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.

We need a compiled list of changes if we want any chance of GW actually taking notes. This means less wishlisting a bit more on practical side. This means working with current model range. No model = no rules. Stick to what is listed in the index.

- Try to deviate from overzealous point decrease for bad units. It is usually a tempting simple, yet flawed solution. Also we have enough models to paint as it is.
- Remember not to accidentally buff already good and dominant greentide of boys.
- Ork shooting should be average to bad, but never worthless. Remember that more than half of our codex consists of shooty units!
- Extra points if you manage to synergise your idea with an idea of other forum member.

A lot of times I’ve seen “X thing could be viable if only we had viable transports”. Let’s start with humble trukk and battle wagon, what exactly makes them bad and how do we fix this?

I think the only bad thing about the trukk is the price, but as I wrote above, I think that cheap trukks can be abused because they are able to lock enemy units in combat. So if they had some kind of debuff that made them unable to do that, then I think they could lower the price.

 JawRippa wrote:
We need a compiled list of changes if we want any chance of GW actually taking notes. This means less wishlisting a bit more on practical side. This means working with current model range. No model = no rules. Stick to what is listed in the index.

- Try to deviate from overzealous point decrease for bad units. It is usually a tempting simple, yet flawed solution. Also we have enough models to paint as it is.

I wouldn't bother to fine-tune points on weapons or models at all. The only good way to decide whether something should cost 12 points or 10 points is doing play testing in the context of all changes made. Giving a ballpark figure should be enough to point GW in the right direction.
It's not like they will take whatever point values you send them and print them anyways - if they actually do play testing the accumulated point reductions might enable some unforeseen combinations that might wreck havoc on game balance (assault cannon razorbacks anyone?).

- Remember not to accidentally buff already good and dominant greentide of boys.

Klan rules are going to do that no matter what. There is also two things to consider:
- Even green tides are just barely beating competitive lists from other armies
- Any other good option that is taken reduces the number of boyz

- Ork shooting should be average to bad, but never worthless. Remember that more than half of our codex consists of shooty units!

Please don't fall for this fallacy. In editions previous to the last codex orks have always been as good at shooting per points spent as space marines or guardsmen - with the slight difference that the weapons used by orks are inferiors, usually sporting less range, less AP, less strength or drawbacks compared to their imperial counterparts.
So a unit of lootaz put out the same shooting as IG heavy weapon teams for the same points and a unit of shoota boyz with three rokkits would shoot as well as a unit of tactical bolter marines with a missile launcher,
We need to get back to this point.

A lot of times I’ve seen “X thing could be viable if only we had viable transports”. Let’s start with humble trukk and battle wagon, what exactly makes them bad and how do we fix this?

For starters, currently battlewagon and trukk are fulfilling the same role. So no matter which one you improve, the other one will always lose out, as both are tough transports moving at 12". When you compare this to rhino and land raider, they have completely different roles and neither makes the other obsolete.
In past editions, the trukk was the more fragile, but faster transport, and the battlewagon the slower, but harder to kill one.
Kommandos work reasonably well for 9 points per model, so I guess the limit for a unit like boyz doing well is somewhere around 10-11 points, leaving us with maximum 4-5 points per model to spend on transports.

When playing BW as transports, their durability feels about right, so I would keep them the way they are and just drop their points.
Their problem is that a decent battlewagon list needs to be able to field 3 BW at 1500 and 4 at 2000, with points left to spend on support units. Otherwise the passengers you deliver into the enemy lines are to few and too weak to have an impact. In pretty much any game I played in 8th, there was one point where I wished I had either more battlewagons or support for my battlewagons.
Which basically means a battlewagon without upgrades needs to be somewhere between 80 and 100 points to be competitive. Maybe make 'ard case cost points (around 10) so spamming T8 vehicles isn't too easy.
To emphasize on the slow but reliable part, drop their speed to 10", to justify the massive point drop for such a tough vehicle. It won't have massive impact on their game play, but might make a difference against other fast armies.

Trukks, on the other hand need their speed back, and some of their durability taken away. Drop their wound count to 8 and give them a rule allowing them to move very fast once per game or in exchange for a mortal wound to self. Maybe a stratagem for advances like we have seen with nids or daemons?
At 3 points per model transported (trukk boyz are weaker than kommandoz), it should be at 36+big shoota+wrecking ball. I'd even go as far and make the wrecking ball mandatory, to keep the minimum cost above broken. Also, more wrecking balls everywhere.

 Jidmah wrote:

...

Very solid post!
I wanted to add a few things while making my position a bit more clear:

- By saying that greentide is dominating and strong I meant dominating in our own index. So we should try to always keep that in mind.

