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 Jidmah wrote:
Next to nothing in the game survives getting hit by 3 multi-meltas at half range.

And? You make it sound like this is some recent revelation. It's not.

ccs wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

But it's mostly anti tank tools like melta weapons that make vehicles squishy.

I think you've missed the fact that this is EXACTLY what melta weapons are supposed to do.

No, you missed the point of my post. I was responding to H.B.M.C who said that weapons should get a role, so anti-infantry weapons don't hurt vehicles so much. I replied that anti tank weapons already do most of the job against vehicles so making anti-infantry weapons less powerful against vehicles doesn't really change anything.

I'm actually in favor of the current Melta weapons' profiles. I don't like all the tools to increase damage to unreasonable limits, and anything that involves more dice rolling, especially re-rolls and firing-twice mechanics.

ccs wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Next to nothing in the game survives getting hit by 3 multi-meltas at half range.

And? You make it sound like this is some recent revelation. It's not.

When "nothing" includes a range of a 65 trukks to 900 point lords of war, how do you properly price such a weapon?

 Blackie wrote:
But it's mostly anti tank tools like melta weapons that make vehicles squishy. Lasguns that actually damage Land Raiders is a fairy tale.

I don't know how many times this has to be stated, but this isn't about Lasguns.

This is about the mid-strength, mid-damage, multi-shot weapons that are generally more effective against vehicles than actual anti-tank weapons. The things that are very powerful anti-infantry weapons, and as a result become far more efficient vehicle killers simple due to weight of fire mixed with consistent damage.

Tyel wrote:
The problem is caused by the fact they've completely arbitrarily given MMs 2 shots (and Eradicators effectively 2 shots) without a points increase.

I'd argue they've made MMs worth their points cost, whereas before they weren't worth taking at all.

Melta is fine, it needed a change because it wasn't optimal before. Its only an issue at half range, so that mostly rules out regular melta and focuses on multi-melta and eradicators.
The latter just need to lose the double shoot rule, period. Didn't they learn from aggressors?
Other platforms have a known threat range of 12", thats your parameter you have to work with. Yes, the board is smaller and the middle ground is more important....oops, unintended consequences.
If you want to protect vehicles from melta, you need to screen them from 12" instead of the 9" screen vs deep strike.

For one though, not sad to see melta on the board.

 Jidmah wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Next to nothing in the game survives getting hit by 3 multi-meltas at half range.

And? You make it sound like this is some recent revelation. It's not.

When "nothing" includes a range of a 65 trukks to 900 point lords of war, how do you properly price such a weapon?

Somebody shoot your Stompa with a bunch of multi-melta Salamanders Devastators with full rerolls to hit and wound? That's the only way I see one getting destroyed in one round of shooting from 3 multi-meltas. I think that's a problem with the number of force multipliers that can be stacked on a unit. That WOMBO COMBO crap needs to go away.

I still think multi-meltas and things like eradicators are underpriced for their efficiency against their intended targets though (and Stompas are WAAYYY overpriced).

 Jidmah wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Next to nothing in the game survives getting hit by 3 multi-meltas at half range.

And? You make it sound like this is some recent revelation. It's not.

When "nothing" includes a range of a 65 trukks to 900 point lords of war, how do you properly price such a weapon?

you price them based on the tier of vehicles they are suppose to kill. If you have weapons that efficiently kill warlord titans they should be extremely expensive, and if you are using them to pop trucks then that's your own fault for overkill, adversely an AT weapon designed to kill trucks, sentinels, should be far cheaper in comparison. though of course there are considerations to be made with range, accessibility, reliability, etc etc

its a fine balancing act to have weapons that kill vehicles but dont also shread infantry in equal measure. and vice versa

 warmaster21 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Next to nothing in the game survives getting hit by 3 multi-meltas at half range.

And? You make it sound like this is some recent revelation. It's not.

When "nothing" includes a range of a 65 trukks to 900 point lords of war, how do you properly price such a weapon?

you price them based on the tier of vehicles they are suppose to kill. If you have weapons that efficiently kill warlord titans they should be extremely expensive, and if you are using them to pop trucks then that's your own fault for overkill, adversely an AT weapon designed to kill trucks, sentinels, should be far cheaper in comparison. though of course there are considerations to be made with range, accessibility, reliability, etc etc

its a fine balancing act to have weapons that kill vehicles but dont also shread infantry in equal measure. and vice versa

And of course that's a problem with basic game design, it wouldn't be a fine balancing act if there was more differentiation between vehicle/monster and infantry profiles.

