Toughness capped at 8?

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**Galas**

Blackie wrote:
Galas wrote:
The problem with reducing ROF is that you can't go lower than 1 without making everything more expensive.

And why is that a problem? IMHO having easy access of 30+ anti tank weapons, including some with multiple shots, is a bad game design. Make lascannons, meltas, etc harder to spam, like 2-5 of each per army. Same with anti infantry weapons: things like aggressors shouldn't exist, give them 30 shots instead of 70.

If you make everything more expensive to reduce the ammount of weapons you just reduce the size of the game. The same lethality goes for playing with 5 lasscanons vs 1 tank than 15 lasscanons vs 3 tanks.

And I don't disagree as a concept with making stuff more expensive to stop overcrowding the tables. But thats a different beast than the problem we are talking about.

**Blackie**

Galas wrote:

If you make everything more expensive to reduce the ammount of weapons you just reduce the size of the game. The same lethality goes for playing with 5 lasscanons vs 1 tank than 15 lasscanons vs 3 tanks.

Not really, because I'm not advocating on making everything more expensive. Something could be cheaper, something could stay the same. Something can be capped at some max per unit or even per army.

What I'd like to see is playing with the same number of models but with firepower (and some cases also melee damage output) reduced by at least 50%. Descreasing lethality and dice rolling is the goal, adding more granularity is useless without those results.

Armies that are almost annihilated within turn 3 is something I don't like at all, I'd prefer reaching turn 5 with 30% or more of the lists. On the other hand I hate rolling tons of dice for little result. Increasing W and T by a lot mostly leads to nullify the majority of the dice rolling.

**Galas**

I also would like for the game to have less lethality, to avoid tablings all together with the exception of the most extreme cases and reach the last turns with enough models to make them interesting. But just reduccing lethality without touching other stuff would basically make horde armies auto wins.

**Unit1126PLL**

Back before GW nerfed it, Imperial Fists armies were bringing Onslaught Gatling guns and heavy bolters to tear up enemy tanks, with 0 anti-tank weapons to be seen.

GW nerfed the +1 damage for heavy weapons that Fists got... at the same time they gave *everyone* +1 damage on the Heavy Bolter.

Think about it this way:
When I fire my Baneblade at another Baneblade I am likely to get:
10 shots with the main gun, 5 hits, 3 wounds, 9 damage if all saves are failed (6-9 damage total depending on 6+ save)

30 heavy Bolter shots, 15 hits, 5 wounds, 10 damage if all saves are failed (between 4 and 10 damage depending on 4+ save).

It is bonkers that my Heavy Bolter sponsons are nearly as good as my Baneblade cannon at killing tanks. And if you give me +1 to-hit or to-wound (any buff really) the Heavy Bolters benefit more because they are a higher quantity of dice.

A Stormlord (the dedicated anti-infantry variant) with lots of HB sponsons is better anti-tank than the Baneblade (the all-rounder anti-everything variant), especially if the main gun gets +1 damage, as seems to be the trend for heavy anti-infantry weapons that confront marines.

**catbarf**

some bloke wrote:The only reason we won't see anti-tank weapons with damage 4D3 or 2D6+6 is because they don't want characters to get blown apart by a single shot so easily.

The simple solution to the problem is to give characters a simple rule called "Plot Armour(x)", which means that any weapons with a damage over "X" is reduced to "X", EG if a Damage 8 weapon hits a character with plot armour (3), the damage is reduced to 3. Snipers would ignore the Plot Armour rule.

Then we have the design space for the weapons that are supposed to be anti-tank to have huge damaged and then have vehicles with loads of wounds.

...That's what invulnerable saves are for. You just described why invulnerable saves were originally added to the game; so that anti-tank guns couldn't routinely one-shot (thanks to Instant Death) special characters.

Reducing the prevalence of invulnerable saves in the game to just characters who need plot armor would go a long ways towards making AT guns more useful without needing to increase their damage.

Tyel wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
Do you want game where best AT gun is not lascannon type of big shots but lots of medium rate of fire?

That answers your question.

But what's the actual example of this happening?

Is anyone stacking heavy bolters in a Marine army - or are they bringing MMs and Eradictators?

