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Made in de
Ork Admiral Kroozin Da Kosmos on Da Hulk






Things they have done right since 8th...

- Timely reactions to heavily imbalanced and unfun mechanics: smite spam, flyer spam, pox walker farm, marine doctrines and more.
- Regular updates for rules, points and FAQs
- Creating the death guard as a stand alone army. It's a very fun to play and interesting army that is very distinct from regular chaos marines and daemons.
- Ork kustom jobs are probably the most awesome stratagems in the game.
- Fixing Thrakka in the FAQ and turning him from Trash to tournament tier.
- PA WotS for death guard. It's damn near perfect.
- The rules for the ork FW units that didn't get axed or moved to legends are decent and future-proof
- 9th edition missions and smaller tables
- 9th edition terrain

And the big one: Crusade

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/14 14:21:50


7 Ork facts people always get wrong:
Ragnar did not win against Thrakka, but suffered two crushing defeats within a few days of each other.
A lasgun is powerful enough to sever an ork's appendage or head in a single, well aimed shot.
Orks meks have a better understanding of electrics and mechanics than most Tech Priests.
Orks do not think that purple makes them harder to see. They do think that camouflage does however, without knowing why.
Gharkull Blackfang did not even come close to killing the emperor.
Orks can be corrupted by chaos, but few of them have any interest in what chaos offers.
Orks do not have the power of believe. 
   
Made in us
Insect-Infested Nurgle Chaos Lord






stroller wrote:

Bio build your own Tyranid back in edition... whatever it was - that was VERY characterful.


It was open to abuse though, like several GW rules. A guy round here theorised making a beastie called "The Turd", which was a gargantuan creature that was a few inches long but 48 inches wide (i.e. the width of the boards in the GW store we went to). It would roll up the board being invulnerable to much small arms fire with the rest of the Nid army behind it.


Games Workshop Delenda Est.

Users on ignore- 53.

If you break apart my or anyone else's posts line by line I will not read them. 
   
Made in us
Keeper of the Flame





Monticello, IN

morganfreeman wrote:
 jaredb wrote:
I have never (beyond a bit of nostalgia), wanted to play 3rd edition again. What's 3rd edition improve on the game now?


Army scaling.

My 3rd edition marine army was.. Two tactical squads, two commanders, a kitted out veteran squad (with infiltrators), a dreadnaught, and some land speeders. I'd bring a predator if I was feeling spicy. 32 marine bodies, 3-6 speeders, one tank / dreadnaught. Less than 40 models in ALL instances.

Having an army which wasn't closer to 100 models strong was nice. Even the horde armies, like Orks and Nids, would generally be below 100 models all told.

Armies also felt more unique back then. IG were the only army who could take multiple tanks in a single slot. Tyranids were pretty much the only army with Monstrous Creatures. Demons weren't their own codex, they were something you paid for and could then summon in (a specific type of deepstrike) with your CSM army. Orks were easy to kill and easy to make run, but their Mob Up meant that their army was incredibly durable despite their units being fragile. Tau, and their suits, were the only non-vehicle based source of heavy weapons that could move + shoot.

And while I realize I'll get flak for saying this, I preferred 3rd edition melee. It was too strong in comparison to shooting, but melee armies have been a joke for numerous editions now. They've paid their dues, and it's time to get some decent melee rules on the field again.


This is a start for why I like 3rd better...

Banzaimash wrote:
 Just Tony wrote:
 Banzaimash wrote:
A simple question; across all editions of the game and all codexes, what parts of the ruleset and game mechanics have GW done right and why? What stands out to you as something you remember as good, not merely passable?


With the exception of some codex creep? 3rd Edition...


What was it about 3rd you liked specifically?


The vehicle rules, armor piercing, simplification of weapon types, transports actually doing their job, monolists being the rule and not the exception, streamlined simplification, the death of percentages, significantly lower lethality of units vs anything from 6th on. 5th was a bit egregious but was still manageable.

Oh, and three of the most important things: intuitive and workable terrain rules, templates, and separate vehicle damage chart for ordinance.