The Newman wrote:
it wouldn't be a fine balancing act if there was more differentiation between vehicle/monster and infantry profiles.

I'd say it's more an issue of vehicles not having much differentiation. Back when we had AV you really felt the difference in durability between an AV11 Rhino and an AV14 Leman Russ- the Rhino had to be scared of plasma and autocannons, where the Russ was more concerned with lascannons.

Now most weapons are wounding both on the same value, and they both have the same save, so in practice the only real difference is number of wounds. And that's why massed autocannons/disintegrators/etc are great, because you don't need the heavy anti-tank weapons; just take as many mid-strength guns as you can and that covers your anti-infantry and anti-tank requirements while still being effective if you run into an all-infantry or all-tank skew list.

I still don't understand why tanks don't have a 2+ save. That alone would make for a significant difference in feel between lighter APCs/IFVs that may be somewhat vulnerable to small arms versus proper tanks that you need AP to beat.

 bullyboy wrote:
Melta is fine, it needed a change because it wasn't optimal before. Its only an issue at half range, so that mostly rules out regular melta and focuses on multi-melta and eradicators.
The latter just need to lose the double shoot rule, period. Didn't they learn from aggressors?
Other platforms have a known threat range of 12", thats your parameter you have to work with. Yes, the board is smaller and the middle ground is more important....oops, unintended consequences.
If you want to protect vehicles from melta, you need to screen them from 12" instead of the 9" screen vs deep strike.

For one though, not sad to see melta on the board.

Absolutely not, MM having 2 shots instead of 1 and a better half-range rule for the same cost as before was a classic GW overreaction that made Lascannons always worse than MM in any scenario.
No way a Lascannon is 20 pts when a MM is 25: the latter needs to cost 35 pts to actually represent the efficiency difference between these two.

I would use the Anti-Tank keyword for weapons and add a Heavy Armor keyword to certain vehicles. Any weapon without the AT keyword would only get 1 shot ap0 d1 against Heavy Armor vehicles. That would stop the anti-elite/light vehicle weapons from drowning tanks in fire.

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
Melta is fine, it needed a change because it wasn't optimal before. Its only an issue at half range, so that mostly rules out regular melta and focuses on multi-melta and eradicators.
The latter just need to lose the double shoot rule, period. Didn't they learn from aggressors?
Other platforms have a known threat range of 12", thats your parameter you have to work with. Yes, the board is smaller and the middle ground is more important....oops, unintended consequences.
If you want to protect vehicles from melta, you need to screen them from 12" instead of the 9" screen vs deep strike.

For one though, not sad to see melta on the board.

Absolutely not, MM having 2 shots instead of 1 and a better half-range rule for the same cost as before was a classic GW overreaction that made Lascannons always worse than MM in any scenario.
No way a Lascannon is 20 pts when a MM is 25: the latter needs to cost 35 pts to actually represent the efficiency difference between these two.

I agree.

Multimeltas right now are out of whack. What they need though isn't an increase in cost, because they are so good at anti tank that you would have to price them in the stratosphere. They need limits. Either a low range, or severely lowered effects when above half range.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The problem is caused by the fact they've completely arbitrarily given MMs 2 shots (and Eradicators effectively 2 shots) without a points increase.

I'd argue they've made MMs worth their points cost, whereas before they weren't worth taking at all.

You made my point before I did. We went from MFM where MMs were overcosted to now them being undercoated by the rules adjustment. Rather funny how quickly opinions swing.

 alextroy wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Tyel wrote:
The problem is caused by the fact they've completely arbitrarily given MMs 2 shots (and Eradicators effectively 2 shots) without a points increase.

I'd argue they've made MMs worth their points cost, whereas before they weren't worth taking at all.

You made my point before I did. We went from MFM where MMs were overcosted to now them being undercoated by the rules adjustment. Rather funny how quickly opinions swing.

Agreed. Given how soon the rule change came out after MFM, MMs were almost certainly pointed in it based on the new profile (and IIRC they went up compared to 8th so people saying they doubled in shots without a point increase are being slightly disingenuous).

Eradicators are a problem though...

In the talk of changing how AT weapons work, who decides what is a dedicated AT weapon?

Baneblade cannon
Punisher cannon
Demolisher cannon?
Vulcan Mega Bolter? All of these can be effective AT weapons. But if we make this work on a AT/not AT basis.do we make the Baneblade suddenly crap against infantry? Or the Vulcan suck against Knights?

