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I've seen it a lot, a discussion about bribing back AV to the game in order to lessen the lethality of this game. Something I support.

To that end, I'd like to suggest the following and I'd like to ask for feedback with any unforeseen consequences.

Add a new Keyword:

Anti-Vehicle. This would be added to the profile of weapons, examples: Melta, Missiles, Bright Lances, Laser Canons, Battle Cannons, Autocannons, etc.

If you're shooting at a unit that has the Vehicle keyword, and you have this Anti-Vehicle profile, then you can wound it as normal. If your gun does not have this profile then:

1. You cannot wound the unit at all. (sort of back to old school)
2. You can only wound on a 6+

So, which is the better option?

I would prefer the 1st option, but if we have to keep "anything can wound everything" then wound only on a 6+ and cap it at D1.

*was coming to start this thread with after your reply to me on the SoB thread.*

 Salted Diamond wrote:
I would prefer the 1st option, but if we have to keep "anything can wound everything" then wound only on a 6+ and cap it at D1.

*was coming to start this thread with after your reply to me on the SoB thread.*

That was my idea!

And yeah, I also prefer the first option I think. It makes different units in different roles a lot more viable again and might reduce overall spam!

It makes the game far too binary and matchup dependent. That's not to say there's not a need for something along these lines. Personally, I'd add AP resistance to a lot of vehicles and make the anti-tank keyword basically say AP from this weapon cannot be reduced. D6 damage as a premise could also use some heavy rethinking.

Alternativly just go with:

If T = 2x S you need 6's to wound.
If T > 2x S you are unable to wound.

(and to make it fair, if T < S/2 wound on a 2+ re-rolling 1's on a 4+. i.e. shoot a lascannon at a grot wound on 2+, roll a 1. you get a re-roll but only wounding on 4+ this time)

 The Forgemaster wrote:
Alternativly just go with:

If T = 2x S you need 6's to wound.
If T > 2x S you are unable to wound.

(and to make it fair, if T < S/2 wound on a 2+ re-rolling 1's on a 4+. i.e. shoot a lascannon at a grot wound on 2+, roll a 1. you get a re-roll but only wounding on 4+ this time)

I would just expand the table and leave those values as they are:

S=2xT 2+
S=>T 3+
S=T 4+
S=<T 5+
S=1/2T 6+

S=3xT auto wound
S=1/3T can't wound


So a lasgun can't hurt something t9, a bolter t12 etc

On the inverse, s12 auto wound space msrines>

Hellebore wrote:

 The Forgemaster wrote:
Alternativly just go with:

If T = 2x S you need 6's to wound.
If T > 2x S you are unable to wound.

(and to make it fair, if T < S/2 wound on a 2+ re-rolling 1's on a 4+. i.e. shoot a lascannon at a grot wound on 2+, roll a 1. you get a re-roll but only wounding on 4+ this time)

I would just expand the table and leave those values as they are:

S=2xT 2+
S=>T 3+
S=T 4+
S=<T 5+
S=1/2T 6+

S=3xT auto wound
S=1/3T can't wound


So a lasgun can't hurt something t9, a bolter t12 etc

On the inverse, s12 auto wound space msrines>

Yes but how often would you be shooting somthing with Toughness 9 or more? Titans, GUO,the odd heavy vehicle with psychic protection... any others?
and as well how often do you have weapons over Strength 10 outside Knights/titans etc. again there are a few especially melee weapons but most of the time you are using those against vehicles not light infantry.

so Strength vs 3x Toughness etc. probably will not do a lot.

GUO are T7.

 The Forgemaster wrote:

Hellebore wrote:

 The Forgemaster wrote:
Alternativly just go with:

If T = 2x S you need 6's to wound.
If T > 2x S you are unable to wound.

(and to make it fair, if T < S/2 wound on a 2+ re-rolling 1's on a 4+. i.e. shoot a lascannon at a grot wound on 2+, roll a 1. you get a re-roll but only wounding on 4+ this time)

I would just expand the table and leave those values as they are:

S=2xT 2+
S=>T 3+
S=T 4+
S=<T 5+
S=1/2T 6+

S=3xT auto wound
S=1/3T can't wound


So a lasgun can't hurt something t9, a bolter t12 etc

On the inverse, s12 auto wound space msrines>

Yes but how often would you be shooting somthing with Toughness 9 or more? Titans, GUO,the odd heavy vehicle with psychic protection... any others?
and as well how often do you have weapons over Strength 10 outside Knights/titans etc. again there are a few especially melee weapons but most of the time you are using those against vehicles not light infantry.

so Strength vs 3x Toughness etc. probably will not do a lot.