Drukhari don't spam Dark Lances (S8/AP-4/DD6/1 shot), they spam Disintegrators (S5/AP-3/D2/3 shots).
Imperial Fists were doing great for a while by loading up on Stalker Bolt Rifles and shooting up T7 vehicles with them.
Tyranids use mass S7 fire from Exocrines, while the heavier Rupture Cannon on the Tyrannofex gathers dust.

It may not be Heavy Bolters per se- although with them now at D2 that may soon change- but there has absolutely been a meta preference for high-volume mid-strength multi-damage some-AP weapons over the low-volume heavy weapons. MMs/Eradicators being preferable for anti-tank is a separate thing entirely; those units now grossly overperform compared to other AT options.

**Jidmah**

some bloke wrote:
The only reason we won't see anti-tank weapons with damage 4D3 or 2D6+6 is because they don't want characters to get blown apart by a single shot so easily.

The simple solution to the problem is to give characters a simple rule called "Plot Armour(x)", which means that any weapons with a damage over "X" is reduced to "X", EG if a Damage 8 weapon hits a character with plot armour (3), the damage is reduced to 3. Snipers would ignore the Plot Armour rule.

Then we have the design space for the weapons that are supposed to be anti-tank to have huge damaged and then have vehicles with loads of wounds.

You could also do the "does X damage vs VEHICLES and MONSTERS" thing.

**Karol**

The problem is, that GW wants to sell vehicle and monster characters to people, because they can hike prices better on those then a single Lt someone can make out of a grunt

GW put themselfs in to this position by wanting people to play the game at a model army size, which doesn't work with a core rule set they have. Because either they make specific armies bad for a whole edtion or they fix them by giving them something like a castellan.

**VladimirHerzog**

Karol wrote:
The problem is, that GW wants to sell vehicle and monster characters to people, because they can hike prices better on those then a single Lt someone can make out of a grunt

GW put themselfs in to this position by wanting people to play the game at a model army size, which doesn't work with a core rule set they have. Because either they make specific armies bad for a whole edtion or they fix them by giving them something like a castellan.

sure, but what does this have to do with this thread?

**Karol**

The fact that they wouldn't balance all of their single anti tank weapons around, it does X extra damage vs vehicles and monsters, because they want people to buy a lot of those.

And this way we end up with d2 str 5-7 multi shot weapon being the top options for anti everything. And an anti tank weapon to be actualy a valid option has to under go a change like the melta weapons did. cheap platforms with ton of movment, high damage and not single shot anymore.

The whole thing doesn't work balance wise, and probably never will, because GW is trying to make a system that maybe would work for a game with 20-35 models, work for one with 200+ models. And they want to make premium models sell well. At the same time creating problems with big high cost, as in money, models that create huge problems for the game. Eldar had one in the past, in the 8th we had castellans etc

**kurhanik**

Dysartes wrote:The big problem with weapons, as far as I can see, are the mid-range guns that have become anti-everything - weapons in the heavy bolter to autocannon range.

They're usually packing at least one, if not more, of a high ROF, mid-high S, decent AP, D2.

They're usually damaging tanks on a 5+ (possibly a 4+ in some cases, like the autocannon), and dropping the save to a 5+ (or into an inv, if there is one), and stripping wounds off en masse if they're D2.

As has been pointed out, if we push the T of a tank up on its own, then genuine anti-tank weapons - krak missiles and upward, basically - find it too difficult to wound vehicles.

The solution here seems to be ID which weapons are meant to be genuine AT guns, and ramp their S up at the same time as you ramp up vehicle T - figure out what your "tank" baseline is, and at what rate you want those weapons to wound them, and set the S accordingly.

A lascannon should still wound a Leman Russ easier than a krak missile does, for example, while at close range a meltagun should do more damage to the target than the krak missile. If the Russ moves to a theoretical T14 (so an autocannon requires a 6+, if that's your goal), then a melta weapon should also be S14. A lascannon might be S15, so it still wounds on a 3+.

If you want a Volcano Cannon to be able to hurt the Russ on a 2+, make it S28 - it's already over S10 now, so against most targets there'd not be much difference.

Yes, we'd need to look at S and T for a heck of a lot of units if this were to happen.