- We do have 2 attacks in base profile, so it is clear that GW designed us as melee army at core. I’m not saying that ork’s shooting should be bad, just some units should be inefficient at it, like slugga boys or grots with pistols. I always imagined shooty units to be a support for boys, rather than direct hitting force. However I’d be happy if GW dropped an attack for designated shooty squads and made them much better at their job. Like flashgits or lootas. You know, carrying around heavy weapons would probably make you worse in melee but pay off during shooting phase). Those guys should have way more dakka(lootas) or range(gits).
Actually a lot could probably be improved if all orky blasts stopped being d6 hits at 5+(hitting once or not at all on average) and became a D3 autohits. Orks wildly cover area in blasts, so they will hit you , but with a stray blast rather than focused. So it is more reliable, but has less damage potential

- I like you suggestions about trukk and wagon. Trukk should be faster. However, maybe they could be improved without needing to spam them? Like ramshackle being global rule for orky vehicles and being a 4+ that degrades by 1 whenever used and gets refreshed by end of turn. Or maybe it could be a flat 5+. 6+ is just uninspiring.

 JawRippa wrote:
- We do have 2 attacks in base profile, so it is clear that GW designed us as melee army at core. I’m not saying that ork’s shooting should be bad, just some units should be inefficient at it, like slugga boys or grots with pistols. I always imagined shooty units to be a support for boys, rather than direct hitting force. However I’d be happy if GW dropped an attack for designated shooty squads and made them much better at their job. Like flashgits or lootas. You know, carrying around heavy weapons would probably make you worse in melee but pay off during shooting phase). Those guys should have way more dakka(lootas) or range(gits).
Actually a lot could probably be improved if all orky blasts stopped being d6 hits at 5+(hitting once or not at all on average) and became a D3 autohits. Orks wildly cover area in blasts, so they will hit you , but with a stray blast rather than focused. So it is more reliable, but has less damage potential

Not any more than an army of World Eaters are designed to be a shooting army because khorne berzerkers have BS 3+.
It's simply the ork's baseline, like all basic marines, eldar, humans, tau and necrons have the same base line. Shooting units need to be able to shoot, and melee units need to be able to melee, no matter what their statline looks like.
Rest assured, 6+ armor, slow movement and BS 5+ will even out that one attack we have over space marines.

More attacks are not an advantage for a unit that never wants to be in combat, so there is no need to take it away. Flash gits and lootas will stay out of combat as long as their gun is more powerful than their fist.

- I like you suggestions about trukk and wagon. Trukk should be faster. However, maybe they could be improved without needing to spam them? Like ramshackle being global rule for orky vehicles and being a 4+ that degrades by 1 whenever used and gets refreshed by end of turn. Or maybe it could be a flat 5+. 6+ is just uninspiring.

Trukks need to become cheaper because they don't transport enough models. The entire army has always worked that way - it's not only trukks dying too fast, it's also the number of models they are delivering. Three trukks deliver about as many boyz as a single jump, which we all know is nice, but not enough to make a huge impact. So if you wanted the same amount boyz in your speed freaks list as in a footslogging list with 3 mobz of boyz, you would have to bring 8 units of trukk boyz. Therefore trukks must be a cheap unit.
The second reason is that the current super-tough trukk is making open topped battlewagons obsolete. There is absolutely no reason to not field two trukks instead of one open-topped battlewagon in the index.

IMO we should aim to make all the archetypes from the past three editions viable again, minus the skew lists - kan wall, green tide, foot sloggers (2-3 units of boyz+toys), battlewagon bash, kult of speed (trukks,warbikes,koptas, etc), pure biker armies, dread mobs, deff wing (MANz) and those I forgot.

Therefore, we shouldn't try to reinvent the wheel, but try to fix the things that the transition to 8th broke, while keeping that stuff that it did well.

I think Jidmah is hinting at it but the biggest problem with our vehicles, for me, is that a Weirdboy + Da Jump is a much better and more cost effective solution.

We simply have a better transport mechanic.

For that reason I wouldn't make Trukks or Battlewagons much cheaper because I still think Da Jump will beat them on price, I would make them more killy. Since our vehicles aren't going to do anything in shooting I think it's only fair that they should be much better in melee. The reasoning is that at the end of the day it's an Ork driving and any Ork would go out of their way to run enemies over.

Give the vehicles a purpose that we currently need filling - in my mind they would be very useful as Anti Armour specialists. Let them do bonus damage or have bonus to hit rolls against vehicles. Anything.

I really don't think that cutting the price would fix them as I can't see them ever competing with Weirdboy + Da Jump in that regard.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
I think Jidmah is hinting at it but the biggest problem with our vehicles, for me, is that a Weirdboy + Da Jump is a much better and more cost effective solution.

We simply have a better transport mechanic.

For that reason I wouldn't make Trukks or Battlewagons much cheaper because I still think Da Jump will beat them on price, I would make them more killy. Since our vehicles aren't going to do anything in shooting I think it's only fair that they should be much better in melee. The reasoning is that at the end of the day it's an Ork driving and any Ork would go out of their way to run enemies over.

Give the vehicles a purpose that we currently need filling - in my mind they would be very useful as Anti Armour specialists. Let them do bonus damage or have bonus to hit rolls against vehicles. Anything.

I really don't think that cutting the price would fix them as I can't see them ever competing with Weirdboy + Da Jump in that regard.