Pretty sure I can come up with more, but I'm on my phone and need to do a grocery run.

www.classichammer.com

For 4-6th WFB, 2-5th 40k, and similar timeframe gaming

Looking for dice from the new AOS boxed set and Dark Imperium on the cheap. Let me know if you can help.
 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Its AoS, it doesn't have to make sense.
 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Cyel wrote:
Most people still don't answer the original question:

"what parts of the ruleset and game mechanics have GW done right "

instead talking about fluff and coolness of miniatures. Which is kind of telling too.


Aight, you got me. Not much, tbh.

I'd say moving vehicles to having Toughness like everything else is a good move. There are other problems with the way vehicles interact with the game, but that, taken in a vacuum, makes the game more coherent.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/15 17:59:55


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

SecondTime wrote:
 Nitro Zeus wrote:
AV mechanic was good and I think the old Armor saves were too. Which probably means we can’t say it’s something GW does right since they removed them


The glaring disparities between monsters and vehicles was too large. Also, vehicle shaken was too small of a penalty for a penetrations and explodes was too large of a reward.

Only because GW buffed monsters too hard (2+ save shooting monsters like the Riptide are way, way, better than 3+ save, 4 wound Tyranid monsters that were around for edition after edition). This was precarious, and could easily go the other way, with GW introducing an 8 hull-point AV16 vehicle. GW's inability to manage their design space ruined it, but it wasn't a bad rule. Hull points were a bad rule.

Same thing with Vehicle Shaken -> Explodes. The older damage tables were considerably better and weapon power mattered in the results (so a glancing hit could only wreck on a 6, while a penetrating hit from an ordnance weapon would explode the tank and automatically kill any passengers on a 6).

Here's the history of the vehicle damage model:
2nd edition: vehicles had armor values for different places and different damage tables for different hit locations, etc. It was fun, but very complicated without adding much depth (dice did most of the adjudication and the players got no real say).

3rd Edition: Vehicles had armor values on different facings, but generally the facings were uniform in strength (unlike 2nd). The vehicle damage table was divided into 3 pieces:
a. Glancing Hit: vehicles had escalating damage from Crew Shaken (1-2) to Wrecked (6). This meant that glancing the armor was generally ineffective, but stopped vehicles from shooting.
b. Penetrating Hit: Again with the escalating damage, but with a 50% chance of destroying the vehicle and no chance to merely shake it (so a 4-5 for Wrecked and a 6 for explodes)
c. Ordnance Penetrating Hit: Same as the Penetrating Hit, except it exploded on a 5 and annihilated (all passengers destroyed) on a 6.

The downside of this system was twofold: first, GW gave almost every unit in the game Extra Armor, which meant that Crew Stunned counted as Crew Shaken. The difference is that the vehicle can now move, but not shoot. This meant that transports were king (since you can move to drop off your guys, who cares if you shoot).

4th edition: Same as 3rd edition, with a few significant changes:
1) Weapon Power mattered even more. AP1 weapons count as penetrating even on a glance, and AP- weapons can never do better than glance.
2) Weapon Destroyed and Immobilized results now stacked, and would kill (Wreck only) the vehicle if too many were applied (i.e. a second immobilize result or the destruction of every weapon and then another Weapon Destroyed). This fixed the problem of actually finishing vehicles off somewhat but Crew Stunned and Crew Shaken remained.
3) In order to increase the rewards for penetrating hit, all Penetrating Hits now automatically stunned in addition to normally rolled results.

While going some way to addressing the problem with 3rd edition's damage table, 4th neglected to address the prevalence of Extra Armor. Other changes made transports bad (entanglement, yeesh) so vehicles were generally bad this edition unless they had thick armor. They could be prevented from shooting by any hit that so much as glanced their armor, and penetrating hits ravaged the passengers due to some of the transport rules as well. Vehicles were considered deathtraps for passengers, but heavily armored vehicles did quite well. Holofields were an Eldar upgrade that basically broke this lethality, making Eldar tanks (combined with the Fast Skimmer rules) much more durable than anyone else.

5th edition: things become bad. More significant changes, but in the wrong direction. Vehicles are harder to kill for all the wrong reasons; gun tanks are just as easy to disable, but transports become AMAZING.
1) Vehicle damage is consolidated in to one table for ... reasons (???) with modifiers. (AP1 is +2, AP2 is +1, AP - is -1, and Open Topped is +1, which is the same as before). The table now wrecked on a 5+ and exploded on a 6+.
2) Glancing hits were a -2, so they could only Immobilize, and 50% of the time achieved Crew Shaken.
3) The cover save system changed for vehicles; instead of hit quality being downgraded (e.g. Penetrating -> Glancing), vehicles got a cover save that could completely block enemy hits.

