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 Lance845 wrote:

 Traditio wrote:


I just want hive tyrants to have to jink when I shoot them with a 39 ppm model.

Is that so much to ask for?

And this is the problem with every single one of your proposed rules threads. You hone in on a single model. Decide that one thing must be the reason why that model wrecks your day, and then propose some sweeping change to the game with the intent of targeting that single unit.

Relentless was the devil. Now it's 3+ armor on hive tyrants.

The issues go deeper and these proposed rule changes don't fix things.

^ This

 Traditio wrote:

Peregrine wrote:No it isn't. Flakk is to flyers as krak is to vehicles. That is, it's a marginally effective weapon whose primary value is the ability to engage multiple target types with its various fire modes. Missile launchers should never out-perform specialist weapons in a particular role, and should never be at the top of your priority list when you're picking a weapon with a specific target in mind. The anti-flyer equivalent to melta should be dedicated AA units like the Hydra and air superiority fighters like the Thunderbolt or Barracuda.

I'm actually willing to grant what you are saying here. Yes, the lascannon should be better against AV than the krak missile, and the plasma cannon should be better than the frag missile.

Nonetheless, the krak and frag missiles remain a good "all around, jack of all trades" option for 15 ppm. Flakk is basically the same thing. The problem that I see is that the SM player pays a premium for flakk, but he doesn't actually get the results that he otherwise would have expected for a krak or frag missile.

Krak missiles are worth their points unless you're facing up against AV 14 or 2+ armor. Frag missiles likewise can be worth their points.

Flakk missiles vs. FMCs? Different story.

At the end of the day, I'm not demanding that big of a nerf.

I just want hive tyrants to have to jink when I shoot them with a 39 ppm model.

Is that so much to ask for?

Yes it is.
You want it to Jink? Use Hunters or an Icarus Lascannon or our aircraft with AP2-3 weaponry or Rending Assault Cannons.

You want a weapon that kinda hurts a variety of targets? That's the ML. However, Flakk missiles are overpriced and quite honestly should either be just 5 points or even free. Other weapons do the specialization thing better.

Nevelon wrote:Yes.

I assume that by "yes" you mean "yes, it's too much to demand that a flyrant should have to jink in that case."

A single missile is never going to accomplish much on it’s own. Frag/krack/flack, does not mater.

If I shoot a krak missile at a 12 AV or inferior skimmer, there's a good chance that the owner of that skimmer will jink. Especially if its open topped.

Even if I'm only shooting a single krak missile.

A stronger argument would be “I want the 4xMLs in my dev squad to have a credible chance of shooting down an un-jinking flyrant.”

Yes. But I don't think that this is really different from saying that a flyrant should have to jink if I shoot flakk at it. If my 4 MLs have a decent chance of shooting down an un-jinking flyrant, then the owner of the flyrant should have to jink to avoid being shot down. That means that either flyrants should have 4+ armor or flakk should have AP 3.

Forcing a unit to jink is basically a mission-kill for a turn. Sure, it can still move and snap shot, but it’s combat effectives is drastically reduced. It’s not quite the same as shooting it down, but pretty close. The game is not that long, and taking something out for a turn can sometimes be just as important as killing it.

Again, if I fire a krak missile at a skimmer, the owner of that skimmer is probably going to jink. If I shoot a frag missile at a group of guardsmen, depending on the circumstances, the owner very well might have them go to ground.

If I fire a flakk missile at a flyrant, the owner will...ignore it.

If the root of your problem is that you want flack missiles to be viable, work to fix them. Making broad sweeping changes to a whole class of things is a lot harder to do and keep things balanced.

How would it further imbalance the game if flyrants, daemon princes, etc. were capped at a 4+ armor save? This wouldn't substantially affect the durability of daemon princes and flyrants, while in the air, against any non-skyfire weapon, with the exception of those which have a HRoF and have AP4.

Flyrants would become weaker against heavy bolters.

Every 18 heavy bolter rounds would cause an unsaved wound against a flyrant (compared to the 54 rounds currently required).

