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 Canadian 5th wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
For one, keeping tally of number of hits is an entirely new type of bookkeeping. Also, it's another layer of keeping track for a unit with both non-gauss and gauss weapons.

The only other similar mechanics in the game would be marker lights, but its distinctively clear cut and straight forward.

You're already likely to roll your weapons separately (or use different colored dice) so that's not an issue. From there once you record your number of hits the math is easy and rolling your wounds is hardly different than normal.

I bet if you tried this in a game you'd probably get used to it after a shooting phase or two.

No one is arguing its difficult to keep track. It's simply additonal layer instead of working within given system. For that reason its not 'clean' method.

I would like to suggest 2 different (even tough one was kinda mentioned) proposals

The focus of the rules is to enhance the gauss weapons in their suggested field role. Tesla = GEQ/Hordes, Gauss = MEQ/TEQ and anti-vehicle

The first rule would be something like that:
Gauss-Weapon: If the targets Toughness is greater then the weapons S add +1 to the wound roll.
This would not increase the amount of rolls nedded or splitt the weapon poll like exploding 6s or any of the other yet proposed rules. Instead it would increase the damage significantly against T8+ targest (an increase of 100% damage output! (still a bad idea to shoot them though))
It would also only improve the weapons against strong targets without buffing the weapon against hordes like MW would do. (While not increasing the damage of the already good anti tank weapons to greatly)

the second rule and probably to complicated one would be this:
Gauss-Weapon: If a unit sufferd a wound from a weapon with this rule, the toughness is permenantly decreased by 1. This can only occur once per phase.
I am not sure if there are any meele gauss weapons anyway (had to think about the old scarab rule), just tought it would prohibit spamming.
That way the "fluffy" would be satisfied by the fact that the defencing layers of the target would slowly be eradicated.
Necrons IMHO are a force that play the attrition game the best. With this rule they could weaken tanks and monster over time without hurting bursting trough a target to fast (so no alpha strike non-sense)
It also opens up some more strategic thinking. You might want to consider when to use your anti big thing weapon. At the start of the shooting phase to increase the potentail damage output of your weaker weapons or open up with those weak weapons to hopefully land one lucky wound which would boost the strong weapons further.

I might oversee some crucial things in those rules (you are not supossed to use both if someone got that wrong. Either the 1 or the 2 as a solution!) but I believe they could give the gauss weapons some mechanicl improvment while also lighten up (or grimdark up) my fluff loving heart

I actually really like that, if the toughness of the target is equal to or higher than the strength of the gauss, add +1 to wound rolls.

That's functionally just a slightly superior poison. I'm not a fan of mosifiers to dice rolls when stats have smaller increments. +1 strength is less useful than +1 to wound.

There are a lot of options you can pursue that could produce good effects.

6+ to wound inflicts 2 wounds on models with the vehicle or monster keyword.

Weapon is double strength against targets within half range - ie flayers are strength 8 at 12". Again against vehicle/monster keyword

6s to hit inflict two hits. Roll to damage.

I’d give gauss weapons a special rule that wound rolls of 5 or 6 always pass. It won’t do anything against infantry, but it doubles the effectiveness against T8 or higher without making the weapons super tank killers. Also it doesn’t add any messy counting up, re-rolls or new steps in the shooting sequence.

Aash wrote:
I’d give gauss weapons a special rule that wound rolls of 5 or 6 always pass. It won’t do anything against infantry, but it doubles the effectiveness against T8 or higher without making the weapons super tank killers. Also it doesn’t add any messy counting up, re-rolls or new steps in the shooting sequence.

That would pretty much change nothing at all. I tought about that first, too. "Back in the days we always wounded on 6+, why not just make it a 5+ nowadays?"
Simply put becouse it wouldn´t change the feeling of the weapon.
Quick math says it would change the damage output of warriors from 5,5 Damage against a Knight (T8, 3+/4+ vs flayers) to 11 damage. This would still not get it into its second braket.
If they are in RF range. Which would mean they get stomped by the knight next round

Zuwi wrote:

Aash wrote:
I’d give gauss weapons a special rule that wound rolls of 5 or 6 always pass. It won’t do anything against infantry, but it doubles the effectiveness against T8 or higher without making the weapons super tank killers. Also it doesn’t add any messy counting up, re-rolls or new steps in the shooting sequence.