There are some units that suffer a lot if they're fielded as footsloggers, I think about tankbustas or meganobz mostly. They all desperately need a transport not only to reach combat or range quickly but also to have some protection against shooting. Nobz can have runts so they laugh at the anti tank but meganobz don't. Tankbustas are always going to be deleted in a single turn of mediocre shooting without a transport. And jumping shooty units like bustas or flash gitz isn't efficient at all since those units don't have the strenght to get their points back as they can't really kill anything valuable but they'd be wiped out in the subsequent turn without much effort.

Da jump is great because 30-40 boyz can cause great pressure to the opponent even if they fail the charge, while other units can be handled quite easily. Nobz and meganobz can be jumped as well but if the opponent has some screeners they won't do much while bustas and gitz are too expensive and not that killy to act as suicide units. Keep also in mind that we can only teleport one unit per turn.

Transports are very needed for the orks, only boyz and maybe a full unit of 10 nobz plus 10 ammo runts really want to be jumped.

Don't jump nobz, believe me I've tried.

Standing within rapid fire range of every weapon available to the enemy is not a good thing for a unit of nobz.

The real problem with our transports is that when you combine ere we go with the waaagh-aura, then ordinary running boyz has more than 50% chance of charging something 26 inches away on their second turn. When you are pretty much guaranteed to get second-turn charges with boyz on foot, then there is very little incentive to pay a 7ppm transport tax. It is not like a trukk allows us to charge on our first turn anyway.

 Blackie wrote:
There are some units that suffer a lot if they're fielded as footsloggers, I think about tankbustas or meganobz mostly. They all desperately need a transport not only to reach combat or range quickly but also to have some protection against shooting. Nobz can have runts so they laugh at the anti tank but meganobz don't. Tankbustas are always going to be deleted in a single turn of mediocre shooting without a transport. And jumping shooty units like bustas or flash gitz isn't efficient at all since those units don't have the strenght to get their points back as they can't really kill anything valuable but they'd be wiped out in the subsequent turn without much effort.

Da jump is great because 30-40 boyz can cause great pressure to the opponent even if they fail the charge, while other units can be handled quite easily. Nobz and meganobz can be jumped as well but if the opponent has some screeners they won't do much while bustas and gitz are too expensive and not that killy to act as suicide units. Keep also in mind that we can only teleport one unit per turn.

Transports are very needed for the orks, only boyz and maybe a full unit of 10 nobz plus 10 ammo runts really want to be jumped.

The solution to units that are dependent on transports is to make them better, not make their mandatory transport better. No unit should *have* to take a transport to be viable. It makes no sense.

I believe we've had this discussion on the general Ork tactica thread before regarding Trukks, Meganobz and Tank Bustas and the consensus was that we needed a new transport that was somewhere in between a Trukk and a Battlewagon to service those more expensive and precious units.

There is no reason Meganobz shouldn't be able to take Ammo Runts. Or innately Deep Strike, like every other TEQ.

Tank Bustas are far too weak for me, their durability needs a hike or they need a serious decrease in price. A unit that has to take a transport to be viable is a poor unit indeed.

Transports should add to the army, not be requirements for other things to work.

I take your points on Da Jump, it is not without it's flaws and it doesn't suit every unit equally.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
I think Jidmah is hinting at it but the biggest problem with our vehicles, for me, is that a Weirdboy + Da Jump is a much better and more cost effective solution.

We simply have a better transport mechanic.

For that reason I wouldn't make Trukks or Battlewagons much cheaper because I still think Da Jump will beat them on price, I would make them more killy. Since our vehicles aren't going to do anything in shooting I think it's only fair that they should be much better in melee. The reasoning is that at the end of the day it's an Ork driving and any Ork would go out of their way to run enemies over.

Give the vehicles a purpose that we currently need filling - in my mind they would be very useful as Anti Armour specialists. Let them do bonus damage or have bonus to hit rolls against vehicles. Anything.

I really don't think that cutting the price would fix them as I can't see them ever competing with Weirdboy + Da Jump in that regard.

Good point. The deff rolla was our primary source of anti-tank in 5th edition, and I was pretty disappointed when it failed to do as much as scratch the paint of a land speeder in my first game of 8th.

Upping the deffrolla's damage to 3 and maybe reduce the to hit bonus would return it to its former glory of crunching any vehicle that doesn't get out of the way fast enough. Same for the grabbin' klaw, I don't see a reason to use it in its current state.

In addition to what Blackie said, the main advantage transports have over da jump is being able to carry more than one unit per turn across the table, which is most important when bringing characters.

A unit of boyz in a deff rolla battlewagon are 313 points right now, if you add two HQs for a battalion (KFF mek, relic warboss), you're spending more than half your points for what's essentially two mobs of footslogging boyz.
At 2000 points, you usually lose two of those battlewagons before getting to charge, leaving you with a single one of your 180 point models by turn 3.
An army should be able to field four or even five wagons, or three wagons and four trukks or two wagons, two nauts, two trukks - you get the idea. In that case you would have roughly half your vehicles left to actually draw overwatch, contest objectives and smack some stuff with their wreckin' balls.

