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An idea I had for blasts with no templates:

D6 auto-hits up to BS, but failing on '1's.
So a bs3 battle cannon does 3 hits on 3+, 2 on 2 and none on 1.
D3 instead of D6 for small blasts, still failing on 1 (D6 being capped by BS and then halved rounding up as usual for D3).

A blast would hit at least 2 dudes most of the time, and units with high BS are able to land really good hits.

No. how about BS2 or 3 models? They would be unable to get more than 2 or 3 hits. Chances are low now but at least existant and most low BS armies have a lot of dakka at their disposal (looking at you orks).

I think an 'explosive' weapon type would be useful. Give it to large blast weapons and have it so that when you roll your d6 to determine the number of shots, if you roll a one, you can bump it up to a two because of the size of the explosion. Then have an upgraded version for apocalypse templates.

Small blasts don't get the rule because a scale-down would be a minimum of 1, which is pointless because you can't roll a zero on a d3.

Earth127 wrote:
No. how about BS2 or 3 models? They would be unable to get more than 2 or 3 hits. Chances are low now but at least existant and most low BS armies have a lot of dakka at their disposal (looking at you orks).

Scatter dice mechanic generally favored low BS armies, because there was always a flat 1/3rd chance of hitting on top of the (significantly) lower impact of the scatter drift reduction. I imagine a lot more high ROF weapons will start cropping up for orks as they tune the ranges rules after release.

I tried the mathhammer app shooting tactical marines.

Funny thing is a LRBT at 3 BC shots kills 2 marines.
30 guardsmen kills 1.67.
5 scatterbikes at BS4 kills 2.96, and 2.22 at BS3

It pretty even to me, and this is assuming points and rules stay close to 7th.

Waaargh wrote:
I tried the mathhammer app shooting tactical marines.

Funny thing is a LRBT at 3 BC shots kills 2 marines.
30 guardsmen kills 1.67.
5 scatterbikes at BS4 kills 2.96, and 2.22 at BS3

It pretty even to me, and this is assuming points and rules stay close to 7th.

The problem with mathhammering the scatter of a blast is you have to factor in:
1. Effectively BS2, first
2. Minimum coherency
3. Target's base size
4. BS drift adjustment
5. remaining unit size

Which, frankly, isn't possible without an on-the-spot evaluation. It's a small part of why i'm so delighted about the loss of scatterdice, it's going to be so much easier to math model stuff.

I am happy with 8th solution to that. Will miss hovering blast templates, unless it's multi barrage shooting.

Waaargh wrote:
I am happy with 8th solution to that. Will miss hovering blast templates, unless it's multi barrage shooting.

12 scatter dice were a big help there

Still, if the mentioned AoS scatter method is ported over, it might end up with *better* multi barrage units.

Indeed, I'd prefer to roll a bunch of dice rather than a unit of 2 wyverns shooting.

I am sorry, what part of, as the other dakkanought said, "the battlecannon is only averaging 1.75 hits" sounds like an amazing buff?
So, you hit with one and three quarters of your shots, you lose a quarter on the wound and then the one and a half marines wounded take their 5+ saves.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I am sorry, what part of, as the other dakkanought said, "the battlecannon is only averaging 1.75 hits" sounds like an amazing buff?
So, you hit with one and three quarters of your shots, you lose a quarter on the wound and then the one and a half marines wounded take their 5+ saves.

Because before it was closer to 60~% chance of inflicting a single wound under identical conditions against a competent spread out opponent.

That being based on 33% base chance to hit, and any scatter result of >6 being a miss with a 5" template (27%~ of rolling equal or lower than 6 on 2 dice) with a slight improvement in accuracy when shooting @ larger models. Now As a blast template user, I know that the raw stat there is a bit misleading, because you can take steps to mitigate it, but it's based entirely on the skill levels of the players involved, not on the weapon system.

So yes, the battle cannon is better by virtue of being more reliable and having a better median outcome, but it wasn't that good to start with.

Sonic Keyboard wrote:
An idea I had for blasts with no templates:

D6 auto-hits up to BS, but failing on '1's.
So a bs3 battle cannon does 3 hits on 3+, 2 on 2 and none on 1.
D3 instead of D6 for small blasts, still failing on 1 (D6 being capped by BS and then halved rounding up as usual for D3).

A blast would hit at least 2 dudes most of the time, and units with high BS are able to land really good hits.