That would pretty much change nothing at all. I tought about that first, too. "Back in the days we always wounded on 6+, why not just make it a 5+ nowadays?"
Simply put becouse it wouldn´t change the feeling of the weapon.
Quick math says it would change the damage output of warriors from 5,5 Damage against a Knight (T8, 3+/4+ vs flayers) to 11 damage. This would still not get it into its second braket.
If they are in RF range. Which would mean they get stomped by the knight next round

Its still an extra 5.5 points of damage.
If you measure everything against knights then of course its going to look weak, as knights are pretty op.

Zuwi wrote:

Aash wrote:
I’d give gauss weapons a special rule that wound rolls of 5 or 6 always pass. It won’t do anything against infantry, but it doubles the effectiveness against T8 or higher without making the weapons super tank killers. Also it doesn’t add any messy counting up, re-rolls or new steps in the shooting sequence.

That would pretty much change nothing at all. I tought about that first, too. "Back in the days we always wounded on 6+, why not just make it a 5+ nowadays?"
Simply put becouse it wouldn´t change the feeling of the weapon.
Quick math says it would change the damage output of warriors from 5,5 Damage against a Knight (T8, 3+/4+ vs flayers) to 11 damage. This would still not get it into its second braket.
If they are in RF range. Which would mean they get stomped by the knight next round

It won’t kill a knight in one round, or even drop it to the next bracket, but then I really don’t think it should. It does double the damage output though which is not insignificant, and might be enough to finish it off when combined with other dedicated anti-armour weapons, which is, I think, exactly how it should be. And it will also give significant anti tank firepower against many vehicles, again, exactly as I think it should.

Aash wrote:
I’d give gauss weapons a special rule that wound rolls of 5 or 6 always pass. It won’t do anything against infantry, but it doubles the effectiveness against T8 or higher without making the weapons super tank killers. Also it doesn’t add any messy counting up, re-rolls or new steps in the shooting sequence.

I think I prefer +1 damage or +1 to-wound versus vehicles (and probably monsters too). Wounding on 5's regardless of toughness only matters for strength 4 gauss, and only against T8 or higher targets. Oldschool gauss was useful against all vehicles with an AV of 11 or greater (so anything as tough as a rhino). +1 damage or +1 to-wound against vehicles gives gauss weapons a little more bite, but probably not enough to be broken, and it's a benefit that helps against all vehicular targets; not just russes and knights.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Aash wrote:
I’d give gauss weapons a special rule that wound rolls of 5 or 6 always pass. It won’t do anything against infantry, but it doubles the effectiveness against T8 or higher without making the weapons super tank killers. Also it doesn’t add any messy counting up, re-rolls or new steps in the shooting sequence.

I think I prefer +1 damage or +1 to-wound versus vehicles (and probably monsters too). Wounding on 5's regardless of toughness only matters for strength 4 gauss, and only against T8 or higher targets. Oldschool gauss was useful against all vehicles with an AV of 11 or greater (so anything as tough as a rhino). +1 damage or +1 to-wound against vehicles gives gauss weapons a little more bite, but probably not enough to be broken, and it's a benefit that helps against all vehicular targets; not just russes and knights.

That’s true, this would give a similar effect with a better utility without being over powered I think. My only reservation is I dislike using modifiers if there’s another option for 2 reasons: modifiers stacking can really get out of hand and it seems GW often overlook these interactions. Secondly, with the way modifiers interact with various abilities in the game seems messy to me (plasma, re-roll fails etc) so if there’s away you achieve the desired outcome without them I’d rather go that route.

Maybe an option would be for the Gauss keyword to have the ability: “wound rolls of a x or more are always successful” and for S4 weapons x=5. Higher strength Gauss weapons x could be 4 or even more if appropriate.

Aash wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:

Aash wrote:
I’d give gauss weapons a special rule that wound rolls of 5 or 6 always pass. It won’t do anything against infantry, but it doubles the effectiveness against T8 or higher without making the weapons super tank killers. Also it doesn’t add any messy counting up, re-rolls or new steps in the shooting sequence.

I think I prefer +1 damage or +1 to-wound versus vehicles (and probably monsters too). Wounding on 5's regardless of toughness only matters for strength 4 gauss, and only against T8 or higher targets. Oldschool gauss was useful against all vehicles with an AV of 11 or greater (so anything as tough as a rhino). +1 damage or +1 to-wound against vehicles gives gauss weapons a little more bite, but probably not enough to be broken, and it's a benefit that helps against all vehicular targets; not just russes and knights.

That’s true, this would give a similar effect with a better utility without being over powered I think. My only reservation is I dislike using modifiers if there’s another option for 2 reasons: modifiers stacking can really get out of hand and it seems GW often overlook these interactions. Secondly, with the way modifiers interact with various abilities in the game seems messy to me (plasma, re-roll fails etc) so if there’s away you achieve the desired outcome without them I’d rather go that route.