As I've said previously, the battlewagon does transporting and protecting units pretty well, you just end up with way to little models on the table.
Just for comparison, the list I used to play in 5th and 6th at 2000 points looked somewhat like this:

BW1 : 20x boyz, PK nob
BW2: 20x boyz, PK nob
BW3: 15x Burna boyz + Thrakka
BW4: 5x Nobz with banner and 3 PKs + KFF mek
Trukk: 12 boyz
10 Gretchin
15 Lootaz
3 koptaz
All wagons with deff rollas and a single big shoota, of course.

Fielding such a list today puts you at about 2500 points - even though almost all units in the list have gotten weaker since then. It for sure doesn't feel like playing 2500 points when your opponent can field five baneblades for the same and still has enough left to buy a bunch of guys to hold the line.

So, we need more toughness for BW alongside major anti-vehicle potential up close. Grabbing claw should immobilize stuff or do something I’m that role, deffrolla should deal some heavy damage on charge. Wrecking ball could use some beefing up too. If BW had a 5+ ramshackle, would it be beefy enough?

What if trukks has more passanger spots, say 15 and were faster for the same price? So BW = to slam into stuff while delivering small units into action. Trukks = pure transporters and occasional light vehicle hunting with ball.

 JawRippa wrote:
So, we need more toughness for BW alongside major anti-vehicle potential up close. Grabbing claw should immobilize stuff or do something I’m that role, deffrolla should deal some heavy damage on charge. Wrecking ball could use some beefing up too. If BW had a 5+ ramshackle, would it be beefy enough?

What if trukks has more passanger spots, say 15 and were faster for the same price? So BW = to slam into stuff while delivering small units into action. Trukks = pure transporters and occasional light vehicle hunting with ball.

I like the cut of your jib.

Don't forget that Trukks should have the option to take Boarding Planks (not sure if Bwagons should?) that allow disembarking/charging after a move.

We locking in (assuming) that we're gonna get a 1CP auto explode vehicle stratagem? Surely right?

What's the next thing you want to look at Rippa?

So, here is my attempt at making vehicles beefier and better in melee

- Trukk has 15 transport capacity, 8 wounds and moves 14’’. Trukk has ramshackle of 6+ and Batllewagon has ramshackle of 5+.
- ‘Ard case - lose open topped, +1T, ramshackle improves by 1.
- Red paint - you may reroll advancing results.
- Big red button - once per game you may double the result of your advance and charge after advancing. Suffer D3 mortal wounds after completing the charge.
- Grabbin’ Klaw - STR usr AP3 D1, +1 to hit. Successful wound against model with 6 or more wound stat in profile makes target unable to fall back until your next turn. Up to 3 attacks can be made with this weapon.
- Wrecking ball (swing): add 2 strength and +1 to hit on charge. STR Usr AP3 D3
Wrecking ball (flail): +1 to hit on charge and every time you attack with this weapon, make 3 attacks instead. STR4 AP1 D1
- Spiky ram - after completing a charge choose enemy unit in base contact, it suffers X STR3 AP- hits, where X is result on 2D6 during charge.
- Reinforced ram - vehicle is not slowed by terrain on charge. Additionally after charging against a model with more than 5 wounds, you may choose to roll off, both you and opponent add Toughness to result while you get +2 for reinforced ram. Loser suffers D3 mortal wounds.
- Boarding plank - units may disembark and charge after vehicle has moved, unless it has advanced.[/list]

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Don't forget that Trukks should have the option to take Boarding Planks (not sure if Bwagons should?) that allow disembarking/charging after a move.

Boarding planks are only on the trukk sprue, BW doesn't have any bits for it, so the probably won't have the options. Als note that BW kits don't have wreckin' balls or rokkits.

Available from the bw kit, including the upgrade sprue:
1 looba
1 killkannon or kannon or zzap gun
4 big shootas
1 grabbin' klaw
reinforced ram
deff rolla
repair grot
'ardcase
'eavy armor

 Jidmah wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
Don't forget that Trukks should have the option to take Boarding Planks (not sure if Bwagons should?) that allow disembarking/charging after a move.

Boarding planks are only on the trukk sprue, BW doesn't have any bits for it, so the probably won't have the options. Als note that BW kits don't have wreckin' balls or rokkits.

Available from the bw kit, including the upgrade sprue:
1 looba
1 killkannon or kannon or zzap gun
4 big shootas
1 grabbin' klaw
reinforced ram
deff rolla
repair grot
'ardcase
'eavy armor

What is `eavy armor for? Battlewagon can take wreckin` ball according to index.

 JawRippa wrote:
So, here is my attempt at making vehicles beefier and better in melee

- Trukk has 15 transport capacity, 8 wounds and moves 14’’. Trukk has ramshackle of 6+ and Batllewagon has ramshackle of 5+.
- ‘Ard case - lose open topped, +1T, ramshackle improves by 1.
- Red paint - you may reroll advancing results.
- Big red button - once per game you may double the result of your advance and charge after advancing. Suffer D3 mortal wounds after completing the charge.
- Boarding plank - units may disembark and charge after vehicle has moved, unless it has advanced.[/list]

Me likes.
Though I would prefer speed no longer to be connected to painting all vehicles red, but that's not an actual rules issue.