It would apply to the apocalypse scale units where it would be appropriate.


But part of this issue is that GW is hanging onto legacy statlines despite fundamentally changing how the damage roll works.

The new damage system is imo the biggest innovation in the game but it hasn't really been properly utilised since its inception.


A hive tyrant being t6 is entirely due to the 3rd-7th method of damage and is no longer necessary.

 Togusa wrote:


If you're shooting at a unit that has the Vehicle keyword, and you have this Anti-Vehicle profile, then you can wound it as normal. If your gun does not have this profile then:

1. You cannot wound the unit at all. (sort of back to old school)
2. You can only wound on a 6+

So, which is the better option?

Sourpuss answer: The first 1 so that I don't waste my time pretending to have a chance while your all vehicle army renders every bolter and shuriken in my collection useless.

Less sour answer: The 2nd so that huge chunks of the units in the game aren't 100% immune to other huge chunks of units in the game.

Real answer: Vehicles being immune to small arms fire is probably bad for the game. Currently, lasguns and shuriken catapults can chip in against vehicles but aren't an efficient way to kill them. That seems about right to me. Your tank company shouldn't become invulnerable the second you kill my last meltagun, and I shouldn't have to ignore 90% of my codex in an effort to stock up on as many meltaguns as possible.

IMHO the bigger problem is that weaponry that is designed to clear clusters of units can reliably deliver multi damage to a single unit.

case in point, Heavy 1, D 1D6 is the type of profile you might see on say.. a Lascanon, a weapon designed specificly, to bust tanks.
Meanwhile a weapon designed specificly to deal with heavy infantry might be "heavy 6 D 1"

one is supposed to be used to crack tanks, the other crack power armor. BUT, the heavy 6 D1 is proably more effective against the tank as well due to law of averages etc.

So what 40k needs to do is add another qualifer into the mix. we'll call it "blast" and the blast rule will limit you to "one attack per model.

So.. a Heavy Blast 6 would be a heavy weapon with 6 shots, but you can only hit 1 model per unit. so if I shoot at a squad of 5, I can make 6 attacks but I can only each each of the 5 once.

Thought: Damage Reduction. Like the Wave Serpent's but can reduce the attack's damage to 0. If you're a medium tank you get DR1 (small arms can't wound you, D2 attacks like autocannons and plasma guns do one wound), heavy tanks and superheavies get DR2 (immune to plasma guns/autocannons, you need real anti-armour weapons).

BrianDavion wrote:IMHO the bigger problem is that weaponry that is designed to clear clusters of units can reliably deliver multi damage to a single unit.

case in point, Heavy 1, D 1D6 is the type of profile you might see on say.. a Lascanon, a weapon designed specificly, to bust tanks.
Meanwhile a weapon designed specificly to deal with heavy infantry might be "heavy 6 D 1"

one is supposed to be used to crack tanks, the other crack power armor. BUT, the heavy 6 D1 is proably more effective against the tank as well due to law of averages etc.

So what 40k needs to do is add another qualifer into the mix. we'll call it "blast" and the blast rule will limit you to "one attack per model.

So.. a Heavy Blast 6 would be a heavy weapon with 6 shots, but you can only hit 1 model per unit. so if I shoot at a squad of 5, I can make 6 attacks but I can only each each of the 5 once.

Most of the more effective mid-strength/low damage weapons with lots of shots seem like they should be able to do multiple points of damage by landing more than one hit though. Heavy bolters and autocannons, for instance, seem like they should be capable of landing more than 1 hit apiece on a target. And if they can't, well, that heavy bolter just became merely as good as a normal bolter against anything T5-7. Worse even, assuming it has the blast rule and a regular bolter does not.

Rather than nerf mid-strength guns, I'd kind of like to see high strength/damage weapons improved. If you made lascannons strength 14 or even 16, for instance, and gave them a flat 3 damage or a rule that prevented their damage rolls from ever being treated as less than 3 (like daemonhammers or that one onager dunecrawler gun), then the math would switch back to favoring them against their preferred targets.

AnomanderRake wrote:Thought: Damage Reduction. Like the Wave Serpent's but can reduce the attack's damage to 0. If you're a medium tank you get DR1 (small arms can't wound you, D2 attacks like autocannons and plasma guns do one wound), heavy tanks and superheavies get DR2 (immune to plasma guns/autocannons, you need real anti-armour weapons).

Well, if you allow it to reduce damage to 0, then we're back to huge chunks of weapons/units being unable to harm huge chunks of units. DR2 would be even more nasty as it would make many anti-tank options (disintegrators, plasma, autocannons) incapable of hurting the units that have it.