Maybe an option would be for the Gauss keyword to have the ability: “wound rolls of a x or more are always successful” and for S4 weapons x=5. Higher strength Gauss weapons x could be 4 or even more if appropriate.

I think "wound rolls of x or more are always successful" is a good option. It's essentially mortal wounds that don't spill over and it would help with the army's kill power, but not be overbearing. I'm planning on play testing it whenever I can get a game in.

Gauss weapons never need more than a 5 to wound.

No save taken vs gauss weapons can be greater than 4+, including fixed saves. (Yeah, superior technology meatbags!)

This would fit in with the scarab special rules, even tho theirs is limited to melee attacks. It also deals with the Gauss weapon issue of being weak vs tough targets and targets with high armor saves. It also puts those obnoxious custodes in their place.It doesn't make them more effective against low T and save targets as they don't really need a boost there.

It is less effective on the high end gauss weapons which is pretty much ok as they're generally effective enough as is. It would only really reduce ++ saves to 4+ in their case. To those units that already have a ++ save of higher than 4++, .

Problems with this fix.

Lots of special/unique saves like makari's 2++ luck save might need to be exempted. Perhaps if a "one to an army" character model has a higher than 4++ save it might be exempted.

(I'm trying to acknowledge potential problems with rules I propose so as to make it clear I recognize them, the question is are the rules worth the problems.)

 Matt Swain wrote:
Gauss weapons never need more than a 5 to wound.

No save taken vs gauss weapons can be greater than 4+, including fixed saves. (Yeah, superior technology meatbags!)

This would fit in with the scarab special rules, even tho theirs is limited to melee attacks. It also deals with the Gauss weapon issue of being weak vs tough targets and targets with high armor saves. It also puts those obnoxious custodes in their place.It doesn't make them more effective against low T and save targets as they don't really need a boost there.

It is less effective on the high end gauss weapons which is pretty much ok as they're generally effective enough as is. It would only really reduce ++ saves to 4+ in their case. To those units that already have a ++ save of higher than 4++, .

Problems with this fix.

Lots of special/unique saves like makari's 2++ luck save might need to be exempted. Perhaps if a "one to an army" character model has a higher than 4++ save it might be exempted.

(I'm trying to acknowledge potential problems with rules I propose so as to make it clear I recognize them, the question is are the rules worth the problems.)

Too strong, in my opinion. This makes it so that every shot is more effective and would be over-powering due to the volume of Gauss fire necrons can produce.

The shots would only be more effective on anything that had T8 or higher and a save higher than 4+ after the normal gauss weapon AP.

Against Geq and Meq it would do nothing. Against a lot of vehicles it would do nothing.

Not allowing saves over a 4+ is too much. Most units with a 2+ save are overpaying for it before adding in this rule. It also guts the cover system even more. Units that pay to get bonuses to their cover save suddenly don’t get that option. Under the current rules cover represents both cover and concealment. Even if you the fanboyism to 11 and say that a basic infantry weapon can pierce any cover, that power should not help them hit a unit that is using the terrain for concealment. It’s also invalidates units that can ignore AP-1 like steel legion vehicles and units that add to their save with D1 weapons like rubrics.

What if instead guass makes the target reroll any save roll that is a natural 6?

I'd say in that case, we're inflating the number of dice needed when rerolling.

I'd go back to an idea on page 1.

Wound rolls of 6s do 2 damage instead of 1.

It’s really not that bad. Death to the false emperor (when I remember it) takes maybe 30 seconds extra in close combat. Plus I always thought it was odd that the Deathwatch phase blade could make targets reroll their invul save but the necron codex didn’t give them access to the same. D2 on a wound roll of 6 wouldn’t be bad either. That or +1 to wound on in modified hot rolls of 6.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
It’s really not that bad. Death to the false emperor (when I remember it) takes maybe 30 seconds extra in close combat. Plus I always thought it was odd that the Deathwatch phase blade could make targets reroll their invul save but the necron codex didn’t give them access to the same. D2 on a wound roll of 6 wouldn’t be bad either. That or +1 to wound on in modified hot rolls of 6.

Lol, we could make a whole different thread about adding the phase blade ability to hyperphase swords, voidscythes, warscythes and voidscythes.

+1 to wound on 6s isn't bad. Would it be harder to remember? You'd have to roll your 6s to hit separately from the rest of the wound rolls.

 iGuy91 wrote:

Lol, we could make a whole different thread about adding the phase blade ability to hyperphase swords, voidscythes, warscythes and voidscythes.