This made vehicles very annoying to actually kill. To a transport with the ever-problematic Extra Armor, Glances did effectively nothing unless you rolled a 6. Penetrating hits from quite powerful weapons (e.g. Krak missiles) only destroyed vehicles on a 5+ instead of a 4+. Crews were stunned or shaken on any result from a 1-4 for a glancing hit (and remember it's really just shaken because of Extra Armor). This meant that transports and light vehicles were king, while heavy gun-tanks suffered badly (you can't shoot when you're shaken, but you can move to drop off passengers or avoid incoming fire). Large numbers of weak vehicles became very strong, because you could only stun or shake a few. Vehicles became vulnerable to assault, now being hit on the rear armor regardless of armor facing, and the best way to deliver assault troops was... well, vehicles. So this became the vehicle edition (but less so for heavy gun tanks like the Hammerhead or Leman Russ).

6th Edition: Hull points. GOD, NO, PLEASE GOD NO.
In order to avoid the problems of 5th, GW lost their minds. Legendary stories of things like Rhinos taking 14 penetrating or glancing hits while suffering nothing more than Crew Shaken meant that obviously, something had to be done. So GW just said "vehicles have wounds now" without adding anything else. Worse, the gave most vehicles 3 wounds, which was less than a carnifex. Vehicles died in droves to middling weapons that had no business killing them.

7th Edition:
The same as 6th but now GW is introducing monsters with 6 wounds and 2+/3++ saves, while vehicles continue being destroyed by multilasers. The reason everyone went to play Horus Heresy, where the statlines are slightly better balanced between monsters and vehicles (they tend to have roughly the same number of wounds now, monsters with 2+ saves are three times the price of a tank and are very rare, etc).

Essentially, the solution to the problem is a 4th-edition style rulesset with minor tweaks. Vehicles were deathtraps in 4th, which is bad, but in 5th, transports were AMAZING and gun-tanks were just as bad. Alteration of the crew-shaken mechanics (to, say, giving a tank a leadership test per gun to see if it can fire or restricting its targeting to the nearest unit or the unit that damaged it, etc) to make gun tanks competitive with transports would be a first step, and then some way of making vehicles vulnerable to multiple hits even if they just shake them is also necessary - but not just faux-wounds like hull points. Something like a LD check (with a +1 modifier on the dice for every damage result suffered so far) could represent the crew being ready to bail out of the tank as enemy fire continues to riddle its armor, even if no critical systems are damaged. Then, give things like Dreadnoughts (where the pilots are hardwired) some kind of immunity or resistance to this check. If a designer is careful, this immunity should be applied sparingly and be a truly unique and shining rule rather than proliferating till it becomes bad for the game.

Instead, we got bleh.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/16 14:22:45


 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




I understand all that. I was there for all of it. I'm still not convinced that the AV system was a good system. Without the level of historical detail in say a WWII tank game, which has real life penetration tables to work off of, it just felt like arbitrary wankery on the part of GW.

Also, getting oneshotted by melta made for a lot of unhappy vehicle users. As well as the notorious land raider getting stuck on a bush problem.

I don't know if there really is a good solution with the small strength range of weapons in the game.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/16 14:29:54


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

SecondTime wrote:
I understand all that. I was there for all of it. I'm still not convinced that the AV system was a good system. Without the level of historical detail in say a WWII tank game, which has real life penetration tables to work off of, it just felt like arbitrary wankery on the part of GW.

Also, getting oneshotted by melta made for a lot of unhappy vehicle users. As well as the notorious land raider getting stuck on a bush problem.

I don't know if there really is a good solution with the small strength range of weapons in the game.


Being oneshotted by Melta is not a AV problem; it happens in this edition (lol, Eradicators). Maybe oneshotted by a single melta, but that was so rare as to be a non-issue. You played just like I did; squads brought 3-4 meltas where possible. You rarely saw a squad with a Meltagun, a combi-flamer, and a missile launcher. So typically it was 3-4 melta (or melta-adjacent like plasma) shots coming in.