Lasguns should be bad at killing tanks (and they are), but fielding 400 points of lasguns against an enemy tank company shouldn't mean that 400 points of your army are incapable of harming the enemy.

What about combining wounds reduction with an overhaul of weapons damage?

DR1 on anything but light vehicles. DR2 on heaviest vehicles.

And then reduce the wounds of vehicles to compensate for their new immunity to small arms fire. Have the Damage Resistance linked into their reducing profile to allow them to be finished off by D1 weapons. EG:

Battlewagon:
full wounds: DR2
half wounds: DR1
quarter wounds: DR0

Battlewagons could easily drop from 16 wounds to 12 with this change, making it easier to keep track of its wounds.


Damage Resistance (DR) is a really good idea, and can help stop anti-heavy-infantry weapons being the be-all and end-all in killing damn near everything.

Wyldhunt wrote:


Rather than nerf mid-strength guns, I'd kind of like to see high strength/damage weapons improved. If you made lascannons strength 14 or even 16, for instance, and gave them a flat 3 damage or a rule that prevented their damage rolls from ever being treated as less than 3 (like daemonhammers or that one onager dunecrawler gun), then the math would switch back to favoring them against their preferred targets.

I think anti tank weapons should be very killy but also very hard to spam. A more powerful lascannon could be fine, and I really like that idea, if a shooty oriented army can bring 3 or 4 at most and that's basically all the anti tank in the list.

I wouldn't like to go back to 7th when average shooting armies could blow up 5+ vehicles in a single turn. IMHO there's already too much shooting at the moment and it should be toned down by a lot, definitely not improved.

If Vehicles had better saves AP would become more important, either giving all vehicles a better save characteristic or an easier time grabbing cover would be okay in terms of making the game a little more rock, paper scissors but I think OP's idea is going too far.

I think that the important thing is that anti-tank weapons need to be bad against infantry and vice versa. Lascannons aren't the issue, it's high strength weapons with 4 or more shots which just lunch heavy infantry when they are supposed to hunt tanks.
Blast weapons are a huge culprit for this - a Macro cannon, as an extreme example, does D6 shots at S14 and Dam D6, but minimum 3.
If this were changed to 1 shot at S14 with damage 3D6, it would still be a legitimately scary thing for vehicles, but less so for a unit of aggressors - you could make one of them really, really, really dead, rather than pancaking the entire squad. As such, the macro cannon can be cheaper, and so feel less of a risk to take one. I've already advocated in several threads for Ordnance to fir 2 profiles - direct hit and blast - to separate the anti-chaff and anti-infantry and so stop blast weapons being the perfect weapon.

high ROF medium-high damage weapons are the reason vehicles seem squishy. They exist because of 2-3 wound units with good saves. Damage resistance on vehicles would go a long way to negate this.

Reintroducing Rending weapons as ignoring damage resistance on 6's would be a good thing, provided they don't just give it to space marines, and keep it on damage 1 weapons.

 some bloke wrote:
I think that the important thing is that anti-tank weapons need to be bad against infantry and vice versa. Lascannons aren't the issue, it's high strength weapons with 4 or more shots which just lunch heavy infantry when they are supposed to hunt tanks.

anti-tank weapons should be able to easily kill infantry, but should not be able to kill multiple infantry at once. A lascannon should be able to kill any infantry with one shot, but only 1 per shot.

I like the idea of buffing anti-tank weapons. I feel that weapons like Lascannons should get a Strength boost and be a min of a flat 3 damage. Melta at half range could be 2D3 damage, etc... Make anti-tank weapons powerful against big targets, like they are supposed to be.

For the tanks what about making vs lower S weapons they get to ignore AP? If your weapon is less then S 5/6, then you ignore the weapons AP, or get a bonus maybe?

And/or S4 or 5 and below, get +1 to your save, still fail on a 1. Means low S weapons won't be usless, but tanks shouldn't fear lasgun blobs.

Wyldhunt wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Thought: Damage Reduction. Like the Wave Serpent's but can reduce the attack's damage to 0. If you're a medium tank you get DR1 (small arms can't wound you, D2 attacks like autocannons and plasma guns do one wound), heavy tanks and superheavies get DR2 (immune to plasma guns/autocannons, you need real anti-armour weapons).

Well, if you allow it to reduce damage to 0, then we're back to huge chunks of weapons/units being unable to harm huge chunks of units. DR2 would be even more nasty as it would make many anti-tank options (disintegrators, plasma, autocannons) incapable of hurting the units that have it.