+1 to wound on 6s isn't bad. Would it be harder to remember? You'd have to roll your 6s to hit separately from the rest of the wound rolls.

We should make that the next order of business haha. But at a minimum those characters with scythes should be able to. It would make up for the low attacks.

There are multiple abilities that trigger on 6’s including Dakka Dakka Dakka, Death to the False Emperor, Storm of Fire, And whatever makes the eldar weapons get AP-3. Plus you’d still have to roll the D2 saves separately anyways.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Not allowing saves over a 4+ is too much. Most units with a 2+ save are overpaying for it before adding in this rule. It also guts the cover system even more. Units that pay to get bonuses to their cover save suddenly don’t get that option. Under the current rules cover represents both cover and concealment. Even if you the fanboyism to 11 and say that a basic infantry weapon can pierce any cover, that power should not help them hit a unit that is using the terrain for concealment. It’s also invalidates units that can ignore AP-1 like steel legion vehicles and units that add to their save with D1 weapons like rubrics.

What if instead guass makes the target reroll any save roll that is a natural 6?

Ok, good point on cover saves. Maybe allow them? I'm cool with that. Of course necrons have the solar pulse strategem and tomb blades can take cover negating options.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:

Lol, we could make a whole different thread about adding the phase blade ability to hyperphase swords, voidscythes, warscythes and voidscythes.

+1 to wound on 6s isn't bad. Would it be harder to remember? You'd have to roll your 6s to hit separately from the rest of the wound rolls.

We should make that the next order of business haha. But at a minimum those characters with scythes should be able to. It would make up for the low attacks.

There are multiple abilities that trigger on 6’s including Dakka Dakka Dakka, Death to the False Emperor, Storm of Fire, And whatever makes the eldar weapons get AP-3. Plus you’d still have to roll the D2 saves separately anyways.

Eh. There are some differences there though. DttFE and DDD! both add dice to the to-hit pool. I mean, technically you end up with a second to-hit pool whose successes get mixed in with the first pool's, but you don't have to track and resolve them separately. The eldar AP-3 rule triggers on to-wound rolls rather than to-hit rolls. So none of those abilities creating multiple to-wound pools that need to be resolved separately. Well, I guess the eldar one forces you to roll two save pools, but that's the immediate next step; you don't have to keep track of which dice were 6s in the to-hit step when resolving FNPs and such.

I still kind of like +1D on to-wound rolls of 6. Makes gauss slightly scarier against multi-wound targets. Easy to track/resolve. Pretty unique (maybe radcarbines do something similar?) Makes the army less dependent on destroyers/arks/scythes for anti-tank.

It would basically just mean pulling the sixes out and rolling them separately for the wound rolls. You’d have to separate the dice for the save rolls anyways if you had a pool of 1 and 2 damage dice. of fire adds 1 AP for wound rolls of a six too. The bonus to wounding also effects any target which seems to be what a lot of people want for guass. I’m all for the the +1D as well. I do think that any ability should trigger only on a natural six. I feel like most abilities were intended that way but GW forgot about all the ways people could modify dice rolls.

I dont know if everyone is working towards the same goal. I think everyone wants Gaus to be better against heavy vehicles and monsters, so T7/8 , Save 3+/2+ , Wounds>10 There seems to be some discord about heavy infantry like TEQ. Most people probably want Gaus weapons to stay the same against MEQ and GEQ and want invulnerable saves to continue working. The one stat that distinguishes monsters and vehicles from any other units is their high toughness so every bonus has to scale with the to wound roll. There are four possible changes that I think are reasonable.
1) Wound rolls of 6 do +1 damage: If you were to wound only on 6+ your damage output is doubled. If you wound only on 5+ your damage output is increased 50%, on 4+ its 33% and 3+ 25%. So the effect is stronger against vehicles than against TEQ. Another group of units that would be penalized are Primaris and characters with multiple wounds like Company Commanders. The damage increase is the small against them but this is probably a class of units nobody wants to be affected. Normal GEQ and MEQ would be completely unaffected as they only have one wound.

2) Wound rolls 6 cause an additional -2 ap. This bonus not only scales with toughness but also with the armour save of the target. This bonus is generally smaller than the first one because the armour is already reduced by the Gauss weapons. Problems with this bonus could be that it doesnt affect vehicles if they have a bad armour save. Also, it affects MEQ just as much as it affects TEQ which could be problematic because of the commonness of MEQ units. By affecting such a wide range of units this bonus is only slightly stronger against vehicles than against other units so its not very useful.