- Grabbin’ Klaw - STR usr AP3 D1, +1 to hit. Successful wound against model with 6 or more wound stat in profile makes target unable to fall back until your next turn. Up to 3 attacks can be made with this weapon.

Make the "up to X attacks" go away. Other codices (for example tail weapons for nids) just made those kind of weapons do additional attacks. In that case there would be no competition between deffrolla, klaw and wrecking ball. Make BW 4 attacks base (degrades to 3 and, 2) and have the klaw add two or three attacks.

- Wrecking ball (swing): add 2 strength and +1 to hit on charge. STR Usr AP3 D3
Wrecking ball (flail): +1 to hit on charge and every time you attack with this weapon, make 3 attacks instead. STR4 AP1 D1

If all weapons add to hit, just make trukks and BWs WS 4+?
Wrecking ball could also just use the rules of flails found on DG or DA terminators - STR User+2, AP-2, Damage 2, d3 hit rolls per attack and overkill damage is not lost. This would archive what your two profiles try to archive: Being good against both hordes and vehicles, and it would be consistent with other rules.

- Spiky ram - after completing a charge choose enemy unit in base contact, it suffers X STR3 AP- hits, where X is result on 2D6 during charge.

That's what a seventh edition rule would look like. 8th edition would just do a mortal wound on a 4+ (see carnifex rules).
There is also no model support for spiky ram.

- Reinforced ram - vehicle is not slowed by terrain on charge. Additionally after charging against a model with more than 5 wounds, you may choose to roll off, both you and opponent add Toughness to result while you get +2 for reinforced ram. Loser suffers D3 mortal wounds.

Same as above, rule is just too complex. Just roll 3 dice and get a mortal wound on a 5+. Add +1 to roll if charging a vehicle or monster.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JawRippa wrote:
What is `eavy armor for? Battlewagon can take wreckin` ball according to index.

It used to degrade stunned results on the damage table to shaken, essentially allowing it to continue moving no matter what happened. Might translate to messing with the degrading table like seen in the AM codex (vehicle counts as having twice as many wounds for degrading).

Neither the Battlewagon sprue nor the upgrade sprue has wreckin' balls, and there is no defined place to put it on a battlewagon. It is pretty likely that this option will get taken away in the codex - which currently means nothing, since you still have permission to use wargear legal in the index, but that might change. GW will probably not consider such wargear in their codex design.

 Jidmah wrote:

If all weapons add to hit, just make trukks and BWs WS 4+?

The idea is that if you want a trukk to be good in melee, then you have to cash-in for Wrecking ball, otherwise trukk has WS5+ and can barely scratch anything. +1 to hit on ball should probably be a constant thing. Also I agree that those weapons should just give extra attacks, not to compete with each other. I guess a deffrolla could be exception.

 Jidmah wrote:

Wrecking ball could also just use the rules of flails found on DG or DA terminators - STR User+2, AP-2, Damage 2, d3 hit rolls per attack and overkill damage is not lost. This would archive what your two profiles try to archive: Being good against both hordes and vehicles, and it would be consistent with other rules.

Yeah, I guess it is simpler just to have 1 generalistic profile. Although I was thinking about kight melee attacks - either hit less but harder or more, but weaker.

 Jidmah wrote:

That's what a seventh edition rule would look like. 8th edition would just do a mortal wound on a 4+ (see carnifex rules).
There is also no model support for spiky ram.

Aw. Aren't there some generic spike plates on sides of trukk/BW? Idea behind spiky ram was that it is good vs light infantry, but bad vs anything else.

 Jidmah wrote:

Same as above, rule is just too complex. Just roll 3 dice and get a mortal wound on a 5+. Add +1 to roll if charging a vehicle or monster.

Haha, yeah, I was having a 7th ed flashbacks. Your version is x10 times better in terms of simplicity. It sorta makes spiky ram absolete I guess.

There are certainly variations of rams in the Trukk kit. I'd say there's model support for this.

What needs fixing next?

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
There are certainly variations of rams in the Trukk kit. I'd say there's model support for this.

What needs fixing next?

Probably basic shooting comes next. It has already been mentioned that we suffer from -To Hit modifiers, but hopefully either stratagem or army wide rule will fix it. Basic guns like big shootas and rokkit launchers seem to be a trap wargear, as they basically achieve nothing and just waste points. Also orks benefit from twin-linked the least nowadays (not that it should change, just an observation to keep in mind). Big shootas on our vehicles literally serve as a tax while achieving next to nothing. Normal shootas are fine though.

