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As the title says, which system do you prefer? The old armour facings on vehicles, or the new 'multi-wound/high toughness' combo?

Either works for me.

What doesn't is the lack of vehicle fire arcs.

I think either system works in its own right. When you consider facings and armour on specific parts of vehicles I think that its a nice idea, but was always a tiny bit odd that it only applied to vehicles. Then you had things like huge Tyranids where it had no effect at all because they weren't a vehicle.

That said I think facings and fire arcs on vehicles does make them stand out as something different to the regular infantry models. A big beefy tank feels more like a tank when its got those fire arcs and when its got those different armour values and when the direction it faces matters.

I personally preferred armour facings to the new wounds characteristic as it allowed for a little bit more depth and there were consequences for manoeuvering/positioning your vehicle in certain ways.

I really liked the old system, hitting a vehicle from the rear, where its armor is weaker, simply makes more sense. Also vehicle facings mattered for shooting. It had more tactical depth. I dont see any problems combining both systems. If you hit a vehicle from the rear you would improve the weapons AP by 1, or add one more damage, or something similiar.

I think a more apt question would be: "What do you prefer, Armour facings or Toughness?". I think I still prefer Armour facings, but wounds work better than the old Hull Points. I guess it's a mixed bag for me.

I don't like either.

Armor value was fine, but the wounding system was silly.
Multi-wound/high toughness is considerably better, but it took away the essence of a vehicle being a vehicle, especially when it comes to tanks.

Maybe if they made a rule that if you shoot at a vehicle from the front, it counts as having +1 or 2 toughness, I would be satisfied.

Vehicles are actually playable now so I prefer the current system.

I think GW has not really done ether system that well. I think they could have had a mix of bother and it would have been much better, this new system i think is a bit wonky.

ccs wrote:
Either works for me.

What doesn't is the lack of vehicle fire arcs.

the problem with vehicle fire arcs is the model designers don't really think beyond "THIS LOOKS KEWL!" so some models tend to get fire arcs that aren't really that hot. The Land raider is exhibit A in that regard

The current integration of vehicles into the same framework as other things is vastly better for playability purposes. I'd rather see the game incorporate some sort of crossfire mechanic or flanking bonus against all targets (like Epic had, if you could pincer the target between your forces you got a nice little bonus to your effect) to promote maneuver instead of only kicking vehicles in the face.

BrianDavion wrote:

ccs wrote:
Either works for me.

What doesn't is the lack of vehicle fire arcs.

the problem with vehicle fire arcs is the model designers don't really think beyond "THIS LOOKS KEWL!" so some models tend to get fire arcs that aren't really that hot. The Land raider is exhibit A in that regard

Aye its a very solid thought. Esp when you've vehicles that don't have their primary weapons on a turret. There's a good few Siege style tanks in the game which don't have their weapon on a turret. Now that's fine for a game of Epic or other 6mm or similar scale game because they would typically be far back from the front lints. However in 40K they aren't. They can be right up close to the front lines so they have to do a lot more moving side to side to keep things in range.

IT also takes us back to the unfair state of vehicles vs things like demon engines and tyranids which traditionally had no fire arcs and yet were, for power and points, pretty much equivalent to vehicles.

Much happier with the current system.

Too many issues with arcs on vehicles and also the whole Monsters vs Vehicles debarcle in previous editions

Darsath wrote:
I think a more apt question would be: "What do you prefer, Armour facings or Toughness?". I think I still prefer Armour facings, but wounds work better than the old Hull Points. I guess it's a mixed bag for me.

Same opinion here. Wounds are better than the old vehicle damage chart or hull points, but I miss the feeling armour facing had.

I strongly prefer wounds as the concept of instant killing a vehicle to a single shot was silly. Fire arcs, fire points, immobilized/stunned/shaken results on the damage table were mechanics that I didn't like and I'm glad they're gone. No more debating about what side of the vehicle (aka what AV) a shooting model actually sees, which is another point in favor of the new system.

I dislike the insane amount of firepower that armies can easily bring in this (but also the previous) edition though. But that's an issue that comes from a different matter which is the introduction of super dudes and super vehicles to "standard" games; they should have stayed at apocalypse games or similar huge formats. I miss the times when 1-2 dreads, a land raider, a battlewagon, etc were the centerpiece models.

On the table i prefered the old system, since with this one you have dumb things like tanks moving sideways.

For gameplay i prefer the current one.

Though, even with the current system i would put armor facings in again, but only for Titanic models. +1 damage if hit from rear.

I do understand that considering the scale of the game, the facing of a stubber on leman russ should not be reprensented, but the biggest thiings should.

I,prefer the new, fixed some of the goofy ass firing arcs that caused some vehicles to be pretty terrible. It also greatly reduced arguments of what facing you were hitting, imperium vehicles were easy but eldar and their kin could be god awful to figure out sometimes.
The new system is also better for teaching new players as you don’t have to teach them multiple damage dealing systems.

New system - fixes needing to resolve angles on alien weirdness, makes vehicles no longer second fiddle to the all-powerful Monster rule, much quicker to play and degrading ability is more interesting that random results.

