while under your profile 4 will kill a 2 hp vehicle, 6 will wreck a 3 hp vehicle, and 8 will wreck a land raider. This calculation is not even considering that under your new statline, 25% of hits will cause a damage result, and that may include an explode result.

Honestly I think they should be remade as an antithesis to melta focusing on monstrous creatures. Make them wound based on model size (normal 6+, bulky 5+, very bulky 4+, extremely bulky 3+, monstrous/gargantuan 2+) and unable to hurt vehicles. Maybe drop them a few points after all that since they would now be less good in a ton of situations, like against power armor guys, but would have a focused role in clearing tides and wraithknights off the table.

Personally I don't think that Graviton should have much impact on vehicles at all; maybe if these were weapons mounted on vehicles themselves, or fired over several turns, but while I can understand a grav-weapon crushing an isolated target (or rather its squishy occupant), I feel like grav-weapons wouldn't do more than buckle hull plating in a single turn, which most vehicles should be able to cope with. There's also the issue with grav infringing too much upon melta weapons, as grav is good against everything, whereas really the niche that needs filing is anti-elite/monstrous, leaving other options for regular infantry and melta for vehicles.

So I think the current rule has the right idea, but personally I'd swap the Immobilised result for Crew Shaken, and only inflict Hull Point damage if the crew were already shaken by another attack (i.e- it takes a minimum of two grav weapons to start inflicting damage, number of shots just makes it more likely you'll get a 6). This way concentrated grav-fire might hurt a vehicle, but only if you have no better options (like actual anti-tank). Either that or it should have some sort of cumulative effect, e.g- each roll of a 6 reduces movement speed by a third, once its reduced to zero it starts inflicting damage. Vehicles roll for each point of gravity to clear its effects (so it's possible to accumulate it over several turns).

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Errr...I don't see any less power really. You seem to have just moved it from fishing for 6's against vehicles to cause immobilize, to 5's and 6's, and actually getting pen results on the 6's. This means every successful hit (with amp reroll included) goes from a 30% chance of doing damage to a 55% of doing damage.

With the double hull point damage from immobilize considered, this means 7ish hits before killed any 2 or 3 hp vehicle, (or 10 hits for 4-5 hp,) while under your profile 4 will kill a 2 hp vehicle, 6 will wreck a 3 hp vehicle, and 8 will wreck a land raider. This calculation is not even considering that under your new statline, 25% of hits will cause a damage result, and that may include an explode result.

Honestly I think they should be remade as an antithesis to melta focusing on monstrous creatures. Make them wound based on model size (normal 6+, bulky 5+, very bulky 4+, extremely bulky 3+, monstrous/gargantuan 2+) and unable to hurt vehicles. Maybe drop them a few points after all that since they would now be less good in a ton of situations, like against power armor guys, but would have a focused role in clearing tides and wraithknights off the table.

This.

Honestly, this isn't rocket science here... Grav is broken as gak currently because it covers everything that Marines fear and murders it for almost no effort.
Make Grav the go-to weapon for dealing with MC's and the multi-wound middle weights of the game. This then also means that Plasma becomes relevant again, as it will still be the go-to option for gunning down MEQ's and non-Bulky 2+ saves, while Melta remains the ultimate vehicle killer.

I'd also argue that the Grav cannon needs to lose 1 shot and become a Salvo 2/4 weapon, as right now, a single cannon is capable of outright killing a typical MC in one go.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Errr...I don't see any less power really. You seem to have just moved it from fishing for 6's against vehicles to cause immobilize, to 5's and 6's, and actually getting pen results on the 6's. This means every successful hit (with amp reroll included) goes from a 30% chance of doing damage to a 55% of doing damage.

With the double hull point damage from immobilize considered, this means 7ish hits before killed any 2 or 3 hp vehicle, (or 10 hits for 4-5 hp,) while under your profile 4 will kill a 2 hp vehicle, 6 will wreck a 3 hp vehicle, and 8 will wreck a land raider. This calculation is not even considering that under your new statline, 25% of hits will cause a damage result, and that may include an explode result.