I don't like that idea, part of the point of weapons that make a big boom was to get around poor Bs.

 malamis wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I am sorry, what part of, as the other dakkanought said, "the battlecannon is only averaging 1.75 hits" sounds like an amazing buff?
So, you hit with one and three quarters of your shots, you lose a quarter on the wound and then the one and a half marines wounded take their 5+ saves.

Because before it was closer to 65~% chance of doing a single wound under identical conditions against a competent spread out opponent.

That being based on 33% base chance to hit, and any scatter result of >6 being a miss with a 5" template (27%~ of rolling equal or lower than 6 on 2 dice) with a slight improvement in accuracy when shooting @ larger models. Now As a blast template user, I know that the raw stat there is a bit misleading, because you can take steps to mitigate it, but it's based entirely on the skill level of the player, not on the weapon system.

So yes, the battle cannon is better, but it wasn't that good to start with.

There is some break down in your thinking about mitigating wounds through spreading out, and missing due to scatter. If I shoot a squad with full 2" spread, and center it as much as possible that means in several directions (at least) I need closer to a 9" scatter to miss completely. Which with BS 3 means rolling 12 on 2D6. Larger blasts really failed mostly at shooting smaller squads, or single models as far as scattering off.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I am sorry, what part of, as the other dakkanought said, "the battlecannon is only averaging 1.75 hits" sounds like an amazing buff?
So, you hit with one and three quarters of your shots, you lose a quarter on the wound and then the one and a half marines wounded take their 5+ saves.

Well, it about doubles its damage versus single models and tanks. Also, it's worth noting that the hits are doubled, and the damage is roughly doubled as well against models that have more than one wound.

Because I was curious about this, in my latest game I ran two Battlecannon Leman Russes using the current rules against Sisters of Battle (Arguably a fairly optimal target type, deployed in normal transported 10 and 5-person squads). On average, my Russes landed 2.1 hits per shot, firing 9 shots total. My best hit was 7 models in a 10-man squad, and I missed entirely twice due to scatter. And except for the first turn, I was firing my Russes at on-foot squads every turn.

Anecdotal evidence, I know, but it helped me to realize that the Russ isn't actually coming off that badly here, especially if Orders or Psykers give us a way to get re-rolls on to hit rolls or number of shots rolls somehow. The battlecannon is getting slightly worse against its previous best-case target (on foot 3+ armor infantry) and getting significantly more powerful against higher quality targets.

Breng77 wrote:

There is some break down in your thinking about mitigating wounds through spreading out, and missing due to scatter. If I shoot a squad with full 2" spread, and center it as much as possible that means in several directions (at least) I need closer to a 9" scatter to miss completely. Which with BS 3 means rolling 12 on 2D6. Larger blasts really failed mostly at shooting smaller squads, or single models as far as scattering off.

As a representative example, because this is what my eradicators dealt with on a regular basis:

5 SM on 32mm bases (templars), 2" equidistant from each other (light grey) in a straight line - the target 'bar' is 1.2~inches high and 14.2~ inches long
under those conditions, it's not physically possible to hit more than one model with a direct hit (red); you need a 1" drift within 58 degrees or so to the left or right as ilustrated (blue).
At 56 degrees (pink) and up (green), you miss entirely with 6 or less on 2d6; or to put it another way 33+% of the time you roll a 6 for scatter.


PS, inkscape is a bitch to work with mm and inches together.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
And the Leman Russ isn't underwhelming now?

Well at least with a bit of careful positioning it is immune to small arms fire, and that blast can catch a good chunk of a unit, and even if it misses.

with careful positioning its immune to small arms fire in 8th too; you just have to be in a position where its either impossible to reach it with those small arms, or where it would take more turns than the game has for the available arms to pull it down (both are very easy).

Further, with blasts, if you missed you dont hit chunks of the unit... It scattered onto nothing. Scattering a little and still clipping what you wanted to hit is not representative of a miss in 7th, its representative of rolling a 1 or two on the number of hits dice used in 8th.

 malamis wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 malamis wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I am sorry, what part of, as the other dakkanought said, "the battlecannon is only averaging 1.75 hits" sounds like an amazing buff?
So, you hit with one and three quarters of your shots, you lose a quarter on the wound and then the one and a half marines wounded take their 5+ saves.

Because before it was closer to 65~% chance of doing a single wound under identical conditions against a competent spread out opponent.