Thing is - orks don't throw out nearly as much dakka as you'd expect with special weapons, and it barely hits. So, what if both Rokkit launcha and Big shoota could switch between Assault and Rapid? So if you want to just dakka stuff you get to half of weapon's range and refrain from advancing. (so 6 shots per Big Shoota and 2 shots per Rokkit launcha). Suddenly ork gunlines become a thing, yet I don't think they'd be able to outshoot a "proper" shooty race gunline and twin-linked has potential to be really dangerous(imagine 12 bs shots per buggy). The only I fear I have is that jumped Tankbustas may become too good at busting vehicles and make weirdboy even more mandatory in general.
Edit: this change alongside a proper price ofc

I think big meks should have an aura that grants failed hits on 1s in the shooting phase. A stock special rule, not an upgrade. It won't change the games but it surely helps with KMKs (and a SAG may be worthy if the big mek also buffs the artillery) and kanz with KMBs, they won't kill themselves anymore. But other kanz and artillery could benefit as well, a free re-roll on BS4+ units IMHO is something.

Then I'd like a stratagem that allows units to move twice, especially the fast ones. It would fit the speed freaks theme quite well. And eventually another stratagem that allows to fight twice in the same assault phase, it could be really nasty.

75% of the index should get points reductions, this is what I mostly want in order to be able to field a good amount of toys, not only tons of boyz.

 JawRippa wrote:
Probably basic shooting comes next. It has already been mentioned that we suffer from -To Hit modifiers, but hopefully either stratagem or army wide rule will fix it. Basic guns like big shootas and rokkit launchers seem to be a trap wargear, as they basically achieve nothing and just waste points. Also orks benefit from twin-linked the least nowadays (not that it should change, just an observation to keep in mind). Big shootas on our vehicles literally serve as a tax while achieving next to nothing. Normal shootas are fine though.

Thing is - orks don't throw out nearly as much dakka as you'd expect with special weapons, and it barely hits. So, what if both Rokkit launcha and Big shoota could switch between Assault and Rapid? So if you want to just dakka stuff you get to half of weapon's range and refrain from advancing. (so 6 shots per Big Shoota and 2 shots per Rokkit launcha). Suddenly ork gunlines become a thing, yet I don't think they'd be able to outshoot a "proper" shooty race gunline and twin-linked has potential to be really dangerous(imagine 12 bs shots per buggy). The only I fear I have is that jumped Tankbustas may become too good at busting vehicles and make weirdboy even more mandatory in general.
Edit: this change alongside a proper price ofc

So army-wide rule that our shooting modifier can never go above 6+ to hit? Is that too powerful? Seems fitting to me.

Re Big Shootas, Rokkits and the like, I believe their shooting output should be doubled. Sounds ridiculous I know but lets be honest, we just don't have the dakka that we used to and if we advance, which we tend to do all the time (assuming no other modifiers) we are cutting our successful hits in half anyway.

Rokkits should be Assault 2 or Rapid Fire 2 and 2 damage a pop. Tank Bustas are easy to fix - just remove the innate reroll against vehicles. Perhaps change it to reroll 1s to hit against vehicles (so they have some advantage over the Rokkit Boy).

Big Shootas should be Assault 6 or Rapid Fire 3.

Twin weapons of those categories should increase in shots accordingly.

I agree that Shootas are fine where they are.

Kustom Shootas should be Rapid Fire 3 or make them 1 pt or give them AP.

We also lack AP on our ranged weaponry generally.
I'd like to see Big Shootas have an extra -AP and Dakkaguns also get -1 AP.

Double the shots of the SAG if the Big Mek doesn't move and give him a reroll 1s to hit aura might make them more viable.

I don't use many of the Mek's shooty weapons so I'm not sure how to improve them or whether they need anything more than a points reduction?

Skorchas and Burnas should probably be left for another discussion.

All of shooting might be too big. Maybe start smaller with just big shootas and rokkits?

Why nerfing the bustas by removing their re-roll against vehicles? It's the only thing they have. Without that re-roll they'd be shelved forever. I'd even make them 3-4 ppm cheaper since they're currently overcosted.

Kustom shootas should be 2pts, they're orks storm bolters after all.

 Blackie wrote:
Why nerfing the bustas by removing their re-roll against vehicles? It's the only thing they have. Without that re-roll they'd be shelved forever. I'd even make them 3-4 ppm cheaper since they're currently overcosted.

Kustom shootas should be 2pts, they're orks storm bolters after all.

I'm only suggesting they lose that if they get a Rokkit Launcha that fires twice lol.

I'd tweak the "ramshackle" rule a bit, give a 4+ save against multiple wounds down to 1, noted as "didn't hit anything that mattered"

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
So army-wide rule that our shooting modifier can never go above 6+ to hit? Is that too powerful? Seems fitting to me.

I agree. At -1 we have lost half our shooting already and -2 to hit usually has at least some opportunity cost attached to it, so an allaitoc player wouldn't need to advance with his tanks to get maximum protection, an ultramarine player could buff another unit with tigurius, etc.

Re Big Shootas, Rokkits and the like, I believe their shooting output should be doubled. Sounds ridiculous I know but lets be honest, we just don't have the dakka that we used to and if we advance, which we tend to do all the time (assuming no other modifiers) we are cutting our successful hits in half anyway.