Nobody complains about how broken heavy bolters are.

 Traditio wrote:
Again, if I fire a krak missile at a skimmer, the owner of that skimmer is probably going to jink.

That depends entirely on the situation. For example, against AV 12 (Wave Serpent, Devilfish, etc) a BS 4 krak missile has a 22% chance of inflicting a penetrating hit. If you consider losing a HP without suffering any rolls on the damage table to be an acceptable risk it's actually a pretty safe gamble to decline to jink against a single krak missile. Now, obviously if you're in a situation where it makes sense to be on the conservative end of the risk vs. reward trade-off you jink, but in that kind of very-conservative strategy being forced to jink is not a big deal.

If I shoot a frag missile at a group of guardsmen, depending on the circumstances, the owner very well might have them go to ground.

This is almost never going to happen. A frag missile will hit 1-2 guardsmen, wounding on a 3+, and allowing a 5+ armor save. Going to ground in the open gives a cover save that is worse than their armor save, so it's pointless. Going to ground in terrain makes very little sense because with a 4+ cover save already that frag missile is unlikely to do more than kill a single meatshield model. In fact, a normal bolter marine is probably a bigger threat than the frag missile. The only time you're going to force a squad to go to ground with a single frag missile is, again, when your opponent is playing an ultra-conservative strategy where protecting a scoring unit at all costs is required. And in that case they don't care if they make a few token lasgun shots at BS 1 or BS 3.

If I fire a flakk missile at a flyrant, the owner will...ignore it.

Welcome to life as a missile launcher model. Your single shot is unlikely to scare anyone very much. If you want scary threats you take specialized units, not missile launchers.

And of course if you're comparing a single flak missile against a flyrant to a single flak missile against a vehicle flyer, well, that flyer isn't likely to jink either unless it was already planning to go back into reserve next turn. The chances of doing anything to an AV 12 flyer with a single flak missile are pretty low and it's usually a safe gamble to allow the shot without jinking if you need full-BS shots next turn.

Yep.

The problem is not in FMC armor, it's in the flakk being overpriced as hell.
It really should come standard with all missile launchers.

I mean, cap at 4+ armor?
Sure, daemons might be OK, they got invul.
Flyrant might be OK once discounted.

But the coldstar? Dude's a T4! He has a rough time even with 3+ and is virtually never picked. A failed crash test means he goes splat.
Without the 3+ he becomes outright unplayable unless absurdly cheap.


The game needs not weaker FMCs, it need better grounded AA. Free flakk is a decent start as it gives many armies an option, even if not ideal, for an AA weapon that is still useful even when the sky is clear.

If we're fixing the game, simply remove the penalty for firing at flying stuff entirely.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If we're fixing the game, simply remove the penalty for firing at flying stuff entirely.

More or less agree with this. A flat BS penalty would be better then snap shots but just letting people shoot them also works great.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If we're fixing the game, simply remove the penalty for firing at flying stuff entirely.

How about no. Aircraft should be virtually impossible to hit without specialized AA weapons, like they are in the real world (unless by "flying stuff" you mean FMCs only, leaving flyers as they are).

Again, this entire thread is pointless because you can either

A) take 2 vengeance battery emplacements for 150 points and have them both with the quad linked icurous las canon, 4 twin linked shots at BS 2, S9 AP2, Sky fire and interceptor. AV 14 all around, 3 HP and can s cure objectives, drop them on objectives on your side. The turn after their flyer comes on you are going to be able to get 8 shots at I before he goes again.

B) take an twin linked icarus cannon Agis defense line, take a vindicare assassin, put him on the cannon and you get a skyfire, interceptor, twin linked hitting on 2s las cannon. Shoot him down the turn he comes in, hop off the turret and pop targets.

You are looking at AA all wrong, don't look at, aa that costs X points should be able to take down a flyer at X points. Look at it this way, if you take say, 400 points worth of AA and it only shoots down a unit that was 300 you might think, it did not make up its points. Well your wrong becuase even though it only killed 300 points of air units, think about what those air units would have killed if you did not have aa.