The notorious "land raider stuck on a bush" problem isn't notorious at all; it's only a problem for players who either:
1) Are not interested in actually considering the terrain effect on the game ("that bush is area terrain, all area terrain is difficult for vehicles, duh"). I like 9th because it forces the players to actually consider what the terrain does.
or
2) Don't realize that vehicles bogging in terrain makes perfect sense in a wargame and happens all the time. Who knows the capability of that alien bush and the strange mud underneath?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/16 14:35:39


 
   
Made in ca
Arch Magos w/ 4 Meg of RAM






 Unit1126PLL wrote:
SecondTime wrote:
I understand all that. I was there for all of it. I'm still not convinced that the AV system was a good system. Without the level of historical detail in say a WWII tank game, which has real life penetration tables to work off of, it just felt like arbitrary wankery on the part of GW.

Also, getting oneshotted by melta made for a lot of unhappy vehicle users. As well as the notorious land raider getting stuck on a bush problem.

I don't know if there really is a good solution with the small strength range of weapons in the game.


Being oneshotted by Melta is not a AV problem; it happens in this edition (lol, Eradicators). Maybe oneshotted by a single melta, but that was so rare as to be a non-issue. You played just like I did; squads brought 3-4 meltas where possible. You rarely saw a squad with a Meltagun, a combi-flamer, and a missile launcher. So typically it was 3-4 melta (or melta-adjacent like plasma) shots coming in.

The notorious "land raider stuck on a bush" problem isn't notorious at all; it's only a problem for players who either:
1) Are not interested in actually considering the terrain effect on the game ("that bush is area terrain, all area terrain is difficult for vehicles, duh"). I like 9th because it forces the players to actually consider what the terrain does.
or
2) Don't realize that vehicles bogging in terrain makes perfect sense in a wargame and happens all the time. Who knows the capability of that alien bush and the strange mud underneath?


I never played before 8th but everything i hear people complaining about past editions are things that i feel would actually add to the game. Vehicles bogging down, armor values, facings, templates are all things that feel like they should be in the game
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




I saw plenty of single meltas ace very expensive vehicles. It wasn't that unlikely. And it basically ended the game if the vehicle was expensive enough.

You may like the rule, but I remember several games that effectively ended because a land raider rolled a 1. It doesn't matter if it makes sense at that point, it makes for a bad experience. Evidently, GW agreed more with me on this because its gone.

9th ed terrain is a good example of terrain with consequences but not THOSE kinds of consequences.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







 VladimirHerzog wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
SecondTime wrote:
I understand all that. I was there for all of it. I'm still not convinced that the AV system was a good system. Without the level of historical detail in say a WWII tank game, which has real life penetration tables to work off of, it just felt like arbitrary wankery on the part of GW.

Also, getting oneshotted by melta made for a lot of unhappy vehicle users. As well as the notorious land raider getting stuck on a bush problem.

I don't know if there really is a good solution with the small strength range of weapons in the game.


Being oneshotted by Melta is not a AV problem; it happens in this edition (lol, Eradicators). Maybe oneshotted by a single melta, but that was so rare as to be a non-issue. You played just like I did; squads brought 3-4 meltas where possible. You rarely saw a squad with a Meltagun, a combi-flamer, and a missile launcher. So typically it was 3-4 melta (or melta-adjacent like plasma) shots coming in.

The notorious "land raider stuck on a bush" problem isn't notorious at all; it's only a problem for players who either:
1) Are not interested in actually considering the terrain effect on the game ("that bush is area terrain, all area terrain is difficult for vehicles, duh"). I like 9th because it forces the players to actually consider what the terrain does.
or
2) Don't realize that vehicles bogging in terrain makes perfect sense in a wargame and happens all the time. Who knows the capability of that alien bush and the strange mud underneath?


I never played before 8th but everything i hear people complaining about past editions are things that i feel would actually add to the game. Vehicles bogging down, armor values, facings, templates are all things that feel like they should be in the game


There's a chunk of the playerbase that really doesn't like rules that take control away from them - they tend to start bleating about "muh agency" when they come up.

2021-4 Plog - Here we go again... - my fifth attempt at a Dakka PLOG

My Pile of Potential - updates ongoing...

Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.


 Kanluwen wrote:
This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.

Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...

tneva82 wrote:
You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something... 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

SecondTime wrote:
I saw plenty of single meltas ace very expensive vehicles. It wasn't that unlikely. And it basically ended the game if the vehicle was expensive enough.

You may like the rule, but I remember several games that effectively ended because a land raider rolled a 1. It doesn't matter if it makes sense at that point, it makes for a bad experience. Evidently, GW agreed more with me on this because its gone.

9th ed terrain is a good example of terrain with consequences but not THOSE kinds of consequences.


I saw plenty of single penetrating hits ace very expensive vehicles, but those penetrating hits came from lots of weapons shooting them. It was actually pretty unlikely that a single weapon would knock out a tank, and grew increasingly unlikely as the tanks grew heavier (and therefore more expensive). A meltagun fired by a Space Marine has a 22% chance to destroy a RHINO in 4th if it's not in melta range. Against a Land Raider, it had a 6% chance. If you did get in melta range, then it's about a 19% chance. So one in five games, a single melta would one-shot a Land Raider, if it maneuvered within 6" (e.g. your opponent screened deepstrikers badly). If you could get within 12" but not within 6", it happens once in 20 games. That's not even once in a tournament for any given player.

And "it makes for a bad experience" is the worst thing I've ever heard for a wargame rule. What do you mean a bad experience? I could see it being bad if you didn't know it was a possibility, but if you just willy-nilly drove through hazardous terrain and then, surprise, it's hazardous, then that's on you, not the game rules. Why is that a "feel bad" moment any more so than any other rule interaction (say, a deep-strike scattering your melta out of range or a reserve roll failing or really any dice roll just not going your way?).

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/11/16 14:51:49


 
   
Made in pl
Fixture of Dakka




I don't if GW fully got it though, because in 8th being clobbered by -2/-3 to hit flyers that were post cost efficient and had rules synergy, when some armies had no tools to deal with such stuff didn't sound a lot better, then losing the game because a single tank got blow up.

And it is not like it couldn't happen in 8th. if someone took a big unit in a crusader and it got blown up in the deployment zone, because LR were impossible to hide, it was practicaly the same thing.

If you have to kill, then kill in the best manner. If you slaughter, then slaughter in the best manner. Let one of you sharpen his knife so his animal feels no pain. 
   
Made in ca
Arch Magos w/ 4 Meg of RAM






yeah, personally getting half my army blasted away turn one before i do anything is pretty had to beat in term of "feelbad"
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




 Unit1126PLL wrote:
SecondTime wrote:
I saw plenty of single meltas ace very expensive vehicles. It wasn't that unlikely. And it basically ended the game if the vehicle was expensive enough.

You may like the rule, but I remember several games that effectively ended because a land raider rolled a 1. It doesn't matter if it makes sense at that point, it makes for a bad experience. Evidently, GW agreed more with me on this because its gone.

9th ed terrain is a good example of terrain with consequences but not THOSE kinds of consequences.


I saw plenty of single penetrating hits ace very expensive vehicles, but those penetrating hits came from lots of weapons shooting them. It was actually pretty unlikely that a single weapon would knock out a tank, and grew increasingly unlikely as the tanks grew heavier (and therefore more expensive). A meltagun fired by a Space Marine has a 22% chance to destroy a RHINO in 4th if it's not in melta range. Against a Land Raider, it had a 6% chance. If you did get in melta range, then it's about a 19% chance. So one in five games, a single melta would one-shot a Land Raider, if it maneuvered within 6" (e.g. your opponent screened deepstrikers badly). If you could get within 12" but not within 6", it happens once in 20 games. That's not even once in a tournament for any given player.

And "it makes for a bad experience" is the worst thing I've ever heard for a wargame rule. What do you mean a bad experience? I could see it being bad if you didn't know it was a possibility, but if you just willy-nilly drove through hazardous terrain and then, surprise, it's hazardous, then that's on you, not the game rules. Why is that a "feel bad" moment any more so than any other rule interaction (say, a deep-strike scattering your melta out of range or a reserve roll failing or really any dice roll just not going your way?).



I don't know. It just seems to be. I didn't use expensive vehicles though, so I can't tell you. I can only report the rage. Of course, these rules interactions were one of the reasons I never bothered with expensive vehicles. That being said, I don't think AV added that much to the game. Maybe for you it did.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:03:08


 
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 VladimirHerzog wrote:
yeah, personally getting half my army blasted away turn one before i do anything is pretty had to beat in term of "feelbad"


"BuT YoU cAn WiN oN UbJeCtIveS"

Yes, one can, it doesn't mean though that it is fun..