Rokkits should be Assault 2 or Rapid Fire 2 and 2 damage a pop. Tank Bustas are easy to fix - just remove the innate reroll against vehicles. Perhaps change it to reroll 1s to hit against vehicles (so they have some advantage over the Rokkit Boy).

I would just exclude tank bustaz from this discussion. They have their whole own set of problems that need to be addressed separately - their survivability, the viability of tank hammers and rokkit pistols in comparison to rokkits and the reliance on transports.
One option would be to make tank bustas+rokkits slightly more expensive (assuming rokkits get better), while making tank hammers and rokkit pistols cheaper.

I like the idea of just making rokkits rapid fire though - especially on koptas and buggies it would provide incentive to drive really close to an enemy to get more shots in, kind of like a multi-melta. You usually don't want -1 to hit on your anti-tank weapons, so assault is kind of wasted on rokkits anyways.
In general would agree that "more dakka" is definitely what most units need.

There are three kinds of rokkit units though - IMO each should get a different treatment:
- units that just take rokkits (or combi-rokkits) to have some shooting in addition to whatever they were doing in the first place: boyz, kommandoz, nobz, MANz, trukks, nauts, battlewagons and characters. I think rokkits are good as they are for those units, assuming they would get cheap enough.
- units whose primary role is getting where they are needed and shooting stuff with rokkits: buggies, wartrakks, koptas. They used to be super fragile, fast and cheap platforms for rokkits so we could spam them to fulfill our anti-tank needs. Durability and points on all of those has doubled, and so should their rokkits. Make rokkits racks (buggies) and kopta rokkits assault 4 (rapid fire 4?) and they are back in the game. As for model support, AOBR koptas have 4 rokkits anyways and the only official rokkit buggy ever made has 5.
- walkers: Kanz and deff dreads both have the options to take rokkits, but either their BS is too low for those rokkits to matter or it's just one rokkit missing half of the time on an expensive chassis. The rokkit bit shows them as having three rokkits, why not give them assault 3 rokkits? Deciding between six rokkits and two extra attacks is a non-trivial decision even on a "I'm dead by turn 2" deff dread and kanz with three shots of rokkits each would be proper competition to a KMK. The new "tripple rokkit walker arm" would have to get proper point costs, of course.

The only issue I could see with this that a metric ton of BS 5+ missiles might be very swingy - hot dice could result in a terrifying amount of damage done in one turn if you hit way above average amount of shots. But then again, so could three lascannons doing 6 damage each.

Big Shootas should be Assault 6 or Rapid Fire 3.

Twin weapons of those categories should increase in shots accordingly.

I agree that Shootas are fine where they are.

Kustom Shootas should be Rapid Fire 3 or make them 1 pt or give them AP.

We also lack AP on our ranged weaponry generally.
I'd like to see Big Shootas have an extra -AP and Dakkaguns also get -1 AP.

Mathhammer time! The prefered targets for all kind of shootas should be enemy infantry, so I'll save my self the trouble to compare which is less inefficient at killing land raiders.
A shoota kills .11 MEQ and .30 GEQ, a kustom shoota twice that, obviously.
A big shoota or dakka gun kills .22 MEQ and .44 GEQ
So, a kustom shoota is actually a better gun than a big shoota currently.

Big shootas are something should want to put everywhere and fire while running.
However, since the big shoota is not good at killing anything, even when doubling the amount of shots, there is no advantage of taking the big shoota over just more shoota boyz, unless it's so cheap it becomes a no-brainer option.
So, I'll be the devil's advocate and actually suggest just that: make big shootas free. Even if you give one to every tenth boy, put four on each of your battlewagons and outfit a units of buggies with them... you need 9 to kill a single primaris marine per turn.
Don't get me wrong - making them AP-1 would also be great (heavy bolters are great guns), I just wanted to provide an alternative.

Next up kustom shoota, is an upgrade for characters and nobz that should be good enough to take whenever you have points to spend.
My suggestion is to just shamelessly copy the space marine's master-crafted bolters: Instead of more shots, kustom shootas are Assault 2, AP -1 and 2 damage, making them a nice to have on big meks and warbosses and a good option shooting option for MANz and nobz that can compete with shoota boyz for certain targets, especially if ammo runts get involved.

Double the shots of the SAG if the Big Mek doesn't move and give him a reroll 1s to hit aura might make them more viable.

I don't use many of the Mek's shooty weapons so I'm not sure how to improve them or whether they need anything more than a points reduction?

Don't overestimate a "reroll 1" aura on BS 5+ models - you only add a 5.55% chance to hit per shot for a total chance of 38.88% chance to hit.
In comparison: BS 3+ units gets 11.11% more hits, for a total 77.77% chance to hit.
So anything but a flat +1 to hit is a waste data slate space, and would also save time when rolling buckets of dice.
Instead of fiddling with "orks only" and similar issues, I'd just give all mek boyz (big meks, mini meks, spannas, morkanauts, wazzbomm blastajets) a flat increase to BS 4+, no aura needed.