If you wanna take care of fmc, take dedicated AA. Because news flash, you take out a flyranid you just beat that arm becuase I bet dollars to doughnuts his whole army is geared toward that single unit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If we're fixing the game, simply remove the penalty for firing at flying stuff entirely.

How about no. Aircraft should be virtually impossible to hit without specialized AA weapons, like they are in the real world (unless by "flying stuff" you mean FMCs only, leaving flyers as they are).

I support this, seeing as how vehicles are super weak. The only caveat is if the vehicle is hovering/is a vehicle that acts like a helicopter.

Storm talon gunship, vendettas, Corvus black star when hovering.

 Peregrine wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
If we're fixing the game, simply remove the penalty for firing at flying stuff entirely.

How about no. Aircraft should be virtually impossible to hit without specialized AA weapons, like they are in the real world (unless by "flying stuff" you mean FMCs only, leaving flyers as they are).

Too be fair, Flying vehicles operate on several different levels and speeds, and 40K only recognizes two of the slowest.

On one hand, you have Skimmers, which are the slowest "flying" vehicles and their movement isn't much faster in a line than what would expect from a ground-based Vehicle. In game, these often fill the role of gunship in terms of mobility and ability to place firepower.

The next step up is the Zooming Flyer. What see here is usually something akin to what fighters and attack planes go with. However, in these cases, your standard Time on Target (ToT) of such a craft is usually measured in seconds, yet in-game, they are on board for enough time for a human to Run as far as their Weapon's kill range. So, either they are not moving at a speed that ToT makes them require such extensive requirements to hit, or they are moving at roughly the same speed we would see an Apache or Hind flitting around trying to dodge fire and land shots on target, to which doesn't require nearly as much targetting assistance to hit (just to penetrate or not get shot).

Exactly. "Flyers" are, at best, slow helicopters moving at a slow jog. And totally vulnerable to regular firepower at normal human reaction times.

Sonic aircraft? Not represented in 40k, aside from the Master of Ordnance.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Exactly. "Flyers" are, at best, slow helicopters moving at a slow jog. And totally vulnerable to regular firepower at normal human reaction times.

Sonic aircraft? Not represented in 40k, aside from the Master of Ordnance.

We rarely agree on anything, but I basically agree with the above.

If you really want more realism and more "fluffiness," Peregrine, then you should be open to the idea of fliers that enter the game on turn 2, make a bombing run, and then leave. And then can enter the game no earlier than 2 turns later.

This would be to reflect the fact that a flier would have to fly in, make the bombing run, fly away, FLY BACK AROUND, and then fly in, make another bombing run, etc.

That would justify the hard to hit special rule.

 Traditio wrote:
If you really want more realism and more "fluffiness," Peregrine, then you should be open to the idea of fliers that enter the game on turn 2, make a bombing run, and then leave. And then can enter the game no earlier than 2 turns later.

Sure. And when my Marauder arrives it destroys the entire enemy army, because that's what happens when a space B-52 carpet bombs an area the size of a football field. My Vulture's space hellfire missiles should each be a 95% chance of killing a tank in one shot and it should be able to fire all six of them at separate targets in a single turn, just like real-world helicopter gunships. My Thunderbolt's ground attack weapons would be a bit lighter, but each of its four 500lb bombs should be able to collapse a building and kill everything inside it. Because hey, realism!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Sonic aircraft? Not represented in 40k, aside from the Master of Ordnance.

Not true at all. True "fighter jet" aircraft are represented in 40k, whether you like it or not. The Valkyrie and similar units are helicopter equivalents, but the Thunderbolt/Barracuda/etc sure aren't. The fact that their rules are kind of awkward as a result of trying to cram "fighter jet" types into a 28mm game on a 6x4 table does not change the fact that those rules are representing high-speed targets that only specialized AA weapons would have any hope of hitting.