Especially when armies are designed to either
A Only sit on objectives and out durable anything whilest more or less not interacting
B An army entirely relies upon Killing in an non reaction way for the opponent, which is why for a lot of the time Tau castles were among the most hated things in the game.

Hence why greentide index era 8th was attrocious, and personally any army beeing forced into one of these playstyles should not be considered healthy, in a competitve and game design sense.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:01:01


https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




 VladimirHerzog wrote:
yeah, personally getting half my army blasted away turn one before i do anything is pretty had to beat in term of "feelbad"


That's tradition at this point. There were games in 2nd ed I didn't get to move a single model before I was tabled because of pulsa rokkits.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

SecondTime wrote:
I don't know. It just seems to be. I didn't use expensive vehicles though, so I can't tell you. I can only report the rage. Of course, these rules interactions were one of the reasons I never bothered with expensive vehicles.


So what I'm hearing is you don't actually have evidence from your position except second-hand from people whose reasonableness I would call into question, and you have evidence that the rules had meaningful impact on the choices you made as a player, which were different than the choices I made (I tended to spam heavy vehicles). Wow! That sounds like an awesome rulesset, where do I buy that?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:04:41


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Duty Eternal on Dreadnoughts.

40k has had a problem throughout 8th and into 9th where the best guns for killing tanks are the multi-shot flat damage guns that are supposed to be for hunting light vehicles and heavy infantry, because all the dedicated anti-tank guns are really bad at killing tanks. Duty Eternal is just a perfect fix for that problem ... and naturally GW didn't apply it remotely broadly enough. Basically every vehicle and monsterous creature T7+ ought to have that rule.

   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

The Newman wrote:
Duty Eternal on Dreadnoughts.

40k has had a problem throughout 8th and into 9th where the best guns for killing tanks are the multi-shot flat damage guns that are supposed to be for hunting light vehicles and heavy infantry, because all the dedicated anti-tank guns are really bad at killing tanks. Duty Eternal is just a perfect fix for that problem ... and naturally GW didn't apply it remotely broadly enough. Basically every vehicle and monsterous creature T7+ ought to have that rule.


Ironically enough, this is the same problem they had ever since giving vehicles wounds (or faux-wounds). Autocannons and other middling heavy weapons (scatter lasers, multilasers, Tau missile pods, etc) became better antitank weapons than lascannons and meltaguns. Now it's a slightly different class of heavy weapon (heavy bolters are better than multilasers because damage is now more important than strength) but anti-tank weapons remain the suboptimal choice.

I wonder if there's a correlation there that someone could've seen coming...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:07:31


 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




 Unit1126PLL wrote:
SecondTime wrote:
I don't know. It just seems to be. I didn't use expensive vehicles though, so I can't tell you. I can only report the rage. Of course, these rules interactions were one of the reasons I never bothered with expensive vehicles.


So what I'm hearing is you don't actually have evidence from your position except second-hand from people whose reasonableness I would call into question, and you have evidence that the rules had meaningful impact on the choices you made as a player, which were different than the choices I made (I tended to spam heavy vehicles). Wow! That sounds like an awesome rulesset, where do I buy that?


It's not my position. I'm mostly guessing why GW did what they did. I experienced multiple play groups where the land raider was a joke. These rules were one of those reasons. It looks like GW agreed with those play groups more than you. Sorry about that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The Newman wrote:
Duty Eternal on Dreadnoughts.

40k has had a problem throughout 8th and into 9th where the best guns for killing tanks are the multi-shot flat damage guns that are supposed to be for hunting light vehicles and heavy infantry, because all the dedicated anti-tank guns are really bad at killing tanks. Duty Eternal is just a perfect fix for that problem ... and naturally GW didn't apply it remotely broadly enough. Basically every vehicle and monsterous creature T7+ ought to have that rule.


Ironically enough, this is the same problem they had ever since giving vehicles wounds (or faux-wounds). Autocannons and other middling heavy weapons (scatter lasers, multilasers, Tau missile pods, etc) became better antitank weapons than lascannons and meltaguns. Now it's a slightly different class of heavy weapon (heavy bolters are better than multilasers because damage is now more important than strength) but anti-tank weapons remain the suboptimal choice.