That being based on 33% base chance to hit, and any scatter result of >6 being a miss with a 5" template (27%~ of rolling equal or lower than 6 on 2 dice) with a slight improvement in accuracy when shooting @ larger models. Now As a blast template user, I know that the raw stat there is a bit misleading, because you can take steps to mitigate it, but it's based entirely on the skill level of the player, not on the weapon system.

So yes, the battle cannon is better, but it wasn't that good to start with.

There is some break down in your thinking about mitigating wounds through spreading out, and missing due to scatter. If I shoot a squad with full 2" spread, and center it as much as possible that means in several directions (at least) I need closer to a 9" scatter to miss completely. Which with BS 3 means rolling 12 on 2D6. Larger blasts really failed mostly at shooting smaller squads, or single models as far as scattering off.

As a representative example, because this is what my eradicators dealt with on a regular basis:

5 SM on 32mm bases (templars), 2" equidistant from each other (light grey) in a straight line - the target 'bar' is 1.2~inches high and 14.2~ inches long
under those conditions, it's not physically possible to hit more than one model with a direct hit (red); you need a 1" drift 30 degrees or so to the left or right as ilustrated (blue).

PS, inkscape is a bitch to work with mm and inches together.

So like I said, bad a shooting small squads (especially on larger bases the old 25mm bases meant usually hitting 3 on a direct hit.). Shooting things like 30 orks you almost always hit multiple models, or even 10 Space marines etc. I'm not saying they were great (small blasts were especially terrible), but more that they are not really better now it is situational. If you always see MSU marines then they are better, against hordes they are much worse.

Breng77 wrote:

So like I said, bad a shooting small squads (especially on larger bases the old 25mm bases meant usually hitting 3 on a direct hit.).

I appear to have missed where you said that?
Even there; 2" space- 25mm base- 2" space is 4.984~", and if you're playing in a tournament environment which, shall we say, 'prompts' not only that level of precision, demands you center *exactly* means a tiny mistake is enough to only hit 2.

This kind of nonsense being the exact sort of thing GW is trying to eliminate apparently.

Breng77 wrote:
If you always see MSU marines then they are better, against hordes they are much worse.

Now this most certainly the case, and low strength, low rend, high ROF will be the answer it's alwasy been, potentially in the case of the wyvern, to new and unheard of heights

 master of ordinance wrote:
I am sorry, what part of, as the other dakkanought said, "the battlecannon is only averaging 1.75 hits" sounds like an amazing buff?
So, you hit with one and three quarters of your shots, you lose a quarter on the wound and then the one and a half marines wounded take their 5+ saves.

Maybe not to the weapon itself, but now you are firing those heavy bolters at full BS at those marines as well. And they wound on 3+ and have -1 AP.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I am sorry, what part of, as the other dakkanought said, "the battlecannon is only averaging 1.75 hits" sounds like an amazing buff?
So, you hit with one and three quarters of your shots, you lose a quarter on the wound and then the one and a half marines wounded take their 5+ saves.

Maybe not to the weapon itself, but now you are firing those heavy bolters at full BS at those marines as well. And they wound on 3+ and have -1 AP.

Not necessarily. We don't know how firing multiple weapons work with Vehicles in general, or the Leman Russ in specific.

Maybe not, but I"m guessing that's the most likely scenario.

 malamis wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

There is some break down in your thinking about mitigating wounds through spreading out, and missing due to scatter. If I shoot a squad with full 2" spread, and center it as much as possible that means in several directions (at least) I need closer to a 9" scatter to miss completely. Which with BS 3 means rolling 12 on 2D6. Larger blasts really failed mostly at shooting smaller squads, or single models as far as scattering off.

As a representative example, because this is what my eradicators dealt with on a regular basis:

5 SM on 32mm bases (templars), 2" equidistant from each other (light grey) in a straight line - the target 'bar' is 1.2~inches high and 14.2~ inches long
under those conditions, it's not physically possible to hit more than one model with a direct hit (red); you need a 1" drift within 58 degrees or so to the left or right as ilustrated (blue).
At 56 degrees (pink) and up (green), you miss entirely with 6 or less on 2d6; or to put it another way 33+% of the time you roll a 6 for scatter.


PS, inkscape is a bitch to work with mm and inches together.

At 2" perfect spacing, it should be tangent to the bases of the other two models, so at any spacing less than 2", ie: any real spacing, it should be able to hit 3. Infantry bases are only 1" wide.

Edit: oh, I forgot, marines have been moved to a 1.5" bases. Yeah, it can only hit 1.