Honestly I think they should be remade as an antithesis to melta focusing on monstrous creatures. Make them wound based on model size (normal 6+, bulky 5+, very bulky 4+, extremely bulky 3+, monstrous/gargantuan 2+) and unable to hurt vehicles. Maybe drop them a few points after all that since they would now be less good in a ton of situations, like against power armor guys, but would have a focused role in clearing tides and wraithknights off the table.

This.

Honestly, this isn't rocket science here... Grav is broken as gak currently because it covers everything that Marines fear and murders it for almost no effort.
Make Grav the go-to weapon for dealing with MC's and the multi-wound middle weights of the game. This then also means that Plasma becomes relevant again, as it will still be the go-to option for gunning down MEQ's and non-Bulky 2+ saves, while Melta remains the ultimate vehicle killer.

I'd also argue that the Grav cannon needs to lose 1 shot and become a Salvo 2/4 weapon, as right now, a single cannon is capable of outright killing a typical MC in one go.

Unlikely, because it is so hard to get four hits and four wounds with a single cannon.

He did say capable of doing so in its current state. It is unlikely yes, but totally possible.

Martel732 wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Errr...I don't see any less power really. You seem to have just moved it from fishing for 6's against vehicles to cause immobilize, to 5's and 6's, and actually getting pen results on the 6's. This means every successful hit (with amp reroll included) goes from a 30% chance of doing damage to a 55% of doing damage.

With the double hull point damage from immobilize considered, this means 7ish hits before killed any 2 or 3 hp vehicle, (or 10 hits for 4-5 hp,) while under your profile 4 will kill a 2 hp vehicle, 6 will wreck a 3 hp vehicle, and 8 will wreck a land raider. This calculation is not even considering that under your new statline, 25% of hits will cause a damage result, and that may include an explode result.

Honestly I think they should be remade as an antithesis to melta focusing on monstrous creatures. Make them wound based on model size (normal 6+, bulky 5+, very bulky 4+, extremely bulky 3+, monstrous/gargantuan 2+) and unable to hurt vehicles. Maybe drop them a few points after all that since they would now be less good in a ton of situations, like against power armor guys, but would have a focused role in clearing tides and wraithknights off the table.

This.

Honestly, this isn't rocket science here... Grav is broken as gak currently because it covers everything that Marines fear and murders it for almost no effort.
Make Grav the go-to weapon for dealing with MC's and the multi-wound middle weights of the game. This then also means that Plasma becomes relevant again, as it will still be the go-to option for gunning down MEQ's and non-Bulky 2+ saves, while Melta remains the ultimate vehicle killer.

I'd also argue that the Grav cannon needs to lose 1 shot and become a Salvo 2/4 weapon, as right now, a single cannon is capable of outright killing a typical MC in one go.

Unlikely, because it is so hard to get four hits and four wounds with a single cannon.

Prescience is a thing.

And it's most importantly the principal of it...

You see, back in the day, Eldar had Starcannons that were 3 shot/ap2 nightmares. War Walkers & Wriathlords were terrifying things back then, as they could mount 2 of these monstrosities. A single Wraithknight under the benefit of Guide was quite capable of outright murdering a Carnifex or Greater Daemon, while just two War Walkers could likewise remove an entire Tactical squad.
This was rightly deemed to be highly unfair and far too powerful, as Starcannons under their old profile at the time had no weakness except to be useless against av13+. (which was never a weakness anyways for Eldar at the time, due to Brightlaces & Fire Dragons!)

Thus, when the 4th edition Eldar codex came out, Starcannons lost a shot because they made every other upgrade almost entirely irrelevant!

No gun should be able to effectively cover 95% of your bases, AND, have the power to potentially nuke it in one go.

Plentiful access to S6/Heavy 3/ap2 was far too good back in 3rd & 4th edition.
In 7th edition, 5 shot/ap2 Grav with ****ing re-rolls to wound is far too good!

Grav needs to be fixed, badly.
Right now it's nothing more than pants-on-head stupid crutch for Vanillas & Dark Angels, and serves only to make everyone else hate those armies, while also effectively making every other special & heavy weapon 99.9% pointless!

Then get rid of Riptide, Stormsurge, and Dreadknight. Because the Grav Cannon is the only weapon that can even threaten them. And you statistically need multiple grav cannons against those things. You will never kill those units with old school heavy weapons.

