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Stomps are a point-intensive crapshoot, and the way they work means you can do silly stuff like having a Knight or Wraithknight engage a small Bike Squad, and then use Stomps to kill the relief force hiding on the opposite side of a set of Ruins! Or they can whiff and accidentally give a Grot a bad hair day! Half of the reason people take models to stomp is in the off-chance they roll "6s" and auto-kill stuff like Invisible Thunderwolves, but beyond that the rules remain wonky.

This rule proposal is simple:

"Stomp: During the Fight Sub-Phase, a model with the Stomp Special Rule may place down a small blast marker up to 2" away from itself. Any and all models underneath this take an AP 2 Ignores Cover hit at the Stomping Model's Strength.
A model with the Stomp Special Rule may elect to Stomp up to two additional times, for a total of three times total in the same phase; all Stomps must remain up to 2" away from the performing model and they may not be placed on top of each other. For each additional Stomp, all Stomp attacks are resolved at -2 Strength and +1 AP."

Example: A Wraithknight (S10) can elect to make a Stomp Attack. It would either place down one blast marker and resolve it at S10 AP2, two blast markers at S8 AP 3, or three blast markers at S 6 AP 4; all such markers would remain partially within 2" of the Wraithknight.

A model with the Multi-Legged Monstrosity Rule makes twice as many Stomp Attacks after determining the Strength and AP of the Stomps. (Adjust the cost of the Brass Scorpion accordingly).

In theory, this could allow "Lower Strength" walkers/monsters to attempt to stomp as well, to negate some tarpit shenanigans. Stuff like a Soulgrinder or Defiler getting to Stomp would be nice.

I'd support this if it were alongside nerfs to Invisibility and similar things that make the "go fishing for a six" Stomp-fest that exists currently as necessary as it is.

The only issue I would take is that it seems a bit odd to me that a giant metal foot is somehow weaker the second or third time it smashes down on you. Obviously, it's for gameplay so it's not a huge deal breaker or anything for me, I just wonder if there is a better way to resolve it. Like if a small blast represents the actual foot and does the S10 AP2, and a large blast laid on top of it represents a shockwave that is weaker, but has strikedown and the like.

I like where this is going, but I'm not so sure about the 2" away, or the diminishing str/AP.

I would keep all Stomps as you suggest, at the models unmodified Str, AP2 ignores cover. Maybe AP1, especially since Super Heavy Walkers are AP1 in CC already
But I would leave it at D3 Stomps per phase and ALL stomps must be placed in base contact with the attacking model.

Basically, Stomps should remain close to the model and always at the model's base Str. This limits the random affect (but keeps frequency random) and will also stop shenanigans of Stomping so far out of CC.

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I agree, the power differential in Stomp is absurd, and you're absolutely correct that it's because it's a lottery system. You tend to get either nothing or everything.

I would propose this instead:

Stomp - Super Heavy vehicles and Gargantuan creatures don't make attacks like normal creatures. They have such immense mass behind their attacks that they don't attack as much as they just swing and smash. To represent this, when a Super Heavy vehicle or Gargantuan Creature would make attacks, for each Hit they score, place a blast template so that it's edge is touching the base, hull, or body of the Super Heavy Vehicle or Gargantuan Creature or a previously placed template, covering as many models in the target unit as possible. For each model in a unit that's even partially under the blast template, the Super Heavy Vehicle or Gargantuan Creature scores a hit against that unit. In effect, the creature is so massive that it can smash aside great swathes of creatures with each hit! Then, continue to roll to wound as normal for each unit hit by these attacks.

Alternatively, the Super Heavy Vehicle or Gargantuan Creature can put all their weight into one incredible Smash! They may trade all their attacks to make a single Smash attack. If this attack hits, place a single Large Blast template using the same method as above, except the attack uses no weapons carried by the model, and is resolved with a Strength of "D" and an AP of 1.

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This makes it so that "Stomp" has a lot more knobs on it to turn. A creature with more attacks will always perform better (and effectively ONLY gets stomps). It prevents ridiculous spill-over, since you have to cover as much of the targeted unit as possible. It's resolved at the Strength and AP of the thing making the attacks, so you only get the "D-Lottery" on stuff with actual D weapons. If you don't have a D-Weapon, then you'll need to do Smash attack just like Monstrous Creatures.

So, yeah, very powerful still when you build for it, but then you have to actually build for it - you don't get it for free with other stuff. Something without a D-weapon would have to rely on the very inaccurate smash attack.