Lasguns should be bad at killing tanks (and they are), but fielding 400 points of lasguns against an enemy tank company shouldn't mean that 400 points of your army are incapable of harming the enemy.

That's exactly the point. 8e right now consists of finding the most efficient anti-everything weapons and spamming them rather than needing different weapons to engage different kinds of targets. Plasma isn't supposed to be an anti-tank option, it's become an anti-tank option because the changes to damage in 8e has produced a system under which it's a better anti-tank option than the real anti-tank options (meltaguns, lascannons, that kind of thing).

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Thought: Damage Reduction. Like the Wave Serpent's but can reduce the attack's damage to 0. If you're a medium tank you get DR1 (small arms can't wound you, D2 attacks like autocannons and plasma guns do one wound), heavy tanks and superheavies get DR2 (immune to plasma guns/autocannons, you need real anti-armour weapons).

Well, if you allow it to reduce damage to 0, then we're back to huge chunks of weapons/units being unable to harm huge chunks of units. DR2 would be even more nasty as it would make many anti-tank options (disintegrators, plasma, autocannons) incapable of hurting the units that have it.

Lasguns should be bad at killing tanks (and they are), but fielding 400 points of lasguns against an enemy tank company shouldn't mean that 400 points of your army are incapable of harming the enemy.

That's exactly the point. 8e right now consists of finding the most efficient anti-everything weapons and spamming them rather than needing different weapons to engage different kinds of targets. Plasma isn't supposed to be an anti-tank option, it's become an anti-tank option because the changes to damage in 8e has produced a system under which it's a better anti-tank option than the real anti-tank options (meltaguns, lascannons, that kind of thing).

However, would you say that Plasma should not be ABLE to be anti-tank at all?

I agree that it should be less effective, less efficient, or less of both than a Melta or Lascannon. But should it be wholly unable to work as anti-tank? I would think not.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Thought: Damage Reduction. Like the Wave Serpent's but can reduce the attack's damage to 0. If you're a medium tank you get DR1 (small arms can't wound you, D2 attacks like autocannons and plasma guns do one wound), heavy tanks and superheavies get DR2 (immune to plasma guns/autocannons, you need real anti-armour weapons).

Well, if you allow it to reduce damage to 0, then we're back to huge chunks of weapons/units being unable to harm huge chunks of units. DR2 would be even more nasty as it would make many anti-tank options (disintegrators, plasma, autocannons) incapable of hurting the units that have it.

Lasguns should be bad at killing tanks (and they are), but fielding 400 points of lasguns against an enemy tank company shouldn't mean that 400 points of your army are incapable of harming the enemy.

That's exactly the point. 8e right now consists of finding the most efficient anti-everything weapons and spamming them rather than needing different weapons to engage different kinds of targets. Plasma isn't supposed to be an anti-tank option, it's become an anti-tank option because the changes to damage in 8e has produced a system under which it's a better anti-tank option than the real anti-tank options (meltaguns, lascannons, that kind of thing).

However, would you say that Plasma should not be ABLE to be anti-tank at all?

I agree that it should be less effective, less efficient, or less of both than a Melta or Lascannon. But should it be wholly unable to work as anti-tank? I would think not.

Imagine, for the moment, that the bar for getting DR2 is having AV13 on two or more faces in 7e (things S7 (plasma/autocannons) couldn't penetrate except in the rear). That limits it to...let's see...some Leman Russes, the Monolith, Land Raiders, and most non-Flyer superheavies. Anything less armoured than that you can still do some damage to, up to and including Knights (AV13/12/12). I don't think that'd make plasma unable to anti-tank, I think it'd make plasma-spam anti-tank a less valid strategy and give actual anti-tank weapons a stronger role without also inflating wound counts excessively.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Thought: Damage Reduction. Like the Wave Serpent's but can reduce the attack's damage to 0. If you're a medium tank you get DR1 (small arms can't wound you, D2 attacks like autocannons and plasma guns do one wound), heavy tanks and superheavies get DR2 (immune to plasma guns/autocannons, you need real anti-armour weapons).

Well, if you allow it to reduce damage to 0, then we're back to huge chunks of weapons/units being unable to harm huge chunks of units. DR2 would be even more nasty as it would make many anti-tank options (disintegrators, plasma, autocannons) incapable of hurting the units that have it.

Lasguns should be bad at killing tanks (and they are), but fielding 400 points of lasguns against an enemy tank company shouldn't mean that 400 points of your army are incapable of harming the enemy.