I play an army without the grav cannon, and I can tell you that it's NOT a crutch against those units. It's a necessity, because BA can not kill those units in a reasonable amount of time.

Also, 4th ed had no targets that required that magnitude of firepower to threaten. And they never fixed the scatterlaser, which is still broken beyond reason to this day.

I'm personally of the belief that grav weapons shouldn't be able to hurt things without an armor save, rare though those units are. S4 can't hurt T8, why shouldn't grav have some limitations?

No one should be fielding vehicles they care about in 7th ed anyway. Grav sucks vs super heavies, and regular vehicles are already garbage because of other rules beyond grav. Grav vs regular vehicles is just further insult. Your land raider can run over a pot hole and immobilize as well. Because reasons.

The logic behind my changes to how it affects vehicles was that it wasn't a guaranteed "Immobilized" result, but still allowed the Grav to do something from the VDT. But this is a non-issue now since most people seem to disagree with the change.

So am I understanding this correctly in that the general consensus seems to be the following:

Grav should not be able to hurt vehicles, thus the element of the Gravitation Special Rule that allows them to do so should be removed.

Also, I feel like the Grav-Amps are way to strong as well (which appears to me to be the general consensus as well). Should Grav-Amps be nerfed or removed?

Maybe change grav amps to re-roll one failed to wound roll instead of all of them? It would make grav weapons shoot independently, but reduce their power without being ruining the theme of grav amps

ROF seems to be the big issue as well, maybe drop grav guns to rapid fire and Gravcannons to 2/3

Then change grav amps to all additional to hit rolls for successful hits if fired at targets which are Extremely bulk and bigger.

Against vehicals - no damage but auto Shaken which can not be ignored by special rules or upgrades.

ScarVet101 wrote:
ROF seems to be the big issue as well, maybe drop grav guns to rapid fire and Gravcannons to 2/3

Then change grav amps to all additional to hit rolls for successful hits if fired at targets which are Extremely bulk and bigger.

Against vehicals - no damage but auto Shaken which can not be ignored by special rules or upgrades.

It needs the ROF vs MCs. It's the only thing that works.

Martel - that's what the change to the Grav amp would cover.

A Grav cannon with amp would then get a potential 6 shots (higher then current) against MC's and GMC but on 2-3 shots against infantry

Sure, I guess. But then there's the issue of TWC.

As i always ask on these grav threads. it really should be figured out exactly what these grav weapons should be good at and how it works fluff wise then figure out the rules from there.

personally think a grav weapons should create a kinda gravity bubble that sucks everything inwards, where having more mass pulls harder than not. it should wound based on size not armor, still have concussive. Vehicles should take a stun instead of an immobilize since it really over does it with the double HP removal.

that way terminators wont nearly be as shelf quality as they are now.

plasma and melta guns are needed in the army instead of just depending on 1 super weapon.

and vehicles wont get wrecked so hard.

The problem is that plasma and melta have been left behind by units like Riptide and WK.

Martel732 wrote:
The problem is that plasma and melta have been left behind by units like Riptide and WK.

Then fethin nerf the riptide and the WK we all know they are stupid undercosted for what they do.

 Desubot wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
The problem is that plasma and melta have been left behind by units like Riptide and WK.

Then fethin nerf the riptide and the WK we all know they are stupid undercosted for what they do.

Sweet, we agree. Nerf away and get everyone to agree to play it that way. :p

 Desubot wrote:
As i always ask on these grav threads. it really should be figured out exactly what these grav weapons should be good at and how it works fluff wise then figure out the rules from there.

personally think a grav weapons should create a kinda gravity bubble that sucks everything inwards, where having more mass pulls harder than not. it should wound based on size not armor, still have concussive. Vehicles should take a stun instead of an immobilize since it really over does it with the double HP removal.

that way terminators wont nearly be as shelf quality as they are now.

plasma and melta guns are needed in the army instead of just depending on 1 super weapon.

and vehicles wont get wrecked so hard.