As a side note, Frag Grenades on these new Gullimarines also do D6 shots.....
Does that mean my 8" howitzer is now firing hand grenades? What, are they some kind of discarding-sabot sub calibre shell?
Or are Frag Grenades now the size of artillery shells?

 master of ordinance wrote:
As a side note, Frag Grenades on these new Gullimarines also do D6 shots.....
Does that mean my 8" howitzer is now firing hand grenades? What, are they some kind of discarding-sabot sub calibre shell?
Or are Frag Grenades now the size of artillery shells?

I figured they'd be D3 myself. They have to get super close to use them, though.

Also, are you actually going to address anything anyone said? Or just keep complaining about a likely non-issue?

 master of ordinance wrote:
As a side note, Frag Grenades on these new Gullimarines also do D6 shots.....
Does that mean my 8" howitzer is now firing hand grenades? What, are they some kind of discarding-sabot sub calibre shell?
Or are Frag Grenades now the size of artillery shells?

IMO, it's the other way around - the battle cannon's blast radius was too big for what was supposed to be a regular tank-cannon type weapon, firing something more like an explosive-tipped armour piercing shell, rather than a high-explosive fragmentation blast like an artillery shell (watch stuff like basilisks get 2d6 or 1d6+X or something like that).

The Russ Battlecannon was always a big explosive shell, more akin to something like a KV2 or perhaps more of an IS2 (able to hurt tanks through concussive force and explosive power, but not necessarily through armor penetration), even back in the days of 2E. It has a huge monstrous bore and fires a huge shell. It's never been presented in the same way as something like a typical tank cannon from a modern MBT.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The Battlecannon stats are pretty awful. D6 shots might work for something that was a 3" blast, but it doesn't work well for a 5" blast.

Point-for-point, one should take a Vendetta.

In 40K 7th edition, a small blast got you one hit, a large blast at most three and generally two.

I don't see how anyone could have a problem with that, unless they used to play against players who packed everything densely...

So... blasts are vastly better in this edition AND take less time AND gives no arguing opportunities.
And yet some people manage to still whine about it.

And by the way, what is it with Guard players these days?
It really seems like IG is the new Sisters or something.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The Russ Battlecannon was always a big explosive shell, more akin to something like a KV2 or perhaps more of an IS2 (able to hurt tanks through concussive force and explosive power, but not necessarily through armor penetration), even back in the days of 2E. It has a huge monstrous bore and fires a huge shell. It's never been presented in the same way as something like a typical tank cannon from a modern MBT.

And now, they've changed it, which was what I meant to say. I just wanted to offer a line of reasoning for why they'd opt for small blast over large.

I posted earlier that this was probably why a lot of people were 'upset' over the new battlecannon rules, the feel is different. I'd say the last few pages of the thread have been pretty vindicating of that diagnosis

Tanks can select between a variety of shells for different tasks, but I always imagined the Battle Cannon being akin to the gun on an SU-152 or something, that was primarily for demolishing fortifications and infantry, but could damage tanks through sheer explosive force.


It doesn't even work on tanks anyway.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Tanks can select between a variety of shells for different tasks, but I always imagined the Battle Cannon being akin to the gun on an SU-152 or something, that was primarily for demolishing fortifications and infantry, but could damage tanks through sheer explosive force.


It doesn't even work on tanks anyway.

There is, as it happens, an authoritative answer on what the Leman Russ munitions *do*:

Imperial Armour Volume 1 Second Edition Page 236 'munitions of The Imperium wrote:
A High Explosive shell... is the standard round. The shell has a thin walled case, inside which is an explosive charge... The Explosion shatters the case, sending sharp, jagged, red hot metal shrapnel flying in all directions at high speeds. The explosion also causes a blast shock wave, the sudden pressure difference being lethal to those close by.

The sheer size of the explosion can damage armoured vehicles... but HE's main drawback is that it lacks the direct penetrating power of anti-tank shells.

So, in short, it's an uncomplicated boomstick


Automatically Appended Next Post:

morgoth wrote:

And by the way, what is it with Guard players these days?
It really seems like IG is the new Sisters or something.

I think it's more a case of we actually have something worth talking about, instead of the Wyvern-Plasma-Blob squad triumverate.

Back on topic;

Numarines are actually going to be sweating more often than not against tricked out Russes. If the standard from now on is 'moar wounds for everything' The BCannon might become genuinely relevant.