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It seems bizarre for it to work that way though. I much prefer just bonus damage on a 6 to wound.

I’ll throw my hat in for 6s to wound cause 2 damage for gauss flayers. It’s same as admech rad carbines, and I get some useful mileage from them against vehicles, since most wounds require a 6 anyway.
I’d also tweak gauss blasters to be 2 damage all the time, and maybe ap-2.

Dandelion wrote:
I’ll throw my hat in for 6s to wound cause 2 damage for gauss flayers. It’s same as admech rad carbines, and I get some useful mileage from them against vehicles, since most wounds require a 6 anyway.
I’d also tweak gauss blasters to be 2 damage all the time, and maybe ap-2.

Gauss Blasters are AP-2 already.

Dandelion wrote:
I’ll throw my hat in for 6s to wound cause 2 damage for gauss flayers. It’s same as admech rad carbines, and I get some useful mileage from them against vehicles, since most wounds require a 6 anyway.
I’d also tweak gauss blasters to be 2 damage all the time, and maybe ap-2.

I'd be on board with this. D2 on 6's to wound is slightly less powerful than a flat D2 vs vehicles, and I haven't run enough math to defend one over the other. Gauss blasters being higher damage seems reasonable. My first game with necrons is later this week, and I was surprised to find that gauss blasters weren't D2 already. That would reinforce their niche as the "anti-hefty stuff" gun compared to the tesla's more-shots-more-kills approach. If intercessors can be D2 with fancy bolters, surely an upgraded version of exotic xenotech weaponry can do the same?

No because Space Marines are the Emperor's finest and Necrons are not.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
I’ll throw my hat in for 6s to wound cause 2 damage for gauss flayers. It’s same as admech rad carbines, and I get some useful mileage from them against vehicles, since most wounds require a 6 anyway.
I’d also tweak gauss blasters to be 2 damage all the time, and maybe ap-2.

Gauss Blasters are AP-2 already.

that’s settled then


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Wyldhunt wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
I’ll throw my hat in for 6s to wound cause 2 damage for gauss flayers. It’s same as admech rad carbines, and I get some useful mileage from them against vehicles, since most wounds require a 6 anyway.
I’d also tweak gauss blasters to be 2 damage all the time, and maybe ap-2.

I'd be on board with this. D2 on 6's to wound is slightly less powerful than a flat D2 vs vehicles, and I haven't run enough math to defend one over the other. Gauss blasters being higher damage seems reasonable. My first game with necrons is later this week, and I was surprised to find that gauss blasters weren't D2 already. That would reinforce their niche as the "anti-hefty stuff" gun compared to the tesla's more-shots-more-kills approach. If intercessors can be D2 with fancy bolters, surely an upgraded version of exotic xenotech weaponry can do the same?

Also consider that tying damage to the vehicle keyword will screw you over versus nids and tau.

Dandelion wrote:

Also consider that tying damage to the vehicle keyword will screw you over versus nids and tau.

Just like old times then. Necrons had difficulty dealing with monsters in 3rd ed, and that was the point; in exchange for your basic weapons being able to eviscerate vehicles, you don't get special weapons and as such some enemy types would be harder to deal with.

Right now though Necrons don't get special weapons AND they don't kill vehicles as well as they used to.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

Also consider that tying damage to the vehicle keyword will screw you over versus nids and tau.

Just like old times then. Necrons had difficulty dealing with monsters in 3rd ed, and that was the point; in exchange for your basic weapons being able to eviscerate vehicles, you don't get special weapons and as such some enemy types would be harder to deal with.

Right now though Necrons don't get special weapons AND they don't kill vehicles as well as they used to.

Except saying they were capable of killing vehicles is still an exaggeration in of itself.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

Also consider that tying damage to the vehicle keyword will screw you over versus nids and tau.

Just like old times then. Necrons had difficulty dealing with monsters in 3rd ed, and that was the point; in exchange for your basic weapons being able to eviscerate vehicles, you don't get special weapons and as such some enemy types would be harder to deal with.

Right now though Necrons don't get special weapons AND they don't kill vehicles as well as they used to.

Except saying they were capable of killing vehicles is still an exaggeration in of itself.

Eh? In third in 4th ed a unit of warriors had a really good chance of destroying a vehicle in a single salvo. No other troop unit can do that. Its hardly an exaggeration.
In 5th and onwards it became less effective, as penalties to glancing hits removed the possibility of getting an vehicle destroyed / explodes result, and hullpoints didn't help matters.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

Also consider that tying damage to the vehicle keyword will screw you over versus nids and tau.

Just like old times then. Necrons had difficulty dealing with monsters in 3rd ed, and that was the point; in exchange for your basic weapons being able to eviscerate vehicles, you don't get special weapons and as such some enemy types would be harder to deal with.