I wonder if there's a correlation there that someone could've seen coming...


Because single shot weapons have always been fairly to incredibly unreliable in 40K. And expensive to boot. Close range melta was the best of these until 8th of course. And of course, the spectre of invulnerable saves cast a cloud over traditional AT approaches. With invulns, you have to use sandpaper techniques.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:10:45


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

SecondTime wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
SecondTime wrote:
I don't know. It just seems to be. I didn't use expensive vehicles though, so I can't tell you. I can only report the rage. Of course, these rules interactions were one of the reasons I never bothered with expensive vehicles.


So what I'm hearing is you don't actually have evidence from your position except second-hand from people whose reasonableness I would call into question, and you have evidence that the rules had meaningful impact on the choices you made as a player, which were different than the choices I made (I tended to spam heavy vehicles). Wow! That sounds like an awesome rulesset, where do I buy that?


It's not my position. I'm mostly guessing why GW did what they did. I experienced multiple play groups where the land raider was a joke. These rules were one of those reasons. It looks like GW agreed with those play groups more than you. Sorry about that.


In 4th and 5th, the Land Raider wasn't a joke. It was a common sight to see one transporting Terminators around; I myself used two (when I was playing Black Templars; the only marine army I've ever owned!). Especially in 5th, retaining Assault Vehicle and Assault Terminators moving to a 3++, they were quite common. Plus, taking away the AV system and hazardous terrain didn't make the Land Raider less of a joke, so mayhaps that wasn't the problem.

And it's possible for both people and GW to be wrong. You don't have to apologize for GW's decisions - just try to provide evidence for why the AV system was bad. Like, actual evidence, not "I heard that it was bad from my friend's friend and a guy on the internet, and also I never actually tried running heavy vehicles".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
SecondTime wrote:
Because single shot weapons have always been fairly to incredibly unreliable in 40K. And expensive to boot. Close range melta was the best of these until 8th of course. And of course, the spectre of invulnerable saves cast a cloud over traditional AT approaches. With invulns, you have to use sandpaper techniques.


But I thought there were single-shot weapons ruining games by knocking out expensive vehicles!

Try not to let the cognitive dissonance between "single-shot AT was too effective under the AV system" and "single-shot weapons have never been reliable as anti-tank" give you a headache.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:13:58


 
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





half the issues with the AV system was the fact that Deepstrike was a lot less limited.

It was often pitifully easy to drop in a 3 Csm terminator squad with combi meltas and fry 200% of their pts in one go and then have them sit around in the backfield beeing annoying.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




I don't think AV was bad. It just didn't add much for me. I always thought the magical vehicle damage table was far more important. I can completely understand why GW did what they did. I personally didn't buy anymore vehicles, but I think the odds went up that the general player base would. But then they made eradicators.

And I think land raiders were a joke in 4th and 5th, primarily due to cost, but also due to all the points of failure. They were common, but also bad in my view. But terminators were bad, too, so that hurt as well.

"Try not to let the cognitive dissonance between "single-shot AT was too effective under the AV system" and "single-shot weapons have never been reliable as anti-tank" give you a headache"

Again, I don't have a skin in this game. For me, single shot has always been unreliable. For many opponents I've talked to, they hated the fact that the possibility existed that their expensive vehicle could be one shotted. I don't think single shot was effective it all, but that risk made people anxious and frequently angry when it happened. And I did see it happen with enough regularity that I never fielded those units. So in this way, I never cared. You can blame the players, but you don't have to try to move those model kits for a living, either.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not Online!!! wrote:
half the issues with the AV system was the fact that Deepstrike was a lot less limited.

It was often pitifully easy to drop in a 3 Csm terminator squad with combi meltas and fry 200% of their pts in one go and then have them sit around in the backfield beeing annoying.


Yeah, that happened a lot, too. It was better than anything loyalist terminators could do, too.

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:22:14


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

Well, AV mattered to me. I played a Leman Russ armored company as my "main" army back then, and armor values were very significant for the choices I made on the tabletop, off the tabletop, and from everything to the weapons I equipped my vehicles with to the strategies I employed to affect enemy target priority.