::Sigh:: Reality doesn't matter. You should never build the rules of the game with the intent of representing reality. Penn and Teller did that. It's called Desert Bus. It's fething miserable.

The game play should only represent reality through abstracts that create the most enjoyable experience. If that means ground units suffer a penalty for shooting at flyers to balance their relative weakness then so be it. If that penalty is restricting armys against having effective methods of dealing with flyers and thus creating a miserable gameplay experience then get rid of it.

Make the game fun first. What would happen in reality means nothing next to making a fun game.

Really they should just get rid of the 'flyers' rules altogether, and make them count as jump infantry again for FMC, and aircraft count as skimmers to represent the whole fact they are slowing to a relative crawl to be able to do anything.

Peregrine wrote:Sure. And when my Marauder arrives it destroys the entire enemy army, because that's what happens when a space B-52 carpet bombs an area the size of a football field. My Vulture's space hellfire missiles should each be a 95% chance of killing a tank in one shot and it should be able to fire all six of them at separate targets in a single turn, just like real-world helicopter gunships. My Thunderbolt's ground attack weapons would be a bit lighter, but each of its four 500lb bombs should be able to collapse a building and kill everything inside it. Because hey, realism!

You were the one arguing from realism, not me.

Fact is, flying vehicles move awfully slow to be "hard to hit," and it's not like flying vehicles even particularly pay for the durability they get.

A landspeeder in the SM codex boasts 2 HP, BS 4 and has AV 10 all around. If you take it with an assault cannon to go with its heavy bolter (which isn't twin-linked), you end up paying 65 ppm. The stormtalon gets to twin-link both the assault cannon and the heavy bolter (a 15 point value?), gets ceramite plating, the Vectored Afterburners special rule and has better AV values than the landspeeder. And all of this is before you even take the "hard to hit" special rule into account.

How much is all of that worth?

And then when you take into account the "hard to hit" special rule, and you've just made it 4 times more durable against marines, 3 times more durable against IG, twice as durable against orks, etc.

All for a measly 45 points more than a comparable landspeeder.

No. I'm with what seems to be a popular opinion in this thread. Make flying vehicles skimmers. Make FMCs jump MCs. Re-price if necessary (but probably not necessary at least in some cases; they aren't priced as much as they should be now).

Conveniently, this would also fix my flakk problem.

 Traditio wrote:
Fact is, flying vehicles move awfully slow to be "hard to hit,"

Again, this is an abstraction caused by the limits of playing a 28mm game on a 6x4 table. Fluff-wise these aircraft are very fast, regardless of how many inches they move on the table. Therefore they have the "hard to hit" rule even if their on-table movement distance isn't realistic. Though really, nothing about 40k's movement distances or IGOUGO system is realistic anyway.

A landspeeder in the SM codex boasts 2 HP, BS 4 and has AV 10 all around. If you take it with an assault cannon to go with its heavy bolter (which isn't twin-linked), you end up paying 65 ppm. The stormtalon gets to twin-link both the assault cannon and the heavy bolter (a 15 point value?), gets ceramite plating, the Vectored Afterburners special rule and has better AV values than the landspeeder. And all of this is before you even take the "hard to hit" special rule into account.

On the other hand a Thunderbolt is AV 11 with 3 HP and has two twin-linked autocannons and a twin-linked lascannon, for 200 points. A LR Exterminator with a hull lascannon is 165 points and has AV 14/13/10 instead. Bump that up to maybe 175 points for twin-linking the LC and the Thunderbolt seems to be a rather poor deal. It's 25 points more expensive, significantly less durable, and has to spend half the game in reserve. The only real advantage it has is the ability to fire at other flyers at full BS, an advantage that seems to come at a very high price. And the LRBT isn't even a very good unit! Similar comparisons can be made with other aircraft: Barracudas vs. Hammerheads, Vendettas vs. infantry blobs with HWTs, etc. And the result tends to be that flyers are generally not a powerful class of units. Only FMCs stand out as exceptionally powerful, much like MCs are better than tanks.