Fire arcs will never work unless the vehicle datasheets start specifying the arcs for each weapon listed.

Armor!

The current system, by a country mile.

I always find it strange how people like to talk about armour facings as if they mattered in any way, I mean I play Dark Elda, Craftworld Eldar, Harlequins and Tyranids and for all 4 of them you relied on either Haywire, Melta, D weapons or combat and none of those things gave a toss about armour facings.

With the games current scale, I vastly prefer the toughness/wounds system. At smaller scales, I wouldn't mind having armor facings, but I would also want more detailed movement rules to go with it.
But, I do think the game could benefit from simplified firing arcs of front, rear, right, and left 180° arcs. You won't have the visual disconnect of a right sponson shooting something on the left side of the tank or a front mounted hull gun shooting to the rear, but you also don't have to quibble over minor angle issues like in the past.

Current rules, much better!

Dreadnoughts and similar play so much better and can go toe to toe with their monster counterparts.

If anything we need to redo the Str vs T system, Monsters should have higher W count but Vehicles should have better saves and T instead (Monsters are easier to damage but take more, Vehicles are harder to actually damage but of course are a lot more vulnerable)

Armor facings and fire arcs were stupid. Armor facings never mattered and created arguments on anything that wasn't a rhino chassis and fire arcs were just straight up nonsense. As it turns out, making a vehicle pay for a sponson it's not going to be able to shoot 90% of the time makes the vehicle pretty bad.

 Blackie wrote:
I strongly prefer wounds as the concept of instant killing a vehicle to a single shot was silly.

It's actually quite possible that a single hit could take out a tank. Take a HEAT round into the ammo storage rack and you have a "oh bugger the tank is on fire" situation very quickly. Depending on where and how a shot hits you could see a tank taken out by an AT gun in 1 hit or that it takes dozens of hits. Now how good a mechanic that was for a game like 40k is hard to say.

As for the original question I personally prefer the AV system as it gave a certain feel of being bullet proof against low strength weapons and forced the need for heavy hitter weapons or flanking to the weaker side/rear armor. With just toughness and a big stack of wounds they seemed like a rolling meat box and the lack of vehicle mechanics further made them feel like fat infantry. That said vehicles with AV needed an armor save to discourage high strength AP nothing spam from stripping hull points.

Spoletta wrote:
On the table i prefered the old system, since with this one you have dumb things like tanks moving sideways.

I used to have two rhinos moving like a wall, each one using the other to hide its back!
So no change here.

 Vankraken wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I strongly prefer wounds as the concept of instant killing a vehicle to a single shot was silly.

It's actually quite possible that a single hit could take out a tank. Take a HEAT round into the ammo storage rack and you have a "oh bugger the tank is on fire" situation very quickly. Depending on where and how a shot hits you could see a tank taken out by an AT gun in 1 hit or that it takes dozens of hits. Now how good a mechanic that was for a game like 40k is hard to say.

"oh bugger the tank is on fire" - if you have time to say this sentence after your tank takes a HEAT in the ammo rack, consider yourself exceedingly lucky.

It's better now than before, for sure

I like that everything uses the same system now. And while tanks generally being either fine or very dead is realistic, it made for a weird contrast to slowly-degrading monstrous creatures, and wasn't fitting for 40K IMO.

However, I have two complaints with the current system:

-A 3+ save makes vehicles more vulnerable to low-damage, high-volume weapons than to dedicated anti-tank guns. I'd much rather see 2+ be the default for tanks (with fewer wounds to compensate), with lighter transports keeping the 3+.

-Lack of flanking mechanics in the game as a whole means there is no longer incentive to get around the sides of tanks. I'd be happy with something basic, like giving every unit 180 degree front and rear arcs, and counting their save as 1 point worse if hit in the rear arc.

So really I don't think the issue is with the toughness/wounds system, but rather some of the details of implementation.

Another factor is that S and AP are largely redundant to one another as far as mechanics go, but that's neither here nor there.

toughtness/wounds 100% the issue with armor to me was all the arguments about facings, sure on a rhino its corner to corner, same on a landraider. on an ork battlewagon it mean you have a very narrow front armor and usually were being hit on side armor... but where the liens go on a wave serpant or devilfish was constantly argued.

Another thing that always bugged me on armor facings boiled down to... why would they have weaker armor on the rear? seems like you would have the whole vehicle nice and tough, what if you need to run? do you have to do it in reverse?

 G00fySmiley wrote:
Another thing that always bugged me on armor facings boiled down to... why would they have weaker armor on the rear? seems like you would have the whole vehicle nice and tough, what if you need to run? do you have to do it in reverse?

If you mean IRL, it's because weight/material conservation. Most shots were fired against the front of the tank in engagement, least against the rear. If a tank had the same armor all around, it would get significantly heavier, thus slower, bigger and more expensive and/ or harder to maintain.
Speaking of early WW2 tanks, the difference would be miniscule, but imagine this with a Tiger tank with 57 tons and 120mm front armor, with 120mm all around it would easily surpass 80tons in weight.
Moreover, if your tank isn't the last one in the column, or the enemy didn't ambush you/made a rear attack, you have your rear covered by somebody else.

And yes, you would reverse.