The other "simple" alternative is to give each weapon two S values depending on if it is attacking "infantry/cavalry/beast/swarm" or "Vehicle/Monster/Building" - I think Apoc might do this, though I'm not certain.

If we have more room to use because of the removal of the S and T cap, use it.

Agreed on all counts. I'd personally go with the just bigger S and T values and then limit "+X to Wound" abilities to more Strength bonuses (like a +1 to Wound Strategem could become +4 Strength - boosting it above several damage thresholds but making it harder to spam low/mid S weapons against tanks, monsters, and daemonic entities).

Plus, however little I trust GW to balance inflated Strength and Toughness and Wounds, I trust them less with using two values based on target. This is the same company that made Monstrous Creatures much stronger than Vehicles in past editions, and then instead of nudging the balance, just started calling obvious Vehicles Monstrous Creatures.

some bloke wrote:The only reason we won't see anti-tank weapons with damage 4D3 or 2D6+6 is because they don't want characters to get blown apart by a single shot so easily.

The simple solution to the problem is to give characters a simple rule called "Plot Armour(x)", which means that any weapons with a damage over "X" is reduced to "X", EG if a Damage 8 weapon hits a character with plot armour (3), the damage is reduced to 3. Snipers would ignore the Plot Armour rule.

Then we have the design space for the weapons that are supposed to be anti-tank to have huge damaged and then have vehicles with loads of wounds.

When even such inconsequential characters as an Imperial Guard Company Commander is rocking an Invulnerable Save to just negate damage, and character protection rules exist, I don't particularly see the issue. Anything that already has enough wounds that Look Out Sir! won't work is already in the area of beefyness that it would be part of any vehicle/monster toughness/wound/save buffs. I mean, to me at least it makes sense that if you clear out all the guys guarding a Guard Commander or a Space Marine Captain, that maybe a gun designed at blasting a hole through heavy armor will do some serious damage.

**Slayer6**

I think the half/double strength system is fundamentally flawed - actually, giving a weak weapon the chance to damage a unit significantly tougher than it is ludicrous... I think an additional level to the damage rules is needed:

Strength is 2x (or more) T = 2+ to wound
Strength is greater than T = 3+ to wound
Strength is the same as T = 4+ to wound
Strength is less than T = 5+ to wound
Strength is half of T = 6+ to wound
Strength is less than half of T = cannot wound target

You wouldn't normally expect a HotShot Lasgun to damage a Taurox - it might melt a very small, neat hole but not do significant damage - there is a Stratagem that increases the S by 1 (Point Blank Efficacy) as an example.

**Cybtroll**

From a design point of view the issue is that the new system did not expand as possible the arrays of value, and this new implicit cap at T8 proves to me that again at GW they will need someone good at math (or logic).

I was expecting some easy conversion of the stats with the beginning of 8th edition, something like (X-1)x2...

That would have put Marine at 6, a Guardsman at 4 and a Gretchen at 2. A Land Raider would have Toughness 14 (note that is more than double the value of a Marine, differently from the current 4/8), while a Lascannon may have S16 and a Melta S14.

Notice that while the nearby value stays approximately the same ( not breaking the dynamic of almost equal or equaled wound roll), those diverge the more the more distant the values are. Which, incidentally, is exactly the issue, because divergent the value are, more often you will use the 2+/6+ wound roll (now very rare).

This way, anti rank weapons can have few shot and high damage, while anti infantry can bring high volume of shots that are controlled against tank by their weak wound roll.
This would also gave more possibile value for tank: instead of 3 value (6/7/8) we have 5 (10-14) and elegantly "tank" starts at a round number: Toughness 10.

Also, you would have the benefit of having only even number, so some weapon that for fluff reason needed to be mechanically different could have been differentiated even more.

**Argive**

Single shot D6 damage weaponry is just inferior to higher ROF weaponry of the middleing kind..

Bring back the old chart I say.. Get rid of caps I say. Bring the right tool for the right job I say. Not spam weapon x that can kill everything.. Its no fun.