I would make anything T7+ flat out anything less than half it's T value. T7 is immune to S3 weapons. T8 is immune to S4. Etc.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
In the talk of changing how AT weapons work, who decides what is a dedicated AT weapon?

Baneblade cannon
Punisher cannon
Demolisher cannon?
Vulcan Mega Bolter? All of these can be effective AT weapons. But if we make this work on a AT/not AT basis.do we make the Baneblade suddenly crap against infantry? Or the Vulcan suck against Knights?

I would make anything T7+ flat out anything less than half it's T value. T7 is immune to S3 weapons. T8 is immune to S4. Etc.

GW, of course. They are the ones who know what the weapons are supposed to be

Maybe the rules should use more the keywords we have, making weapons better vs VEHICLE, for example... the same way a Poisoned Weapon is worse vs that keyword.

If you don't use that design space, a Guard and a Tank is just the same with different Sv, W and T values... so it's harder to specialize weapons.

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
Melta is fine, it needed a change because it wasn't optimal before. Its only an issue at half range, so that mostly rules out regular melta and focuses on multi-melta and eradicators.
The latter just need to lose the double shoot rule, period. Didn't they learn from aggressors?
Other platforms have a known threat range of 12", thats your parameter you have to work with. Yes, the board is smaller and the middle ground is more important....oops, unintended consequences.
If you want to protect vehicles from melta, you need to screen them from 12" instead of the 9" screen vs deep strike.

For one though, not sad to see melta on the board.

Absolutely not, MM having 2 shots instead of 1 and a better half-range rule for the same cost as before was a classic GW overreaction that made Lascannons always worse than MM in any scenario.
No way a Lascannon is 20 pts when a MM is 25: the latter needs to cost 35 pts to actually represent the efficiency difference between these two.

I think they made multi-meltas too cheap for infantry, as well as small cheap platforms like bikes and landspeeders. No one is complaining about multi-meltas on Leman Russes, or Immolators, or Achilles Land Raiders, or even dreadnoughts, because none of those have the same number of shots per points. They can't be used as effectively as a "suicide squad" that you just get into range, obliterate the target, and don't care what happens to them afterwards. Multi-melta Devastators, attack bikes, retributors, and eradicators (who effective have multi-meltas) are great for that. They're also easier to hide and deep strike from reserves or drop pods in the case of Devastators. Multi-meltas for infantry and eradicators need to be more expensive.

And those heavy meltas eradicators can take need to be way more than +5 points more than the standard guns. I don't know how you justify an infantry gun that averages the same damage as a Fellblade's accelerator cannon.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I would make anything T7+ flat out anything less than half it's T value. T7 is immune to S3 weapons. T8 is immune to S4. Etc.

One Bolter shot by a Marine in Rapid Fire range does 0,074 wounds to a T8 3+ save target. Your proposed change does not alter that meaningfully. And it does not address the current problem: Melter is too efficient across the board at killing tanks and monsters.

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
Melta is fine, it needed a change because it wasn't optimal before. Its only an issue at half range, so that mostly rules out regular melta and focuses on multi-melta and eradicators.
The latter just need to lose the double shoot rule, period. Didn't they learn from aggressors?
Other platforms have a known threat range of 12", thats your parameter you have to work with. Yes, the board is smaller and the middle ground is more important....oops, unintended consequences.
If you want to protect vehicles from melta, you need to screen them from 12" instead of the 9" screen vs deep strike.

For one though, not sad to see melta on the board.

Absolutely not, MM having 2 shots instead of 1 and a better half-range rule for the same cost as before was a classic GW overreaction that made Lascannons always worse than MM in any scenario.
No way a Lascannon is 20 pts when a MM is 25: the latter needs to cost 35 pts to actually represent the efficiency difference between these two.

Lascannons are 100% better than MM at 25+" range.

I do agree that the cost should be adjusted though, just not by much. The MM needs to be at 12" or less and is less impressice vs T8.

What if they reduced Melta to 8"? Then DS is out, and the actual idea of Melta is upheld. Get in close and shotgun the tank.

a_typical_hero wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I would make anything T7+ flat out anything less than half it's T value. T7 is immune to S3 weapons. T8 is immune to S4. Etc.

One Bolter shot by a Marine in Rapid Fire range does 0,074 wounds to a T8 3+ save target. Your proposed change does not alter that meaningfully. And it does not address the current problem: Melter is too efficient across the board at killing tanks and monsters.