Right now though Necrons don't get special weapons AND they don't kill vehicles as well as they used to.

Good thing it’s not 3rd edition then.

6s to wound become mw?

How about just reduce the cost of Necron Warriors? Seriously, not every generic weapon must be more powerful than Bolter. A larger horde of Necron Warriors will be less likely to get one-shot, allowing them to reanimate later on. The Necron army should be built to be ultra-resilient, rather than hard-hitting.

bibotot wrote:
How about just reduce the cost of Necron Warriors? Seriously, not every generic weapon must be more powerful than Bolter. A larger horde of Necron Warriors will be less likely to get one-shot, allowing them to reanimate later on. The Necron army should be built to be ultra-resilient, rather than hard-hitting.

I disagree. Decreasing points is the laziest way to balance and doesn't do anything but put more of the unit on the board. The problem is at some point you hit a cost so low that it makes the unit too good. Points can easily throw something into overpowered territory or utter garbage.

Besides, the entire point of this thread is to discuss how to fix gauss, not the necron army or reanimation protocols.


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Oberron wrote:
6s to wound become mw?

In my opinion, this is still the best option. It seems like it's the only one that will consistently create more of an anti-monster, anti-tank force, while not blowing it out of proportion. I think it would create more of a spot in the army for gauss and create more synergy in the army as a whole....not a lot more synergy but some. MWBD would actually benefit warriors and Gauss Immortals.

Dropping points plays into the current trend of "we're running out of floor" and it doesn't make the rules for Gauss any better.
You just pay less for mediocrity.

I maintain that
1. Gauss should auto-wound on 6 to hit (If you roll a 6 to hit, just add a dice to the pool of saves required, do not roll to wound)

2. Do double damage on a 6 to wound.

Gives them better utility against vehicles and primaris. You get more consistent damage, along with damage spikes.

bibotot wrote:
How about just reduce the cost of Necron Warriors? Seriously, not every generic weapon must be more powerful than Bolter. A larger horde of Necron Warriors will be less likely to get one-shot, allowing them to reanimate later on. The Necron army should be built to be ultra-resilient, rather than hard-hitting.

Except flayers are supposed to be more powerful than bolters. That's the entire lore behind them, and why they have -1 AP. The problem though is that space marines now have a superior basic weapon in the form of bolt rifles, making flayers even more of a joke.

Reducing the price does nothing. Its a weak solution and lazy solution to a real problem.
If you want warriors to be more resiliant, give them back their 3+ saves and give immortals T5.

Always causing a wound on a 6 is absolute garbage and worse than splinter weapons. I think MW on 6's to wound is pretty cool given the amount of OP crap in the game at the moment

The thing about mortal wounds is that they spill over. If you only make the mortal wounds happen on vehicles, then that's probably okay, but otherwise it becomes better against infantry/hordes, and that means that the rule change would suddenly start stepping on tesla's toes. On the other hand, simply making gauss (sometimes/always) have a higher damage characteristic against vehicles (and possibly monsters) helps define their role as the "anti-big stuff and heavy armor" option compared to tesla's extra shots.

Does it really matter if they spill over?

bibotot wrote:
How about just reduce the cost of Necron Warriors? Seriously, not every generic weapon must be more powerful than Bolter.

I mean, not every gun, but maybe the basic rifle of the most technologically advanced playable faction in the game should be? Especially now that doctrines turn bolters into flayers and primaris bolter variants are comparable to gauss blasters?

Also, and this is kind of off-topic, I'd argue that quite a few non-marine factions should have guns that are more powerful than bolters.
* Necrons are supposed to be highly advanced, so a gun that maybe just breaks even with a bolter feels a little odd.
* Tau are all about having advanced tech and shooting things, so again, it would be weird if the ancient dinosaur of gun that is the bolter was significantly better than their own rifles.
* Eldar guns shouldn't necessarily be stronger than bolters, but they should probably at least be on par in their own alien way. Which, I'd argue they are between bladestorm and poison.
* Ad Mech notoriously keep the best tech for themselves.

Cut out all the marine variants, sisters (who have bolters), and daemons (who don't really shoot much), and that pretty much just leaves orks, guard, gsc cultists, and chaos cultists. All of whom have worse basic rifles (or at least worse BS in the case of orkz) So that checks out, doesn't it?


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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Does it really matter if they spill over?