3) Hit rolls of 6 automatically pass the to wound roll. The damage increase of this bonus is +125% at 6+ to wound; +50% at 5; 25% at 4+; +12,5% at 3+; +5% at 2+. It affects every unit type the same so it isnt focussed enough and is more like a general buff to Gaus weapons.

4) Gaus weapons always wound on 4+. This would increase the damage of 6+ wounds by 200% and 5+ by +50%. By affecting only targets with higher toughness this bonus only works against the desired targets of vehicles and monsters. MEQ, GEQ and TEQ are completely unaffected by this because they are already wounded on at least 4+. The falloff of this bonus is very steep so it actually changes the target profile of Gaus weapons towards higher toughness. The bonus for 6+ to wound seems very high but it only affects Gaus Flayers against toughness 8 so it doesnt occur very often. Its also very fluffy and shows that it really doesnt matter what you are shooting at. The problem with this bonus is that it blurs the line between the different strengths of Gaus weapons. It might not sound very exiting but mathematically this bonus is the most effective.

Why not give them the ability to roll to wound again if you successfully wound, all successes requiring saves as normal.

Basically a burrowing effect

Why not give them the ability to roll to wound again if you successfully wound, all successes requiring saves as normal.

This would actually make them much better against low toughness hordes and wouldnt really help against stronger units.
A better way would be to reroll failed wounds. This helps the most against high toughness enemys. Despite being best against high toughness rerolling wounds is still a very general buff so I dont think that it helps to fix Gaus.

Currywurst wrote:

Why not give them the ability to roll to wound again if you successfully wound, all successes requiring saves as normal.

This would actually make them much better against low toughness hordes and wouldnt really help against stronger units.
A better way would be to reroll failed wounds. This helps the most against high toughness enemys. Despite being best against high toughness rerolling wounds is still a very general buff so I dont think that it helps to fix Gaus.

It would be more all or nothing, but it would reflect that if their weapons wine they model doing damage, rather than making their weapons more likely to wound.

My proposal above means that if a gauss cannon does wound it can roll to wound again, potentially doubling it's damage.

I think one of the issues with any Gauss rule is that there are so many different Gauss weapons.

You've got the basic rifle (Rapid Fire 1 S4 AP-1 D1)
You've got the Blaster (Rapid Fire 1 S5 AP-2 D1)
You've got the Cannon (Heavy 3 S6 AP-3 Dd3)
You've got the Heavy Cannon (Heavy 1 S9 AP-4 Dd3)

It's really hard to make a rule that isn't pointless on at least two of those.

In terms of the rules discussed, I did like the 'Gauss weapons never need worse than a 4+ to wound', but at the same time it also seems to be yet another slap in the face to Dark Eldar. "Hey, Dark Eldar, now Necrons have Poisoned Weapons, too. Except that theirs are better in every way because they work on vehicles and aren't restricted to wounding low-toughness models on 4s.'

 vipoid wrote:
I think one of the issues with any Gauss rule is that there are so many different Gauss weapons.

You've got the basic rifle (Rapid Fire 1 S4 AP-1 D1)
You've got the Blaster (Rapid Fire 1 S5 AP-2 D1)
You've got the Cannon (Heavy 3 S6 AP-3 Dd3)
You've got the Heavy Cannon (Heavy 1 S9 AP-4 Dd3)

It's really hard to make a rule that isn't pointless on at least two of those.

In terms of the rules discussed, I did like the 'Gauss weapons never need worse than a 4+ to wound', but at the same time it also seems to be yet another slap in the face to Dark Eldar. "Hey, Dark Eldar, now Necrons have Poisoned Weapons, too. Except that theirs are better in every way because they work on vehicles and aren't restricted to wounding low-toughness models on 4s.'

Maybe make them the mechanical counterpoint to poison- always wounds on a 4+ but only applies against targets with the vehicle (Vehicle and/or battle suit and/or drone etc?) key word?

Gauss weapons hits of 6 could gain +2S and AP. That would make them more effective. This might need to be limited to natural 6's as MWBD and a 20 blob of warriors doing this on a 5+ is a little too powerful. OTOH it would kick in even if there was a -1 or more to hit.

I'd say let it work in OW as A. Gauss explodes on 6's in OW and B. it makes rushing necron warriors with your close combat monsters a little riskier.

Granting Gaus weapons +2 strength and ap on a 6+hit would be a very general buff and has many other problems.
Gaus Flayers only go from S4 to S6 so it doesnt have any effect against vehicles. On the other hand they would become very potent against Meq. Gaus Cannons also get disproportionately better against infantry.