While I get your point there is an elephant in the room your sidestepping a little too quick
Marines due to the excessive stack of special rules they have tend to look far less efficient on raw stats than they actually are, no-one doesn't use the free rules and rerolls.

 bullyboy wrote:
Lascannons are 100% better than MM at 25+" range.

I do agree that the cost should be adjusted though, just not by much. The MM needs to be at 12" or less and is less impressice vs T8.

In older editions this may have mattered more, as you got negatives to hit from moving and units often castled in the corner rather than having to move on to mid-table objectives.
But that was then and this is now. Getting MMs into 24" is easy - getting them into 12" isn't all that hard unless we are talking back-table basilisks and the like.

MM and Las versus various targets at BS 3.

Versus T7/3+ (Predator)

MM: 2*2/3*2/3*1*3.5=3.11.
In half range: 4.88.
Las: 1*2/3*2/3*5/6*3.5=1.296.

The MM is 2.4 times as good - rising to 3.75 times as good in half range.

Versus T8/3+ (Leman Russ)

MM: 2*2/3*1/2*1*3.5=2.33.
In half range: 3.66
Las: 1*2/3*2/3*5/6*3.5=1.296.

MM is 1.8 times as good - rising to 2.82 times as good in half range.

Versus T8/3+/5++ (Knight)
MM: 2*2/3*1/2*2/3*3.5=1.55.
In half range: 2.44.
Las: 1*2/3*2/3*2/3*3.5=1.037.

The MM is 1.5 times as good, rising to 2.35 times as good in half range.

Versus T6/4+/5++ (Ravager)
MM: 2*2/3*2/3*2/3*3.5=2.07.
In half range: 3.259
Las: 1*2/3*2/3*2/3*3.5=1.037.

The MM is twice as good, rising to 3.14 times in half range.

These figures are not close - and nowhere near the sort of boost in damage output you should getting for 5 more points.
MM is broken in 24" - it becomes obscene in 12".

Lasguns and bolters aren't killing tanks alone. But them being able to wound tanks are a bit problematic. If you have an opposing knight with only a couple of wounds left you can try to take off the last wounds with your lasguns before dedicating a whole tank commander to finish it off. Most often it isn't the weakest guns that do this well but the ones like heavy bolters. Mid range guns like that aren't that bad at finishing of vehicles.

In earlier editions Heavy Bolters couldnt even scratch the paint on anything tougher than a rhino while a Krak missile could threaten any vehicle, not very well, but way more threatening than the heavy bolter to armor. Now the range is a wash since getting Los over 36" isnt easy. Against a rotating knight the missile only wounds on 4s compared to the bolters 5s, same save and flat 2 damage vs a d6. With 3x the shots the bolter is way more likely to do the last 1-2dmg on something.

I have killed of the last 11 wounds on 2 knights with normal str 3-4 ap0 shots just due to weight of numbers in one game. He managed to kill all my anti-tank but still lost. We both had like 600pts left on the table and guardsmen can be quite efficient in a slugging match against knights. He kills so little points with each attack and while you only get a wound in for every 36 attacks each of those are worth as much as half a unit of guardsmen.

 bullyboy wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 bullyboy wrote:
Melta is fine, it needed a change because it wasn't optimal before. Its only an issue at half range, so that mostly rules out regular melta and focuses on multi-melta and eradicators.
The latter just need to lose the double shoot rule, period. Didn't they learn from aggressors?
Other platforms have a known threat range of 12", thats your parameter you have to work with. Yes, the board is smaller and the middle ground is more important....oops, unintended consequences.
If you want to protect vehicles from melta, you need to screen them from 12" instead of the 9" screen vs deep strike.

For one though, not sad to see melta on the board.

Absolutely not, MM having 2 shots instead of 1 and a better half-range rule for the same cost as before was a classic GW overreaction that made Lascannons always worse than MM in any scenario.
No way a Lascannon is 20 pts when a MM is 25: the latter needs to cost 35 pts to actually represent the efficiency difference between these two.

Lascannons are 100% better than MM at 25+" range.

I do agree that the cost should be adjusted though, just not by much. The MM needs to be at 12" or less and is less impressice vs T8.

Yes, lascannons have more range than multi-meltas, but they don't need to be within 12 to outperform lascannons against T8, remember, you're getting twice the shots and +1AP.

60 points of infantry lascannons at 15 points each (4) vs 60 points of infantry multi-meltas at 20 points each (3) on a BS3 platform against T8 3+:

4 lascannons: hitting on 3s, S9 vs T8 = wounding on 3s, AP-3 means saving on 6s, average damage 3.5: 4×.66=2.667×.66=1.778×.84=1.448×3.5=5.185 damage.