Trouble with that is it makes things that do have Destroyer melee weapons massively more dangerous to tarpits and such.

The other part is that a "6" on the D chart and a "6" on the Stomp chart don't actually do the same thing, even though they're frequently interpreted that way. Stomp lets you bypass rolling to hit, which is why it's used as the answer to invisibility.

 curran12 wrote:
The only issue I would take is that it seems a bit odd to me that a giant metal foot is somehow weaker the second or third time it smashes down on you. Obviously, it's for gameplay so it's not a huge deal breaker or anything for me, I just wonder if there is a better way to resolve it. Like if a small blast represents the actual foot and does the S10 AP2, and a large blast laid on top of it represents a shockwave that is weaker, but has strikedown and the like.

There's the additional qualifier that you cannot place a blast from a stomp on top of another blast from the same stomp, and I imagine it's an abstraction of sweeping an area vs focusing on stomping one particular problem target.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galef wrote:
I like where this is going, but I'm not so sure about the 2" away, or the diminishing str/AP.

I would keep all Stomps as you suggest, at the models unmodified Str, AP2 ignores cover. Maybe AP1, especially since Super Heavy Walkers are AP1 in CC already
But I would leave it at D3 Stomps per phase and ALL stomps must be placed in base contact with the attacking model.

Basically, Stomps should remain close to the model and always at the model's base Str. This limits the random affect (but keeps frequency random) and will also stop shenanigans of Stomping so far out of CC.

Not to nitpick but they're AP 2 in melee due to Smash unless they're bringing special CCWs (since stuff like the Chaos Renegade Knight will instead double on guns). Pure BTB could be a bit harsh, but I didn't like the idea of stomps forming a "line of doom." So 2" all within range of the knight felt like an OK compromise.

It would make them consistently tougher versus light tarpits, but heavier stuff (even Power Armor) will be somewhat more resilient. And I generally favor reducing "wild random" anyway.

Hmm. I could have sworn that Walkers do not have Smash and that Super Heavies in particular have str10 AP1 attacks. but I don't have my book on hand. Maybe I am thinking one of the Knights CC weapons being AP1

Anyway, I'm fine with the 2" away and AP2, but I'd still like it to be D3 stomps at the models base Str.

jade_angel wrote:
Trouble with that is it makes things that do have Destroyer melee weapons massively more dangerous to tarpits and such.

The other part is that a "6" on the D chart and a "6" on the Stomp chart don't actually do the same thing, even though they're frequently interpreted that way. Stomp lets you bypass rolling to hit, which is why it's used as the answer to invisibility.

To your first point, I feel that this is fine. Yeah, a close combat armed super heavy will be very, very dangerous like this, but remember that it still needs to roll to hit. If it only has 4 attacks, there's a very real possibility that it misses with all of them! Of course, there's also the possibility that it hits with all of them. In general, it gives the Super Heavy the same strengths and weaknesses as regular models for making attacks, but multiplies the size of their attacks against small stuff, while making them less able to kill mid-sized stuff. A Neat Trick with this version would be to have two CC-armed Carnifexes assault a Knight from two angles. Since the Knight will have to dedicate all its attacks at one Carnifex, and must always include that Carnifex as a target of any hits, the other Carnifex will be able to avoid its attacks and maybe take out the Knight! Yeah, it's a very different system from currently, but I think it's one that would be more fair and allow for greater variation of super-sized threats. Remember, a Wraithknight or a Knight NOT armed with a D-weapon in this situation is going to be FAR more vulnerable to smaller close-combat orientated units.

To the second point, yeah, Stomp right now is used to answer invisibility. Well, I hate invisibility too, having something be too strong in order to answer something else that's too strong doesn't lead to balance. Besides, as stated, when fighting death-stars, you're not hoping to get lots of hits on them, you're hoping for just 1 stomp that rolls a 6. A D-weapon armed Super Heavy is going to only be marginally less effective against Invisible Deathstars in this method than they'd normally be (and if the Super Heavy can reroll misses for whatever reason, that'll only make it even better).

Let's also remember that SHWs and GMCs didn't used to be able to be locked in combat with units that weren't also SHW or GMC. Giving them D3 stomps at user Str, AP2 within 2" would help against tarpits, which have only been effective in this edition.
They should be more effective against tarpits than they are against Death Stars. Currently the opposite is true.