If you think Grav is what makes Terminators irrelevant and not their lack of firepower and terrible durability to basically every other weapon, you need to reevaluate how you think the game works.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Same with vehicles. They're terrible even without Grav in the equation.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
As i always ask on these grav threads. it really should be figured out exactly what these grav weapons should be good at and how it works fluff wise then figure out the rules from there.

personally think a grav weapons should create a kinda gravity bubble that sucks everything inwards, where having more mass pulls harder than not. it should wound based on size not armor, still have concussive. Vehicles should take a stun instead of an immobilize since it really over does it with the double HP removal.

that way terminators wont nearly be as shelf quality as they are now.

plasma and melta guns are needed in the army instead of just depending on 1 super weapon.

and vehicles wont get wrecked so hard.

If you think Grav is what makes Terminators irrelevant and not their lack of firepower and terrible durability to basically every other weapon, you need to reevaluate how you think the game works.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Same with vehicles. They're terrible even without Grav in the equation.

If you think i stated that it would pull them completely out of irrelevancy then you might want to re read what i wrote.

Martel732 wrote:

ScarVet101 wrote:
ROF seems to be the big issue as well, maybe drop grav guns to rapid fire and Gravcannons to 2/3

Then change grav amps to all additional to hit rolls for successful hits if fired at targets which are Extremely bulk and bigger.

Against vehicals - no damage but auto Shaken which can not be ignored by special rules or upgrades.

It needs the ROF vs MCs. It's the only thing that works.

Then why not just make it do extra wounds vs MCs similar to how blast/templates do extra wounds to Swarms?

To my mind grav never really made sense as multi-shot weapons. They seem more like area-of-effect weapons. FW graviton weapons are all blast. But GW wanted to give some weapons the new Salvo rule so they shoehorned it in.

I'd change them all to single-shot blast weapons, keep the wounding mechanic the same, but make unsaved Wounds multiply based on the size of the victim (excess wounds don't spill over). That way you're still killing multi-wound MCs but aren't murdering single-wound 2+ models as bad. You could add Strikedown on top of Concussive so that against non-MCs they become more of a utility weapon rather than dealing damage. Against vehicles it could do a temporary immobilization with no hull point damage. Again, utility, but not lethal - you have melta for that.

Of course we all know that grav will continue to be OP until they redo the tac squad kit again and need to pimp the next OP weapon type no one's ever seen before but was really there the whole time.

I just had another thought (and haven't play-tested or done this math on it) that might work:

Gravitation

The roll needed To Wound when firing a weapon with this Special Rule against a non-vehicle unit is always equal to the Armour Save of the target, with a minimum of 6+.

For example, when resolving a hit against a model with a 3+ Armour Save, you would need a roll of 3+ To Wound.

When resolving a hit against a vehicle, roll a D6 for each hit instead of rolling for Armour Penetration as normal. On a 1—5, nothing happens, but on a 6, the target suffers a Crew Shaken result and losses one Hull Point. The vehicle may then take a saving throw on a D6, with the following results:

-- A result of 1—3 has no effect, and the damage and Crew Shaken result is applied as normal;
-- A result of 4—5 causes the Crew Shaken result to be ignored, but the Hull Points are applied as normal;
-- A result of 6 causes the Crew Shaken result to be ignored as well as nullifying any Hull Points that were inflicted. This result does not apply when making saves for Open-Topped Vehicles.

When targeting (Flying) Monstrous Creatures and Super Heavy Vehicles, every roll of 6 To Hit causes an additional hit.

These weapons have no effect on buildings.

The bits in red are what has been changed in regards to the original rule. The save that the vehicles get is representative of the fact that they are an armoured vehicle. I know, I know - it can still damage vehicles that that probably shouldn't be a thing, but this could be a step in the right sort of direction for a middle ground between where it is now and where it needs to be.


@Abadabadoobaddon: Grav-Cannon? Yes, I can agree that it should be a blast weapon in much the same way that a Plasma Cannon is, but the Grav-Cannon being Salvo 1/2 or Salvo 2/3 could also work.

You can do whatever you want to Grav if krak missiles cause 2 wounds and lascannons and hammerhead railguns cause 3 wounds. Feth MCs standing up to more anti-tank weapon fire than tanks.

Radical idea: make both grav-gun and grav-cannon assault 1 large blast. Models under the hole take wounds based on armour save as usual. Bulky models take 2 wounds, MCs take 3. All models under the blast marker suffer Concussive and Strikedown.