3 multi-meltas, 2 shots each for 6 shots, hitting on 3s, S8 vs T8 = wounding on 4s, AP-4 means no save, average damage 3.5: 6×.66=4×.5=2×3.5=7 damage. Get within 12 and average damage jumps to 11.

Now, increase those multi-meltas to 25 points each, so you get 5 lascannons for 3 multi-meltas.

5 lascannons on a BS3 platform vs T8 3+: 5×.66=3.333×.66=2.222×.84=1.852×3.5=6.481 damage.

So lascannons are still 100% better outside of 24, multi-meltas are slightly better outside of 12 (as they should be), and significantly better inside of 12 (once again, as they should be).

So agreed, they need to be adjusted, but not by much.

I'm still not sure how you balance those D6+2 damage heavy melta guns on eradicators though.

Edit: ninjad by Tyel.

Many people say that bringing two Predators is double the firepower of a Land Raider. But once you put a Multimelta on it the Land Raider has the firepower of two Predators at close range.

Ice_can wrote:
While I get your point there is an elephant in the room your sidestepping a little too quick
Marines due to the excessive stack of special rules they have tend to look far less efficient on raw stats than they actually are, no-one doesn't use the free rules and rerolls.

I did the math for 10 Intercessors equipped with each of their three Bolter variants sitting in their preferred doctrine for the type of Bolter, shooting at a T8 3+ target.
+ Chapter Master for full to hit rerolls
+ Lieutenant for rerolling 1s to wound
+ Catechism of Fire litany for +1 to wound for shooting at the nearest target
+ Recitation of Focus litany for +1 to hit
+ Storm of Fire warlord trait for getting an extra point of AP on to wound rolls of 6

If I'm correct we look at
- 6,93 wounds for Stalker bolt rifles
- 5,67 wounds for bolt rifles
- 6,62 wounds for Auto bolt rifles

That is enough damage from the squad to bring a Leman Russ or a Predator down one bracket, but at that point you are putting a lot of ressources into the Intercessors for an okay outcome and you have to be in the best possible circumstances. Without doing the math, I would expect a dedicated Melter unit to perform far better with just some of the buffs above.

I had a different thought, though, why I would actually welcome T8 being immune to low S fire. It saves me the time to wait through a full squad of FRFSRF Guardsmen or Ork boys shooting for little to no effect at all.

Should vehicles and Dreadnought just have an inbuilt damage resistance? It'd make horde killing weapons not amazing at killing tanks?

Something like:
Dreadnought and Rhino Equivalents: Reduce damage taken by 1, minimum of 1
Predator and Equivs: Reduce damage taken by 2, minimum of 1
Land Raider and Equivs: Reduce damage taken by 2, minimum of 0

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Should vehicles and Dreadnought just have an inbuilt damage resistance? It'd make horde killing weapons not amazing at killing tanks?

Something like:
Dreadnought and Rhino Equivalents: Reduce damage taken by 1, minimum of 1
Predator and Equivs: Reduce damage taken by 2, minimum of 1
Land Raider and Equivs: Reduce damage taken by 2, minimum of 0

This is GW game design. Stack extra rules on top of the problem until it goes away. The problem is tied up in the way wounding and saves work (1s fail/6s pass in places where it really doesn't make sense), 2W infantry and weapons to kill 2W infantry in an environment where most vehicles have 8-12 wounds, and blast attacks having an irrationally high rate of fire against single targets. You could make a band-aid patch by passing out DR more broadly, but it'd make the game slower/more complicated without addressing the actual problems.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Eonfuzz wrote:
Should vehicles and Dreadnought just have an inbuilt damage resistance? It'd make horde killing weapons not amazing at killing tanks?

Something like:
Dreadnought and Rhino Equivalents: Reduce damage taken by 1, minimum of 1
Predator and Equivs: Reduce damage taken by 2, minimum of 1
Land Raider and Equivs: Reduce damage taken by 2, minimum of 0

This is GW game design. Stack extra rules on top of the problem until it goes away. The problem is tied up in the way wounding and saves work (1s fail/6s pass in places where it really doesn't make sense), 2W infantry and weapons to kill 2W infantry in an environment where most vehicles have 8-12 wounds, and blast attacks having an irrationally high rate of fire against single targets. You could make a band-aid patch by passing out DR more broadly, but it'd make the game slower/more complicated without addressing the actual problems.

Aye, it being a lazy rules bandaid is why I suggested it. GW aren't about to go back and revise their core rules at this point.