KMK is our best ranged weapon, SAG is just about mediocre. The difference? KMK has 2 less AP and a better strength, SAG has more range and has a low chance to overheat your enemies instead of itself, but in general the guns are about the same in power. SAG costs about twice as much, but only hits on 5+. Twice the shots and BS 4+ would put them on even footing, with the SAG being worse at killing vehicles, but better at killing everything else.
In addition, you could also add a gitfinda relic or warlord trait to push a single character to BS 3+, basically allowing one SAG to be awesome without giving an incentive to spam character artillery.

KMB and KMS are harder - due to the overheat rule, both are about as likely to hurt the firer as anything else. I actually got a beautifully painted metal Big Mek with KMB for free when I bought a KFF mek on ebay, that's how awesome it is.
You can't really complain about S8 AP-3 and d3 damage, but the single shot at BS 5+ turns the weapon into a low risk, low value investment. You basically pay points for a weapon you probably never want to shoot, even with the perfect target next to you - any amount is too much for that.
If you make big meks, meks and spannas BS 4+ and double the shots of both the KMB and the KMS, you could at least assume one hit on average per turn. This would make them work similar to Badrukk, who has been pretty solid this edition.

Last mek toy would be the tellyporta blasta, which is probably the best guns for meks right now, since it's an Assault d3 rokkit launcha for 11 points. If there was reason to field MA meks without a KFF (or any MA characters at all), it would probably get used more often.
Maybe allow a bigmek in MA and another infantry unit to perform a tellyporta strike, deploying them within' 3" of the big mek, but outside of 9" of enemy (Tervigon rule). To put some ork in there, roll a d6 for every model without MA tellyported and remove one as casualty for every 6 rolled.

TL;DR:
- Drop points for all rokkits. Maybe make rokkits rapid fire, so two shots at 12".
- Koptas, trakks should get their rokkits doubled to match their doubled point costs
- Kanz and Deff dreads should get Assault 3 rokkits
- Big shoota should cost 0 points
- Kustom shoota becomes Assault 2, S4 AP-1 D2 like master-crafted bolters
- No shooting aura for orks, instead make all meks (big meks, mini meks, spannas, morkanauts, wazzbomm blastajets) BS 4+
- In addition, double SAG shots and add warlord trait or relic to make a single SAG BS 3+
- Double shots for KMB and KMS
- MA Big Meks enable deep strike deployment for themselves and another infantry unit. Non-MA models might get tellyported into the ground.

 Jidmah wrote:
snip

You better bet that when Jidmah talks, I listen.

Agree with everything you've said apart from Big Shootas.

I don't see the point in a 0 pt weapon taking up space on a vehicle. Like I'd rather pay the points and have it be useful with some sweet AP or more shots or something. I guess the difficulty is balancing it to fulfil its role without sneaking into rokkit territory.

Your idea to make more variety of weapons (different rokkits, rokkit arms etc) is inspired. We need to pass some of these ideas on.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
snip

You better bet that when Jidmah talks, I listen.

Agree with everything you've said apart from Big Shootas.

I don't see the point in a 0 pt weapon taking up space on a vehicle. Like I'd rather pay the points and have it be useful with some sweet AP or more shots or something. I guess the difficulty is balancing it to fulfil its role without sneaking into rokkit territory.

Your idea to make more variety of weapons (different rokkits, rokkit arms etc) is inspired. We need to pass some of these ideas on.

I agree. Excellent post , especially liked killakan rokkit arm suggestion; but big shootas for 0 just become a waste on vehicles.

They just need more shots I think. Btw what about
Big shoota: str5 AP- d1
36’’ assault 3
18’’ rapid fire 5

A thought about points and why points drops aren't always the answer. TLDR: the Morkanought would be much better if it could be given three KMK, even if I paid the points for them. The chassis isn't overpriced, the guns aren't overpriced - I just don't get the options to put enough guns on the chassis.

So in full:
Some points values make sense when chassis/weapon are looked at separately; postulating that BS is part of weapon cost (I'm well aware that many examples don't fit this)
. e.g. a space marine missile launcher is 25pts, an Ork Rokkit launcha that will hit half as often is 12points (yes I'm simplifying, pros and cons).

Assuming that we can then separate BS from chassis cost, the chassis for a Morkanought, a Land Raider and a Knight aren't massively different value wise (go with me here).

The key difference is that a Land Raider gets 117+pts of weapons for a 239pt chassis, whilst the Morkanought gets 80pts of weapons for a 270pt chassis. And I only consider 41pts of those weapons to be worthwhile...

The Kustom Mega Kannon isn't bad or overpriced, it's just that the competition is getting four Lascannons on a similar chassis. KMKs are quite a bit cheaper than lascannons actually - why not make the Morkanought KMK weapon a special 5D6 shots KMK cannon and price the weapon at 85pts? (5*17). With that option the Morkanought is then a similar cost/durability/dakka to a Land Raider.