In short: the problem here seems to be that the Land Speeder is too expensive, not that flyers don't pay for their rules. This fits very nicely with the fact that Land Speeders are very rarely taken even in armies that don't take flyers.

Make flying vehicles skimmers.

Which they are not, fluff-wise. Skimmers are "normal" vehicles with heavy armor, long endurance, etc, that can hover over obstacles. They are NOT true aircraft, and representing Thunderbolts/Barracudas/etc as skimmers makes no sense fluff-wise.

Conveniently, this would also fix my flakk problem.

By making flak missiles no longer exist? That's a rather strange definition of "fixing the problem".

 Traditio wrote:

Peregrine wrote:Sure. And when my Marauder arrives it destroys the entire enemy army, because that's what happens when a space B-52 carpet bombs an area the size of a football field. My Vulture's space hellfire missiles should each be a 95% chance of killing a tank in one shot and it should be able to fire all six of them at separate targets in a single turn, just like real-world helicopter gunships. My Thunderbolt's ground attack weapons would be a bit lighter, but each of its four 500lb bombs should be able to collapse a building and kill everything inside it. Because hey, realism!

You were the one arguing from realism, not me.

Fact is, flying vehicles move awfully slow to be "hard to hit," and it's not like flying vehicles even particularly pay for the durability they get.

A landspeeder in the SM codex boasts 2 HP, BS 4 and has AV 10 all around. If you take it with an assault cannon to go with its heavy bolter (which isn't twin-linked), you end up paying 65 ppm. The stormtalon gets to twin-link both the assault cannon and the heavy bolter (a 15 point value?), gets ceramite plating, the Vectored Afterburners special rule and has better AV values than the landspeeder. And all of this is before you even take the "hard to hit" special rule into account.

How much is all of that worth?

And then when you take into account the "hard to hit" special rule, and you've just made it 4 times more durable against marines, 3 times more durable against IG, twice as durable against orks, etc.

All for a measly 45 points more than a comparable landspeeder.

No. I'm with what seems to be a popular opinion in this thread. Make flying vehicles skimmers. Make FMCs jump MCs. Re-price if necessary (but probably not necessary at least in some cases; they aren't priced as much as they should be now).

Conveniently, this would also fix my flakk problem.

Land Speeders are 45 base, Stormtalons are 110 base, you are literally paying over dbl points for a Flier, 1AV more and a better gun.1 gets Strafing run the other gets DS

And in all honestly I rather bring a Land Speeder than a Storm Talon, I consider Storm talons less effective.

 Peregrine wrote:

Make flying vehicles skimmers.

Which they are not, fluff-wise. Skimmers are "normal" vehicles with heavy armor, long endurance, etc, that can hover over obstacles. They are NOT true aircraft, and representing Thunderbolts/Barracudas/etc as skimmers makes no sense fluff-wise.

Yes but true aircraft have no place in the scale of the game. Years ago Orks had a fast attack choice that was literally a strafing run from a fighta because the aircraft in game are going overhead so fast they'd hit and be gone before a shot could even be contemplated. Even things like Valks and Vendettas would be dropping grav shoot troops from heights unreachable by enemy fire, and could only be on the board if they were stopped to hover at best. Making all flyers count as skimmers is the only way to balance them out, while still letting people have their cake and eat it too. You got to face it, the game needs a major fat trim as it is, and just trashing the flyer concept is a great start. Let games like EPIC have aircraft moving are supersonic speeds over a battlefield. But 40K they'd HAVE to be moving slow so skimmer makes a lot of sense.

Amishprn86 wrote:Land Speeders are 45 base

And only come with a heavy bolter (that isn't twin-linked). If you want to add an assault cannon (that also is not twin-linked), that's an additional 20 points.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Yes but true aircraft have no place in the scale of the game.

We can't change the past and that means that aircraft, including "fighter jet" type aircraft, are in the game. You can argue all you like about the merits of aircraft in a 28mm game, but unless you're designing your own game that has nothing to do with 40k it's not relevant to this topic.