I think GW should've continued to tweak the 3rd and 4th paradigm.

Another 5th edition change that was super annoying that affected vehicle damage was pivoting for free. I could see it for skimmers (would make a good way to have skimmers have a point while dropping the inane Fast Skimmer rules), but generally the idea that a Leman Russ effectively "hovered sideways" (as far as enemy antitank guns were concerned, the thinner side was never exposed when a Russ moved) was a travesty, because armored vehicle mobility should include the consideration of "do I point my weak armor at the enemy to make a sideways dash, or should I be more careful about the positions I take in case that becomes necessary" etc.

Tbf there's a whole slew of stuff that really needed to be improved (even just talking vehicles!) that was not. GW instead has changed the vehicle damage model a bunch of times, and then threw up its hands and said "feth it" and made them behave like a pinata.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:23:45


 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Oh, the joy of all targets having the magical vehicle damage table. And all the AP3 blasts. Talk about a bad experience.

I though we were talking land raiders. You were spamming undercosted Russ hulls with cheap AV 14 on the front. That's a very different situation than dragging out one or two land raiders paying through the nose for their AV 14. While I'm pretty sure chimera parking lot got us hull points, lists like Russ battle force probably didn't help either. Not something I'd want to play against, really.

The real enemy in every edition is GW not understanding how units are used and abused and failing to bake those ideas into the costs. AV can come or go, we can have hull points or no hull points, it doesn't really matter as long as they are using a dart board to price units.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:30:55


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

SecondTime wrote:
Oh, the joy of all targets having the magical vehicle damage table. And all the AP3 blasts. Talk about a bad experience.

I though we were talking land raiders.


Land Raiders are an example of the wider point, which is that AV isn't inherently a terrible system; what made it terrible was GW failing to write rules correctly.

Removal of AV has not fixed the problem GW faced (vehicles getting one-shotted); in fact, about the only thing it did was make the game more gamey and less realistic. One other accomplishment is that it removed confusion about what arc a model was in in ambiguous edge-cases... something that also could've been solved without wholesale removing the AV system.

Therefore, the change off the AV system was unnecessary and resulted in 40k having a more "board-gamey feel" without actually meaningfully improving much.

From a design perspective, it made things easier, but I don't typically accept laziness as a reason to change a wargame's inherent model of war (at least, if I am paying $50 for said model-of-war instantiated as rules).

EDIT:
Your personal problem with the Leman Russ isn't really my issue, and the fact that none of my opponents had bad experiences is a testament to your tendency to make assumptions without evidence.

Furthermore, if the problem is "Land Raiders were worse than Leman Russes" then the problem is the Land Raider and Leman Russ, not the conceptual damage model the two vehicles share.

EDIT2 as you continue to edit your reply:
You're right, the problem is GW. Not the AV system. So let's bring back something that's a not unreasonable concession to verisimilitude and remove the vehicles-as-wounds-pinatas mechanic, since it doesn't actually solve any problems.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:34:23


 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Sure it was unnecessary. But it also didn't make things worse. Just different.

Oof. I hated armor arc debates. The front armor arcs of my opponents just kept getting wider as the game went on. Such a chore.

I'm not talking about your opponents. But I'm pretty sure the table flips and rage arguments count as evidence.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:34:46


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






Springfield, VA

SecondTime wrote:
Sure it was unnecessary. But it also didn't make things worse. Just different.

Oof. I hated armor arc debates. The front armor arcs of my opponents just kept getting wider as the game went on. Such a chore.


Well, it did make things worse.

Verisimilitude is a positive thing to have in a wargame. Less verisimilitude is a worse thing. Adjusting the abstraction to make vehicles into wound-pinatas while still differentiating between a stick, a sword, and a hammer is the wrong kind of abstraction to make, and creates a sensation that the game is "gamey" while disconnecting it from the greater universe it lives in.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:36:20


 
   
Made in ca
Arch Magos w/ 4 Meg of RAM






yeah, and removing arcs really messes with the benefits of flanking/outmaneuvering
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




I don't miss av. Sorry that you do. I dont think bringing it back would improve anything. This is a game where i spent months tripointing every match just to survive shooting phases. Compared to that absursity, the av to toughness switch just doesnt register for me.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/11/16 15:41:31


 
   
 
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