I don't think it would be absolutely game-breaking if they did. You're basically turning gauss flayers into mandrake baleblasts. From a design perspective, it just feels a little less clean and clear cut. Especially when it's just as easy to make the rule say, "treats is damage characteristic as 1 higher," as it is to say, "deals a mortal wound in addition to its normal damage." Again, it's mostly just about niches. Gauss weapons with more damage and better AP would obviously be intended for killing harder targets while tesla, while well-rounded, would be better than gauss at clearing through hordes. If 1/3rd or 1/4th of your wounding gauss shots are auto-killing an extra guardsman or genestealer, then the gauss weapon threatens to become either the best pick against all targets or at least best against some targets and good enough against hordes that it becomes an auto-take over tesla weapons.

Not that I've run the numbers to see exactly how well-defined those niches would be exactly.

Yeah, gauss weapons should be can openers. Its why I think extra damage is the way to go for them.

Having access to flat damage 2 in one way or the other would be great as we don't have a single shooting weapon with D2 in our entire arsenal (except relics/named characters weapons).

I don't know if the Flayers should be D2, but Gauss Blasters clearly needs it when you compare with all the super-duper-bolters primaris marines have access to.
It would also give Monolith some edge by having Gauss Flux Arcs D2 also, even if i think i would be better to upgrade this weapon to Gauss Cannon stats.

As we don't have special weapons, our lists are always bringing the same anti-tank weapons (you choose : DDA, Doomscythe, Destroyers/Heavy Destroyers and Stalkers) which reduce a lot the the list building and viability of other units.
Heck i've still have to play a 2000 point game without any DDA in my list, there are like the first things i put in any list

I like the idea of making them D2 against Vehicles and Monsters.

The third ed Codex effectively auto wounded on 6's to hit.
I'll walk back my call for MWs, but I still think it best represents the lore.

Would that make them super powerful as basic weaponry? Yes, but that's the whole point of .Necrons. We used to be able to take out tanks with squads of Warriors. Our Heavy
Destroyers could one hit taanks.

Giving all Gauss weapons an automatic wound on 6's to hit would bring us, partly back to the old days.

What if gauss weapons all had the following effect -

"This weapon deals double damage against models with the VEHICLE keyword"

The problem I have with effects proccing on a 6 is that one, you're relying on chance on a game that's already full of RNG nonsense, and two, it scales better with high damage weapons. If you go the proc on a 6 effect then you are favoring high RoF weapons, which is a problem in the game right now. Low RoF high damage weapons need some love.

What about MONSTERS?

 Blndmage wrote:
The third ed Codex effectively auto wounded on 6's to hit.

Nope. It auto-wounded on 6s to wound.

Also, it wasn't Rending so the unit still got their saves etc.

It was literally only of value against vehicles and Wraithlords.

Gauss never did anything special to monsters. I dunno why, but they didn't. I guess the implication is that the gauss "beam" is electromagnetic in nature (because that's what gauss is, a unit of magnetic flux density) so it messes up electronic systems.

Trying to make gauss effective against infantry and monsters goes against the rule history behind it, and game balance as well; Necrons can dunk on vehicles, but they have relatively more trouble against monsters, and that's fine.

Even against wraithlords it wasn't that great. Wraithlords still had enough wounds and armor to get into melee, and disruption fields did nothing against monsters, so your warriors were pretty much screwed unless you veiled or monolith'd them out.

If gauss flayers did 2D on wound rolls of 6, then against t5 or up, you get double damage on half the successful wounds, and against t8, you get double damage on all successful wounds. This makes flayers much better specifically against tough targets without needing to use a keyword.

And blasters should get 2D all the time. This would give immortals an anti tank load out, with tesla being anti infantry.


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 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Trying to make gauss effective against infantry and monsters goes against the rule history behind it, and game balance as well; Necrons can dunk on vehicles, but they have relatively more trouble against monsters, and that's fine..

I don’t think it’s fine that necrons should struggle with monsters. It’s a completely arbitrary distinction based solely on tradition. Bear in mind that vehicles used to have a completely different wounding system than monsters. Now, both operate the same way, so there’s no real need to make crons better vs one and not the other.

Edit, I just looked it up and gauss flayers do not use em pulses to destroy targets, they just disassemble matter (including flesh and bone).

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Even against wraithlords it wasn't that great. Wraithlords still had enough wounds and armor to get into melee, and disruption fields did nothing against monsters, so your warriors were pretty much screwed unless you veiled or monolith'd them out.

Just to clarify, I didn't mean that it was effective against Wraithlords.

I meant that Wraithlords were the only non-vehicles in the entire game for which the rule even mattered at all.

Every other monster had T7 or less, so a 6 would be enough to wound it with or without Gauss.

Dandelion wrote:


Edit, I just looked it up and gauss flayers do not use em pulses to destroy targets, they just disassemble matter (including flesh and bone).

Yes, by using a powerful magnetic field. Hence gauss.
The magnetic field is so strong it can split apart molecules or something. Because Necron science is the greatest in the world.