Making all flyers count as skimmers is the only way to balance them out, while still letting people have their cake and eat it too.

No, it is not the only way to balance them out. Flyers as a class are balanced just fine right now, the only problems are specific units with point costs that are too low. FMCs have some major issues, but mostly the same issues that MCs have relative to tanks. So the solution is to fix the MC/FMC rules to bring them to parity with vehicles and adjust the point costs on any specific units that need to be fixed.

 Traditio wrote:

Amishprn86 wrote:Land Speeders are 45 base

And only come with a heavy bolter (that isn't twin-linked). If you want to add an assault cannon (that also is not twin-linked), that's an additional 20 points.

So? You are comparing more power for less range. You can also give it one if you really wanted too.

You can keep the HB, or add a TML and start killing things at 36-48" on turn 1 instead of maybe turn 2. It may not be a flier but it is also easier to hide and can get cover much more reliably so you don't always have to jink if being shot at with a stray ML or Lascannon. Fliers are Hard to hit, and that is there benefit. Not saying a Speeder is better, but the Stormtalon is not hugely stronger either.

A good friend of mine play WS's and uses Land Speeders, they definitely are worth there points every game.


If you had the argument that AA weaponry isn't very good and needs a boost, then sure I would agree with you, but nerfing something that literally doesnt need a nerf to make weaker things better is just backwards thinking.

Oh PS: Both are 2hp not just the speeder and the ST is a attacker not a fighter so it isn't reliable for AA anymore, hence why I feel the speeder is better.

I can't believe someone talked about Amrored Ceramite on Space Marine aircraft as if it were an advantage. I've haven't seen that rule come up ONCE since the 6th edition codex and quite frankly I'd be happy if they got rid of it to make the aircraft cheaper.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I can't believe someone talked about Amrored Ceramite on Space Marine aircraft as if it were an advantage. I've haven't seen that rule come up ONCE since the 6th edition codex and quite frankly I'd be happy if they got rid of it to make the aircraft cheaper.

aint that the rule that ignores melta?

Well, it takes away the second die. But plain old ST 8 is just fine vs flying vehicles.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I can't believe someone talked about Amrored Ceramite on Space Marine aircraft as if it were an advantage. I've haven't seen that rule come up ONCE since the 6th edition codex and quite frankly I'd be happy if they got rid of it to make the aircraft cheaper.

aint that the rule that ignores melta?

Yeah, but not Armorbane. When was the last time you saw AA Melta?

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

Amishprn86 wrote:Land Speeders are 45 base

And only come with a heavy bolter (that isn't twin-linked). If you want to add an assault cannon (that also is not twin-linked), that's an additional 20 points.

So? You are comparing more power for less range. You can also give it one if you really wanted too.

You can keep the HB, or add a TML and start killing things at 36-48" on turn 1 instead of maybe turn 2. It may not be a flier but it is also easier to hide and can get cover much more reliably so you don't always have to jink if being shot at with a stray ML or Lascannon. Fliers are Hard to hit, and that is there benefit. Not saying a Speeder is better, but the Stormtalon is not hugely stronger either.

A good friend of mine play WS's and uses Land Speeders, they definitely are worth there points every game.


If you had the argument that AA weaponry isn't very good and needs a boost, then sure I would agree with you, but nerfing something that literally doesnt need a nerf to make weaker things better is just backwards thinking.

Oh PS: Both are 2hp not just the speeder and the ST is a attacker not a fighter so it isn't reliable for AA anymore, hence why I feel the speeder is better.

No one uses DFTS. It's actually worse than the current original flyer rules. I don't know a single club that uses those gak rules.

But there's still the threat that they become the actual rules in 8th.

Martel732 wrote:
But there's still the threat that they become the actual rules in 8th.

If that happens - the game dies - they can't be that stupid...wait...

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
But there's still the threat that they become the actual rules in 8th.

If that happens - the game dies - they can't be that stupid...wait...

The game won't die. Be serious here. People still willingly play with Eldar in the game. It will ensure that I never use a Stormraven ever again.