**Kosake**

Regarding the OP: I have always said that the main problem of 40k is the friggin USR bloat.
Instead of just upping the toughness or Armor save, they throw a bazillion stupid USRs at you, that basically provide the same mathematical advantage, but force you to remember a phonebook's worth of specifics as to when to increase a roll, when to decrease a roll, when to reroll and so forth.
If I were to rework 40k, the only units actually having special rules would be unique characters. Everything else should stick to basic statblocks and maybe one or two army-wide USRs.

**Voss**

Those aren't USRs.
40k doesn't use USRs anymore. The concept has been specifically abandoned in favor of bloated 'exception based design,' except they really didn't do that right either.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Cybtroll wrote:
From a design point of view the issue is that the new system did not expand as possible the arrays of value, and this new implicit cap at T8 proves to me that again at GW they will need someone good at math (or logic).

I was expecting some easy conversion of the stats with the beginning of 8th edition, something like (X-1)x2...

That would have put Marine at 6, a Guardsman at 4 and a Gretchen at 2. A Land Raider would have Toughness 14 (note that is more than double the value of a Marine, differently from the current 4/8), while a Lascannon may have S16 and a Melta S14.

Notice that while the nearby value stays approximately the same ( not breaking the dynamic of almost equal or equaled wound roll), those diverge the more the more distant the values are. Which, incidentally, is exactly the issue, because divergent the value are, more often you will use the 2+/6+ wound roll (now very rare).

This way, anti rank weapons can have few shot and high damage, while anti infantry can bring high volume of shots that are controlled against tank by their weak wound roll.
This would also gave more possibile value for tank: instead of 3 value (6/7/8) we have 5 (10-14) and elegantly "tank" starts at a round number: Toughness 10.

Also, you would have the benefit of having only even number, so some weapon that for fluff reason needed to be mechanically different could have been differentiated even more.

You're absolutely correct they did ZERO exploration of stats. It's really annoying that nothing goes over T8, which is just Knights you see.

**carldooley**

Do people look at Str/Toughness as incremental or exponential?

Is a SM body incrementally tougher than Guardsmen, or twice as tough?

Is a Krak Missile twice as powerful as a bolter shot or 16 times as powerful?

**H.B.M.C.**

Voss wrote:
Those aren't USRs.

They are "bespoke" rules that just happen to be reprinted over and over again, ad nauseam, sometimes with slight variations, creating a whole lot of redundant text that is a nightmare to update.

So they're almost USRs, but done in the most obtuse and verbose manner possible.

**Canadian 5th**

carldooley wrote:
Do people look at Str/Toughness as incremental or exponential?

Is a SM body incrementally tougher than Guardsmen, or twice as tough?

Is a Krak Missile twice as powerful as a bolter shot or 16 times as powerful?

Exponential is the only sensible answer. A Marine outside of their armour should still die to all the weapons that kill a guardsman but have the advantage in their ability to recover from non-lethal injuries that would finish off a baseline human. Baseline stats, marines should be T3 W2 3+ and guardsmen should be T3 W1 5+.

Plus, a Krak missile likely carries significantly more explosive filler than a bolter round even accounting for its lower velocity.

**BrianDavion**

some bloke wrote:
The only reason we won't see anti-tank weapons with damage 4D3 or 2D6+6 is because they don't want characters to get blown apart by a single shot so easily.

The simple solution to the problem is to give characters a simple rule called "Plot Armour(x)", which means that any weapons with a damage over "X" is reduced to "X", .

you mean like what ghaz and silent king have?

**Canadian 5th**

BrianDavion wrote:
some bloke wrote:
The only reason we won't see anti-tank weapons with damage 4D3 or 2D6+6 is because they don't want characters to get blown apart by a single shot so easily.

The simple solution to the problem is to give characters a simple rule called "Plot Armour(x)", which means that any weapons with a damage over "X" is reduced to "X", .

you mean like what ghaz and silent king have?

I think they mean per attack rather than per round, but I wouldn't mind seeing named characters that always take at least two combat phases to kill.

**kurhanik**

Voss wrote:
Those aren't USRs.
40k doesn't use USRs anymore. The concept has been specifically abandoned in favor of bloated 'exception based design,' except they really didn't do that right either.

Well, they might mean USR as Unique Special Rule, which inconveniently has the exact same abbreviation as Universal Special Rule...