That's exactly the point. 8e right now consists of finding the most efficient anti-everything weapons and spamming them rather than needing different weapons to engage different kinds of targets. Plasma isn't supposed to be an anti-tank option, it's become an anti-tank option because the changes to damage in 8e has produced a system under which it's a better anti-tank option than the real anti-tank options (meltaguns, lascannons, that kind of thing).

However, would you say that Plasma should not be ABLE to be anti-tank at all?

I agree that it should be less effective, less efficient, or less of both than a Melta or Lascannon. But should it be wholly unable to work as anti-tank? I would think not.

Imagine, for the moment, that the bar for getting DR2 is having AV13 on two or more faces in 7e (things S7 (plasma/autocannons) couldn't penetrate except in the rear). That limits it to...let's see...some Leman Russes, the Monolith, Land Raiders, and most non-Flyer superheavies. Anything less armoured than that you can still do some damage to, up to and including Knights (AV13/12/12). I don't think that'd make plasma unable to anti-tank, I think it'd make plasma-spam anti-tank a less valid strategy and give actual anti-tank weapons a stronger role without also inflating wound counts excessively.

Alright, and what do Nurgle Daemons do?

Okay, simplified suggestion:
If a weapon doesn't have the "Anti-tank" special rule, vehicles get +1 to their saves against that attack.

The DR idea sounds fantastic, assuming we roll it out appropriately to HEAVY vehicles, and the right monstrous creatures/demons.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Imagine, for the moment, that the bar for getting DR2 is having AV13 on two or more faces in 7e (things S7 (plasma/autocannons) couldn't penetrate except in the rear). That limits it to...let's see...some Leman Russes, the Monolith, Land Raiders, and most non-Flyer superheavies. Anything less armoured than that you can still do some damage to, up to and including Knights (AV13/12/12). I don't think that'd make plasma unable to anti-tank, I think it'd make plasma-spam anti-tank a less valid strategy and give actual anti-tank weapons a stronger role without also inflating wound counts excessively.

Aren't most of those examples already T8 thus making them more resistant to plasma as-is? I suppose plasma is just one example though. Disintegrators don't care whether you're T7 or T8.

 JNAProductions wrote:
...Alright, and what do Nurgle Daemons do?

How so? Are you asking whether an arbitrary one-dimensional chunk of about five units (what, Herald, Beast, Plaguebearers, Nurglings, and the GUO?) has enough tools to take on an army if you try and design a game where you can't just spam the one most efficient thing in the room and kill all targets? Maybe the problem is that GW's treating an arbitrary one-dimensional chunk of about five units as an army?

And how have they ever dealt with AV14? GUO in melee, DP in melee, Soul Grinders, psychic powers, CSM allies?

I suppose this hits a bugbear of mine, which is why on earth do SM have more CAPTAIN ENTRIES than Nurgle Daemons have unique units. Especially since Nurgle Daemons outnumber Marines. By a lot.

Edit: I used to deal with AV14 with Touch of Rust

I strongly prefer the 30k approach to Daemons (where you have a set of base profiles and a menu of abilities that you can mix-and-match, then add to a "Daemonic Alignment" if you want to do a Chaos God-specific force) rather than 40k's four rigidly-defined independent sub-codexes. The 30k approach feels much more Chaos-y, the 40k approach feels one-dimensional and unimaginative.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I strongly prefer the 30k approach to Daemons (where you have a set of base profiles and a menu of abilities that you can mix-and-match, then add to a "Daemonic Alignment" if you want to do a Chaos God-specific force) rather than 40k's four rigidly-defined independent sub-codexes. The 30k approach feels much more Chaos-y, the 40k approach feels one-dimensional and unimaginative.

Well before proposing what you are, did you consider possible rewrites and ideas for Nurgle Daemons outside somehow getting an Unclean One in melee (lol good joke you made there) and Soul Grinders and then saying to use the Allies crutch?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I strongly prefer the 30k approach to Daemons (where you have a set of base profiles and a menu of abilities that you can mix-and-match, then add to a "Daemonic Alignment" if you want to do a Chaos God-specific force) rather than 40k's four rigidly-defined independent sub-codexes. The 30k approach feels much more Chaos-y, the 40k approach feels one-dimensional and unimaginative.

Well before proposing what you are, did you consider possible rewrites and ideas for Nurgle Daemons outside somehow getting an Unclean One in melee (lol good joke you made there) and Soul Grinders and then saying to use the Allies crutch?

...So I shouldn't make broad sweeping suggestions about changes to the core rules without also giving a detailed plan as to exactly how it'll impact every conceivable army build, Mr. "ALTERNATING ACTIVATIONS!"?